Ta-Daaah! The 100th post!

At last, we've arrived! 100 posts! I'd like to thank everyone who helped me get to this point - especially the boss, who got me started in the first place, and who has been encouraging me along the way! Let's hope that it's a short trip to the 200th post! I've been talking about my upcoming comic on my blog probably since post #1, so today's post will provide a little backdrop about my comic, which hopefully will come out in January (I'll update you on our goings-on here in a future post). So that I don't keep repeating myself about this, everything that follows is in regards to my universe.

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Superhumans (SH) and superhuman theory (ST)
SHs have been known about to the federal gov't since the 1950s after the capture of one who was suspected of being a communist spy. However, ST scientists have theorized that SHs may have existed at least since ancient times, and that they may have been the basis of the gods of ancient myth. Some have even theorized that, since it's known that SHs reproduce very rarely and because many ancient mythological stories tend to have a lot in common, the SHs who might be the basis for these myths might be the same small group of people who wandered from place to place. But so far, there's no proof that this is the case, or that any of these "ancient SHs" may still be alive today.

Despite SH's low reproduction rate of the past, their population in recent decades has been growing at a rate that for them could only be called exponential. The federal department in charge of studying SHs - the Dept. of Superhuman Studies (DSS) (a division of Homeland Security) - has seen enough SHs these past few decades that they are now able to make a few theories about them and their likelihood of reproduction. Below is their categories of SHs:

* Normal human (H) - regular folks (no powers)

Super human:
* Enhanced human (EH) - people with low level special abilities, like bending spoons or predicting future events of the near future. This group, while still with a low reproduction rate, has the highest reproduction rate of all SHs.

* Superhuman (SH) - while this is a definition that identifies all people with special abilities, it also has a definition specific to a category of SHs that are beyond EHs but below Mutations (who are discussed below). SHs in this definition still look like regular humans, but they have special abilities such as flight, super strength, super speed, etc., that are usually identified with the super heroes of comic books. SHs have a very low reproduction rate, below that of EHs.

* Mutations (MU) - MUs have extraordinary abilities approaching that of the gods of ancient myth. Nearly all of them have super strength and speed healing, and will have certain abilities like energy discharges from their eyes (a la Cyclops of X-Men). MUs are extremely rare, and are distinguished from SHs by the fact that they no longer are able to blend in with regular humanity due to their unnaturally large size or other non-human characteristic. They are all also sterile. MUs usually come from the pairing of two SHs.

ST scientists are still debating whether SHs of all categories are the next step of human evolution or an offshoot of humanity. A small majority of ST scientists favors the offshoot argument, since SHs usually reproduce mostly through a SH/normal human pairing rather than a pairing of two SHs. Knowledge of the origins of SHs is still sketchy, sparse and in the works - which is made more difficult due to their very low numbers.

The ratios of the 4 categories above break down like so:

Normal humans: 99% of total population
EH: 0.6%
SH: 0.3%
MU: 0.1%

Brief recent SH history
Before 2002, the existence of SHs (in this instance, all of the categories listed above) was only rumor and the stuff of weekly news tabloids. However, in 2002, a group of MUs took to coming out publicly, and a few took to causing chaos and destruction - mainly as a reaction to the frustration of having to keep out of sight for so long. Their emergence inspired SHs and EHs to also come out, and some of them likewise caused chaos and destruction for basically the same reasons. However, when some MUs, SHs, and EHs began killing on a large scale, it shocked some among their number, and they took to stopping their own kind.

By then the federal gov't had already had extensive knowledge about SHs thanks mostly to the head of the DDS and ST expert Dr. Wilhelm "Will" Von Bach. Because of his research, the DSS had a means of stopping much of the rest of the destructive MUs, SHs, and EHs that escaped from being stopped by their own kind. In addition, Dr. Von Bach was further motivated to stop the SHs when one of them raped and then killed his wife.

Dr. Von Bach has devised a chemical formula (slangily dubbed the "power outage recipe", or POR) that temporarily suppresses the abilities of both EHs and SHs and some MUs. Most MUs thus far seem to be immune to the "POR" that he's devised, although he is working on a chemical composition that will stop even MUs. In addition, he is also working on a POR that will permanently depower all SHs. The exact chemical composition of the POR is a highly guarded secret.

Currently, most MUs still at large have chosen to go back into hiding, along with most SHs and EHs. Those that have been captured are being detained at a secret federal holding facility that is located underneath a federal mint that is located in Fort Worth, Texas. The location is no accident, as the presence of so much security around the mint can be easily explained without revealing what's under the mint.

This holding facility is also the location of the DSS, in which Dr. Von Bach and his staff do their research on SHs. When the existence of SHs became publicly known, the DSS devised a program to demonstrate that the gov't had things under control mostly through the recruitment of a SH who is code-named Andromeda. Andromeda was not among the SHs that in 2002 and 2003 caused chaos and destruction, but she was among those that tried to stop them. Because the DSS wanted a public face and because Andromeda was already a huge fan of superhero comics, her superhero persona was created.

The goal of the DSS program is to stop destructive SH activity and to apprehend them to be detained in the DSS's Fort Worth facility. When a SH disruption occurs, Andromeda is dispatched to assess the situation, and if necessary, apprehend the SH. Once Andromeda has apprehended the SH, she then brings him or her to the DSS via a secret remote entrance located in a vacant and undeveloped land.

As a means of helping some SHs rehabilitate, an additional program has been set up for those who had been detained, but wish to reform. The first applicant of this program has been assigned to Andromeda for training (and also to keep an eye on her in case she reverts). The woman is code named Lucky Shot, who has what appears to be a radar-type ability akin to Spiderman's "spider sense", but it seems to be more complex than that. In addition to aiding in the capture of SHs, Lucky's powers are also being studied as they're being used in order to understand the nature of how they work.

Currently both programs have been successful, although Andromeda and Lucky Shot have their occasional flare-ups, mainly due to the fact that Andromeda is politically conservative and Lucky Shot is politically liberal. However, both look past their ideologies when it comes to dealing with SHs. It remains to be seen how well these programs work out, as well as how long these two women will be able to tolerate each other.

(note: I know the date above says that this post published Tuesday, which is when I started this post, but I actually posted it to my blog on Friday 11/21)