First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

[Steve]

One of the things I have in my notebook of campaign ideas is a "Champions: First Wave" one. Instead of 70+ years of superhuman history, the Age of Superhumans started more recently. How far back could you go and still be considered in the "first wave" of superhumanity? Two years? Five? Ten?

[Stone]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

1986 - Chernobyl was actually a Soviet military experiment. When the experiment goes wrong, it releases particles into the atmosphere and the jet stream carries the particles across the globe. Later that year, the first recorded "super" is found.

[Matt Holck]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

In my universe there is no explanation where heroes came from

but Phantaga first appeared in 1985 creating villains such as

Death Kite and Eric *auto fire-lighting blaster* to be his servants.

He open a portle to the past and summoned a tyrannosaurus rex

which he latter transform into a more intelligent more traditional brick and named Rex.

After Phantaga died, Rex began to slower revert to his original size and intelligence.

Rex found a new way to maintain his intelligence using Brain Moss.

[Tom]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

One of the things I have in my notebook of campaign ideas is a "Champions: First Wave" one. Instead of 70+ years of superhuman history' date=' the Age of Superhumans started more recently. How far back could you go and still be considered in the "first wave" of superhumanity? Two years? Five? Ten?[/quote']

 

Depends. A particularly useful answer, I know. The question is answered by determining what makes someone a 'second wave' superhuman. Also, are all of the 1st Wave related in terms of origin? Are they linked by a common event, or did they just start popping out of the woodwork with no readily identifiable cause?

 

If the latter, then the second wave is likely identified by one of three things:

 

• The protege/sidekick of a 1st wave super who has branched out on his own.
  
• A generational shift (the 'old guys' being replaced by the 'new kids').
  
• The children of the 1st wave grow up with their own abilities.
  

 

You're probably looking at a 5 to 15 year gap between waves if it is 'naturally' occurring. If the definitional change is being driven by an outside force, then the gap is determined by however long the development cycle is between the current and 'improved' models.

[Daltwisney]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

One of the things I have in my notebook of campaign ideas is a "Champions: First Wave" one. Instead of 70+ years of superhuman history' date=' the Age of Superhumans started more recently. How far back could you go and still be considered in the "first wave" of superhumanity? Two years? Five? Ten?[/quote']

 

The time can be fairly arbitrary, depending on how you want to build your 'world'.

 

Issues in First-Gen settings end up dealing with establishing accepted norms of behavior, and various structures (Laws, Organizations, etc) to deal with the existence of 'supers'.

 

The time could be days or years from 'Day 0' depending on the speed with which society and the world react. If there are a large number of supers (even as low as hundredths of a percent), it will likely be more quickly than if they are only a few 'freaks'.

 

So, I'd say to set the scale (relative number of supers), and decide how far along in the 'adjustment' process the world (or at least the PCs part in it) is, and find a viable number from there.

[assault]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

If supers are rare enough, nothing much will change.

[Clonus]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

Depends on what constitutes the Second Wave. Is it going to be the children of people with superpowers making their debut as teen heroes? Then you've got a window of about 16 to 20 years before the Second Wave shows up.

[dmjalund]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

sounds like a question you should ask the Silver Surfer

[wick]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

I think that incorporating real world events can add some realism.

 

In my World some of the first people with super powers appeared after/around World War II. Source of powers were Nazi and Japanese POW or Death camps. In real history it is a fact that experiments were conducted on Holocaust death camp prisoners by the Nazis and the Japanese would experiment on POWs and Chinese. Most of the people affected actually displayed little to no super powers but their offspring would start to have real powers after a few generations. Since many of these people came to the United States as refugees and remained here.....there would be a higher number of mutants in the U.S. Their were also a handful of instances of a covert group experimenting on normals to produce Supers..again human experimentation in the U.S. is not unknown in real history.

 

In Russia: Other events such as Stalin's purges led to some people exhibiting some powers in order to survive but they remained hidden from the repressive government. Chernobyl and the horrible pollution in Russia speed up the frequency of mutations. A good many of these people had the abilities to circumvent or even break through the iron curtain to travel to America or other parts of the World. Others would lie low so as not to draw attention to themselves. A hand few of communist true believers were actually inducted into super soldier programs to try to enhance their powers and to breed more supers. These programs were scrapped with the collapse of the Soviet Union and in hindsight actually helped in the economic defeat of the USSR by the West because the program was very expensive and produced supers that the KGB later had to hunt down becuase they grew too powerful to control.

[wick]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

Cont...

 

In the above the mutants have been around for a gen or 2 but have not made a great impact on the world. This means I can have a more or less normal history up to recent dates and saves me a lot of work while not having to have mutants appear out of thin air.

