Suddenly, Supers!

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

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.

You mean like the Japanese internment camps and Gitmo of the flagship of first-world states, the USA? Being first-world is not a panacea against a supervillain-state.

[spacemonkey]

I loved the Wild Cards take on it. It doesn't matter what the source is, without some type of .. divine guidance or millennia of evolution, the bad will outweigh the good 100-1.

In Wild Cards, if you have the virus and it activates, you have a 90% chance to die (drawing the black queen). If you live, you have a 90% chance to be disfigured by a random transformation (jokers), and you may get a power to go along with your new body. Aces and deuces are the 1% who get powers without a deformity. The deuces have powers so weak they can't have much impact in combat.

The deaths and deformities end up shaping the way society responds to the powers.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by spacemonkey

I loved the Wild Cards take on it. It doesn't matter what the source is, without some type of .. divine guidance or millennia of evolution, the bad will outweigh the good 100-1.

In Wild Cards, if you have the virus and it activates, you have a 90% chance to die (drawing the black queen). If you live, you have a 90% chance to be disfigured by a random transformation (jokers), and you may get a power to go along with your new body. Aces and deuces are the 1% who get powers without a deformity. The deuces have powers so weak they can't have much impact in combat.

The deaths and deformities end up shaping the way society responds to the powers.

The Wild Card series was interesting but there were details that didn't quite make sense. If you assume the virus affects only 1% of the population, Black Queen deaths would be about as common as autism. I didn't really get a sense of that prevalence in the books. And the Joker Bridgade makes less and less sense the more you think about it. If 1% of the population are affected, only one in a thousand potential draftees are Jokers. Add in that Jokers in the books are likely to have physical mutations that make it difficult to fit standard equipment and the Joker Brigade becomes a lot less practical than even Project 100,000.

Also we've got a world where people know from 1946 onward there are aliens out there but it doesn't seem to affect the space program. That said, the first few Wild Cards books are an interesting place to start. The first in particular has these neat little essays and pastiches with world background.

[Infornific]

A lot of how people react will depend on power levels. If you've got Superman level people running around, you're probably going to see a collapse of civilization as governments can no longer maintain order. The most powerful supers are likely to become states unto themselves. Even if they're trying to do good, any conflicts are likely to devastate bystanders. It's not likely to be pleasant. The Watchmen series has just one big super and he works for the government but even he is very disruptive to society.

Lower power levels are more manageable but reactions are likely to vary. Mind control and related powers are likely to be a lot scarier. On the other hand you might allow governments to develop countermeasures just to stop telepaths from taking over. Some of it depends on how quickly powers are acquired. If people gain them all at once it will be a lot more disruptive then if the powers manifest slowly.

If the supers are evenly distributed among the population, this is likely to shift power away from the First World. China and India will have far more supers than the United States. The more powerful supers are, the less important technology is for military power. That could seriously impact insurgencies world wide. Governments might compromise on civil liberties by licensing the use of powers, but not the powers themselves. No using super-strength unless you've taken some safety course, etc.

You're not likely to see conventional superheroes and super-villains, but you might see some genre conventions invoked. On the hero side, it might make sense to work with the government. You'd get a steady paycheck, legal protection, backup, training etc. A non-profit or corporate backer could also work. Costumes and secret ids at first seem silly, but there could be reasons. Costumes and nicknames might be seen as good for publicity or good for making supers look less scary. Or they might be adopted in imitation of pop culture. In addition, a secret id might be helpful for supers adverse to celebrity.

On the villain side, remember that criminals generally aren't that bright. So the ones who acquire powers might try to become traditional super-villains because they're inspired by pop culture. Of course they probably won't live long. The smarter ones will keep a lower profile. They might acquire nicknames but the costumes seem unlikely.

Supers fighting for religious or political causes might be more likely to take up identities precisely because they're symbols for the cause. If you're a brick type super who works for the city government helping out firefighters and SWAT teams, you may not feel the need for a costume and nickname. If you're working for a cause and trying to get clicks on Youtube, the more theatrical you are the better.

