Superhumans pulling an Authority

[Whitewings]

You know, there's one thing everyone's forgetting in all this: Every government, in every place and time, without exception, is based to some degree on force and its application. Group A conquers group B and makes group B part of their nation, and that's generally considered legitimate, and it's happened in just about every country I can think of - including Canada, on the Plains of Abraham, when Quebec was made part of the nation. So why is not legitimate for a group of super-beings (group A) to conquer group B and make them part of their nation? There's a difference between conquest and oppression.

[Chuckg]

Whitewings -- forgot it? Check out my very first reply in this thread, where I post one of the classic definitions of government.

 

And the answer to your question is simple -- granted that all governments use force, those governments that govern best and most humanely are the ones that whenever possible apply said force with the consent of the governed.

 

And with bills of rights, civil liberties, redress of grievance, etc, etc.

[megaplayboy]

I think if there were activist conservative "heroes" running around using mental powers to "cure" homosexuals, execute suicide bombers without trial and with minimal evidence, overthrow any governments they disliked, etc., that even conservative activists would begin to have a problem with their tactics.

 

So it's not simply that the PCs are of one political stripe or another, it's that they are elevating themselves beyond human judgment or reckoning, and at the same time subjecting all of humanity to their own judgment and reckoning.

I can't see how any rational human being would find that at all appealing in any way whatsoever.

[Whitewings]

Originally posted by Chuckg

Whitewings -- forgot it? Check out my very first reply in this thread, where I post one of the classic definitions of government.

 

And the answer to your question is simple -- granted that all governments use force, those governments that govern best and most humanely are the ones that whenever possible apply said force with the consent of the governed.

 

And with bills of rights, civil liberties, redress of grievance, etc, etc.

 

Well, a lot of the replies in this thread seem to assume that there is a fundamental difference in kind between a nation sending in troops to conquer a foreign land and impose a new government and a group of super-beings doing the same thing. If such a difference exists, I fail to see it.

[Chuckg]

> Well, a lot of the replies in this thread seem to assume that

> there is a fundamental difference in kind between a nation

> sending in troops to conquer a foreign land and impose a

> new government and a group of super-beings doing the

> same thing.

 

A nation conquering another one isn't *always* a good thing. You have to be beating up on sombody like Nazis or Saddam Hussein before it becomes a good thing.

 

On the other hand, private individuals doing the same thing is scary, because it so rapidly leads to that "We're the rulers of the wooooooooorld!" attitude that this thread has overflowed with.

[Whitewings]

Originally posted by Chuckg

> Well, a lot of the replies in this thread seem to assume that

> there is a fundamental difference in kind between a nation

> sending in troops to conquer a foreign land and impose a

> new government and a group of super-beings doing the

> same thing.

 

A nation conquering another one isn't *always* a good thing. You have to be beating up on sombody like Nazis or Saddam Hussein before it becomes a good thing.

 

On the other hand, private individuals doing the same thing is scary, because it so rapidly leads to that "We're the rulers of the wooooooooorld!" attitude that this thread has overflowed with.

I never said it was always good, no matter who's doing it, I just don't see any fundamental difference in kind.

[megaplayboy]

Originally posted by Whitewings

I never said it was always good, no matter who's doing it, I just don't see any fundamental difference in kind.

 

Well, even in a dictatorship, dozens or hundreds of people have to be in agreement in order for a "conquest" to occur.

 

With a supergroup, only a half dozen or fewer people make that decision. That is a difference in kind.

[NecroBob]

"A small man steps from a crowd into the street, he is tanned and balding. Swaddled in orange robes and nothing more. In his hands he carries a gas can and a lighter."

 

Put this scene in and see how your pc's react. It will be a place none of the team is at so they cannot stop the man. If your response is that this only proves their stand point, I feel sad for you.

 

I'm one of those bleeting members of the masses of America. I have no stated political views, I bitch and moan over laws that make no sense. I am not a wise or just man. I'm perverted and sick in many senses both moral and spiritually. I will put myself down before anyone else can. I also have the pechant for pointless ill thought of rants. Do have a set right and wrong, not that I could put into words. I don't believe things like morals or good/evil can be properly translated into words.

