Superhuman Detectors

[Armitage]

What experiences have people had with superhuman detection devices?  I don't mean a blood test or a DNA test.  I mean something like the mutant detectors that Genocide had - a device that can detect the presence of a superhuman at a distance.

 

Obviously, whether something like that is even possible depends on the nature of superpowers in a campaign.  For example, in the Progenitor setting for Wild Talents, all powers derive from the contagious Dark Energy that empowered the first superhuman (the "Progenitor" of the title) in 1967.  The first hand-held Dark Energy Detector (DEtector) was perfected in 1973 and entered the civilian market in 1976.  They could detect the presence of a person infused with Dark Energy or a creature or object created by Dark Energy in a 20 yard radius.  By 1999, they were the size of your thumb and cost $20.  The problem arises with certain events in the timeline.  The big one was when the Progenitor attempted to rescue the hostages in Iran, but they were all killed by explosives detonated by DEtectors.

 

Realistically, that tactic makes sense, but from a game perspective, it's terrible storytelling.  It's basically saying "Ha, ha!  You got the hostages killed just by showing up."  After that, if heroes find themselves in a similar situation, they have the choice of sitting on their hands doing nothing or looking incredibly callous as they risk people's lives by their mere presence.  Criminals don't even need actual bombs.  They can just say "Keep the heroes away.  We have DEtector bombs strapped to the hostages/main support beams/bus full of nuns and orphans."  They're probably lying, but they only have to be telling the truth once.

[massey]

Killing all your hostages sounds like a good way to set off a couple heroes who don't have codes vs killing.

[Heroic Halfwit]

I tend not to allow triggers that kill people without allowing the player characters a reasonable opportunity to circumvent it.  While in a different kind of campaign, I have had detectors set up, and it just meant that the "supers" stayed outside as a distraction while the "normals" (Like Batman) to sneak in and disable the trigger.  There may be other ways to address the problem of detectors through the use of minor abilities or creative tactics.  In any case, I would advise before setting up a "Detector Bomb" that you figure out at least 2 ways to get around it, because more often than I care to admit the solution that is obvious to me never occurs to players.

 

Widespread superhero detectors can make traditional superhero activities quite difficult, e.g. Secret Identities, Day Jobs, etc, although I can see the appeal of such obstacles in the right campaign.  It'd be best to let people know on the front end though.

[BoloOfEarth]

I used mutant detectors to great effect in a storyline involving a new prototype Minuteman robot for Genocide.  The detector used the White King's "genetic engram" as a template for what is considered "normal."  And variations beyond, say, 20% from him were to be considered "mutant."

 

The problem is, one of the programmers accidentally set it for 0.20% variation -- so basically, the Minuteman saw everybody except the White King as a mutant.  "You Are All Viable Targets."  Heh.  The heroes found this out from one of the very few survivors at the Genocide base, then had to make a mad scramble to catch the thing before it reached Washington DC.

 

And the players totally missed the implication when the Mintueman turned toward the Senator who had been "helping" them for the past few months and declared him a "normal human" before turning to blast the PRIMUS agents protecting him.

 

All of that said, I think it's hard enough to get players to buy into the whole Secret ID genre trope, without having easily available detectors to make it effectively impossible to keep that secret.  I'd make sure such detectors have a design flaw that occasionally yields false positives for non-supers and/or doesn't always detect actual supers.  (Plot-wise, that flaw could have easily been intentionally introduced by a superhuman to discredit the detector project.) 

 

Game-wise, I'd allow detectors that effectively say, "Hey, maybe this guy is a superhuman.  Might want to run more detailed, invasive tests to positively determine whether or not he truly is one, though.  And that guy over there -- he's probably not a superhuman, but you can't be sure unless you really test him."

[BoloOfEarth]

Or, the real detectors could be very reliable but expensive, requiring special elements that make those detectors fairly rare... but some Chinese company is flooding the market with cheap knockoffs that aren't nearly as reliable.

[digeridork]

As it's been explained to us in our game setting there are devices about the size of the full body scanning machines you'd find in an airport that scan the person that walks through to determine if they are a mutant or not. That's as small as they get without the aid of very limited super-science devices that can't really be mass produced at a small scale. They're in airports, courthouses, city offices, hospitals, police intake stations, and a few privately held establishments. They cost about $10,000 to install and they have to be calibrated frequently enough that it is expensive to maintain. In our setting they've become a part of the security theater rampant in post 9/11 America. 

