What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

[CoreBrute]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

Very interesting answers and while some people make me worry about who should get super powers, i think it would be good if one of you were the only superhuman.

But all good things things come to an end and like one of you said nature abhors a vacuum.

 

Since the incident your powers have increased, even more so if you were practising or experimenting with your powers. Your strength is now what in hero terms would be about 60 (70 if practicing). You've reached Mach 3 in flight and your reflexes and senses have now increased to where you can see/ hear and smell a bee buzz from a mile away (practise leads you to be able to slap a bullet out of the air). Your able to hold your breathe for around 2 hours without needing to breathe and pressure seems to not affect you. However it's become even harder and harder to cut your hair and your dandruff could probably form bulletproof armor if you let someone collect it.

 

Around 6 months after you got your powers you have a series of dreams. In your dream you see the following from above, as if you were flying over the scene :

In the middle of the night a small child running from a village, a mob of dark skinned people are chasing him with lit sticks and gun shots. The child screams violently, before 2 pairs of scaly wings come out of it's back and it flaps them flying past you. You see it's crying through solid blue eyes.

 

The vision changes again and you are in outer space. A metal capsule is flying near you and within it are two liquids, one golden and one silvery black. The liquids swirl around each other but do not mix, like Rorscharch's mask. The capsule approaches a green and blue planet, before splitting into two when it hits the atmosphere and veers of into two different directions. Somehow you can see the following simultaneously:

A recognisable (and real but shall not be named for fear of me being sued, so pick your own) female pop star in her early 20s steps out of a small cottage in the country side. She glances up gasps and then ducks as half the capsule flies over her head and lands without a crater. She turns and screams as golden liquid envelops her.

A man in a red and blue home made costume with a mask is on the floor with his arms in a guard over his head as two men each holding a baseball bat are standing over him. There is still wet blood on one of their bats and the Real life super heroes's leg. Suddenly the capsule crashes into a car next to the costumed man. A dark blob envelops the man who screams in pain, then anger.

 

Finally you are underwater. You glance at what looks like a tall barrier of glass. On the otherside of the glass is a skeleton with fire surrounding it's arms. It touches the glass with an elongated index finger, which leaves a black burn mark on the glass. It scribes a message.

SOON I COME

IV XI MMXII

 

Then you awaken in a hot sweat. Absent mindedly you look at your left arm, and then nearly faint. Inscribed like a burn is IV XI MMXII .

Your healing factor makes no move to heal the message, and no burn medicine seems to work either. What's happening?

[Lucius]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

Maintain a secret identity, at least at first.

 

Start by testing my abilities to see what I can (and can't) do, and then retest over time to see if they are growing, fading, or remaining stable.

 

Anything else depends on coming to the conclusion that whatever is going on isn't going to stop as abruptly as it began.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

All the power of a palindromedary

[casualplayer]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

Gonna end up looking like Evan Almighty!

 

4/11/2012, eh? Got a little bit of time then. If the power growth curve continues, should be up to full-on Superman levels by then. I would share my dreams with my government liason and have them start seeing if this can be prevented or channeled to the good. At least get some prep time on whatever is coming. I am a lucid dreamer, who can actually rewind and revise my dreams, so I don't know if I can get an additional measure of control of the visions or if they are just spilled into my brain. If I can get eidetic memorization and clarity of vision of any nightskies in the visions that could lead to dates and locations of events.

 

Somehow I lost the paragraph in my initial post where I would take training to become a top notch first responder but I would keep with that work until something proactive presented itself.

[Clonus]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

All right, I'll start researching the dreams.

 

The pop star and the real hero are easy. I'll track them down and try to give them some foreshadowing and a number to call when it happens. I'll warn the real hero that he'll need to control himself or he'll end up killing someone. The villager is both tougher and more important. So...I'll go to Africa and become an aid worker. Even the use of a tiny amount of my physical strength will make me valued and effective. At the same time, I'll try to make all the contacts I can with news media and locals, looking for rumours of witchcraft. I want to be able to intervene before things get too bad for the shapeshifter. Any time I hear a rumor, I'll fly to the area and take a look at the village from above at night.

[sinanju]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

First I experiment with my abilities. I'm levitating? Can I fly? I can! But how fast? Let's find out. And hmm, blasting through the air at Mach 2 doesn't seem to hurt me. Cool! And just how strong am I now? Find out. When I discover that I'm invulnerable I'm even more excited. Learning about my regeneration will have to wait until I actually GET injured.

 

I keep my abilities secret from the world. I'll tell my wife, but that's all. I'll spend a LOT of time flying around, mostly at night, wearing lots of black so as not to be noticed. I'll get a wrist GPS unit (Garmin makes them, among others) with waypoints I can set so I can find various fixed locations. (Flying at night when I don't have a noctural creature's eyes is going to be difficult. Nothing more embarrassing than flying through power/phone lines, or having to fly low enough to read street signs along the way).

