How can Radiation heroes justify using their powers?

[Zombra]

I'm trying to make sense of a new hero concept of mine, and I want to use Radiation powers, but it just seems completely insane to go around shooting dangerous radiation everywhere.  How is it possible that Paragon City is even livable with this happening every day in every neighborhood?

 

Is there any common consensus as to why this is fine?  What's your headcanon that makes Radiation Heroes just as safe and helpful as an all-natural environmentally approved martial artist?  I'd rather have 100 Fire Blasters and Demon Summoners go through my neighborhood than a single Radiation Defender.

[Troo]

Positron

 

Secret Identity: Doctor Raymond Keyes
Origin: Technolgy
Archetype: Defender
Primary Powers: Radiation Emission
Secondary Powers: Radiation Blast
Other Powers: Flight
Signature Power: Overcharge

 

also, its a game.

Edited yesterday at 04:59 AM by Troo

[BasiliskXVIII]

I tend to think of most of the radiation blast sets as being less beams of radiation than it is using the radiation to produce and throw ionised plasma instead. In the most general terms, it behaves more like plasma—poofy clouds of gas and visibly glowing pulses of stuff being thrown around. That is in opposition to real radiation, which is invisible and tends to travel in straight lines. Plasma dissipates and isn't going to be causing problems with stray radiation if you miss a shot. It's not gonna be safe by any means, but it's not any worse than a fire blaster.

 

Let's face it, just about any of the random heroics going down in the city probably would come with a body count in the real world. One minute you're fine, walking down the street, and the next you have Captain Density super-jumping blindly through the city and landing on you. A Spines Scrapper somersaults through a crowd and takes out a toddler and a flock of pigeons, Mercs and Thugs MMs sending so much lead through the air it looks like a mobile recreation of the D-Day landings... You kinda have to suspend disbelief.

[mechahamham]

You might as well say the same thing about guns or fire or, frankly, any of the other powersets that can be used in a lethal fashion. How many people drown every day? Compare that to how many people die of radiation exposure every day and you'll see a pretty ridiculous contrast.

 

People think of 'radiation' and immediately go to 'Nuclear Weapon' or 'Chernobyl Disaster'. It's been made out to be hugely scary when car accidents are several orders of magnitude more dangerous. Far more people are burned by fires than radioactive isotope exposure. Far more people are medically helped by x-rays, radioactive imaging like PET, and oncological radiation therapy (cancer treaments) than will EVER be harmed.

 

Radiation is very literally all around us all the time. Even if you discount all the forms that pass through us without harming us, we're immersed in damaging, ionizing radiation. It comes from LED lights, your smoke detector, bananas, granite countertops and a plethora of other sources. The Sun, giver of life, bathes us in ultraviolet radiation the second we step outside our homes. Our bodies have developed to be resistant to the constant damage.

 

For a hero, imagine a person that could locate and murder cancer cells at a distance with gamma beams. Or could use microwaves to jam radio communication between rogue robots. Or could forcibly cause a reactor to power down, leaving a warship stranded. Like any of the powersets, radiation is presented purely as a tool. How you use that tool, positively or negatively, is entirely up to you.

[Biff Pow]

It's a superhero world, radiation is more likely to give you powers than kill you.

[Zombra]

My issue is that residual contamination from radiation is invisible.  Citizens know what to do when their house is on fire, but if their neighborhood is contaminated with harmful radiation they might not even know it.  And if they did know it, would they know what to do about it?

 

I suppose if we can handwave that Fire Blasters haven't burned down the city, we can handwave that all that harmful material scattered everywhere a Radiation Blaster goes gets cleaned up by somebody.  I hope safety inspectors are well paid in this universe.

 

Edited yesterday at 08:15 AM by Zombra

[MonteCarla]

I've taken Radiation Blast to 50 nearly 6 times now.
3 of them had Light Powers, either "Solid Light" photon blasts or dazzling light that knocks opponents out.

3 of them had Captain Marvel-ish Cosmic Energy type superhero blasts.

 

Radiation Emission's stood in for Jubilee-esque Firework powers, Pixie magic and Power Cancellation like the X-Men villain Scramble (mainly via the hold aura and enemy toggles)

 

None of them gave people cancer or caused irreparable cellular damage, because I say so! 🙂 

Kind of like how none of my fire users cause third degree burns, or sword users don't leave people dismembered or bleeding to death, or super-strengthers aren't punching people's spines through their bodies.

