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Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...


SSgt Baloo

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

Conspiracy theories would thrive in a world of supers. "Dr. Destroyer's behind all this health care reform stuff, just like he secretly planted explosives in those buildings 8 years ago." The scary thing is, a lot of people would suspect the conspiracy theorists might be on to something...

 

Heroes with weather-control powers would come in for all kinds of grief whenever bad weather hit some area. Ditto for precogs and people with hypersenses whenever there was some new catastrophe. Mentalists would get asked all the time, "Well, why didn't you just read his mind to find out where the kidnapped kids were?"

 

Notorious supervillains would have a very hard time finding a venue where their rep didn't precede them, in any jury trial.

 

The Supreme Court would be seriously overworked, in the first 20-25 years of any supers setting.

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

LOL! In my campaign, there's the SNN "Superhero News Network" where they report 24/7 about the newest info for a superhero.

 

Someone's newest action figure was released to the general public and he's going to be at Oodle's of Things for a product signing.

 

There's a speedster bookie who takes bets on the public fights.

 

There's also a superhero chain of restaurants with a bunch of memorabilia on the walls (think Bennigans with radioactive barriered picture frames).

 

A sub level to the city. After years and years of fighting and demolishing buildings, they just decided to start over and build the streets up (like Seattle) against the second floors of the remaining buildings.

 

Superhero blogs!

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

Conspiracy theories would thrive in a world of supers. "Dr. Destroyer's behind all this health care reform stuff' date=' just like he secretly planted explosives in those buildings 8 years ago." The scary thing is, a lot of people would suspect the conspiracy theorists might be on to something...[/quote']

 

In a world where "shapeshifting alien lizards are reading my thoughts" is a perfectly reasonable complaint, how do you diagnose the paranoid?

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

Imagine if a super team begins getting sponsorship, imagine if they got fans! And I mean fans like football fans, not celebrity fans.

 

"Justice League kicks the Avengers Emo butts!"

"Oh yeah! Well your all powerful Justice League hasn't saved the world in 2 weeks, but the Avengers saved the Galaxy yesterday-Oh! in your face!"

 

There could even be Fantasy Super human leagues, and super heroes will be moved from team to team online. Some Super villains might even be fans trying to boost a certain team/hero's arrest rates.

 

And don't even get me started on video games...

 

Also while most super heroes wouldn't let this get to their heads, some of the younger ones or brash ones just might.

 

"Yeah so what if you got the bad guy and I nearly let him escape? I am still ranked 47th on the Fantasy Super hero league!" And compete with each other or try to take the credit for other hero's work.

 

"Oy, no stealing our kills-I mean arrests!"

 

Not to mention message board threads that go on for months and thousands and thousands of posts about whether Captain America can beat Batman....

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

It doesn't even matter who wins in the end, people will still be arguing that it shouldn't have happened again,

 

http://www.panelsofawesome.com/2009/07/03/awesome-arena-classic-batman-vs-captain-america/

 

Batman VS Captain America. He won in the 80s, but can the Dark Knight do it again?

 

Hard to say since both of them are currently dead/misplaced in time

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

In a world where "shapeshifting alien lizards are reading my thoughts" is a perfectly reasonable complaint' date=' how do you diagnose the paranoid?[/quote']

 

By investigating, and finding if they are right.

In our real world, it is quite possible for someone to have a group that are "out to get them", whether it be the FBI, the mafia, or a stalker.

Although in our world we can usually write off the "shapeshifting alien lizards" the fact that they exist does not mean they are out to get anyone in particular.

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

There was a storyline in Astro City where a mobster's lawyer used precedent from cases involving superhumans to defend him. The mobster got off scott free' date=' but was later killed by the Blue Ghost. Good read (as [i']Astro City[/i] always is).

 

And at the end of the story, the narrator mentions that the legal system immediately got off its butt and figured out fixes so the courts would work again.

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

And at the end of the story' date=' the narrator mentions that the legal system immediately got off its butt and figured out fixes so the courts would work again.[/quote']

I didn't want to give away everything :D. But even knowing what happens, seeing how the guy does it is very entertaining. At least, that's what I thought the second and third time I read it.

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

*Modifications to Child Endangerment laws to reflect sidekicks

*Depending on the magical traditions of the world and how public magic is, there might be extradition treaties with other realms to deal with the banishment of supernatural monsters/beings

*A very creepy idea, thankfully not mine- read the comic Top Ten and the term Chicken Supers will chill your soul

*Drug laws modified to reflect "Super Serums" and other power-granting chemicals, both beneficial (Miraclo) and harmful (Superadine from CoH)

*Special certifications from government to allow supers to utilize their abilities professionally- you won't be using your super strength in construction unless you can first prove you have enough control to do so safely, etc.

