Question How do you think the world would react to real mutants

If real mutants suddenly started appearin in the real world how do you think society would react. I mean we have had 80+ years of Superhero fiction. And stories of Mutants being persecuted by corrupt governmetn agencies is a rather recurring theam in popular entertainment.

Would the fact that this idea is so prevelent help real mutants be accepted, or would iit jsut increase the backlash, with people arguing that it was a conspiracy all along?

The hows and whys wouldn't matter. The moment mutants with any sort of power started appearing, there would be a huge push to bring them to heel and kill the dangerous ones. And such a move, done early enough, would probably be successful. And I'm not talking about the public at large. Governments step on unstable elements... and people who can bench press cars? Those are a very unstable element.

That's my opinion at least.

Kristin Darken wrote: it would be covered up and locked in black op/black budget-ville so fast you'd think the agency responsible was already filled with supers.

What about in all the countries in the world that don't really have much in the way of black ops. The USA has only 4.4% of the worlds population but accounts for over 37% of the worlds military spending. So sure maybe they have the resouces to cover this up, but what about the rest of the world?

If we assume that becoming a mutant is an even chance accross the entire world, 95.6% of mutants will emerge elsewhere. China and India will end up with the most mutants. China, would indeed proably end up wisking them away into government programs quickly and reletivly quietly.

India on the other hand, well that is a different kettle of fish. Its a country with powerful religious groups and a history of self proclaimed gurus who already claim that their practices can give you super natural powers. End result would be that at least some emergant mutatns would gain massive publicity and a cult following very quickly.

konzill wrote: If real mutants suddenly started appearin in the real world how do you think society would react. I mean we have had 80+ years of Superhero fiction. And stories of Mutants being persecuted by corrupt governmetn agencies is a rather recurring theam in popular entertainment.

Would the fact that this idea is so prevelent help real mutants be accepted, or would iit jsut increase the backlash, with people arguing that it was a conspiracy all along?

How many and how powerful?

There are a significant number of people that believe that "mutantlike" people already exist. Take a look at the Youtube videos...

How powerful first. Are we talking Superman, Hulk, strong? Or are we talking Sharpie and Apathy? Every Government is going to do it's best to stomp on Superman and Hulk, especially if there is the collateral damage those guys tend to create. Sharpie and Apathy and others could simply continue existing without ever being found out, even they do you make bad Youtube videos.

Amongst the general population you will end up with a small percentage that are uber fanboys, and another small percentage that are H1! members. And the rest will be spread throughout the middle, just like with everything else.

Mutants already do exist.
plain truth / fact.

We are all mutants. There are physical changes in humanity that have been tracked, those changes are the result of mutation.

therefore, we are all mutants and that means mutants already exist.

Dawnfyre wrote: Mutants already do exist.
plain truth / fact.

We are all mutants. There are physical changes in humanity that have been tracked, those changes are the result of mutation.

therefore, we are all mutants and that means mutants already exist.

Reminds me of an old Fantastic Four comic, Reed and Sue are testifying before Congress and Reed pulls out a "Mutant Detector." It registers everyone in the meeting as a "mutant." In the panel where they leaving the building, Sue says, "I see that you had your detector set to the most sensitive readings." (Or something like that.)

lol


and here I expected the old "God created mankind, evolution is a lie" argument.

to which:
God created mankind, Satan caused us to evolve. ::

I would say that it highly depends on the abilities of the emerging mutant.
Because, and let's be frank on this, many superpowers are useless for practical purposes...
...but they CAN be just what you need to make a career as an entertainer/15-minute celebrity/freakshow.
Most people are just decent enough that they wouldn't think in terms of "cool, now that I'm superstrong I'm going to rob banks." But they would think of using their powers for their own benefit, not society. So they would go the early Peter Parker route (keep the powers secret, but try making money out of them as a wrestler or something else that gains a big advantage from the powers) or Booster Gold route (use the powers to become a celebrity).

konzill wrote: India on the other hand, well that is a different kettle of fish. Its a country with powerful religious groups and a history of self proclaimed gurus who already claim that their practices can give you super natural powers. End result would be that at least some emergant mutatns would gain massive publicity and a cult following very quickly.

