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What If Superpowers with a trauma induced activation become real today?

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Thinking about it, you might end up with one of those dystopias where the populace is kept on emotion deadening drugs, to prevent them from triggering and causing destruction.
 
Avernus said:
Thinking about it, you might end up with one of those dystopias where the populace is kept on emotion deadening drugs, to prevent them from triggering and causing destruction.
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I don't think so, super powers would be an arms race.
The vast majority of powers won't matter.

But super intelligence?
Or people who see the future?
Mind control?

A handful of powers could single handedly change world power structures via advancing technology, predicting other countries actions or espionage related stuff.

If you put "No emotion juice" in the water, you lose your chance of gaining those and 1 super genuis could make your nation a world power or vastly above the other world powers. I
 
There is definately some merit to the "guns still hurt supers" argument that leads me to an alternative consideration that isn't super based at all. That is that there is an increased fear of supers showing up and wrecking havoc. Yes they won't topple the government, but they might burn down *your* house. This, I believe, leads to an increase in violence by *non* supers as the fear of escalation to a super powered retribution occurs. More situations where violence is escalated to quickly and guns are used because the fear for your own life goes up when you don't know if the person yelling at you can fire mind bullets.
 
people with control issues are just going to be a nightmare in general, on the bright side increased funding in therapy and prisons focusing on reform since the Death penalty is going to become very unviable for the most part.
 
The only actual answer to any 'what if super powers' scenario is a steady but inexorable return to feudalism.

The power of the state would gradually break down. You now have a significant portion of the population that doesn't have to listen to it, and can take what they want, when they want it. It doesn't even take most of these supers being selfish or amoral. All it takes is a few bad ones to disrupt the states monopoly of force to ensure that most unpowered people start seeing their local super as the only real source of security. The political centre of gravity would simply shift from elected officials to the supers whether anyone wanted it or not.
 
How long would it take for superhumans to become public knowledge? What effect would this have on the world's nations and where would most people be manifesting super powers(Nations which have more violence, crime, and suffering will have more super humans than stable nations that have very low rates of crime)? How would this affect militaries and terrorists that if they try to commit war crimes that there's a chance civilian victims might develop a superhuman ability to fight against them? What nations would institute some form of forced conscription of super humans and what nations wouldn't?
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One in ten people now gain superpowers in their "hour of greatest need", according to google statistics, around 1.8 people die per second. Within one minute, over one hundred people now face a possible Super-power triggering event. Assuming half of those deaths are traumatic, five people now have superpowers.
  • Heart disease: 659,041.
  • Cancer: 599,601.
  • Accidents (unintentional injuries): 173,040.
These are three of the leading causes of death, according to a cursory internet search. If we are reductive, we can assume then, that perhaps 5% of these 'Near-death Superheroes' will have an assortment of accident-related abilities. Around 35% will have powers relating to their medical issue of choice. Regeneration and Bio-feedback begin to emerge in hospitals all around the world en-masse as people have heart failure and critical organ failure via cancer.

Within an hour, a minimum of 300 people have superpowers, anywhere from 1% to 50% of those are in hospitals around the world, I assume baselessly.

If my assumptions are correct, and judging by the rate of transmission of information on the modern internet and social media, I believe the world would know about superpowers within four hours, by which point over one thousand people all over the world would have developed medical-related superpowers due to trauma experienced via heart failure and cancer.

Within a day, information trickles in that not all of these superpowers are medically related, as various accident and torment-adjacent abilities begin to emerge.

Depending on Government Response, legislature on superpowers could emerge anywhere from weeks to hours of widespread knowledge appearing on superpowers. One month after the age of superpowers, total information security begins to fail, as the number of people with Medical Superpowers exceeds 210,000 people assuming half of all heart disease and cancer deaths are traumatic. If even one eighth of those people obtained their powers in a first-world country's hospital, that is 25,000 people, roughly speaking, in positions of high media access, emerging outside of controlled conditions.

