Tech in superhero universe - Effects on daily life?

[Kitsune]

Been discussing this with a friend via email. You want to have a superhero universe that mostly appears like our own for ease of story but the technology available would have effects.

Many superhero universes have much higher technology. For example power armors which use micro fusion reactors. I am thinking that they would not be dependent on fossil fuels as a result but instead may have widespread battery powered vehicles even if most vehicles are not fusion powered. This would have an effect both on global warming as well as how we look at the Middle East. What would be the political effects of not relying on fossil fuels in these universes?

Some universes also have widespread super soldier programs. These would likely have effects on medical technology due to having a better understanding of biology as well as being able to modify people in ways that are far beyond our understanding.

Similarly many superhero universes have human like bionics which give people effectively superhero abilities through bionics. Even with lower powered bionics, you could have people with realistic bionics replacing body parts and organs. I think Cyborg from DC is now some kind of alien technolgy but don't know if that was the original idea. Robotics is also often more advanced and that would have impact in various industries including construction and mining.

Computers with sapient AI are also common

Thoughts if my question makes any sense?

 

[Mak Taru]

Generally the excuse used is that only super rich people can afford that stuff and the governments and corporations keep the general public from getting hold of it.

 

[Kitsune]

Generally the excuse used is that only super rich people can afford that stuff and the governments and corporations keep the general public from getting hold of it.

Click to shrink...

Most of us walk around with a computer in our pocket more powerful than an early 1990s Mainframe.
Not a believer in Trickle Down Economics but tech which was once thousands of dollars is now affordable.

 

[Mak Taru]

Most of us walk around with a computer in our pocket more powerful than an early 1990s Mainframe.
Not a believer in Trickle Down Economics but tech which was once thousands of dollars is now affordable.

Click to shrink...

It's also because there are conspiracies to keep that kind of stuff out of the public's grasp.

 

[Valmond]

Considering the kind of tech super heroes have, a world with Tony Stark and Reed Richards should be unrecogniceable to us.
I'm talking casual space travel, terraforming, free or near free energy, almost every possible disease cured and pollution a historical curiosity.

But none of that happens, because the editors and/or authors want to keep their settings relatable, so what technology is accessible to public is kept mostly to what is available in the real world, with all the super gadgets left for heroes and villains, and occasional shadowy government agency or law enforcement.

 

[ngreennz]

It depends on how the ultra-tech comes about, I imagine. If there's a handful of super-geniuses creating this stuff, or if it's alien technology disseminated through, again, very few people, then there might not be anyone working on making any of it more affordable. Tony Stark makes a miniature arc reactor and then builds armored suits. It takes a long time for anyone else to figure out the arc reactor and imitate it, let alone improve.
If there are widespread tech improvements then it's harder to explain in-universe why higher-tech isn't prevalent. Maybe other things have also advanced, they're past peak oil, and running low on rare earths?

 

[Mak Taru]

Reed Richards Is Useless - TV Tropes

The observation that in some genres, characters can have fantastic technology far beyond our own, yet this technology only gets used to solve equally fantastic problems. A person who controls weather will never make it rain in drought-stricken …

tvtropes.org

 

[king208]

Basically it would be Eclipse Phase.

More seriously though it depends on exactly the how advanced the super science is and how long ago it showed up. Are we talking early MCU where Tony is still reliant on physical manufacturing and discrete power sources or late stage where he can extrude a whole shape shifting armor out of a box of nanites the size of his fist.

For that matter are we talking about tech that blatantly ignores conventional physics or are we talking about approximations that could feasibly exist?

 

[Shanejayell]

It almost never impacts street level characters, sadly.

There were a few cases in the Spider-Man comic when he was working at Horizon Labs, but I can't recall the tech boost appearing in any other comic.

There was also a arc in the Iron Man comic where he wanted to put Arc Reactor tech in cars as a power source. It got sabotoged by Spymaster.