 

Magic has been mostly shielded from the world by a magic stone guard by a mystical order of monks deep in Tibet. But recently the Chinese Army in conjunction with a team of Villians called the Zodiak Cult have attacked the monastary and taken the stone. So magic using heroes and extradimensional beings (Demons, Faeries, etc..) will start to reappear in the world.

 

Technology: Tech is reaching a point where some geniuses/ organizations will start making use of armored Power suits, robots, and energy weapons but for the most part this tech is really not mainstream.

 

Aliens: They may have various reasons to visit this back water and some have been visiting the planet covertly for as far back as the beginning of civilization. So far no overt aliens in the public eye except for the occassional UFO sighting.

 

Time travelers: Due to all of this power coming into the world at about the same, the present is a great time for change but there may be some temporal visitations prior to the present for a variety of reasons.

[Sketchpad]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

The year 2000 ... the Y2K bug was actually something that changed humanity.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

In my setting, it is cyclic. A full cycle runs about 70-80 years, which includes an up cycle (when supers are possible) and a down cycle (when they are not). Nobody knows why this is, nor in fact, that there is a cycle at all. The most recent up cycle started in the mid-1930s and lasted until the mid-1970s. The PCs are new supers that are just coming into their powers at the beginning of the next up cycle.

 

With this setting, I can include a lot of comic book history without it having much direct effect on the PCs. I can have them "discover" an abandoned base (it could have been either a hero's base or a villain's base) and claim it as their own (after they subdue and reprogram the security system, of course). They can encounter the supers that they read about in the comic books that they never knew were real, although those supers are now too old to resume their crimefighting careers. The PCs get to be the premier super hero team in the world, and they do not have to be cosmically powerful to do it.

[shadowmage87]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

I will agree that it is a matter of how you define the First Wave. My campaign is first wave no matter how you slice it; it starts within 2-6 months after the sudden, unexplained emergence of superpowers across the world.

 

I will, add however, in addition to the possibility of a generational gap, or shift in governmental treatment of supers, you could have the shift be in the motivations/attitudes of the supers themselves. So basically, you have a bunch of Paragons of Virtue being replaced by Brutal Vigilantes. In this case, I would say the difference between waves (and the reactionary rise of the second wave) would probably be 15-20 years.... Although I think if your supers actually have superpowers and emerged suddenly, things would probably move in the opposite direction, with brutal, unfettered chaos being followed by Paragons of Virtue (if slightly tainted and blood-stained, depending on your setting) trying to reign in the chaos.

 

I hope that helps....

[kahuna's bro]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

the reptonfa has swung,i'm inclined to agree

[Arlyansor]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

In my (soon to start) campaign, supers have only existed since 2000.

 

The first gen of supers appeared in early 2000, and the last known supers were all dead by the close of 2000.

 

These beings all had insanely stupid power levels - sufficient to turn the Sahara into a steaming jungle again, and to cap the Antarctic with several more cubic kilometres of 'permanent' ice, amongst other feats.

 

Unfortunately, these beings, (dubbed Aeons in the early years of the 21st century) were gifted with such immense levels of power that they all, inevitably, went catastrophically insane or lost control of their power. As one prominent blogger put it - "With insane power often comes insanity."

 

Nagasaki, Berlin, (and a couple of other cities I have yet to decide upon) were essentially nuked by the loss of control of these beings power - they were that powerful. Some left earth for space where their increasing lack of control would not endanger innocents, while others took cities and even whole countries hostage and demanded that scientists 'help them'.

 

In the wake of these deaths, new and horrific diseases swept across the planet, and millions of people died; either directly from the diseases themselves, or from the failure of essential services caused by the press of the dead and dying on resources.

 

However, irrespective of their actions, the last known Aeon was officially declared dead just before midnight on 31 December 2000.

 

Fast forward to 2010 - the PC's are amongst the first of a new generation of super beings, dubbed Scions - Children of the Aeons. These beings have nowhere near the power of the Aeons (standard 5th ed, 350 pt characters) but they will inherit the fear and prejudice that accompanies the mere mention of their 'parents' name, but not the raw power possessed by those beings.

 

Characters are still being created and thought over, so I don't know yet what I'l have to play with, but i have lots of ideas of my own to inflict on my players...

[Escafarc]

Re: First Wave of Superhumans: How Long?

 

My Campaign started as a shared universe(started with 1st Ed) that through attrition is mine only has the first supers appearing around 2700 BCE. Some of the characters are "Legacy" types going back 2 or more generations. So we haven't tried the first wave storyline.