Which superpowered Universe is the most fair?

[Forum Explorer]

I've never read or heard of it but I would like to say that whether or not your powers are determined at birth shouldn't be a point of discussion. Rather, we should look at the quality disparity of the powers themselves, i.e. whether two people of equal skill but who were born with different powers still have an equal chance of winning against the other*.

*obviously It's a little more complicated than that but it's a good jumping off point.

In a universe where everyone has powers sure. Where some people don't have powers, then it's a bit of a problem.

In this case it's quality of power. Nobility in the Codex Alerea universe is determined by your bloodline and how powerful said bloodline is. The Emperor is mountain shaking in strength, and a normal noble simply doesn't stand a chance against him. Even a powerful noble doesn't.

[Ronnoc]

Which is why I said post series. In the epilogue it is revealed that the magic system has changed so strength in crafting is determined by effort not genetics.

[Tvtyrant]

Street fighter is the most fair IMO. Anyone can shoot fireballs and smash cars with enough training (even Dan Hibiki). There are some gradations of power, but anyone with sufficient dedication can learn to be awesome (Sakura taught herself martial arts by watching tapes of Ryu).

Similarly Kenichi is very fair, with training over coming even talent.

Some iterations of Marvel are close too. There was an idea kicked around at one point that humanity had super powers granted to it by the Celestials as an experiment, and those powers show up under extreme duress. Captain America, Bruce Banner and Peter Parker were all actually just activated by being poisoned, which is why replicating their experiments are failures.

[Rynjin]

and I still disagree on One Piece. its unfair. those powers are NOT equal. no lottery power system is. I mean one of the fruit is literally "the HUMAN fruit" its only useful to Chopper because he is a DEER. if anyone else ate it, it'd be useless.

According to Oda, a human that eats the Human-Human fruit achieves true enlightenment (which basically means they're a god), so you could actually say Chopper got gypped.

And ALL Devil Fruit powers have effectively infinite potential. It's why Kuma is such a badass.

His power is "push stuff". Lame on paper, but he figured out he can push ANYTHING, including abstract metaphysical concepts. All Devil Fruits have that level of ability if the user applies it correctly.

Then why are only a few marine sailors able to use haki? The navy has quite a bit of haki masters, are they skimping in the training department? Why don't seasoned adventurers that are on the run from the navy like Robin learn it either?

Because the effort expenditure isn't worth the reward, just like any army. You need grunts; they're cheap, expendable, and easily replaced with 6 months of training at max.

Haki users need years of one on one tutoring to blossom, but we do get the greatest indicator of how "zero to hero" Haki can make you in the form of Coby: whiny cabin boyo from chapter 1 gets a bit of tender love and care from Garp and now he can rip the rudders off enemy ships with his bare hands as of last week's chapter.

But having an army of low level Haki users is basically pointless. Pouring all your effort into a couple of promising cadets will produce a soldier worth 100k others, where splitting your attention between 100 soldiers produces a batch of soldiers maybe 2-3 times stronger than normal. It's simply inefficient.

Even then at best haki only allows you to be super tough and hard hitting. But devil fruit users are the ones getting crazy utility like flying and teleportation and changing people's genders and healing and plain immortality and splicing people's souls to animate objects and whatnot. No matter how hard you train, you'll still be pretty limited to the lucky ones who got a devil fruit.

You say that, and yet I'd put 10 to 1 odds on Zoro vs any of those guys. Especially since utility like flight is basically pretty whatever; anybody can learn how to walk on air.

Still, One Piece isn't the most equal. Hunter x Hunter definitely is, as already mentioned. Anyone can learn Nen, and its power is wholly dependent on what you make of it, not just some arbitrary power metric. Gon has "more nen" than other people and still gets chumped out by people like Hisoka, who have relatively low raw power but are just INCREDIBLY DEADLY through raw skill and experience.

It says something about the setting that the fight between "guy who can make bubblegum" and "guy who can tailor create super powers to beat anyone else at will" (Hisoka vs Chrollo) essentially ends with the latter pulling out all the stops, CHEATING, and still only pulling a draw.

[deuterio12]

Because the effort expenditure isn't worth the reward, just like any army. You need grunts; they're cheap, expendable, and easily replaced with 6 months of training at max.

