The Emergence Of Superhumans

[Steve]

This is a general sort of question based on some recent thinking I've been doing for a Champions campaign: How much would history change the farther back the Superhuman Age began?

 

In Scott Bennie's Gestalt universe, the Superhuman Age began in the 1980s. It's a good example of a universe where superhumans came recently, and the changes have been dramatic and swift.

 

In the comics coming from DC and Marvel (and given the nod by the Champions Universe), the Superhuman Age began in the late 1930s. This has given humanity almost seventy years to get used to superhumans.

 

But what happens if you go back further?

 

Some time frames I am thinking of dropping the rock into the pond of history and introducing the Superhuman Age:

 

The Industrial Revolution

The American Revolution

The Renaissance

The end of the Roman Empire

 

How would history distort? Would superhumans become an aristocracy? What changes would they introduce?

[Peregrine]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

The introduction of superhumans is a special case of Alternate History. The general rules of AH are:

 

1. The farther back the change, the greater the effects on "today".

2. The larger the change, the greater the effects on "today".

3. The more visible the change, the greater the effects on "today".

 

Exceptions abound, of course.

 

The introduction of superhumans is typically a large, visible change. (It doesn't have to be, but it usually is.) It actually takes a concerted effort to explain why the introduction of superhumans doesn't make more of a change than the normal comics trope. And the longer ago the introduction of superhumans, the more effort it takes.

 

As with any AH, you can reason forward, or reason backward. To reason backward, decide what changes you want in place and figure out how the introduction of superhumans got you there. To reason forward, introduce superhumans at your chosen point and extrapolate. In either case, you should either insure that you are the SME for the historical period(s) in question for your local gaming group, or that the the SME(s) is (are) willing to help you and/or grant you the benefit of suspension of disbelief when you (in their eyes) violate plausibility.

[bubba smith]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

hefirst superhumans could be the ancient astronauts

[Metaphysician]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Another important question is "Are superhumans around continuously, or for whatever reason do the numbers vary over time?"

 

If the first superhumans appeared in 4000 BC or so, and are present continuously thereafter? The world won't really resemble ours at all.

 

OTOH, if they first appeared in 4000 BC, but they follow a cycle of a few centuries of high superhuman activity, and then a millenia of low activity ( with extremely few new superhumans, and lower levels of power when they do appear ), you could get something resembling normal history, as enough time passed between peaks for it to ( usually ) get written off as myths.

[Clonus]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

OK. The Industrial Revolution. Presumably we'd see things like Mechanical Man, The Theosophic Seven, The Air Conqueror, and the Scarlet Mandarin. Well you could see things like the Theosophists trying to throw the British out of India or some guy with powers or technology taking over South Africa before the British could. Me I kind of like the idea of replacing the Tai Ping rebellion with one that successfully overthrows the Manchu dynasty, installing a new Emperor who turns China into a credible threat. The Boxer Rebellion would be an attempt to overthrow him by disgruntled martial artists.

 

The technological trickle-down from comic book super gadgets is of course at best gradual and partial in the genre whether because you need cavorite and liquid electricity to make it work, or because the developers are aware that when everyone's super, nobody is. Edison may build a ship that goes to Mars, but he won't or can't put it on the general market.

 

Even so the balance of the Crimean War is going to be shifted against Russia. The French and the English would probably have more superheroes and they could do a massive number on the Russian fortifications. Some interesting results of this might include the British NOT abandoning the practice of sales of commissions.

 

By the time World War I breaks out, whenever that happens, I'd surmise that there would be substantial drift. Both sides might start out with things like land battleships and mechanical men, meaning that trench warfare just doesn't happen. Instead all of France might be occupied leading to a longer war but a less brutal one on a day to day basis.

[Balabanto]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

I run a world where the premise is "Once, everyone on Earth was super, created by Alien Humanoid Cachalot Whales to battle an alien race that looked very much like humanity. After the war ground to a stalemate, the supers expended most of their collective power to rebel against and trap their alien whale masters, effectively making superbeings an extremely recessive gene."

 

So, do supers "emerge" in the 1930's? Yes. But in a sense, they were around long before that, too.

 

It really depends on what kind of world you're going to run. The hardest thing for people in my world to accept is that Man Created God in His Own Image.

