Realistic or Modern CLOSED Second Pick - An Unlikely Hero RP

[BittyBobcat]

• Premise
• Rules
• Lore

• 
  Superhumans make up approximately 0.08% of the population. There are currently 6,736 residing in New York City, and of those six-thousand odd people, only a handful are heroes. The Association for the Research and Control of Enhanced Persons (better known as ARCEP, and often shortened to "ARC" or "The Association") sponsors these heroes by allowing them to play figurehead leader to heroics agencies that work in tandem with local crime-management in cases that involve enhanced individuals. As far as general public opinion is concerned, heroes do most (if not all) the work.
  
  This, of course, is incorrect. What would be the point of having departments full of sidekicks, informants, ARC agents, doctors, lawyers, PR workers, and countless others if that were true? The heroes do fill an integral role, but not the only role when it comes to hero agencies. Behind them are dozens of people who are heroes just as well (even if they don't hold the name) that the agencies would fall apart without. Still, without heroes, the agencies have no excuse to exist.
  
  So, when heroes start going missing around the world, replacements must be found. Backups. Second picks, you might say.
  
  This rp will be following a group of newly-promoted heroes in New York City. The setting is modern, and the rp will start a little less than a week after a large chunk of New York's heroes go missing. This hits them especially hard because they had already lost a few a month prior and are now without any senior heroes. The plot will be strongly character driven and have an episodic style, where every "chapter" introduces a new big bad for them to handle (this can range anywhere, from your stereotypical supervillain to a particularly bad PR fiasco). The overarching plot will be dealing with the difficulties of trying to live up to the expectations that they set/the new responsibilities our characters now have as well as figuring out exactly what happened to the heroes who went missing. I'm expecting some found family themes, some elements from Marvel/DC/MHA, and some of the conflicts that the overarching plot suggests (dealing with poor public rep, balancing hero work and regular life, etc).
  
  Characters will not be limited to new heroes, however they must be related to them in some way. You are free to make doctors, PR agents, lawyers, or anyone else that works in the hero agencies, but if you do then you will have to keep in mind that they probably won't be in the thick of the action most the time. It's ultimately your responsibility to link them to our main focus (although I will help if I can). For the start, I'll be limiting main characters to only two per person, but there will probably be chances to add more later in the rp.
  
  I'm looking for a group of 3 to 6 people and about weekly posting (of course, life happens, so it's totally fine to miss here or there, but there should be an attempt). This rp will not be first come first served (I'll be picking people based on CSs), and -once people are picked- I'll set up a Discord server for the OOC. Everyone will be allowed (and encouraged) to participate in plotting and worldbuilding. This rp will be semi-lit: I'm not expecting perfect grammar and capitalization and such, just no extremely short posts (2-3 paragraphs will probably be the average post length) and understandable writing at least.
  
  This probably goes without saying, but everyone needs to follow RPnation rules. Be civil to one another and please no 18+ content. If someone fails to follow these guidelines, then I will not hesitate to kick them from the rp.
  
  And, just a reminder, we're all roleplaying to make a story and have fun. If you have any questions that haven't been answered by the other tabs, need help with your character, or anything else like that, then feel free to DM me!
  
• 
  1. Follow RPnation rules
  2. No 18+ content
  3. Be civil to one another
  4. Have a Discord
  5. Please try to post weekly (it's understandable to miss here and there, but make an attempt). If you can, please tell us when you won't be able to post
  6. General RP guidelines (no being overpowered, no Mary Sues, etc)
  7. 2-3 paragraph minimum post length
  8. If you've read this far, then you're automatically cool beans. Say so in your CS.
  
  World/Character-building Guidelines
  "Can I make...?"
  Side characters (that don't count against main character limit): Yes
  NPCs: Yes
  Hero Agencies: Yes
  Villain Organizations: Yes
  Superpowered Bloodlines: Yes
  Creatures: Yes
  Traitors: DM me
  Races (human adjacent, like vampires): Yes
  Non-human adjacent races: No
  Countries: Ask me
  Anything else that I'm unsure about: Ask me
  
• 
  |-|Superhumans|-|
  Enhanced persons (or, as they are more commonly called, superhumans) have existed for as long as the concept of a normal human has existed. They are rare (as mentioned earlier, they make up 0.08% of the population), but not to the point that you'd never meet one going about regular life. Origins vary greatly, ranging from bloodlines that carry certain abilities with them, to the purposeful (usually illegal) creation of human bioweapons, to the possession of arcane knowledge, to countless other possibilities.
  
  Attitudes and treatment toward superhumans vary as well, and often hinges on the exact nature of their powers. Generally speaking, people with more presentable powers will get a lot of encouragement to become a hero and some "gifted child" treatment, while those with less enviable ones may be avoided, ostracized, or they may even hide their powers altogether.
  
