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Quote1 The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an Allied effort made up of the best minds in the free world. Our goal is to create the best army in history. But every army starts with one man. Quote2
Col. Chester Phillips[src]

History

The Strategic Scientific Reserve (S.S.R.) was a top secret American war agency during World War II. It continues today as the scientific division of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The Strategic Scientific Reserve was formed in 1940 on the orders of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Though the United States wasn't directly involved in World War II at the time, Roosevelt knew that such a situation was only temporary, because Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich were the greatest threat to the free world.

The commanding officer of the S.S.R. was Colonel Chester Phillips. The same year the SSR was formed, he persuaded the American industrialist Howard Stark to join the agency, after a group of assassins sent by Hydra, Hitler's deep science division, tried to kill them both. Shortly after, they organized the rescue of Abraham Erskine from Castle Kaufmann where he was being held by Johann Schmidt, the commanding officer of Hydra. Phillips sent one of his best agents, Peggy Carter, to secure Erskine's release.

The S.S.R. was formed from the greatest minds of the Allied nations who assembled to battle the Nazis in Europe. The goal of the S.S.R. was to create an army of super soldiers which could defeat anything the Axis powers had on the battlefield. This led to the Project Rebirth based on the work of their newest acquisition, Erskine, and transformation of Steve Rogers into Captain America.

After Abraham Erskine was killed by Heinz Kruger, the top priority mission of the S.S.R. was to take down Hydra.

In November 1943, several members of the S.S.R. were in Italy. When Steve Rogers discovered that his friend Bucky Barnes had been captured by Hydra, he flew behind enemy lines and led a successful escape of prisoners from the Hydra factory in Austria.[1]

In 1945, the efforts of the S.S.R. were deemed successful when Hydra was driven underground after the Axis powers' defeat. While the threat of Hydra appeared to have been ended, new threats arose while the group were renewing their focus on more conventional world security problems. Stark technology began surfacing in the hands of criminal elements, and Howard Stark himself disappeared before he could be arrested. Unbeknownst to most of the S.S.R. Agent Carter had been contacted by Stark, and believing his account of his technology having been stolen set out to expose the true perpetrators behind the alleged theft.[2]

The S.S.R. was eventually disbanded in 1946, shortly after Agent Carter's successful acquisition of the Zodiac, and its former membership absorbed into a new agency, S.H.I.E.L.D.. After the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D., the S.S.R. became the scientific division of the agency, making weapons and inventions for the organization and training gifted young adults to become S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists. [3]

Paraphernalia

Weapons

Various military-grade equipment

See Also

Links and References

References

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