If even 0.5% of that population are high ranking government officials, millionaires, or billionaires, then that means legislative ability and informational security plummet as individuals with high power in society now have a vested interest in doing as the rich and powerful do, namely, whatever they want.

Within one month and one week, there exist no means by which to put the genie back in the bottle. The only people not in a position to learn about superpowers are those without any media access whatsoever, a condition which aligns with those likely to be living near pockets of superhero activity.

And my data ONLY contains assumptions based on the current mortality rates and causes, and ignores people who experience trauma as FAMILIES of the mortally ill and dying.

To summarize, if one-tenth of the population has the potential to gain superpowers from a traumatic event, you will personally know people in your immediate family or personal friend circle who have gained them, by pure statistics alone.

Sorry if this explanation has already been given, I posted this as soon as I read the opening post of the thread.
 
So for someone to develop offensive superpowers in their "hour of greatest need", it sounds like they need to get into life or death combat. You could imagine the us starting wars hoping for soldiers to develop powers.

Also some mass shooters might develop powers during their rampage.
 
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On the other hand, the same would apply to many more of the potential victims.
 
the atom said:
The only actual answer to any 'what if super powers' scenario is a steady but inexorable return to feudalism.

The power of the state would gradually break down. You now have a significant portion of the population that doesn't have to listen to it, and can take what they want, when they want it. It doesn't even take most of these supers being selfish or amoral. All it takes is a few bad ones to disrupt the states monopoly of force to ensure that most unpowered people start seeing their local super as the only real source of security. The political centre of gravity would simply shift from elected officials to the supers whether anyone wanted it or not.
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This assumes those without siper powers have no way of countering those with super powers.

If the average super power doesn't come with bulletproof skin or regeneration, the same deterents work against those with powers as those without. They will cause more damage before being taken down, but can still be taken down.
 
I have just one question how is trauma being defined? and is there a difference between immediate or long term trauma?

oh I guess that 2 questions
 
The world implodes into warlordism real fast
China implodes as a state that makes ww2 warlord states looks like a joke
1 out of 10 In china is a lot of people, and the concentration camps that the Muslim Chinese are on and all the scummy stuff the CCP does would trigger a super apocalypse ( Injured industry worker, crimes etc)
India would pass in upheaval with their bullying of the Muslim part because of Pakistan .... so a lot of Indian capes
eastern Europe continues to be eastern Europe and creates some massive super war or more warlord states
Africa is .....Africa but now with more lasers and stuff
South America is full of super crime because of the drug trade and all that fun stuff
Canada is full of ice-themed powers
Mexico collapses as the gangs take over
America goes Full STAG from Saints roll and go ham with super crime at the border and within
 
A time of chaos, that last who know how long, and then a time of peace, because people got tired of Killing each other, and they want to live in tranquility the most possible.

i Think the best scenario i ca think is my hero academia, where they passed years and years of conflict, and now have some sort of peace after some many years.....

Of course there is a chance of anarchist, Superpowered anarchists i might say.

of course this sceneario might not be like this, and maybe the peace will come faster than expected. New laws surely will pass over, and people will fight to try to live withoput wars and conflict, i might believe than some goverments will create special forces that fight against supers, yet again things could get coomplicated Fast.
 
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I think the concerns about generalized anarchy are overblown. None of the example powers seem capable of allowing the superhuman to murder large numbers of people with impunity.

the real question for the original poster is how common people with invulnerabilities to Man portable weapons, mind control, or other powers that allow the superhuman to easily manipulate others are. Also, we would need an idea of what the top end powers are. since this is influenced by worm, it's worth noting that a lot of warm powers are easily countered by being willing to just shoot the superhuman. If the number of people who can resist weapons or exert control over others is very small, I would not expect society to change very much. Those individuals will be co-opted by reasonable governments. The only real danger comes from superhumans with mind or social control powers that can hide in plain sight.

There will definitely be an increase in authoritarian government, though. There will definitely be a call for there to be large numbers of armed law enforcement officers able to deal with superhumans. There will definitely be an increase in laws attempting to curtail the freedom of others in the name of security against people with powers.

