How do mutants work out?

[Tornado]

I'm sort-of kind-of working on a couple of superhero settings, but I'm stuck with a problem: how does one actually do anti-mutant sentiment? Classically in comic books, there is some subtype of super which is widely discriminated against. The problem I'm having is one of demographics.

 

The difficulty is simple: how many mutants are there? If you make just a tiny 1% of people be mutants, then that's 3 million mutants in the United States alone. If you reduce that to .1%, that's still three hundred thousand superhumans in the US.

 

If there are thousands of mutants worldwide, that leaves us with them making up less than .00001% of the world's population, and less than .0001% of the United States'. How exactly can there be widespread discrimination against such a tiny minority?

 

Blagh. Any solutions to this mutant overpopulation?

[Sketchpad]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

Well, currently in Marvel, there's around 200 mutants post-"No More Mutants". Before that, there was an increasing number that could have caused the human race to be a minority in about a decade. For the discrimination factor, I would stick with a small number ... maybe make them a recent phenomena that the world's just discovered. This may cause some to accept, but others to fear them (especially if they're strange or more unusual than average heroes).

I'm actually gearing up for a mutants campaign in my game world. What I find fun is that mutants have rights and aren't as feared as they used to. But there's a dark tide rolling in that may change the way the world views them ... will they survive? Will they manage to keep the status quo? Or will mutant-kind suffer once again?

[Tornado]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

Well' date=' currently in Marvel, there's around 200 mutants post-"No More Mutants". Before that, there was an increasing number that could have caused the human race to be a minority in about a decade. For the discrimination factor, I would stick with a small number ... maybe make them a recent phenomena that the world's just discovered. This may cause some to accept, but others to fear them (especially if they're strange or more unusual than average heroes).[/quote']The problem I'm having is, with a small number of mutants, they're incredibly rare. How are you supposed to have hate groups targeted against them when they make up less than a hundred thousandth of the world's population? And if you make them maybe .2% of the population, that's literally tens of millions of mutants worldwide, which pushes all other supers into a tiny minority.

[Houston GM]

An answer and a question.

 

How exactly can there be widespread discrimination against such a tiny minority?

The tiny minority has a profile in the media that vastly exceeds their actual numbers.

 

A normal bank robbery might make the local news. A bank robbery perpetrated by a supervillain makes national or even global news.

 

A good correlation would be al Qaeda. I've heard estimates from 2,000 to 20,000 al Qaeda members. But they're violent and dangerous, so people fear and hate them.

 

 

A better question would be to ask why people don't hate and discriminate against non-mutant supers. I generally assume that mentalists (of any origin) will be the most feared of the supers.

[Tornado]

Re: An answer and a question.

 

The tiny minority has a profile in the media that vastly exceeds their actual numbers.

 

A normal bank robbery might make the local news. A bank robbery perpetrated by a supervillain makes national or even global news.

 

A good correlation would be al Qaeda. I've heard estimates from 2,000 to 20,000 al Qaeda members. But they're violent and dangerous, so people fear and hate them.

Sure, but how many hate groups target members of al-Qaeda? Whereas in, say, Marvel, you've got the Friends of Humanity.

 

Sure, discrimination, even legal discrimination, against a microscopic minority can exist. But that sort of removes the whole metaphor of racism/anti-semitism/homophobia/transphobia/anti-communism/nativist ideology. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at; how do you make them a minority akin to blacks, jews, gays, transsexual, commies, or immigrants?

[Nerdnumber1]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

The problem I'm having is' date=' with a small number of mutants, they're incredibly rare. How are you supposed to have hate groups targeted against them when they make up less than a hundred thousandth of the world's population? And if you make them maybe .2% of the population, that's literally tens of millions of mutants worldwide, which pushes all other supers into a tiny minority.[/quote']

 

The reality of a situation doesn't matter to the public. Only public perception matters. You are much more likely to die in a car accident than in a plane crash, but one look at flaming ruins will make people scared to death of flying. They feel that every plane is a deathtrap, despite any factual evidense to the contrary.

