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Old 01-16-2015, 03:24 PM   #31
Agemegos
 
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As I understand it the Cosmic Energy does not bring with it the entire cartoonish physics of the comic books. Superpowered punches will kill people — crush their heads or sides or rip right through them — including supers whose powerset happens not to include superscience toughness. Superstrong characters attempting to lift big things well within their strength will instead tear through them or tear chunks off them, drive their own feet into the ground, or overbalance and fall — outside of the funny pages strength doesn't negate the need to keep centre of mass above area of support.

Some of the rather horrid early mistakes will result from people trying to apply naive Aristotelean physics and ideas they got from comics and special-effects movies to a much grittier setting.
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Old 01-16-2015, 03:25 PM   #32
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Only in the eyes of rather crazed Americans.
0_o
'MURICA.

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And even in America not having a birth certificate is going to cause people to consider you pretty strange. Note that we require you to give up your anonymity to have a job (for taxes and immigration status purposes), or to own a piece of real estate (likewise for tax purposes), or to claim a welfare check (as an antifraud measure).
Oh, I agree there would be a push to register all people with powers. I just wonder at the severity of the push, whether they just have a bit of paperwork to fill out or if it's forced internment for several months at a government facility. I also believe there would be a lot of supers who wouldn't want to do either.
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Old 01-16-2015, 03:33 PM   #33
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I just wonder at the severity of the push, whether they just have a bit of paperwork to fill out or if it's forced internment for several months at a government facility.
From experience with how the country deals with other problems, my guess is an initial response of not much, until someone with superpowers does something epically stupid, resulting in an overreaction which then gradually gets pared back to something more sensible.
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Old 01-16-2015, 03:37 PM   #34
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Some of the rather horrid early mistakes will result from people trying to apply naive Aristotelean physics and ideas they got from comics and special-effects movies to a much grittier setting.
Oh YES. I look forward to the shocked faces and dismay this will initially cause. I plan on playing this very gritty.
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Old 01-16-2015, 03:50 PM   #35
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...until someone with superpowers does something epically stupid, resulting in an overreaction which then gradually gets pared back to something more sensible.
So... literally seconds after everyone gets their powers? lol

Overreaction in this case might equal death-camps, hunter-killer drones or nuking populated areas to eliminate high powered/high priority targets...
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Old 01-16-2015, 04:28 PM   #36
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So... literally seconds after everyone gets their powers?
No; the reaction to 'people, when they first gain powers, are prone to have dangerous accidents' would be trying to find a way of predicting and containing people who are about to gain powers; it's not really relevant to people who already have powers.
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Overreaction in this case might equal death-camps, hunter-killer drones or nuking populated areas to eliminate high powered/high priority targets...
No, the extreme end of overreaction would be containment camps, and the more likely end of overreaction is just some really annoying bureaucracy. The stuff you're talking about is insane supervillain stuff, not in the range of what would really fly in first-world countries. You might get mandatory service in countries with weaker rights traditions.
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Old 01-16-2015, 04:36 PM   #37
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Hey, theoretical question... What social and political changes take place in the modern world when a wavefront of "cosmic energy" hits earth and grants super powers to roughly 1 in 200,000 people.
Social and political changes.

Most supers are likely to be benign or perhaps beneficial (commercially even if not altruistically). But there are over thirty thousand of them, which means three hundred odd in the top 1% for extremist violence. The combination of violent extremism and random superpowers will be very hard to predict or to guard sgainst. Such militant supers as do exist will find themselves in a target-rich environment. If they employ guerilla/specops approaches of keeping disguised or hidden and applying surprise and violence of action against comparatively soft targets they will do a great deal of damage before they are identified and destroyed. And you have to figure that some will attempt decapitation strikes against enemy leadership.

Large-scales conflicts in which significant populations find themselves bereaved, deprived, and endangered will produce militant supers as certainly as they produce militias and insurgencies. A very high proportion of Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan, North Korean, Caucasian, Ukrainian, and possibly Sri Lankan, Afghan, and Pakistani supers will likely be militant.

Super powers appearing at random will tend to appear much more copiously among the oppressed masses than among the oppressive elites. Unless the elites can quiickly identify and either recruit or destroy them supers will tend to counterbalance oppressive regimes' preponderance of armed force. But don't suppose that that means a World Spring for Democracy: snti-democratic ideas of theocratic, statist, and authoritarian character are more widely popular than the principles of democracy are understood.

Outside of places where actual wars are going on, you have to have some concern for crackpot views and nutty fringes. Any political, racist, bigoted, or conspiracy-theorist section of opinion might get a super. Any such body of belief with 200,000 adherents will probably get at least one. So think of anyone who has been demonised in widespread propaganda lately. Muslims. Obama. Putin. Kim. Assad. The Koch brothers. The governors of the Fed and board of the World Bank. Bankers. Senior executives of oil, pharmaceutical, and agricultural companies. Congresscritters. Abortinists. Vaccinators. The Queen of the UK and Duke of Edinburgh. There are a lot more likely targets than possible defenders. And huge numbers of people everywhere believe that these people are engaged in the most terrible conspiracies.
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Old 01-16-2015, 04:50 PM   #38
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From experience with how the country deals with other problems, my guess is an initial response of not much, until someone with superpowers does something epically stupid, resulting in an overreaction which then gradually gets pared back to something more sensible.
Paring down governmental powers is a long hard road not always traveled. Look at how we still have the Patriot Act and "enhanced interrogation techniques", despite its overt illegality under the constitution and international treaties.
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Old 01-16-2015, 04:52 PM   #39
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Doomsday cults and mass revivals would sweep the globe. Major religions will suffer schisms as they try to define the whys according to their world views and inevitably disagree.
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Old 01-16-2015, 05:04 PM   #40
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In the USA, somewhat more than four law enforcement officers and seven members of the armed forces (not counting national guards) will acquire superpowers. Also, at least ten prisoners.
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