Now for part II
Charles Phipps wrote:Miss Cannis: A Berkley educated Neo-Hippie with a love of New Age medicine, crystals, environmentalism, and modern Atlantean mysticism (which actual Atlanteans look at strangely).
Very strangely. Though if you squint and tilt your head slightly it kinda sorta looks like something they may possible have believed in at some point of time. Maybe.
Oh, and she's also a werewolf. Samantha Cannis isn't exactly the kind of person you'd expect to be a Foundation for World Harmony's Sub-Chief. Despite this, Miss Cannis has steadily risen through the ranks and has an almost flawless record for dealing with superhuman problems.
She is just so cute and bubbly that you have to be a really cold hearted person to hate her. For those people then the snarling rampaging beast comes out. Instead of phases of the mom, Samantha's werewolf side comes out due to emotions. You know that whole saying about a woman scorned. That is Samantha.
She also uses a fair amount of obfuscating stupidity to make her seem much less harmless then she really is.
Miss Cannis bases her offices in Los Dios, unsurprisingly, and has an excellent relationship with that city's otherworldly population. Miss Cannis is close friends with Athena and Ymir with both superheroes counting her as a member of their supporting cast. Despite her exceptional skill as an investigator and networking talent, even some of her supporters in the Foundation believe she might be a little TOO soft for the job. Dame Michelle Holmes said it best, "we are not in this business to be nice."
Of course Dame Holmes was of the Si vis pacem para bellum type of mind. Though Cannis would rather defuse situations peacefully.
Despite these accusations, Miss Cannis has killed in the line of duty and has a tremendous hatred for the Gene Nation. This is due to the Red King killing one of her past lovers. She also strongly disagrees with his ideology, considering it close to pure evil.
Not just strongly, violently. There is no that angers her quite as quickly as a Gene Nation apologist. Los Dios was full of them, but their numbers have dwindled as the Genesis Island Crisis exploded onto national news and the facts of the regime were made public. Ms. Cannis was one of the few Foundation supervisors in the upper circle that was pushing for intervention. Partly, to of course get back at the Gene Nation but also partly hoping that the victor wouldn't fall into the circle of PHANTOM or the Iron Khan.
George O'Grady: A North Ireland secret agent, George O'Grady was extremely efficient and considered by many to be a natural successor to Dame Holmes. Unfortunately, George O'Grady dramatically overestimated his ability to handle the Vampire Nation. Attempting to remove some of the vampire-backed slaving rings in Belfast, he was captured by Lord Ruthven and transformed into one of the undead.
He went at it alone and didn't expect such a powerful vampire to actually be running said rings.
As Mick Drake says, "When hunting vampires make sure to bring back up, even if said backup is there to put you down if you get turned."
George O'Grady was lucky to be one of those rare vampires not vulnerable to sunlight. Deciding to continue his career in the Foundation for World Harmony in the service of his new masters, his work has suffered. George, formerly considered a charismatic and likable fellow, is now considered to be "creepy" and "disturbing." Only the fact he's capable of mesmerizing many of his subordinates keeps them from abandoning his division en masse.
His missing in action reports are quite sketchy and if one would look it seems like his MIAs always show up a couple days later perfectly fine. If one were more suspicious instead of just checking to see if the paperwork was complete.
His division has degenerated to become one of the most corrupt, unhealthy, and downright spooky parts of the Foundation. George has transformed a couple more of his agents and made many more of them into "Renfields" with his blood. The fact John Hepburn hasn't noticed anything wrong due to George's ability to think rings around him doesn't help.
He figured that as long as he turns in complete paperwork on time, he won't be bothered. For the most part he is right.
George O'Grady is currently angling to get Alexander King's position as head of the supernatural division. He is working very slowly at this due to the potential danger of being found out.
So far, King's abilities have warned him of the danger.
Ultradoom the Destroyer: The Ultradoom bot was created for the purposes of exterminating Earth's Metamen population by the Neo-Nazi government of the future. It can imitate and absorb the ability of virtually any superhuman. Sent back in time, Ultradoom managed to mimic the power of a powerful telepath and developed an overwhelming love of humanity.
