Miranda Zero
Context
Global Frequency was a 2002-2004, 12-issues series written by Warren Ellis.
It is set in a slightly cyberpunkified version of the 2000s. The titular Global Frequency is a flat , covert organisation providing vigilante emergency response.
A faceless smart mob linked by encrypted mobile communications, the Frequency activates its elite sleeper agents to prevent critical problems from becoming catastrophes.
Advertisement
Background
- Real Name: Unrevealed and highly classified.
- Known Relatives: None.
- Group Affiliation: Global Frequency.
- Base Of Operations: Mobile.
- Height: 5’10” (1.78m). Weight: 140 lbs. (63 Kg.).
- Eyes: Grey. Hair: Black.
Powers and Abilities
A highly trained intelligence operative, Miranda is an experienced combatant, skilled in a range of modern weaponry.
She’s a capable strategist and tactician.
Zero will lead her agents into situations when she can reach an incident in time, or offer whatever support she can otherwise.
Her knowledge and control of the Frequency give her enormous political power. She uses it to help gain her people the information or authorizations to do their jobs.
You’re on the Global Frequency
Miranda set up the Global Frequency as a covert rescue organization. It deals with threats the authorities were unable or unwilling to deal with.
The Frequency is no longer as secret as when it started. It has since developed from internet rumour into a generally known, if mysterious and sometimes doubted, organization.
Miranda is the only publicly known member – making her the target for all its enemies. Most members don’t know each other unless they’ve worked together.
Backbone
There are around a thousand people on the Frequency. They are specialists in a number of fields, with new ones recruited as needed.
These are coordinated by Aleph, who operates Global Frequency’s Central Operations facility. Aleph activates operatives via the advanced phones they’re all equipped with.
The full nature of their funding is unrevealed. But at least part comes from the G8 governments . These pay for the Frequency to not reveal the secret horrors of their creation which the Frequency must clear up.
This also gives Miranda privileged connection in the highest levels of governments.
The Global Frequency :
- Allows access to specialists in any field. In DC Heroes RPG terms, WIL 06 and Scholar in the appropriate field.
- Allows Miranda to assign combat-oriented members who are available in the area.
- Allows the rapid processing of large amounts of information as Aleph recruits as many members as needed.
Frequency agents can be equipped with the most advanced technology time allows. They may even have access to advanced technology invented by some of its members.
Smart mob
Known members of the Frequency past and present include (with numbers where known):
- Ivan Alibekov (John Alibek) – #1001. Defected Russian esoteric weaponeer. Recruited when one of his former subjects, Janos Voydan, became a human bomb.
- Alice April. Former criminal, now bodyguard to celebrities. Part of the team which rescued Miranda after she’d been kidnapped.
- Jill Cabot. English. Wetworks experience. On holiday in Australia when activated to help stop internet cult killing 30 hostages if government didn’t cede power to their multisexual space gods from beyond the pillars of creation.
- Nick Cho. NY. Good with guns and cars. Helped fight alien memetic virus attack. Slept with Aleph and now she punishes him with the dangerous jobs.
- Douglas Coyle. London. Experienced at interrogations.
- Winston Croft – Los Angeles. Retired master detective. Part of the team which located Miranda after she’d been kidnapped.
- Alan Crowe. Magician. Part of the team dealing with the Norwegian angel sighting.
- Allison Fitzgerald – #702. Pilot based in San Francisco, died in action.
- The Frenchman. Expert in biofeedback, as was his nemesis, Lionel Wellfare. Assigned when Wellfare was employed to attack a US government biotech facility in Texas. Fought and eventually killed Wellfare, beating him to death with his own, ripped off, arm.
- Mr. Grushko. Russian, big and freaky looking, with an intimidating axe. Stopped terrorist attack on London.
- Danny Gulpilil. Melbourne police officer. Stopped internet cult killing 30 hostages if the Australian government didn’t cede power to their multisexual space gods etc. etc..
- Lyn Hilton. NY. Logistics and good with guns. Helped fight alien memetic virus attack.
- Kaz. Hacker.
- Lana Kennedy – #884. NY-based. Neurolinguicist, memetic specialist. Programmed anti-virus to alien memetic virus attack.
- Beta Krisjansdottir. Icelandic parapsychologist. Part of the team dealing with the Norwegian angel sighting.
- Lau Jia. Chinese intelligence. Died stopping terrorist attack on London.
- Dr. Lauder. Seattle. Pharmacologist.
