Maintaining your secret identity

[Ruin Explorer]

IMO the best way to avoid getting entangled into poliitcs is to avoid calling unwanted attention. Being discrete, never repeating the same outfit twice in the same area (even cosplaying as a local folklore figure). Work mostly at night. Avoid the large cities. Leave the phone at home. The best way to keep the Government off your trail is to never give them a reason to notice you in the first place.

That's not compatible with:

2. You are compelled, for whatever reason, to use your powers in public on a regular basis, in an obvious way. Let's just say you can't resist helping people.

Which is one of the starting points of the thread.

If you just didn't use your powers, sure, and didn't actually deal with major issues, sure, it'd be very easy to keep your secret identity.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You mean the mainstream DC/Marvel heroes, right? Because outside of the mainstream, stuff like The Authority is about exactly this. This is something comics authors have been putting in since the 1990s or earlier.

The problem is, proactive superhero activity tends to go wrong as well, leading to authority issues and loss of freedoms. That always felt very real to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's one thing I liked about the Fantastic 4 movie. It presented a world in which the resident superheroes had actively taken a role in improving things on a worldwide level and had largely succeeded, introducing new technologies, negotiating peace between hostile powers, establishing new platforms for international cooperation.

Not very realistic from the perspective of our reality, but nice to dream about.

 

[jian]

It seems like your position is "The intelligence services as a whole, are morons who would do the dumbest thing possible as fast as possible". Now if we're talking about the 20th-century CIA, well, I can't argue with that, but I don't really think MI6 and MI5 are quite as keen on rushing towards stupidity as a breakneck pace as you describe, nor the same for most countries. Like, why do you want to start a fight with superman so badly?

Also, you haven't answered the issue that they will find your identity out, so it's not really a matter of "trusting" them with it, is it?

No, they’re not being stupid; they’re just being human, as were the CIA in the 20th century, who were generally clever people with as much information as they could obtain, which they knew was incomplete. MI5 and MI6 have displayed similar levels of poor outcome since their inception.

This would be an unprecedented situation for them - and while they could (accidentally) respond with a sensible plan that results in positive outcomes, I don’t personally think that likely.

As for my strategy, it’s as I’ve outlined - sigh, pray that God hasn’t given me more than I can deal with, plan to do as much good as possible, expect to get found out, prepare and protect my loved ones as well as possible, and expect to have to go public when things start going south. I would also be a human operating on incomplete information with none of the huge narrative protections that Kal-El enjoys, so I’d expect to end up doing stupid things too. I just hope they don’t involve hurting people directly.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Regarding the question of what to do when the government agency gives me a task I refuse to do:

I would say that any government agency working with me would need to be careful not because I think my power would corrupt me (but it might, I don't know!) to do terrible things, but because they don't know how to stop me safely if I don't. Maybe they could kill me with a nuke or they actually have some Mustrumite and know of it properties, but are they going to nuke a German city or kill their most powerful individual asset because I refused to spy or murder on someone?
Losing me as an asset means that any future missions where I might have said yes will become impossible, and there is also a cost of killing the superhero that's saving all those people.

So if I tell them no for a mission, their best bet is manipulating the situation to make it appear far more reasonable to me than it is. Quite possibly fake evidence that fools me (I am no expert, I might fall for photoshop and AI! Heck, maybe I am so captured by the situation that I don't even investigate deeply enough?)

Say, if they want me to kill someone, they must put them in a really bad light to convince. Not sure that would work on me, but maybe I'd be willing to apprehend the target and ask them to just put them in prison, with a chance they kill them against my wishes/their promises. Not sure what I'd do if learn that they broke my trust. There is a lot of convenience in that secret identity, after all, would I really weigh my principles higher than my security and that of my family and friends?

Of course, instead they could threaten to reveal my secret identity, or threaten my family, but that is dangerous, because they cannot be sure that I wouldn't respond very negatively from the threat alone, and even worse if any real harm comes to my family. Even I don't know exactly how I would respond! Maybe their psychologists are better at determining this than me, but clear is - I have the potential to do a lot of damage to them that might just not be worth the risk for what the mission is supposed to achieve.

Interestingly, there there are also some limits in how they could protect my secret identity. I don't want them to kill anyone, for example. If I instruct them as such, can I trust them to stay true to it? What do I do if it's my secret identity or some photographer's life?
And that's the other thing, of course. We might treat these government agencies as extremely powerful, but the are still limited. Their is no guarantee they can stop or discredit everyone that wants to reveal my secrets.