 

The problem in your world, your pc's see that people as a whole are stupid. [i will not argue the point] They see them selves as able to right wrongs till the day mankind proves itself worthy of not needing them there to babysit them.

 

Your political reinforcement is what I've heard called as the "bulldog." You listen and do all these things for us because we keep that bulldog on its leash.

 

Change will never happen quickly, we are creatures of our own wants and habits. We are individuals and we as a whole will never likely fall into a singular mindset. Rapid changes causes violent and uncertain results.

 

They declare solem law over everything... good for them. Now if they don't mind I'll go back to festering in my own pile of filth. I'd love to do something for myself, but you know since you're all here why should I? I don't need to fight wars, you guys will stop them. I don't need a job, you guys will have to eliminate most since the installation of your super no polution factories means I don't have a job. I'll just sit back on this huge welfare fund that materialized to deal with that problem.

 

Playing for a perfect world is interesting. Starting off with the means to make this perfect world....kinda skips over alot of interesting things.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Originally posted by megaplayboy

I think if there were activist conservative "heroes" running around using mental powers to "cure" homosexuals, execute suicide bombers without trial and with minimal evidence, overthrow any governments they disliked, etc., that even conservative activists would begin to have a problem with their tactics.

 

So it's not simply that the PCs are of one political stripe or another, it's that they are elevating themselves beyond human judgment or reckoning, and at the same time subjecting all of humanity to their own judgment and reckoning.

I can't see how any rational human being would find that at all appealing in any way whatsoever.

 

Neither can I.

 

Then again, people seem to find comfort in religion.

[Allandrel]

Originally posted by WhammeWhamme

Neither can I.

 

Then again, people seem to find comfort in religion.

 

Let's not bring that rant into this, shall?

 

Patrick J McGraw

[Wanderer]

Re: Re: Re: Here's a scenario Wanderer's "Heroes" can't win, no matter how powerful

 

Originally posted by Chuckg

You *are* running a Monty Haul game, aren't you?

 

Even the Authority has logistical limitations.

 

Ahm, in that post I had just slightly exaggerated the actual capabilities of the group, to illustrate a rethoric point. Neutralizing a massive nuclear strike, or any other global world-destroying instrument is not actually something even the group should be able to without breaking a sweat, just snapping their digits. They should apply their powers and skills to the outmost effort, run, and toil, but yes, it is assumed that with big effort, they would be able to stop Apocalypse. The main point however, remains: there are acts, like choosing global genocide, that would disqualify even a democracy from legitimate rule. There are acts that even majority rule cannot justify. What if the majority wanted to legalize mandatory castration or lobotomy for homosexuals? Wouldn't be morally legitimate to resist that government by all means available, including armed force? If one major power was willing to risk nuclear war rather than, say, give up the right to release ozone-damaging gases, wouldn't be right for other countries to invade that country, and temporarily limit that people's right to self-rule, un til it has given proof that it has been reeducated to less destructive conducts? After all, that what the international community has repeteadely done, cfr. Germany after World War II, and Kosovo.

 

 

 

The individual's right to resist wicked laws is a fact. The propsed scenario magnifies the characters' ability to individually make a difference a thousand fold.

 

There a glaring (and for the likes of me, intolerable) hypocrisy at the core of the superhero myth. Either the will of the majority has to be heeded absolutely, and then even intervening to bust a criminal, or stop a natural disaster isn't morally legitimate, because the specific agencies have the mandate to act in those situations, not private citizens. OR the individual has the right to act to enforce the common good, to the best of its abilities, and then there is no ethical justification in busting a drug-dealer and not busting a murderous dictator or stopping environmental spoilage or resisting wicked laws. I choose the latter, and moral coherence. How Superman can go to bed, and ignore the thought of all those dissidents in Burma or North Korea or Iran being oppressed or tortured, which he could have been easily saved, is utterly beyond me.

