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Effects of the modern world on comic book worlds.


pinecone

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1 hour ago, Tjack said:


    Could Supers operate legally in San Francisco?  Probably not.   Could that city really use a Batman or The Question patrolling the streets......ehhhhhhh, maybe.

 

"Operate" is the key word here. If it implies vigilantism, then there are a lot of places where supers logically wouldn't be allowed to operate.

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1 hour ago, Tjack said:


    Could Supers operate legally in San Francisco?  Probably not.   Could that city really use a Batman or The Question patrolling the streets......ehhhhhhh, maybe.

But could a area crowd fund a vigilante? Maybe... SF really is in melt down mode. But just like Tony, internet giants might have super powered security that is Totally Not the founder of the company.

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Lets say Zuckerberg suddenly starts promoting and branding a superhero with a costume and secret ID.  Upon what conceivable basis would anyone assume it was him?  The natural assumption is that it is someone else he's bankrolling, nobody would figure he was out there doing anything.  Rich, powerful guys with money don't go fight crime, they pay OTHER people to do that.  Iron Man being an employee wearing Stark tech makes a hell of a lot more sense than that its Tony Stark.

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Except Stark was impacted by one of his own missiles and the death of Yinsen. He felt a need to make things right. You can't pay other people for that.

 

Sure, but that's why he did it, not what people would expect him to do.  The perception is, for some bizarre reason, that it would be unbelievable that someone other than he was wearing that suit.  In the movie, Stark even says "nobody will believe this" but everyone WOULD believe it.  I mean, Stark telling everyone he was in the suit was a great moment and worked for the movie but the story would have worked.

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19 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

San Francisco which has ceased prosecuting property crimes or less than $900, causing widespread shoplifting and car break ins. Couple this with the fact that you can and will be prosecuted for defending yourself and your property in the same city, and how partisan the city authorities have become, could Supers, other than vigilantes be able

to operate in San Francisco? 

 

Yes, absolutely, so long as they were down with said authorities' partisan lines, and their public actions and personae fit the acceptable narratives.  No white Nationalist paramilitary captains or Aryan ubermenchen, for instance.  

 

Heck, SF could have a sponsored hero team, like the Rainbow Warriors or something.... hmmm... the Create a Hero Theme Team thread has been quiet lately....  

 

On 6/20/2021 at 7:26 AM, LoneWolf said:

an app is not needed. Police band radios have been around for a long time.   All any hero needs to do is to monitor those frequencies for alerts to crimes in progress.

I think I heard something about police &c moving to new digital systems that can't just be picked up that way.

 

 

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The frozen in time thing works really well for a campaign though.  I've never had a Champions game last more than a few years (or any other, for that matter).  My gaming group was easily distracted and would swap campaigns a lot.  For a while we just played Warhammer Quest (which was a lot of fun by the way), for example.  So not having things change a lot in a campaign makes no real difference.

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2 hours ago, Terminax said:

Lawsuits would kill it unless current laws are changed.

But in a Super universe, they would Have to change.

1 hour ago, Opal said:

 

Yes, absolutely, so long as they were down with said authorities' partisan lines, and their public actions and personae fit the acceptable narratives.  No white Nationalist paramilitary captains or Aryan ubermenchen, for instance.  

 

Heck, SF could have a sponsored hero team, like the Rainbow Warriors or something.... hmmm... the Create a Hero Theme Team thread has been quiet lately....  

 

I think I heard something about police &c moving to new digital systems that can't just be picked up that way.

 

 

Yeah, as long as the politics match, it could work.

 

On the radios, there is a thing called operational security, so moving to a more secure means just makes sense. Bad guys can own radios just as much as good guys. I could easily see Viper monitering the police radio, then launching ops when something "big" happens, because both the police, and the supers will be busy.

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On 6/19/2021 at 5:13 PM, assault said:

I remember a short story in Space Gamer magazine in the early 80s that started with a young super getting a message on his pager. He then went and logged in to a secure network to get the details of his mission.

 

So even in the early 80s, the idea of an on-call gig based system for superheroes was around.

 

There were stats for the characters at the end of the story. IIRC, for V&V, Superhero 2044 - and first edition Champions.