Haki users need years of one on one tutoring to blossom, but we do get the greatest indicator of how "zero to hero" Haki can make you in the form of Coby: whiny cabin boyo from chapter 1 gets a bit of tender love and care from Garp and now he can rip the rudders off enemy ships with his bare hands as of last week's chapter.

But having an army of low level Haki users is basically pointless. Pouring all your effort into a couple of promising cadets will produce a soldier worth 100k others, where splitting your attention between 100 soldiers produces a batch of soldiers maybe 2-3 times stronger than normal. It's simply inefficient.

You're contradicting yourself. If each grunt takes 6 months, but 2 years of haki training of promising cadet will produce a dude worth 100k grunts... Then the math clearly favors haki training of promising cadets over mass production of grunts that never accomplish anything anyway.

Just like in modern days modern armies will rather invest several years in properly training soldiers rather than a few months.

And a single modern elite soldier isn't even worth 100k grunts. If haki could be fairly learned by everybody, then grunts would be as obsolete as pikeneers are in our modern world.

You say that, and yet I'd put 10 to 1 odds on Zoro vs any of those guys.

At what? Healing people? Moving around?

Especially since utility like flight is basically pretty whatever; anybody can learn how to walk on air.

Yet Zorro doesn't despite already having faced battles where he was in big trouble due to his lack of mobility.

Not to mention everybody else that would stupidly benefit from flying. Mobility is pretty important for any aspect of combat. In particular when Devil fruit users out at sea are constantly at risk of drowning yet so few bother to learn to fly? We're talking about sink or swim fly, every devil fruit user would want to learn how to fly to avoid a watery death.

Again, look at the contrast with pokemon, where everybody and their mother can actually go out and become a pokemon trainer regardless of who they are or what they do, whereas in one piece we're supposed to believe 99,999% of seasoned adventurers and soldiers are skipping on training that would make their lifes, much, much easier, and normal everyday people are plain out of luck and at the complete mercy of devil fruit users and the super-rare haki prodigies.

[Rynjin]

You're contradicting yourself. If each grunt takes 6 months, but 2 years of haki training of promising cadet will produce a dude worth 100k grunts... Then the math clearly favors haki training of promising cadets over mass production of grunts that never accomplish anything anyway.

Just like in modern days modern armies will rather invest several years in properly training soldiers rather than a few months.

And a single modern elite soldier isn't even worth 100k grunts. If haki could be fairly learned by everybody, then grunts would be as obsolete as pikeneers are in our modern world.

Not quite. Remember, that 2 years figure is A.) For prodigies and B.) for small group tutoring under a master.

Learning Haki takes a lot of guidance and practice beyond the basics. You can't teach all your soldiers Haki through some kind of formalized training regimen; everybody learns differently, at different paces. This is not "unfair" (or at least any more than the real world is). Some people learn skills more easily than others; everyone has different talents.

There ARE countries where the entire army knows Haki (the Amazonians, and many on Skypeia showcase Observation Haki, though not Armament), but they're essentially trained from birth. Tat kind of investment when you're working on as grand a scale as the World Government isn't feasible.

It's like asking "why isn't every US soldier a Green Beret and a Navy SEAL at the same time"?

At what? Healing people? Moving around?

There's like two fruits in the whole world that can heal, and one is literally the OP OP fruit. Most fruits are combat oriented, so it really only becomes relevant to stack them against what non-Fruit users can do in combat. The answer seems to be there isn't an appreciable difference.

Yet Zorro doesn't despite already having faced battles where he was in big trouble due to his lack of mobility.

Are we sure he doesn't? He seems to have little issue these days, fighting dudes like Pica for example. He spends a good while suspended in the air in that fight, and when you can leap tall mountains in a single bound anyway, flying is just a formality.

Not to mention everybody else that would stupidly benefit from flying. Mobility is pretty important for any aspect of combat. In particular when Devil fruit users out at sea are constantly at risk of drowning yet so few bother to learn to fly? We're talking about sink or swim fly, every devil fruit user would want to learn how to fly to avoid a watery death.

And you'll notice most fruit users in the New World either CAN Air Walk or have figured out some trick using their Fruit to fly or get aorund the limitation. Doflamingo's "where does Spiderman web?" movement power, most Logias can fly, Lucci's Air Walk, Aokiji freezing the water, etc.

in one piece we're supposed to believe 99,999% of seasoned adventurers and soldiers are skipping on training that would make their lifes, much, much easier, and normal everyday people are plain out of luck and at the complete mercy of devil fruit users and the super-rare haki prodigies.

