A/N: In which my brain decides "no, you're going to write superheroes now, not your other Quests"
It is still debated when the Metahuman Era started. Was it 1952, when the CIA and KGB both began employing metahuman agents? 1956, when the Suez Crisis precipitated the first all-out superhuman brawl, as French and British forces attempted to take Port Said? 1962, when the lifting of the Great Veil brought the lost city of Atlantis back to Earth? Or was it 1968, when the first public team of metahuman vigilantes put on their masks and held a press conference? Or 1969, when the alien Sa'tilar made first contact with Earth?
But no one disagrees about when it ended. On March 6, 1985, after seventeen years of escalating superpowered feuds, metahuman pseudo-fiefdoms, chaotic and unpredictable technologies springing up like weeds, US President Ronald Reagan declared his intent to sign the Metahuman Suppression Act. All metahumans would either work directly for the government, or they would be imprisoned for life.
That night, Major Patriot, commonly considered the States' most loyal – and arguably its most powerful – metahuman, entered the Executive Residence, uninvited and unallowed. He scattered the Secret Service detail, casually subdued their Metahuman commander, and had a five-minute conversation with the President. To this day, no one knows what he said. To the day of his death, Major Patriot would only say that "that skeleton should stay in the closet."
All that is certain is that the next day, President Reagan vetoed the act, citing constitutional concerns. A fig leaf that, for all its validity, fooled no one. The simple fact was, the greatest power on earth had moved to assert its authority over metahumans… and when challenged, it had blinked first.
The next week, the Spanish military cornered metahuman terrorist Atómico after a bombing spree, and he reduced five hundred soldiers and a dozen tanks into radioactive dust on the wind. It took another four hours and the intervention of the international metahuman team the Multiversal Guardians for Atómico to be taken into custody.
In June, when the KGB's Metahuman Task Force pursuing the anarchist rebels Sons of Freedom adopted their standard strategy for dealing with rogue metahumans – used friends and family as hostages to force a stand-down rather than an all-out battle – a misunderstanding escalated, and the Taskforce killed the hostages.
The resulting brawl of unchecked, enraged superhumans out for blood left hundreds dead and tens of thousands homeless.
In July, the vigilante Dervish ambushed his long-time nemesis, the crimelord Snake Eyes, in his civilian guise while his target was out to see the opera and killed him. Two days later, Dervish's apartment complex exploded, killing dozens, in apparent retaliation.
And finally, on August 1, 1985, the group that would come to be known as the Seven made a simple declaration, one broadcast on every screen and audio device in the world. The group of "heroes" and "villains" and "independents," each world-class powers in their own right, had determined that the nature of metahuman conflicts needed to be changed. No longer would metahumans war without restraint, no longer would governments seek to control them as a class of people, and no longer would their private identities, should they wish to have them, be valid targets. The Seven laid down a simple set of rules:
- No entity or group will attempt to artificially create or trigger Metahuman awakenings (mystical initiations excepted).
- No Metahuman will run for political office.
- No Metahuman will engage in violent revolutionary action.
- No Metahuman will knowingly or recklessly create genetic weapons, self-replicating intelligences, or any other form of catastrophic threat to wide-spread human life.
- No entity will utilize, create, or possess, weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical, or biological weaponry.
- No government will attempt to imprison, disenfranchise, or otherwise oppress metahumans as a class.
- Should a Metahuman wish to hold a private identity, this identity is sacrosanct. It will not be publicized, nor will this identity, or associated individuals, be targeted for purposes of retaliation, control, criminal prosecution, or similar. Should a metahuman deliberately publicize their identity, they waive the personal protection in their private life.
Each attempt to deviate from these rules since has been met with overwhelming force, whether the attempt was undertaken by Metahuman or by government. Thus ended the Metahuman Era, with a septet of Metahumans handing down law from above as if gods of old.
And, contrary to all expectations, it worked.
The year is 2022, it is the Superhuman Era, and for as long as you have been alive, superheroes and supervillains have been the norm. Masked villains and vigilantes, engaging in crime and crime fighting. Metahuman awakenings continued to increase in scope, and while not exactly common, today Metahumans can be found in all walks of life, whether using their powers actively or not. The Seven Rules remain in place, nearly sacrosanct, and these days the Seven rarely need to enforce them directly – a breach of the Rules leads to swift and decisive responses from fellow Metahumans (or, more rarely, governments), lest others believe the rules that protect all of them are simple suggestions.
You learned about this in your civics lessons, but it's been the subject of some research for you of late. After all, you plan to join these icons of heroism and/or villainy in their activities.
But what are your powers? Metahumans – or Supers, or Capes, or Paras, or Ultras, or any number of terms with slightly different shades of meaning – have a few rough classifications of power.
Physical powers affect and alter you or things you make contact with, typically with reasonably "non-exotic" effects. They frequently involve things like enhanced strength and durability, but othings like flight, shape changing, and similar fall into this category. Many healers can be categorized this way as well.
Energetic powers generate and/or manipulate, well, energy. This can include kinetic energy, as with telekinetics, or fire (not technically a discrete form of energy, but try telling a pyrokinetic that), plasma and electrical control, and so on.
Mental powers vary, and honestly the category is a grab-bag, but effectively combines everyone whose power is primarily mental. They cover a wide possibility space, ranging from advanced sensory processing to heightened intelligence and creativity to near-precognitive planning and analytical ability to outright telepathy.
Esoteric powers are the true catch-all category. Esoteric powers are those that do not fit into the other three categories, typically being conceptual or metaphorical. Powers involving fortune, narrative logic, time, or other abstract notions fall into this category.
Your powers are…
[ ] [NUMBER] Within a single category
[ ] [NUMBER] Stretching across two categories
[ ] [NUMBER] Stretching across three categories
(Vote for as many as desired, the top N will win)
[ ] [TYPE] Physical
[ ] [TYPE] Energetic
[ ] [TYPE] Mental
[ ] [TYPE] Esoteric
Powers come from a variety of sources, but there are three rough categories of those.
Metahuman powers are the awakening of a dormant "potential" that exists within all humans, which can happen for myriad reasons, from chemical accidents to great stress to simple chance.
Inhuman powers are much the same, but come from inhuman biology rather than metahuman activation.
Artificial powers come from external sources, but cannot be meaningfully separated from the user. Beings with artificial powers are frequently artificial constructs, whether artificial intelligence or biological creature or sapient golem. Their existence runs up against Rules One and Four in theory, but in practice it doesn't become an issue unless the entity is likely to be a substantial threat (runaway grey goo, xenomorphs, etc). Even in the cases when the Seven intervene against a creator, they often allow constructs to go free after ensuring that they don't pose an existential threat.
Mystical powers come from magic. Mystical powers are frequently highly conceptual, and include learned magic like occult rituals, as well as innate magic as possessed by beings such as faeries, and bonded magical artifacts like the fabled Starlight Lance.
Note: For "inventor" type heroes or gadgeteers, you will be the source of your own toys. This vote is to choose the nature of your own power, even if that includes hyperintelligence or technopathy; later votes will determine their specifics. For the "totally just a normal human" types like Hawkeye or Batman, well… in this setting, they're not. They categorize under metahumans, typically with enhanced durability, agility, and mental capacity.
[ ] [ORIGINS] One source
[ ] [ORIGINS] Two sources
(Vote for as many as desired, the top N will win)
[ ] [SOURCE] Metahuman/Inhuman
[ ] [SOURCE] Artificial
[ ] [SOURCE] Mystical