 

[jian]

It might be interesting to discuss this same scenario but for other power sets or powered individuals. We all kind of agree Clark has a lot of power and a lot of responsibility, and can’t realistically be stopped by any other force on Earth, at least initially. How about some others?

What if you woke up tomorrow with the powers of:

Batman: Bruce has no powers but is the peak of human everything and is one of the richest people in the world. I immediately work out how to give away as much money as possible, Mackenzie Scott style. I probably won’t engage in any super spy shenanigans because that could go south very, very, quickly. Just enjoy my health and my ability to solve Wordle in one try.

Captain America (MCU): Slightly superhumanly strong, fast, healthy, and clever. I don’t see how that makes me responsible for anything. I’m too old to start a professional sport career but sure, that’s an option. Just enjoy it.

Spider-Man: Despite this being the trope namer, I don’t see how being able to lift a car and stick to walls gives me any significant responsibilities. Sure, I would be a more effective fireman, but I’m not going to change careers. I’m not really any better at dealing with natural disasters or saving lives, mostly. Try not to use my powers, ever.

Cyclops: Do ruby quartz glasses exist and do I know about them? If not, I’m effectively just blind. If so, well, I’m not planning to use my powers ever, but at least I can see now.

Charles Xavier: Oh God. Power corrupts and this definitely will, but it will probably also cut me off from humanity even more than becoming Superman would. I would try to use my powers responsibly and carefully, uncovering and revealing important secrets, trying not to actively control anyone, and so on, but I would cross the line at some point, it’s a question of when. Work out if there’s any way of removing my powers.

Erik Lensherr: Are you kidding me? This is even worse than Superman.

 

[soviet]

It might be interesting to discuss this same scenario but for other power sets or powered individuals. We all kind of agree Clark has a lot of power and a lot of responsibility, and can’t realistically be stopped by any other force on Earth, at least initially. How about some others?

What if you woke up tomorrow with the powers of:

Batman: Bruce has no powers but is the peak of human everything and is one of the richest people in the world. I immediately work out how to give away as much money as possible, Mackenzie Scott style. I probably won’t engage in any super spy shenanigans because that could go south very, very, quickly. Just enjoy my health and my ability to solve Wordle in one try.

Captain America (MCU): Slightly superhumanly strong, fast, healthy, and clever. I don’t see how that makes me responsible for anything. I’m too old to start a professional sport career but sure, that’s an option. Just enjoy it.

Spider-Man: Despite this being the trope namer, I don’t see how being able to lift a car and stick to walls gives me any significant responsibilities. Sure, I would be a more effective fireman, but I’m not going to change careers. I’m not really any better at dealing with natural disasters or saving lives, mostly. Try not to use my powers, ever.

Cyclops: Do ruby quartz exist and do I know about them? If not, I’m effectively just blind. If so, well, I’m not planning to use my powers ever, but at least I can see now.

Charles Xavier: Oh God. Power corrupts and this definitely will, but it will probably also cut me off from humanity even more than becoming Superman would. I would try to use my powers responsibly and carefully, uncovering and revealing important secrets, trying not to actively control anyone, and so on, but I would cross the line at some point, it’s a question of when. Work out if there’s any way of removing my powers.

Erik Lensherr: Are you kidding me? This is even worse than Superman.

Is trying to branch the discussion into seven different branches really a good idea?

 

[MarkB]

Is trying to branch the discussion into seven different branches really a good idea?

Possibly. We do seem to be getting bogged down in the specifics of Superman's power set. Taking that level of invulnerability out of the equation might open things up.

 

[jian]

Possibly. We do seem to be getting bogged down in the specifics of Superman's power set. Taking that level of invulnerability out of the equation might open things up.

I also don’t think we’re going to need to discuss most of them - Charles and Peter are probably the only ones. Erik is basically Clark but you can accidentally EMP the entire planet if you get cross.

 

[Erekose]

The discussion about government manipulation/blackmail/leverage seems to be focusing on the government as if it’s one faceless entity.

If an individual attempted to use my loved ones as leverage, assuming I had the powers of superman, my immediate response would be what about your loved ones? I suspect all of the individuals involved in such a situation would be fairly easily identifiable (and their respective loved ones) if you had super powers.

I’m not saying any kind of threat wouldn’t be attempted (by a government) but I think the argument that the government would do its best to be on you side and accept that there would be situations where you’d say no or have quite limited involvement seems plausible.