- Donna Lo. San Francisco. Uncertain specialty, possibly psychology or neuroscience. Part of the team that dealt with the Norwegian angel sighting.
- Musson. Los Angeles. Genetic fingerprinter. Part of the team which located Miranda after she’d been kidnapped.
- Misha Norton. Satellite specialist and hacker.
- Man at MIT . Physicist with a bondage fetish.
- Sita Patel – #992. London based parkour runner. Stopped release of weaponized Ebola Zaire by amateur terrorists.
- Sir Patrick. Retired intelligence operative, and amateur astronomer, with a catalogue of spy satellites.
- Lisa Richards. Guntech.org, following new military research.
- Takashi Sato. Osaka. Retired from the Frequency after witnessing suicide of class of schoolgirls, on an island where children had gone to kill each other. Reluctantly reactivated to investigate problem at local medical facility, where heavy psychotropics had been released into the air. These affected doctors had performed ghastly experiments on patients. Sato called in air strike and committed suicide.
- John Stark – #288. Surveillance expert, special forces experience. Lead agent in the hunt for Janos Voydan, a former Soviet sleeper with weaponized psychic abilities, turned into a bomb by decaying electronics left in his head. John had to execute him before San Francisco would be destroyed.
- Mark Tran. LA based inventor and CEO, created Solosoar jetpack. Part of the team which located Miranda after she’d been kidnapped.
- James Weisbeck. Center for Disease Control.
- Bert Traux. Rocket scientist. Runs independent space agency, Skyramp. Sent rocket up to disable the satellite running the Die-Back Doctrine.
- Unnamed – #436. Female, ex-CIA agent, subject of limited bionic enhancements. Died during the Big Wheel incident.
- Unnamed – Sniper. Involved in the Big Wheel incident. Shot the rogue cyborg Cptn. Richard Quinn, destroying his nuclear motors, spreading radiation over the area. Presumably died soon after.
- Unnamed – Male. Formerly developed non-lethal weaponry for the Pentagon, most of which turned out to not be that non-lethal.
- Unnamed – Female. Badly scarred Israeli fighter who carries large guns. Part of the Big Wheel operation. It seemed like she was killed during the Big Wheel operation. But she appeared again during the Die-Back Doctrine operation, so either she survived off-panel or the stories are out of sequence.
- Unnamed – #944. Berlin police detective.
History
“Miranda Zero” used to be a high-level operative in the American intelligence community.
She grew disillusioned by its habit of burying or ignoring their mistakes rather than cleaning them up. Zero was also disappointed by it being too involved in “political shit” to work together and get the job done quickly.
Recruiting experts in numerous fields, she established the Global Frequency as an independent rescue organization. It responded rapidly to emergency situations.
Realising she needed someone to coordinate the growing organization, she recruited a young girl with a super-processor brain from university. Miranda gave her the codename Aleph, and set her up in Central Operations under Manhattan.
Unto the breach
In 2002, the USAF lost control of the surviving test subject in the Big Wheel facility. It was an officer who had undergone numerous operations to become an operational cyborg.
They asked Miranda to take a squad in, before they’d have to resort to their main strategy of nuking the place. The fallout from such a strike would probably reach inhabited areas.
Leading a squad with experience in military espionage, she found Captain Richard Quinn. He had been made so unrecognisable as a human that his sanity had finally snapped.
The Frequency had no choice but to try to kill him. A localized EMPAn electro-magnetic pulse/explosion that disables electronics. damaged him, but did not stop him.
After Miranda and one of the team’s surviving members retreated in a helicopter, their sniper destroyed Quinn’s nuclear power source. This killed him, and irradiating the area, although less so than a strategic nuclear strike would have.
Invasive
When a Seti@home collaborator picked up an alien signal, a memetic virus spread through the neighbourhood.
Miranda had to lead a team through the zombified residents to get the Frequency’s memetic specialist to rewrite the code into an anti-virus.
They managed to halt the infection with no further loss of life.
Angels and dirt
Ms. Zero led a team to aid a small Norwegian village. Residents had been left in deep states of shock after witnessing an angel over the spot where their church had just burned down.
The Frequency determined that the changes in pressure caused by the fire had set off low frequency resonances in the caves beneath the village. These were affecting the villagers’ brain chemistries.
This gave them a basis for neurochemical therapy to cure the villagers.
Dirty bomb
Miranda then learned of a terrorist plan to assassinate the head of MI6, and to detonate a dirty bomb above London.
