>Superhero setting >Even remotely resembles modern social

k

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Most folks are good at heart

IRL if people got superpowers I bet money 90% of folks would play superman

Besides, modern morality =/= ancient morality

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>>51313259
>Implying other superheroes wouldn't fight for equality
Look at what happens most supers go power mad.

>>51313259
>>Concept of equal 'rights' exists when there is actual hard evidence people are not equal
There's hard evidence of this in real life. Equal rights isn't about people being literally biologically equal, it's about everyone mutually agreeing they don't want to get shit on by someone else so they set up a system where everyone is treated sorta kinda the same.

>>51313295
This is exactly my point. Superhero settings with modern sensibilities and values only works if superpowers are EXTREMELY recent. Like, not even 1960's recent. It would have to be after the american civil rights era just to resemble real life culture.
>Besides, modern morality =/= ancient morality
Yes, which is why if supers always existed ancient morality would have evolved into an entirely different beast than we have now where humans are actually relatively more or less equal. And until recently we still had racism and sexism.
Imagine if the differences were extreme enough the difference was more like Stephen hawking vs an MMA fighter on the low end.

>>51313309
What I'm saying is that our conception of "what happens when super powers go mad" is invalid for a society that always had superpowers.
What has historically happened when the king has gone mad? Usually jack shit, and that's when all it takes it a sharp stick to kill him. Now imagine if the king is fucking superman.

>>51313326

This.

Makes me laugh that OP is as much of a giant sperglord about this as Gary Gygax was.

>>51313326
>>51313412
Yeah the fight for equality between normies and supers would go real when when the supers are literally flying over the heads of the normies instead of a minor "we are superior because we have guns"
The effect would be so much more pronounced the wanting equality would actually seem absurd the similarly to a slave having equal rights to a king. And that is understating the issue.

Humans aren't precisely equal, but humans also die when poked.
What do you do when your king is an immortal superman tyrant? Only another superman can stop him and there is still absolutely no reason for him to elevate you to his level socially and legally.

It's like saying rich have the same rights as the poor. Even in the cases it's legally true it's clearly not in practice. So why the fuck do you think when the difference is superiority is inherent and obvious and can't even be taken away it would be even remotely similar?

Sounds to me like you two didn't even think about this at all.

>>51313259

Go read worm, anon.

>>51313259

Superhero settings aren't about 'realism' you blithering idiot.

They're romanticised, idealised world where virtue and villainy are exaggerated by the existence of supernaturally potent individuals, and that's the point. To view real life issues and conflicts through the lens of over the top drama and superhuman conflict.

All that being said, I can see there being some interesting ground to cover with 'realistic' superhero settings, but the classic style of things isn't invalid just because it doesn't conform to some arbitrary degree of 'realism'.

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>>51313365
>Now imagine if the king is fucking superman
Then he gets a drink

>>51313583
If a fantasy setting did this /tg/ would be saying it's shit world building when it only concerns itself with drama and not any actual consequences of the premise itself. Sci-fi fags do it too whenever the fictional science is sufficiently unexplored.

So why does capeshit get a pass when they don't?

>>51313524

Sounds to me like you're making a whole bunch of assumptions about a setting, and that they wouldn't even play out the way you think they would. You fatally undermine yourself with this line:

>It's like saying rich have the same rights as the poor. Even in the cases it's legally true it's clearly not in practice.

I wonder if you can figure out how this holes your argument beneath the waterline? :)

>>51313629
>DnD settings played more than any other settings
>"hurr durr /tg/ hates unrealistic inconsistent shit"

Top kek, kid.

>>51313629

Except pulp fantasy and space opera are, y'know, things? That people like? That have an audience who don't give a fuck about dragging things down with 'realism' arguments and just want to enjoy a fun and engaging story set in one fantastical world or another?

Having preferences is fine, you do you, but trying to argue that it's somehow objectively bad is literally a badwrongfun argument.

>>51313524
so what if a normie is born with immortal superman powers, and sees everything wrong with the way immortal superman king is ruling? wouldn't he kill the old king, impose himself as the new ruler, and then try to fix equality issues? alternatively, what if thousands of moderately-to-very powerful people get together to kill immortal superman god-king and impose a democratic republic? people relate to people in a similar situation to them, and if a bunch of people decide something isn't right they try to fix it.

>>51313639
>Depends on the setting
Is not an argument in the case of talking about human nature itself.

>>51313711
>so what if a normie is born with immortal superman powers
Sure
> and sees everything wrong with the way immortal superman king is ruling?
And what do you mean 'everything wrong'? It depends on if the guy sees it as personally wrong or morally wrong ( unlikely, might makes right is incredibly powerful only more pronounced by the existence of supers )
>wouldn't he kill the old king, impose himself as the new ruler, and then try to fix equality issues?
How often does a rebellion turn into a bastion of civil rights? It's usually more of the same, with a different face.
>alternatively, what if thousands of moderately-to-very powerful people get together to kill immortal superman god-king and impose a democratic republic?
I can see this, but democratic for -whom-? Just because lesser powered people seize the government doesn't mean they are going to give the same rights to non-powered people. Probably a caste system in which like an aristocracy on steroids.
>and if a bunch of people decide something isn't right they try to fix it.
My argument is that what people see is "not right" depends on their culture, and humans who developed along with superpowers would have an entirely different branch of evolution for their culture than modern humans to the point something like "equal rights" would seem even more absurd than in the world where "equal rights" was only accepted as mainstream a few decades ago.

>>51313259
>since ancient times, people have had the X mutation gene
>some catalysts such as lightning storms and plagues have activated this gene
>superheroes are all mutants who are born with different powers depending on what activated their catalyst
>history sees these people the same way modern day looks at wizards
>secular, immensely powerful, and generally uncaring of most people's desires
>nations and kingdoms made by these people are generally dismantled by war and economic problems fueled by "I'm better than everyone" mentality
>lasting empires are formed by supers who have a little bit of a heart and look for the common wellbeing of the kingdom, mostly their nobles
>modern era
>supers are seen as wells of power and potential
>when it's found out a person is considered super, they're spirited away by their government
>either for military or diplomatic training, depending on the nature of their superpower
>a new adminsitrative class is formed made purely of superpowered people
>it varies from nation to nation, but most of these people work for the government
>thus the interests of nobles and "the people"
>many supers are kept secret by their parents because they don't want diplomatic or dictatorial governments from stealing their children
>vigilantism exists among super communities, but these vigilantes may or may not be hunted by the government super organizations
>corporations are still largely controlled by regular people due to the rarity of the X gene
>still, private and foreign interests contract off-grid supers for use of their powers
>thus brings us to our heroes
>fighting for the greater good is often impossible, as the intel for what the greater good even IS is inaccessible
>fighting small crime and crime organizations is still easy enough
>the hard part is covering your tracks from the anti-vigilantes in the government (who may turn a blind eye to your action if they don't hold interests in illegal activities, which the government does IRL)
good?

>A thread died for this.

>>51313711
>so what if a normie is born with immortal superman powers, and sees everything wrong with the way immortal superman king is ruling? wouldn't he kill the old king, impose himself as the new ruler, and then try to fix equality issues?
It could happen, but fixing an oppressive government is never as simple as "kill the dictator". Even a godlike superhuman would have underlings and allies who would try to take his place or capitalize the power vacuum. At that point, it truly does become us versus them, because it's the BBEG+all his superpowered buddies against the rest of humanity.
Plus, a smart ruler would make every effort possible to find superpowered individuals when they're young and turn them into allies to prevent the exact situation you described.

>alternatively, what if thousands of moderately-to-very powerful people get together to kill immortal superman god-king and impose a democratic republic? people relate to people in a similar situation to them, and if a bunch of people decide something isn't right they try to fix it.
This is a more likely example, since it's not the kind of thing one person can do alone. A superhero underground resistance would be cool as fuck to play, actually. However, power corrupts, and at some point they or their successors might start seeing the nornal humans they're protecting as a liability. After all, what are they really providing their rulers?

>setting resembles any social climate
>it isn't filled to the brim with assholes

When will this meme die

>>51313877
It wont. As long as there are edgy social retards that think they have it all figured out, it will keep creeping about.

>>51313259
>Humanity not being ruled by literal god-kings
Maybe some superheroes are idealistic and try to preserve freedom of individuals despite the existence of these powerful godlike men. Using your logic the entire world would be divided into military dictatorships ruled by nuclear weapon owning militaries. After all what would Portugal do if the US invaded?
>there is actual hard evidence people are not equal
This is true today you retard. Nobody except autists assume that they mean all people are capable of the same feats when they say "all men are created equal."
>Thinking "good people and heroes will enforce equality and freedom" will handwave this problem when ancient normal humans in our own history were only relatively good and in many cases not good people at all
Yep that is why Democracy doesn't exist in any form. Every country on earth is a military dictatorship.
>not even mentioning there is little incentive to protecting the powerless but a lot of effort required
Little incentive to help others at all with your own time and money, yet many people still do it.

