The GNUheroes story forked off from our own universe around the year 2006. It functions in a manner similar to the DC or Marvel universes. The fork means that all history, prior to 2006, is identical to our own, which means that its history, prior to 2006, is shared with our own. A side-effect of the forking has been that a finite number of individuals have emerged with super-powers. In this universe, rather than 'good' superheroes battling 'evil' supervillains, the superheroes generally battle each other, and are often flawed characters.