Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

I've only ever heard of the WWII imprisonment of Japanese Americans referred to as "Internment Camps," not containment camps. (The Wikipedia article has zero sources that use "containment" in the title, three that use " confinement", and 32 that use "internment" )

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

They have often failed before.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Let's not de-rail the thread by busting Anthony's chops over a choice of word. If we didn't understand when he meant when we first read it, we do now. 'Nuff said.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Please don't forget C: Benevolent Aliens/Angels/Higher Beings have seeded humanity to help us survive some upcoming event or to, by spreading their genes, speed humanity's evolution.

Not that I'd really believe b or c, but if you have b, you'll have believers in c also.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

They couldn't assume, perhaps, but neither could they assume the converse. What they'd have to do is do full background on every confirmed superhuman. If everything about a person's history checks out in terms of birth records, no history of childhood abduction, etc., Occam's razor would suggest deprecating the changeling hypothesis, at least provisionally.

That is, if all the evidence is that these were normal people born to normal parents, then the simplest explanation is that they were indeed normal folks until acquiring the powers.

And the requisite background checks can be done within a matter of days, not weeks, if there's sufficient urgency, with the weight of the bulk of the dossiers returned determining which theory they think is most likely. That could still involve a short period of detainment, not on a permanent basis, but just so they can keep an eye on budding superhumans while they figure out what in heck is going on.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Depending on the nature of the powers, it's certainly a possible national security concern, even absent any probable cause to suspect specific individuals of being likely to use their new powers to commit crimes. E.g., somebody seems able to prove they're a long-range, deep probing telepath; even absent any mind control abilities to go along with that, there are definitely some agencies that would be too paranoid to trust such an individual not to sell state secrets or engage in insider trading.

Honestly, you'd probably get a range of responses from different government agencies and levels of government, with a lot of confusion and disagreement and left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing until things shake out. Say one of the early superhumans is a classic flying brick who engages in public rescues, if not vigilante or citizens arrest crime fighting, in a major city; you could have the Mayor of whatever city they show up in offering them a mascot-like position as city superhero, at the same time that DHS wants to detain them, CDC wants to quarantine them, and the Pentagon wants to test their capabilities, while the Secret Service just requests that he vacate any location POTUS is near for security reasons.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

People suddenly acquiring comic book superpowers is so bizarre and specific that I'd have to assume at the least Alien Space Bat intervention.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Which requires fewer new assumptions:

Radical physical changes do not impact the mind.
OR
Radical physical changes impact the mind.

Just looking at my medicine cabinet, I'd say alterations to the body impact the mind enough that there's a lot of time spent warning about the topic, and none of the medicines in my cabinet are likely to be significant enough to give super powers.

Of course, that assumes that super powers are physical in the first place. The change could well be mental, or spiritual, even if "Option A".

RE: DangerousThing
The possibility of Option C is one of the things that actually helped IMC. With the vast majority of supers appearing in the USofA(TM) there was a portion of the society, which might well have responded negatively, that took a "Chosen Land" view of the emergence of supers. Of course, just as many thought it was Option B, and for the same reasons. They essentially balanced each other out.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

That's even simpler. If they're born that way, then they are quite obviously not human. So they aren't protected by any legal human rights.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

As there are no real protocols to determine jurisdiction in such an event, I'm certain nearly every branch of government and authoritarian group like local law enforcement would claim purview.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

And don´t forget: the president or somebody he delegated this power to only has to secretly "determine" that you are an enemy combatant, and you can be detained anywhere without judges ever getting involved.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Considering an orangutang was legally declared a non-human person with rights, supers don't seem likely to have too much trouble in this area. Military and law enforcement may offer some extra incentives, though.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

A thought:

Since the thread is about Supers, how about if the phenomenon also supernaturally grants the affected people the usual social Advantages that Supers commonly possess, such as Legal Immunity [var, and possibly with Informal], Zeroed (Ninja, I mean, Super, -0%) [10], Masked [1], Serendipity (Aspected: only to avoid repercussions of Supers-appropriate behaviour and nature -20%) [12/level] etc.?

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Again, something you'd look at based on evidence, not make any assumptions about one way or the other. Whether the mind is affected or not would be determined based on behavior and (when you brought some in for whatever reason or on whatever pretext) psychological interviews, tests, and instruments.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Not obvious in the slightest. If they're born to human parents, and can have (fertile) kids with other humans, then by a biological definition they're the same species. Even if the latter part of that remains unconfirmed, I don't think you'd get any kind of instant consensus that people who suddenly display extranormal powers, but in other respects appear to be normal humans with the same physiology, genetics, psychology as others (apart from whatever specific variations in these may be tied in with their powers, which might well be none if no physical basis for the powers can be found), were something other than human, as opposed to displaying a greater range of variation in human capabilities than was previously assumed.

And even if it were determined that they were a different species or subspecies by reason of their powers... a lot of the constitutional and legal terminology on which legal rights are based doesn't refer to humans or human beings at all in the first place. It refers to persons, and there doesn't seem to be a definitive legal document that states that only Homo sapiens sapiens are or can be persons, and even if that's a common unwritten assumption, on the other side their attorneys should be able to react with great scorn to the idea that a person who walks around looking like a person, with whom you can hold a conversation like a person, grew up in human society as a regular person, and whom the authorities have even referred to themselves as a person of interest in their inquiries, is not a person under the law, when corporations are.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

That's superheroes, not necessarily superhumans. There's been a lot of science fiction literature with people with superhuman powers of one variety or another who don't get any of this. Shoot, even certain comic book superheroes in costume don't get the Legal Immunity part, such as the X-Men.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

That's kinda my point. No one knows anything. It's quite rational, I'd argue probable, that the sorts of changes that give people the ability to shoot lightning from their eyes would also change their mental state. Reasonable people who are charged with the safety and security of the public will want to get a handle on things. That means test subjects.