Are you a sentient dolphin shocked that humans don't all just rape and murder each other for fun?

>>51313295

> IRL if people got superpowers I bet money 90% of folks would play superman

... until their personal politics is triggered and they realize they can use their status and power to force change.

Superman only 'works' because complicated situations like Israel don't exist in the comics, and Superman has super human patience and tolerance,and an inhuman lack of politics

People would be smashing abortion clinics in the space of a month, or oil rigs, or getting involved in latest Rodney King level shit, or Occupy or some NRA thing etc etc etc

>>51313524
>Yeah the fight for equality between normies and supers would go real when when the supers are literally flying over the heads of the normies instead of a minor "we are superior because we have guns"
>Some supers decide not to be assholes
>Hunt down and execute the supers who are assholes
>Hunt down any more supers in the future who try to be assholes
Isn't this the whole point of generic superhero teams like the justice league and shield?

>>51313877
It's not a meme anon. People are generally assholes when left to their own devices, as selfishness breeds evil and humans are almost entirely selfish when they have no other things to prevent them from being selfish (like modern religion and morals).

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>>51313365
...nigga

Is you retarded?

When you say "superhero setting" a particular image comes to mind.

A modern world full of criminals and scumbags, until one day someone emerges with bizarre powers by accident, destiny, or invention. Usually one or fewer guys with powers. Technology is usually semi realistic (grappling guns, stun grenades, body armor, etc). If two superheroes meet there'll be a retarded fight between them. Villains are typically thugs, organized crooks, terrorists, etc. There will be exactly one villain with superpowers and he's gotten them from the same source as the hero. Normal people consider them urban legends or extremely mysterious. The hero(s) doesn't work with authorities and will likely be handwaved or hunted as a vigilante. He may or may not have a friend on the force. If he collaborates with the government he's probably the result of a shadowy Alex Jones tier super soldier project.

After a while more heroes come out of the woodwork and the normal criminals are mostly suppressed, giving way to all manner of costumed maniac villains. Usually a mix of powers and normals. Technology gets more sci fi tier. Superheroes will collaborate more and there may even be a team or two, the villains are likely still disorganized. Normal people know about the heroes and villains, gaining the status of celebrities. Villains probably won't kill or permanently harm heroes at this point, and if they succeed a new hero or heroes takes their place. The authorities start to work with heroes as equals and offer powers of investigation and arrest.

Eventually we find dozens or hundreds of superheroes, and the technology level goes batshit. A big league of heroes may rise as a peacekeeping &a humanitarian NGO, y'know kinda like if the UN was competent. Supervillains go from being city or state level threats to national and global threats. Super villains at this point will work together to fight superheroes.

>>51313832
>what are they providing their rulers
the same things they do now: food, shelter, convenience of tasks they don't want to do, and most importantly: worship. being the immortal god-king of nothing means you're nothing.

I do like the concept of a nation gradually becoming more and more corrupt though, because that actually DOES mirror the current theme of the real world's politics in a way that makes sense. Imagine a superpowered fight between God-Emperor Trump, the up-and-coming superhero who was commercial but is now going political, the long-thought-heroine Clinton who is implied to actually be an evil mastermind, and a grassroots hero Bernie "Burner" Sanders who has spent decades helping small-time and now wants to move to a global stage. That would be one hell of a matchup.

>>51313938
>t. Nietzsche worshipper

because you are a subhuman, it doesn't mean everybody else also is

>>51313890
>>51313877
Why would humans act different than they usually do when the differences between humans are more pronounced than they are in the reality where those small differences caused war and oppression?

It's not edgy you retard, stop misusing buzzwords.
>>51313907
>Yep that is why Democracy doesn't exist in any form. Every country on earth is a military dictatorship.
How recent is democracy? How long did it take for human culture to accept the premises of democracy? In a world with superhumans, would the premises of democracy still hold in the eyes of the average not-modern person.
You forget that a lot of human civilizations had literal god-kings when we know that superpowers don't exist.
Why do you think human history would follow reality when literal god-kings DO exist?
>>51313931
My argument is that organizations like those wouldn't exist or have any particular power for a similar reason we didn't really have any "nobles for the ethical treatment of commoners, we are actually serious about this and will fight you over it" in any particularly large numbers.

>>51313995
>implying that without religion and fabricated morals the world wouldn't be ruled by evil people doing stupid and evil things
>laughingpagans.jpg

>>51313995
>Acknowledging most of humans for most of human history where selfish cunts only nice to their immediate family must necessarily mean that you yourself are a selfish edgy cunt

Whoa man saying that murderers and sociopaths exist must make me a murderer and sociopath as well. Damn maybe if we ignore they exist they will go away.

>>51313961
Supervillains at this level don't do as much fist shaking, mustache twirling, and "curses! I'll get you next time, superfag!". They will attain worrying victories over the heroes. The heroes may do morally gray shit to stop them.

Battles with alien warlords, superpowered dictators, mutant kaiju, and demonic gods will be yawn worthy for civilians.

>>51313971
>the same things they do now: food, shelter, convenience of tasks they don't want to do, and most importantly: worship. being the immortal god-king of nothing means you're nothing.
Why the fuck should I care if ants worship me? Your logic is retarded, they should have nations for the sake of having nations.

You want to know what I would do if I was superman and wanted to be kind of a dick? Fly to DC, tell the president that if he pays me a billion dollars a year he can call me once a month and tell me to do any task he wants that takes me less than a day to finish. If the US refuses keep offering to heads of state until someone accepts. Spend most of my time in a mansion filled with whores and servants and once a month I have to work for a day. Just as much benefit as ruling a country, a lot less work, and a lot less vested interest in how well I do my job. If they stop paying me I will just retire, if my hypothetical country falls I am left with literally nothing.

>>51314009
>How recent is democracy? How long did it take for human culture to accept the premises of democracy? In a world with superhumans, would the premises of democracy still hold in the eyes of the average not-modern person.
Potentially. Not that it matters most super hero settings don't have super heroes in the distant past. Take the most normie example, the Marvel movies. Suddenly out of nowhere the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Spider Man appear within a few years of each other. Before that super heroes didn't exist.

>My argument is that organizations like those wouldn't exist or have any particular power for a similar reason we didn't really have any "nobles for the ethical treatment of commoners, we are actually serious about this and will fight you over it" in any particularly large numbers.
You are describing a fairly notable part of Roman society that caused a large number of disagreements.

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>autist starts thread
>autism spreads all over again

>>51313259
Real life has regards and cripples and we still care about their rights

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>>51314121
Don't worry anon, everything is okie dokie

>>51314140
Caring about cripples is a modern cultural invention and for most of history they were left to die if the family wasn't well off enough eat the cost of taking care of them.

>>51314168
What is your fucking endgame, asshole?
Like, what kind of point are you trying to make?
This entire thread is like "NO, IT'S MY THING!"
Fuck off, you should be the one left to die in the cold

>>51313259

>Wants a "realistic" grimderp millar setting with gratuitous gore, violence, and corruption.

No.

>>51314168

Nope. Caring for the sick and unwell has always been a thing humans have done, there's evidence of it all the way back to antiquity.

Because regardless of what edgelords like to believe, altruism and selflessness is a key survival advantage that human beings have by and large cultivated. Evolution doesn't care about the individual, it cares about the species, and that innate ability to empathise and the willingness to self-sacrifice are key advantages of humanity.

>>51313580
Basically, Worm handles all of these issues, and it even has it's own tabletop IRC server. It's a lot of fun to read, and to play.

>>51313580
To be fair it only worked like that in Worm because the setting equivalent of the Illuminati was actively working on stabilizing (and sometimes de-stabilizing) parts the world to keep it all from collapsing.

>>51314232
True, and superpowers are relatively new in Worm. However, there's the alternate universe in the story literally ruled by parahumans, so I guess OP is a little right in that regard.

>>51314187
>I'm an asshole for pointing out that a not-insignificant proportion of humanity are assholes enough that superpowers would completely warp the development of culture and morality.
I'm beginning to think that not being able to even contemplate alternative moral codes is a form of autism.
Just because you're thinking about it doesn't mean you're accepting them as a good thing.
>Caring for the sick and unwell has always been a thing humans have done
Caring for the permanently sick and unwell that isn't family is not nearly as common.

>>51314228
>It's a lot of fun to read, and to play.
How finished is the system nowadays?
Last time I checked it out we still had /wdc/ - Weaver Dice general on this board and it was kind of bare bones back then, to the point where people would just recommend to only use the character creation rules and then stat them and play using another system like Mutants and Masterminds.

How easy is it to get a game going on the IRC server?
Does the author still GM on there?