 

But I wanted that to be there so that Superheroes had their own kind of importance, because that kind of IS the basic concept of the superhero.

[Peregrine]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Another important question is "Are superhumans around continuously, or for whatever reason do the numbers vary over time?"

 

If the first superhumans appeared in 4000 BC or so, and are present continuously thereafter? The world won't really resemble ours at all.

 

OTOH, if they first appeared in 4000 BC, but they follow a cycle of a few centuries of high superhuman activity, and then a millenia of low activity ( with extremely few new superhumans, and lower levels of power when they do appear ), you could get something resembling normal history, as enough time passed between peaks for it to ( usually ) get written off as myths.

 

Good point. The change "reverses/inverts", and the impact is "damped out" by the passage of time post-change.

[AnotherSkip]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

It really depends on what kind of world you're going to run. The hardest thing for people in my world to accept is that Man Created God in His Own Image.

 

 

God tere could be 'more' powerful/active than the one here so to speak....

[Tasha]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

It really depends on what kind of world you're going to run. The hardest thing for people in my world to accept is that Man Created God in His Own Image.

 

But I wanted that to be there so that Superheroes had their own kind of importance, because that kind of IS the basic concept of the superhero.

 

This brings up one important theme in worlds where Supers emerged in Pre-history. That being that those supers becoming worshipped as Gods and their stories becoming the Myths of Today.

 

You could extrapolate history having come out different in your world, but the problem with that is the more different your history becomes. The less like our world it is and it becomes harder for the Players to connect. I think that is why most Superhero Worlds are pretty much like ours, but with the addition of Superheroes.

 

ie One would think that having Superheroes would be a huge military advantage. It is, but when the other army also has Supers the advantages can be more or less canceled out.

 

Also do you have your supers erase the historical events of your world? ie What if a super had been there to stop John Wilkes Booth from shooting Lincoln? What if superheroes had been able to free the Iran Hostiges during Carter's Presidency? What if Supers had prevented the Terrorists from crashing planes into buildings on Sept 11? These are events that changed our country one way or the other. ie if Lincoln had lived he could have made sure that the Freed Slaves were integrated into the Union better (His Vice President didn't want Slavery ended and blocked laws that would have helped the former Slaves, and helped pass the laws that set up the Sharecropping system), This kind of change could have made the Civil rights movements of the 50s and 60s either happen earlier or not at all (not at all because it wasn't needed).

 

Also one could put forth the argument that Supers don't change stuff that much due to their being quite rare in the population. You could think of this one as "Superman can't be everywhere". So yeah in Metropolis, things are positively impacted by Superman, but how other cities? I am sure that there are Cities that don't really have much Super activiity and those are pretty much like cities here. Though I would guess that in any world with Supers, there would be fast strong building technologies. Seeing as super battles can be long on the collateral damage. That could definately change things.

[csyphrett]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

A lot also depends on the power level of the heroes involved. Girl Genuis is sort of a supers in the industrial revolution with robots and androids and monsters running loose in a changed Europe.

 

Lower powered heroes won't make much of a change while medium powered heroes might change one area and higher powered might change the face of the planet.

 

Miss Liberty (a super agent) fought in the Revolutionary War as a sort of masked spy that only impacted certain operations for the Americans.

 

Superman's ancestor arrives from Krypton, destroys the revolution, sets himself as the head of the British Empire, and basically rules a world barely beyond the fashion of that day, having stifled most inventions before they could be mass produced.

 

What's needed is a first hero with his power ranked, then inject him into events and see how things go.

CES

[OddHat]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Some good posts here.

 

My own default timeline has Supers of one sort or another pre-dating the current Universe, and active on Earth since before life evolved. Or more correctly, beings with technology and abilities that would be classed in most Comic Book worlds as Super were involved in the creation of the Universe, the Galaxy, Earth, and Life.

 

In that campaign, this has resulted in a modern age that looks much like the "real" modern world.

 

Alternate history is great fun, and you can go any way you want with it. Tell a good enough story and your audience will be happy with almost anything.

