Project Corona/Staff
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Project Corona is more than just two dozen or more metahumans with remarkably marketable skills and a taste for daring. It's an organisation, with an established presence. The Project has schools and charities organized around the world, and more than a few of the members of the Project in Paragon are in fact orphans or runaways who came to the Project through their outreach efforts, finding the powered amongst the poor, the huddled, the lost and the disaffected.
This is deliberate; Dr Shepherd Sr feels that some of the greatest threats to metahuman development in the coming century is the potential harm caused in the public eye by metahumans abusing their powers, and such abuses are more likely to come from metahumans who were raised in a poisonous environment than those who were already well-balanced.
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Administration
These are individuals who deal little with the students directly, but to whom the overseeing of things such as base structure, political lobbying, and general executive direction fall. The most significant member of the Administration at this level, and the one people assume is simply the face of the Project, is Dr Marian Shepherd herself.
The Project's non-powered aspects outnumber its powered members almost two to one, but yet, the administration thins out more and more. Remarkably, the Project's highly-vaunted Doctor seems to run everything above a certain level on her own, something that has cast aspersions on her claims to "unpowered" status.
Dr. Marian Shepherd
Dr. Marian Shepherd is the founder of Project Corona and a non-powered individual. A student of psychology with a specialty in teenage development, the Doctor (as she is commonly known) originally founded the Project as a way to show the superpowered youth of tomorrow a way forward that involved an ethical and moral use of their powers, without tying those same beliefs to any greater motivation beyond the betterment of mankind.
Dr. Marian was in her youth, an outspoken atheist and even wrote many papers on what she called 'the poisoning of the child mind', through religion, but she put this activism aside as she became responsible for the public image of the Project. Stern, hard-minded, and with an oddly hawkish beauty for a woman of sixty-plus years, the Doctor is a figurehead to the project as it stands against selfishness, greed, and hypocrisy, in all their incarnations.
Teachers and Trainers
A range of individuals, some mutants, others normal, who wish to take up the challenge of dealing with potentially hazardous and violent children from potentially dangerous environments. Setting a thief to catch a thief has been Dr. Shepherd's watchword in hiring, and most of the teachers are a variety of people who have some measure of a metahuman power, yet not the kind that could be readily employed in protecting the city.
Principal Madison Shepherd
Madison, who is Doctor Marian Shepherd's only child, is an eloquent, though admittedly more mercurial agent in the school's administration. As principal, she is the ultimate point of escalation for any disciplinary problem, and she confers routinely with the school's owners, the Project, and with the teachers, acting as an emissary between the two.
Madison is a tall, austere woman who has inherited much of her mother's appearance, though she has her father's shortsightedness. It is almost at a point where her red hair, done up in a bun, accompanied with her reading glasses and a relevant book to the class has become an icon of fear to the students in the Project, who know that if she's visiting the class, something has gone very wrong.
As far as is known, Madison is unpowered.
Artur Sbu, Shop Teacher
Artur Sbu is another of the Project's powered individuals. A very heavy-set man, Artur has inherited the classic German tradition of precision. Amongst his classes, he keeps his eyes open and his attention on the students under his sway. Typically, his classes are very challenging, approaching large-scale projects over a long period, starting with a seemingly impossible task that he breaks down over the course of the year.
Artur can fly; however, given his weight and the underdeveloped nature of his power, he can fly a total of four inches off the ground.
Alphonse Wallsworth XV, History Teacher
Professor Wallsworth is one of the powered individuals of the Project. Unfortunately, his mutant power is not what one would consider awe-inspiring; he has a flawless memory and can memorize any books he reads, provided those books are of a subject that pertains to history. This particular power has been explained by the professor as relating to 'reality resonance', and he feels his many theories on the practicalities of history are entirely correct, as he 'feels' the echoes of history through time.
Alphonse is a well-liked teacher, with mannerisms that befit a man about twenty years older than himself. A mere thirty years old, he feels the need to cultivate a more 'cultured' manner.
Black Caiman, Field Trainer
Caiman, technically, is a trainer and an authority, and is in fact one of the project's most active field trainers, the trainer directly responsible for following the actions of the Vanguard. It's often awkward watching Caiman attempt to navigate press conferences or the like when she's caught off-guard, but by and large, her simplicity serves her well - she has a remarkable ability to simply not answer questions that she doesn't follow.
Caiman is also very enthusiastic as a teacher, since her particular class is dedicated to in-the-field demonstrations of team tactics. This translates in practicality to finding buildings full of unknowingly-hapless criminals and beating them senseless, something that Caiman has found quite rewarding.
The Junk Giant, Field Trainer
Though his origins are largely unknown, this former shop project has proved a useful trainer in his own right, and can commonly be found accompanying lower-level students on their missions.
Backbeat, Field Trainer (Resigned)
Another dubious authority, Backbeat is in fact a convicted criminal whose presence in Project Corona was by way of community service. While cautious about her involvement due to a history of vigilantism, the Project saw value in Backbeat due to the fact that she was a natural human who managed to hold her own against the dearth of metahumans, technologically and scientifically-altered beings, mages and other such "superhumans" who inhabit Paragon.