I think Aaron Alston had the "Hero net" as a concept Way back when. In my own games I expanded on the idea with the Heroic Examination, and Registration Org. (HERO) a federal agency that ran the HERO.net and maintained records on registered members. Want to join our team? Lets check Hero.net Hmmm lots of property damage, and you don't have insurance...sorry. Hero reg. allows members to have their Super ID be a legal person, so you can buy insurance, testify in costume etc....

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In 2003, I was a driver for a money transfer company out of Santa Clara. Our AO was from Monterrey to Sacramento, to Vallejo. When I started, the company had switched from CB radio to Nextel phones. These were encrypted and secure using the cel network as push to talk Wallis talkies. There was one phone per truck. So encrypted coms are nothing new. Police continue to use radio because it’s independent from the cel network; it’s cheap, and they have already purchased it. Budget and stuff, you know. 

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3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

The frozen in time thing works really well for a campaign though.  I've never had a Champions game last more than a few years (or any other, for that matter).  My gaming group was easily distracted and would swap campaigns a lot.  For a while we just played Warhammer Quest (which was a lot of fun by the way), for example.  So not having things change a lot in a campaign makes no real difference.

I kind of find tha a little sad, actually, because my FH campaign Started in 1991, but only ended in 2003. I plan on eventually standing it up again, as an online game using Tabletop Simulator.

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Oh, I would love to have run a really long-term campaign.  Every time people wanted to play something else it kind of broke my heart.  I would pour days into prepping for each game, building the settings, etc.  It felt like they were rejecting my work.  BUt they would do it  no matter who ran.  Let's play Star Wars now!  Let's play a wild west game!  I have an idea for an Indiana Jones game!  I bought a new game, let's try it!  *sigh* ok (crumpling up notes)

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3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

The frozen in time thing works really well for a campaign though.  I've never had a Champions game last more than a few years (or any other, for that matter).  My gaming group was easily distracted and would swap campaigns a lot.  For a while we just played Warhammer Quest (which was a lot of fun by the way), for example.  So not having things change a lot in a campaign makes no real difference.

 

 

I don't think it was in the original, but the new Strike Force sourcebook revealed that their Earth was being manipulated by a powerful cosmic alien that became known as the Governor, in the sense of a device that limits the speed of a vehicle.  It was conducting an experiment on how it would affect a civilization if its technological advancement was artificially stagnated.  It was the explanation for why super-geniuses and super technology never caused general increases in the world's technology level.  Once the Governor was driven off, heroes and villains could suddenly reliably mass produce their technology and it started transforming into a more science fiction superhero setting.

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Yeah that was in the original Strike Force, I thought that was a clever device, but I've never thought it was necessary.    Its comics.  If Franklin Richards can be a toddler for 25 years, then the world can be more or less static without needing to explain why Reed's inventions never changed the world.  Comic books are about the illusion of change: IN THIS ISSUE, NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah, I've always been perfectly happy to give stories the same glossing over for the super-heroes, super-villains, super-powers and so on, that I give to police procedural stories for their 100% closure rates and to wackier sitcoms for having consequences for their shenanigans never come up.

 

When I read about the modern day and real world, except for super-powers, I accept the fact that the world is as similar to, or dissimilar from, the modern day and real world as the people who created it wanted it to be.

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On 6/22/2021 at 5:06 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

In 2003, I was a driver for a money transfer company out of Santa Clara. Our AO was from Monterrey to Sacramento, to Vallejo. When I started, the company had switched from CB radio to Nextel phones. These were encrypted and secure using the cel network as push to talk Wallis talkies. There was one phone per truck. So encrypted coms are nothing new. Police continue to use radio because it’s independent from the cel network; it’s cheap, and they have already purchased it. Budget and stuff, you know. 


For technology (software), there's also the cost of successfully migrating to a new system. Enterprise-class systems are often customized to a business' particular needs and competitive advantages (so they're not QUITE the same as everyone else), and that migration doesn't always succeed. Failed new systems mean companies extend the life of an old system, and department heads are loathe to spearhead ANOTHER costly attempt until it's necessary, or a few years have passed.

For example, a friend of mine from the Philippines worked for quite a number of years in the U.S. handling the payroll system of a certain Silicon Valley company because it was all done in FoxPro, at at time when relational databases were already standard...