[nexus]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Here's a scenario Wanderer's "Heroes" can't win, no matter how powerful

 

Originally posted by Wanderer

There a glaring (and for the likes of me, intolerable) hypocrisy at the core of the superhero myth. Either the will of the majority has to be heeded absolutely, and then even intervening to bust a criminal, or stop a natural disaster isn't morally legitimate, because the specific agencies have the mandate to act in those situations, not private citizens. OR the individual has the right to act to enforce the common good, to the best of its abilities, and then there is no ethical justification in busting a drug-dealer and not busting a murderous dictator or stopping environmental spoilage or resisting wicked laws. I choose the latter, and moral coherence. How Superman can go to bed, and ignore the thought of all those dissidents in Burma or North Korea or Iran being oppressed or tortured, which he could have been easily saved, is utterly beyond me.

 

Choosing death over what amounts to slavery under the hands of a small group of elitist SPBs seems perfectly understandable to me.

 

Doesn't it strike you, at least as ironic, that in several ways, your group attitude is the same patraonizing, over paternal "White Man's Burden" line of thought from the late 19th/Early 20th century? "We have more stuff than you, so obviously we're right, do what we say."

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by nexus

These aren't "heroes" they're arrogants tyrannts following a philsophy of "might makes right". The "reverence for the status quo" is the simple desire to give people some credit and not assume becuase I -can- do something that I should or my super duper powers give me some unique insight into the world situation or the needs of the common mans. Frankly, if these characters are that godlike, that divorced from the problems of the real people, I wouldn't -want- them in charge either.

 

Yeah, "Some" credit, not an unlimited amount. When evidence shows, now and again, that the majority cannot bother or muster the will to act or rise above its prejudices to do the right thing, then it is the individual's right to act and resist injustice or wicked laws, and if need be, goad the public kicking and screaming into doing the right thing (cfr. say John Brown). Undefinited compliance with injustice becomes complicity. The characters are just doing what any could do, and has the right to do, just their reach is magnified a thousandfold. A normal can spike a tree. A super can throw the whole lumbering operation in disarray. Just because a super has got its powers, its individual right to act to oppose injustice and wicked laws doesn't evaporate. Having super powers does not give a mandate of noniterference. Every individual has the right to choose whether he should exercise his right to civil disobedince and resistance, and supers are not different. Nor having powers strips away their individual insight into the problems of the world, or acting upon that insight.

[Allandrel]

Originally posted by Wanderer

Every individual has the right to choose whether he should exercise his right to civil disobedince and resistance, and supers are not different. Nor having powers strips away their individual insight into the problems of the world, or acting upon that insight.

 

But according to you, having powers gives the right to strip those very rights from others.

 

Patrick J McGraw

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Originally posted by Allandrel

Let's not bring that rant into this, shall?

 

Patrick J McGraw

 

Setting aside the fact that IRL, people _really_ want the only commonly accepted 'superhuman(s)' to intervene more directly in the world...

 

I agree with the ideas here.

 

How can someone with THAT MUCH POWER justify _not_ being politically active?

 

Superman, alone, could (barring Plot Device X) place every single world dictator (and their 'cabinets' and 'security forces') in a giant jail cell before they could learn of first 'attack' on one. (Okay, _some_ supermen could.)

 

_Just_ doing that is going to make it hard to criticize him. He's not harming anyone, and he's acting in the good of all the people of the world.

 

Of course, I have to say I agree with 'people are stupid'. I agree with this, because all too often, I am one of the 'stupid people'.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by nexus

The majority can falter as well. No one has said they can't, but overall, the democrative process has brought beneifits to the common man. As was said early, there is a reason Monoarchy is obselete. You talk about "arbitrary" death penalties where your "heroes" are going to end up killing people that stand against them, or disagree with them. Unless they're magical powers allow them to enforce their will without harming anyone. How long before they're killing people for wanting to eat a cheeseburger (equal rights for animals) or cutting down a tree for firewood (most protect the planet, after all). Now I'm not saying that all enviernmetalists are crackpots like that, but these guys being "activists" (radicals, IMHO) seem like just the type to go to these extremes. because, hey, omlettes eggs and these people are just sheep anyway, right?