The initial reaction of "authorities" to supers, and visa-versa, will matter a great deal on how those subjects are gathered. If there are cooperative supers willing to help in the investigation early on, it'll do a lot to ease tensions. If nearly every exposure is criminal or uncontrollable, it will damage things greatly.

Media exposure would matter most in terms of public perception. Given a broad cross section of supers, there's going to be video of crazed pyros torching people alive. If no one is out there standing in the way of the fire, protecting innocents and helping "civilization" against them, things are just going to be bad. If you want to run "5 color" (more than just four) suddenly-supers, I think this is a great place to position your PC heroes. Let their actions be caught on camera, and that can sway the public's opinion of supers.

I'd also say it really does matter how strong your supers are. If your supers are essentially immortal, or nigh unkillable by normal means, there are issues. If a .338 to the head puts down almost all of them...there's likely less trouble. The power disparity matters, particularly in terms of consequence and civil control.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Eventually, sure, but at first you'd judge based on behavior in the field. If people who've suddenly gained powers are acting reasonably (or at least as reasonably as can be expected given that suddenly gaining powers is kind of freaky), you can be more gentle in your methods of getting interview and test subjects, possibly simply inviting them in for a friendly talk, than if they mostly seem to be acting manically or in an otherwise unbalanced manner.... in which case, tranq darts and sedation while you study them, if they're susceptible to such methods, might seem necessary at least to some.

But their initial behavior when first observed will give the authorities something to go on, is my point - there's no sense assuming they're all mentally unbalanced if they're not actually showing signs of that, or that they're in their right minds and just choosing to mess with everybody if they're ranting and raving and rampaging.

And how they're gathered will, or at least should, depend largely on how they present themselves. If they're destructive, of course you'll need to intervene. If they present in other odd or worrying ways, sure, you'll likely consider the more forceful means of gathering them up (even though the literature on how law enforcement should ideally deal with the mentally ill actually suggests less confrontational tactics are advisable, but I wouldn't expect reason to fully hold sway). But if they're presenting like pretty normal, slightly freaked out people, or even just enjoying the ability to fly or whatever or showing off a little, or especially if they're trying to perform public services (even if the professionals need to rein them in or give them some advice), then it would be counterproductive for the authorities to treat them automatically as crazed loons or the enemy.

This is a great motivation for deciding to become a 'superhero', of course, even apart from simple altruism or being a nerd who's always wanted to be one, pioneered in the X-Men comics (although still as just one motivation among several) - trying to put a good PR spin on the existence of superhumans before public opinion calls for you all to be put in camps or laboratories.

And the power level thing kind of cuts both ways. Sure, the more powerful they are, the more worrying it is to the authorities and the public in general... but by that same token, the less likely it is that you can just take out or control them all, so the more important it is to handle things right and not make enemies of those disposed to be good citizens until you **** them off by trying to throw them in a concentration camp... especially since the more powerful they are, the more interest the government has in employing the friendlies among them for purposes of national security, and keeping them on side will work better if you're employing carrots as well as or instead of sticks.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Well, I remembered that the word 'Supers' seems to be used more as superheroes, while Powers is for all sorts of superhumans.
As for X-Men . . . well, X-Men are kinda heavy-handed metaphor for KKK/Nazi racism/homophobia/other -isms.

Point is, people seem to want supers for the supers genre conventions. I don't quite get what's so cool about the whole set of conventions, but it does seem to be a thing. *shrug*

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

That's the reason why, in Wearing the Cape, the protagonist's team did initially decide to model themselves on comic book superheroes. Not only did the merchandising make it a good living, but it mean they could manage their public image in a way that would protect them from being "interned" or "drafted" or whatever.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

The more genetically mixed up a person is the more likely they are to become a super?

Quote:

Broadly, the genomic analysis found that on an average the African American genome was 73.2 percent African, 24 percent European and 0.8 percent Native American. Latinos as expected had significantly more Native American ancestry with the average Latino genome being 18 percent Native American, 65.1 percent European and 6.2 percent African. With respect to European Americans, the percentages are much more different than African Americans or Latinos, with European American genomes being 98.6 percent European, 0.19 percent African and 0.18 percent Native American.

From what I know of South America, I would expect something similar.

So Black and Latino people are much more likely to get super powers?

Doesn't the US imprison an absurd percentage of black and Latino men?

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

ok- A thought occurs, what if this happens ever time there is a WW, but since no one had reached the information age in the previous WW's the supers found it easy to 'disappear'

(this would account for some battle field and regular people miracles that are reported in both wars- it's not unreliable source it was a super.)

Maybe those more seasoned sups know what about to come and round up the new kids...

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

A google search for: "most genetically diverse country"

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Yeah. The melting pot and more modern salad bowl aren't genetic or racial concepts, they are cultural. The melting pot is a metaphor for cultural assimilation.

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

Sweet. My brother's DNA test showed some unexpected variety in our genomes. On to make a Patrick M. that can make "his" enemies explode using just "his" mind!

Re: Suddenly, Supers!
 

It's also been retconned as part of the reason Reed Richards had the Fantastic Four present themselves as adventurers and superheroes... he figured that they needed to take control of the narrative before being branded as dangerous freaks themselves, and one way of doing that was to be seen as celebrity adventurers taking care of real problems like the Mole Man.