Again, it's like asking why everybody in the world doesn't learn a martial art and how to be an electrical and mechanical engineer when both would make their lives easier and they'd be more "powerful". Because there's only so much time in a life, and people are also lazy.

[Reddish Mage]

Some iterations of Marvel are close too. There was an idea kicked around at one point that humanity had super powers granted to it by the Celestials as an experiment, and those powers show up under extreme duress. Captain America, Bruce Banner and Peter Parker were all actually just activated by being poisoned, which is why replicating their experiments are failures.

Um even on that theory. Replicating the experiments should result in more successes because all you are doing is poisoning someone else and that should trigger their hidden super powers if the world is “fair” because everyone has an equal chance to access them.

Also people are entirely forgetting the other points of the OP. To be “fair” the abilities are not just equal opportunity, they are also public and everyone has the same access to the same stuff.

The first two points may work for Hunter x Hunter, by a very generous understanding of “equal opportunity,” and ignoring the secret abilities, but the last part is completely being ignored.

[Rynjin]

Trying to fit the criteria of the OP exactly is a fool's errand; they're too narrow and rely on finding a series that bucks most narrative trends.

Besides, the question is "most fair" not "find me one that fits this interpretation of what PERFECTLY fair is".

[Rater202]

Um even on that theory. Replicating the experiments should result in more successes because all you are doing is poisoning someone else and that should trigger their hidden super powers if the world is “fair” because everyone has an equal chance to access them.

Also, people are entirely forgetting the other points of the OP. To be “fair” the abilities are not just equal opportunity, they are also public and everyone has the same access to the same stuff.

The first two points may work for Hunter x Hunter, by a very generous understanding of “equal opportunity,” and ignoring the secret abilities, but the last part is completely being ignored.

The reason replicating the Hulk's accident doesn't work is becuase he's a Gamma Mutate.

Those come from the Gamma Gene, which was a side project of the Celestial Experiments. As was the "latent potential to mutate" in all of the miscellaneous mutate types, which is a factor of several non-specific genes.

the Primar focus of the experiments was a gene on the 23rd chromosome pair that, when activated, coded for a mutagen that granted greater genetic diversity and superhuman abilities. This gene is present in a good chunk of the population but is dormant. Mutants are the result of this gene itself mutating to become active.

The Gamma Gene is far rarer than the X-Gene or the gene it mutates from. Also, the powers a Gamma Mutate gets are customized to the specific mutate, even blood relations won't get the exact same powers. Banner becomes a hulking rage monster becuase he suffers from DPD and severe anger issues but his cousin Jenny becomes a Super-Strong, Uninhibited Supermodel becuase she's shy, self-conscious about her apearance, and sexually repressed. The Leader was learning disabled, not too bright even considering, and a high school drop out and very bitter about all of that. As a Gamma Mutate, he becomes one of the most intelligent people on the planet and one of the most powerful non-mutant psychics, to the point that he has to wear a steel brace lest his mighty brain snap his neck from its weight.

It should also be noted that Spider-Man is canonically partially magic, to explain why he got the same specific mutations he did.

And also Spider-Man's powers have successfully been replicated on a mass scale(Spider-Flu.) It's just that the people who did so had an ulterior motive.

[Reddish Mage]

Trying to fit the criteria of the OP exactly is a fool's errand; they're too narrow and rely on finding a series that bucks most narrative trends.

Besides, the question is "most fair" not "find me one that fits this interpretation of what PERFECTLY fair is".

Sure you can do your own thing, but even if you are only looking for what is "most fair" according to the first criteria of "equal opportunity," I doubt that you'll find it without looking for a series that bucks all the narrative trends.

Something like Marvel is squarely in that camp, and just giving it a new shine by noting that ANYONE can theoretically get powers doesn't change that. Its still hardly equal, nor is it fair who gets the powers and who does not.

You are also not going to find it in Hunter x Hunter, unless your universe is solely anime and the big two comics publishers. I haven't seen anything to suggest disabled people, impoverished people, and the otherwise disadvantaged can reasonably learn Haki.

However, if you are going to reject the OP entirely, why not come up with your own definition of "fair." I don't see why powers can't be "fair" if they are perfectly random, so long as their is a perfectly equal chance of who gets it, there has to be series on that premise.

