Some Superhero AU Details and Worldbuilding
- There are amplifiers and then there are power users. They can form power bonds.
- There are varying levels of compatability between different types of amplifiers and power users, with some particularly weak power sets being very compatabile with most amplifier types. Please note that these powers are weak on their own, but can be insanely powerful when paired with an amplifier.
-These power bonds can be dangerous though if they are formed with the wrong person because it gives the amplifier a lot of power over your ability to use your powers because not only are they able to make your powers stronger, but they can also suppress them.
- In the past it wasn’t very common to have power bonds unless you were absolutely sure that you wanted them, but with the establishment of the hero’s guild, it has become a standard of the hero industry for any hero to have an established power bond with an amplifier in order to get their licence. This is supposed to encourage accountability and minimize the risk of civilian casualties via stray hero powers.
- This has more or less evolved into a means of controlling the empowered population as more and more money has entered the hero’s guild which has resulted in better funding for hero training, but has also made the principles that the guild operates on far less altruistic than when they first formed, with a protecting wealthy neighborhoods becoming a priority whenever there is a villain attack or disaster and leaving the lower income neighborhoods to fend for themselves
- Empowered people are almost always snatched up to attend a school and training center separate from civilians as soon as they show signs of power. With all the propoganda in place throughout the system though, this is viewed as a good thing because they are getting the help and attention they need from the people who can actually give it. It does help that their families are paid quite well for their service when they are discovered as children.
- With so many empowered persons being discovered so early, this has led to the sidekick program where younger members who have finished their primary schooling will begin shadowing a hero to better learn about and experience how the hero world works and how they’ll be able to fit into it. About two years into the sidekick program, they’ll be mentored by a hero rather than shadowing them and take part in some crime fighting themself as well, eventually developing their own trademark and methods of using their powers in a unique enough fashion that it’s marketable
- So this begs the question, what does the prison system look like?
-It’s bad. It’s very bad. They’re essentially labor camps and grounds for experiments by the labs that are sponsored by one of the corporations backing the guild.
- People frequently die in there and/or disappear and no one seems to care or investigate because it’s usually covered up.
- Escape is nigh impossible, but it has happened a few times. Several of these escapees have become villains (this is a distinction made by the heroes guild between the civilian class and the empowered people who oppose them, people who would be considered vigilantes or heroes outside of the guild system, are often classified as villains too)
- Amplifiers are often trained separately from heroes until it comes to time for them to form their powerbond during the sidekick program. Certain amplifiers can be powerbonded to up to five empowered people.
