PorfiroCristos
Super-Governance
The chief question of super-governance is, of course, how to create a functional government when the ability to vaporize houses is distributed throughout the population at random.
The Super-Emperor’s Super-Feudalism
As super powers are effectively distributed randomly, there is no way to ensure that only those loyal to your regime will receive them. As someone keenly aware of how his superhuman abilities allowed him to come to power, the self-proclaimed “New Tsar” sought to manage this. All superhumans in the territory are tested according to a system that determines their martial power. Lesser superhumans serve superior ones under a few ground rules set by the New Tsar, until the least superhumans serve as officers ruling the ordinary humans. They are given wide authority to do as they will with the mere humans under their command.
A subject may formally challenge their superiors to show their martial prowess and advance in rank, including mundane humans. In practice, most of those who have risen the farthest have built powerful organizations which support themselves at a level beyond that of their super powers, generally shaping their subordinates into martial units. Neo Russia has become a mix of various fiefdoms of wildly varying technological and economic capacity.
Trade is generally allowed, but not if the New Tsar believes it will undermine the super-feudal system.
States: Neo-Russia
The Eternal Chairman’s Super-Communism
With the emergence of “super powers,” assigned seemingly at random, the Eternal Chairman recognized that these metahuman abilities could not be allowed to concentrate in the hands of a few, or they would form a ruling class from which not even Communist revolution could liberate humanity.
The Eternal Chairman died leading the revolutionary vanguard, but the vanguard soon found themselves subject to a powerful psychic link which evenly distributed metahuman ability between them and connected their minds, and prevented intrusive counter-revolutionary thoughts. They reached true understanding between human beings, becoming able to work in nearly perfect coordination, free from the corruption of selfishness and greed.
They now diligently work to liberate all of humanity by connecting them all to this link, which has placed them in a state of conflict with most other major powers. Fortunately for them, the power of the link has made human wave tactics viable against super-powered enemies. Reports by experts indicate that psychic manifestations of the Eternal Chairman have been becoming slower but more powerful as Super-Communism has expanded.
States: People’s Republic of Southern China
Psycho-Technocracy (Lastau variant)
Mundane humans have weak but non-zero latent psychic potential. A weak bidirectional channel is formed with those who accept it, with some degree of control over its influence - it might weakly communicate feelings or intuitions, but not true thoughts or words. This allows the distribution of latent psychic energy to both mundane human citizens and metahumans in order to meet peak demands - valuable for the citizens, since a small boost can mean the difference between life and death.
A small group of high-psychic-potential technical experts are the receivers in this system, who shape the flow and are shaped in turn. As the focal point, the effect of the others’ thoughts is much stronger on them than what they exert on any individual, but it enables them to act, and therefore govern, with hyper-intuition, chewing through enormous possibility spaces or rapidly evaluating the potential effects of a policy before implementation.
The psychic guidance has reduced the emergence of supervillains in Lastau, making it a major political power simply due to infrastructure not being destroyed as often, even before its efficient administration and technical innovation are taken into account. Though not unified, superhuman abilities within the territory have started to converge on various themes, allowing some standardization of equipment and military roles.
States: Lastau (a mysterious landmass in the Southwest Pacific)
Super Republicanism
All citizens are tested in order to determine their super aptitude. Those testing above a certain threshold are the only ones permitted to hold public office, or delegate their authority to someone who will hold this office on their behalf. These super-citizens are elected by the mundane public, and also carry a number of special obligations, such as military service, which enables the country to draw up enough super-martial-force to prevent its domination by super villains.
States: Greater France
Super Liberalism
Blessed with a relative surplus of superheroes relative to its number and capability of supervillains for reasons that are still unknown, including the most powerful superhero of all, the United States has remained a country where superhumans hold effectively the same legal status as ordinary citizens, with the exception of various programs that deal with the complications of “good samaritans” with superhuman abilities and so on.
The United States fought valiantly to bring an end to Super-Hitler and has, in general, used its relative surplus of super-force to combat potential world-ending threats - though the sheer amount of major threats to combat prevents the Joint Super Team from dealing with lesser super-violence that continues to crop all over the world. The relative lack of destruction has helped America retain its economic lead compared to much of the world. Many metahumans are also involved in the super-construction industry that rebuilds infrastructure after monsters get punched through it.
Politicians are unusually focused on performing effectively, perhaps out of inspiration from and respect for the noble diligence of the world’s greatest superhero, or perhaps out of the terrifying fear that if they don’t, superheroes will decide to get involved in politics.
States: United States of America
Crypto-Super-Oligarchy
A test is administered to all citizens. Those who test positive for superhuman abilities are inducted into the secret order that runs the country. Anyone who uses powers with their identity unhidden is generally either exiled or destroyed. Representatives acting on behalf of the secret super-order run the day-to-day tasks of the country.
States: Australia-Hungary
The World in 2014
It has been one hundred years since the first superhuman abilities emerged near the end of the Great War and threw the world into chaos. The geography of the Earth has changed. Technology has advanced rapidly in the areas where it could afford to, while repeated waves of destruction have left large areas under-developed and with nearly medieval technology levels. Birth rates remain relatively high, even in many developed countries, as it is a routine event for tens of millions of people to be killed once every 5-10 years by invaders from space, or from the underworld, or from some lost future. Combined with the destruction these conflicts bring, this cancels out a lot of the economic growth that would otherwise be expected from applying super powers to economic production, which is regularly carried out to avoid large-scale famines.
Life has become, in some senses, significantly more random. While it seems as though some of the promises of mid/late-20th century were met in this world, mankind’s first orbital space colonies were obliterated without warning by aliens seeking the head of a rival alien territory’s prince that was hiding on Earth. Enormous quantities of materials are sometimes zipped across the surface of the planet in a matter of minutes, while at other times relying on a more conventional surface container ship fleet that might take weeks or months to arrive. Cities have been dispersed into smaller cities in an effort to make them harder targets, and over half of Europe has fled as significant portions of the continent have been taken over by feuding mad scientists.
It is said that there may be a path to a world where super powers do not exist. To this day, there are those who seek to find it.