  In New York, the commonly held view often swings between extremes based on heroes success or failure to stop superhuman threats. Legally, the US as a whole tends to treat them the same as a regular person (though there are exceptions state by state, and court cases are often influenced by ARC) except for the fact that it requires superhumans to register with ARC (punishments for violation vary by state). Heroes have their own specially-made knot of laws they deal with, but their legal divisions are usually good enough to keep that from becoming a problem.
  
  
  |-|ARCEP|-|
  The Association for the Research and Control of Enhanced Persons (ARCEP, ARC, "The Association") was founded in 1949. Originally, it was established to meet a rising international demand for better regulation surrounding superhumans, but rapidly grew into the primarily hero-based organization it is today.
  
  Though hero agencies take up a large chunk of their resources, ARC also provides various humanitarian services. Orphanages often hand custody of enhanced children to ARC (where they are cared for at ARC childcare facilities or adopted out to ARC-approved families). ARC provides power-containment services to those inconvenienced by their powers in many hospitals. Certain people may be offered a job working as a paid research subject if study of their powers could be beneficial to humanity as a whole.
  
  Many superhumans end up working with ARC, not only as research subjects and heroes, but as child-care workers, employees of hero agencies, janitors, or working any other jobs they may need fulled. This is mainly because superhumans can be liabilities in the regular workforce (getting hired when you are known to spontaneously combust or are covered in porcupine spikes tends to be difficult), and ARC is uniquely equipped to handle those sort of workplace hazards.
  
  Public opinion of ARC tends toward the positive, but this is more a result of a skilled PR department than anything else. If anyone cares to dig deep enough to see it, they would find that most of their heroes come from their childcare facilities. Given the right court-records, they'd find that power-containment services aren't always in the best interest of their subjects. And, perhaps it's nothing more than something tossed between conspiracy blogs, but rumor has it that not all of their research subjects are voluntary.
  
  
  |-|Hero Agencies|-|
  Though their exact role varies slightly from place to place, hero agencies are generally expected to deal with superhuman crimes and threats (they're essentially a branch of emergency services managed by ARC). They get a lot of media attention and heroes often get celebrity treatment (if you've watched MHA, it's kind of similar to that).
  
  Once a superhuman criminal (often called a villain) is apprehended, they are handed off to either the custody of local law enforcement or ARC (in New York's case, they get put in ARC custody). The villains are still forced to serve whatever sentence they've gotten, they just do so in a specially made ARC containment center as opposed to a regular jail. Oftentimes, ARC will offer villains that show promise a path to hero training (though they more often end up as informants or sidekicks rather than heroes).
  
  Hero agencies tend to employ a lot of superhumans aside from just heroes and sidekicks. This is mainly because of the whole "ARC tends to hire a lot of superhumans" and also ARC finds it good for PR to have them in more positions that just on-the-field ones. Regular humans in non-fieldwork positions is still common, but you're significantly more likely to find a superhuman working in a hero agency than in most other places.
  
  Heroes, sidekicks, and informants often have "secret identities". They keep their actual appearances, names, and sometimes even ages or genders hidden while on the job and people are clued in on a need-to-know basis (of course, their actual identities are all stored in ARC databases).
  
  
  |-|Roles within Hero Agencies|-|
  Heroes: Posterchildren of ARC, heroes have flashy powers and media-perfect personalities. Most started training from a young age. Their jobs are equal parts keeping up good public relations and fighting crime. Usually only one or two per agency.
  
  Sidekicks: Take care of the fighting that the heroes of the agency are either too busy to do themselves or can't engage with without a media fiasco. Often called in as backup for heroes as well. Less famous than heroes, but some have small fan groups. There are usually significantly more sidekicks in a hero agency than heroes.
  
  Informants: Usually do both on and off field information gathering (basically spies). Generally don't fight, but often have to for self-defense, and therefore need to have some fighting skill if they work in the field. They tend to bounce between agencies more often than other jobs because some have different connections than others and therefore some agencies need to trade them from time to time to get the information they need.
  
  ARC Agents: The real directors of the agencies. They deal with hiring, firing, case assignments, and the chunk of paperwork relating to ARC funding.
  
  Everyone else: Doctors, lawyers, PR agents. If you could imagine a hero agency needing one, then there probably is at least one working there. Probably multiple. Heroes, sidekicks, informants, and everyone else who works on the field gets free healthcare and legal help (when it relates to their occupation) as a benefit of their job.
  
  
  |-|The Disappearances|-|
  Heroes go missing from time to time. It's not completely unheard of for one to go rogue or die in battle. However, recently disappearances across the globe have been growing more frequent. In New York, this all came to a head on the morning of July 5th, when a large group of heroes in the city went missing. There was no warning. Some were on the job, some were at home -the only unifying factor is that no bodies were found. This hit New York especially hard due to an incident with a combustion-powered superhuman that killed a handful of their heroes a month prior, making it so that no senior heroes remain in the city.
  
  As of yet, ARC has been able to cover up these disappearances with various excuses from PR. New York's Mass Disappearance is going to be what shatters the illusion that this isn't a large problem.
  