Ultradoom now serves as an office boy in the Foundation for World Harmony. He's a pacifist and refuses to use any of his abilities for anything violent. This frustrates many people who would love to use him as a giant weapon. Ultradoom appears as an 8ft tall bronze-skinned Adonis who resembles the statue of Atlas from the covers of Atlas Shrugged.
Ultradoom has, on occasion, teamed up with one specific team. Yes, the Great Lakes Patriots! He babysits the Big Answer's niece and nephew while she does work with her husband.
He takes care of the mail, faxing, and copying duties. He does not answer the phone. He will not deal with the negative vibes coming from the phone.
Brigadier Anne Stuart: An Anglo-African woman in her early forties, Anna Stuart is the daughter of one of the Foundation for World Harmony's most decorated military officers. Despite the fact that there was considerable resistance to her rise to her father's former position, Anne Stuart has successfully risen to become head of the Foundation's military assets in the United Kingdom.
Her nickname is Queen Anne. Most of the resistance was related to feelings of nepotism and cronyism. Anne has proved her abilities time and time again and such thoughts have pretty much gone away.
She has a long and storied career of dealing with vampires, aliens, fairies, more vampires, robots, demons, and more vampires. She's even worked with her father's frequent cohort, Merlin, on occasion. It's been observed that Anne is one of the few people who can talk the manic pixie wizard down.
Talk and a fear of being punched. Frankly, Brigadier Stuart has no problem dressing down Merlin. She has a way to make him feel very small.
Anne Stuart is an appointee of John Hepburn and is rather ashamed of this fact. Mostly, she feels like she's done an excellent job and is annoyed she's been elevated as part of a larger game of cleaning out the Old Holmes supporters. Otherwise, she's completely uninterested in politics and mostly just wants to do her job.
She has a long distance friendship with Alexander King and thoroughly loathes George O'Grady (she did so even before he was an undead monster). George takes extra precautions when meeting with her due to the fact Anne is quite good at sniffing out the undead.
There has been some talk of a coup to replace Hepburn with Stuart. Mainly because Hepburn has some crazy ideas and hasn't done well with what crisis have been going on during his tenure.
Also, its kinda bad for an agency of super spies to have a video of their director peeing their pants up on youtube in the midst of being held for ransom.
Ops: A frighteningly efficient black ops mission director who seems to have thoroughly subverted the chain of command and answers only to John Hepburn's bosses. Even then, it's questionable how much they keep said individuals "in the loop." Ops runs their own Mini-Foundation consisting of expendable captured criminals and former terrorists. Ops collars these individuals and uses a combination of torture and brainwashing to ensure their loyalty. Also, the literal "explosive collar" has since been altered by their to be something more efficient (it's now a sub-dermal implant).
This is called empire building. Its just that this one is a little more evil then your typical bureaucrats dreams of ruling their department with an iron fist.
Ops is, disturbingly enough, believed to be a remnant of the original House of Serpents. Where as the rest of the group went rogue, Ops actually retained a certain degree of legitimacy with the world's governments through assembled blackmail material. They continues to run anti-terrorism missions with no restrictions, sparing no one including their former associates. No one knows who Ops is, what their goals are, or even if there's one or many. No one has yet discovered Ops existence since all their missions are usually blamed on one or more terrorist groups - efficiently keeping them from forming alliances. They have no objections to performing terrorist acts themselves if it infiltrates their agents into various groups' high commands.
There are lots of theories. An anti-alien conspiracy, a hold over of the cold war spy games, and a collection of spy directors to do off the record missions. Also, some say it is the Illumanati back in a more secret form.
Ironically, John Hepburn found out about Ops before Dame Michelle Holmes due to his superior ability to follow paperwork (defeating even Holmesian logic). He's currently sitting on it because he's received no orders for dealing with it and taking care of the problem would require initiative.
Well, the Holmesian logic doesn't really provide skills in forensic accounting and managing secret slush funds. Also, taking Ops out could be really bloody and hit the press. If it is one thing that the Foundation doesn't want it is being front page news under Holmes or Hepburn.
I am glad that you liked Charles Freeman, I was worried that you would think that it paints George Timmons in a not so great light.
