Somewhere and at some point in the cosmic history of infinite worlds, a humble engineer known only by the name Agrahi [Sanskrit: आग्रही] discovered the blueprints¹ of what would eventuate into the Omniportal: a mad marvel of ingenuity capable of opening gateways throughout the omniverse².

While the portal was not without its limitations, Agrahi found himself suddenly with the implicit powers of being a multiversal traveler, able to transcend dimensional boundaries of both space and time and beyond -- across entire universes and their continuities.

Compelled by forces he could neither explain nor deny, and at the risk of losing his mind to such power, Agrahi devoted himself toward the founding of the Omniversal Intelligence Truth-Force [O.M.I.T.], a clandestine organization with branches in as many universes as the portal could reach.

Much later on the omniversal scale of time, in some other disparate corner of the cosmos, an extradimensional Stranger begins to traverse the multiverses, abducting new specimens to his base planet Labworld for his ongoing studies and research. The intent (and extent) of the conducted experiments is unknown, but at his hands, many of the captured subjects would come to meet their demise, much to his frustration and disappointment.

Little does the Stranger know, the essences of these individuals are of a nature that is far from easily destroyed, and are instead merely displaced -- to an alternate Earth that orbits the Stranger's planet, itself long-ago stolen from the New Universe.

This world is that Earth. A reality where life has always been relatively "normal."³

Having no corporeal forms in this world, the displaced consciousnesses began manifesting seemingly at random within individuals of this world's general population, forcing these 'hosts' to exhibit terrifying symptoms of dissociative identity disorder that often led to institutionalization if not far more tragic endings.

In 2014, two years after these strange, albeit rare, incidences began cropping up under the public's radar, O.M.I.T. began instituting a covert operation to address the issue. Armed with privately funded resources, mysterious channels of information and suspiciously advanced technology, the agency sought -- successfully -- to determine the separate strains of consciousness within those afflicted with the 'disorder,' with the intention of permanently extracting the parasitical alter-identity.

Unable to fully achieve their larger goal, the agency developed a temporary solution: A way to obstruct the emergence of the other identity using a calibrated, globally transmitted particle wave that functions much like a general anesthesia in suppressing the neuronal mechanisms of the 'foreign' consciousness.

While the solution was not failproof and brief episodes of the alter-identity crisis continued to randomly occur among the global population, those incidences were sporadic and few, and the project was considered a success.

However, unknown to the agency, an operative within the project itself was one of these 'shifters' who discovered his own related status after experiencing one such accidental episode with his alter-identity. Under strict secrecy and with motives yet known, this agent has since then begun deactivating the globally transmitted inhibitors for one week each month, allowing the periodical emergence of the world's alter-identities...

1. For the geekery of tying in this prelude to canon lore, these blueprints may be attributed to Krona of DC canon, a near-immortal Oan scientist obsessed with the true origins of the cosmos. This obsession once led to his construction of a machine that broke through temporal barriers, allowing him to see back through time to the beginning of all things. The momentary success of his endeavor is said to have caused the birth of evil itself, as well as replicating Krona's own universe an unknown number of times, spawning the collection of parallel universes of the DC multiverse, along with the extradimensional Antimatter Universe.
   
   
2. Omniverse: A concept in western superhero comic books of an all-encompassing reality that every real and fictional universe is a part of.
   
   
3. Earth-148611, also known as The World Outside Your Window, canonically hails from the Marvel multiverse and was conceived to be "a distinctly separate world, fully divorced from the mainstream continuity of the Marvel Universe, consisting of its own continuing characters and stories in a more realistic setting. There would be no hidden races, gods, mythological beings, magic, or supertechnology. Superhuman characters and powers would be limited and thus more subdued in their activities, yet their actions would have more realistic consequences. This was in contrast to the traditional Marvel Universe, which always purported to take place in a mirror of the real world where public knowledge of superheroes, supervillains and their activities had little effect on normal day-to-day business." [Source: Wikipedia]
   
   To avoid any inevitable discrepancies with incorporating an omniversal timeline (allowing for characters to be pulled from various 'verses and at best-suited points in the respective cv's continuity), we can consider the game-world to be set chronologically prior to any canon events that depict paranormals on Earth-148611.