I'm just not that kind of superhero.

 

And powerset names are just names. None of my empaths sense or modify emotions, while we're at it!

 

EDIT: Safety inspectors are very well paid in Paragon. Those 5% fees from Wentworths really add up!

Edited yesterday at 06:50 AM by MonteCarla

[TheMoneyMaker]

My rad hero is more of a vigilante, so dropping some cancer on villains that don't want to surrender peacefully is perfectly justified.

[Snarky]

no radiation! safe heroes only please

[UltraAlt]

4 hours ago, Zombra said:

Is there any common consensus as to why this is fine?

 

 

4 hours ago, Zombra said:

What's your headcanon that makes Radiation Heroes just as safe and helpful as an all-natural environmentally approved martial artist?

 

Errr ... I put in their bio's that they are radioactive and a danger of those around them.

 

 

But I wouldn't say that martial artists aren't a threat to some of those around them.

 

4 hours ago, Zombra said:

I'd rather have 100 Fire Blasters and Demon Summoners go through my neighborhood than a single Radiation Defender.

 

Well, you should talk to @DoctorDitko about that.

 

I can do without the screaming demons myself.

 

 

[gameboy1234]

7 hours ago, Zombra said:

just seems completely insane to go around shooting dangerous radiation everywhere.

 

I also go with "comic book magic" here.  I guess I'm using a focused beam that doesn't affect the area around it?  Some particles have a predictable half life and can be "tuned" to dump their energy only at a certain distance, not before or afterwards.  Like gamma radiation used to treat certain cancers.  Quantum something something, ok just shoot the bad guys.

 

[Mopery]

Your body radiates infrared light at all times, in fact, everything in the universe radiates Electromagnetic energy at some wavelength.

It's all natural, and beyond human sight, in spite of what you might have heard.

I suppose you just mean ionizing radiation?

[Skyhawke]

My radiation heroes have invested heavily in various forms of medications for radiation sicknesses. Don't screw this up for them! Purple IOs ain't cheap!

[Demobot]

Look, if that Hellion didn't want to suffer a slow, agonizing death from cancer, he shouldn't have been an accessory to minor vandalism. He made his choices. 

[SeraphimKensai]

8 hours ago, Zombra said:

I'm trying to make sense of a new hero concept of mine, and I want to use Radiation powers, but it just seems completely insane to go around shooting dangerous radiation everywhere.  How is it possible that Paragon City is even livable with this happening every day in every neighborhood?

 

Is there any common consensus as to why this is fine?  What's your headcanon that makes Radiation Heroes just as safe and helpful as an all-natural environmentally approved martial artist?  I'd rather have 100 Fire Blasters and Demon Summoners go through my neighborhood than a single Radiation Defender.

Well there is a hero in Peregrine Island known as SeraphimKensai that has a signature power that is a PBAOE auto power with infinite range called Environmental Reset. Essentially what it does is after a player or NPC for that matter does anything that's dangerous to the environment with minimal exceptions* then that area is divinely reset to its state before the damage to the environment happened.

 

Sadly the power doesn't erase an area back to how it was developed. But it acts as a quasi time loop so to speak that just fixes everything radiation included. I'm still trying to figure out how the power works though as I've only had it in this incarnation of myself since homecoming launched.

[Ghost]

It doesn’t have to be radiation.  You can write it to be anything your imagination can come up with.

[Techwright]

8 hours ago, Zombra said:

 dangerous radiation

 

You say "dangerous radiation", I say I'm fighting cancer, even in those that just don't know about it yet. (You're welcome, by the way, all you wretched, ungrateful hive of scum and villainy!)  I just utilize an on-the-street, full-bodied approach as oppose to doctors using a machine in a (supposedly) sterile environment.  Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe.

[The Trouble]

What we don't know is that our radiation powers have been killing thousands of tumors that were cultivated by decades of exposure to the War Walls.

 

You think that radiation powers bring an even more dangerous element to Paragon City?  Here is the only possible rebuttal:

[Zombra]

2 hours ago, Mopery said:

Your body radiates infrared light at all times, in fact, everything in the universe radiates Electromagnetic energy at some wavelength.

It's all natural, and beyond human sight, in spite of what you might have heard.

I suppose you just mean ionizing radiation?