>>51313259
Why do you think VILLAINS exist? They want to have this stupidly edgy world where they're in charge.

And heroes just want to keep the world safe and free. That's its considered evil when Superman wants to be in charge.

We had a super PC with hatred and revenge motivation against the government because her powers were heriditary, and in her backstory the Gmen captured her and took all her eggs over a period of time. Some enemies encountered were technically her kids because of this.

>>51314311
The system is more polished, but I won't say it's entirely finished. The skills haven't been entirely reworked, and equipment beyond costumes, and rudimentary gear isn't exactly solidified, and tends to be more freeform.

However, if you're looking to GM a game, you'll absolutely have no trouble finding players. In terms of being a player, you may have to wait until someone dies, drops out, or otherwise drifts into the ether. However, there's a shit ton of campaigns with queues, so sooner or later it's easy to get into a game.

The author of the story does GM games from time to time, usually for groups of newbies to the channel. The last one he did was a couple weeks ago, as a one-shot, for corporate heroes in a city without the PRT.

>>51313938
People aren't evil

They're people

Of course we all have different capacities for empathy, we generally don't like causing pointless harm to people

>>51314168
In the world of superheroes regular people are the cripples. It's that simple m8

>>51314340
>Why do you think VILLAINS exist? They want to have this stupidly edgy world where they're in charge.
Is reality edgy?
Are king edgy?
Are god-kings edgy?
Is manifest destiny edgy?
Is divine mandate edgy?
For most of human history rulers claimed their legitimacy from a higher power. What if that higher power was literal and REAL? If it was real, what would cause the slide from that to modern moral code and ethics when there is tangible proof the god-king isn't bullshiting about his divine right? That's the entire fucking point of this thread.
>And heroes just want to keep the world safe and free. That's its considered evil when Superman wants to be in charge.
See my previous arguments in this thread. That idea of heroes and villains is a modern one, what if morality never made it to something similar to our views on morality at all? Is the god-king inherently a villain? Even if we think that he is, would the people living around him think the same way?

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>>51314168
Not him, but my people are literal ooga booga Yorubas and harming, neglecting, or mocking cripples was a severe sin in our culture even before white men came with Christianity or Islam

We say that one of the gods created cripples and deformed people in a drunken stupor, so he felt guilty

>>51314440
But how far does your people go for cripples?
In the case of a famine, do you still feed them even if it means less to eat for people able to work?

>>51314401
Very edgy. In case you haven't noticed, primitive people are typically fucking cunts.

>>51314479
Comes down to the family in question. Typical protocol was to spread out away from starvation central.

>>51314045
That money is worthless without the "ants" who give it value.
I'm sure the philosophy of "do we really need them" can vary from super to super, but it would be interesting to see some sort of immortal super who sees it as his destiny to be the only consciousness in the world or something

>>51314479

Finding its limits doesn't disprove that altruism and selflessness are key parts of human development throughout our entire history. Of course there are times when hard decisions had to be made for the survival of the tribe, but there's also plenty of cases of people voluntarily going without so that others might live.

>ruled by literal god-kings
>having superheroes with that level of power
>in frequencies great enough that nobody is willing to slip them poison or murder them in their sleep
>but not great enough that nobody has actually banded together with the interest of the common non-superhuman person
>not examining the psychological makeup of a superhero in charge who has to constantly fend off attacks on his life

>>51314597

Like almost all other 'realism' arguments, it's just using specific ideas to try and justify why their preference is objectively right, rather than actually taking a holistic view of the situation and going into it without preconceptions.

You don't understand the world as much as you think you do, edgelord-kun. You might want to re-examine things.

>>51314597
>>but not great enough that nobody has actually banded together with the interest of the common non-superhuman person
Not implying this, I'm arguing wether anyone would feel the need to fight for the common-non-superhuman in the first place.
How many wars have been waged over the treatment of commoners being less than the ruling class?
How will this change when the ruler claiming divine mandate has actual divine powers?

>>51314618
I could keep going, too
>not having the superhero snap and murder everyone eventually
>not having human civilization never advance past cavemen level society because of this
>not examining this cyclical exhibition of human nature from the perspective of a separate sentient species that has developed without the extreme disparity of power that holds humanity back in this situation

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I need help developing an antagonist who has an "Unconventional" power which he uses to amass wealth/power. Something you wouldn't think of as a useful power at first glance, but something that will make him wealthy and dangerous without bending reality.

>>51314668
>Most of human history is people obeying hierarchy
>Thinking this will become more pronounced when superpowers exist is edgy
Again, divine right to rule was seen as sufficient for commoners in a world where divine doesn't exist. You know damn well what would happen in a world where superpowers do exist using that same reasoning.

>>51314672

This fails under your own logic. If everyone really is a hyper-selfish edgelord cunt, why would they sit there and take it when some asshole lorded it over them?

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>>51314713

>>51314672
>Every single person is willing to obey a proven divine ruler
>but every single person who does have powers rivaling the divine will use them to lord over everyone else
>nobody who isn't superhuman will be willing to defy the natural order despite the premise that everyone is self-interested
I mean if you want to equate humans to sheep I guess you can do that, but then that doesn't strengthen your case against being an edgelord.

>>51313259
The setting you're describing is called WH40K

>>51314730
You've proven you're an idiot who has zero reading comprehension.
I'm not saying people are hyper-selfish. I'm taking the fact that: commoners acknowledged their rules, often times under the reasoning of divine right and combining it with the idea that superpowers exist.

You're the fucking retard acting like modern moral codes have always existed and that some fucking how when literal superpowers exist humanity would skip that entire stage of cultural development to avoid the issue of how problematic it would be for human development.

> why would they sit there and take it when some asshole lorded it over them?
THE SAME FUCKING REASON THEY SIT THERE AND TOOK IT WHEN PEOPLE DO IT IN REAL LIFE, ONLY MORE PRONOUNCED BECAUSE LITERAL FUCKING SUPER POWERS

Holy fucking shit this is not hard to understand.

>>51314743
A smug anime girl, I have no choice but to concede my argument. Even though most anime settings agree with me. When superpowers exist, in most japanese settings, japan doesn't hesitate to narrate that they seize power and oppress commoners.

>>51314778
I'm saying that people would obey the divine ruler for similar reasons they did in real life. But if you want to pretend monarchies never existed that's okay.

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>>51313259
oh hey it's a stealth anti-moral fag thread

been a while since we've had one of these

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>>51314803

>>51314803
Monarchies existed because there was a person to pass power to afterward.
In your hypothetical setting, is there a transition of power to another superhero? Or does the superhero also conveniently have immortality?
And what about a potential power struggle given two possible candidates for divine right? It happened in monarchies when succession was in dispute.

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>>51313259
read worm.

although
>>51313580
said it already it bears repeating.

Worm the most inteligent superhero setting out there. the world is falling apart under the weight of giant monster attacks and rampent super crime.

>>51313295
Powers only happen after trammatic events for people who are already conflict prone because of [Spoiler] reasons.

This alone explains why the good guys heroes are outnumbered and why so many capes are also crazy motherfuckers.

>>51314044

Supervillains havent really fone this since the sixties, mid-seventies at best. You are thinking of bad early cartoon adaptions of comics and HB/WB cartoons in general.

>>51313919
There's a comic about Superman sneaking into a North Korea analogue to feed starving people and the political tensions it causes

>>51314390
explain slavery and serfdom then

explain war

explain the use of harmful chemicals by scientists who knew better since the industrial revolution

explain all of the things that happen when people have ludicrous amounts of power

>>51314803
Hey man, they've decided you're am edgelord, I'm not saying I agree with them but at this point you can't change their minds, especially by doubling down on your arguments, maybe take a moment to respect the validity of their arguments and they might respect you back a bit

>>51314804
Your posts and other posts similar to your are making me into an edge-lord.
If modern people can't even entertain a hypothetical using real human behavior as the basis then why would I listen to you at all?

>>51314855
This is much better.
>In your hypothetical setting, is there a transition of power to another superhero? Or does the superhero also conveniently have immortality?
To keep it as close to reality as possible, superpowers don't make superheroes immortal but they are hereditary.
>And what about a potential power struggle given two possible candidates for divine right? It happened in monarchies when succession was in dispute.
Yes, but did anyone ever say "the emperor has no clothes! if he had a divine mandate why did he lose his position. divine mandate doesn't exist at all!"?
Which is my point. Not only do you have the same excuse of "divine right to rule" still existing, but now you have evidence for it in the form of superpowers.
The question is now whether human rights would feasible develop to modern standards or would that fact create a general caste system of supers and nonsupers having different rights before modern morality can even get it's foot in the door completely fucking up it's development by making questions that need to be answered, with the answers being different than the morality in reality.