[jtelson]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

The first/current arc of my Heracles' Children campaign has the PC's as Supers in ~Mythic Greece. I'll be rolling history forward by 100's of years between major arcs with the PC's making new Heros for each arc. Changes to history will be based on what the Players do or don't do; I'm looking forward to seeing where the World ends up

[Clonus]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

If I were to do the American Revolution, I'd probably turn to the poetry of William Blake for my inspiration. So you'd have god-like aliens like Urizen and Enitharmon sponsoring their favourite nations, while their half-human offspring serve or rebel. But that would lead to a secret supers campaign. Nobody can go public or the Zoa will deal with them summarily. The actions of PCs might swing the course of human events but they won't automatically have any net effect

[Balabanto]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

This brings up one important theme in worlds where Supers emerged in Pre-history. That being that those supers becoming worshipped as Gods and their stories becoming the Myths of Today.

 

You could extrapolate history having come out different in your world, but the problem with that is the more different your history becomes. The less like our world it is and it becomes harder for the Players to connect. I think that is why most Superhero Worlds are pretty much like ours, but with the addition of Superheroes.

 

ie One would think that having Superheroes would be a huge military advantage. It is, but when the other army also has Supers the advantages can be more or less canceled out.

 

Also do you have your supers erase the historical events of your world? ie What if a super had been there to stop John Wilkes Booth from shooting Lincoln? What if superheroes had been able to free the Iran Hostiges during Carter's Presidency? What if Supers had prevented the Terrorists from crashing planes into buildings on Sept 11? These are events that changed our country one way or the other. ie if Lincoln had lived he could have made sure that the Freed Slaves were integrated into the Union better (His Vice President didn't want Slavery ended and blocked laws that would have helped the former Slaves, and helped pass the laws that set up the Sharecropping system), This kind of change could have made the Civil rights movements of the 50s and 60s either happen earlier or not at all (not at all because it wasn't needed).

 

Also one could put forth the argument that Supers don't change stuff that much due to their being quite rare in the population. You could think of this one as "Superman can't be everywhere". So yeah in Metropolis, things are positively impacted by Superman, but how other cities? I am sure that there are Cities that don't really have much Super activiity and those are pretty much like cities here. Though I would guess that in any world with Supers, there would be fast strong building technologies. Seeing as super battles can be long on the collateral damage. That could definately change things.

 

The answer is, that the presence of supers has only changed events after their reemergence in the 1930's.

 

9-11 didn't happen. I couldn't justify the terrorists flying over the base of the most powerful superhero team in the world (It's about 100 yards from the WTC), and crashing planes into it. The PC's in that group work in shifts, patrol in pairs, and always have someone on duty. In the time it took those guys to crash the plane into the WTC, the most powerful heroes in the world would have been onboard, flown the first plane away, and saved the people. Plus, there's the "Grim and Terrible response factor" That makes a bad comic book story. It isn't worth running a story where the PC's go after Osama Bin Laden and beat him up, that's not what comics are all about.

 

Also, Supervillains messed with stuff. Prior to that, in game, a supervillain militarily conquered most of Africa and the Middle East. Because he was a villain, he saw no reason not to use his legion of cloned telepaths to locate the terrorists and kill them. He didn't miss very many. Ironically, he did this by reversing the fast building technology and using it against countries that used it exclusively.

 

Presidents after 1988 are fictional. This is for two reasons. One, my group has some pretty radical left and radical right people in it. Two, supervillains messed with stuff.

[Tasha]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

The answer is, that the presence of supers has only changed events after their reemergence in the 1930's.

 

9-11 didn't happen. I couldn't justify the terrorists flying over the base of the most powerful superhero team in the world (It's about 100 yards from the WTC), and crashing planes into it. The PC's in that group work in shifts, patrol in pairs, and always have someone on duty. In the time it took those guys to crash the plane into the WTC, the most powerful heroes in the world would have been onboard, flown the first plane away, and saved the people. Plus, there's the "Grim and Terrible response factor" That makes a bad comic book story. It isn't worth running a story where the PC's go after Osama Bin Laden and beat him up, that's not what comics are all about.

 

Also, Supervillains messed with stuff. Prior to that, in game, a supervillain militarily conquered most of Africa and the Middle East. Because he was a villain, he saw no reason not to use his legion of cloned telepaths to locate the terrorists and kill them. He didn't miss very many. Ironically, he did this by reversing the fast building technology and using it against countries that used it exclusively.

 

Presidents after 1988 are fictional. This is for two reasons. One, my group has some pretty radical left and radical right people in it. Two, supervillains messed with stuff.

