The Fuzz
Staberinde
Ok, had an idea. Been kicking around for a bit.
All superpowers come from one of two sources, either technological enhancement or elemental gift/enlightenment.
Technological enhancement means your power armour, your cyborgs, your bag of tricks espionage Jason Bourne murdermonsters, your Batmen and Iron Men. This path to power has really been a Thing since a little before WW2. WW2 saw squads of dudes with crude experimental power armour, drug-fuelled hypnotic skills training to turn normal soldiers into crack ninja commandos in a matter of weeks, and a number of other such things, on every side of the war. The groundwork for functional cybernetics came out of some extremely questionable research which was simultaneously developed by the Japanese, the Americans and the Germans.
The Cold War saw the extended use of heavily enhanced government operatives. They cut you up, they put you back together, you spend five or ten years as a cybernetic attack dog and then, if you're lucky enough to make it that long, they decommission you and you retire with an untouchable pension/trust fund, titanium lacing your bones and making you ache in cold weather, and a lifetime prescription for immunosuppressants to stop your body from going into shock and eating itself. Good job, soldier.
Meanwhile, some of that technology made it into, er, the private sector. It was in the late Fifties when the first rich, traumatised madman/genius got his hands on some of the castoffs of the WW2 weaponry systems. With enhanced Cold War materials and miniaturisation technology, and an iron will born of childhood loss, he declared war on the criminals who had destroyed his family. Having laid waste to several organised crime syndicates, he found that talent attracts admirers, and he took his first apprentice...
By the modern day 2020's, clans of Batmen range up and down the east and west coasts of the United States, linked by descendant lines of high tech suit designs and martial arts styles. By common law among the clans, they do not kill, for two reasons: one, it's what separates them from the criminals and renegades they hunt, and two, so long as they do not kill, the police do not make any real effort to apprehend them. In fact, there is a certain degree of cooperation, at the highest levels, and then again, down on the streets.
However, all of this technological savagery has provoked a response. The brutal megadeaths of the 20th century, and decades of nuclear testing in the atmosphere and below the ground drove the elemental essence of the Earth nearly mad. There's nothing resembling a mind in there, but there is a set of primal responses, and the Earth's response to feeling itself come under attack is to generate a defence system. The empowered began to emerge in the late Eighties, but only in truly tiny numbers. It wasn't until the early years of the 2010's that they became visible in real numbers. This is what the empowered are: self contained leylines, each one a walking nexus of elemental power, radiating chi (and ruining the feng shui of any building they enter).
People who survive disasters, who shrug off lightning strikes, escape forest fires, claw their way out of buildings leveled by earthquakes or tsunamis have a slim chance of being changed by the experience, of being touched by roiling strands of elemental power and emerging as a true superhuman. Typically, this has a dual effect. First, it boosts the metabolism and physical capabilities of the person until they go ding, and slip from being at the top of the human scale, to the bottom of the superhuman scale. Second, it grants some type of elemental power to the person. Suddenly, they can control the weather (Air) or throw fireballs (Fire), or something similar.
The sudden emergence of people who can be described as "Captain America, except also an earthbender" made the batmen and the government agencies shit bricks. For the very first time, there are people out there who have superpowers which, from the point of view of everyone else, they did not earn, did not spend years seeking and mastering, and they cannot be trusted.
The batmen, in particular, are bricking it. Having a bulletproof skintight suit which flatters your perfectly toned buttocks and then goes invisible through the marvel of thermoptics, and having a bag of tricks which includes things like miniaturised nightvision goggles, grapnel gun, taser baton and a selection of tranquiliser rounds and smoke bombs makes you terrifying to the Mafia, but it barely manages to level the playing field between you and a dude who is super strong, super fast, and wearing an inch thick layer of rock armour.
The government, however, has sat up and taken notice. They have carried out a few experiments (and somewhere, a few doctors will never sleep at night without crying in guilt and horror) and now, they have a way to induce this empowerment. There are a few drawbacks, though. First off, it costs upwards of ten million for each candidate, and isn't guaranteed to work. The failures have had, on occasion, costly side effects. Simultaneously driving someone to the absolute peak of human physical capability while turning them into a murderous sociopath is regarded as "failure". The other point is that artificial empowerment produces the physical boost, but not the elemental capabilities. Still, far better than nothing, and such an agent can still be issued advanced armour and gear to take fullest advantage of their enhanced physicality.
So, notes on actual limits: Avatars get physically boosted to an incredible degree, either at peak human levels or noticeably superhuman.
In terms of strength, a wimpy Avatar picks up a motorcycle in one hand and moves it to a more convenient parking space. A beefy Avatar bench presses a car.
For agility, a wimpy Avatar juggles champagne flutes. A beefy Avatar runs through a rioting crowd without getting touched.
Toughness-wise, a wimpy Avatar walks off a hefty bare knuckle beating, and has only mild bruises the next day. A beefy Avatar shrugs off a beating with baseball bats and keeps coming.
On top of this tune up, they also pick up an elemental power. Fireballs! Or control of the wind! Or generating minor tsunamis! Or, as previously noted, being an earthbender!
The batmen don't have any inherent power except for being truly exceptional human specimens, and being at least a little batshit insane. Their toys tend towards the gamebreaking when you combine all of them into discrete toolboxes, though. As noted, slimline power armour which is bulletproof, optical camouflage, tiny little flashbangs and gas canisters which pack more punch than you'd expect, etc.
Batmen wounded or critically injured in the line of duty often return to active duty with improved capabilities, due to cybernetic reconstruction. There's only so much that cybernetics can do, though, and extensive reconstruction tends to come with associated health problems.