(P.S. There are tabs at the start of the post if you missed them. Please check them out if you're interested!)

CS Thread Link: Realistic or Modern - Second Pick CS Thread

The CS thread will be closed on April 3rd (about noon-ish PST)

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

P l o n k

 

[Selee-01]

Interested!

Would an artificial human be a suitable character?

 

[Trombone Geek]

count me interested for this!!

 

[BittyBobcat]

Interested!

Would an artificial human be a suitable character?

That depends on the way the artificial human was created. If the process is easily replicable, then it's probably best to find a way to make it so that isn't how it is only because that would make the fact that ARC still uses a lot of human superheroes a bit odd (since "why deal with people when we could just make a bunch of robots"). If they're a unique instance that is not replicable, then that's alright.
Also, it's important that the characters are fundamentally people because of the themes that we're likely going to be focusing on in this RP. They can still have mental differences that set them apart from non-superhumans, but they need to have sentience, emotions, etc. It would be difficult for a character that didn't have those things to participate in a chapter about dealing with the guilt of failing to save someone, for example.
And, of course, don't make them overpowered, but that's already mentioned in the rules so I assume that's a given with this

Edit: I realized I accidentally got all "meandering explanation" on this so let me just say it quickly to clarify: Yes, it is okay, but only so long as they can't be easily replicated and have sentience/emotions.

 

[Sandy Von Wich]

This looks fun!

Although a question I have is, does ARCEP have a dark side? When you say PR disasters and lawyers and all that, it makes me think they're there to cover things up. Innocent people getting hurt, property damage, heroes doing bad thing; and they're there to grease the right hands or spin the story a certain way.

Which could be VERY interesting, but I'm not sure if that's what you're going for.

 

[ebrium]

I'm interested!

 

[Selee-01]

That depends on the way the artificial human was created. If the process is easily replicable, then it's probably best to find a way to make it so that isn't how it is only because that would make the fact that ARC still uses a lot of human superheroes a bit odd (since "why deal with people when we could just make a bunch of robots"). If they're a unique instance that is not replicable, then that's alright.
Also, it's important that the characters are fundamentally people because of the themes that we're likely going to be focusing on in this RP. They can still have mental differences that set them apart from non-superhumans, but they need to have sentience, emotions, etc. It would be difficult for a character that didn't have those things to participate in a chapter about dealing with the guilt of failing to save someone, for example.
And, of course, don't make them overpowered, but that's already mentioned in the rules so I assume that's a given with this

Edit: I realized I accidentally got all "meandering explanation" on this so let me just say it quickly to clarify: Yes, it is okay, but only so long as they can't be easily replicated and have sentience/emotions.

Of course! I’m thinking he was created by a mostly secret organization, who doesn’t want the world to know about them. And he’s more of a one-off, with any ‘siblings’ showing up being some sort of special event. But that’ll be your decision, ultimately.

I’m thinking his arc’s going to be similar to Rei Ayanami from Evangelion, if you’ve ever seen that. He has emotions, but he’s also not very experienced in demonstrating or managing them, which makes him come off as cold and inhuman. But he’s definitely a person.

 

[BittyBobcat]

Alright then, here's the link to the CS thread! Realistic or Modern - Second Pick CS Thread

I will be closing this in about a week on April 3rd (noon-ish PST)

 

[BittyBobcat]

This looks fun!

Although a question I have is, does ARCEP have a dark side? When you say PR disasters and lawyers and all that, it makes me think they're there to cover things up. Innocent people getting hurt, property damage, heroes doing bad thing; and they're there to grease the right hands or spin the story a certain way.

Which could be VERY interesting, but I'm not sure if that's what you're going for.

Sorry that it wasn't very clear: That is exactly what I'm going for

 

[ebrium]

I'm currently at work and very on/off, but do you mind if I PM some character ideas I had just to make sure they're okay?

 

[BittyBobcat]

I'm currently at work and very on/off, but do you mind if I PM some character ideas I had just to make sure they're okay?

That's completely fine

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

I wAsN'T gEtTiNg nOtIfS

 

[BittyBobcat]

Gonna give this a quick bump while the CS deadline is still distant

 

[Firelie]

Hmmm interested

 

[Xen6n]

Is it still open?

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

Is it still open?

Yup!

 

[Strategos]

I'm interested! Where can I join the discord?

 

[BittyBobcat]

I'm interested! Where can I join the discord?

The Discord will be set up once the deadline happens so there currently are no invites. In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions you have here on RPN

 

[DarkiusHeavenstein]

Very nice concept. Very original as well! I really like this. Not sure if I can join, but I just wanted to say that ^^

 

[Windjammer]

Is this still open? It looks neat

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

Is this still open? It looks neat

It's open until the 3rd

 

[Monagale]

Interested!

 

[BittyBobcat]

Reminder to everyone planning to join without CSs up: I am closing this tomorrow (April 3rd) at around noon-ish PST so get your CSs up before then

 

[Chocolate_chip]

I'm interested can I still join?