The M Word

No, that still depends on the scale of the power. I could set things on fire with a can of aerosol and book of matches. Pyro from the X-Men, to name an example, has stated that he can't even create the fire—only control it. Also, he's not even immune to bullets.

And superstrength? How does that help you if you can't breathe? We muggles invented nerve gas and tear gas for a reason.

Burn the heretic! Kill the mutant! Purge the unclean!

hashtagsarestupid

I'd probably be uncomfortable with it at first given the whole "holy crap" reaction, but eventually it falls into pretty much the same category as "65 million gun owners killed absolutely nobody yesterday."

Surely the response to mutants appearing would be to recruit them? The criminals have mutants? I guess the police force needs them too, then.

Would that put an end to the 'us vs them' mentality?

Be not afraid...

In the eyes of muggles, no. Especially because it wouldn't just be limited to crime.

Imagine if every time you went out to a bar and went home with some total stranger, you worried if they were a telepath that "charmed" you into sleeping with them.

Imagine if you try to complain that some guy cut in front of you in line and his skin is made of steel.

Also, imagine if you found out the neighbors' kid is a super speedster and/or can walk through walls. Then, you seemingly misplace your MP 3 player...

What does it matter if the person who cut in line has steel skin? He's still got to obey the laws just like anybody else. Same thing for the speedy kid.

The telepathy one is a bit more difficult, but you could make tampering with people's minds illegal and then train up law enforcers to detect it.

Be not afraid...

You can't underestimate how much of a psychological mindfuck it is to feel intimidated. Yeah, you could make a stink for the local authorities to do something about steel guy, but what if he decides to punch you to death in the meantime? Ever been somewhere where there was a bunch of (possibly armed) hoodlums ruining everybody's good time and there were no authorities in sight? Did you walk up to them and tell them to get lost? Few people are going to take one for the team just to make a point. Same goes with the telepathy issue. Are the authorities who can detect it going to be everywhere?

Also, I never said the speedy kid took anything. I just said that you misplaced your mp3 player and live next to a kid with super speed and/or intangibility powers. See where your mind went?

But still, that isn't the point of what I was saying. The question was, how will muggles feel about mutants/supers? Doesn't matter how many safeguards are in place or how little proof there is of wrongdoing: when people are scared, they lash out.

Hell, even to this day, people are quick to scream "there goes the neighborhood" when a lower-class minority moves to a higher-class residence. And that's on something like racial biases and statistics. How the hell do you think they're going to feel when all of the above are factors?

edited 7th Sep '11 11:00:35 PM by KingZeal

@Pykrete: Think of it more as several million walking WM Ds and you can see the problem,

hashtagsarestupid

Again, not every Differently Powered Individual is a WMD. You can't treat a group of people as being all the same, even when the most extreme of those people are justifiably dangerous. That's the problem.

Have categories defined by potential danger?

Too easy to get wrong, unless we develop some way of knowing a super's Power Level. (Law of Conservation of Energy would say that a super's energy would have to come from somewhere, but that wouldn't account for the supers who can manipulate external energy, like Dazzler or whose powers outright break the laws of physics, like Cyclops).

Basically, if a super says that his only power is to make his skin 200 degrees hotter, but later turns out to be a living bomb capable of nuking a city, how are we supposed to categorize that?

But can we take that risk?

hashtagsarestupid

Probably not, but just saying that categorizing won't be amazingly effective. Won't stop people from trying.

More like "65 million people who are always carrying concealed, loaded guns with the safety off, which they acquired without having to go through the process of applying for gun licenses and without access to instructions or training on how to safely use a gun".

And on top of that, if we're going to continue using the Marvel Universe concept of a mutant, they all first acquire their guns at an age where they are statistically more likely to engage in life-threateningly reckless behavior than at any other time in their lives.

I'm reminded of an arc of Ultimate Spider Man where a foreign exchange student at a party Peter's attending is blowing up cars to the cheers of the other kids. The scene repeats itself the next day at Geldoff's school. It turns out he's only doing it to impress people. This being a relatively light-hearted series, nobody gets killed by the shrapnel or deafened or burnt by the blasts, and the kid is whisked off to Xavier's school (accidentally blowing up part of the X-Men's jet along the way) for testing.

I originally intended to go with the original 616 concept of mutant: they are natural genetic mutations that can be born from anyone, muggle or not, and two mutants can have a muggle baby. Powers can vary as wildly as they do in the comics (though I suppose, if it helps (maybe it doesn't), we can assume that powers adhere to the laws of physics and other sciences), and manifest themselves during puberty. We don' t need to go into the differences between metahumans and mutants, because that's not relevant here (just in case anybody was thinking it).

