scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/4cj66q.md

Rational Reaction to Superpowers?

• Author: u/None *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4cj66q/rational_reaction_to_superpowers/

• Score: 19

• Created: 2016-03-30T03:55:24

Post:

This is something I think about every once in a while and I wanted to see how others thought of it.

I feel like a significant portion of the discussion on munchkining superheroes focuses on mechanics and not the social aspect.

Which is to say: the bit that's almost as important (depending on how powerful the power is), especially, if you plan to reveal yourself (which is the case I'm talking about really)

I'm thinking mainly of "virgin worlds" that aren't used to a Superman figure. I can't think of a good work offhead that actually went into what that could do to a world with any sort of realism or depth.

It's an unprecedented event, and that makes it hard to write for and I sometimes wonder if this also makes it hard to really conceptualize while "I solve entropy" seems easy in comparison.

It seems obvious to me that something like "buy companies with my super-duper powers" simply isn't going to fly on a virgin world and every single action will be wrought with political danger and potential problems. I was watching Madam Secretary and it occurred to me that, while the politics are ridiculous, the breadth of problems a US government faces there is a good sort of base to think about how complex just about any statement or action would be in such a world.

Am I being too cynical? Have you given deep thought to what you'd do with any of the various superpowers out there accounting for human fuckery?

What would you do? Or can you think of a work that really did this justice? I'd love to get into one of them tbh, it's kind of a fascinating field to me, but so much parahuman fiction is either set after that or renders it moot (see Supergod, every universe that has parahumans around forever)

Comments:

u/MrCogmor [+21] (7 minutes later)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10912673/1/Fictitious-Persons deals with some of the social aspects of having a powerful superhero appear in our world and the social and political drama that ensues.

u/None [+3] (11 minutes later)

Hm, thanks for the rec! Already proving to be a fruitful thread...

u/elevul [+1] Cyoria Observer (a month later)

Thank you for this. Or not. I spent the whole day yesterday just reading it. :D

Very nice story. Not sure if the behavior would be actually realistic, but it was definitely incredibly engaging!

u/boomfarmer [+15] Trying to be helpful (55 minutes later)

The obvious fiction recommendations are Ra Fine Structure, Worm, and The Fall Of Doc Future.

Ra deals with the Powers of Two line of supers, and eventually with an immortal.

Doc Future doesn't have the coming-out scenario, being set decades after a lot of cape-on-cape violence, but it does show how capes integrate with society and discusses some of the history of the aforementioned violence.

Worm is about an adolescent cape, and how she navigates a world that hasn't docs the best job of adapting to capes.

u/FeepingCreature [+6] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (11 hours later)

Powers of Two is Fine Structure, not Ra.

u/boomfarmer [+2] Trying to be helpful (22 hours later)

Dammit. Same author, though.

u/None [+5] (an hour later)

Thanks for those three.

I will say that Worm (which is the only one I've read) is set pretty late after all that stuff, and kinda abstracts it away (though it deals with some politics) to have a conventional-ish super-hero story.

YMMV on how much the later characterization works but a lot of it and the characters that drive it are mocked for being OP and author devices, and it's partly to help stitch the world together so you don't have to worry about a lot of these concerns.

u/None [+9] (3 hours later)

I will say that Worm (which is the only one I've read) is set pretty late after all that stuff, and kinda abstracts it away (though it deals with some politics) to have a conventional-ish super-hero story.

A lot of the point of Worm is to work backwards from a generally superhero-ish world to the circumstances needed to produce that. Deconstruction and all.

u/None [+5] (9 hours later)

I'm aware it is a deconstruction. But there's more than one way to do that first off: you could easily work bottom up and show how it doesn't work at all. Start with one flying man, and just show how the sort of status quo we expect would never form

Wildbow took the opposing tact of building the world using certain devices to create the necessary structures, then deconstructing parts of the world. It's a valid strategy but I don't think it's as useful for this discussion given that the series starts out in a similar version of the sort of world I'm talking about avoiding. There's politics but mostly Wildbow has created a darker sort of superhero world.

And that's okay.It deconstructs stuff like "no killing" well enough. But it leans on a lot of the conceits to knock others down.

u/LiteralHeadCannon [+6] (4 minutes later)

The big question, as is often the case with superpower-based WIs, is "what do the superpowers do", with a side helping of "how many people can we expect to have them".

u/None [+4] (8 minutes later)

I decided to leave it open but I was thinking of a CYOA style scenario where you pick up Metropolitan Man style powers thought there are ensemble works lime Heroes which are interesting.

I use Metropolitan Man to just mean very powerful powers that could change the game nationally or globally though they aren't necessarily used that way, but I don't want to get pinned down to a powerset.

u/eaglejarl [+6] (4 hours later)

I took a crack at this with my Change Storms series. The first one ($$) covers when the powers are pretty new. The second (Induction) is set a few decades later.

u/callmebrotherg [+2] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (5 hours later)

Hm. I'm going to check out some of the referenced works myself; thanks for bringing up the subject.

Related: If anyone wants to talk in detail about a particular scenario... I'm working on something right now, and would love to chat over PM or some other medium.

u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (13 hours later)

I'm working on this problem as well, although I at least have a few differences from yours.

The powers are potent but they are 'faked' by a foreign technological infrastructure and not necessarily too outside what the world they come to be within is already capable of, it's just that every powered individual effectively has military grade weaponry energies at their fingertips and some down right absurd meta material reinforcement in their bodies to protect them from normal things. This is plenty disruptive before some characters are revealed to be even more potent/dangerous then that.

The other side of it is that the entire population of humanity has been effectively doubled and this is causing problems all on its own.

So the whole power thing is mostly being added as fuel to those particular fires, not getting nice and cleanly isolated as one thing.

u/luminarium [+2] (22 hours later)

Yea, I'm of the opinion that if you have a superpower in an otherwise mundane world, the political and social consequences ought to be thoroughly explored. Anything less and you're not only doing your idea injustice, but also making it hard for readers to buy into the superpower idea.

u/ednever [+1] (2 days later)

Jumper (the book not the movie) does a pretty good job of a world with one person with the ability to teleport. Political involvement is key to the plot.

Sequels ate good too.

u/Roxolan [+1] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (2 days later)

The Metropolitan Man does just that. It's set before cape comic books were a thing, so the world doesn't even have a concept of a Superman.

u/TheAtomicOption [+1] (9 days later)

I've fantasized lots about which powers I'd want given that the barriers I face in life mostly have nothing to do with things that can be solved by super strength, durability etc. If you have these sorts of powers, the jobs they qualify you for leave you still near the bottom of the social hierarchy. If there's a war, you're a grunt. If there's no war, you're a carny. If you don't want to be simple and blue collar, the main other option is crime.

I think if people started getting these powers, and it was public, not much would happen. There'd be some cool news stories. Lots of annoying celebrity crap to deal with, and then it would fade and no one would care. Finding out superpowers exist would be exciting. Talking to an actual super hero about what they can do would get boring.

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