cyzici
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Post by cyzici on Jan 13, 2017 11:42:22 GMT
Excerpts from a scrapbook of newspaper clippings found in the affairs of the late James Taylor relating to colleagues at Olympus and superhuman activity in the early 21st century. items are kept in no particular order but appear to relate to his early career.
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cyzici
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Posts: 64
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Post by cyzici on Jan 13, 2017 11:42:50 GMT
Maria Coulthard, 46 years old
Maria Coulthard was born in Kenton in the London borough of Harrow. Growing up she was a gifted Athlete, winning U16 medals in 400m and 800m for the Wealdstone Athletics Association in London competitions. She studied Criminal Law at the City of London Polytechnic (now integrated into the Capital City University), before embarking on a career in the Metropolitan police. Four years later she became a Specialist Firearms Officer in the Metropolitan Police force’s SO19 unit. She served in this unit with distinction for five years before joining the re-organised SO23 Meta-Human response unit set up by the Taylor enquiry (now defunct, the official duties of SO23 were re-assigned to other units and to Olympus in 2009) during the superhuman crime wave of the late 1990s. She is understood to have left the organisation after being passed over for promotion following the departure of Chief Superintendent Bentley and the appointment of Chief Superintendent Roberts, an outside hire with several years less experience. Her career is less clear after this point. She seems to have been hired, or at least retained, by the right-wing, law and order think-tank “Ipsos Custodes” and have consulted for the French GIGN-affiliated anti-superhuman task force GPIS (now fully integrated into GIGN). She returned to the Metropolitan Police a year later as Superintendent (department unknown) when the well-known Bowyer-Meydew shooting incident forced out the much embattled Chief Superintendent Roberts and compelled the government to open a public enquiry, headed by former Commissioner Philip Spencer, which gave additional powers to the umbrella of Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations (QUANGOs) known as Olympus (now further integrated into one entity). She is known to have worked for SSC (Superhuman Suppression and Containment, a group under the Olympus banner), and then for Olympus proper under the integration a year later. She is designated a Liaison Officer on all official documents, although her official role is not known and she may in fact be in a consulting role.
(From a 2014 profile in “The Telegraph” following her testimony at the Old Bailey concerning the shooting of Debbie Evans who was believed to be the super-powered vigilante “Zeno”. This trial was only partially open to the public and released information is known to be heavily redacted.)
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cyzici
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Posts: 64
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Post by cyzici on Jan 13, 2017 11:43:04 GMT
(Begin transcript)
“… Chief Superintendent Adam Roberts, commander of the Metropolitan Police force’s SO23 Meta-Human response unit today gave evidence to the Spencer enquiry regarding the use of suppression tactics on civilians with enhanced abilities. These new tactics, introduced three years ago to combat the high levels of superpowered crime in the capital, have been the subject of some controversy with some human rights watchdogs calling them “inhumane” and “hyper-aggressive”. Roberts stated that the death in custody of Timothy Bowyer (17) and the hospitalisation of Daniel Meydew (24) were two “regrettable incidents” that were due to “successive failures to abide by Metropolitan Police codes of conduct”. Reports that the two were held in confined areas for up to twelve hours without medical attention have not been confirmed by a police spokesperson, but CCTV footage from….”
(end transcript)
(Transcript taken from the BBC News at 10 23/2/2005)
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cyzici
Junior Member
Posts: 64
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Post by cyzici on Jan 13, 2017 13:49:42 GMT
n Olympus at the beginning?”
…we just dealt with the problems that were in front of …ow? that was just the way we all worked. Some of us would ...t together now and again and share info but most of the time we kept our heads down and solved problems. The problem with that is that sometimes someone gets the wrong end of the stick and people get hurt. Honestly when Olympus was formed it was something of a, a relief, y’know? Olympus gave us legal protection, and an official capacity and did a lot of good in terms of public perception.”
I: Did you ever feel like there was too much government control over superheroes, that you became a sort of quasi-police force?