[Hadmar von Wieser]

I always have problems with all those stories detecting all superheroes, healing all mutants, or killing all metas. It just ignores the fact that most universes have myriads of different ways of becoming a super.

In X-Men they had that "mutant cure". Okay, this might work if there is ONE and only one x-gene. Like they tell it in the X-Men movie trilogy (but not in the comics). Still: then we have to believe that one gene makes Wolverine regenerating, Magneto control magnetic forces, and Iceman turn into ice. If that is the set-up you could build a mutant detector. It would have to work biochemically, so it probably wouldn't have range and you would have to take a DNA sample.

Marvel once had one or two plots with the HIGH EVOLUTIONARY trying to kill or evolve every superbeing on earth. But how does the evolutionary bomb know whom to influence? DR. STRANGE is an ordinary human practicing magic. WOLVERINE is a mutant. THOR isn't a human. SILVER SURFER is an alien and practically created out of Power Cosmic. And NICK FURY and BLACK WIDOW are human. Period. There is nothing they have in common you could detect, heal, or change.

DC started theoreticizing about a meta gene in the last 20 years. FLASH is a meta. GREEN ARROW might be a meta, because of his inhumanly accurate aiming skills. But this obviously does not explain the BATMAN. GREEN LANTERN is a simple human with an alien artefact. The homo magi like ZATANNA are a different species of humans. And even if Amazon and Atlanteans are humans with a meta gene: What about the kryptonians and the martians? Do the kryptonians even have DNA? Shouldn't it be crystalline instead of water-and-carbon-based like ours? The martians per definition have a totally different biochemistry. RAVEN isn't even from this dimension; she is a half demon; probably not even a product of matter.
So once again: WHAT should a detector detect?
 

[Lucius]

So once again: WHAT should a detector detect?

Character point totals??

 

Lucius Alexander

 

the palindromedary buys Detect Player Character

[bubba smith]

I always have problems with all those stories detecting all superheroes, healing all mutants, or killing all metas. It just ignores the fact that most universes have myriads of different ways of becoming a super.

 

In X-Men they had that "mutant cure". Okay, this might work if there is ONE and only one x-gene. Like they tell it in the X-Men movie trilogy (but not in the comics). Still: then we have to believe that one gene makes Wolverine regenerating, Magneto control magnetic forces, and Iceman turn into ice. If that is the set-up you could build a mutant detector. It would have to work biochemically, so it probably wouldn't have range and you would have to take a DNA sample.

 

Marvel once had one or two plots with the HIGH EVOLUTIONARY trying to kill or evolve every superbeing on earth. But how does the evolutionary bomb know whom to influence? DR. STRANGE is an ordinary human practicing magic. WOLVERINE is a mutant. THOR isn't a human. SILVER SURFER is an alien and practically created out of Power Cosmic. And NICK FURY and BLACK WIDOW are human. Period. There is nothing they have in common you could detect, heal, or change.

 

DC started theoreticizing about a meta gene in the last 20 years. FLASH is a meta. GREEN ARROW might be a meta, because of his inhumanly accurate aiming skills. But this obviously does not explain the BATMAN. GREEN LANTERN is a simple human with an alien artefact. The homo magi like ZATANNA are a different species of humans. And even if Amazon and Atlanteans are humans with a meta gene: What about the kryptonians and the martians? Do the kryptonians even have DNA? Shouldn't it be crystalline instead of water-and-carbon-based like ours? The martians per definition have a totally different biochemistry. RAVEN isn't even from this dimension; she is a half demon; probably not even a product of matter.

So once again: WHAT should a detector detect?

 

good question

[Matt the Bruins]

I think that at Marvel humanity's main ability to develop superhuman powers ultimately goes back to the Celestials tampering with genetics a million years ago. Thus you get mutants and people with the latent potential to develop powers as adults in response to radiation, chemicals, etc. (like the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and the Hulk). There are also Eternals and Deviants, two subspecies that the Celestials branched off of baseline humanity, and the Inhumans, the result of Kree attempts to replicate what the Celestials already did.

 

Of course, there are also alien-human hybrids, cyborgs, magicians, people granted powers by cosmic or extradimensional entities, etc. I don't think all of them share any one feature that would be detectable across the board. Now it's possible that the aforementioned cosmic and extradimensional beings might have enough varied senses to detect any physical, mental, or magical quality that deviates from the human norm. But I don't think you could just build a scanner with that sort of sensitivity.

[pinecone]

In my universe there are fairly mobile. inexpensive detectors for "Mutants"...what do they detect? Distinctive Feature: Detects as mutant....