 

I'll try to discover how how I can fly, and how long I can fly before I get tired--if I get tired.

 

I won't be playing superhero. In the real world, the odds of stumbling upon a crime in progress that I can prevent are astronomical. Ditto for disasters in progress. Even long-term crimes (hostage taking and the like) aren't likely to amenable to my interference. Other than being bulletproof and capable of doing lots of damage with my bare hands, there's nothing I could do that the authorities couldn't do--and I'm not trained to deal with volatile hostage takers. I'd hate to get someone killed.

 

Cleaning up after disasters sounds better except that, again, being superhumanly strong doesn't mean I'll be much help in searching through rubble. I'd be as likely to kill someone by shifting the rubble as help them. That, too, is a job for people who know what they're doing.

 

If I DID ever decide to go public, it would be in a fully concealing but easy-to-assemble outfit. Jeans, boots, shirt, jacket, gloves, mask and goggles to hide my appearance. I don't want people to know even my skin color. I'd also talk as little as possible.

 

Six months later, I begin to suspect that there are other supers, and that some sort of super-alien will be arriving eventually. I'll track down and talk to the starlet--she's the only one I'm likely to be able to identify. I'll try to find out what powers, if any, she has now, and if she saw anything else in her visions that I didn't.

[Lucius]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

4/11/2012, eh? Got a little bit of time then.

 

The first thing I would NOT do, is assume that a set of what look like Roman numerals necessarily translate into a specific date that would commonly be expressed in the modern world as 4/12/21012.

 

For all I know it's a horological not a calendrical reference, or some kind of numerological coded signature saying who or what it is.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Summon Palindromedary

[Narratio]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

You soon discover the following abilities:

Super strength (Can lift a tractor with one hand)

Invulnerability (Anything less then 50mm will bounce off. 50mm will bruise you and an RPG could break some bones. Can only cut hair and nails with very powerful laser cutters/ your own nails)

Regeneration (injuries that takes weeks to heal takes only hours. wounds seal very quickly. You never get sick anymore and can survive indefinitely without food or drink but will still feel weak with hunger. Oxygen is still needed to breathe)

Flight (can achieve mach 2, which can easily break the speed barrier)

Eidetic memory (From after New Years not before)

 

The level of strength is just enough to destroy every motor reflex I've ever learnt, without being in any way useful expect in fighting. So I'd bugger off and spend time learning how to touch things and exert pressure.

 

Strange invulnerability. Given that the kinetic energy from a low velocity 50mm WW2 era cannon is less than a modern high velocity 30mm I'd ignore it until I discovered what it really was. After all a decent industrial plate cutter can, water powered or laser could still slice me like I was a soft boiled egg.

 

My time alone learning how to use that strength would also grow some hair. Id find a decent machine shop, get my hair cut and sell it to Dupont Chemicals fro a barrel load of cash. Let them try and duplicate it for it's industrial load bearing applications.

 

Regeneration. Nope, not gonna put myself in harms way that often and I don't fancy performing a destructive test to discover its limits.

 

Mach 2 flight. Hmmm, two times the speed of sound. Can't use that any where populated or I'd be up to my armpits in legal actions. No idea if my invulnerability covers me against trying to fly at this speed, as i still need to breath I think I could only do this for a minute or so at a time, by holding my breath. Wind pressure at that speed would flatten my lungs otherwise. Still, I could save a bunch on short distance travel expenses.

 

Eiditic Memory? Oooh. That's nice. While being out alone relearning all those motor erflexes I'd be reading everythig I could lay my hands on. Then sit a whole bunch of exams, hoping I'm smart enough to be able to apply everything I've remembered to answering the questions. If successful it's time to make my own wealth.

[Vulcan]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

Ah, so you would be a vigilante, until you inadvertently punished an innocent person, whereupon you would be a tragic super villain, hunted by the authorities and forced to turn to a life of crime. Just the thing that the next super powered person needs in order to be a proper super hero while bringing you to justice.

 

;-)

 

Well, I did say...

 

I'm afraid with my temperment' date=' I would not be much of a hero. [/quote']

 

And I wonder how anyone would know to come after me specifically when

 

we flew to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where I could leave them and a couple of concrete blocks with little worry they would ever be recovered.

[dmjalund]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

electronic voicebox could help with disguising ones identity

[Panpiper]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

I am not competent to fully comprehend everything that is happening. And if these visions are prophetic, the consequences are far too grave to be left solely to my own meager talents. However super powered I may be, I am still only one man and one mind. So I shall avail myself of the revenue I have been earning from launch services to start an organization that will manage a number of ventures. Money shall be deposited in a number of secret trusts that will go to funding this organization, so that even if I am killed or disabled, the organization will continue. A proper constitution shall be drafted for this organization to ensure that it always serves the purpose of freedom and justice.