 

So basically your America didn't have to deal with the Fear and Anguish of people crashing planes into buildings. What you would have then is the response of the American people after the Bombing of the WTC. Which was basically nothing, a small amount of apprehention. With most people still being VERY secure in the belief that law enforcement (and their Superheroes) will stop any terrorists. So the American people will not have the outrage that lead to the 2 wars that were started after the attacks. Also the sitting president wouldn't have been able to use that fear to gain another term in office, though he could have been elected for other reasons.

 

Basically that is why I said that it was a strong historical turning point. Changing that would logically have substantial repercussions on the history of the world.

 

Tasha

[lemming]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

The world I was working on started with a WWII campaign. At first, the emergence of supers was in 1942 (and a little before), but a couple of the players came up with good back stories that set things up to really start happening around 1900. Of course this was what was happening then, but there was already a lot of secret history in place as well.

 

The campaign played thru 1944 when real life changes caused a sudden end to the campaign and the end game resulted in the USSR being neutralized. So a rather huge change there...

 

I played around with some future results and sort of ran in a present version, but I want to go back and redo stuff. Just as a thought experiment.

[novi]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

The biggest problem answering this question lies in the types of superhumans involved. Mutants, radiation accidents, super-mages, and super-geniuses would all cause different impacts. And this isn't even counting other types of superhumans that could exist.

 

Even more important is how widespread superhumans are. Are they extremely rare, kinda uncommon, fairly common, or is everyone superhuman? Everyone's superhuman is weird and ends ups as more of a transhumanist tract than anything related to superheroes.

 

Also, how powerful are superhumans? Are they all over-the-top, planet-busting powerful? Or do they have low-powered weird talents? Or a range?

 

Also, what kinds of powers do people have? Just bricks, or blasters, or mentalists? Are they all only combat useful powers, or are combat powers the exception to the rule?

 

With super-geniuses, either Reed Richards is Useless, and nothing ever changes, or he is useful, and by the 21st century I have no idea what the technology level looks like, or if humans still exist.

 

Super-mages are almost as bad as super-geniuses. Mind you, there also an issue of who can learn magic - everyone, or just those smart/wise/virtuous enough to effectively use it, or just those with the right genetics. And depending on how versatile and powerful magic is, the world could be almost anything by now.

 

Radiation accidents are a little less disruptive, since they typically don't alter the fundamental economics of the world so drastically. The big question is whether empowerment is completely random, or is controllable repeatable. The former basically ends up acting as another source of randomness in history, and probably just gets us to a recognizable modern era, just with different names in the history books. The later is more interesting, as those who control the empowerment process would have a lot of power, politically, economically, and likely religiously. Excommunication might have even greater implications in such a world.

 

Mutants. Even more questions to ask. Is it a very rare dominant trait, or a recessive trait that only manifests under certain conditions? Are there different genes for different powers, or is there only one gene which somehow causes different powers in different people? If it is dominant, the world would be trending towards everyone having superpowers, though I'm not sure how long that would take. With powers that breed true, there might be a trend towards caste systems.

 

Another question is what is distribution of powers? Do they happen all around the world at the same frequency, or are there favored groups? Is it skewed by occupation, or region, or ethnicity, or gender, and just how heavy is the skewing? While this will obviously factor into the military and political changes in such a world, it may cause social shifts if it looks like one race might be superior to another, or if gender equality is in evidence further back in history.

 

I don't think that changing things during the industrial revolution or American revolution would change things much. Not that there would be no effect, more that we would still recognize the world. By the late 19th century, the rules of international conduct and business practices were well developed and roughly the same as we have today, so the emergence of superhumans and their effect would fall under whatever you think that should do in modern society. You'd probably see more sidekicks and legacies early on, though.

 

The American revolution likely would still result in American independence. There might be social effects, but I'm not going to try and predict them.

 

It's hard to say about the Renaissance; the European nobility was well established. Without more info on who got powers, I'd say it's unlikely that superpowers ever got synonymous with nobility. You'd have people outside the nobility with powers for a long while before even a majority of the nobility had powers, unless there was a massive change in what it took to qualify for a hereditary title.