 

You are right that kind of arbitrariness would turn them into despots. However, my point stands from turning the argument around. How much force is morally legitimate for the majority or the government to use, if ever, to enforce wicked laws. If the characters show up to free a prisoner that in probable evidence is innocent, and is being executed just to appease public opinion (and I challenge you to say this is not a plausible scenario), or lethal force is used to stop an ecotage situation that only damages situation, then it is justified to resist an uneasonable show of force with force, and put the escalator in conditions of not doing further harm. And if institutions keep escalating force, to the exclusion of proportionality or the moral rightness of the original purpose, then a point may be reached when even majority rule can be disqualified, and it may be morally legitimate to restict or limit it for a while.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by Chuckg

.

On the other hand, private individuals doing the same thing is scary, because it so rapidly leads to that "We're the rulers of the wooooooooorld!" attitude that this thread has overflowed with.

 

Just because it's scary, that doesn't make it wrong. Drug addicts are scary, punks are scary, yet that doesn't give the majority the right to oppress them. There are a glaring difference to starting to set up as absolute rulers from the beginning, and having to seize power because the majority definitely showed itself so shortsighted by unreasonable use of force that it gave you no other choice. Yet, it must always be assumed that common sense will return and people will rise above their passions, sooner or later, and so assume that one will be able to relinquish the reins of power sooner or later. Moreover, there is a definite difference between setting up a "I claim right of causal killing, all your women, and all your money" despotism, and say that for a couple years, a decade, or a generation all laws are subject to veto from a supervising unelected body.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by NecroBob

"A small man steps from a crowd into the street, he is tanned and balding. Swaddled in orange robes and nothing more. In his hands he carries a gas can and a lighter."

 

Put this scene in and see how your pc's react. It will be a place none of the team is at so they cannot stop the man. If your response is that this only proves their stand point, I feel sad for you.

 

It depends on what he is doing this for: is he self-immolating for an unjust cause? Then, as much as I can reluctantly respect his courage, and weep for a lost life, I claim the right not to be swayed by his sacrifice, and ignore it. Noble peopes have valiantly fought wars decided by their democratically-elected leaders to preserve the right of those countries to keep slavery or oppress or butcher their minorities. Does their courage make their cause right? Does their popular support make it unjust to quash their efforts by greater force? Isn't the world a better place because they lost, enven if their right to self-determination was quashed?

 

So if our monk is self-immolating, if the characters are present, they may stop him, or not (it depends on their philosophies about suicide). If not, they will consider what he is doing this for. If it is to enforce a course of action they think is not the best for the world, they will ignore it.

 

The problem in your world, your pc's see that people as a whole are stupid. [i will not argue the point] They see them selves as able to right wrongs till the day mankind proves itself worthy of not needing them there to babysit them.

 

Your political reinforcement is what I've heard called as the "bulldog." You listen and do all these things for us because we keep that bulldog on its leash.

 

Sadly, there are situations where setting up that bulldog is the best thing to do.

 

They declare solem law over everything... good for them. Now if they don't mind I'll go back to festering in my own pile of filth. I'd love to do something for myself, but you know since you're all here why should I? I don't need to fight wars, you guys will stop them. I don't need a job, you guys will have to eliminate most since the installation of your super no polution factories means I don't have a job. I'll just sit back on this huge welfare fund that materialized to deal with that problem.

 

Ahh, but if you and your neighbor had pulled your asses together and got around to stop wars and eliminate pollution, then they wouldn't have needed to take on those issues on themselves, isn't it? And if you had stopped your democratically-elected leaders from using force to defend their right to arbitrarily pollute and war, then they wouldn't have needed to take over as well. Enjoy your welfare fund and please use some of your newly found free time to better yourself and make a positive contribution to he world, and make some hard reflection about why this whole situation was created and how to prevent it in the future. Make a better work as responsible citizen next time. You are on test, just as you have always been all the days of your life, just now stakes are clearer. One hint: taking advantage of your new position to rut and be apathetic, or stubbornly using more force to defend your right to repeat the wrongs of the past is not the right answer.

 

Playing for a perfect world is interesting. Starting off with the means to make this perfect world....kinda skips over alot of interesting things.

