Keeping the world safe from everyone

 

Origin: Created in 1934 by special order of the U.S. President and Congress after the first confirmed sighting of a “Meta-Human.” The Project was placed under the leadership of a F.B.I. agent Zaniel Templar.

History: Nowhere began as a fully clandestine organization with only a handful of members. Their purpose was to search the United States for other gifted or potentially gifted individuals. Once found these individuals were then catalogued and assessed for potential use or their threat levels. Initially due to public awareness of “Meta-Humans” being low, their reports were then passed on to more mundane authorities.

Following the events of World War II and particularly their involvement in providing the President with the necessary information needed to form the Justice Battalion, Project Nowhere was seen as a marked success. This afforded the Project a much larger budget, to enable them to work on a much larger scale by order of the Executive Branch. This culminates directly in to Zaniel Templar hand-picking the newly created “Justice Society of America” from the catalogue of Mystery Men.

In 1948 the Project was officially placed under the broader scope of the Central Intelligence Agency, in order to allow them to work domestically and abroad.

As the years passed and the majesty of the Mystery Men began to wane, the public opinion of gifted individuals began to turn. Beginning in 1953, with the unintentional murder of Joshua Ray’s mother, the Project once again began to scour the United States. Only this time their mandate was no longer potential recruits, but also to begin gathering intelligence on potential threats.

In 1955 the McCarthy Act passes through Congress and is put in to law by the President of the United States. This act makes the use of “Enhanced Human Abilities” without legal authorization a illegal act. This act empowers Nowhere  to take legal action against anyone employing their enhanced abilities.

With the beginning of the Cold War, in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, once again Project begins see it’s operations expanded. Subsequent Presidents see the Project as a means to one up the communist movements by gather not only nuclear arms, but enhanced individuals as well. To this end Nowhere became an official arm of the President and was no longer considered a ‘Project’ but a fully functional, albeit clandestine, arm of the Department of National Security. Zaniel Templar was charged with the duty of forming a new ‘Battalion’ of Mystery Men, that could be employed against the Russians and their allies.

After the Cold War came to an end Nowhere began to see both it’s funding and it’s scope decline. This continued decline only ended sometime after 9/11/2001. After Metropolis was attacked by Terrorists, the Metropolis mogul Lex Luthor began a political march to the White House. Viewed originally as a marked underdog for the 2008 election, his stance on meta-human regulation caught the eye of Zaniel Templar. Some believe that it was Templar whom, in seeking to enhance Luthor’s chances of winning, propagated the situation in Egypt that lead to Luthor’s rise in the polls and his eventual Election. It is believed that Zaniel created a situation, by which Theo Adam was driven to rise against the Egyptian government. Casting light upon a meta-human uprising, allowed Luthor platform to succeed in a sweeping win.

It is unknown, whether Templar or Luthor foresaw the eventual overthrow of the Egyptian Government. However that too played a pivotal role in Luthor’s election to a second term of office. Which then coincided with Nowhere’s own rise in prominence, based upon Luthor’s promise to the America people that what happened in Egypt would not happen in the U.S.A.

What is known: As N.O.W.H.E.R.E. is a clandestine operation, the average citizen of the U.S. is not going to know of it’s existence. Characters with indirect connections to government Agencies like the F.B.I. or C.I.A. would likely know only that the project exists, but have little knowledge of it’s membership or scope. Only people who have direct connections to U.S. intelligence agencies are going to know of Nowhere’s true organization and deployment.

Notes: It should be pointed out that if we -do- keep the previous room history of the Justice League’s formation, that the “founders” of the Justice League are aware of Nowhere. Superman’s departure from Earth came due to a confrontation with Luthor that resulted in him gaining information about Krypton that Nowhere had procured from alien crash in Roswell. Batman hacked in to Nowhere databases and stole an undetermined series of “potential recruit” files. Unknown to Batman and Superman, their efforts directly resulted in the Flash (Wally West) being beaten to a pulp by Superboy. I left all of this out of the write up, pending the decision on prior room history and of course characters keeping this in their own backstory.

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Information provided by Ben

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