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How would civilization react if 35% of the world's population gained superpowers?

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Dice said:
When I was a kid I thought of two superpowers that I really liked. One was to control atmospheric pressure, but the other was the ability to absorb physical force and release it in a chosen time and manner.

  • You could get hit by a car and it would just stop, not even taking damage.
  • You could jump from high place to gain some, although this would not be as much as if someone dropped something on you (which you would be able to hold above you, yet not lift on your own if it was beside you)
  • Punching you would feel really weird. Bullets obviously just stop, and even the small edge of a blade would grip your skin, but then not tear an opening in it, but kind of get stuck.
  • You could release this in a blast or in a pinpoint impact, making it deadly in versatile ways, but it would have to be released from your body, not somewhere else.
  • As a small touch, if you gained a lot your eyes would glow, then a bunch more and you'd start to gain an aura like a super saiyan, which would eventually start disrupting things around you even if you aren't trying.
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This ironically was in the wild card books mentioned in the op:
http://wildcards.wikia.com/wiki/Bill_Lockwood
 
Honestly though I am having a hard time figuring out how my power even works. Do I temporarily turn into a Mongolian Death Worm?

Lactose_Intolerant said:
This ironically was in the wild card books mentioned in the op:
http://wildcards.wikia.com/wiki/Bill_Lockwood
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Inner child: Awesome. My dream come true.
Adult: Grrr, I'm not making money for this! I thought of it 15 years ago!

vicktormerv said:
http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Omnilock

Whelp, its been nice knowing you all, Im invincible, lol
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Hahaha...
Known Users:
Yahweh (Christianity, Judaism and Islam)
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Have fun hanging out with him. Try to stay on his good side.
 
I'd be jealous if I wasn't part of the 35% and a bit scared of the ramifications of some people having abilities.

Certain people go absolutely ape-shit insane when given power.
 
Wait ... what's a "lesser power" anyway? There's a TON of powers that may seem "lesser" that would kick ass for normal people. Like being able to understand and speak any language ... I'm sure the Gov would love to snatch those people up and put them to work. They could get mad bank from being universal translators and if the Gov can find out what's doing that inside their minds then we can all have the ability to speak to each outer without having to go through years of practice and learning.

Or being able to "float a few feet". If you can float a few feet then what's stopping you from learning how to float higher? Or if that's just the complete extent of your power ... that could be VERY useful if you decide you want to cross a body of water. Think about it, you will never have to worry about drowning. Transportation would be great for you if you could float at just jugging speed. You could be a great life guard or the gov could use people like you to by-pass road-side bombs.

Or being ably to change your skin color like one of the different types of animals that does this. That would also be cool ... you could be all ninja like when you want and you could use it for some cool rl visual effects.
Anyway, I clicked on the random button and got this ...
http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Electrical_Beam_Emission
The user can produce beams composed of electrons or positrons, which can cause very destructive explosions upon impact. Unlike simple electrical blasts, these beams do not flicker, but instead travel at a straight line at high speed; they can also flow like water, allowing them to be guided.
ApplicationsEdit
Beams can cause massive damage via powerful explosions.
Beams can be guided like missiles, rather than shooting out straight.
Beams can cause electrocuting damage.
Advanced users can gain ability to control electrons, rather than simply shooting them as beams.
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Who would have guessed?
 
The current power structure wouldn't rest until they had control of the situation. They couldn't allow a threat to their power exist and grow. They would start killing people, start turning Powers against other Powers, start recruiting, and governments would start a arms race of sorts. They would convince incredibly powerful, yet weak minded people to mess it up for the rest of us. Me, I'm going underground, hopefully to form a band of freedom fighters. Or maybe just a band.
 
Honestly, I think the first two X-Men movies are pretty realistic in terms of how people would react to people with superpowers. But I think the OP proposes a much higher percentage of superpowered humans compared to the population. With millions of people having superpowers, many would abuse them and total chaos would ensue.
 
vicktormerv said:
http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Omnilock

Whelp, its been nice knowing you all, Im invincible, lol
Click to expand...
At first I thought this was a "teleport to outside of everything" but upon considering it more, it becomes clear you're just God with this power. Because you exist beyond the limitations of all time and space, your capacity for learning is infinite and instantly filled with all possible knowledge. Then because your existence is completely transcendent, so is the expression of your form, which is where the omnipotence comes from.