 

Now replace this mundane situation with the realization that some normal looking humans have the ability to kill large groups of people without great effort. People can't tell human from monster. A normal shooting will only make local news while a case of telekenetic decapitation of live cremation will run coast to coast. Nevermind that gang violence kills more people, the masses are desensitized to it and see it as familiar. Mutant populations will be exagerated because, after all, how can anyone tell if their neighbor can fire beams of death from his eyes? Even more unnerving would be accidental cases as a teen vaporizes his class without meaning to.

 

Witch Hunts are as real today as they were in Salem and the Cold War. Fear needs no reason, only a target.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: An answer and a question.

 

Sure' date=' discrimination, even legal discrimination, against a microscopic minority can exist. But that sort of removes the whole metaphor of racism/anti-semitism/homophobia/transphobia/anti-communism/nativist ideology. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at; how do you make them a minority akin to blacks, jews, gays, transsexual, commies, or immigrants?[/quote']

 

You forget that there is a large portion of the population that might secretly be "mutant scum" passing as ordinary Joes like you or me (and I'm not so sure about you). Does anyone recall how many people were reported or investigated as terrorists immediately following 9-11 because of the way they dressed or how they spoke or even because they were (OMFG!) dark skinned?

 

It doesn't matter how many mutants there are, as long as the general public knows they are out there "somewhere", they are perceived as thirsting for the demise of "normal" humans, and there is an assumption that a the reason you don't see them very often is that the majority of them are deep undercover. The "dangerous mutant threat" might be your doctor, a teacher at your kid's school, a member of your church, or even somebody you know from work. It could be just about anybody!

[Enforcer84]

Re: An answer and a question.

 

Sure, but how many hate groups target members of al-Qaeda? Whereas in, say, Marvel, you've got the Friends of Humanity.

 

Sure, discrimination, even legal discrimination, against a microscopic minority can exist. But that sort of removes the whole metaphor of racism/anti-semitism/homophobia/transphobia/anti-communism/nativist ideology. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at; how do you make them a minority akin to blacks, jews, gays, transsexual, commies, or immigrants?

you don't. Marvel had to basically sequester the X-Men to their own quasi universe because they couldn't come up with a good answer, then they decided that ALL superheroes were mistrusted.

 

So...you could always do that.

[RedneckJedi]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

Yes. As long as there is a chance that they "may be secretly among you" then the media will play that up and help create the fear. Medias are good fot that. The media helps to stir racial tensions and helps create dislike for the gay communities and certain religions. The media in your game could be used to promote the hate.

[RedneckJedi]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

Well, currently in Marvel, there's around 200 mutants post-"No More Mutants".

 

Hmm... There have been almost that many mutants in the X-books alone not to mention the ones not identified yet

[Sketchpad]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

The problem I'm having is' date=' with a small number of mutants, they're incredibly rare. How are you supposed to have hate groups targeted against them when they make up less than a hundred thousandth of the world's population? And if you make them maybe .2% of the population, that's literally tens of millions of mutants worldwide, which pushes all other supers into a tiny minority.[/quote']

The thing is, even with a small number, all it takes is a few massively powerful individuals that fan the fire of prejudice, especially in the case of mutants. So the kid down the street with an extra arm seems nice ... but then you have a mutant terrorist group that starts attacking places VERY publicly and claiming mutant rights. Suddenly that kid doesn't seem so nice.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

That's the great thing about being the GM...it works out the way you want it too.

 

 

 

More seriously, I never bother to put any numbers on it. It's not like there is accurate census data available on it anyway. Like everything else, it all moves at the speed of plot heading in the direction of fun and adventure.

[Clonus]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

 

The difficulty is simple: how many mutants are there? If you make just a tiny 1% of people be mutants, then that's 3 million mutants in the United States alone. If you reduce that to .1%, that's still three hundred thousand superhumans in the US.