I humbly disagree. What is being assumed is that there are a larger proportion of stupid people in India than in other countries.

Every country has a national trend, which can be observed by immersion for some time in the culture of that country. The trend in India happens to be spirituality, and has been for thousands of years. This trend encourages a generally less frantic view of societal changes, and the basis of this is the search for spirituality in most things. If you want evidence of the resilience of this view, note that Indian life and culture has survived and absorbed horribly destructive invasions by the Greeks, Islam, and Christianity (not to mention Buddhism, but that is another story). Of particular note is the pervasive belief in re-incarnation and the law of karma, and the belief that "super-natural powers" are just "natural powers" in a different context. This naturally pre-disposes much of the culture to regard "supermen" as being much less of an aberration as in other countries, as well as being the outcome of karma of previous births.

Naturally, there are those segments of the population that flock to sensational and new things, and who have yet to attain a measure of calm reflection on events. One would assume, then, that as the population in India is much higher proportional to country size than most countries in the world, the number of these people would be far higher than in other countries. Initially this might be true; however, this view does not take into account the intense practicality of the Indian people, as evidenced over time. All their spirituality is based on practicality: demonstration and reproduction through practise. Thus, if there had to be a cult following for any person, be they a mutant or not, it would have to be because they demonstrated some practical relevance to the spiritual side of life. If the basis was not there, they would lose their "cult following" just as certainly. The national motto of India, "Satyameva Jayate" - Truth Alone Triumphs - is there for a reason.

Keeping this in mind, I think that the "good" MCO could have a fairly good run in India. Despite the inflated prevalence of news reports to the contrary, the majority of Indians are very tolerant people. Hate is very much frowned upon, and so having an organisation which openly practises hate (as per USA MCO in most Whateley stories) would not ensure that organisation's survival in the greater scheme of things.

Please note that I am not stating in any way that Indians have a monopoly on truth, or that they are inherently more reasonable or intelligent than any other culture in the world. I am merely stating that the basis of their national life is different, and must be understood before anything can be inferred.

As always, this is all just my opinion.

Kristin Darken wrote: *shrug* what about them? I don't LIVE in those cultures so my understanding of their intricacies and how they would change as a result of dropping a paranormal into the mix would have to be based on assumptions about the culture in the static pre-manifestation state. So yes, my comments are based on the US. And I'm not going to try to guess what it would be like in other countries. I'll leave that to people who live in those cultures and can provide a reasonable perspective...

Exactly, and thank you for this wonderfully balanced view.

Regarding India, the canon has a take on this already (Yes, I read "The big Idea" Frequently.):

Harlan gave Kaiju a measuring look. “I may not be a big-deal psychic, but I can tell that this project means a lot to you. There’s more’n just your looks at stake here.” Kaiju flustered, but Harlan recognized the signs. “Is the Indian MCO THAT nasty?”

“Yes. Vicious. And Ruthless. And quite efficient. And they have the support of the Government and the average citizen.”

“Woof. I mean, how Gestapo-like ARE they over there? I mean, now that I think about it, from the sheer population that India has there should be a LOT more of you Indians here at Whateley, but I can only think of a handful that I’ve seen around campus.”

“Well, that IS a big part of it. Also, you have to understand, there’s no magic ‘Mutant Detecting Machine’ that can track down a single mutant from across the globe. And they can’t exactly advertise, now can they? They have to rely more or less on word of mouth, with people who know people asking some very dangerous questions. And there have been some very ugly riots when a child suddenly manifested her mutant traits unexpectedly.” Harlan wryly wondered where that one had come from. “And there are rumors, that there are unscrupulous parties that kidnap newly emergent mutants to use them in unspeakable ways. There are even rumors of rakashas and … Nagas!” Kai ended with a whisper.

“Raka-whattas?”