Would the idea of woman suffrage exist in a world of superpowers?
Not because women are seen as weaker than men, but because the difference between sex is relatively insignificant and people care more about the difference supers and non-supers and women had the same rights as men all along because superwoman can still kick your ass and women's suffrage was never a necessary cultural movement in the first place.
Would womans suffrage be replaced with commoners suffrage?

>>51314975
>implying slavery, serfdom, and war are evil

lol

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>>51314993

>>51314993
But that's not real human behavior

>>51314975

Because otherwise good people are capable of awful things in the right situation.

That's the harder truth which most people would prefer to avoid accepting, imagining innately evil people to take the blame, but it isn't true.

Good hearted, well meaning people who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, even for the right reasons, can commit absolute atrocities.

The Milgram Experiment is a terrifying example of this. When instructed to by an authority figure, otherwise normal, morally upstanding people will administer what they consider to be harmful or even lethal electrical shocks to a person presumed to exist in another room.

Most atrocities and terrible things throughout human history arise from similar situations. Very few people actively decide to be evil or go out of their way to harm others. But the right situation can make a devil of any saint.

>>51314993
Now we're getting somewhere. If you had opened like this there would be less hostility to this idea.
Personally I believe there will always be some sort of countercultural thinker that emerges from the masses to throw subversive ideas in the face of common thought. From then it's just a question of if the ideas catch on and if the ruling superhumans try to quash them.

>>51314976
Why would I acknowledge their arguments when they are completely ignoring mine?
Most of the edge comments are coming from people completely ignoring the "divine right claim = successful vs divine right claim + divine powers == ???" argument entirely.
Just saying "nuh uh, people aren't like that!" forgetting that people ARE like that in sufficient numbers than entire governments were based on them.
>>51315013
>>51315018
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings
I'm just going to link this whenever you ignore my argument and pretend I'm arguing for something else.
I challenge anyone to quote a single edgy thing I've posted so I can actually respond to it specifically.

>>51315029
You, I like you, you're speaking from a very real place. The place that understands the ways we compromise and falter through what can seem no fault of our own. The place that asks to judge a deed not on a singular code but by its context

>>51315054
Ok, would you consider the Jedi an example of what you're talking about? Because I'm trying to stop and question if I have misinterpreted your wording

Boy OP you would hate the Strong Female Protagonist webcomic.
Its basically Worm, but somehow advocates equality and feminism. Because the primary character forces people into it. Then has the gall to say she's a hero.

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To address OP's claims and assertions in a legitimate manner:

It IS likely that early heroes would rule as god-kings, as with the mythological kings of gold - Gilgamesh, Romulus, etc. These figures would most likely be in power by virtue of might and the worship of commoners, yes, but that doesn't mean humanity would be doomed to follow that pattern for all eternity. Supers are human, they can be good or bad, regardless of the circumstances stacked against them. We would still have had King Arthur questing to protect commoners with might for right. We would still have the rise of industry and modern economics casting down a lot of the sacred cows - Superman can destroy anyone who can oppose him, can he create jobs? Can he feed and cloth the nation he rules? No, he needs captains of industry, merchants, investors, creators. And these people can leverage their economic utility for more rights and privileges. Superman cannot kill Lex Luthor, even in the world where he rules as God King, because Lex Corp is too important for the economy, for the stability of his country - if he wants to rule and not have a crumbling ruin predated upon by all the other supers, wracked by revolutions, he has to play ball with the people who have the dollar. In any situation where he outright rejects any concept of ownership or law, people will reject him in turn, and eventually you'll reach the point where threat of violence no longer deters or moves the populace to obey.

I think that is ultimately what my fellow anons have issue with, though they have not articulated it clearly. Your assertions seem to hinge on the idea that threat of violence is the ONLY thing that holds people in check, and that if Superheroes had nothing to fear physically from others, that completely negates their accountability. There are many reasons this isn't true.

>>51315110

God, that comic is so fucked up. And I say that as a progressive lefty. It just completely misses the goddamn point.

>>51313800
This seems pretty reasonable.

>>51315029
humans are innately social creatures, which means that the majority of what we do is dependent on our selfish desires and social upstanding. When you live in a society, you'll likely do a lot in order to fit in with society rather than split off and try to find a new society to live in, and the only way to change this is with violence and upholding that law with violence.

Looking at history, pagan clans were rife with murder and terror practices such as corpse mutilation and murdering/raping women and children. It wasn't until christianity came along and killed a bunch of goons that people decided it was generally not OK to rape, murder, and sacrifice to pagan gods. There may have been nice or peaceful pagan societies, but the vast majority of history recognizes self-served humanity to be selfish, warring assholes.

I'm not throwing this opinion of "people are inherently bad" at you because of nihilism and going "oh the world sucks", I'm saying it because it's historically backed up by the fact that societies without religious content saying "quit being fuckin' douchebags, for THAT guy (God)" were warring, murdering, sacrificing, raping, belligerent fuckwads with no sense of the greater good or niceness.

Now in modern day, I'd say that the majority of people's social standing dictates that they be good people. Religion and government alike seems to reward good people with a good social standing, and thus people will unconsciously want to be good.

The corporate world will have you know that people are the exact OPPOSITE of giving and selfless however, because people will eat you alive. There's no sense of nihilism in what I say when I say that the corporate world will give you NO lee-way for being a good person. Being a good person (high wages, green eco usage, mass donations, etc.) will get you got in the corporate world, and you will ultimately fail. The exception is with the already ludicrously rich (looking at you, Bill Gates) who philanthropize.

>superhero setting
>fly fast punch good heroes ever being leaders over the supergenius omnidisciplinary ultra scientists

>>51315159
Go to bed Tony

>>51315118
Which is sad considering it occasionally brings up incredibly interesting world building asides that are never addressed. Like how that due to demographics most superpowered people are not from Western nations and are poor or that due to legal shenanigans on the part of the MC's not-boyfriend age of consent laws no longer apply to superpowered individuals.

>>51315149

>Looking at history, pagan clans were rife with murder and terror practices such as corpse mutilation and murdering/raping women and children. It wasn't until christianity came along and killed a bunch of goons that people decided it was generally not OK to rape, murder, and sacrifice to pagan gods. There may have been nice or peaceful pagan societies, but the vast majority of history recognizes self-served humanity to be selfish, warring assholes.
>Actually believing early Christian propaganda

Hahahahahaha go fuck yourself

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>>51315159
>supergenius omnidisciplinary ultra scientists ever being leaders over the god mages who are ALSO supergenius omnidisciplinary ultra scientists

>>51314993
>but they are hereditary.
when superpowers are hereditary you get into thorny questions much earlier than "what about social mores?" in terms of evolution, but i'll bite anyway

The unverifiable nature of divine right is a strength, not a weakness. When might makes right, that's just a fucking law, not a law of physics but one that might as well be as ironclad, it doesn't need to be buttressed with propaganda. Once you're powerful enough to seize power, the major problem becomes how do you ensure a prosperous life for your children even if they lack your same level of power. And that problem is why civility was able to emerge out of the autocracies that inevitably characterize any period of savagery.

As a superpowered autocrat, at the bare minimum, it would be prudent to ensure miscellaneous randoms are treated at least moderately well so that when a lineage of superpowers mutates into existence, it doesn't first manifest in some peasant who has a very strong grudge against your regime and the willingness to commit retaliatory killings against your bloodline once they take power.

If you're a bit more clever than that, it would be prudent to set up a society where status is based on something that can be reliably passed down instead of hoping the laws of heredity don't lowroll your kids into all being weaker than you are and unable to effectively claim might-makes-right.
And that means using the tried-and-true methods of social indoctrination that existed in human history, abstractions, memes, nothing so immediately tangible as "I'm in charge because superpowers". And once society is operating by those rules, it's by no means inconceivable that those rules would mutate into modern republican democracy the same way they mutuated IRL.

>>51313590
>1oz (30ml) Midori Melon Liqueur
>½oz (15ml) Bacardi Carta Blanca Rum
>½oz (15ml) Marie Brizard Blue Curacao
>2oz (60ml) Fresh Orange Juice
>Top with Lemonade (lemon soda)

Sounds good/10

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>>51315189
Marvel does have something of a caster supremacy system.

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>>51315116
>Your assertions seem to hinge on the idea that threat of violence is the ONLY thing that holds people in check, and that if Superheroes had nothing to fear physically from others, that completely negates their accountability. There are many reasons this isn't true.

>>51315213
>As a superpowered autocrat, at the bare minimum, it would be prudent to ensure miscellaneous randoms are treated at least moderately well so that when a lineage of superpowers mutates into existence, it doesn't first manifest in some peasant who has a very strong grudge against your regime and the willingness to commit retaliatory killings against your bloodline once they take power.

>And that means using the tried-and-true methods of social indoctrination that existed in human history, abstractions, memes, nothing so immediately tangible as "I'm in charge because superpowers". And once society is operating by those rules, it's by no means inconceivable that those rules would mutate into modern republican democracy the same way they mutuated IRL.


