Post by f***@gmail.comGreets
How does the country nation keep these millions of super villains contained once they have been apprehended, found guilty and sentenced? Is there a network of super villain only prisons, and who are the wardens?
Perhaps a reasonable percentage of washouts from the Hero boot camp take the easier Super-Warden exam and get a life of stopping the super convicts from escaping (and/or building ultimate doomsday weapons in their cells from stolen gym equipment, used chewing gum and plastic eating utensils).
What stops parents of a potential super from sending their kid to stay with Uncle Ivan in Siberia, or to study at a prestige grade school in say... Monaco? I can think of a few small, wealthy, historically neutral countries that might like to have a couple thousands supers on call, even if the supers are not necessarily the most decent people.
Given that you are dealing with supers, and you might potentially have a Richard Reeds (Mr. Fantastic, right?), why not exile the offenders to a penal colony on a nice hostile planet somewhere, say, like Jupiter or Venus. Basic survival might keep them busy.
How are the supers initially identified? Something like the 'X-gene' in the X-men, or is it completely random? Does it manifest at birth or puberty or at any time during life, or under extreme stress?
Sorry. I'm not helping. I'm generating more questions than answers.
Supers are identifiable with a blood test, but apparently they don't
have the resources to test everyone at birth so you have to go in and
register as soon you discover your powers. The punishments don't seem
to be especially severe for using powers in ways that would not
otherwise be a crime and they lack the comprehensive surveillance system
that would make this a true YA dystopia. In fact they don't even do
anything about the protagonist who first manifested his powers on
bullying football players so that's a bit of a plot hole. In the second
book it is revealed that they do have power neutralization tech and
access to alternate universes.
I'm into the second novel now and he's doing the licensing test for
superheroes now, and the tests are set up so that a significant
proportion of the applicants will be killed. Or rather murdered since I
believe that's an appropriate term for when you attack people who don't
pose an imminent threat to anyone and they die. I feel increasingly
perturbed that the protagonist is oblivious to the criminal way this
system operates.