Kaiju tried to gloss over her last bit. “But I think the ‘Peace Corps’ idea has a lot of merit,” she hurried the topic along.

“Peace Corps?” Harlan asked, as confused as he was by the mention of ‘rakashas and nagas’.

“It’s a theory that’s making the rounds. Maybe you’ll get to it later in Powers Theory. The basis for it is the fact that most mutants, human or animal, miscarry due to some lethal defect. It’s further believed that while we may be hardier once our mutation manifests itself, before it manifest, especially during gestation and in the first few months of life, that mutants are especially susceptible to disease and other causes of infant mortality. It was noticed that the first wave of superhuman mutants- or at least the first observable wave of us- arose in North America and Western Europe. Just before this wave, there were widespread programs both America and Europe to inoculate pregnant mothers and young children for a wide variety of diseases. This lead to what they called ‘the Baby Boom’. We think that this affected the disparity in mutants in three ways. First, there were simply more children, so the minority that was mutants increased as well. Second, we think that the percentage was larger, since the vaccinations and so on helped mutants that would otherwise have died of some disease survive. Third, it’s possible that the mutants responded to the vaccinations better than the baseline infants did, which meant that they survived things that would have killed a baseline child, increasing the percentage even more especially among the latent mutants. However, that was in the then Developed World- the USA, Canada and Europe. In the ‘Third World’, which then included India, infant mortality- with its theoretical affect on lowering the survival rate of infant mutants even more- was still quite high.

“But in the 1960s, the United States- largely as a propaganda measure in the Cold War- instituted the Peace Corps. Besides other admirable projects, the Peace Corps inoculated hundreds of thousands of mothers and children in the Third World. However, the Third World didn’t have the means to feed that many children then, and there was a massive famine in India in the late 1960s, which probably kept the number of Indian mutants down. However, we’ve given up on sustenance farming, so now India not only feeds its own, it exports food. But those mutants that arose in the 1960s made a terrible impression in India. Besides, Brahmins don’t much like the idea of Vaishya, Sudra and Dalit-”

“Hunh?”

“Hindu caste politics. The Brahmins don’t much like the idea of the ‘lower orders’ suddenly becoming more powerful than they are. Besides the political side of it, it spits in the eye of a basic sacred tenet. Not that that lower varna are better. People turn a blind eye to a mother putting down a child with a visible mutation. The MCO has far-reaching powers. Indian superheroes are only beginning to accept that mutants can choose to not be evil, or even heroic. And it’s worse in other parts of Asia and the Middle East. Also, in the United States and Western Europe, you have both latent and active mutants breeding, producing Second and even Third generation mutants, who are more stable and more likely to survive.”

Harlan could see the sense in that. A telepath or even one of the lower level Exemplars would have a lot easier time getting laid that the average joe. He could see a single good-looking mutant stud having hundreds, maybe even a thousand, kids that he didn’t know (or care) about. And back in the Sixties and Seventies, there was that whole ‘Sexual Revolution’ thing that he saw that documentary about.

I read a lot of Marvel comics (but Mostly those that have been published for the last 15 years or so) and right after the M-Day (the event in which most of mutants have been depowered) one dialogue struck me. It was between a FBI/CIA agent and an enhanced invidivual who was part of the military deployed in Afghanistan. Basicly he explained how glad he was about this turn of events because mutation doesn't discriminate between the country. In Marvel comics, science experiment accident origin stories are more common in "developped" country (and most notably USA) than in the rest of the world for obvious reason. On the other hand, mutation is a level playing field. A mutant can pop anywhere, and can be a game changer in a military conflict.

Consider though, that even recently children born with extra limbs in India have been worshipped as incarnations of various deities.

Esar wrote: Regarding India, the canon has a take on this already (Yes, I read "The big Idea" Frequently.):

Apologies, I do not understand the reference to "The big Idea". I figured it out

With regards to the rest of the canon extract, I had read it, and it was understandable where it came from. A lot of it stemmed from occidental perception due to the way things are reported, and misunderstandings about certain things. For instance, how many people understand that rakshasas (usually translated as demons) at many times were far more moral than even the devas (shining ones, supernatural "good" beings)? Most Hindu children would know this, as some mythology on this subject is extremely common. Also, with regards to nagas... The greatest of them is one of the most revered beings in Hinduism. In South India, they are a vital part of the religious landscape.