The reason replicating the Hulk's accident doesn't work is becuase he's a Gamma Mutate. It should also be noted that Spider-Man is canonically partially magic, to explain why he got the same specific mutations he did.

Care to tie the discussion? In this case, this would pretty much prove the Marvel universe isn't that fair, although the posters idea is that it was that, there is a version of the Marvel universe where all those powers came simply from humanities inherent superpower gifts from the Celestials. In your version, the powers are clearly unfair since you have to be a mutate or magic for poison to trigger the powers.

[Rater202]

I think you misunderstood something.

Mutate is the term for anybody who has Super-Powers that they weren't inherently born with--Basically, anybody who isn't a Mutant or Inhuman.

The Hulk is a specific kind of mutate, a Gamma Mutate with a specific gene that lets him get superpowers from Gamma Radiation. These powers can't be easil replicated.

However, it is known that you can transplant the Gamma Gene into someone and use genetic engineering to replicate a specific mutate spowers--Prodigy was given custum made powers based on the Leader's.

Other Powers, once developed, can be replicated in others using the mutated DNA of the subject--literally, all of Manhattan was given Spider-Man's powers once. It wouldn't be that hard to remove the (Intentional) negative side effects of the Spider-Flu and then everyone can be Spider-Man.

Anyone can be affected by Goblin Serum, Super-Soldier Serum, The Connors Formula, OZ, Mothervine or bonding with a symbiote and between the Gamma Gene, The X-Gene, Inhuman Ancestry, and Inherant Mutant Potential most people have the potential to get super-human powers when exposed to the right substances. Or just naurally occuring. And anyone can be implanted with Horton Cells.

It's just, whether that particular method will work for you and what powers you'll is a crap shoot.

That's fairer than most settings.

Spider-Man being partially magic likewise isn't why he got powers, it's why he got the powers that he did. Instead of radiation powers. Or Cancer Powers. Or anything else you'd imagine coming from radiaactive spider-venom.

Two other people got powers from the same spider... Though we don't talk about The Thousand very much.

[Reddish Mage]

I think you misunderstood something.

Mutate is the term for anybody who has Super-Powers that they weren't inherently born with--Basically, anybody who isn't a Mutant or Inhuman.

...most people have the potential to get super-human powers when exposed to the right substances. Or just naurally occuring. And anyone can be implanted with Horton Cells.

It's just, whether that particular method will work for you and what powers you'll is a crap shoot.

That's fairer than most settings.

My mistakes, I thought mutate was the term for people for whom the X-gene was suppressed or otherwise had some special genetic potential that had to be altered and brought out.

Still, just because anyone can theoretically get powers with exposure to the right substance or whatever, doesn't mean that this substance is easy to get a hold of.

In fact, all of these substances have in common that they are rare or only appear temporarily for a couple of issues. The moment anyone can simply walk into a clinic and come out with a superpower in Marvel (and I mean a regular clinic, not something run by AIM that turns them into a mind-controlled slave or something) is the moment when superpowers lose all meaning.

You might as well say One Piece is fair, since anyone could eat the Devil Fruit.

If your universe is Marvel and DC, maybe you can argue Marvel is more fair (DC heroes tend to be perfect people that get powers awarded for being born or for being perfect). However, DC pushes the notion that non-powered people like Batman and Lex Luthor can stand as equals even next to the cosmic-tier heroes and villains (find me the Marvel ordinary humans that can do that!).

However, I keep mentioning the literature universe is very big. You have Sci-Fi stories that may count, as well as obscure superhuman stories to consider. There are stories where everyone actually has a superpower, or is magic or something. I seem to recall "The Color of Magic" has this as the premise.

Also here's is a list of stories with the premise everyone is a super.

The popular anime and comics are just not going to cut it.

[Rater202]

Well, Doctor Hayes(Grandmother of Molly Hayes, of the Runaways) has a method of making Artificial Mutants with identical powersets despite not being related by blood--having iven herself, her daughter, her adopted son, and a number of house cats identical telepathic abillities with her granddaughter, daughter of her blood and adopted children*, developed powerful psionic strength and toughness instead.

So mass producing super-powers is possible. It's just a simple matter of finding the right person.

