sense and supersensibility
Mar. 24th, 2023 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliOne of the big changes in any super world would be legal -- especially given the popularity of fighting/committing crimes with powers.
Flight is probably the first. Lawyers will promptly point out that the FAA regulates flying with a device. I can add precedent: one of the last cases of witchcraft brought had people saying they witnessed the accused flying through the air, and the judge dismissed it on the grounds that flying through the air was not a crime. However, that law would change pretty quick once we had people who could fly without it. Actually interfering with aircraft would be charged under reckless endangerment at the least, worse if harm occurred, but the law would change. (Details to be determined by your setup, both of government and of powers.)
Supersenses would make a big change. If Wolf can smell the blood from outside the house and determine it's the kidnapping victim. . . . An RPG had the law be that it depended on whether he was using his own inherent if powerful sense of smell, or a molecule sensor. That's one rule. Another would be to allow any form of senses, which wouldn't actually change much unless inherent supersenses are very rare since the criminals will start taking the same precautions either way (if they are sensible, which they often aren't). A third would be to rule them all out -- possibly even with slightly better senses that are in fact not super because they exist in a world without superpowers. (The longer superpowers existed, the more likely that distinction would not be drawn.) Either people would have to cast around to find other evidence to back up what they know to be true, or there would be superpowered vigilantism with all its problems.
Other powers produce other problems. Oddly enough, a Flying Brick, even on a Superman scale, would not be as destabilizing as some. He can use any supersenses to detect what you are doing, and superpowers to stop or punish you, but he can't actually control what you do. Mind control, down to command voice, and shapeshifting that can duplicate people would, besides all the evidentiary problems they would bring up, destabilize power because they could actually affect those in power.
If, of course, you use them.
Flight is probably the first. Lawyers will promptly point out that the FAA regulates flying with a device. I can add precedent: one of the last cases of witchcraft brought had people saying they witnessed the accused flying through the air, and the judge dismissed it on the grounds that flying through the air was not a crime. However, that law would change pretty quick once we had people who could fly without it. Actually interfering with aircraft would be charged under reckless endangerment at the least, worse if harm occurred, but the law would change. (Details to be determined by your setup, both of government and of powers.)
Supersenses would make a big change. If Wolf can smell the blood from outside the house and determine it's the kidnapping victim. . . . An RPG had the law be that it depended on whether he was using his own inherent if powerful sense of smell, or a molecule sensor. That's one rule. Another would be to allow any form of senses, which wouldn't actually change much unless inherent supersenses are very rare since the criminals will start taking the same precautions either way (if they are sensible, which they often aren't). A third would be to rule them all out -- possibly even with slightly better senses that are in fact not super because they exist in a world without superpowers. (The longer superpowers existed, the more likely that distinction would not be drawn.) Either people would have to cast around to find other evidence to back up what they know to be true, or there would be superpowered vigilantism with all its problems.
Other powers produce other problems. Oddly enough, a Flying Brick, even on a Superman scale, would not be as destabilizing as some. He can use any supersenses to detect what you are doing, and superpowers to stop or punish you, but he can't actually control what you do. Mind control, down to command voice, and shapeshifting that can duplicate people would, besides all the evidentiary problems they would bring up, destabilize power because they could actually affect those in power.
If, of course, you use them.