 

[BossFight]

I mean, in my own setting I solve this in two ways:

1. The setting is always about 20 years ahead of our own but set in the same time
2. The reason so many mad scientists want to rule the world is because there super inventions would upset the status quo and are actively suppressed by those in power. Make a car that doesn't need fuel? Well the company that paid you to make it owns the patent, so they are mothballing it so that it doesn't cut into their profit margins

 

[Destynova1]

Plus plenty of 'It would fall into the wrong hands!" if done by heroes. Doesn't matter if it was a flashlight battery that has double the life. Someone would turn it into a deathray.

If done by a human lab, some super-villain would bust in to steal it and destroy all copies(drives up the price). They may or may not kill everyone to keep them from rebuilding it. Also might be a superhero's origin as they take the last copy and give themselves super powers.

 

[Kitsune]

My question is not so much wry writers do it. . . .That is pretty easy to understand

What I am more asking is suggestions on how at least some of this advanced technology can be inserted into such a universe and specific effects they might have. I am assuming to make things easier that such technology is fairly new.

 

[Valmond]

Depends a lot on what technology is being talked about.
You could do lot of technology improvements under the hood.
Faster computers, cleaner/cheaper energy, safer cars, more fuel efficient airplanes...
The same as the real world (for the most part), just slightly better.

 

[Critian Caceorte]

Aberrant goes heavily into this, especially 2nd Edition. Essentially, superheroes start appearing after 2018, and in just 10 years you already have unlimited clean energy (at the cost of absolutely ruining the Middle Eastern and Russian economies alongside the oil magnates), flying cars are becoming more popular and available to the public, the Sahara's now green thanks to one dedicated Nova, essentially it's almost a utopia with how amazing everything is.

Spoiler: But...

Of course, there's the issue of the Novas inevitably going off-the-wall and ruining everything they built up, but that's an issue that the next generation can deal with.

 

[Destynova1]

I think small inventions can slip through. Didn't Stark in Ultimates make the Ipad?

 

[Ithillid]

I tend to think in terms of a rule of 50. IE, what was supertech fifty years ago has become the civil technologies of the modern day. Mostly because super-technology is generally some combination of difficult, fiddly, unreliable, and expensive. How much time does Iron Man spend working on his armor versus the amount of time he spends doing stuff with it? The same pretty much applies to any other technology based superhero.
It will, of course, eventually disseminate out to civil production, but does so slowly, and over time.

 

[Avernus]

It depends on how the ultra-tech comes about, I imagine. If there's a handful of super-geniuses creating this stuff, or if it's alien technology disseminated through, again, very few people, then there might not be anyone working on making any of it more affordable.

Click to shrink...

There's also the time issue. The farther back supers start popping up with supertech, the harder it is to explain why it isn't everywhere. In a setting like Marvel or DC where you have super science dating back to WWII or even earlier it becomes quite hard to explain why so little has been done with it. On the other hand if supers originated, say after 2000 then social, industrial and economic inertia could mean that a lot of the publicly available tech is still real-world, even though better stuff is in the pipeline.

Heck, the "clean power source blocked by petro industry" plotline practically writes itself. And while I doubt they could stop the proliferation of such technology forever, for a decade or two? Sure.

 

[gyrobot]

I tend to think in terms of a rule of 50. IE, what was supertech fifty years ago has become the civil technologies of the modern day. Mostly because super-technology is generally some combination of difficult, fiddly, unreliable, and expensive. How much time does Iron Man spend working on his armor versus the amount of time he spends doing stuff with it? The same pretty much applies to any other technology based superhero.
It will, of course, eventually disseminate out to civil production, but does so slowly, and over time.

Click to shrink...

Also you have to phase things out rather than just replacing things overnight and Tony Stark isn't just attending a meeting to decide how they would retrofit a power grid in a city to accept an Arc Reactor plant but also deal with any liability fallout where his invention could be classified as possible for weaponization (which technically came true when Stark Tower's power source fueled an invasion and as a contractor illegally pilfered government secrets).