The education of a young super

"Give me the child until he is seven and I’ll give you the man" -- St. Francis Xavier

Some attempts have been made to create "all-supers" schools for general education, at every grade level. As the presence of superhuman potential can be revealed by a blood test at almost any age, it is possible to sweep a population for signs of it.

Currently, segregating superhuman and mundane students is illegal in public schools. Private schools are allowed to make a distinction, provided that they can demonstrate a "significant commitment to the educational needs" of their supers, and they may not turn away mundanes if they take any government funding at all - Title IV of the Civil Rights Act does not extend to private institutions.

Past attempts at creating such schools in the United States have run from the benign (the Heights Academy - see below) to borderline indoctrination and brainwashing (the Miller Mountain Schools). Other countries often have similar cases.

Power High

A specific sort of super-school involves training supers in the use of their powers. Such schools do not receive Federal funding, although groups like the Department of Defense will pay for "scholarships".

There are three such institutions in the United States:

• Black River Mentoring, located in Los Angeles, advertises itself as "a full-spectrum curriculum for transhuman individuals in the modern world". Its instructors are a mixture of ex-soldiers and supers, and it has come under investigation by the Department of Justice in the past. Critics accuse it of being a training ground for super-mercenaries.
• Lydecker Preparatory School, in upstate New York, was created by an endowment from anonymous benefactors. It's geared more for supers to get into business and politics, and persistent rumors of "mind-control rings" usually center around Lydecker graduates.
• Power Pro, in Texas, is organized and run in cooperation by an alliance of paramilitary group. Though it is not publicized, their goal is the training and indoctrination of superhumans. The school has remained out of trouble by offering their students' services to groups like the DEA in hunting down drug smugglers coming across the American border.

School Rivalry

The Cascade mountain range plays host to two reclusive educational institutions.

The Heights Academy is a private primary and secondary school for children who demonstrate superhuman powers or gifts of any kind. Scholarships are provided at a very generous level. The teachers are well-trained, well-paid, and very capable. There is a small contingent of security personnel, for the protection of both students and staff. The curriculum includes both general education and the practical use of superpowers.

The Boddicker Reform School, very nearby, serves quite a different purpose. Boddicker is where juvenile super-convicts are sent, on the theory that most super-proofed prisons are not equipped for juvenile offenders and certainly not conducive to their education. The school is run more like a prison than a place of learning, but the staff are professional, empathic, and discreet.

The proximity of the two schools is no accident. The Cascades afford an ideal area in which to practice powers, especially those involving mobility or destructive forces, without attracting attention. But there are other reasons.

The founders analyzed the state of superhumans around the world and concluded that what was missing wasn't more law and order, but more understanding. The Heights Academy and Boddicker kids regularly train together, compete against each other in carefully refereed competitions, and even attend events (like sports) in mixed groups. The first generation of graduates seemed to vindicate the founders' theories, at least partially - while several of the Boddicker kids went on to become villains and several Heights graduates took up heroic vigilantism, their interactions were more rivalry than blood feud. Their shared upbringings and common experiences forged a bond between them that spared both the supers and any nearby citizens a lot of bloodshed.

Several groups - including government agencies like ACTION - have "guidance counselors" in place at Heights Academy, hoping to steer graduates toward their respective organizations. And while Boddicker makes every effort to provide legal and safe career options for its kids, the fact is that a few of its career paths are fronts for villain groups who need apprentices, flunkies, or cannon fodder.

The schools have come under heavy criticism, claiming that their structure is set up to encourage conflict, rather than really trying to rehabilitate juvenile offenders or prepare teenagers for anything but the superhuman world. That said, there have been a few cases where students were transferred from Boddicker to Heights Academy without major incident - a sign of actual rehabilitation, and thus success.

How to take over the world

I've talked several times with a villainous colleague, Dark Aleph, about taking over the world. It's not something I plan to do, but she has some very specific ideas - usually centered around bio-terrorism. I don't think she can succeed, but I humor her. That said, I do think it'd be helpful for new villains to understand why taking over the world isn't something that supers can easily do. Then I'll talk about a group that disagrees with me.

What it means

"Taking over the world" means two things from a practical perspective: eliminating sources of opposition, and guaranteeing compliance with your agenda.

Eliminating sources of opposition requires that you basically destroy the command and control centers of every major world power. And the first step of that process means total nuclear disarmament.

You start with the sovereigns, aka the "nuclear club": the United States, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, the United Kingdom, and France. Nukes are also stored in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Italy. Just to be safe, you want to sweep the former Soviet republics. Theoretically these were all transferred back to Russia, but to believe that you'd have to trust the Russians. You also have to scrub Germany, Japan, Sweden, South Africa, Taiwan, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada, all of whom are the proverbial screwdriver's turn away from having nukes.

