I'm old enough to have a bit of a feel for the 60s, and I have studied history. Today, it is very common for a high-profile event to occur and for Congress or state legislators to rush through some kind of bill. This was much less common in the 60s. The news cycle was much, much slower, the government was smaller, and regulation was much less common and intrusive. This was the days before the EPA, OSHA, smokeless workplaces, anti-discrimination laws, and many of the government controls over our lives that we pretty much take for granted now. A culture of regulation simply didn't exist to anything near the same degree as today. In the 60s, regulation would not move anywhere near as quickly.
I can see government agencies making an effort to recruit supers in response to high-profile events, but I can also see resistance to such efforts from within. This was a time when the FBI was basically white, male, and more than a bit stodgy. So, what if a super bank robber starts a spree and is dissolving bank walls and vaults late at night and grabbing the cash? The answer will be good police work and inter-agency cooperation. Remember - many supers' power sets won't help much in an investigation anyway. Flip to a few random supers in Progenitor. How many turned up that have powers that would help in tracking down a bank robber and that would really want to take the time to do so? How helpful would building pocket universes or running real fast be to a criminal investigation? Is Jason Weeks really going to take a week off from his inventions and meme-making, and his grand chessgame with other hyper-brains to chase a bank robber in Pittsburgh? And the feds probably don't want some super to get the glory anyway. Once violent supers come on the scene or high-profile supers against whom common prejudices exist, this would change. If the Weathermen or Black Panthers had supers working for them, then states and/or Congress would pass laws making crimes committed with superpowers subject to much longer sentences and the PR for adding clean-cut supers to the FBI or other agencies would seem much more attractive. Open carry of firearms was banned in California because the Black Panthers carried them in a peaceful protest in Sacramento and used to carry them in patrols of the black community done in order to discourage violence by police. They'd follow cops and just sit there when the almost entirely white and male LAPD pulled over black drivers or arrested black suspects. The Panthers didn't start shooting (though there were violent elements in the movement) but just watched. This was not popular with the cops and Square Johns. When prejudices, a pattern of violent crime, and legitimate anti-terrorism become factors, the desire to recruit supers will increase.
On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Wade Lahoda <wade.lahoda@gmail.com> wrote:
I was wondering if any folks had any ideas on what the immediate reactions of the US government (and public) would be in 1968? Like, we know that Amanda infects the president with Dark Energy, and goes off to fight in Vietnam - but it seems that the super likely spreads very rapidly in the first couple of months, and by April there'll be no chance of keeping it secret.--So, like, I can intuit some idea of what Johnson, Colt, etc might be planning - but what about on an official level? Do parts of the US government other than just the Army try to recruit metahumans? Is there a push for regulation? What agencies begin investigating things? Trying to control it? How quickly does law enforcement start to catch up with things? We know that at least later on in the timeline there are "super prisions" - how quickly does that infrastructure start to be put in place?I can be sort of bad at brainstorming this kind of thing sometimes, so I figured I'd call upon the list for yet more ideas. :)--
"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."
-- Oscar Wilde
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