OP is a faggot, runs in fear from logic, news at 11.

>>51315187
>listening to neo-pagan revisionists taking advantage of christianity being cool to mock

>>51314710
The power to induce intense greed within someone through looking at them / touching them / whatever. That's it, it just causes them to be extremely greedy.

Villain struggles at first to make this power useful but then realizes he can market off literal junk to help satisfy the greed he causes. One thing leads to another and he now targets very wealthy business people to manipulate them into terrible deals, eventually reaching the point where he essentially has unlimited money and manpower because he can just get more whenever he feels like it. World domination is only a decade away.

The power can be subtle as long as Villain doesn't stand out too much and pulls the effect back just enough not to cause suspicion.

In the inevitably conflict with the heroes he won't be doing much of the fighting, but if forced to he can make the heroes flaws really stand out as they become uncontrollably greedy for whatever their current desires are. Forcing them to fulfill the need before they can resume fighting, usually resulting in his escape.

Anti-power gear or some method of avoiding the power will have to be developed to defeat him.

>>51315187
Like I said, there could have been plenty of good societies, but most of them were at war with each other and involved sacrifices to other gods (such as the forest or the ocean). This makes sense, given that greek and roman civilizations often did sacrifices to many different types of gods as an extreme form of tribute.

Also considering that christians were among the first peoples to start writing their shit down in stone and on paper, there's not much reason to NOT believe it.

unless of course you're just a fedoratipping atheist, in which case, go fuck yourself with a sandpaper dildo

>>51315239
Isn't that just a tiki drink with Midori?

>>51315254

Early christianity was no less brutal than the pagans they were fighting, and early cults that were part of what lead to the Abrahamic faiths were just as bloodthirsty as any exaggerated pagan example.

Blood sacrifice happened literally everywhere, but it was pretty rare in Europe by the time Christianity turned up. And they even reintroduced some particularly barbaric forms of it, such as witch burnings.

>>51315107
Sure. I don't know shit about Star Wars but my pop culture understanding of Jedi says that they make sense in context.
The Sith exist, which is my argument: People like that would exist and would have power.
I'm NOT saying people like Jedi wouldn't exist and not saying they couldn't be successful.
I AM saying that, at a high enough power level disparity between supers and non-supers, for example, even groups like Jedi wouldn't think that non-supers are equal to supers even if they had equal legal rights in a similar way to whites in in civil war era America didn't think blacks should be slaves but that didn't mean they thought blacks were equal to whites.
>>51315110
I don't see an issue with moralfag enforcing morals as long as the moral people have sufficient numbers and power to back it up. The problem is where these morals came from and how they developed.
"All people should have equal legal and social rights" is a modern invention that was built up slowly. I'm saying what if that foundation was entirely different.
It's hard to go from "Nobles have rights" to "Land owners have rights" to "if you're white male you have rights" to "if you're male you have rights" to "everyone has rights" and trying to go to "everyone has rights" stage when you're stuck in "only noble have rights" because the nobles can sling fireballs and fly while everyone else can't.

Knights and cavalry dominated the battlefield and had a different social class because they could afford armor and training. Imagine if not only was that "armor" and "training" inherent, but the disparity between a peasant levee and the "knight" was even greater? What happens to social dynamics when the disparity is so great that the need to levee peasants stops existing because they go from "cannon fodder" to "I'm feeding these people just for them to get blown up in the best case, utterly ignored and flown over in the usual case, and do literally nothing else"

>>51315269
>christians were among the first peoples to start writing their shit down in stone and on paper

Correction, they were the first people to write shit down after all the OTHER shit that had been written down was burned. In part done by Christians. Thanks, Theodosius!

>>51315288
ah, I see what you're talking about. I think if people had superpowers since the beginning, for one thing people without powers would be extinct, or extremely rare. I also think powers, if differentiated or hereditary, would be put into classifications which would sort you into social classes/castes.

>>51315288
>continues to ignore well put together posts

>>51315213
>>51315116

Just like a might makes right fag to be a coward

>>51315323
The only major example of christians burning everything else down that comes to mind is the conquistadors. When else did that happen? The spanish inquisition?

>>51315333
Would this be via simple inter breeding or out right genocide

It entirely depends on what kind of superpowers there are, really. It's such an arbitrary system you may as well be a fantasy setting.
What if there's a guy who's superpower takes the form of overwhelming charisma, able to convince anyone of anything (including to not act against him etc.)? Certainly he'd become king of the world and be able to halt any war or conflict. All he'd need is a megaphone or some method of broadcast.

Almost always there's just powers that fundamentally shatter human society over their knee and you cannot even reasonably shape a setting with them in it.
Superpowers don't make sense. May as well be wizardry.

Would anything change if all the normies had the theoretical capacity to become Batman if sufficiently motivated?

>>51315360

Two of the possible causes of the burning of the library(s) of alexandria are attributed to early christians. The others are Pagan Rome (under Caesar) and Muslim invaders.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Library_of_Alexandria#Attack_of_Aurelian.2C_3rd_century

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Library_of_Alexandria#Decree_of_Theodosius.2C_destruction_of_the_Serapeum_in_391

>>51315242
This is why I can't take you seriously. I haven't even replied yet and you're assuming that I disagree with what was posted when it's one of the first posts that actually have a response of substance other than "nuh uh you're edgy"

Maybe I'm different than you because I'm asking because I want to know the reasons why not rather than I'm just jacking off anonymously acting like how right I am.

OP was bait so I could see opposing view points and consider them when thinking about this setting but that apparently tinged everyone else into thinking that was my ironclad unchangeable beliefs rather than an opinion formed from current knowledge without the benefit of discussion.

>>51314710
Ability to create any type of food at will.

Give him a couple years and he can use his zero-cost food creation to found several massive companies that undercut the competition and become monopolies. Ten years of that and nobody even tries to make food anymore, the entire production chain has been shut down from the ground up.

Then the guy starts saying "do things my way, or I'll stop."

Even in the best case that the government starts up a massive initiative to feed the population, people gonna be starving to death.

>>51315385
Militaries would probably change the way they train soldiers in order to get an army of Batmen

>>51315400
>OP was bait

MERELY PRETENDING
TO BE RETARDED

BY ABANDONING MY ASSERTIONS I ABANDON ALL NEGATION BY THE ARGUEMENTS THEREIN!

HAHA, I HAVE RUSED YOU ALL INTO A SNAFU!

kys

>>51315404
>implying there wouldn't be a huge ""organic"" market that treats the super like he's radioactive
You underestimate human stupidity.

>>51315412
You clearly didn't read the rest of my post
>rather than an opinion formed from current knowledge without the benefit of discussion.

Whoa man people learn from discussion and hearing contrary opinions and adapting them into their own beliefs?
Holy fucking shit.

And you must be new here if you think a reasonable OP gets replies. There's a reason "elf slave wat do"? and it's variants gets hundreds of replies while "lets civily discuss x" usually dies in a few posts.

>>51315372
Probably a mix of both. They'd be trampled on without a second thought in early days. Later on they'd realise nobody wants to breed with such weak versions of themselves. It'd be crippling their own bloodline. Or if the superpowers are granted at random then they'd be kept around as breeding stock. Thinking about it they'd probably keep very few around to do the jobs they don't want to do anyway.

>>51313796
Equal rights took time to develop into the cultural zeitgeist, without changing humanity at the fundamental level I see no reason that it wouldn't happen in parts of this world just the same.

You're argument begins to sink even faster if supers can have mundane children or be born from mundane. The world wouldn't be exactly the same of course but it'd end up similar although probably more slowly.

>>51313580
Or don't, because Worm is as fun as popping your kneecaps off with a rusty spoon.

It's a shitty setting filled with nothing but shitty people doing shitty things to one another.

Its not even grimdark, its fucking shitdark.

>>51315505
grimdark doesn't automatically make it bad, anon, you need more of a reason than that to say it's bad.

>>51315483
>You're argument begins to sink even faster if supers can have mundane children or be born from mundane.
Depends on the gene.
If it's like blonde/red hair and pale skin it could easily be the case sticking within the tribe maintains the superpowers quite reliably, but going out of it sees the powers rapidly disappear with it occasionally popping up again.
So instead of "my children might be mundane, better give everyone equal rights" it's more like "if my child is born a cripple, I'll protect them as I'm able to because they are my child but I'm not too worried about it because being born a non-super and it keeps happening for several generations is incredibly unlikely"

In case anyone was wondering, I'm OP and already read worm. It was alright, absolutely hated the protagonist though.

>>51313259
All men are created equal.
Superpowers and Magic simply means that these people have practiced the right to bear arms.

Of course, in such a setting, a normal human carrying a handheld nuclear-powered plasma cannon for self-defense is a lot more believable if only because it might be the only reasonable defense.