And holy shit, I've read some terrifying stuff in here. I know slavery exists in other places around the world, and perhaps (as terrifying as it is) the government could get away with doing that secretly, a la Weapon X, but if the public knew about people enslaving mutants, do you really think that would be doable? As terrified as I would be of mutants, I couldn't imagine enough muggles supporting/ignoring slavery of people that are born of muggles.

Another fear I'd have is, what if I fathered a mutant? In Matilda, although she was a sweet girl, in the end, she ended up getting everything she wanted, through the use of her powers. While she was sweet in the movie, I couldn't help but think she'd grow up to be an absolutely terror, because she'd eventually learn that if something doesn't go her way, she could use her powers. This is especially terrifying when you realize that mutants manifest their powers as teenagers, when relationships with parents are strained. What if my kid mindwiped of the bad stuff they did? What if they were using their powers against others, whether justly or not? How would I punish them? And what if—the most terrifying thing—they didn't like me? What if they just had such a shitty mood one day that they almost killed me? What if I couldn't hide my being afraid of [b]my own goddamn child[/b], leading him/her to feel ostracized and unloved? I mean, I personally can't ever imagine not loving a child that I fathered/chose to take care over, but fearing them is different. How would I deal with this?

About whether or not slavery will be tolerated:

That depends on the social nuances at the time. Slavery was tolerated for centuries prior to the 20th century largely because of widely believed fallacies (such as that indigenous peoples were savages and/or subhumans and that slavery was helping them). You could spin it any thousands of ways to make people buy it—especially if you appeal to their emotions. All it would take is a few images of rogue supers throwing a cosmic temper tantrum on the evening news to convince the world that "something must be done to control these violent beasts!"

Remember how fast the West turned against the Arab world after 9/11?

Let's assume that we've decided mutants have to be rounded up/killed. How would you do that? Not only would you have tens of thousands of super-beings with nothing to lose, you'd also have to worry about your populace turning against you.

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Well, fearmongering, perhaps aided by a False Flag Operation could help get the population on your side, but if you seriously have reason to expect the human population to turn against you for rounding up/killing mutants, that indicates to me that there is no actual "mutant problem". Humans by and large must not have come to hate and fear mutants, and mutants by and large must not have done enough to make humans hate and fear them. So you're better off with mutants as tax-paying citizens than you are engaging in a complex, expensive, and messy campaign of genocide.

So assuming you actually do have legitimate reasons for genocide and therefore the humans won't turn on you, some ideas:

• firstly, start with lower levels of discrimination and oppressive policies before moving up to genocide.
• get a lot of mutants in one place under the guise of helping them. e.g. establish housing projects for those mutants who are destitute or homeless due to parental abandonment, Fantastic Racism in the workplace, etc. Use the facade that for their own safety from hate crimes and whatnot, gathering them together will make it easier to protect them.
• Use fake suspicions of criminal/terrorist ties to spy on and otherwise persecute the more successful mutants, mutant organizations, or mutant neighborhoods.
• Abduct mutants nobody'll miss and experiment on them, with an eye towards developing mutant-specific biological/chemical agents or addictive narcotics.

Also, at some point, you'll intentionally push a group of especially hostile mutants too far, so that eventually you'll press their Berserk Button, have them go on a cosmic temper tantrum (as contained as possible, but doing enough damage to arouse fear and open hostility in the populace) and make sure that as much (doctored) surveillance of it gets to the public as possible. Voila! They just gave you more justification for any nasty thing you do to them than you'll ever need.

@OP: If I had powers? I'd go about my day like I always do, if conflict pops up and I have to defend myself, so be it. Except ill have more than a CCW permit.

I'd say treat it like you would a medical condition. The overall emphasis should be on helping people who have the condition deal with it as best they can and lead the kind of life they want, but if their condition puts others at risk (such as a highly contagious disease or a propensity to blow people's heads up) then a quarantine may need to be imposed.

I support this post in its entirety.

This is one of the few cases where I'd support an international registry of these mutants, documenting their personal info, place of residence, etc., and superpowers. Mutants don't suddenly cease to have human rights just because they can shoot lasers out of their fucking heads, but they should be treated with extreme caution.

This post is also an excellent idea.

edited 9th Sep '11 3:15:51 PM by LilPaladinSuzy

Would you kindly click my dragons?