 

The organization will analyze these visions I have been having and any other related phenomena and discuss them to death. Many prominent science fiction writers, scientists and other thinkers will be invited to join in a 'brain trust'. They will of course be paid a reasonable stipend to participate. The most promising of these people will be offered permanent positions in the management of this organization. Regular meetings will be held where they shall all be flown in to congregate, exchange ideas, make recommendations, etc. It shall be a secret group with very tight security, including physical security. Each of the participants will have a silent alarm on their wrist they can activate at any time which will mobilize a response from a local security unit organized in their region to respond. If they feel it necessary, they can be given 24 hour, round the clock bodyguard service.

 

In addition, the Swiss shall be contracted with such that their embassies will be open to any super powered person anywhere in the world who needs sanctuary. They in turn will be empowered to contact Kidnap and Ransom security specialists to help with the safe extraction of any super who requires it. I will see to it that the fact that the Swiss stand ready to aid any super is well publicized, enough that even in backwater communities, enough people will have heard of it that any super likely would know one of them. The organization would be ready to lend any necessary assistance to such persons, including financial, legal, social and psychiatric services if necessary (their families shall also be taken care of if necessary). Extremely secure facilities would be found or built that such persons could live in while learning to control their new found situation, and the location of such facilities also be kept a tight secret. Of course any participation is entirely voluntary, anyone wishing to leave is of course free to do so, these are not prison facilities (though in an emergency, they could be used that way).

 

All security personnel would be extremely well equipped for dealing with possible supers. They would be armored in full Dragon Scale body armor with several layers of Dyneema fabric clothing covering any area not covered by the Dragon Scale. They would be armed with (and licensed to carry) a special, short barrel custom version of the Barret XM500 rifle with an Acog Doc on a special harness under a trench coat. They would also have enhanced vision and breathing gear carried in a pockets that could be donned if necessary along with all appropriate communication gear. And a very secure central communications 'war' room would be set up to coordinate any emergency responses. Air assets for rapid deployment would be either contracted with in advance to be ready at a moment's notice, or purchased to stand ready.

 

Security personnel would be recruited from special forces and other elite military and police organizations so they would start already supremely well trained. However they would also have special facilities built where they could hone their skills specifically for dealing with possible super powered threats. As it is an incipient organization, each group would be in charge of training themselves and exchanging training methods with other groups. They shall decide, along with the brain trust, what training they should be practicing, and if any additional equipment or facilities be required by them, they shall be promptly met.

 

Very significant resources would be devoted to lobbying efforts (and if necessary, public relations), specifically including large campaign donations to a great many politicians to ensure full government cooperation with this organization. In addition we would push for governments around the world to increase their funding of both space based assets and especially the Space Guard program which monitors space based threats like asteroids and comets. The further out we can detect such threats, the easier they are to deal with. And I am not ruling out the possibility that 'that' could be the source of the planet destruction vision I had. Any effort to come up with deflection systems will also be actively supported by our lobbying arm.

 

We will be pushing space agencies around the planet to both build significant space station assets which I can lift into orbit, and to put what resources they used to devote to launch vehicles into developing a true runway takeoff and landing, single stage to orbit launch capability, specifically for passengers. Burt Ruttan shall be specially funded by myself to see if he cannot build just that using his booster aircraft approach. I cannot ensure the world that I will always be there for lift duties, and I am not the best choice for live cargo in any case.

 

My own personal time would still be mostly spent with launch services to further generate trust funds so this organization can ultimately grow even further. I've been maximizing the use of my strength and flight all this time due to the launch services and it has paid off handsomely in substantially increasing my lifting capacity. If actual paying contracts are not available on any given day, I shall on my own dime, put fuel bladders of liquid hydrogen, oxygen and other materials into a decent low Earth parking orbit such that it could be used for some future space project. The organization would start work on a few engineering designs; a rotating space station 'I' could build, a chemically powered rocket capable of moving that station, and a more advanced gaseous fission reactor design for an engine. This would be serious engineering, not just hypothetical. We would be 'planning' to build this.

 

The pop star in my vision shall be contacted quietly to see if she would be willing to come in and consult with us, possibly even help, especially with PR and lobbying maybe. The news media will be scoured for any mention of a costumed person matching the description from my dream and if found will be contacted also quietly, as well as any reports of 'demon' children and such. My assumption is that there is a mutant factor arising and people may be reacting with superstition. Our organization will endeavor to create an Xavier style environment for such children if it will help them.

 

Oh, and in closing I should mention that I do not neglect my own training. I would practice at least a couple of hours a day with my security specialists to allow them to train me in what I might need in the future. And it will be good for them too to have a super they can train 'against'. I need for them to be able to take 'me' out if it came to that. As I might not always be there if a real danger threatened, but the organization would.

[Egyptoid]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

>>> science fiction writers, scientists and other thinkers

 

sigh.

[dmjalund]

Re: What If: You were the world's 1st superhuman?

 

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