Gemini Worldbuilding Info
Posted: Mon Jun 09, 2014 10:27 pm
Basics:
In the fifties, people who had - or who had ever had - and a handful of people who didn't have - twins (or triplets, or any number of real-estate-overlap siblings, as long as they didn't die in the womb) started waking up on their sixteenth birthdays with - powers. Superpowers. Some of these powers were the same for everybody, some of them were only the same for people who had actual live twins (or triplets or etc.).
The powers are thus:
Chimeric individuals and people who could be described as conjoined twins without separate heads get the minimum detectable powerset. On turning sixteen they attain peak nonpowered human physical health and precision of movement - enough to make it unfair for them to compete in the Olympics (and to clear out chimera-problem things like mismatched leg lengths, parasitic twin parts, and chronic or acute-at-the-moment-of-sixteenth-birthday negative health conditions), but not enough to allow leaping tall buildings in a single bound or feats otherwise outside human variation.
Conjoined twins with separate heads separate painlessly into healthy separate individuals at the moment they turn sixteen and get all the rest of the twin stuff. Twin stuff is the above peak physical shape thing, plus "twining" (someone was feeling punny; this is pronounced as the shared root "entwine") and sympathetic healing. Twining involves either twin speaking (aloud, but not necessarily loudly) and wishing to be heard by the other (or in the case of more than a pair, any subset if preferred); on the receiving twin's end nothing is audible to bystanders, but neighbors of the sending twin may hear the twined speech unimpeded. Sympathetic healing involves one twin touching the other, taking their injuries or illnesses onto themselves, and then rapid-healing them (which is uncomfortable to an unedited level of severity, but very fast, mere seconds even for severe life-threatening injuries). If you have no living twin (triplet etc.), you cannot use twining or sympathetic healing, but you still get your other basics.
Bonuses:
People who at any time had live twins (triplets etc.) also get bonus powers. A given set of siblings will typically have powers that work together well, though not necessarily powers of the same "quality" or standalone value. If there are exceptions to any of a power's limitations they are liable to apply solely to the user's twin (triplets etc). There are lots of sets of twins in the world, so there's no shortage of duplicates or near-duplicates, though sets of cooperating powers are much less likely to come up twice and the fine details of how each power work vary. The setting does not contain, unless we think of an idea we can't pass up: 1) meta-powers, 2) any mental powers that have effects outside of a sibling set, 3) powers that are particularly difficult to control or use safely.
Background:
The powers are superhero-comics-flavored more than magic-flavored, although this is mostly in how they get described and deployed than in how they actually work. There is no in-universe accepted scientific explanation for the powers, but they are consistent enough under sufficiently well-understood conditions that society has adapted around them. Powers tend to be specific enough, and their use has percolated into law enforcement and the military enough, that it is difficult to maintain much of a career as a supervillain (you will not have Superman's entire power suite between you even if you're quintulplets), although people try it and others correspondingly try taking up superheroism. As of a couple decades before the birth of Our Heroes, "Gemini schools" which high school age twins or ex-twins (triplets etc.) in the United States are required to attend have been standard. These schools register and keep an eye on developing twins and are mostly surprisingly nondystopic. There is some public wariness about twins, but ones who want to lead normal lives can pretty much just do that, encountering little serious barrier to participation in society which is not easily compensated for by the advantages of having one's basics.
In the fifties, people who had - or who had ever had - and a handful of people who didn't have - twins (or triplets, or any number of real-estate-overlap siblings, as long as they didn't die in the womb) started waking up on their sixteenth birthdays with - powers. Superpowers. Some of these powers were the same for everybody, some of them were only the same for people who had actual live twins (or triplets or etc.).
The powers are thus:
Chimeric individuals and people who could be described as conjoined twins without separate heads get the minimum detectable powerset. On turning sixteen they attain peak nonpowered human physical health and precision of movement - enough to make it unfair for them to compete in the Olympics (and to clear out chimera-problem things like mismatched leg lengths, parasitic twin parts, and chronic or acute-at-the-moment-of-sixteenth-birthday negative health conditions), but not enough to allow leaping tall buildings in a single bound or feats otherwise outside human variation.
Conjoined twins with separate heads separate painlessly into healthy separate individuals at the moment they turn sixteen and get all the rest of the twin stuff. Twin stuff is the above peak physical shape thing, plus "twining" (someone was feeling punny; this is pronounced as the shared root "entwine") and sympathetic healing. Twining involves either twin speaking (aloud, but not necessarily loudly) and wishing to be heard by the other (or in the case of more than a pair, any subset if preferred); on the receiving twin's end nothing is audible to bystanders, but neighbors of the sending twin may hear the twined speech unimpeded. Sympathetic healing involves one twin touching the other, taking their injuries or illnesses onto themselves, and then rapid-healing them (which is uncomfortable to an unedited level of severity, but very fast, mere seconds even for severe life-threatening injuries). If you have no living twin (triplet etc.), you cannot use twining or sympathetic healing, but you still get your other basics.
Bonuses:
People who at any time had live twins (triplets etc.) also get bonus powers. A given set of siblings will typically have powers that work together well, though not necessarily powers of the same "quality" or standalone value. If there are exceptions to any of a power's limitations they are liable to apply solely to the user's twin (triplets etc). There are lots of sets of twins in the world, so there's no shortage of duplicates or near-duplicates, though sets of cooperating powers are much less likely to come up twice and the fine details of how each power work vary. The setting does not contain, unless we think of an idea we can't pass up: 1) meta-powers, 2) any mental powers that have effects outside of a sibling set, 3) powers that are particularly difficult to control or use safely.
Background:
The powers are superhero-comics-flavored more than magic-flavored, although this is mostly in how they get described and deployed than in how they actually work. There is no in-universe accepted scientific explanation for the powers, but they are consistent enough under sufficiently well-understood conditions that society has adapted around them. Powers tend to be specific enough, and their use has percolated into law enforcement and the military enough, that it is difficult to maintain much of a career as a supervillain (you will not have Superman's entire power suite between you even if you're quintulplets), although people try it and others correspondingly try taking up superheroism. As of a couple decades before the birth of Our Heroes, "Gemini schools" which high school age twins or ex-twins (triplets etc.) in the United States are required to attend have been standard. These schools register and keep an eye on developing twins and are mostly surprisingly nondystopic. There is some public wariness about twins, but ones who want to lead normal lives can pretty much just do that, encountering little serious barrier to participation in society which is not easily compensated for by the advantages of having one's basics.