Tinkerstyle superhumans are another wrinkle, but their effect depends on how their power works. If they are similar to worm superhumans in that they are only able to build and maintain a limited number of devices, this changes the calculus much less than a Reed Richards style superhuman who can Mass produce technology if they so choose.
 
LENDAR-NOT said:
Worker at reservoir gets supernatural poison abilities
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And? That's a crime replicable by mundane capabilities, and said superhuman is not immune to being arrested by mundanes.

What I'm getting at is that I don't see the government losing monopoly of force necessarily. The powers presented are just not potent enough.
 
Forgothrax said:
I think the concerns about generalized anarchy are overblown. None of the example powers seem capable of allowing the superhuman to murder large numbers of people with impunity
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It's still 800 million if my dubious math skills pull through for me
People that get shocked to death get lightning powers, drowned got water etc

Then there's gangs and another criminal or terroristic elements trying to make supes

The amount of supers will destroy everything but the strongest societies
 
Arguably how things develop would depend a lot on how the first Superman tier supers react to getting their powers, that sort of independence from normal consequences opens up a lot of options and which paths those individuals choose would likely have a huge impact on how things subsequently progress. The OP suggests that while uncommon we would still see a handful of supers who could do things like solo an entire army. Though arguably that possibility depends a lot on how likely it is that a direct counter arises simply from the act of super-punching your way through an entire army. If you have a 10% chance of every soldier/ civilian you super-punch becoming a specific counter to your powerset things like warlord-ism quickly become non-starters.
 
If you ask me, I think the state of civilization in the wake of 1/10 gaining trauma-associated superpowers depends chiefly on a few groups.

One thing nobody seems to have been thinking about right now is one simple fact.

If you get superpowers based on your darkest hour, powers sufficient to save you from the thing that pushed you towards a traumatic break...

What powers do you get when civilization seems to be collapsing around you?

Mayors, Police, Presidents, Governers, CEOs.

One tenth of them gain powers. All of them live in a social world in which control is equal to life.

The real battle for whether society continues or falls depends on whether or not enough of the correct powers emerge in people who feel like they are losing control of society and gain abilities due to that loss of control.

When Mr. Mayor literally gains the power to Lay Down the Law in his town, or Little Jill gains the power to make superpowered people stay away from her, society gains pillars to hold it up as it fractures apart.

If Feudalism emerged, it would be in the hands of those whose interests were those of the former society, since the same people traumatized by society falling apart would gain powers suitable for holding it together, whether that's a CEO gaining mind control, or a Police Officer gaining Power Nullification.
 
Amnistar said:
This assumes those without siper powers have no way of countering those with super powers.

If the average super power doesn't come with bulletproof skin or regeneration, the same deterents work against those with powers as those without. They will cause more damage before being taken down, but can still be taken down.
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I don't actually assume those things.

Each super doesn't have to be an invincible powerhouse, you just have to have a small minority willing to abuse their powers in some way to cause society to begin increasingly rely on other supers for protection more than regular state services, which would gradually but inevitably cause decentralization and eventually Balkanization.

Even these state apparatuses wouldn't be immune to this effect. Everything would eventually revolve around whatever supers get hired on while mundane people are increasingly sidelined.

Eventually society would become a loose collection of poles centred around various hierarchies of supers.
 
The implicit assumption in your stance is that it takes a super to counter a super. If a cop with a gun can stop a super then you don't have a warlord society built on super powers because the normals with guns retain the ability to fight supers just as well as any other terrorist.


If super powers make you immune to traditional methods of government control, i.e. guns, then yes, governments collapse and are rebuilt around super powers. If the traditional methods work, than supers just get rolled up into existing societies.

It comes down to how powerful the supers in question are. If you trigger as superman that's the end of society as we know it. If you trigger as cyclops you are just a dude with eye guns, and aren't going to be able to stand against the army.
 
Amnistar said:
The implicit assumption in your stance is that it takes a super to counter a super. If a cop with a gun can stop a super then you don't have a warlord society built on super powers because the normals with guns retain the ability to fight supers just as well as any other terrorist.