SuperGAF, vicktormerv is your new God.
 
akira28 said:
The current power structure wouldn't rest until they had control of the situation. They couldn't allow a threat to their power exist and grow. They would start killing people, start turning Powers against other Powers, start recruiting, and governments would start a arms race of sorts. They would convince incredibly powerful, yet weak minded people to mess it up for the rest of us. Me, I'm going underground, hopefully to form a band of freedom fighters. Or maybe just a band.
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Depends the powers. The god like powers are wild cards. They could end all existence in a flight of fancy, bring it back how they imagine it (except for omnilock guy, YOU WIN THIS ROUND!). Or they could just not care and be weird enforcers/observers like Dr. Manhattan.
 
Dice said:
At first I thought this was a "teleport to outside of everything" but upon considering it more, it becomes clear you're just God with this power. Because you exist beyond the limitations of all time and space, your capacity for learning is infinite and instantly filled with all possible knowledge. Then because your existence is completely transcendent, so is the expression of your form, which is where the omnipotence comes from.

SuperGAF, vicktormerv is your new God.
Click to expand...

Read the power I got.
 
Black-Wind said:
Wait ... what's a "lesser power" anyway? There's a TON of powers that may seem "lesser" that would kick ass for normal people. Like being able to understand and speak any language ... I'm sure the Gov would love to snatch those people up and put them to work. They could get mad bank from being universal translators and if the Gov can find out what's doing that inside their minds then we can all have the ability to speak to each outer without having to go through years of practice and learning.
Click to expand...

You want a lesser power? I got the very definition of a lesser power: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36177760&postcount=82
 
Avixph said:
Read the power I got.
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Only works on non-transcendent beings, otherwise they would not be transcendent. Read his page.

User is allowed to exist outside of space, time , probabilities, nothingness etc.
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Even probabilities, which is necessary since his existence would be inherently paradoxical. You could theoretically take down Galactus, but not vicktormerv. Even if the use of your power could do that to him, he has an infinite advantage for first attack. You would be gone before you even realized that you wanted to target him.
 
Dice said:
Only works on non-transcendent beings, otherwise they would not be transcendent. Read his page.

Even probabilities, which is necessary since his existence would be inherently paradoxical. You could theoretically take down Galactus, but not vicktormerv.
Click to expand...

Exactly, once you reach Omnilock you are a constant in every possible scenario who cannot be harmed physically, mentally, etc. You simply are. Any universe destroyed or rebuilt will have to include victormerv as he is now (hope you are in shape buddy!).

He cannot lose or gain powers (his one 'weakness') so you cannot mess with him.
 
ConfusingJazz said:
Done, at least I can get a high paying job with yours.
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Sucker... Not really since you might as well just install the anti virus you are pretty much a Norton Emulator, I guess you could be like Geek Squad Employee of the month or something.

At least with your power I can cheat at card games or something without actually looking at my phone.
 
Moppet13 said:
Sucker... Not really since you might as well just install the anti virus you are pretty much a Norton Emulator, I guess you could be like Geek Squad Employee of the month or something.

At least with your power I can cheat at card games or something without actually looking at my phone.
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Let's be honest here, we are both going to get put on the wall when the revolution comes, no matter which side wins.
 
Actually, with enhanced muscle memory i could probably be the best basketball player of all time. 100 ppg with 100% shooting from the three!

And i'd only play for Toronto and make sure the team wins at least 20 championships!
 
Moppet13 said:
Sucker... Not really since you might as well just install the anti virus you are pretty much a Norton Emulator, I guess you could be like Geek Squad Employee of the month or something.

At least with your power I can cheat at card games or something without actually looking at my phone.
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Yes and he can be paid millions (if not billions) to guard high risk sites like nuclear facilities from cyber attack. Almost any lesser power can be used for financial gain if you are savvy enough and other people do not kill you.
 
People with powers would try to make money off of their power and the people without the power would try to exploit the ones that have and make money off of them.

In other words, not much would change. The difference between physical power and social/economic/political power is that physical power is a big-whoop parlor trick and the later can actually destroy the world.

