The Others is a setting focused on the new wave of superheroics after the Golden Age in the 80's. Up-and-coming heroes, freshly registered through the Parahuman Initiative, compete for the top spot with Society of Superhumans, often shortened the S.O.S.
HMC, or Her Majesty's Chosen, are the main superhero team of the S.O.S, succeeding New Battalion as the official team of the organisation.
Many other compete for the limelight, including the Society of Parahumans, or S.O.P, a subsidary of the S.O.S, often the most mocked of them, with various teams (The Crackerjackers, The Lunatics, Goon Squad, the now controversial Twin Powers, the Cornwall Horses, etc).
The Others, signed to S.O.P in a most likely bad deal, are sent to try and gain fame and reputation as heroes, even with all these disadvantages.
The Golden Age of Superheroes began in 1942, when Germany's delving into the Occult unearthed strange forces, ones used to empower a super-soldier named Ubervolt. Ubervolt had the powers of lightning manipulation, and the ability to seemingly generate vast amounts of electricity from nothing. In addition, the more energy it consumed, the larger it grew, peaking at a staggering thousand feet tall! It seemed like there could be no opposing this threat, until....The Comet. Another strange being, this time one wreathed in golden fire and moving as fast as even Ubervolt's lightning blasts. The Comet fought Ubervolt and won after a long battle, leaving pieces of itself wherever it went.
This clash of titans, once over, had researchers scrambling to use whatever was left for the war effort. At first, this was the Heliotron, a robot powered by collected pieces of the Comet's body, able to store a fragment of that incredible power and use it to create flames. Soon after, in 1944, the first human testing began in Britain with refined pieces of the Comet, and various stabilising elements to stimulate the body to react and adapt to the power (now known as Proto-B). This experiment created the first human superhero, Catalyst. Sharing many powers with the Comet, and Heliotron, Catalyst could manipulate energy, absorb and reflect light to grow in power, fly, enhance his physical abilities, and much more!
Catalyst, after aiding in the war effort, was also deployed to deal with more strange threats, and villains performing their own experiments to create superhumans. When it became too much for just one hero, Her Majesty's Chosen was formed in 1948. With more experimentation, more stable forms of Proto-B (Aka Substance A), were used to birth Sea King, an aquatic hero with water-manipulation powers, Mercury, a speedster, and to enhance the intellect of Rocketeer to allow her to create some of the first Gadgets, such as her rocket suit.
HMC-I continued working until the 70s, facing villains such as Quantum Shaman, Grand Richter, Gigahertz and many more! However, the team dissolved near the end of 1972, when Catalyst was killed by Doctor Crossbones, a mad scientist and master-class inventor, marking the first hero death and beginning the end of the Golden Age. After this, HMC-I remained active, but later in a confrontation with the same villain, all but Rocketeer also met their end, but managed to defeat him in the process.
Between 1970 and 1991 was considered the 'Dark Age' of superheroics, with no national team and many different powerful heroes and villains fighting for dominance after the power vaccum left by HMC-1.
HMC-II, the second team, came online in 1991, consisting of the super-strong and durable Baldr, the shapeshifter Red Dragon, who usually makes her form that of a scaled, fire-breathing winged humanoid, Sonic Saint, an armoured Gadget-user and energy manipulator, and Rocketeer II, the daughter of the first Rocketeer who inherited her genius intellect. All were created with the new Substance-B, which is now used by the S.O.S (established in 1965 by HMC-I) and its subsidaries, especially after the Parahuman Initiative which allowed more superhero teams to be legally active (signed October 1991). This is also the start of the Modern Age (also called the Silver Age, or still the Dark Age by certain people) of superheroics.