“no I wouldn’t say that, I mean. There were things that needed to be ironed out, and we are still working on them; is this right? are these the right guidelines? could we have handled that better? But we responded to threats no-one else could. The kind of things that the police used to really struggle with. We all remember the problems SO23 had back in the 80s and 90s. The fatality rates were terrible, both for supers and the police. We always wanted a way to do good in our communities, and we got it *laughs* complete wi… salaries and a badge. Theses days the more inform… …re, and the better co-ordinated we are, the mo… …or everyone.
…change in poli….
(From a magazine clipping, date unknown. Torn and folded as if carried about in a wallet for quite some time. Scrawled pencil underneath reads (illegible letters)cia McBride) Obverse is a section of an advertisement for “Dove” brand Shampoo)
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cyzici
Junior Member
Posts: 64
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Post by cyzici on Jan 15, 2017 14:00:08 GMT
The UK has had a long history of importing its superheroes. The "Face-of-Olympus" has most recently been Canagold, the Canadian superhero who has been heading up Olympus' most recent PR efforts. Joining him shortly on posters around the country will be Justice, along with everyone's favourite home-grown hero Pyrexia. This is surely a winning combination, but the country's history of imported supers is considerably more fraught than recent all-star line ups would appear.
Recent files released under the official secrets act famously revealed that the hero "Thunderbird", best known for the foiling of the Swindon train bombing attacks of 1957, was formerly the German super-soldier Hans Von Trier. Thunderbird would later be a founding member of the para-millitary super-group "Green Defenders" along with White Stripe and Britannia. The group would disappear a few years later over several very public disagreements. White stripe became prominent in the meta-human rights group PASS, whereas Brittania's descent into alcoholism was well-documented in the tabloid press at the time.
Near the very end of its short career the Green Defenders, as a government sanctioned agency, fell under the banner of the Department of Superhuman Affairs set up by Harold Macmillan. This non-departmental government body dealt not only with managing super-human relations, but also for recruitment, talent acquisition, and superhuman containment. Millitary activities relating to superhumans and actual policing duties, however, were not under its remit.
The reshuffles of Edward Heath's government in 1971, after years of lobbying by pro-super-rights groups brought abut the division of this department into a variety of entities. Superhuman advocasy groups were pleased to find seats for them on the new, progressive Olympus council; officially the UK ended its policy of encouraging Superheroes to defect from other countries; and, in 1973, UN security council resolution S/RES/326 (1973) banned experimentation into "super-soldier" programs. But these reshuffles also brought about some of the most contentious agencies of the next 40 years. Several superheroes known to have engaged in espionage disappear from the records at this point, as does Thunderbird.
Less well publicised, insofar as government reshuffles are ever well publicised, was the establishment of the Superhuman Supression and Containment task force. Officially this was a superhuman Special Branch Committee with a remit only to respond to threats. Lead by Sir David Wilcox, the committee also included Victor Levikovitch, a high profile super-powered russian defector, and Sir Giles Davis, who went on to establish the Ipsos Custodes policy centre. Russian documents leaked to the press in 1998 suggested that an agent, former alias Thunderbird, was killed in action in 1991 while working for the SSC in Northern Ireland. The Russian dossier also listed a number of other former Soviet and Nazi supers who had worked in the SSC's task force in the late 80s, including, allegedly, Iron Star, wanted for war crimes in Belarus.
The SSC would later achieve prominence in the super-crime waves of the late 80s and 90s for their successful capture of a number of super-villains, although they officially only took credit in an advisory role. However, PASS and Super-Rights Watch both raised significant concern about their containment practices and the use of drugs for the partial suppression of powers. The group have been called "heavy-handed", "authoritarian", and "lacking any significant oversight". The question is, where are they now? The full integration of superhero affairs under the Olympic banner two years ago made no mention of any superhero transfer from the SSC to other groups. The exact composition of the SSC task force at the time of its dissolution is unknown, but there has been no public acknowledgement of the group since. Does Olympus carry on their legacy? Can a dazzling Canadian smile hide a multitude of sins?
(from an article in "The Guardian" newspaper "Whatever happened to the SSC?", the name Sir Giles Davis is circled in red pen. Written below the article in another hand, not James', is the phrase "liberal rubbish")
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