 

Ahh, but the whole point of the scenario is that someone is given the means to make it, and the will to use them, and what happens as a consequence.

[Wanderer]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Here's a scenario Wanderer's "Heroes" can't win, no matter how powerfu

 

Originally posted by nexus

Choosing death over what amounts to slavery under the hands of a small group of elitist SPBs seems perfectly understandable to me.

 

"If you really can't see any difference between slavery and even a majority being prevented from arbitrarily doing whatever unjust or unreasonable course of action they might like, then I feel truly sad for you. If you really think you cannot live in no other way, feel free to slit your veins. I won't stop you. However, if you claim in your nihilistic arrogance the right to bring with you those who deem otherwise, children, and unborn generations, and the whole planet, then you are akin to a rabid dog, and need to be swiftly put down."

 

Doesn't it strike you, at least as ironic, that in several ways, your group attitude is the same patraonizing, over paternal "White Man's Burden" line of thought from the late 19th/Early 20th century? "We have more stuff than you, so obviously we're right, do what we say."

 

That colonization stretched past its time, and was the excuse for economic spoilage, doesn't mean it accomplished some good works in the meantime. Let's talk about abolition of slavery, unliterate masses being given freer access to education (the same one that ultimately allowed those same masses the maturity and means to claim self-rule), better health care and wiping out endemic diseases, better control of famines, improving the legal and social position of women, and suppressing aborrent practices like cannibalism, footbinding of women, and mandatory "suicide" immolation of widows. The paragon doesn't faze me in the least. The "burden" of missionaries and soldiers accomplishing those results was a damn good thing.

[Beowulf]

Originally posted by Wanderer

Yawn. How cliche. My PC would likely respond "While you wait for the bleathing masses to stop picking their noses while looking at the latest reality show and notice problems, dissidents get killed and tortured, innocents are slaughtered, the ozone hole widens, and the environement gets ruined for the future generations. If destiny has given me these godlike powers, it's my responsibility to use them as I deem best, to make the world a better place, and I won't skirt my duty. If you don't want to be part of the solution, stand aside, or be part of the problem"

 

Fortunately, all of the group has agreed that no character will be given that kind of Clark Kent boyscoutish personality, so the obnoxious four-color "noninterference" cliche will not raise its head (unless some PC were to stoop to widespread slaughter of innocents or casual killing from the sheer psychological pressure of waging a revolution, but that's another story).

 

All PCs and NPCs of the character group will be of the kind that want to interfere in mankind's problems. Objection rejected.

 

(bear with me a moment, hear this out)

Do you believe in god? If so you have an excellent paradigm of how one should act if they have godlike power. A moral baseline so to speak from which to judge characters actions. You just need to answer all the classic questions in your own mind about why god lets the world be the way it is (in my opinion answered well by other respondants) and then watch to see how far the characters deviate from the baseline.

 

If you don't believe in god, then you need to ask this... Will the characters commit suicide when they realise they have killed an innocent?

 

If not, but they still kill murderers then they are corrupt. If so then you might have a really interesting campaign.

[NecroBob]

Actually the idea you seemed to portray is the pc's take over and help to raise the world to be a better place. As Gm you are to present the opposition to such things and I believe the original idea you presented behind this post was to ask aid in finding this 'opposition' or thoughts on this. I think most ideas have been shot down.

 

So as a human being ask yourself how much you like it when people tell you what to do, no matter how right they are on the matter. True your PC's are working for the betterment of all but that still doesn't sit well with the citizen's. They cannot be everywhere at once and imposing a sort of worldwide marshal law can lead to panic over personal rights.

 

You stated I believe that the majority is not always right and conformity and mindless acceptance of things is something that people shouldn't do and something the PC's will try to fix. So why is it that a small cadre of SPB will always be right and that the masses should accept this?

 

I think there was an old 4 color comic style quote of "Stopping the thing you hate by becoming just like it."

[Wormhole]

The Scooby gang captures Wanderer and yanks off his mask:

 

The gang in unison: "John Kerry?!"

 

Kerry: "F**k!! And I would have got away with it too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their f**king dog."

