Not NaNoWriMo: Superheroes World-Building

[tuftears]

I've poked around at a variety of projects and one I would *like* to get back to, but is on the backburner because I just don't "get" it enough, has been the concept of superheroes in space. That is, not 'low Earth orbit' or 'villain has a secret base on the moon' or anything like that, but a story about superheroes out there in the galaxy, visiting different places.

But I really do enjoy superheroes as a literature.

So, a couple of things that need to go together:

One. Superheroes. I can come up with individual heroes, but I'm not sure I adequately understand how to fit them together, or make them work. What are your favorite heroes, what do you like most about them? What do you think your heroes would do, given access to a starship and a map to Local Space?

Two. Galactic science fiction. Once you have cheap and convenient space travel, you usually also have abundant power, resources, and space. The individual power level of your average police-person, soldier, or armed warship goes up correspondingly, to a point where some fellow running around in tights punching people out from the shadows might seem more like a dangerous vigilante than an actual hero.

It feels to me like superheroes and villains might turn into... celebrities, consultants, or maybe they might confine their superpowered deeds to the frontiers where the general power levels are a lot lower.

Is the solution here, make the superpowered people more powerful, lower the generally available 'power level', maybe by way of some kind of apocalypse that forces people to turn to superheroes for help, while supervillains try to provide order "their own way"? Or go with the idea of celebrities, people famous for their own sake, and having powers simply enrolls one into a system where the question is how they use that power? What would *you* want to see?

Distance is also an issue, but one that can be solved with discreet application of technology. Star systems are, relatively speaking, entire states, so one can travel between "cities" -- planets, space stations, asteroid mining bases, that sort of thing, relatively quickly -- but going between systems without a convenient hyperspace gateway in the middle is going to Take Time (tm), in which the hero won't be available to solve crime in their normal beat. Contrariwise, villains probably rely on that same factor to elude pursuit-- things getting too hot in one system? Time to take a long trip!

Three. Superhero stories. This is possibly the biggest stumbling block. I like *reading* them, but I'm way less confident about writing one, especially one that involves multiple superheroes in a given sector of space. Maybe tell me about some of your favorite superhero stories, or things you *do* want to see, and things you *don't* want to see.

The most obvious story is, of course, some grave threat to all existence within a sector, but that's way too heavy-handed to me. I want to write stories that explore life in a galaxy that has some finite number of superheroes and villains, so they need to interact with one another, and existence can't be on the line every time, that just gets old fast. Stopping crime is the next obvious thing, I guess, followed by assisting in the wake of natural disasters. But what else do superheroes get up to?

Anyway, this isn't for a NaNoWriMo *this* year, but it could be for something next year!

Comments

[tuftears]

I'm thinking something like golden age superheroes-- Fantastic Four, Batman and Superman, Iron Man, Spiderman, all that sort of thing. But it needs to evoke "sense of wonder"-- grand spaceships that blot out the sun as they loom overhead, alien vistas, and of course, weird alien species that no one really knows anything about because it's a crowded galaxy. I want that 'we're small critters kicking around in a great big cosmos' feel.

As far as 'other dimensions' go, hyperspace is a dimension! Otherwise, probably no time travel or mirror universe/alternate universe stuff. Powers do seem to be connected with hyperspace in some weird way, in the setting I have in mind-- the few superheroes that exist, gained their powers when travelling in hyperspace, but not in a way that can easily be tested-- the chance is incredibly small, when compared to the vast number of people.

[jordangreywolf]

What sort of powers do you have in mind? Are there any that particularly appeal to you story-wise?

[tuftears]

Nothing specific. I was thinking about taking a particular section of space, a contested resources-rich system centered between two big empires, and assigning 'rebranded' superheroes to various parts of it. The MC's power is translation, so she needs to be in a cosmopolitan area, somewhere exotic and full of lots of different kinds of aliens, ones with important reasons for coming there. Naturally, in this setting there are no universal translators.

[jordangreywolf]

From your list of sample superheroes, I think all of those would be fine story-wise, except Superman (unless you mean the early, original, classic Superman who could "leap over tall buildings in a single bound" rather than just flying over them). I know Superman's the classic, but I find it hard to get involved in any story that has a protagonist with that power level. (Now, a story with an antagonist at that power level can be intriguing, but it dominates the story.)

I should also note that Batman and Iron Man are purely "skilled normals with gadgets." Okay, maybe ridiculously skilled, but that sort of affliction is common even among "hard sci-fi" protagonists.

Fantastic Four is a lot closer to the "raw elemental force" mode of superpowers that I think is probably a lot more manageable story-wise. I mean, they all have very handy powers that can be used in a number of ways and definitely give them an edge, but it doesn't make them demigods who have to face other demigods (or wizards) in order to have anything resembling a challenge.

Ditto for Spiderman, I suppose, though it really depends on which version of Spiderman we're talking about (i.e., not "Cosmic Spiderman"), and his power set at times seems a little more "grab-bag" than Fantastic Four. ("Spidey sense" seems particularly paranormal/psychic.) But despite that, Spiderman is probably also around the power level that I think still makes for flexible storytelling -- personally impressive, can do far more than a mere mortal could, but is still going to have to work a bit to change the world, vs. Superman single-handedly solving the Cold War by zipping around the Earth, grabbing all the nukes, and tossing them into the sun.

[tuftears]

Batman and Iron Man would definitely have to be tweaked in this setting. Maybe space-Batman has a shadow affinity that lets him hide easily or even move quickly from one shadow to another (within line of sight). Possibly space-Iron Man has an 'energy redirection' ability that allows him to drain power from a distant reactor to sustain his armor's abilities, or he might be a gadgeteer who operates drones remotely, there are a lot of options.

I probably wouldn't include Superman exactly as the comic version either. In a science fiction setting, the one thing he really needs is to be invulnerable, he can use blasters to shoot things, or jetpacks to fly, et cetera.

Their stories would probably have to be altered too. I'd need to figure out what makes them, "them". Or riffing off of them in a purposeful way. For example, Spiderman would have a lot of trouble doing his signature web-swinging in the crowded confines of a station, so I might think about his space version being able to dissipate into a swarm of bugs and disappear into the maintenance ducts. Naturally this only works well in the poor, less-well-maintained sections of the station, the rich parts would have effective filters and cleaners that would go berserk if they detected an invasion of bugs.