[Armitage]

I always have problems with all those stories detecting all superheroes, healing all mutants, or killing all metas. It just ignores the fact that most universes have myriads of different ways of becoming a super.

 

 

 

 

Well, I did mention in my original post that it would depend on the nature of powers in a campaign.  Obviously, it would be more effective in a setting with only one or two power origins.

 

In the Progenitor setting I described, all powers derive from the Dark Energy that empowered the Progenitor.  In the Wild Cards universe, all powers come from the Wild Card Virus, with occasional aliens and alien technology.  In the campaign I've been working on on-and-off for ages, powers came from an alien weapon used at the start of an invasion 20 years ago.

[Cantriped]

In my campaign's there typically isn't a unifying element o superpowers which can be detected by simple machinery, it jut isn't a plot element I enjoy or have ever been inclined to use. As such Distinctive Features (Mutant) isn't viable unless you are obviously mutated (such as Nightcrawler).

 

In the Bioshock universe, such a device would detect ADAM in your bloodsteam. It would likely require a DNA test.

 

In the anime My Hero Academia, everyone with a "Quirk" (aka a superpower mutation) is also missing a joint in their pinky toe. Meaning the presence of a Quirk can be tested for with a simple X-ray. In that show there is little to no racism regarding the existence of Quirks because a significant percentage of the population has quirks of varying strengths (something like 75% of each generation). Quirks themselves act as co-dominate genes; you either get one of your parent's quirks, or some combination of the two.

 

 

 

In the Champions universe, very nearly all Superpowers are derived (if only tangentially) from a series of rituals performed in 1938 by the Nazis. In theory a device constructed to detect the after-effects of these rituals might be usable to detect almost anything with "superhuman" abilities. Since the rituals affected the entirety of Reality, that might also include alien technologies. and human supertech invented after the 1940s.

[Sketchpad]

So once again: WHAT should a detector detect?

 

I think it depends on your campaign/universe. In my game, there are such things as "Mutant Detectors" that detect only those beings that DF: Mutant. Using a Detect Magick spell will reveal who uses such energies as their SFX. The same with Cosmic Awareness to some extent. I've always found that detectable energies/characters/items/etc. are hardwired into what a GM defines it as for that campaign. 

[Beast]

your detector only works on 1 sxf
that is great  if everybody has the same sfx
odds are your going to need a device that detects multiple effects in a CU type universe
1 energy detection(FFs,energy reserves,energy damage fields)
2 mutant detection(other than human DNA)

3 alien detection(as above)

4 density detection(high energy particles getting reflected backl instead ofd passing througfh the subject

5 mental detection(mental powers

6 shape detection(does it look human?)
 

What experiences have people had with superhuman detection devices?  I don't mean a blood test or a DNA test.  I mean something like the mutant detectors that Genocide had - a device that can detect the presence of a superhuman at a distance.

 

Obviously, whether something like that is even possible depends on the nature of superpowers in a campaign.  For example, in the Progenitor setting for Wild Talents, all powers derive from the contagious Dark Energy that empowered the first superhuman (the "Progenitor" of the title) in 1967.  The first hand-held Dark Energy Detector (DEtector) was perfected in 1973 and entered the civilian market in 1976.  They could detect the presence of a person infused with Dark Energy or a creature or object created by Dark Energy in a 20 yard radius.  By 1999, they were the size of your thumb and cost $20.  The problem arises with certain events in the timeline.  The big one was when the Progenitor attempted to rescue the hostages in Iran, but they were all killed by explosives detonated by DEtectors.

 

Realistically, that tactic makes sense, but from a game perspective, it's terrible storytelling.  It's basically saying "Ha, ha!  You got the hostages killed just by showing up."  After that, if heroes find themselves in a similar situation, they have the choice of sitting on their hands doing nothing or looking incredibly callous as they risk people's lives by their mere presence.  Criminals don't even need actual bombs.  They can just say "Keep the heroes away.  We have DEtector bombs strapped to the hostages/main support beams/bus full of nuns and orphans."  They're probably lying, but they only have to be telling the truth once.

[TheDarkness]

Character point totals??

 

Lucius Alexander

 

the palindromedary buys Detect Player Character

I was thinking the same thing. Which would make it cheap, as would making something to hide it.

[Cantriped]

I don't think Character Points should be considered a legitimate target for Detect powers (except perhaps in certain comedic campaigns). Typically Detected Game Elements are Detected by their special effects, and character point values have nothing to do with the special effects of what they are used to purchase.