 

End of the Roman Empire? In that case, superhumans most certainly would become the European nobility/aristocracy. Since that was an era in which political power derived from military power, it's hard to see how superhumans wouldn't gain both sorts of power.

 

But in the end, I'm saying that there is no single, good answer. A lot of it depends on what the result you want is.

[Redmenace]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

The earlier the supers emerge the more likely they are to be running things on down the timeline.

 

That is based of course on the idea that the genes carry powers and that they emerge in the offspring. If powers are passed on you will have a growing elite class and given enough time a master race emerges, not too many neanderthals around anymore after all.

 

If it happens early enough, say during Africa's prehistory, you might actually see powers becoming the norm. In that setting, Africa will be the pre eminent power of the prehistoric world.

 

 

Even if it happens later in time, supers are likely to out compete the rest of us, probably supplanting us as the dominant species given enough time and reproductive success.

 

Of course if there are competing emergences they may kill each other off often enough that we could still dominate by strength of numbers.

[CoreBrute]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Or it could lead to the creation of a type of kryptonite that can kill all metahumans. It could result in super humans hiding under ground, and a fearful society.

 

They might believe supers were demons from the ancient past, but since most of them are dead people have forgotten how to make more Kryptonite/Anti-meta Serum/whatever. And then the supers attack! Outnumbered, they still have the power!

 

Odd yes, but it's a theory.

[McCoy]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

In my timeline, anatomically modern humans appeared after the visit of the First Celestial Host, who created the Eternals, the Deviants, and mainstream Humans.

 

Originally Deviants reached reproductive maturity at about age 10 and had a life expectancy of 20 years. Humans matured at 15, and had a life expectancy of around 40 years, and the proto-Eternals matured around 30, and had a life expectancy of over a century. Over the generations, Eternals became longer lived until they cannot any longer be said to have a natural life expectancy, though some are still killed by exceptional violence (immortal but not invulnerable). Nowadays, Eternals under the age of a thousand very seldomly have children.

 

Sometimes during the next few centuries, a Human/Deviant hybrid and a Human/Eternal hybrid fell in love. Their first son sired the line of the witch-kings of Atlantis. They had a total of nine children all together, and all the witches, wizards, sorcerers, shamans and saints in human history have been descended from one or more of these individuals. Witch families have a low reproductive rate (Samantha was 273 when her first child was born, her older cousin Serena was still childless. Look at how many Only Children were at Hogworts, and how the Weasleys were remarkable for having so many children. marriages between witch and mortal seem to have a higher fertility rate than pureblood witch pairings.) Investigations are ongoing to determine if the Human/Deviant/Eternal hybrids crossed back to the Eternals to form the Gods of myth and legend. (Investigations are ongoing because I haven't made up my mind yet.)

 

Many of the legendary heroes of history either had some Eternal or Deviant blood, or both, or were pure mainstream humans of the type that would later be called mutants, with some random factor having activated their powers while their cousins remained ignorant of the genetic legacy they held. Then on December 13, 1795, a mysterious meteorite fell near Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England, activating the "X-Factor" in a number of families.

 

In 1894 a "Martian" tripod machine landed in England. It soon demonstrated hostile intent, and was stopped a few days later. Nikola Tesla, among other prominent human scientist, attempted to reverse-engineer the technology of the tripod machine (and the "airship" that crashed near Aurora, Texas in 1897) but didn't have his breakthrough until 1899 when Captain John Carter of Virginia visited his laboratory and shared what he remembered of "Barsoomian" science. (Carter had gotten most of it wrong, but his errors were consistent enough that when Tesla corrected the errors it gave him the hints he needed.) The age of Super Science had began.

 

In 1917 sixteen year old Clark Savage Jr. takes a leave of absence from medical school; lies about age and joins the Army. He becomes a fighter pilot, is shot down and taken prisoner the next year, and leads an escape from a POW camp with the five soldiers who would become his lifelong companions.

 

In 1920 thousands of onlookers watch as "The Human Fly" George Polley climbs the New York Woolworth Building. He has reached the 30th floor when a policeman arrests him for climbing without a permit. That same year Kal-L was born on the planet Krypton, and rocked to Earth as the planet was destroyed. Still that same year Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha were killed outside a movie theater, their orphan son Bruce the only witness.

 

1935, Bruce Wayne travels to the Orient, becoming the first Western master of Ninjitsu.