>>51315288
>It's hard to go from "Nobles have rights" to "Land owners have rights" to "if you're white male you have rights" to "if you're male you have rights" to "everyone has rights" and trying to go to "everyone has rights" stage when you're stuck in "only noble have rights" because the nobles can sling fireballs and fly while everyone else can't.
IMO once you have the concept of "rights" at all you're most of the way towards "everyone has rights". If people have rights imparted onto them due to being in the "noble" category, as opposed to just being able to do certain things because lol who's going to stop me, then people have already accepted a framework in which "everyone has rights" is at least imaginable.
If there's anything resembling a gradient of powers among the population, there will be pressures pulling society closer and closer to democracy, toward giving political franchise to people who aren't _quite_ as powerful and competent as the current least powerful legally protected person but still have something to their name.

>>51313832
>a smart ruler would make every effort possible to find superpowered individuals when they're young and turn them into allies to prevent the exact situation you described.
Also I think you are strongly underestimating the extent to which totalitarianism is a modern invention... a smart ruler would make some efforts, but the know-how to exercise total population control/monitoring like that takes a while to develop even if it maybe seems obvious; modern military tactics are theoretically things anyone could think up but historically they weren't thought up even when lives were on the line, expertise takes a while to devise

>>51315562
>If it's like blonde/red hair and pale skin
so don't assume premises that lead to absurd conclusions, what the fuck do you want

>>51315577
>implying superheroes wouldn't kill the inventors before they were finished so they wouldn't have to worry about threats.
Memento mori is terrifying to normal people, how do you think literal gods would react.

>>51315545
>It's a shitty setting filled with nothing but shitty people doing shitty things to one another.
Actually read what I said.

The 'protagonist' pulls out at one point "I HAD TO KILL THAT BABY!"

The whole setting can go fuck itself.

>>51315653
Thats murder, not self-defense.

>>51315690
and your point is? It's a weapon. It doesn't have a moral compass. It's the person holding it who decides that part. and if the person holding it is a mere mortal going up against a god with a handcannon packed with the power of hell, i'd say they'd be quite inclined to get an itchy trigger finger.

>>51315672
If you know a baby could grow up to be hitler on steroids combined with xenomorphs and tyranids would you say killing the baby is wrong?
What if the alternative is that same baby only -hitler and now it's unknown whether it could grow to be better or worse.
Would you take the risk?

Can't remember that part of worm where skitter has to kill a baby though, maybe I'll have to reread it.

>>51315672
Does the comic explicitly state, at any point, that it's a protagonist? Or is it just a main character.

>>51313259
Go check out Aberrant.

>>51315762
pro·tag·o·nist
prōˈtaɡənəst,prəˈtaɡənəst/
noun
noun: protagonist; plural noun: protagonists

the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.

>>51315796
alright so you're agreeing a protagonist is a neutral term. why then did you put protagonist in speech marks in your original remark, as if disparaging the idea of them being a hero.

>>51314993
>Your posts and other posts similar to your are making me into an edge-lord
I have some bad news for you friendo, you didn't need anyone else's help to seem like an edgelord.
It's nothing personal kid, just the way of the world.

>>51315448
Cowards Gonna Cower

Get back into your hole, wretch

>>51313259
Most superheroes as they appear in the comics don't possess the level of omnipotence needed to pull off what you're proposing. Small third world countries would probably fall under the rule of Doctor Doom-style dictators, but maintaining a large scale civil society is more than just brute-forcing everyone to do what you say.

People have to work together and trust each other on a day to day basis to accomplish anything. Just because they're not going to fuck with a super doesn't mean they won't fuck with each other when no one's watching. It doesn't matter if the Grand Council of Ubermenschen can belch lightning and fart pixie dust, when ordinary people are killing other ordinary people on the street for their ordinary Nikes.

I'd agree with you about not being keen on cape settings, but seriously, why assume that everyone will get on their knees for someone who can fly and punch bullets? Would YOU do that?

Okay man you can blame your lack of understanding of 4chan culture on everyone else but yourself if you want.

>>51315935
>why assume that everyone will get on their knees for someone who can fly and punch bullets? Would YOU do that?
It's not a question if I would do it, it's a question on if it's a response humans would do and history tells us that yes, people would do that.

>>51314009
>How recent is democracy?
This kind of depends on definitions, but humans have been making decisions by simple group consensus for ages.

>>51315950
>I wouldn't do it
>But everyone else would
Just start calling everyone sheep, it's ok. You can't undermine your point much more than you've already done.

>>51315672
killing that kid was a fucking mercy.

>A toddler started shrieking, her wail audible over a hundred speakers throughout the complex, each just a fraction out of sync with the others, given the speed of the signal traveling as compared to the speed of the ensuing sounds.

>Not bright,” Gray Boy said. “And the baby’s crying. No wonder, with you trying to throw her out the window.”

There was only silence in response.

>“I thought you’d use your laser instead. Do you think your baby can fly? Here. I’ll make the loop longer so you can talk.”

>“I… had… to… try…”

>“Maybe. But now I have to punish you. I could hurt you, like I do with most people. Hurt you while you’re looping through the same action, so you feel that pain over and over and over and over again. The only thing that doesn’t change is your brain. That keeps going. The pain is always fresh, it never gets easier to deal with, but I’m told there’s a certain point where you crack, and you go around the bend. Takes a few days for most. Then you get to a point where you work through your issues. You don’t want to, but you do, because the only thing you have to occupy yourself with is the pain and your own thoughts… so you get mostly better, and then you crack up again, and you get better, and that becomes a loop of its own…”

>“Fuck… you…”

>“Until well after the sun goes out, they think,” Gray Boy said.

For context that same baby's mother tried to throw it out of the window to escape the horror.

>>51315988
Thank you for proving my point on just how shitdark Worm is.

>>51316007
but you still haven't explained how that makes it a bad story.

>>51315968
You missed the reasoning that I wouldn't do it, nor would most modern people, BECAUSE we are products of modern ideals of morality and ethics.

Ask that question to someone in, say, Aztec civilization and they would be bewildered that you would refuse to bow in worship to the god king.

Fucking brainlet. You're not even projecting at this point. You literally CAN'T even CONSIDER that people would have a deeper level of thinking than yourself.

I don't have anything against moralfags, but I do have something against brainlet moralfags who can't even argue their beliefs beyond "nuh uh that's bad you're edgy"

>>51316053
Not that guy, and I haven't read Worm, but the usual argument is that if everything is too ridiculously dark for too long, the audience stops giving a shit.

>>51315988
Damn that is pointlessly edgy, I completely forgot about that.
>Hey, should we develop this characters personality?
>Fuck that, make lets write about how they get pleasure out of torturing a baby
>You know what would be even cooler? The babies mom kills the baby so it doesn't have to suffer.
>Wow I love it so morally gray

>>51316105
Bingo.

Like I said before, I'd rather pry my kneecaps off rather then deal with that shit.

It's just endlessly dark and edgy and so fucking pointless.

>>51316132
would it be darker to let the baby live? in which case what would you do with the baby to make it not dark.

>>51316164
Not torture the aaby on the first place

>>51316170
but what kind of inhuman monster doesn't torture babies?

>>51314862
Worm requires a literal plot device character to keep it running like it is.

>>51316298
like an interdiemensional illuminati hell bent on keeping parahuman deaths low? because that is exactly what is going on.

>>51313259
Nice autism OP. Does it help you when you play minecraft and code minecraft mods?

>>51316075
you have a cartoonish understanding of historical civilizations and it's blatant projection that you're calling anyone else a brainlet

>>51316329
It's not even keeping deaths low really, it's just a farm looking for a silver bullet.

>>51316352
>you have a cartoonish understanding of historical civilizations
Substantiate your claim. "no, you're wrong" isn't an argument.
> it's blatant projection that you're calling anyone else a brainlet
Neither is this.

I don't see how "Divine rulers have existed and been worshiped by their citizens" have existed in human history is a cartoonish understanding.
Okay man you might have a point as soon as you can prove to me and historians that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings was just a massive misunderstanding.

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>Edgy cunts arguing about muh realism when most people want actual good stories and heroes and not games about who can rape the most babies and read Ayn Rand novels

I'm disappointed in you 4chan

>>51316075
So basically, you don't understand why people in superhero settings don't think like ancient people did, even though nearly every superhero setting doesn't have superheroes emerge until after the 20th century is underway.

>>51314710
The ability to create a small, but bright light.
Uses this power to provide light for an entire city through a system of mirrors. However, he demands a large salary, and if he is ever manipulated, will threaten to take away the light, leaving the residents with little ways of lighting their town at night. In combat, uses it like a flashbang, to blind/stun opponents, making fighting him very difficult. Uses his combat ability and his amassed wealth to usurp the king, banned all non-obile forms of lighting, thus cementing his citizens reliance on him for light in the night. Any who try to attack him/assassinate him are simply overwhelmed by his blinding light shining inches away from their face.

