Most characters on Multiverse Crisis MUSH belong to a faction, which broadly reflects their personal philosophies and beliefs about how power and influence should be used. Unaffiliated characters do exist, but aren't recommended for first-time applicants.
The Concord -- "The Multiverse belongs to the truly exceptional."
The Paladins -- "The Multiverse needs to be fair and balanced."
The Watch -- "The liberty of the Multiverse is in our hands."
An entity known as the Syndicate also exists, a loose affiliation of worlds that aren't immediately involved in the politics of the Concord, Paladins, and Watch, and which in fact was realized at least in part by members of each in the distant past.
The factions each have a simple rank structure derived from the following:
The specific titles associated with these ranks is particular to each faction, and some may have more granularity than others.
Note: This file is basically fully deprecated and under-informative; replace it.
Having existed only a relatively short time in the grand scheme of things, the Multiverse does not have as vast an array of great powers as might be expected. There are two organizations that formed during the dawn of the Multiverse that held power in all Sectors for a time of around four centuries, smothering attempts at competition until their unceremonious self-destruction in AU 26.
The Ascendancy was was an aggressively expansionist power which formed from world-local organizations that can, generally, be described as villainous. Its founding leader was an iteration of Megatron, and the leaders that followed him included Dr. Doom and Dracula. As an organization their respect for the rights of peoples was low, and what one could get away with as a member state leader was more defined by competence at combat and to a lesser extent intrigue than any notion of inherent rights.
This laissez-faire attitude has given them a more mixed retrospective reputation than their counterpart; while the Ascendancy was undoubtedly comfortable with allowing complete monsters run amok to an extent, rulers of strictly controlled utopias often found a home in the Ascendancy, which did not require the trappings of representative governance of its member states. Consequently, the Ascendancy was a place that could be heaven or hell, but which undeniably trended towards those two extremes.
The Union began as a resistance movement to the Ascendancy's aggressions, and cloaked itself in the trappings of heroism. Its founding leader was Optimus Prime, and the leaders that followed him included Nanoha Takamachi and Benjamin Sisko. As an organization it was primarily driven by worlds which dramatically favored modern liberal democracies, though it did accommodate what it believed to be benevolent tyrannies. A certain minimum threshold of rights were reserved to citizens of its member states.
The trappings of the Union were not reflective of reality however. While technically steered by an elected, civilian government, for practical purposes all of its power was held by its Elites, who were permitted to make spot-judgment calls with functionally no oversight except each other. This meant that its liberal democratic slant was mostly a front for a might-makes-right posture wearing heroic colors, and while it did plenty of saving worlds, the end result was strongly authoritarian and more than passingly fascist.
Following the Reunification Event of A.U. 26 which coincided with the collapse of the Ascendancy and Union, most states decided that these organizations had been failed experiments and withdrew to re-formulate. Now, what's left of the old juggernauts is places to plunder treasure and secrets from.
Updated November of 2025. Pending FURTHER update as of November 2025.