She'd probably have started selling psychic powers if she hadn't been arrested for cloning supervillains(She did not cope well with the death of her Gene and Alice)

*Believe it or not, this is better than the alternative: Originally it was implied they were blood relatives instead of merely adopted relatives.

But my point is that, in terms of actually getting powers, just about everyone in Marvel has a fair shot at it.

You can't take two steps ioff the beaten path in NYC without stumbling into something that'll trigger your latent mutant potential or otherwise give you superhuman powers. NYC in Marvel is basically mostly superhumans at this point.

[Chromascope3D]

You are also not going to find it in Hunter x Hunter

There are actually 5 differently-abled nen users in HxH.

Gido, Riehlvelt, and Sadaso are antagonists in the Heavens Arena Arc, and are all missing body parts or are crippled in some way, yet are still formidable opponents when the heroes first face them, and while Gon does body Gido in their second matchup, it isn't because he's crippled, it's because he and the others didn't train at all and decided to rest on their laurels expecting easy wins. Although, they were already competent fighters before losing their limbs and learning nen, so maybe that's up in the air regarding your point.

Meanwhile, Shoot is one of the main characters of the Chimera Ant arc; he's missing his right arm, but he makes up for it with his hatsu (three independently floating hands and a floating cage that can temporarily trap opponents body parts), however, it isn't known at what point he lost his arm, maybe as a child, maybe after becoming a hunter, so maybe I could give you that one too.

However, there's Komugi, who is not only blind but is also an idiot outside of her skill in gungi, and whose dedication was so thorough that she vowed that she would take her life if she lost a game, and because of this she unconsciously gained a hatsu that allowed her to come up with ever evolving strategies to win the game. Would she ever win a fight? No, but she doesn't need to, because she loves exactly one thing and that's Gungi (and Dear Leader, ofc), and her power allows her to excel at it even further.

I feel like when we focus on the combat capabilities of superpowers we ignore the fact that not everyone wants to be a superhero or even just a regular hero. Some people just wanna be a rockstar or a ditch digger, and the reason I consider HxH to be fair is precisely because the power system allows for these people to use the same superpowers for non combat functions that the protagonists use solely for punching each other.

[Rynjin]

Hell, one of the major recurring characters of the series has a Nen power that is "Summon a Stand that gives supernaturally relaxing massages", so it's not even limited to background characters or hypotheticals. Yeah, she has good Enhancement Nen too, but the fact that as a pro Hunter her Hatsu is so non-combat oriented is really telling.

[The Fury]

I've actually thought quite a lot about my answer, because in truth it's not really an easy question. Superpowered universes by their nature tend to be pretty unfair and tend to come in two flavors. One: you're either lucky and you have cool powers or you're not. Two: if you have no powers there's a decent chance that you might get powers, but you don't get a choice in the matter and your powers might be terrible.

As far as fitting the requirements set by the OP, the best example I can think of is whatever universe your D&D game, (3.0 and onward,) is set in. Any ability that exists can be had if you want to put in the character class levels, feats, skills or whatever to get it.

In practical sense though, it's still not all that fair because there's always something like a Lich or a Dragon or something that can one-shot you no matter how strong you get. That and your DM will ultimately have the final word on whether or not you can have the powers you're after.

The second is the universe of Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra. I know it's violating at least two of the rules of the OP right off the bat. Bending is hereditary, so for example, you'll never be a Waterbender if you have no Waterbenders in your heritage, (unless you're the Avatar.) Not all Bending can be learned by all people, so for example, an Earthbender can never learn Firebending, (again, the Avatar is the exception.) On top of that, there's a clear person with the best power set-- the aforementioned Avatar. Also, if you're just a normal person, Harmonic Convergence aside, you'll never be able to bend any element.

Though in a practical sense, this universe is actually very fair. Even if a random Earthbender can't learn Firebending, so what? With hard work and training they can still be pretty impressive. For that matter, by honing one's skills any one person can give the Avatar a run for their money. Even considering you might be a person that can never Bend any element, it's still possible to pick up Chi-Blocking like Tai-Lee, build gadgets like Asami, or just be clever like Sokka. Then there's the insight that being spiritually attuned can get you in that universe, which unlike Bending elements seems more of a question of enlightenment and discipline. This suggests that just about anyone can learn it. So yeah, actually a pretty fair universe... unless you're a cabbage merchant.