Superhumans supressed by humans?

[Sharkerbob]

So, I'm reading some comics and whatever, and its yet another one of those stories where superhumans are vilified and suppressed by regular humans. In this case witches.

So, like, the plot is that one witch decides "fuck it" and decides to just open a can of whoop-ass on a nearby town. Just shows up and starts spell slinging and summoning hordes of minions to wreck shit up.

And I'm all like... "Okay, so she's pissed off because this town was known for burning witches at the stake. Okay... so, you're saying the witch's are generally powerful enough to fuck up a whole town, and basically laugh off any local police forces. So... how exactly did the humans get around to burning all the previous witch's? Unless they had witch's of their own (which I don't think they did) taking down the bad witch's, how did 1700s humans even have the means to deal with these things? How could they even capture them, much less kill them in elaborate witch burnings?"

So, I got to thinking, about stories wherein superhumans exist but are heavily suppressed by humans somehow. Marvel mutants are an easy example, but really, how realistic is this? Especially if you got things like powerful witches who can pretty much just run rampant whenever they want with no mortals able to stop them, what exactly do they even have to fear from humans, that they couldn't just live openly among them?

Humans want to be all pissy because the witch has magic and that's "evil?" Well, what the hell are they even gunna be able to do about it? Storm the witch's castle? Yeah, good luck with that, when she can just cast a spell to make the walls impenetrable and summon armies of skeletons to rip your whole town to pieces if you screw with her too much.

Oh, the mutant has fire powers? Let's form an angry mob and throw bricks at him! Yeah, good luck with that when he can just burn you all to ash with a thrust of his hand.

I mean, cripes, how did humans even get to the top of the food chain with these freaks running around?

I dunno if this is really much of a topic. Anyone else encountered fictions where humans somehow are able to suppress superhumans through apparently no other means than there's simply a greater number of humans, despite greater numbers really not mattering too much?

[Farealmer]

First one thing has to be said.

So, I got to thinking, about stories wherein superhumans exist but are heavily suppressed by superhumans somehow.

English major powers check failed.


With that out of the way lets get to it. Now i can't say about this fiction of the witch. But for things like marvel yeah that always struck me as stupid. I mean i get what they were doing making mutants a stand in for minorities. But getting 10 guys together to lynch a black person and getting 10 guys to go up against a mutants of whom you don't know the powers of or has a dangerous powers with hand weapons was always dumb. I can no more imagine people would rush said person than i believe they'd rush at a black guy with a fully loaded uzi.

But in some fiction it holds like Witch Hunter Robin with the use of orbo, or the ridiculus imprisonment methods they use with dyclonius in elfen lied. It's more a thing with anime than with american stuff. Cause in anime a scared mutant won't hesitate to fry your ass in self defense, where in america they either hold on to the no kill policy to ridiculus extremes, do so by accident, or are evil. Thus naturally are held in check by mere humans. IDK i am sure their is examples on both sides i just felt like ranting.

[Sharkerbob]

First one thing has to be said.

English major powers check failed.

Corrected.

With that out of the way lets get to it. Now i can't say about this fiction of the witch. But for things like marvel yeah that always struck me as stupid. I mean i get what they were doing making mutants a stand in for minorities. But getting 10 guys together to lynch a black person and getting 10 guys to go up against a mutants of whom you don't know the powers of or has a dangerous powers with hand weapons was always dumb. I can no more imagine people would rush said person than i believe they'd rush at a black guy with a fully loaded uzi.

But in some fiction it holds like Witch Hunter Robin with the use of orbo, or the ridiculus imprisonment methods they use with dyclonius in elfen lied. It's more a thing with anime than with american stuff. Cause in anime a scared mutant won't hesitate to fry your ass in self defense, where in america they either hold on to the no kill policy to ridiculus extremes, do so by accident, or are evil. Thus naturally are held in check by mere humans. IDK i am sure their is examples on both sides i just felt like ranting.

Hmmm... point there on how anime approaches it differently. Comics Code Authority pretty much raised a whole generation on the no killing idea; interesting to see how that reflects in other facets of the fictions.

[Wjowski]

To be fair to Marvel guys like Magneto or even Cyclops are very, very, very rare. Most mutants are either just weird-looking or have low-level superpowers.

[Deskad]

Looking at this from a more or less biological viewpoint, it would be the other way around.

If there was, indeed, a separate race of sapient bipeds with considerable supernatural abilities living with us on the planet, then they would be the homo sapiens' direct biological competitors, and quite frankly, we wouldn't stand a freakin chance.

The thing is, compare to the dozen or so other hominid we humans have eradicated on our quest for global supremacy, we were the things with superpowers. We either adapted better, bred better, needed a bit less food, made better clothes. Tiny advantages like that ensured we would win.

Now imagine a species with everything we got, plus the ability to (insert power X here), that's a big friggin deal.

Comics do not deal with this realistically, because it is impossible. A race with a completely different set of physical and mental attributes would very quickly develop into something that we humans would find outright alien to us.