Why nukes? Because no super has survived the blast of a multi-megaton detonation, and it's very likely that no conceivable super could do so. I know one who survived a kiloton blast, and she was intensely unhappy with the experience. If you really become a global tyrant, someone will find a way to get a suitcase nuke to go off in your face, and that's the end of that. So: no nukes.

Any country on that list is also a country that could mount a significant military opposition to your plans, so at that point you're done. After that, you mostly worry about the intelligence services of Russia and Israel, and the special forces of Germany, Britain, and South Africa.

Oh, and while you're at it, you have to kill every significant superhero out there. Good luck with that.

Guaranteeing compliance with your agenda requires that you subvert the dominant political groups active in a region, or change the culture enough that people will accept you as monarch. The former is far easier in a democracy - you take over the Parliament or the Congress or whatever, install a figurehead from the local population, and go to work. The latter is very difficult; cultural changes happen over generations, not years or months. So my advice is to follow the example of the Romans, who put local leaders in charge and just rolled in once a year to collect taxes.

Overall, you'll find this a very hard sell in democracies where the culture of freedom is strong, like America. Natives of the US will violently resist any outside attempts to control them. You find similar veins of strong nationalism in the UK (look up "euroscepticism" sometime for examples) and elsewhere.

Why it won't work

Essentially, there are too many moving parts in a real government, much less a dozen or more of them. One nuke, one assassin, one crucial betrayal, and it's all over.

Some hardcore bad guys prefer the simplicity of the alternative: depopulation. Kill 90% of the planet, they reason, and you've eliminated 90% of the opposition. Ethical considerations aside, the remaining 10% will include the leaders of government and heads of the military and intelligence apparatus, who have been planning for exactly this sort of attack for years.

The US recently released details of "Project Cycle", a set of operations that were put together between 1962 and 1972 as contingencies against a superhuman uprising. Their planning has certainly gotten better since then, and there's no unclassified reports post-1972 to figure out just what they have up their sleeves.

Even assuming you also killed off every hero that's out there - somehow - it's not like new heroes aren't being born daily. Down the road, you'll be facing someone younger and more determined than you, and possibly tougher.

Who's trying it anyway

Persistent rumors in the villain community talk about an organization known as "the Pact". These guys supposedly are working on a plan for world domination, and they have an unbeatable selling point. "Work with us," they say, "and we'll make you immortal". Don't scoff - according to the rumors, the Pact has some sort of way to resurrect the dead, provided they've been through some sort of initiation process. Even if you commit suicide in a jail cell, they say, the Pact could bring you back.

If true - and frankly, it's so incredible I don't see how it could be - then they represent probably the only group capable of true world domination. But again, it's just a rumor.

Groups of Note: Persona

The Persona Corporation, formerly Transhuman Research Solutions, started life as one of the million or so companies that sprang up after the Weizmann Institute released its findings on superpowers. Everyone thought they had struck gold, and venture capital flowed like water. 95% of those companies went under, and the other 5% either consolidated or went totally private.

Founding

TRS was founded in the late '70s, a decade after the public emergence of superhumans. It was the first to replicate, even at its most basic form, the benefits of a superhuman biology. Although it could not give people super-powers, its line of human enhancement drugs, revitalizing agents, and medical processes have given it a decisive edge in the marketplace.

9/11 left the American All-Stars, the United States' national super-team, in a state of total demoralization. As the Iraq war got underway and more information came out about the attack, everyone tried to figure out what the hell happened. In theory, ACTION was supposed to coordinate, integrate, and distribute intelligence information, and the All-Stars felt that something had gone horribly wrong in this process. Days after the release of the 9/11 Commission Report, the All-Stars announced they were disbanding.

The Icons

In 2003, TRS responded to the lack of a national team by announcing a contract with the government. It would recruit selected superhumans, form them into a team, see to their specialized needs, and so on. This team became known as the Icons, and they were meant to act as role models for unaffiliated superhumans who weren't sure how to use their unique skills. And the company announced a name change: it was now the Persona Corporation.

Since then, the Icons have been a model not only for American supers, but for other national teams around the world. Persona's supers have been selfless, loyal, and dedicated to their cause. A whole generation of young superhumans have grown up idolizing them.

Persona's two main sources of income are the licensing of its research and technology into superhuman powers, and the manufacture and sale of various pharmaceutical and biochemical products derived from that research.

Persona and Supervillains

The Icons don't normally fight supervillains directly. They're more of rescue organization, though they will step in when a fight gets out of hand. This is good for us, as they're well-financed, well-trained, and professional.

