United Heroes MUSH is an online text based social medium set in the near future of 2026. It is a world much like our own, but with some key differences, both subtle and significant. It is a world of heroes, a world of villains, a world of the mundane, and the fantastic. After seeing what the Marvel Cinematic Universe did for one comic book publisher, we asked, what could a similar project do for many? And thus, Earth-1999 was born. We have no set canon. No single storyline played out exactly as depicted in any comic, cartoon, film, television show, or video game, but instead, our world is inspired by them. Batman's parents were murdered after an evening at the cinema. Captain America was revived after spending several decades on ice. Superman crash landed in Kansas as an infant. Thor is the God of Thunder of Norse legend. These examples and so much more have become the game's canon, as well as our rather extensive timeline. We've gone to great lengths to craft a living, breathing, realistic environment. If you need a lawyer, there's the Clinton (Hell's Kitchen) based partnership of Foggy Nelson and Matt Murdock of Nelson and Murdock; Jennifer Walters works for the Metahuman Law division of Manhattan's Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg, and Holloway; if you can afford them, there's Wolfram and Hart, they have offices everywhere; and of course, there's always Saul Goodman of Long Island's Saul Goodman and Associates. Thanks to a runaway budget and "borrowing" the patents from Buckaroo Banzai, Lex Luthor, Hank Pym, Reed Richards, Thaddeus Sivana, Tony Stark, David Xanatos, and others, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D. as they prefer to be called, Nick Fury, Amanda Waller, and company exert an incredible amount of influence over world events. Besides their headquarters at the Triskelion, they have a healthy fleet of Helicarriers patrolling the skies. Of course, most people have never heard of S.H.I.E.L.D. And that's the way they like it. The Avengers, first called together by Fury in 2021 to stop an attack by Loki, have become public icons, with t-shirts, toys, and all manner of merchandise for sale, though they still pale in comparison to the Fantastic Four in that regard. There's just something good and noble about heroes who aren't afraid to show their faces. Perhaps that's why J. Jonah Jameson has instructed Daily Bugle Communications, and its subsidiaries, to promote public heroes, and discredit masked vigilantes. He's not too fond of mutants or X-men either. Four years later, in February of 2025, a group came together to put a stop to the Imperium Invasion and form the Justice League. Since then, the Avengers and the Justice League have had something of a friendly rivalry, with the Avengers having institutional support, while the League are entirely self-funded, and self-regulating. The League also seems to have the bigger guns, which has become a cause for concern in certain circles, though nothing has come of it. Elsewhere, there have been issues with Genosha, Kahndaq, Latveria, and of course, the Principality of Atlantis, which currently "occupies" territory in the Middle East and South America. There is unrest regarding the "mutant problem", though the general public doesn't seem to differentiate between actual mutants and people who simply cannot pass for being human, be they alien, metahuman, or otherwise different. The Metropolis Academy, also known as the Academy of Tomorrow, and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters have given humans, metahumans, and mutants, though mostly the later, a safe place where they can learn about themselves, and the world they live in. A number of heroic groups have also begun creating "farm teams", where younger heroes can deal with lesser threats as they learn to harness their abilities. Wealthier communities like Metropolis, Connecticut can afford luxuries such as their Hyperloop mass transit system, while New York struggles to maintain the status quo, given the collateral damage from metahuman activity, while Gotham, New Jersey can call itself fortunate that most of their activity doesn't even classify as metahuman, and yet it's no less destructive. Outlying communities like Bl??dhaven, Empire City, Newark, and Bergen County, New Jersey; Culver, Connecitcut; and Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties, New York, deal with these realities in their own way. Bl??dhaven has some unique issues to combat, such as their unusually high S.N.R. rate (spontaneous neck rupture), and a host of unexplained paranormal activities. Despite this, the march of progress continues. Queen Consolidated and the Rand Corporation have given the world its first public Zetaport, which can transport passengers from Starling, British Columbia, to New York and back again, in an instant. The technology, while safe, reliable, and surprisingly inexpensive, does have some issues with larger masses, and as such, it hasn't yet threatened Ferris Aircraft, though with any new technology, there always are people with a vested interest in its failure. Thanks to a perfect storm of American governmental disinterest, reverse engineering an alien spaceship, and a few other factors, the Canadian government has taken the lead in human space exploration, creating the Alpha Flight Low-Orbit Space Station, nicknamed Mackenzie King Station, as well as visiting both Mars and Io, one of Jupiter's moons. As you can see from the above, United Heroes is about bringing people together, and as the name would imply, uniting disparate heroes. Besides comic book companies like AC, Dark Horse, DC, Devil's Due, Dynamite, IDW, Image, Marvel, Sentinel, Top Cow, and Valiant, we have decided to allow several other sources, and again, every character has to be adapted to suit this world. Some require minor tweaks, while others huge overhauls. But every character must adapt to our world. In rare cases, our world has adapted to suit a new source, but only when it's something really cool and would benefit the game. Some of the other comic and sources not from the comics we've allowed, with adaptation, include Alien Nation (Space Grid only), Angel, Archie (Riverdale), Better Call Saul, Big Trouble in Little China, Breaking Bad, Buckaroo Banzai, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bucky O'Hare (Space Grid only), Burn Notice, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Carmen Sandiego, Charmed, Dresden Files, Farscape (Space Grid only), G.I. Joe, Gargoyles, Ghostbusters, GoBots (Space Grid only), Heroes, Highlander, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Mercy Thompson, Mortal Kombat, Power Rangers, Resident Evil, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Sprawl, Street Fighter, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ThunderCats, Transformers (Space Grid only), Uncharted, Underworld, War of the Worlds (Space Grid only), and Wynonna Earp. United Heroes MUSH is an original world, inspired by the comic books, and set in the modern day, well, near future of the modern day. We are newbie friendly, and could be described as one of the social muds, even though we're a MUSH, and there is plenty of combat to go with social interaction. Our space grid makes ample use of science fiction.. ^[1]