It's officially said that Backbeat resigned from the Project for personal reasons, though to put it more accurately what she did was break her parole and vanish. For personal reasons.
Marketing
The Reubens Group, or the Rubes to the Students, are the Project's marketing department, lobbyists, and corporate lawyers. Marian Shepherd has long since held a belief that there is no place for naivete on the world stage, and has therefore sought to recruit some of the most cut-throat lawyers and efficient marketers to go with the project. Public perception is important to her, and while she will not go so far as to try and enforce behaviours or the like on those she sees in her care, she does want to ensure that at all times, the Project can accommodate major changes.
There are only a handful of Rubes who are known by name to the project, the majority of them being marketeers and lawyers who operate at a distance. While there are ranges of Project Corona merchandising, typically it's more cost-effective for the Project to utilise its considerable 'face' power to impress the public with products that the project themselves use.
Part of this is also involving the doctor's strong sense of Ethics, which means that no member of the group endorses a product they don't actually like, or wouldn't use. The Doctor sees the group's embracing of this concept as a positive step, and the fact that the students are not simply swayed by the money and benefits offered by endorsement deals is another aspect of her students that makes her proud.
Willian W Wayneworth
One word summarises Wayneworth: Professional. Curt, crisp, and completely businesslike, his dealings with the students are minimal. Field trainers, however, such as Max-Q and Black Caiman, have more than a few times found themselves having to engage in a meeting where Wayneworth summarises things like Strategies and Structures and Market Forces. Typically speaking, Wayneworth is the man you see at a meeting when everything is going right. In this regard, he's remarkably well-liked, for a man who treats his job in such a way as to reduce everything around him into a boring, flavourless mush. It's when he's accompanied by either of the two more worrisome members of the group that Field Trainers start to worry.
Lawson Redwright
Lawson Redwright is to tax lawyers what Black Caiman is to garbage disposal. A short, dark-haired, slightly balding man in his forties, Lawson is utterly unassuming, especially in a world of flying skyscraper-flattening superheroes. This is not really a fair impression, however, since Lawson Redwright wields the law as a weapon. An iron gauntlet in a velvet glove, Lawson is almost always the second on the scene of any major disaster where the Project are involved, working on defrayed costs and liabilities and insurance forays as it is.
Despite what one might think, Insurance companies quite like Lawson. He ensures that they have an image as being fair, as he always presents ironclad cases for acceptance or denial.
So far, multiple liability lawsuits have been brought to bear against the project, and Lawson has deflected them all, effortlessly. From potentially money-grabbing rescue dolls to villains trying to claim some damage against the Project through legal channels, Lawson has proven a tireless and dauntless warrior for protecting the Project.
Sabu Minesh
Sabu Minesh is the Carson of the Rubes. It's his job to take what he's presented, and without changing anything, make it marketable, palatable. He is, in the classic sense, a spin doctor. Part of the Doctor's motivation behind using the Rubes is that she wants them to dress up the actions of the group without at any point lying, or telling the students to act differently.
This means that the main way they can earn attention to their actions is through endorsements and advertising. The students of the Project are only ever asked to make genuine endorsements - lauding products they like, and after appropriate peer review.
Sabu is the advertising lead; it's his job to hunt out contracts for the students' interests, and then, it's his job to make sure they are properly vetted. Ironically, Sabu appears to have a very skilled network of industrial spies behind him, since so far, he's avoided dealing with many well-known products that have later erupted into horror stories, whether by their means of production, or their possible side-effects.
Sabu regards the Project Corona label as his own personal seal - and he is therefore incredibly scrupulous about where it winds up being placed. Sweet, well-liked and just a teeensy bit on the other side of metrosexual, Minesh is one of the friendliest members of the Rubes, and typically the most liked.
The Seekers
These are the most remote group amongst the Project. There are no public records as to the identities of the Seekers, as the Doctor doesn't feel they merit that kind of attention; many of them have never even been to Paragon City, and most of the Project's active members in Paragon have never actually met more than one Seeker. They operate at a long reach, searching through cities and centres of population for people and individuals disaffected and afraid, trying to find powered individuals through the efforts of the charities.
Most of the seekers operate in quiet anonymity, enjoying their life where their super powers are useful, letting them be a kind of small-town hero, knowing that they contribute to the overall greater whole. Making their identities known would only hamper their work. Of course, the knowledge that there are Seekers can often make those in small towns and closed communities nervous. Some Seekers have graduated to staff duty, and it's even rumoured there are Seekers hiding amongst the Rubes.
| - - Staff - | Project Corona | - The Quad - - |
| The Vanguard | ||
| Bec Querel | Black Caiman | Michiko Yamaguchi | Sahbra | Starbuster | Thermal Sink | ||
| Other Students and Associates | ||
| Acid Light | Backslide | Caer | Emblazoned | Gator Aide | Hyperbole | Jade Gargoyle | ||
| Junk Giant | Knight Rain | Kosava | Laurel | Max-Q | Moloch Tartarus | Prior | ||
| Quarter Note | Sabhail | Speedmetal | Silent Steel | Sortiarious | Steelcat | ||