Most of the problem Persona represents is a morale or PR issue - they make superheroing look good, which promotes more superheroes. This is obviously not awesome for villainy. That said, more novice heroes vs. experienced villains can be a good thing - if we can get the upper hand and establish a mindset of villain superiority, we win the long game. The Icons haven't radically changed anything in the hero-villain power balance in the decade or more they've been a team, so it remains to be seen which way that balance will shift.

Groups of Note: Wavelength

I've shared posts from Wavelength before, but I haven't talked about who they are, how it got started, and what's really going on.

What it is

Wavelength is a combination of Internet forum software, file service, and chat room. It uses strong authentication. The admins supply secure file hosting using the latest encryption, and access to the site is only available via the Tor network for serious users. Casual users can browse it via any number of Tor gateways, like onion.to.

Many of you will be quick to dismiss Wavelength as the home of crackpots, loonies, and conspiracy theorists. And you'd be absolutely right. But what many people don't know is that Wavelength has a pretty good predictive success rate. Part of the reason for this is the deep anonymity the site works hard to provide. Real supers (hero and villain), government officials, private military contractors, and other people interested in the superhuman world have all been known to post there under assumed names. Many of the veteran posters are pretty well connected, and really do know their stuff.

How it got started

I don't know for sure, but I'm told that Wavelength actually started life in the packet radio network, which is a low-tech network maintained by hobbyists, like the BBS scene from the 1980's. At the time it was started, and even today, proponents of HAM radio were working to legitimize themselves as a system to benefit first responders - fire, emergency medical response, police, that sort of thing. Packet radio used the same sort of technology, but for data instead of voice, the way modern cell phones evolved to carry more than just telephone calls. Some of the radio operators who maintained these networks wanted to help with disaster relief and information sharing from super-battles. So they started the site which later became known as Wavelength.

Over time, Wavelength evolved into a general clearing house for information - and speculation - about superhumans in general. The site was moved onto the Internet and kept secure through volunteer efforts. I don't know if the original founders are still involved with it today, but the people I've talked to who do run things say they've been at this for the past 15 years.

The truth is out there?

Bullshit is the price you pay for accepting unvetted, anonymous information. The irony is that most of the real stuff that makes it onto Wavelength is only recognizable as such if you're already in the know. This makes it hard for the general public to find out what's really going on. Plus, nothing stops ignorant idiots from jumping on an otherwise-reputable thread and crapping out whatever conspiracy theory is in their head.

That said, this cuts both ways. Some people find the easiest way to leak sensitive information is to post it to Wavelength, knowing that it will be disregarded by 95% of the serious readers. If you're lucky, whoever is in charge of the information you leaked may not be part of the remaining 5% and won't notice. The Pentagon and the CIA both have small teams in charge of reading Wavelength full-time - think "Three Days of the Condor" - but not everyone can afford to be so vigilant.

Groups of Note: the Grasscutters

I've mentioned these guys here and there. Some of you might have heard stories from elsewhere, so I thought I'd help set the record straight on what they are, and are not.

The Grasscutters

The Grasscutters are what's left of a KGB-sponsored program to create a team of assassins capable of killing supers. It emerged from the Cold War and survived until the collapse of the U.S.S.R. The name refers to a Russian proverb: "the tall blade of grass is the first to be cut".

The Russian oligarchs who emerged in the chaos of the Soviet Union's dissolution acquired many of these agents to eliminate their rivals (or their rivals' security), but many more went underground and became mercenaries. They command high prices, but their training is top-notch. They allow supers into their own ranks but do not depend on their abilities, preferring stealth, misdirection, and exploitation of any weaknesses a target might have. Their first rule, translated, is "they too are only men".

Grasscutters will stalk a target for days, weeks or even months. They learn his routine, research his powers and tactics, and set up a series of ambush points - purposefully missing a sniper's shot (which might not hurt a sufficiently tough super) to lure the target into a more deadly trap, for example. Their contract stipulates that they will lose at most three men before returning the client's money, and acknowledge that there are a few individuals against which they have no chance.

Hiring them

I've never tried, so this is all hearsay. Supposedly the Grasscutters set their price at $100 million a head, but will negotiate their rate upward for difficult targets. The CIA gives them 23 confirmed kills and 3 misses, so presumably someone is buying. You need some pretty deep underworld credentials to even get in touch with them, and I'm not going to leave any breadcrumbs in this guide.

The most prominent miss on their record is Faduma, the vampire queen of Somalia. The weirdest miss is Doctor Cross, of Cross Hospital in Seattle, WA. He's a completely innocuous super-healer, so I guess he had to have pissed off somebody. Speculation is that he healed (or didn't heal) the wrong person. For my money, I'm more curious how he survived them than why they tried to hit him.