[bigdamnhero]

Yeah, general-purpose superhuman detectors only make sense if all powers have the same source. I feel the same way about general-purpose superpower suppressors BTW, although they're more of a genre staple than detectors are, so I'm sometimes more willing to roll my eyes and go with the latter.

 

One of my previous campaigns had all superpowers derived from tapping into a common extra-dimensional power source, kinda like the Progenitor example above. So being able to detect those energies made some logical sense. But I still don't like making things that easy, either for the players to spot hidden bad guys or for the bad guys/authorities to find out the heroes secret identities. Maybe with a physical exam or some blood tests, but I would certainly never make them something easily portable that works at range - that just breaks the genre IMO.

 

In a world where powers come from multiple sources, the only thing that makes actual sense to me is if you're detecting actual energy levels in use - regardless of source, Human Torch's flame and Dr. Strange's Flames Of The Faltine both affect the physical world as energy, so they should be detectable. But of course they presumably can only detect active powers. And expect a lot of false-positives from high-level but "normal" sources.

 

I actually like the way they handle Metahuman detectors on the current Flash show: Cisco built a social media app for people to post metahuman sightings. So anytime a meta starts misbehaving in public, you get a big cluster of posts and they send Barry to go check it out. Surprisingly effective, and narratively it doesn't eliminate the mystery of "Is ____ really a superhuman?" And it can't be used to triangulate the villain's secret hideout or whatever.

[bigdamnhero]

In X-Men they had that "mutant cure". Okay, this might work if there is ONE and only one x-gene.

I was always under the impression that was the case in the Marvel Universe? Hence one-size-fits-all mutant detectors (like the Sentinels), power-suppressors, etc? Not saying it makes much sense, but...

[Wardsman]

Is this the time to bring up how unscientific "Captain, I'm reading life signs" is?

[sinanju]

Is this the time to bring up how unscientific "Captain, I reading life signs" is?

 

Yes! Yes, I ****ing HATE THAT! If you're detecting signs of heat (body heat, or concentrated heat spots that suggest equipment of some kind in operation), or movement, or even chemical indications (levels or changes in atmospheric composition--probably in an enclosed space--to suggest something or someone is breathing...then, yeah, maybe.

 

But "Life Signs" as used in way too much SF treats living creatures as if they generate some unique radiation that can be easily detected.

[massey]

[Matt the Bruins]

Yes! Yes, I ****ing HATE THAT! If you're detecting signs of heat (body heat, or concentrated heat spots that suggest equipment of some kind in operation), or movement, or even chemical indications (levels or changes in atmospheric composition--probably in an enclosed space--to suggest something or someone is breathing...then, yeah, maybe.

 

But "Life Signs" as used in way too much SF treats living creatures as if they generate some unique radiation that can be easily detected.

I suppose a sensor could detect bio-electricity, the way some marine animals are able to. That'd work at least for all life that has a nervous system. But probably not for microorganisms or plant life, so you'd also need to cover unique signs that those types of life would create.

[Cantriped]

It is worth noting that in Star Trek technology is so advanced it might as well be magic. The array of sensors used to detect "Life Signs" might be using dozens or even hundreds of different sensors to detect their "life signs". In numerous episodes the sensors aren't just being used to detect the presense of absense of "life signs", they frequently give exact numbers of "life signs", and can give information regarding the quality or nature of said life signs (such as signs of injury). At the very least, the Star-Trek sensor array is likely detecting thermal, electrical, and kinetic activity, as well as making a complete 3d map of the scanned area in real time and comparing every shape (as well as every energy field) detected against a vast database of "known forms of life". The idea of a cross-referenced database also explains why sometimes the sensor array gets fooled by life-forms with highly unusual physiology (such as pure energy/extradimensional beings).

[bigdamnhero]

At the very least, the Star-Trek sensor array is likely detecting thermal, electrical, and kinetic activity, as well as making a complete 3d map of the scanned area in real time and comparing every shape (as well as every energy field) detected against a vast database of "known forms of life". The idea of a cross-referenced database also explains why sometimes the sensor array gets fooled by life-forms with highly unusual physiology (such as pure energy/extradimensional beings).

And it's not implausible that some Starfleet Captain at some point got tired of hearing the minutia of what each individual sensor was reporting and said "Look, just bottom-line it for me: how many warm bodies are we talking about?" And some enterprising Starfleet engineer wrote a macro that collated the data from all the different scanners and extrapolated the best-fit as "X" number of life forms.

 

That's not even in the Top 10 least-probable bits of Trek Tech.