>>51316443
More like I'm wondering why it wouldn't devolve into monarchies and theocracies even in modern settings.

I'm asking why if superpowers develop why wouldn't supers establish themselves as rulers, using how ancient people acted as evidence that non-supers wouldn't particularly be opposed to this.
Humanity hasn't changed. If humans could accept divine mandate once ( and still do in some places ) , what reasoning is there that they wouldn't again in the presence of harder evidence of a divine mandate?
North Koreans believe Dear Leader is descended from gods, is there any reason to believe that if he had superpowers this effect not only would be amplified on people who already believe that but people who didn't believe divine mandates before would be drawn into that belief as well?
If Kim Jong Un turned into superman tomorrow and nothing could hurt him, would you start worshiping him? What about when his descendants also turned out to be supermen? How would you stop your children from 'converting'?
How would you stop him from taking over your country when not only does he have conventional weaponry and an army but in the worst case he can simply come in person and win whenever he feels like it? Sure you can resist but after a certain point you would just have to accept his rule. Even if another super stops him you still have the problem ( that already exists right now ) that you only have rights so far as people are unwilling to violate them and someone is willing to punish those who do violate the moral code.
You can pretend that there will be always be a hero who will fight for the right of the common man even at his own detriment but this is obviously not the case looking at human history.

Que "we are living in the end of history peoples moral codes couldn't possibly change morality is objective and people know this so nothing bad will ever happen to democracy! Y-you edgelord!" whining.

>>51315404
>>51315267
These are too obviously useful.
the ability to manipulate the human mind, even if only a part of it, is clearly OP.
And making anything appear out of nothingness is pretty OP, let alone something as useful as food.
>>51316627
Kinda has the right idea, using something that would usually be weak, and making it really OP by using it in unusual ways.

>>51313796
A rebellion becomes a bastion of civil rights when it is lead by a superhero who grants civil rights to his new kingdom.

>>51316690
If you consider "food creation" an OP superpower when comparing it to things like Superman or even just a generic telepath, I don't even know how to argue with you anymore.

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>>51316739
>fight between food creator and telepath starts
>the food creator makes several tons of pumpkins appear above the telepath
>telepath get's squashed get it? cus a pumpkin's a squash
>fight's over in seconds
>"Not OP"

>>51316739

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>>51316739

>>51316899


*fuck me for forgetting the fucking image i was going to post.

>>51316654
Outside of mass slaughter, it'd probably take much longer than any one human's lifespan to shift all of society completely from a democratic governing body.

So yes, there is a case to be argued that it would happen as you say. The issue would be the timescale and standard superhero stories do not actually happen hundreds of years after the advent of superhuman powers.

>>51316914
That too.
Create a coconut inside of some supes skull, even if he's tough enough to shatter it, he'll have broken coconuts inside his head.
Maybe some yogurt, get some bacteria into his brain.
Uncooked fish might get him really sick.
If he's immune to sickness and invincible, well, you'd kinda be boned anyway, but even then you could just spam a massive mountain of coconuts on him that he can never escape from.

>>51316654
>North Koreans believe Dear Leader is descended from gods, is there any reason to believe that if he had superpowers this effect not only would be amplified on people who already believe that but people who didn't believe divine mandates before would be drawn into that belief as well?
Do they really, or are most of them just afraid of the severe repercussions that comes with openly denying the message?
>If Kim Jong Un turned into superman tomorrow and nothing could hurt him, would you start worshiping him? What about when his descendants also turned out to be supermen? How would you stop your children from 'converting'?
Most people with the spiritual itch want to believe in something beyond the here and now. The presence of someone in the here and now with special powers isn't going to register that strongly with them.
>How would you stop him from taking over your country when not only does he have conventional weaponry and an army but in the worst case he can simply come in person and win whenever he feels like it? Sure you can resist but after a certain point you would just have to accept his rule. Even if another super stops him you still have the problem ( that already exists right now ) that you only have rights so far as people are unwilling to violate them and someone is willing to punish those who do violate the moral code.
How much can he really accomplish just because he is immune to physical harm and has super strength? How many uprisings can he quell at once? There isn't any superhero in the comics with the power to permanently end all crime and violence. I don't get any sense you've actually thought this out beyond "hey, this guy can punch a train, that means he can conquer the world."

>>51316921
>Outside of mass slaughter, it'd probably take much longer than any one human's lifespan to shift all of society completely from a democratic governing body.
I disagree.
I think all it would take is someone saying "I have rights" and them being ignored no one rectifying the violation of their rights.
People aren't dumb, no one is going to talk about their rights when it becomes a common occurrence where their rights are not upheld and its clear no one intends on doing so.
What are you going to do if you get robbed and the police say "nothing we can do, sorry" and it keeps happening? Eventually you're just going to change your behavior to protect yourself without relying on the deterrence of a higher force.
What I'm trying to argue is that something similar would happen, only in this situation the higher force is occasionally directly oppressive towards you and you can't just shoot it like you could a police force who is consistently stepping out of line.
Eventually just treat it like a force of nature, "whelp superking came by today and stole some of my harvest. shit sux but what are you going to do?" with the occasional "whoa megaking only demands a little of my harvest I'm going to support him fighting superking for this territory." Now you have something suspiciously like feudalism.

>>51317002
>Do they really, or are most of them just afraid of the severe repercussions that comes with openly denying the message?
They are effectively the same thing when it lasts long enough your children are indoctrinated and you can't tell your indoctrinated children otherwise for fear of being found out because your indoctrinated children might snitch on you.
>How much can he really accomplish just because he is immune to physical harm and has super strength? How many uprisings can he quell at once? There isn't any superhero in the comics with the power to permanently end all crime and violence. I don't get any sense you've actually thought this out beyond "hey, this guy can punch a train, that means he can conquer the world."
I don't mean that so much as >>51317035
He's not actively "I'm your king, worship me and follow my rules. If not I will come to you." as much as "I take what I want from you, nothing you can do about it. Also, treat me with deference so I don't get offended and decide to kill you"
He doesn't need to conquer the world. He has what he wants and only needs to avoid stepping on other supermen toes. If there is a problem with production he just orders it directly because that's a small enough scale well within his control.


I think the problem is others ITT are confusing what my idea of a ruler is. My idea isn't so much autistic "you will do this and this and this and also I want to control the whole world at once" dicatator so much as "thief/bully you can't do anything about so you learn to live with it"

>>51313811
>a thread at the bottom of page 11 that was no longer visible in the catalog died for this.

I mean, OP's an idiot but the "muh board space" argument is tarded.

>>51317035
>What I'm trying to argue is that something similar would happen, only in this situation the higher force is occasionally directly oppressive towards you and you can't just shoot it like you could a police force who is consistently stepping out of line.
Where the fuck do you live that people go around shooting cops when they're unhappy with their performance? It's Mexico, isn't it.

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>>51313259
I hate spewing this wherever convenient, but it depends on the setting. If everyone is on x-men levels of power i.e. most can get killed by a stray bullet then I doubt a single one of them could overthrow a nation let alone the world. Now if we're talking superman levels of bullshittery then we're in business.

So let's say you've woken up with spontaneous flight, laser beams coming out of every orifice, senses so powerful you make every country's intelligence network look like an old man with dementia in comparison and a nigh impenetrable set of abs. Now if you're the only one in the world the hypothetical stops there, you win. High power cape settings hinge on the fact that there are multiple, and each can only be killed by the others. So why on earth would you want to put your hand up and say "I'm the best, bet you can't kill me"? If you really are a god what would compel you to rule? You don't need money, you would likely be attractive and powerful enough to get as much fuck as you want (provided you don't break pelvises) and none of society's rules apply to you. Even if you aren't a hero type, I'm not seeing the point of putting a big target on your head outside of some weird ulterior motive.

I would honestly say the settings where normans are remotely capable of oppressing capes is when they're gonna fight back. As aforementioned the mutants in X-men are outlawed, so they band together and try to take back their freedom while others sit there and realise "we don't need that shit we're already rad as fuck superheroes." The real god-level ones though? What's the point? No point taking something over only for some goku level dude to come in and blow it up. It'd be like you going outside and saying you're taking over an ant colony. Alright cool, you did it.

That kind of thinking is good and leads to healthy and organic settings, but don't knock it too quickly. Sometimes it's more fun if you just get into it without thinking too hard.

>>51317142
Jeez man I don't mean a literal Police Force. I meant any group who retaliates in your stead when your rights that they acknowledge are violated due to lack of personal power.
This can be the police, mafia, or whatever.

In my opinion, if a gang forces you to pay protection money they are bandits. That same gang forcing you to pay protection money but they also stop others from stealing from you is effectively your government.