Current activities

The Grasscutters are, obviously, considered international terrorists. They typically don't operate in western Europe or the States. Aside from mundane law enforcement, any superhero worth the name will try to stop them if they pop up - even if they're after a known supervillain at the time.

Supervillains take a dim view of any anti-super organization, but some very unscrupulous villains have supposedly tried to get them to knock off rivals.

Former Soviet state supers, like the Marxman, might have more reliable information. He and I are obviously not on speaking terms, but if you want to learn more about the Grasscutters, you can try him.

Groups of Note: ACTION

Individual supers are good to know about, but organizations are pretty important too. Today I'll start by talking about the biggest and most important one any supervillain should be aware of.

The American Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Operations Network, or ACTION, was created by the UNCLE SAM Act, passed in April of 1996 and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. If you were curious, UNCLE SAM here stands for Upholding National Counter-terrorism and Law Enforcement by Supporting American Metahumans. I hope you guys know that there's interns on Capitol Hill who do nothing but think up witty acronyms.

American superhumans had contributed a great deal of effort in cleanup and rescue operations in the immediate wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, and the public reaction to the supers' presence was extremely positive. Newspapers, television stations and media figures all clamored for the government to reward these heroes somehow, and to "do more" (though just what more could be done wasn't clear).

An early draft of the legislation was making the rounds among super advocacy groups, modeled on the Peace Corps Act of 1961. After a newspaper editorial famously declared that "these incredible men and women and their god-given gifts have bravely sacrificed for their fellow man, and they deserve to see some action from the government", the law was rewritten for the particulars of the moment and passed with a healthy majority in both chambers of Congress.

The UNCLE SAM act provided the following:

• Health care benefits identical to those of firefighters and other first responders, for any volunteers who made a "significant effort" toward rescue efforts. Practically speaking, this was unnecessary given the recuperative powers of superhumans - but it made a big difference when a court case in 1997 extended these rights to immediate family members.
• An agreement to "respect and honor the anonymity of persons rendering significant assistance" to such rescue efforts. Without this clause, most supers would be reluctant to help.
• Additional college tuition or credit incentives for American superhumans who joined law enforcement bodies.
• The creation of ACTION, a joint effort from national intelligence agencies and law enforcement organizations who would in turn contribute their expertise to NGOs and private super-teams.

What ACTION Supposedly Does

On paper, the agency was meant to do the following things:

• Eliminate inter-agency barriers and share intelligence information (subject to regulation) between organizations like the CIA, the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, and so forth.
• Facilitate the granting of security clearances to individual supers or teams of supers, subject to appropriate background checks and a record of reliability.
• The sharing of relevant intelligence information with cleared individuals.
• Tasking individual supers or super-teams based on intelligence gained.

Members of ACTION are U.S. Marshals, FBI special agents, or similarly trained individuals. They will possess a security clearance and are pretty hard-assed about sticking to it.

ACTION falls under the purview of the Executive Branch, though it isn't a separate department the way the FBI falls under the Department of Justice. It's more like a shared agreement between DOJ, DOD, the Secret Service, and other departments. As a result, it's immune to many types of Congressional oversight (if Congress calls your department head in for questioning, your activities shift to another department), but vulnerable to a lot of Congressional meddling.

What ACTION Actually Does

These days, ACTION acts as the "super-cops". If there's a supervillain committing crimes (go us!), they theoretically have jurisdiction because of the way laws about using powers have been written. The use of superpowers in the process of committing a crime automatically raises the "act of terror" flag and that lets the Feds come in and wave their dicks around.

One of the reasons this works is that state and local law enforcement frequently do not have the budget, training, time, or interest in working up a super-crimes division internally. ACTION provides the muscle and picks up the tab, but no cop likes having someone from out of town come in and throw their weight around - and especially not when they keep secrets like ACTION does.

ACTION can't directly involve the military, but they can get the National Guard mobilized without too much effort, which is often good enough to deal with a newbie Stage 4. If that isn't sufficient, they can deputize friendly supers to help out.

They are well trained in anti-super tactics. Unlike the Grasscutters, their goal is generally containment rather than assassination. They use power-jamming chemical cocktails developed by people like Transhuman Research Solutions (now Persona).

Dealing With ACTION

In general, if you attracted their attention, you've made it to the big leagues. They don't have unlimited resources, and often let local heroes deal with villains who aren't endangering large numbers of civilians or destroying property en masse. But once they're on your trail, you had better be awesome.

I've had ACTION after me since their founding - I've been around for forty years, kids - but they always find someone more important to chase. I'm not enough of a public menace to merit a dedicated squad, which means I'm free to do the things I really want to do. And that is how to be a supervillain.