Imagine a hominid race that can use magic, what kind of shelters would it build, how would it aquire food, how easy would it be for them/it to survive? We would stand absolutely no chance.

Even if we were to assume that a superhuman prescence appears on a formed, modern earth and in small numbers, there would be two outcomes(realistically).

1. We kill them all.

2. Whatever awesome advantage they have over us very quickly makes them desired labor/management/resource/breeding material, andd their race wins again.

Comics and fiction in general simply don't deal with this, being enterntainment first and foremost.

[Radioactive Zombie]

The SCP Foundation (GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND) does a great job of containing superhumans, especially considering that a quarter of them are psychos.

[Farealmer]

The SCP Foundation (GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND) does a great job of containing superhumans, especially considering that a quarter of them are psychos.

This brings up another pet peeve of mine when it comes to this topic. How humans all to often find methods for controlling/nullifing these beings powers. I mean human can't even reliably control fusion without large machines and vigilance or stop the aids virus from killing someone, yet we can contain something way more complicated and unusual? And in many cases keep it secret cause none of these beings ever thinks that maybe exposure might make the humans that hunt it's jobs harder when they can't just dissapear them without a fuss.

[T51R]

The SCP Foundation (GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND) does a great job of containing superhumans, especially considering that a quarter of them are psychos.

This is why we have pro sports. The athletically or mentally gifted people out there normally thrive in this environment; not everyone has the athletic ability of Ben Johnson or Muhammed Ali, and even fewer have the motor function gifts of Ayrton Senna and Jean Alesi. Yao Ming's physical attributes, Michael Jordon's agility for his size, the power of Brock Lesnar as an athlete, you name it.

And that even comes down to the super-smart: top-level talent today can be found in the military development subsidiaries of civilian transport companies which is even more competitive than pro sports.

Take a cab driver from South Africa, and measure him up mentally with a development/design engineer from say, General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin. That is an almost superhuman gap in mental attributes. Same as we take Usain Bolt and measure him up physically against an average Joe.

Look at a modern Urban Firefighter and his level of both physical AND mental development.

I think "super" humans exist, and exist now. They just don't have "powers" like the do in fiction, or, their "powers" are just so down-to-earth and practical that we don't even regard them as such.

[Kamina]

So, I'm reading some comics and whatever

Who reads comic books anymore?

Anyway, inFamous 2 is shaping up to have one of those plots. Cole is constantly beaten down politically in the first game due to being at the scene of the Plot MacGuffin that created the story's main conflict, and inFamous 2 continues the story to where people are trying to outlaw Cole (the only guy who seems to be doing anything about their problems) from the new city, New Marais.

Also, in the Avatar Last Airbender sequel, there's going to be a group called the "Anti Benders" or something like that who are against anybody who usings an elemental bending style (for some reason).

[Radioactive Zombie]

This brings up another pet peeve of mine when it comes to this topic. How humans all to often find methods for controlling/nullifing these beings powers. I mean human can't even reliably control fusion without large machines and vigilance or stop the aids virus from killing someone, yet we can contain something way more complicated and unusual? And in many cases keep it secret cause none of these beings ever thinks that maybe exposure might make the humans that hunt it's jobs harder when they can't just dissapear them without a fuss.

The SCP Foundation keeps most of its tech away from the general public. In very rare cases, they release them for reverse engineering and sale to corporations, but for the most part, they're not here to stop mundane threats. That's not their job.

[Omegalith]

Ah yes, "Let's bully the Dragon kid!" syndrome. Best thing to do is just smile and nod.

If someone needs a physical demonstration to remind him that the Dragon kid can fly around spiting lances of flame hot enough to vaporise Iron and only doesn't because of his inherent good nature, they've really earned that Darwin Award.

[Sharpandpointies]

In the Anima setting, they pull this off the following way:

1. Magic (and other supernatural powers) is rare;
2. Magic, while extremely potent, has finite resources in a mage and is slow to return - a mage who incinerates a town will have to go to ground and pray he doesn't get caught while depleted;
3. The Inquisition has its own people with supernatural powers, and even the lowest-level, non-supernatural Inquisitor is a highly skilled, trained killer capable of chopping apart large groups of bandits on his lonesome and toting a Church-blessed arcane weapon that usually nullifies or counters supernatural abilities to some extent.

Sure, there are some really potent beings walking around who could thumb their noses at the Inquisition, but 'going public' would end up putting them out there with a target on their back for other extremely potent beings and characters, as well as exposing them and their plans to the world at large. As an example, the Order of Yehudah (a secret organization of mages dedicated to bringing the world under its rule - Yehudah being one of the civilizations I talk about below) is pretty darned potent, but clashes with other organizations all the time. Recently, all of their members in a large city were slaughtered by Sammael, a coalition of non-human races existing in the shadows.

There are quite a few checks and balances against powerful supernatural characters saying 'screw you, I'm going public' in the setting - many of which are the other powerful supernatural characters. :)

In Anima's past there were entire civilizations that were run by mages - extremely restrictive, elitist civilizations - where those with the power ruled with an iron fist over those without. People remember this, even a thousand years later, and mages tend to hide.