 

:D:D

 

But seriously guys, let's just let this thread die the dishonorable death it deserves.

[assault]

One of the things that bugged me about this general idea was the idea of overthrowing "dictatorships". The problem is, of course, that deciding which "dictatorships" to overthrow involves making unilateral political choices, and then enforcing them.

 

In particular, of course, who is to replace these "dictatorships"? This leads to many of the real-world difficulties that are to be seen in Iraq at the moment. In other words, it implies tacitly taking political stances on real world events - that is, using your game to editorialise.

 

This factor is best seen by the degree to which this thread is lurching towards Non-Gaming Discussion territory.

 

Personally, I tried to deal with it by operating "in character", but really it can't be adequately dealt with in that manner.

 

It is, for the record, entirely possible for superbeings to be politically and socially active without adopting the kind of right-wing libertarian approach that Wanderer has defended here. Implicitly, that was what I was trying to defend in my "in character" voice. The activist superbeing there becomes a defender and supporter of the "Common Man" (sic), instead of supplanting them with their own activity.

 

The idea would be that their actions would be directed towards supplementing the actions of "ordinary" humans, and, of course, acting to prevent other superhumans from abusing their powers. "Abusing their powers", of course, involves trying to forcibly impose their own visions of utopia on the world - that is, engaging in the traditional supervillain sport of world conquest.

 

An "activist" superhuman (or superteam) of a conservative ilk might decide to overthrow a certain government. One of another variety might well chose to defend it.

 

This could well be worth playing out, but it would be best to do so with actual players on both sides, and a GM of almost superhuman skill, subtlety and patience!

 

And to briefly return to the "overthrowing dictatorships" thing: what if there a civil war going on in a particular country? Who do you support? What criteria do you use to make that decision? What information do you use? Who do you believe? None of this is trivial, and it takes you into politically partisan territory very quickly.

 

This could be a fine game, but, well...

 

Finally, not all "four-colour" sentiments are less "realistic" than one-eyed ideologues would have us believe. A lot of "realistic" game content appears to be game-world reflections of real-world political prejudices.

 

On the other hand, I'd really like to play in a campaign based on "Captain America, Commie Smasher". I think that you could turn it into a really fun "Doctor Strangelove"-type satire of "realistic" superheroic campaigns.

[Supreme Serpent]

Originally posted by Wormhole

But seriously guys, let's just let this thread die the dishonorable death it deserves.

 

Motion Seconded.

[nexus]

Originally posted by Wanderer

Yeah, "Some" credit, not an unlimited amount. When evidence shows, now and again, that the majority cannot bother or muster the will to act or rise above its prejudices to do the right thing, then it is the individual's right to act and resist injustice or wicked laws, and if need be, goad the public kicking and screaming into doing the right thing (cfr. say John Brown). Undefinited compliance with injustice becomes complicity. The characters are just doing what any could do, and has the right to do, just their reach is magnified a thousandfold. A normal can spike a tree. A super can throw the whole lumbering operation in disarray. Just because a super has got its powers, its individual right to act to oppose injustice and wicked laws doesn't evaporate. Having super powers does not give a mandate of noniterference. Every individual has the right to choose whether he should exercise his right to civil disobedince and resistance, and supers are not different. Nor having powers strips away their individual insight into the problems of the world, or acting upon that insight.

 

Nor does having powers mandate you to use them. Sure, I could buy a gun and go out and shoot anyone I thought was doing "the wrong thing". But what exactly, gives me the responsibility, or even the right? Such acts are generally called vigilantism and terrorism. These "heroes" are no better than any other crackpot that wants to force their will on everyone else. If a Homophobe goes out and starts "executing" homosexuals, is he a "hero"? I guess the KKK are "heroes" for lynching. After all, they were just excercisin their "rights"? Or are such so called "rights" only for people that agree with your particular political agenda?

 

One of the comic book cliches you seem to scorn so much is "With great power, come great responsibility". That means not only knowing when to use your powers, but when -not- to use them and how to use them wisely, not in some "I'm gonna fix the world" power fantasy.