>>51317116
>thief/bully you can't do anything about so you learn to live with it
I'm assuming you're different from the guy arguing from the 'divine right' angle because those are mutually exclusive viewpoints.
At some point, there'll be a village fed up with the bully and they'll probably do something sneaky like set a pitfall trap or something that bypasses the superhuman ability.
Of course that means I'm making an assumption of my own in thinking the superhero is beatable and is not in fact Asspullman, who is invincible to anything he comes up against.

>>51313259
Realistically if superhuman beings existed from the start of humanity or close to it, there would be no non-superhumans because they would have been bred out, out competed and/or slaughtered by the early superhumans thereby making this all a moot point. If they originated sometime after the beginning of civilization but prior to modern ideas of the world, they may become worshiped or widely despised and feared for their power or just for being different which could either lead to them being kept from ever maturing past the moment their difference is noticed. If they appear in a period of modern ideas of morality and the way the world is or ought to be than who they become will likely be largely based on their upbringing. However, if they require significantly more energy to survive than other humans than their abilities may not be worth the cost in the eyes of natural selection and they likely only could come into being during a more modern period when food production is very high.

>>51313283
FPBP

>>51317426
I'm the same person, and cognitive dissonance is natural to humanity.
But that's besides the point, that argument was from my perspective, the divine right is from the hypothetical/historical perspective.
For example, I might say taxation is theft, a medieval peasant would think that taxation is the right of the lord. Someone from else from modern times might disagree and say taxation is the right of the government.
>At some point, there'll be a village fed up with the bully and they'll probably do something sneaky like set a pitfall trap or something that bypasses the superhuman ability.
I would say this wouldn't happen often enough to put fear into the superhuman rulers for a similar reason of kings not commonly getting assassinated by commoners. When rulers are assassinated it's usually other would-be rulers who want to replace them. Only now on top of him being your king he's now has the excuse of divine mandated superpowers to justify his rule. Wouldn't want to go against the will of the gods, much less dear leader who can strike you and your whole village dead without having to mobilize an army.
>Of course that means I'm making an assumption of my own in thinking the superhero is beatable
See above.

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>It's a edgelords think morals are lame thread
OP, are you one of those dummies who think love compassion, and understanding were evolutionary flukes?

>>51317597
>is-ought confusion for the xth time in this thread
Why do people keep doing this?
I mean even if you disagree with my "is" you don't have to go full retard and confuse it for an "ought"

What about a superhero setting where there is only one actual superhero that develops in the modern world, and now the entire world has to basically deal with the fact that a single petulant Godling can do whatever he wants without consequence?

I always thought that would be an interesting story or comic.

>>51317731
Go read Irredeemable. It's sort of that.

>>51317731
akira sort of...not really.... but it has the same idea of a single petulant Godling running around being evil.

>>51313919
>Superman only 'works' because complicated situations like Israel don't exist in the comics
Wrong, sensitive political situations do exist in the DC universe, but generally, Superman has the good sense to know being a superhuman isn't enough to replace a system of government when you've toppled the last one, and you'll probably just make things worse.

>>51313259
There is that one mutants and masterminds story, where the capes go fucking power mad, and the villains ironically end up exposing their bullshit to the entire world.

>>51313259
>muh realism
seriously, fuckoff

>>51313259
"OP Doesn't Understand Idealism" the thread.

>>51318481
Oh, yeah. There was the best villain in that story.

>>51313295
>Most folks are good at heart
History suggests otherwise. Chances are good that the people who once lived in your land got slaughtered and/or subjugated by your ancestors.

>>51319492
The whole of history actually argues the opposite view, humans are basically good, (Rousseau is right) until you put fear into them. It doesn't matter what the source of that fear is, the Other, the Unknown, any kind of fear. Once we have that fear we become assholes of the highest order and make horrible choices, maybe good ones for survival, i'll grant that, but horrible choices once put in perspective. Fear is, without a doubt our worst emotion, and is the only reason we as a species, and as individuals, do horrible things.

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>>51313295
>Most folks are good at heart
Most folks in a Western society live in a place where the biggest acts of douchebaggery land them in prison, and they STILL find ample time to be douchebags in entirely legal ways. Remember that in most Western countries women somehow managed to make infanticide a legal thing because children are inconvenient.

Humans are fucking horrible, and every single state system and every single modern politician that's taken seriously* believes humans were shit and based their system on humans being shit. Only Marx and his mallable man (which later became the Soviet Man) were different, and naturally communist apologists have to defend this system that was dead on arrival with the idea that it was never 'really' put into practice.

*Before you think of mentioning Rousseau, notice that he's not really all that different from Hobbes. Hobbes believed two humans who meet eachother in the natural state will always beat eachothers heads in. Rousseau believed they were more neutral towards eachother (he described man in that state as unaware of vice and virtue, not as virtuous) and only started caving eachothers heads in once one of them decided to invent this thing called property (ie. once violence started having some kind of tangible benefit: property).

>>51313259
I guess you could say superheroes who think in that way are called supervillains, and there's no shortage of that. I guess it'd be like having a whole collection of Doctor Dooms running around. He's a villain, but Latveria is legit a borderline utopian state (except for the lack of personal liberty). I guess that's grey morality done right: the villains have a point, even if you disagree with them.

>>51313259
Just do it like My Hero Academia: everyone has superpowers!

>>51319608
>humans are basically good
>(Rousseau is right)
Non-sequitur.

http://www.e-ir.info/2011/03/01/rousseau-and-the-social-contract-tradition/
>It seems that primitive men “having no moral relations or determinate obligations … could not be either good or bad, virtuous or vicious” (Rousseau, 20071: 113). Man is ‘pre-moral’ and innocent (Brown, Nardin, Rengger, 2002: 384). He is only concerned with his own well-being and happiness, satisfying his personal needs and disregarding “everything he did not think himself immediately to notice” (ibid: 117); he is solitary and independent (Grimsley, 1973: 116). This feeling of self-love termed ‘amour de soi’ can only accidentally be good or bad (Green, 1950:16). Man has not yet discovered reason, knowing no rights and acting upon his instincts (ibid: 15). He does not know the feeling of love and so beauty has no importance to him; nor does wit or cunning (Rousseau, 2007: 117). Therefore, he hardly knows what inequality is except for physical inequality (ibid.).

Man is quite literally beastly in that state, for better and for worse. He only became evil after property became a thing (exposing that this amour-de-soi can lead to evil) and only after that perhaps at some point learned to be good. Rousseau is far from the primitivist Voltaire made him out to be. He considered reason and civilization to be an ill, but also the medicine to cure that ill. His idea of a social contract was supposed to be the ill that cured (or at least made harmless) the ill that was civilization. This went against the spirit of the time (we are reasonable ergo we are good and everything we do is awesome).

>>51319837
Okay that part was a non-sequitur, but I don't know what you're trying to do, perhaps give more context? I think my point about fear still stands, which is the only point that I think mattered.

>>51315385
No, even if you train you will never be able to have his plot armor.

>>51319737
>women somehow managed to make infanticide a legal thing because children are inconvenient.

That depends entirely on when you believe a ball of stem cells changes into a human being.

Protip: it is not as clear-cut as you seem to think.

>>51320147
The day it's born. simple as that.

>>51313259
>>Superhero setting
>hero
What you describe, is not superHERO setting, but super-asshole setting.

>>51316155
How sheltered are you?

The real world is much more dark than even the most deliberately grim cartoon books.

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>>51313259
Your average super human is barely strong enough to bench-press an automobile if even that, the fact is that not all powers are created equal and the people who can level cites are a star minority. For example a person who has reality altering powers will have a much bigger impact on the world than the guy who can change the color of anything that is made out of plastic.

>>51320446
There are movies, TV shows, and books that are grimmer than real life.

Besides, you're not saying darkness is all there is to real life, are you?

>>51320164
My little brother was cut out of my mom's womb, meaning he was never born. Are you saying he's just a clump of cells for the 25 years of his life?

>>51319737
>Remember that in most Western countries women somehow managed to make infanticide a legal thing because children are inconvenient

Why did you bother writing the rest of your post when this already makes it destined for the trashbin?

>>51320688
When they breathe their first breath of air outside of mommy's body then, although I,(And all the rest of the world), would and do consider a Cesarean Section, a birth.

>>51320147
What if being able to tell that is your super power?

>>51313259
>Humanity not being ruled by literal god-kings
Most of superheroes aren't smart people. And ruling a kingdom requires being smart or at least cunning.

>>51315754
Slaughterhouse 9000 arc. She killed aster because she was in the hands of jack slash and was a third generation parahuman.

>>51320674
>There are movies, TV shows, and books that are grimmer than real life.

False.

Open a history book or watch the news.

>>51320911
I know you want to seem edgy and wizened, but the world isn't as bad as you think from your computer, anon.

>>51316105
It has its bright moments.