[David Johnston2]

Sports: It's likely that most "real" sports will try to exclude white eventers. Unless and until a way of detecting them biologically is found that will have to boil down to excluding anyone who demonstrated radical improvement after the date of the white event.

Stock and commodities market: Someone is going to use their telepathy or precognition to make it big. This seems likely to lead to legal restrictions on the ability of any identifiable white eventers to invest when government clues in.

The gambling industry actually already has adequate countermeasures against anyone who might, say, use telekinesis to influence the roll of dice or the turn of a wheel They simply write off the loss and and ban the overly successful perpetrator regardless if they can figure out how he cheats..

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Kromm

It's important to define how "magical" this cosmic energy is, too. If it actively defies analysis – that is, if the energy not only flies in the face of existing science but also alters its base nature unpredictably, despite producing consistent effects, and exists in a "the scientific method does not work" bubble – then you won't see tech based on it and you will make many people nervous. That kind of thing is likely to stir up both scientists (who cannot pin it down beyond "It appears to be totally random and all results are irreproducible.")

How about "We it's semi-predictable results some can not reproduce reliably there appear to be facts at work we so factors we can not isolate as we have yet to figure out how to detect them."

This will probably result is some powers being more common but no major tech able to reproduce them, though perhaps some countermeasure, like Jump Anchors that draw near by teleports to a preset location, Psi-static shield...

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

You mean like the Japanese internment camps and Gitmo of the flagship of first-world states, the USA?

Did you see me include 'containment camps' in my list?

[DangerousThing]

A good set of books (2 so far) are Brandon Sanderson's Reckens series.

A new satellite of the earth generated a generation of "Epics" who basically rule the world now. It seems that using your piers corrupts you.

All Epics have a weakness. In one it was Kool-Aid, another one it was one of his horrible songs he sang in the old days.

The Reckoners (as in, there will be a day of reckoning) try to kill off some of the lower powered ones. In the first book, Steelheart, the Reckoners are inspired by a young man to go after a High Epic (this category relates to how difficult you are to kill; it is possible to have huge powers without being classed as a High Epic) who rules Chicago.

The second book is our and it is called Firefight.

A very different take on supers.

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

At which point there's a serious motivation for supers to join forces:
Light Side supers demand that governments do not pass discriminatory laws because it is a wrong kind of law to pass, Dark Side supers do it because they just don't want to be in a bad position.

At which point you have one of the following options:

• The governments return to the straight and narrow path.
• The governments say '**** YOU!', at which point the joint supers forces either
  • Are defeated, at which point supers are either destroyed or enslaved, just like the superophobes wanted in the first place.
  • Defeat the evil governments, at which points either
    • Supers destroy the supporters of evil governments or
    • Supers put the defeated evil governments and their supporters into a situation similar to Japan and Germany after WWII

It wasn't quite so simple IMC. Many supers banded together for a variety of reasons. Some joined the government forces. Some went into business for traditional companies. Some went into business serving other supers.

Surely, some people were shocked by the idea that a super, because they were considered legally to be armed at all times, couldn't fly in a plane. Others were relieved, because a few planes fell out of the sky in the days after E-Day. By the same token, many, particularly foreign countries, were offended that supers were being aggressively recruited into federal law enforcement. However, many more people were looking across the southern border to where Mexico's government had been exterminated by by a drug lord with density manipulation powers.

I suspect, that as supers contributed to society and helped to prevent the harm possible by the criminal elements among them, things would normalize in some fashion. At the end of the campaign, the FAA was licensing radar beacons for flying supers, but those supers were prohibited from leaving the country due to the near universal detention of suspected supers in foreign nations. There were other restrictions, such as not being able to serve, openly, in the military, due to UN resolutions (not worth opposing at the time). Domestically, things were trending toward the general public treating local high profile supers in the same way they did sports teams.


Also, Sanderson's Reckoners are good fun. I recommend them as well.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

Surely, some people were shocked by the idea that a super, because they were considered legally to be armed at all times, couldn't fly in a plane.

That would not stand for long in the US as it would be a blatant 14th Amendment violation of Equal Protection with Direct parallels to the Montgomery Bus case.