This being the 2020's, there is somewhat of a cape culture beginning to emerge...
All superpowers come from one of two sources, either technological enhancement or elemental gift/enlightenment.
Technological enhancement means your power armour, your cyborgs, your bag of tricks espionage Jason Bourne murdermonsters, your Batmen and Iron Men. This path to power has really been a Thing since a little before WW2. WW2 saw squads of dudes with crude experimental power armour, drug-fuelled hypnotic skills training to turn normal soldiers into crack ninja commandos in a matter of weeks, and a number of other such things, on every side of the war. The groundwork for functional cybernetics came out of some extremely questionable research which was simultaneously developed by the Japanese, the Americans and the Germans.
The Cold War saw the extended use of heavily enhanced government operatives. They cut you up, they put you back together, you spend five or ten years as a cybernetic attack dog and then, if you're lucky enough to make it that long, they decommission you and you retire with an untouchable pension/trust fund, titanium lacing your bones and making you ache in cold weather, and a lifetime prescription for immunosuppressants to stop your body from going into shock and eating itself. Good job, soldier.
Meanwhile, some of that technology made it into, er, the private sector. It was in the late Fifties when the first rich, traumatised madman/genius got his hands on some of the castoffs of the WW2 weaponry systems. With enhanced Cold War materials and miniaturisation technology, and an iron will born of childhood loss, he declared war on the criminals who had destroyed his family. Having laid waste to several organised crime syndicates, he found that talent attracts admirers, and he took his first apprentice...
By the modern day 2020's, clans of Batmen range up and down the east and west coasts of the United States, linked by descendant lines of high tech suit designs and martial arts styles. By common law among the clans, they do not kill, for two reasons: one, it's what separates them from the criminals and renegades they hunt, and two, so long as they do not kill, the police do not make any real effort to apprehend them. In fact, there is a certain degree of cooperation, at the highest levels, and then again, down on the streets.
However, all of this technological savagery has provoked a response. The brutal megadeaths of the 20th century, and decades of nuclear testing in the atmosphere and below the ground drove the elemental essence of the Earth nearly mad. There's nothing resembling a mind in there, but there is a set of primal responses, and the Earth's response to feeling itself come under attack is to generate a defence system. The empowered began to emerge in the late Eighties, but only in truly tiny numbers. It wasn't until the early years of the 2010's that they became visible in real numbers. This is what the empowered are: self contained leylines, each one a walking nexus of elemental power, radiating chi (and ruining the feng shui of any building they enter).
People who survive disasters, who shrug off lightning strikes, escape forest fires, claw their way out of buildings leveled by earthquakes or tsunamis have a slim chance of being changed by the experience, of being touched by roiling strands of elemental power and emerging as a true superhuman. Typically, this has a dual effect. First, it boosts the metabolism and physical capabilities of the person until they go ding, and slip from being at the top of the human scale, to the bottom of the superhuman scale. Second, it grants some type of elemental power to the person. Suddenly, they can control the weather (Air) or throw fireballs (Fire), or something similar.
The sudden emergence of people who can be described as "Captain America, except also an earthbender" made the batmen and the government agencies shit bricks. For the very first time, there are people out there who have superpowers which, from the point of view of everyone else, they did not earn, did not spend years seeking and mastering, and they cannot be trusted.
The batmen, in particular, are bricking it. Having a bulletproof skintight suit which flatters your perfectly toned buttocks and then goes invisible through the marvel of thermoptics, and having a bag of tricks which includes things like miniaturised nightvision goggles, grapnel gun, taser baton and a selection of tranquiliser rounds and smoke bombs makes you terrifying to the Mafia, but it barely manages to level the playing field between you and a dude who is super strong, super fast, and wearing an inch thick layer of rock armour.
The government, however, has sat up and taken notice. They have carried out a few experiments (and somewhere, a few doctors will never sleep at night without crying in guilt and horror) and now, they have a way to induce this empowerment. There are a few drawbacks, though. First off, it costs upwards of ten million for each candidate, and isn't guaranteed to work. The failures have had, on occasion, costly side effects. Simultaneously driving someone to the absolute peak of human physical capability while turning them into a murderous sociopath is regarded as "failure". The other point is that artificial empowerment produces the physical boost, but not the elemental capabilities. Still, far better than nothing, and such an agent can still be issued advanced armour and gear to take fullest advantage of their enhanced physicality.
So, notes on actual limits: Avatars get physically boosted to an incredible degree, either at peak human levels or noticeably superhuman.
In terms of strength, a wimpy Avatar picks up a motorcycle in one hand and moves it to a more convenient parking space. A beefy Avatar bench presses a car.
For agility, a wimpy Avatar juggles champagne flutes. A beefy Avatar runs through a rioting crowd without getting touched.
Toughness-wise, a wimpy Avatar walks off a hefty bare knuckle beating, and has only mild bruises the next day. A beefy Avatar shrugs off a beating with baseball bats and keeps coming.
On top of this tune up, they also pick up an elemental power. Fireballs! Or control of the wind! Or generating minor tsunamis! Or, as previously noted, being an earthbender!
The batmen don't have any inherent power except for being truly exceptional human specimens, and being at least a little batshit insane. Their toys tend towards the gamebreaking when you combine all of them into discrete toolboxes, though. As noted, slimline power armour which is bulletproof, optical camouflage, tiny little flashbangs and gas canisters which pack more punch than you'd expect, etc.
Batmen wounded or critically injured in the line of duty often return to active duty with improved capabilities, due to cybernetic reconstruction. There's only so much that cybernetics can do, though, and extensive reconstruction tends to come with associated health problems.
This being the 2020's, there is somewhat of a cape culture beginning to emerge...