 

1938, Superman makes his first public appearance, and months later helps the military defeat another "Martian" tripod machine which lands near Grover's Mill, New Jersey. The next January newspapers start to report the existence of Batman. Between the two they inspired a generation of "Mystery Men," and three generations (so far) of superheroes.

[Steve]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Very good and thoughtful posts in this thread.

 

The change that causes the emergence of superhumans is a wave of energy that passes through the solar system and causes mutations to emerge in humanity.

 

Due to the nature of the change, I can see powers coming from one of two main sources: biological powers (the X-Men option) and technological powers brought about by mutations in intellect allowing for new breakthroughs (the Tony Stark/Iron Man option).

 

As far as time frames go, I can imagine two possibilities that appeal to me.

 

First Wave - The change occurred yesterday to at most ten years ago. Humanity is dealing with a sudden population of superhumans (and roughly 1 person per million gains powers). Gestalt is a model for such recent changes, and I would likely take guidance from it on how to simulate a world like this.

 

Children of the Millenium - The change occurred sometime around 1000 AD. Feared and hated at first, the superhumans and technologists became part of the culture, with natural-powered individuals becoming a new nobility and displacing the old "merely human" nobles. Many technological sorts were assimilated into the Catholic Church and became a religious order as a way for the Church to retain power. Others became involved with guilds. The Church also acquired their own cadre of natural-powered types, often third or fourth sons who didn't get an inheritance or daughters who joined convents that would accept them.

 

Of the two, I think I may get more mileage out of the second one, since most superhuman settings have the superhumans showing up within the last few decades. Take the Earth as of 1000 AD, add superhumans and then mix it up for a few centuries.

[OddHat]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

I use a timeline not unlike McCoy's, mostly because we draw on many of the same sources.

 

Superhumans have been around as long as there have been humans, with the number of really powerful supers going up and down in waves. Roughly one Human in 10,000 has the genes to manifest some sort of Fortean Talent or Talents under the right circumstances, and through most of history the number of active and powerful Superhumans stays at around 1 human in 10,000,000. Sometimes there are clusters of Supers, and sometimes the population leaps for a while and then crashes (most active Supers are sterile, though not all). Those numbers don't include Aliens and users of Mad Science. The years since WWI have seen the largest increase in the Superhuman population in centuries, mainly because of the number of programs for activating Talents that went into motion in the war years (though there are other factors).

 

The Timeline is Here.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Good Thread... Keep them coming.

 

Cheers

 

QM

[Steve]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Concerning the Church's interest in superhumans, I can see a papal decree coming out that priests and nuns of the superhuman variety are not to be celibate. This would allow the Church a supply of superhumans raised from birth to be loyal to Mother Rome. Perhaps even a primitive form of controlled breeding would occur, since marriages might be arranged by the Church. Be fruitful and multiply takes on a new meaning in this case.

 

As far as the technologists go, I can see them going through a period of hiding out, since the new nobility of natural-powered superhumans would see them as a threat. Technology could be given to anyone to use. Having the Industrial Revolution occur a few hundred years early might be twisting history a bit farther than I'd like. So consider the technologists to be a secret order and those outside the Church considered witches and warlocks for a time. However, another possibility would be something akin to the world seen in Girl Genius, with "mad science" used in places. A form of detente between technologists and the natural-powered could occur.

 

The New World in this timeline raises other possibilities. With superhumans occurring throughout all cultures in the world at the same time, the ancient cultures in America could develop in their own ways. Perhaps superhumans are seen as divine blessings from the gods, or even as mortal incarnations of the gods themselves.

[OddHat]

Re: The Emergence Of Superhumans

 

Church and Superhumans:

 

The Church in my setting has the Order of Saint George. Young Catholics world wide who manifest Fortean Talents are encouraged to do service with the order, and in return are given guidence and support. Some become Brothers of the order, or Sisters of the Order of Saint Tatiana.

 

This gives the Roman Catholic Church one of the largest groups of Metahumans in the world, rivaling the governments of India and Mainland China.

 

The Orders Supers range widely in power, and do not wear costumes or use code names. It is rumored that they include some of the most powerful Supers on Earth. It is also known that they have access to centuries of accumulated artifacts, alien and otherwise, and a body of research into the Paranormal gathered over centuries.