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Friday Fun Thread for January 12, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Nope, since I only use it for idea generation/translation, and I don't think something along the lines of Google translate would cause a need for a declaration either.

There are AI generated images, but those are so obvious I doubt they need declaration, and I don't recall seeing any need for that.

I wouldn't let ChatGPT suggesting similar ideas to what you would have come up with put you off, it seems clear to me that if someone was to be prompted with superhero powers inspired by cells, they'd suggest taking the usual function of a cell, and ramping it up or making it macroscopic.

I think most of the fun comes from second order generation, including some aspects that might not be obvious. Think Acid Man, who spits gastric juices with a pH of 0.1 and melts your face off, Nephron Man who is immune to toxin and pisses high velocity jets of concentrated waste, Melanocyte Man who is uh, really black (and immune to radiation), Memory Cell dude who can identify any disease from a block away, Islet Cell Man who gives his enemies diabetes. The options at endless, even if some of them are obvious/convergent.

(I do think giving Adipocyte Accelerators super speed is a bit funny lol)

Then you could get even wilder, mitochondria man, ribosome dude, integrated transposon and ancient retrovirus lady, The Endogenous Opioid Antagonist as villains of the week. Don't let no chatbot put you off, originality, while desirable, doesn't matter nearly as much as execution.

Those are some fun ones. The mitochondria users I had in mind as the very top of the speedster hierarchy, since they basically have all of the other powers.

There was also some thought that there could be multiple cell types calling upon the speedster powers. A muscle and nerve user would look pretty similar to a traditional speedster.

It also did a thing where it tried to level out all the various cell types and powers, I wasn't planning on doing that. I was thinking there are very clear hierarchies of power. With some cell types being entirely useless, or even anti-helpful. Like sperm users that are basically just dangerously successful at reproduction.

That sounds good to me, I'm all for a hierarchy of powers, especially if you find inventive ways for the seemingly shitty ones to punch above their weight-class.

Maybe consider a God-like Ur-Superhero in the form of Totipotent Stem Cell Man, his sidekick Pluripotent Boy, you know, just because it would be funny.

You could look up a wiki article on all known cell lines and find something obscure, if you want to go beyond the obvious. Cells can and do overlap in functionality, if you want generic superheroes, or weird shit like Neutrophil Dude who swallows his enemies whole and digests them.

Teamwork is the main way they'll punch above their weight class.

I was also not gonna have the traditional hero / villain split that most superhero settings go with. More of a city vs city type model. And civilians are the resource they are fighting over. Your local city you protect, and other cities you attack and make life miserable for civilians, or kidnap/steal their stuff in an attempt to bribe them over to your city. Since there are factions the fights are typically dozens of speedsters. The speedster energy is limited on a personal basis and can take days to recharge, so defenders and attackers want to only use just enough speedster energy to accomplish their objectives.

I think nation vs nation makes more sense, but it depends on what your world looks like, the general tech level, whether superpowers just showed up or have been around long enough for things to adjust and so on. In the end, you can make anything work if you put in the effort to help users suspend disbelief (well, there's superpowers involved!)

The idea of balancing speedsters by making them high value, long cooldown assets is very interesting, especially when you consider things like strategic deterrence and first strike capabilities.