Sports would change more than your typical life.
 
Raxus said:
Yes and he can be paid millions (if not billions) to guard high risk sites like nuclear facilities from cyber attack. Almost any lesser power can be used for financial gain if you are savvy enough and other people do not kill you.
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The text says you can emulate a program. So... if you know what attack is coming I guess you can pick the superior anti virus. But you're limited to emulating 1 at a time, it's hardly preventative. It's more reactionary like oh no I have a virus. WELL BETTER GO THROUGH MY ARSENAL. More to the point, how would you emulate it? The emulation examples are in a Megaman world where there is a literal digital city.

You could very well never even discover this ability.

Edit: Maybe you can emulate them all at once, but I'm still not sure how you could apply it.
 
Mr. B Natural said:
People with powers would try to make money off of their power and the people without the power would try to exploit the ones that have and make money off of them.

In other words, not much would change. The difference between physical power and social/economic/political power is that physical power is a big-whoop parlor trick and the later can actually destroy the world.

Sports would change more than your typical life.
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Errr I think superpowers will kinda change things...
 
Slavik81 said:
It becomes a lot harder when there's all kinds of other super-humans around.
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That's half the fun in this theoritical scenario. Everyone magically gets super powers. You logically get a new social divide with the new 1% having god like or near god like powers (assuming they don't just leave earth to start their own universe) a chunk receiving near broken tier powers, a vast majority getting good to nearly worthless powers. All of it depends on the individual, how well he/she hides their power, who they know (befriending psychics to block mental invasions) and how they can exploit their power, take advantage of their power, or if they should even use their power.

I have fun imagining how far you can take a particular power and just how you can live with it.

Also props for using Red Alert 2 to illustrate your point.
 
#s are way too high to prevent fuckwits from destroying the planet. People with the powers of Magneto, Superman, or Jean Grey could literally destroy the earth, and you say there are millions of them?
 
ConfusingJazz said:
Text Message Premonition: The user is capable of knowing what text messages that he/she is going to recieve in the near future.

I would just kill myself if I got that.
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if people knew about your power you could daisy chain those imminent text messages back days. Like lets say somebody nukes Chicago so you get a text message about it in the recent past and you immediately text message someone to send you a text message about chicago getting nuked you'll get a text message even further back in time and you could keep doing it until you find out about it a month before it happens.
 
Enco said:
Errr I think superpowers will kinda change things...
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You do realize in real life there isn't just crime all around, easily detectable and there aren't people dying in front of you at all times...and if only you had super powers you would have saved them and yada yada.

In real life, people just live out their lives. Most powers would just be nice conveniences if that.

If people could fly, do you know what would happen? Not much, people would fly to work. Yeah, the airplane industry would be obsolete. No, wait, no it wouldn't unless people could somehow fly faster than an airplane or a car.

we have guns, bombs, etc. If people wanted to go pyscho and use this "super bullet power" to kill one another, 100s at a time from miles away, they don't need super powers to do so. But we're not, we're just living out our lives despite already having super powers. People already rule you like a supervillian or superhero or, usually, something in between, but you don't give a fuck. You just live out of your life with the power you have.

And in this day and age, if it isn't money oriented then nobody is interested and there's no motivation.
 
ConfusingJazz said:
You want a lesser power? I got the very definition of a lesser power: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36177760&postcount=82
Click to expand...

Work for the Gov.

They connect you to some huge provider of text ... you become so good at it you can single out people of interest and predict the information they will be sent before it's even sent. You can even send yourself text in t he future and know about them in the present.

You can stop terrorist attacks, snatch up sensitive info before it's received and be apart of future-proofing your land from attack ... and also know that someone's gonna send you a bitch drunk text before it even happens.
 
squidyj said:
if people knew about your power you could daisy chain those imminent text messages back days. Like lets say somebody nukes Chicago so you get a text message about it in the recent past and you immediately text message someone to send you a text message about chicago getting nuked you'll get a text message even further back in time and you could keep doing it until you find out about it a month before it happens.
Click to expand...

Also, if you want to screw with morality, tell your friend to text you next week's lottery numbers and you'll find out about it this week, lol.
 
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