 

 

Answer number one:

 

Let me introduce you to Gloworm. He's a 12 year-old boy. His legs are fused together and he is "superhuman". His amazing superhuman power? Producing about as much light as a 40 watt bulb. His adoptive "father" is Daddy LongLegs. Daddy is nine feet tall, but his height is all in his arms and legs. Then there's Sal King. He's a little less obvious. His special feature is that heat doesn't seem to bother him. You could, like, shoot a flamethrower at him, and all you'd get is a naked Sal King. However, Sal has no particular immunity to smoke inhalation. Mrs. Pilver? She gets uncontrolled psychic flashes of future events.

 

You can create an endless stream of minor talents and freaks who would qualify as "mutants", but still are no match for some random lout with a .38 special.

 

Answer number two. Once upon a time everyone was afraid of witches, "witches" being these people who worshipped Satan in orgiastic ceremonies and then went home and cursed their neighbours. How many witches do you think there really was? Even ruling out the possibility that there really was a Satan who gave people the power to cast curses that worked...what proportion of the population do you think was actually trying to do that?

[Eosin]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

Once upon a time everyone was afraid of witches' date=' "witches" being these people who worshipped Satan in orgiastic ceremonies and then went home and cursed their neighbours. How many witches do you think there really was? Even ruling out the possibility that there really was a Satan who gave people the power to cast curses that worked...what proportion of the population do you think was actually trying to do that?[/quote']

 

Some still believe that Satan is behind D&D. It isn't nearly the frothing crescendo of the 80s but look over in NGD about the charity that wouldn't take D&D "money."

 

Hate has no facts. Envy has no rationale. Greed no humanity. Oppression of a minority is the easiest trope to pull off simply because it is part of the human condition. Some mutants would be media darlings (Spears, Jolie, Lohan) others would become the source of all evil.

[Manic Typist]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

You don't need a lot of people to actively discriminate against it. To think otherwise is kind of counter intuitive. Also, 300,000 people, while a lot of people... is VERY much a minority when spread throughout all of the U.S.

 

Furthermore, you can establish that say .01% of the world's population is SOME kind of mutant.... but that 99% of those mutants have such minor abilities that even THEY don't know it. Someone who truly has PERFECT pitch, someone who can remember facts with amazing ease, someone who's just a little bit quicker than seems normal...

 

Etc.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

It certainly wouldn't help if there's a powerful mutant villain activist out there publicly agitating for a war against humanity. Nevermind that 999 mutants out of a thousand have no interest in being super-powered terrorists, it's the one that gets swept up in his recruiting drive and blows up her local 7-11 that's going to get all the news coverage.

[Certified]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

The problem I'm having is' date=' with a small number of mutants, they're incredibly rare. How are you supposed to have hate groups targeted against them when they make up less than a hundred thousandth of the world's population? And if you make them maybe .2% of the population, that's literally tens of millions of mutants worldwide, which pushes all other supers into a tiny minority.[/quote']

 

One thing to consider here is not all mutants need to have useful mutations. If you said there are ten million mutants world wide how many of those actually have what resembles a super power? Maybe one woman can breath water, but the trade off is she has gills and scales on her neck. One thing to help discriminate against them is if they have obvious appearances but lack ways to defend themselves.

[Vulcan]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

This whole trope comes out of Marvel's anti-mutant discrimination, which I would guess was Stan Lee's way of striking a blow, in his own way, against the racism prevalent in the 60's - which was when the X-Men were created and first published.

 

Now it is so overused (IMO) that it isn't even interesting anymore.

 

Of course, it doesn't help that my GM is obsessed with the whole thing, and has expanded it to all supers (like Marvel recently did), and makes being a superhero of any sort a lot less fun.

[assault]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

The Stan Lee answer is the correct one, of course.

 

That said: mutants are:

(a) monsters, or

( terrorists.

 

Seriously.

 

The Hulk isn't, of course, a mutant, but he is a monster. In a Marvel-like universe, there are/were other monsters, who, whether or not they are technically mutants, are part of the reason why people who look like monsters are plausibly to be feared.

 

And then there are terrorists like Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, as well as all the other "evil"/criminal mutants.

 

These "people" present an actual danger to humanity.