Many things have been misunderstood and misrepresented for the sake of drama and spectacle.

With regards to the "caste politics", there would definitely be conflicts between the various castes, but I think that mutants would in fact be the great equaliser. Also, there is "powerful" and then there is "powerful". One part is physical power and influence, and the other is spiritual. While there is no doubt that in physical power the "brahmins" would be no match for any mutant population, the true calling of the brahmin caste is spiritual instruction and guidance without the right to earn any money. This last part is very important, as it is only the true penniless brahmins who have any prayer of being regarded as being the most authentic. The others may have followings, but they are more fads than anything else. In this case, the authentic brahmins have nothing to do with "power" of any sort. However, I agree that it is definitely quite possible that the insincere ones may cause segments of the population to raise themselves against mutants as being rakshasas. However, one should never forget the fact that some of the greatest devotees of God in Hindu scriptures were actually rakshasas, and so the accused would tend to be judged by their actions more than by perception.

Also, people disregard the utter size of the Indian population. In 2007, India's population was 1.132 billion, almost 4 times that of the USA. The majority of that population exists in rural or semi-rural areas. It is entirely impractical to suggest that a foreign organisation like the MCO would ever have such tight control over such great swaths of population, when most of the population live far away from where the MCO can even be effective. Let us say that the percentage of mutants being born in America is X percent. India has 4 times the population, but for argument's sake let us say perhaps a 75% higher mortality rate overall. Doing some simplistic naive mathematics, for me this comes out to India having roughly the same amount of mutants being born as in the USA (X% of USA population), yet with a far greater chance of survival and escaping detection than any USA mutants, as the infrastructure of the country is nowhere near as developed as in the USA to help the MCO do much about it. Thus there would be a far greater percentage of mutants that actually learn to live and function under the radar in society, and who would be able to counteract much anti-mutant propaganda with little the MCO could do about it. Thus, the MCO would not be anywhere near as powerful or pervasive as they are portrayed.

Almost everything in the last paragraph is obviously speculation, but I do believe it is reasonable.

Valentine wrote: Consider though, that even recently children born with extra limbs in India have been worshipped as incarnations of various deities.

There is a difference; incarnations actually do have a definition and actual standards to live up to, and those standards would be quite impossible for power-hungry mutants to live up to. Thus eventually the truth would come out regardless of the initial superstitious belief.

The MCO in India is not a foreign organisation. It is an Indian organisation made of Indians, operating under rules established in India, and the ones that are required by UN. Which I believe just cover air travel and border crossings.

Valentine wrote: The MCO in India is not a foreign organisation. It is an Indian organisation made of Indians, operating under rules established in India, and the ones that are required by UN. Which I believe just cover air travel and border crossings.

Then it makes even less sense that they would be as malicious and destructive, or be allowed to be. Again, respect for all beings is a basic tenet of most religions and philosophies in India (and as I mentioned before, religion plays a huge part in the national life). To disregard that would be very short-sighted.

Kristin Darken wrote: but again... that's in the WU, and based on specifically chosen assumptions through history that allows for the contemporary handling both by the MCO and the general culture. That doesn't mean a lot compared to a world where there is no precedent and then suddenly there are powered paranormals in existence.

I would hope that there would be at least some attempt to integrate real life beliefs into "canon". Else one excludes entire classes of story because things have already been written in stone, so to speak, e.g. writing the "Progenitors" into Star Trek continuity for the purposes of a cool story, rendered meaningless almost anything dealing with humanity's struggle to understand their origins through religion.

But everyone here has to remember that this is a DIVERGING universe from our real life. I wrote about Charge's background in France, where I noted that there existed gun rights/prevalence and mutant rights that differs from current real-universe concepts - and several French people got rather upset, even after it was explained that this was NOT REAL LIFE.

