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Formed in 1958 at the height of the Cold War, the creation of STAAR was a direct response to the threat of armed alien invasion. In the years after World War II, as US and USSR pilots continuously set new high altitude and performance records, an increasing number of strange aircraft sightings were reported near the boundary of Earth's stratosphere.
After the infamous Roswell, NM crash in 1947, the Pentagon took these reports more seriously than ever before. Although the records are sealed, and most of the evidence and witnesses having disappeared, the Roswell incident is the first documented crash of an aircraft of extraterrestrial origin. The remnants of the craft, and the pilots (one of which was reported to have been alive at the time), were taken to a nearby Air Force base, and eventually transported to the "non-existent" Area 51 air base at Groom Lake Nevada.
Area 51 eventually became the government's repository for top secret and black box experiments, set up to develop the latest in spy plane and stealth technology along with cutting-edge conventional weapons. It was hoped that insights from the alien technology would promote the development of advanced weapons beyond what conventional technology could provide. With these new, hopefully indefensible weapons, America would have a strong first-strike mechanism.
Citing the need for extreme secrecy, President Eisenhower established a task force that would quickly respond to and counter alien threats. The strike force specialized in quick mobilility and was trained to handle situations beyond the control of the conventional military. This was deemed vital to national security, since if it was ever learned there were extraterrestrials on Earth, the result would be widespread panic and open vulnerability to nuclear attack.
Tapping resources from the CIA, the National Science Foundation, and the conventional armed services, STAAR was born. Standing for Strategic Tactical Advanced Alien Response, STAAR is composed of, at any one time, only a few dozen individuals who have been recruited from their own disciplines to form the nucleus of the team. Consisting of top experts in advanced computing, astrophysics, biology, cryptography, communications, diplomacy, explosives, hazardous materials, and intelligence. The team is also rigorously cross-trained in military combat skills (including hand-to-hand combat and small and heavy weapons usage) and survival.
As technology has evolved and progressed, the level of sophistication of equipment allocated to the STAAR Team has remained a step ahead. Tied in to the massive quantities of data available from satellite networks, radio telescopes, and other monitoring sources, the STAAR Team stands ready to detect, respond to, and counter any signs of alien threat to Earth. While this much is known about the Team's charter, the locations and whereabouts of Team headquarters remain undiscovered.
There have been many rumors in the last two decades reporting the Team's disbanding. As paranoid fears about outer space are replaced by concerns about our own society's infrastructure, it is natural to assume that a team who exists to respond only to outer space monsters would be hailed as a relic of the Cold War. Some of these rumors are said to have come from the Pentagon, who no doubt still harbor a lingering resentment of STAAR's "black box" status and the fact that STAAR does not report directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
This resentment has also led to obvious problems with the STAAR/military relationship. While STAAR is supposed to have jurisdiction over all material of extraterrestrial origin, the materials from the Roswell crash have never been turned over and the existence of the crash disputed by the Air Focre. In addition, it has been rumored (by former workers at the Groom Lake Air Base) that the Air Force has been secretly studying additional captured alien technology, a fact which has never been disclosed to STAAR.