She led a team to warn the target, replacing his convoy with remote-controlled cars. This allowed them to trace the terrorists in time to stop them detonating the bomb.
Flash mob
During a trip to Los Angeles, Miranda was abducted by Odinsrage, a White Power group whose operations she’d previously interfered with. They tried to get her to give up a list of her agents.
Frequency agents found them before the hour they’d allowed for the quick interrogation. Alice April arrived just in time to kill them as Miranda was about to be executed.
Die-Back Doctrine
A Frequency member then learned that American defence program the Die-Back Doctrine, had been activated without authorization.
Miranda mobilized the majority of Frequency members. The Die-Back Doctrine proposed the destruction of 80% of the world’s population, so as to bring them down to more manageable numbers.
The satellites to launch the attack could only be reached by a military cell in Chicago. These had been off-comms for a few weeks.
With government authorization, Miranda led a kill squad into the strike station. However, they found the staff dead and no way to stop the launch from there.
A rocket had been launched from Skyramp. When its pilot found the device he’d been given to destroy the satellite wouldn’t set, he activated it manually. He thus sacrificed himself to destroy the satellite.
Advertisement
Personality
Calm, confident and tough, Miranda is unrelenting in her mission to protect the public from the threats hiding in the dark corners of society.
She’s fiercely protective of her people, willing to die rather than give up their identities.
Capable of dealing diplomatically with the authorities, she’s nevertheless willing to browbeat them into doing things her way if they prove antagonistic.
Constantly professional, she expects the same from her people, and doesn’t like repeating herself.
The now-vintage GF special phone.
Quotes
“My name is Miranda Zero. And you’re on the Global Frequency.”
“These are the things I formed the Global Frequency to deal with. The litter of the way we live. The unexploded bombs.”
Alibek: “Is your name really Miranda Zero ?”
Miranda: “It’s the only one you’re getting.”
“You have to understand: this is not the resolution I would prefer. But there’s no one else doing this job. Even the G-8 governments paying us hush money for the horrors we find admit that. Ultimately, we have to rescue ourselves from the things visited upon us. And we can’t always be nice about it.”
Lana: “What defines the human race ?”
Miranda: “Right now ? Its ability to piss me off.”
(Being interrogated) “Do you think I’m scared of pain ? Three years ago in Haiti, a cell of ex-Tonton Macoute fired a nail through my right thigh. Five years ago, radical white separatists in Maine painted an eagle on my back in paint-stripper gel. Last March Russian black marketers took bolt cutters to my breasts. Understand, you don’t frighten me. Your stupid little hands and your thing with the gun do not frighten me. You are ignorant and gutless and you do not frighten me.”
“There are 1,001 people on the Global Frequency, Mr. Stavbursik. Our collective experience is wider than you’d think.”
DC Universe Adaptation
(This section proposes ways of using this character in DC Universe stories).
A former colleague of Sarge Steel, he’s more diplomatic with her than other intelligence types. Yet his position forces him to keep more diplomatic distance than he’d like.
Nevertheless, he helps her when he can, and occasionally feeds her information.
She’s also worked with Amanda Waller. But the pair share a mutual dislike for each other’s agendas, and Waller isn’t above sabotaging GF operations if she gets the chance.
Miranda has a few covert metahumans on the Global Frequency. But she prefers to avoid missions which would require such types, preferring to leave those to supergroups, a few of which she has connections with.
DC Heroes RPG
Tell me more about the game stats
Miranda Zero
| Dex: 05 | Str: 03 | Bod: 04 |
| Int: 07 | Wil: 07 | Min: 08 |
| Inf: 08 | Aur: 08 | Spi: 08 |
| Init: 022 | HP: 060 |
Skills:
Charisma: 08, Detective (Clue Analysis): 06, Martial Artist: 05, Thief: 05, Vehicles (Land): 05, Weaponry (Firearms): 06
Advantages:
Iron Nerves, Leadership, Scholar (Intelligence Community Secrets).
Connections:
Intelligence Community (Low).
Drawbacks:
Authority Figure, Public ID.
Motivation:
Responsibility of Power.
Occupation:
Head of Global Frequency.
Wealth:
015
Equipment:
Global Frequency Phone [BODY 04, Radio Communications (Scrambled): 19, Misc. Advantage (Allow Remote Sensing from Central Operations)].
Source of Character: Global Frequency by Warren Ellis.