How far can I push superhumanity?

[Mirannan]

Apologies if the word "superhumanity" doesn't actually exist. By it I mean the quality of being superhuman, which may already have a word attached to it that I don't know.

This relates to my WIP. The focus character (actually not the protagonist in most scenes) is most definitely superhuman; probably to something like the same degree that one of Tolkein's Noldor is. Specifically; several thousand years old with all the experience benefits that confers, heightened senses, considerably stronger than human (powerlifter strength without looking like it) and faster/more dextrous, a certain amount of (subtle) magical strength, huge charisma, very attractive.

My question is: How far can I push the superhuman angle and still make it believable that this person (who looks superficially human) could interact reasonably normally with normal people of the 21st century? As in, not have various military and other shadowy agencies making trouble - for a start.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

It seems to me that you could go just about as far as you want to go with this, as long as the character is careful to avoid drawing attention from the normal folks. (Although I suppose you may want to have a little bit of this happen, as a source of suspense.) You would have to avoid any kind of superhuman/godlike actions.

As long as the character has some sort of inner emotional life with which the reader can identify, I think you can get away with this.

 

[jastius]

Fifteen years is the maximum in any one place I would think. Unless its Hollywood..indefinitely there...
They could run a spa there with youthification treatments...
.

David Eddings covers this in Polgara the sorceress, by the way.

 

[Mirannan]

Fifteen years is the maximum in any one place I would think. Unless its Hollywood..indefinitely there...
They could run a spa there with youthification treatments...
.

David Eddings covers this in Polgara the sorceress, by the way.

That isn't a problem in my specific case, as the story starts with the character arriving on Earth for the first time. But thanks anyway.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

How far can I push the superhuman angle and still make it believable that this person

As far as you want. Your imagination and writing skills to draw the reader in is the only limit I think

David Eddings covers this in Polgara the sorceress

Worth reading. Of course some people know she is the sorceress, but most don't.

Also the characters in The Alchemist etc by Michael Scott (which manages to throw in an amazing number of mythical and historic characters in a nearly convincing way.) I've read two books of the The Secrets of the Immortal series. Great fun. Set on contemporary real world.

 

[Brian G Turner]

As in, not have various military and other shadowy agencies making trouble - for a start.

Just don't do anything big that might attract attention. AFAIK, intelligence agencies are normally invested in monitoring military rivals and internal threats to security - and primarily do not spend their time looking for extra-terrestrial life.

Unless that life starts to interfere with political and military strategy agendas, I don't see why they should become the focus of any national intelligence.

2c.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

and primarily do not spend their time looking for extra-terrestrial life

Probably not at all. They are not even concerned with ordinary unusual, but only the unusual that fits their preconceived threat / terrorist and criminal profiles.

Some places are so full of odd people behaving strangely that even an alien looking person claiming to be an alien would be ignored. Cities are more anonymous and even suburbia than a country mansion or small town.
Certainly real life Suburbia in UK and Ireland isn't like the film "The 'Burbs".

 

[tinkerdan]

I would suggest reading these three books.
The wonder by Benesford
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0099LECDM/?tag=brite-21
Odd John by Stapledon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0575072245/?tag=brite-21
More Than Human by Sturgeon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1857988523/?tag=brite-21

Even though they all show how difficult it would be for the superhuman to live and mix with the normals; I think it's worth a look at to see what their ideas were and how much you might want to back off from to make them more human and where you can use their notions today to spice up the struggle to be normal.

There are a few contemporary that I'd suggest but one of them-if I remember correctly-is almost a thousand pages.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Interact normally? There's two sides to this question. How do people perceive him and get along with him? And how does he look at them and get along with them? The first is simple enough. If he looks human and acts it, he'll probably be fine. The second is harder. How do you keep your MC from starting to feel superior? I mean he's thousands of years old. He's watched people come and go and after a point hasn't the ephemeral nature of human life got to him? Hasn't he yet started to feel just a little superior? And by extension haven't normal people started to feel just a little less?

I say this just having written a book dominated by ubers - genetically engineered nightmares wandering down the Nietzschean superman path - so maybe I'm a little biased. But still with so many advantages conferred on your MC, you'd have to start wondering why he doesn't - assuming he doesn't - feel and perhaps act just a little elitest.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Overread]

The only reason he'd have any agencies after him is if he does things of significant scale and timing that would attract serious attention. Remember in the real world if someone tells you about someone who lifted a whole car with 1 finger we'd think them telling lies; exaggerating; high on something at the time; etc... It goes so far outside of our realms of possibility that we are more akin to put it down to being fake than real.

Even documented evidence is sketchy although as things like video cameras get better and better the chances to hide get less and less. However in tandem with that manipulation of those documents gets greater and greater. Heck cinema itself has a slew of optical tricks used to make the impossible appear possible.


So there is significant scope for your character to hide within society. This assumes that the character is capable of moderating their behaviour to fit in. To hide like Clark Kent. Superman is an ideal example because until he started acting like Superman he was invisible. No one cared- the few superhuman displays were so local and small scale in impact that they were fast just legend and story and wouldn't even make it to a major agencies desk; heck the police forces wouldn't even treat them as accurate.

 

[Avid Scifi Fan]

Please just keep physics in mind and don't stretch things too much, if you want it to be believable (unless he's using magic to make things happen). Otherwise you may end up with something more like a comic book superhero like superman.