 

The possibility that mutants could actually "breed out" "real people" is enough to form the basis for a moral panic. How long it could be sustained is another question, given the presence of mutants that don't want to mess over humanity - but even those are potentially a threat if humanity were to become dependent on them. This leads us into The Authority territory, where "superhumans" decide that human rules/laws aren't relevant to them anymore.

 

Folks like the Fantastic Four, at least, are understood to be humans who had something weird happen to them. The Avengers are, for much of their time, led by Captain America, and/or are largely composed of people who are obviously human, although impressively skilled. (Iron Man, Hank Pym, the Wasp, Hawkeye, etc.) The mutants on their team have the advantage of having serious people vouch for them, as well as being under (US) government supervision. Of course, the "US" in that statement might not be entirely reassuring in other parts of the world, but that's another issue.

[assault]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

Thought: what if, back in the 60s and early 70s, Cuba was one of the preferred places for "oppressed" mutants to run away to? And then, later, Guantanamo Bay became one of the sites where "dangerous" mutants were imprisoned by the US government?

 

This could cause all kinds of interesting stuff. By then, Cuba could have established itself as a safe haven for mutants - but would have to crack down on resident mutants who potentially could start a war with the US! Who could they rely on to enforce this? What would the result be?

 

It's possible, of course, that this whole thing is a provocation, and that the "really dangerous" mutants are held somewhere else, and that any mutants "liberated" by such an action are of no military value whatsoever.

 

Of course, I should be designing a mermaid, and not writing stuff like this.

[assault]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

An analogy: Godzilla attacks New York City. How do you explain his name is really "Gojira"?

[Utech]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

It's all in the defenses.

 

The vast majority of Marvel mutants could be beaten to death by a few angry normals. They might be able to fly or shatter rocks with a scream or teleport -- but a simple handgun could end them.

 

The fact that mutants could kill normals (and/or cause tremendous damage) makes normals fear them. The fact that normals could kill mutants gives mutants a reason to be fearful of the far more numerous normals.

[OSAT]

Re: How do mutants work out?

 

How are we defineing mutant? some one with an abnormal genetic code? if so you can add every albino, every cancer paitent, every person with downs...

 

there is you massive mutant army

[McCoy]

Re: An answer and a question.

 

I'm sort-of kind-of working on a couple of superhero settings, but I'm stuck with a problem: how does one actually do anti-mutant sentiment? Classically in comic books, there is some subtype of super which is widely discriminated against. The problem I'm having is one of demographics.

 

The difficulty is simple: how many mutants are there? If you make just a tiny 1% of people be mutants, then that's 3 million mutants in the United States alone. If you reduce that to .1%, that's still three hundred thousand superhumans in the US.

 

If there are thousands of mutants worldwide, that leaves us with them making up less than .00001% of the world's population, and less than .0001% of the United States'. How exactly can there be widespread discrimination against such a tiny minority?

 

Blagh. Any solutions to this mutant overpopulation?

 

Sure, but how many hate groups target members of al-Qaeda? Whereas in, say, Marvel, you've got the Friends of Humanity.

 

Sure, discrimination, even legal discrimination, against a microscopic minority can exist. But that sort of removes the whole metaphor of racism/anti-semitism/homophobia/transphobia/anti-communism/nativist ideology. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at; how do you make them a minority akin to blacks, jews, gays, transsexual, commies, or immigrants?

I'm sorry, I don't understand the original question. Are you under the impression that there must be a critical mass of a minority for discrimination to exist?

 

Lots of Anti-semites in the world have never met a Jew in person. Homophobia was alive and well for centuries before there was any estimate of how frequent humosexuality may be. How many communist were actually in the US at the height of anti-communist hysteria, or for that matter how many actual witches during the literal witch hunts?

 

Actual numbers are irrelivant as long as "They look like us, they could be hiding among us!"

[assault]

Re: An answer and a question.

 

How many communist were actually in the US at the height of anti-communist hysteria' date='[/quote']

 

This is one I've actually studied.

 

EDIT: I've deleted a relatively long post, that belonged in the NGD, rather than here.

 

I'll never be able to write it again.

 

The answer to McCoy's question is: not many, but many people had been influenced by them.