[Syrile Demonthyst]

While I agree to a point about the idea of humans suppressing superhumans.. There are some things that are commonly overlooked.

In comics for example the heroes have a strict No-Kill code for a good reason. They are supposed to be better than that. They are supposed to be the pinnacle of human goodness. Inspiring hope and such.

Now, keeping that in mind, it does limit the options of the good guys in fighting back. Let us use Mutants for this example.

Everyone knows Xavier could fairly easily defeat all the normal humans in the world and it would not take that much of an effort, just a little bit of time. And maybe not even that.

But he will not do it.

Now, on the other hand.. The Iconic X-Men fight: Magneto and his minions.

Now, Magneto has the power to decimate the world, were they only humans. With his underlings he could easily trash everything. However, his power is limited as he has to deal with the X-Men.

In addition to that, humans have adapted and developed technology to deal with threats that are beyond them. Sentinels for example.

These two things combined make it very hard for the bad guys to take over.

And the X-Men catch a lot of bad publicity because of their fights with Magneto, even though they are attempting to save people. There will always be people who fear and hate what they do not understand and try to blame the worlds problems on whomever they can get away with.

Another good example is The Civil War.
How many people could honestly take on a group of people with super-technology led by Tony Stark?

In comics there are meta-humans, superhumans and many others around to cause things to be a serious threat. Or just super-tech which could turn the balance fairly easy. Tony is a good example of that.

All-in-all. Yes, some of it makes no sense at all. However in some cases, it is actually more logical than it seems when you really break it down.

[Oggy]

So, I'm reading some comics and whatever, and its yet another one of those stories where superhumans are vilified and suppressed by regular humans. In this case witches.

So, like, the plot is that one witch decides "fuck it" and decides to just open a can of whoop-ass on a nearby town. Just shows up and starts spell slinging and summoning hordes of minions to wreck shit up.

And I'm all like... "Okay, so she's pissed off because this town was known for burning witches at the stake. Okay... so, you're saying the witch's are generally powerful enough to fuck up a whole town, and basically laugh off any local police forces. So... how exactly did the humans get around to burning all the previous witch's? Unless they had witch's of their own (which I don't think they did) taking down the bad witch's, how did 1700s humans even have the means to deal with these things? How could they even capture them, much less kill them in elaborate witch burnings?"

So, I got to thinking, about stories wherein superhumans exist but are heavily suppressed by humans somehow. Marvel mutants are an easy example, but really, how realistic is this? Especially if you got things like powerful witches who can pretty much just run rampant whenever they want with no mortals able to stop them, what exactly do they even have to fear from humans, that they couldn't just live openly among them?

Humans want to be all pissy because the witch has magic and that's "evil?" Well, what the hell are they even gunna be able to do about it? Storm the witch's castle? Yeah, good luck with that, when she can just cast a spell to make the walls impenetrable and summon armies of skeletons to rip your whole town to pieces if you screw with her too much.

Oh, the mutant has fire powers? Let's form an angry mob and throw bricks at him! Yeah, good luck with that when he can just burn you all to ash with a thrust of his hand.

I mean, cripes, how did humans even get to the top of the food chain with these freaks running around?

I dunno if this is really much of a topic. Anyone else encountered fictions where humans somehow are able to suppress superhumans through apparently no other means than there's simply a greater number of humans, despite greater numbers really not mattering too much?

No, I agree with the idea of humans hating superhumans being stupid. You know my OC universe well Sharker, and humans do not hate superhumans as much as they are really leary of them because if they go off the deep end, who could stop them? Even Night Watch was designed to monitor and suppress (if needed) threats, but in reality they couldn't stop someone in Paradox's power level let alone hope to stop a fully pissed Meridian.

The thing that always got me, especially in the Marvel Universe was where does the distinction stop? I mean, Mutants are prejudiced against because of a circumstance of birth, fine, I'll go with that. As already mentioned its a stand in for racism. But you have Norse gods and space adventurers who come back with strange powers and super solders and such and everyone is okay with that? Really? I think it would easier to accept people who were born with these conditions rather than one who suddenly was mutated due to some scientific blunder (Spiderman, Hulk, Fantastic Four...etc) So then, if science creates these abnormalities, why doesn't society rage against excessive sciencific exploration rather than a biological evolution. And really, who's to say who is a mutant and who is simply a superhuman? The division between hating mutants and accepting superhumans is just stupid.

[Silver Knight]

Also, in the Avatar Last Airbender sequel, there's going to be a group called the "Anti Benders" or something like that who are against anybody who usings an elemental bending style (for some reason).

Really? Well good luck with that considering 80% of the populous can bend the elements. They sound monumentally stupid, either they are hypocrites and use bending themselves to fight or they try and fight people that can bend and shape the forces of nature to their will with just melee weapons...again good luck.

As to the why, well I suspect its the standard reasons: bunch f bending bad guys probably wrecked a village killing everyone and these "Anti-Bending" guys had friends or relitives in the village that died or they where generally killed by bad benders. So now they blame all benders. Hell you could almost call it a troupe if I could figure a name for it.