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On 6/19/2021 at 4:59 PM, pinecone said:

So I got to see my girl today, for the second time since Pandemic. And I was talking on how much the world has changed, and how comic book universes have not kept up. And I mentioned that I thought the Avengers Project would have moved to a Gig economy model after MCU movies. And she really liked that idea. If you join Avengers, you can down load an App, that works like Uber, Door dash etc. Bank robbery within 5 blocks, are you available? Heroes can be paid bounties, and docked for excessive damages. And make a living as a full time hero, And live a private life, if wanted.

 

What other changes should the Comic book universe contain?

Do you wish to Tip your hero? Did He/She arrive in time? etc...thank you for helping Avengers become a better service!

 

Japan has a number of things like that.  

 

Tiger and Bunny:  Corporate sponsored heroes on a reality show

Yakuza: like a Dragon:  Cellphone app that can be used by citizens in distress to call mercenary superheroes. 

My Hero Academia:  Heroes supported by merchandising, deployed to matching power level threats by a guild.  

 

However, it's worth remembering that from its genesis the the amateur/volunteer status of most heroes was a major part of the genre.  It's not that superheroes are frozen in time. It's that they were never that realistic in the first place.  

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41 minutes ago, Clonus said:  

 

However, it's worth remembering that from its genesis the the amateur/volunteer status of most heroes was a major part of the genre.  It's not that superheroes are frozen in time. It's that they were never that realistic in the first place.  

No, they aren’t. What are they came from, was initially plausible, until the invention of Superman. Before that, the man of mystery were quite believable.

 

my hero academia, has a frightening level of bureaucracy, especially for a situation of a world with wild super powers just occurring in the environment spontaneously. However, Japan has had a prohibition on firearms since the 1600s, and a prohibition on swords in private hands Since after the last samurai rebellion, but there are exceptions to both, again with frightening amounts of bureaucracy. Even getting a drivers license in Japan is long and difficult.

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In the MCU as an example, and including the Netflix series; while they often showed modern cell phones, tablets, computers, etc. (with the assumed apps as well) - and the heroes even used them (especially in the Netflix series), it never impacted the movies one way or another - they were just there, like they are in real life - and didn't change a thing.

 

That is how I handle it in my game - the tech has stayed current, but it doesn't change anything.  In fact, if you read any of the recent episodes of my game <link>, you'll note that I gave one of the heroes an "UNTIL super-phone", that works interplanetary (I didn't even attempt to explain it) - and it has only aided my game...  In the last episode in fact, they did an intergalactic video call, which I again didn't even attempt to explain....  It was cool "window dressing" though, everyone liked it...

 

I also find it interesting, the whole vigilante concept from movies/TV - it was quaint years ago - but now, with PMCs (Private Military Contractors or Companies) on every corner, and any private firm able to employ them, not to mention high-end security specialists (used to be called body guards back in the day), who specialize in "full-spectrum security" (meaning social media, hacking defense, drone defense, physical defense, etc.), not to mention all the websites that think they're making the world safer ("outing" supposed pedophiles, sexual predators, etc.); I find the concept that a "super hero" would be labeled a "vigilante" a little absurd.  I think it would be really interesting to see how the modern world would actually react; citizen arrests are still "legal"...  Mercenaries have been around since ancient times, and no one has really done anything to curb that activity, in any meaningful way ("Soldier of fortune" indeed).

 

I think the government would react more like they did in the MCU and DCEU - feeling threatened by supers, as if they were a military risk or threat to national security.  That would lead to an interesting response over time I imagine...

 

Edited by Echo3Niner
Added DCEU
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7 hours ago, Clonus said:

 

Japan has a number of things like that.  

 

Tiger and Bunny:  Corporate sponsored heroes on a reality show

Yakuza: like a Dragon:  Cellphone app that can be used by citizens in distress to call mercenary superheroes. 

My Hero Academia:  Heroes supported by merchandising, deployed to matching power level threats by a guild.  

 

However, it's worth remembering that from its genesis the the amateur/volunteer status of most heroes was a major part of the genre.  It's not that superheroes are frozen in time. It's that they were never that realistic in the first place.  

But even in the comics the Avengers had a salary, and were "full time" heroes. Sure Tony paid them, but the Government would surely be happy to cover costs. (Late T'Chala took over expenses)

If Tony took them as a "write off" on his taxes, then the government is de facto paying their salaries...:)

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