*Frivolous lawsuits- "His supervision gave me cancer", etc.

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

The limits of human ability would be different.

 

We're used to thinking about a sharp delineation between what is human and what is super; if I can go back to game mechanics for a minute, we put Normal Characteristic Maxima at 20 because that's where the "nonpowered" games (Espionage, Justice Inc., Danger International, etc.) had it as a more-or-less reflection of the real world. In a superhero world, you're not going to see that; there might very well be normal appearing, healthy individuals who can lift 1600kg or 3200kg without appearing to have any other powers, and who no one would generally suspect of being super because, after all, everyone knows there are superheroes who can lift 100 tons!

 

We all generally have superhero worlds where the "mystery men" appeared in the 20's and 30's, and superheroes in the 40's, because that's when they appeared in our fiction in the real world. But we have stories going back thousands of years of people with superhuman abilities, and in a world where those abilities are demonstrable in 1938 or 1961 or 1984 or 2009 I don't see why there would be a sudden line drawn in that era. So there'd be farmers in Kansas in 1840 who can lift two tons and no one blinks an eye.

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

The limits of human ability would be different.

 

We're used to thinking about a sharp delineation between what is human and what is super; if I can go back to game mechanics for a minute, we put Normal Characteristic Maxima at 20 because that's where the "nonpowered" games (Espionage, Justice Inc., Danger International, etc.) had it as a more-or-less reflection of the real world. In a superhero world, you're not going to see that; there might very well be normal appearing, healthy individuals who can lift 1600kg or 3200kg without appearing to have any other powers, and who no one would generally suspect of being super because, after all, everyone knows there are superheroes who can lift 100 tons!

 

We all generally have superhero worlds where the "mystery men" appeared in the 20's and 30's, and superheroes in the 40's, because that's when they appeared in our fiction in the real world. But we have stories going back thousands of years of people with superhuman abilities, and in a world where those abilities are demonstrable in 1938 or 1961 or 1984 or 2009 I don't see why there would be a sudden line drawn in that era. So there'd be farmers in Kansas in 1840 who can lift two tons and no one blinks an eye.

 

Well, if you have supers going back thousands of years, it's a pretty safe bet that changes a lot of history--if you have superhumans on every continent, what happens to that slave trade? In feudal times, the serfs outnumber the nobility by quite a bit and are held in check by force of arms...but if there's one guy who's longbow and longsword-proof, and can rip a knight in half, he's probably not going to remain a serf for very long, if at all...

Think about all the painstaking troubles nobility took to define who was in or not in their family, and to "marry well". Now imagine there's a new privileged class of low, mid and high end superhumans. "Marrying well" means something entirely different...

The major challenge of that, I guess, is explaining why in spite of all that, human society didn't develop towards the formation of

"super-ocracy" or just eugenically intermarry to maximize the number, diversity and power of superhumans.

 

Although according to Roman legend, Caesar Maximinus was alleged to be 8 foot 6 inches tall and to have taken part in gladiatorial combat.:eek:

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

We all generally have superhero worlds where the "mystery men" appeared in the 20's and 30's' date=' and superheroes in the 40's, because that's when they appeared in our fiction in the real world. But we have stories going back thousands of years of people with superhuman abilities, and in a world where those abilities are demonstrable in 1938 or 1961 or 1984 or 2009 I don't see why there would be a sudden line drawn in that era. So there'd be farmers in Kansas in 1840 who can lift two tons and no one blinks an eye.[/quote']

 

John Henry. Paul Bunyan. Pecos Bill. Johnny Appleseed.

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

John Henry. Paul Bunyan. Pecos Bill. Johnny Appleseed.

 

Absolutely. It may very well be that history wouldn't have changed much or at all, given that if every legendary, mythological, or folkloric character were real and really did the things attributed to them, our history would be no different than it is in our world.

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Re: Things You'd See in a World Full of Supers...

 

Would Pet laws need to be adjusted?

 

Life Guard: "Oy, no dogs allowed on this beach!"

 

Owner: "You want to tell him that?"

 

Dog grabs and levitates the man several metres off the ground.

 

"Don't let go of me Underdog! No!"

 

Can a dog be arrested? What kind of dog school would it go to to get 'broken in'?

 

see Pet Avengers and legion of super-pets for the kind of animals I'm talking about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Avengers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_Super-Pets

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