For example: Just because your character is strong enough to pick up a car, doesn't mean the car can be lifted up by the door handle.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Unless it's a volvo.
Actually due to centre of gravity etc, a super strong person might have to tilt it, and lift it at the middle underneath, then if he stands on toes they might go through. I've had a jack sink through tarmac. A guy got crushed to death when the concrete gave way under axle stands (must have been too narrow a base).

In in Star Trek, never mind Superman, they occasionally had intrinsically impossible actions by Data.

 

[Dan Jones]

For me the answer also depends on your superhuman character's actual character.

Is s/he the antagonist (you said s/he's not the protagonist), or simply a character who's landed/appeared and has an effect on those around them? I'm guessing the latter, (but probably shouldn't assume), in which case a good way to have the character keep him/herself under wraps is to make sure that they ostensibly want to stay under wraps. And the way to create that motivation would be to have them interact with a human confidant who gives them a reason to want to stay undiscovered (Superman's reasons came from his Dad's crystal videos, but he was the protagonist). If you can figure that out then you have a lot of scope for fun and games with both the human character and the superhuman character trying to keep the latter's identity hidden from the world at large.

May I ask who your human MC is, and what their job is?

 

[Mirannan]

DG Jones - I've chosen a rather difficult way to write a story. It's episodic, consisting of the stories of various people who interact with the central character in various ways. (There are a few sections in third-person, but mostly in first.) The reason for the central character to want to stay hidden, at least for a while, is that she has a job to do and no idea whether there might be people who want to stop her; also, there is a huge degree of anachronism involved (1000 years of tech difference - she being early mediaeval) and it's going to take her some time to get used to 21st century tech.
Thanks for the suggestions. I've already decided to make the first person she runs into on a conversational basis a major character. After all, someone who can't read and write English (fine with Old Norse, but not much use...) and has no money to start with but is carrying an unexplained small fortune in gold and jewels is going to need some help.

 

[Dan Jones]

You're very welcome - I'm super glad they were of some use!

 

[Jason Burrell]

I'm wrestling with this to a certain degree in my own WIP.
The nature of my character's superhumanity is very different from that of yours, but I think that the strategy I'm employing could work for you too, as it's simple in nature.
Essentially, you just need to give the character an escape for if things get too hairy. In your case, this might be as simple as periodic relocation, as others have suggested, or as complex as adding to his repetoire of abilities the power to erase himself from the minds of others or to change his appearance.

 

[Ihe]

I mean he's thousands of years old. He's watched people come and go and after a point hasn't the ephemeral nature of human life got to him? Hasn't he yet started to feel just a little superior?

I think psychotick has a very good point here. Thousands of years can make anyone nihilistic to their core. Bored. Elitist. With neutral morality after seeing the bad and the good cancelled in the averages over millenia, bared to their most simple patterns and motivations. The question is: how do you keep someone so experienced from thinking like not a human, but a mortal? What's his conception of time and of just rewards in the area of good and bad? How can he value life and our ephemeral motivations? What could his motivation to go on be? Why not get detached from it all? How does he keep his interest? Maybe his mind is so alien that the mere concept of time differs from our own. Maybe morality is different in his native culture altogether. All these issues could be addressed to great effect for character development.

As long as the character as a person is believable, his qualities as a superhuman will not get in the way (this, of course, can get complicated if the character in question is not even human, in which case the reader wouldn't have a reference point for comparison and common understanding). Prioritize the sentient being with a conscience and values first, magical superhero second--or third.

 

[Wanderlog]

How far can I push the superhuman angle and still make it believable that this person (who looks superficially human) could interact reasonably normally with normal people of the 21st century?

You should be extra careful in this matter. A conflict is part of any good plot. There must be a challenge for the protagonist. Doesn't matter whether your superhuman entity is hostile or friendly. The question is, why the protagonist can (if it's hostile) or would (if it's friendly) win. You can't win over a too powerful enemy, and why should you do something at all if you have such a powerful friend who can do everything instead of you? And if the protagonist him/herself is a superhuman being, why can't s(he) win right away?

Such an entity must be more or less neutral or have its own motives to let your characters act according to their own will. However, eventually it becomes a trap nonetheless. I had to finish one of my novel series because in the beginning I introduces such a superhuman friendly character. While writing five books of the series, my main task was inventing reasons WHY this character shouldn't intervene and rescue the protagonist or help her to solve a problem. In the end, I had to abandon the series because the problem became unsolvable.

While the idea of 'deux ex machina' seems very attractive, I strongly advise against using it. Or at least find a way to keep this superhuman character as far from the main plot as possible.

 

[Mirannan]

Wanderlog - The story is episodic, being nearly all about the reactions of normal people to the super. As for the "super does everything" angle - well, she has a clearly defined mission given to her by even more superior beings - whose orders she is very well used to taking. One angle is that this character has to get it finished before "going native", taking up some undesirable profession or some such.

In addition, the character isn't THAT super. Think Captain America, not Superman. Which means there are limits to what she can do without help.

 

[Wanderlog]

she has a clearly defined mission given to her by even more superior beings

Another dangerous path to thread. The more superior creatures you mention, the more I (and you readership) want to know WHY in the first place they all want to have something in common with your "usual people". Would you deal with small kids in the same way as you deal with adults? Would you condescend to children and intentionally restrict your abilities while playing with them? Yes, you can invent a good motive, but it requires very careful planning of the background. Remember that life-like characters aren't compatible with a scenery made of painted tissue paper.

Think Captain America, not Superman.

Well, I got the idea. Can't say much about it without knowing the details. However, you have to answer a simple question: why your readers would be interested in a just another Captain America? Is there an element of surprise? Stereotype thinking won't do any good to you and your book.