India, like all countries, WILL diverge. It's that simple. This is not our real universe. Much will be the same, but there will be differences. Say a few ragers went through a few major cities, or some of the major temples, leaving huge body counts. Would everyone be so 'devout' as to not start to fear mutants? Would respect for all life be as powerful under these circumstances? Probably not.

What you have to remember, Ahimsa, is that mutants are MOSTLY harmless and want to blend in, but the ones that don't are extremely dangerous. Dangerous enough that 1 rager might outfight an army battalion that didn't have special training or gear. Dangerous enough that a body count in the hundreds or thousands (or even higher in densely populated cities) is very possible. Dangerous enough to provoke huge fear responses, and a fearful people will react unpredictably, no matter their professed philosophy. After 1 rager incident, Ghandi himself would probably be able to calm things down. But can the same be said after the second? the third? the seventh?

As writers, we try to respect cultural norms and philosophies. But we also are writing fiction in a fictional universe, and divergences WILL happen. They have to happen. Otherwise we'd be writing a journal of teenage baseline kids at a boring boarding school. So the best thing for a realistic world is for writers to listen to people who can help get the right 'modified' cultural feeling under the circumstances. Which in this case means people FEAR mutants. As in really, gut-wrenching paranoid terror of how dangerous mutants can be. Just as writers need to account for cultures, readers and advisors need to account for that level of fear.

And it can be difficult and painful to accept that your own culture might (probably would), under those circumstances, react in a very irrational, fearful way.

Kristin Darken wrote: Well... we have a canon take on what a mutant manifesting in India would be like after more than a century of people with paranormal powers being known to exist in the world...

That feels like a very very salient point, which I missed on my first look at that post.

I feel like that is sufficient difference to justify 'most anything. ... And then there's the Sundering's temporal effects, and GOOs, etc. ... So, while the info on RL India is great... It seems to me that it might be irrelevant? ... Is Whateley India vastly depopulated???

On the topic of Paranormals in the Real World (y'know, the original topic), be they mutants, mages, psychics, vampires, Fae, extraterrestrials, people from Pelllucidar, whatever, my essential insight is this: they really have no problem with such things existing; what they object to, most virulently, is other people having such powers- when they DON'T

elrodw wrote: But everyone here has to remember that this is a DIVERGING universe from our real life.

I suppose that some cultures diverged less because of the authors' familiarity with them, which cannot be helped.

elrodw wrote: India, like all countries, WILL diverge. It's that simple. This is not our real universe. Much will be the same, but there will be differences. Say a few ragers went through a few major cities, or some of the major temples, leaving huge body counts. Would everyone be so 'devout' as to not start to fear mutants? Would respect for all life be as powerful under these circumstances? Probably not.

Through the evidence of history, under Muslim rule about 80 million Indians were brutally killed in the most horrible ways over about 550 years. That works out to around 400 people per day. The religions and the common people not only bore that cost, they and their ideals changed very little because of it. To this day the Muslim population (about 14% of total) lives largely unmolested in India, as a testimony to the steadfastness of these beliefs. And this was real life when killing people was hard and messy; it was considered and measured cruelty, not merely some imagined rager at the mercy of their biology. Hence, there is a reason for my conclusions about the general strength and durability of the peoples' beliefs.

elrodw wrote: Which in this case means people FEAR mutants. As in really, gut-wrenching paranoid terror of how dangerous mutants can be

Fear is only one of many possible response types. All I wish to do is bring peoples' attention to other probable ones and provide motivations behind them.

elrodw wrote: Dangerous enough to provoke huge fear responses, and a fearful people will react unpredictably, no matter their professed philosophy. After 1 rager incident, Ghandi himself would probably be able to calm things down. But can the same be said after the second? the third? the seventh?

elrodw wrote: And it can be difficult and painful to accept that your own culture might (probably would), under those circumstances, react in a very irrational, fearful way.

Fiction can be anything one wants it to be, I guess.