If super powers make you immune to traditional methods of government control, i.e. guns, then yes, governments collapse and are rebuilt around super powers. If the traditional methods work, than supers just get rolled up into existing societies.

It comes down to how powerful the supers in question are. If you trigger as superman that's the end of society as we know it. If you trigger as cyclops you are just a dude with eye guns, and aren't going to be able to stand against the army.
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Yes if you assume all supers are rampaging monsters who will line up on one side of a field while the army lines up on the other side then sure I guess the army has a shot.
 
the atom said:
Yes if you assume all supers are rampaging monsters who will line up on one side of a field while the army lines up on the other side then sure I guess the army has a shot.
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I mean, if they are trying to establish some kind of warlord run freedom, the army can absolutely roll up and just shoot them? Or the cops. Or just the guy down the street that owns a handgun.

Super powers of the level of the average X-men character aren't so powerful that they are impossible to counter. Most villains in super hero comics and stories are susceptible to being shot as much as a normal person. They might cause more damage before being put down, but they would be put down. And that threat of violence will control supers just as well as it controls populations now.
 
Magus Explorator said:
It's still 800 million if my dubious math skills pull through for me
People that get shocked to death get lightning powers, drowned got water etc

Then there's gangs and another criminal or terroristic elements trying to make supes

The amount of supers will destroy everything but the strongest societies
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Yes, and?

Most of the powers as written don't seem significantly more dangerous than body armor + firearm, and despite the number of guns in say the US the number of people going crazy with them is fairly low compared to the amount of lethal firepower floating around.

Many of those 800 million will get powers that aren't directly combat relevant. Many more will get powers that aren't much better than being armed with a firearm 24/7/365. Neither of those things threaten the monopoly of force.

The things that threaten the monopoly of force are:

1) Superpower packages that provide a combination of defense and offense that prevent mundanes from killing or restraining them. Aka Superman.

2) Mind Control/Social Thinker powers that allow the superhuman to subvert societal organization on a large scale. Ironically this is probably going to be invisible unless there are a large number of people capable of this engaging with one another. Really potent precogs too, maybe.

If all the available powers don't fit either category, then I doubt society will become unrecognizable.

If #1: How many superman-esque figures are there? A few invulnerable people will have the potential to start conflict between them because there are few counters, but they may not end up being individually amoral enough to remake society via threat of force. Many will start conflict because there are simply too many points of potential conflict.

If #2: Not much changes on the surface, just underneath the surface.
 
With out hackneyed conflict compulsion, I'd imagine the first thing most people who get powers will seek to do is get out of whatever thing caused them the trauma in the first place along with their kin. Since we haven't changed humanity significantly, the two primary responses to this shouldn't really change much. While the idea of suddenly rising up and destroying one's oppressors seems thrilling to many in a that quintessential power fantasy way, the more likely response is to use one's super powers to help get across the border out of a warzone, or if in a stable industrialized nation, to use ones powers to get rich.

Almost any superpower is a localized break in physics, which means an opportunity to do something more efferently or cheaper than any existing process available to humanity. I'd expect that the response to the modern world finding out about these supers, is extremely aggressive recruiting firms popping up overnight to sell super powers to the industrial market. Considering the current NFT madness, I'd imagine the speculative market on superhuman labor contracts would quite literally redefine economics. After the first wave of superstar superpowered individuals i'd imagine people with less novel versions of pre-existing powers would be offered industrial equipment amounts of money to do jobs that quickly would disappear from the mundane labor market. Non-service work would disappear from the untrained/unpowered labor market and we would probably find a new middle class of super powered individuals working for the same upper class of capital holders.

Anyone with a mind controlling power would probably get murdered pretty quickly. Like, police just shoot them, no questions asked upon learning they exist. Just manifesting the power would be criminal in most places. Its the only powerset that comes with a pre-baked assumption of evil, and in most of the western world it clashes with core concepts of personnel value.


I kinda wana see this novelization....
 
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