Hydra

History

Hydra was an authoritarian, government, terrorist, and militant religious cult that focused on Hive paganism and, most importantly, bringing back their God, so he may reward them and create his New World Order.

Ancient Origin

Millennia ago when the Kree created the Inhuman race, one Inhuman emerged so powerful and fearsome that the other Inhumans banished it through a portal to another planet. A cult formed in reverence towards that Inhuman, deeming it destined to rule the Earth, and managed to claim the Monolith used to banish it to a planet called Maveth. They used the symbol of a ram's skull as their insignia, which changed over time into a skull with tentacles. Repeated attempts were made throughout the course of history to send people to the other side to either serve or rescue the entity, but no one who went in ever came out. Members of the society in England had built an underground machine in a 19th century castle that could resonate the necessary frequency to keep the Monolith open, but the technology proved unstable and broke down after a few minutes of continual use. At some point, the cult carved five pieces from the Monolith.

World War II

In the rise of Nazi Schutzstaffel, the brutal Johann Schmidt re-branded the cult Hydra and incorporated itself into the Nazi government as a division for both deep science and the investigation of the occult. While Adolf Hitler had always maintained an interest in both fields, Schmidt was obsessed with them, leading to his taking of the Super Soldier serum which transformed him into the Red Skull. No longer a champion of the Aryan image, Hitler had Schmidt quietly transferred elsewhere, under the illusion that he could continue his work in private and with better funding, but the façade did not convince Schmidt.

When the Tesseract cube was located by Hydra forces in the early years of World War II, Schmidt personally saw to it that the artifact would be used to it's full potential by Dr. Arnim Zola. Zola's outlandish designs of robotic power armor, massive vehicles and energy weapons and armor could find a functional use thanks to the cube's power, and with the most advanced technology in the World, Hydra could begin to plan their conquest — a conquest that Nazi guards would soon find out, counted Berlin amongst it's targets.

Hydra's goals would be challenged by America's own super-soldier, Steven Rogers, better known as Captain America. Aided by his best friend, Bucky and the Howling Commandos, Rogers was able to begin a massive assault on Hydra forces across the Axis lines, destroying numerous bases and capturing Arnim Zola. Eventually, Captain America came face to face with Red Skull on a Tesseract-powered bomber, heading to America. When it became clear that Rogers was gaining the upper hand in the fight, the Red Skull attempted to use the power of the Tesseract with his bare hands. This only resulted in a beam of light which caused the Red Skull to disappear without a trace, and forcing Rogers to put the bomber down in the freezing waters below, freezing himself solid and causing the Tessseract to be lost to the seas for 70 years.

Infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D.

When Hydra scientists were recruited by America as part of their efforts to use their weapons genius, they were able to subtly subvert S.H.I.E.L.D. from the inside as it grew, manipulating gathered intelligence and recruiting various key S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives to be loyal to Hydra's ideology. While S.H.I.E.L.D. would publicly serve as a peacekeeping force, its Hydra cells also carried their secondary goal of creating a world that would eventually become so chaotic that the populace would willingly sacrifice their freedom for security that S.H.I.E.L.D. offered, thereby handing control over to Hydra.

Cold War

Hydra became a great secret power conducting clandestine operations during the Cold War from the 1960s until the 1980s, engineering events in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and many more.

With the help of S.H.I.E.L.D resources, Arnim Zola created a computer system in which his mind was uploaded into as an artificially intelligent user interface. Zola's physical body died in 1972, his mind continued to exist digitally.

During the early 1980s, Hydra infiltrated the Soviet power infrastructures, establishing a secret laboratory in East Berlin. The laboratory was infiltrated by Hank Pym, who used his size-changing suit to destroy it. He also destroyed the memory suppressing machine, freeing all the prisoners and defeating all the Hydra guards.

In 1989, Alexander Pierce gave Werner Reinhardt a secret pardon and a medical parole, and the new identity of "Daniel Whitehall", and made sure that there would be no more records after this.

In 1991, Vasily Karpov, a Hydra mole in the Soviet Armed Forces, woke up Winter Soldier from his suspended animation, and sent him to retrieve the recreated Super Soldier Serum from Howard Stark. Barnes killed Howard and his wife, Maria Stark, in a car accident on Long Island, and then returned to Karpov, successfully retrieving the serum. The scientists of Hydra, with the serum retrieved, used the serum to continue the Winter Soldier Program.

Project Distant Star Pathfinder

In 2001, a Hydra faction under Gideon Malick masterminded Project Distant Star Pathfinder, sending a group of NASA astronauts through the Monolith to Maveth as a sacrifice to the exiled Inhuman.

Project Insight

Using an algorithm created by Zola, Hydra could determine which people represented a threat to their new world order. It was planned to use S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Project Insight to use the network of three heavily-armed helicarriers to eliminate all the 20 million people determined as threats to Hydra by the algorithm.

However, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury discovered Hydra's influence over S.H.I.E.L.D., and with the help of Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon and Maria Hill, managed to delay Hydra's plans for some weeks.

Fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Fury's actions forced Hydra operatives to launch a prearranged surprise coup. To this end, signals were broadcast on all S.H.I.E.L.D. channels with a message to step "out of the shadows" and "into the light." Take over actions were launched at all major S.H.I.E.L.D. installations resulting in a scramble to assert control on both sides. While the Triskelion was taken over after the escape of Steve Rogers, the Hub fell briefly into the hands of Hydra before being claimed by loyal S.H.I.E.L.D operatives, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s East African base and the Treehouse fell into the hands of Hydra just like the Triskelion. Afterwards, Hydra agents were ousted from the Cube.

Rise of Hydra

Hydra soon took control of every S.H.I.E.L.D base and started gaining loyalty from formerly loyal S.H.I.E.L.D agents with some joining willingly, while some needed torturing and the Faustus method to sway their loyalty. The Avengers were captured when Hydra had set up a trap for them to rescue Sharon Carter, who they did not know had recently been brainwashed to join Hydra.

To gain the trust of the people and spread their propaganda, Hydra took over the news station WHiH NEWSFRONT and renamed it Hydra NEWSFRONT while also brainwashing radio host Trish Walker to present her radio station under the name Hydra Radio.

The Germanization Act

After taking control over America, Hydra went back to their German roots and announced the act to make all names in society German. Over time Hydra's plan is for German to become the main language within their borders. Through the Act every citizen of Hydra had to change name if theirs were not deemed German enough. Eventually a resistance tried to overthrow Hydra (their leaders being Phil Coulson, Nick Fury, and Carol Danvers) however Carol soon realized Hydra was better then Shield and betrayed Coulson and Fury and became Carolyn Dankwart, because of her role in insuring Hydra’s success she was promoted to a general position and named Madame Hydra. The Hydra Nations lived on to be prosperous and the world entered a golden age.

Paraphernalia

Equipment: None known.
Transportation: None known.
Weapons: None known.

Notes

No special notes.

Trivia

No trivia.

Links and References

None.