 

Yes, smart guy, I'm aware that 'radiation' the English word can mean anything that radiates any kind of energy, such as visible light (or the energy emitted by a rotting banana, as was pointed out above).  What I'm talking about is the game City of Heroes, in which powers such as Radiation Blast, that's a game term not an English word, constantly spray around a particular type of radiation; that is, a kind harmful enough to instantly incapacitate people.  It's easy to handwave away the high lethality rate radiation that strong would have on its immediate targets, because all enemies in the game have some sort of super powers.  What is harder to handwave away is the huge amount of invisible and lethal residue that would be left behind, rendering the city completely uninhabitable for hundreds of years at best.

[Mopery]

38 minutes ago, Zombra said:

 

Yes, smart guy, I'm aware that 'radiation' the English word can mean anything that radiates any kind of energy, such as visible light (or the energy emitted by a rotting banana, as was pointed out above).  What I'm talking about is the game City of Heroes, in which powers such as Radiation Blast, that's a game term not an English word, constantly spray around a particular type of radiation; that is, a kind harmful enough to instantly incapacitate people.  It's easy to handwave away the high lethality rate radiation that strong would have on its immediate targets, because all enemies in the game have some sort of super powers.  What is harder to handwave away is the huge amount of invisible and lethal residue that would be left behind, rendering the city completely uninhabitable for hundreds of years at best.

You're being too realistic.

I'm talking about the game in whose forums I am commenting, and then some realistically real stuffs for realism's sake.

[Zombra]

6 minutes ago, Mopery said:

You're being too realistic.

 

You tried to tell me what words I already knew mean, and I explained to you that there are different kinds of words.  You're welcome.

[Go0gleplex]

Why single radiation out when a good portion of other powers have 'radiant' projection abilities, particularly fire, frost, dark, and earth...and the weather around storm guys is just awful...so much for those sunny days the weather guy was raving about. :p lol   

 

Clothing and building materials in Paragon are created with such in mind and lead underwear is popular. 😉 

[Lines]

11 hours ago, mechahamham said:

 How many people drown every day? Compare that to how many people die of radiation exposure every day and you'll see a pretty ridiculous contrast.

 

What I'm hearing is, water blast is the real culprit here.

[mechahamham]

20 minutes ago, Lines said:

What I'm hearing is, water blast is the real culprit here.

 

As the saying goes, if you're not afraid of water, you simply haven't thought about it enough.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassophobia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaphobia

 

There's a 'horror' subreddit dedicated to images and videos of terrifying aquatic phenomina:

 

https://old.reddit.com/r/thalassophobia/

 

Water's pretty damn deadly, especially for how little we think about it.

 

Edited 17 hours ago by mechahamham

[BasiliskXVIII]

12 hours ago, Zombra said:

My issue is that residual contamination from radiation is invisible.  Citizens know what to do when their house is on fire, but if their neighborhood is contaminated with harmful radiation they might not even know it.  And if they did know it, would they know what to do about it?

 

I suppose if we can handwave that Fire Blasters haven't burned down the city, we can handwave that all that harmful material scattered everywhere a Radiation Blaster goes gets cleaned up by somebody.  I hope safety inspectors are well paid in this universe.

 

If you're producing radiation—that is, emitting high-energy particles or waves directly rather than using something like enriched uranium to decay and generate it—then residual radioactive contamination isn’t really a concern. Despite what pop culture often implies, radiation doesn’t make things radioactive just by hitting them. There’s an exception for neutron radiation, which can induce radioactivity in certain materials. But that’s a specific interaction with specific elements—usually metals, not concrete or drywall—and it requires sustained exposure. Neutron radiation also has an incredibly short range in air and is easily blocked by skin or a few centimetres of plastic or water. It’s wildly inefficient as an offensive weapon.

 

So the biggest actual hazard is likely heat—radiation can scorch, melt, or pit materials it hits. That’s more of a contact or collateral danger than something that "lingers" in the environment. If radiation did leave everything it touched dangerously radioactive, then walking into a room with an X-ray machine would be a death sentence. It’s not.

 

Now, if you're firing gamma radiation, which is extremely penetrating, there could be a concern with long-range misses—those beams don't just stop when they hit air. But in-game, the visual effects show radiation blasts dissipating after a certain range, implying there’s a controlled decay or limited emission distance (say, 60–80 feet). So even that concern is clearly accounted for in-universe.

 

TL;DR: Unless you’re flinging fistfuls of uranium around, a Radiation Blaster isn’t leaving behind a hot zone. They’re just burning and battering with focused energy—and maybe giving safety inspectors a reason to carry a thermometer, not a Geiger counter.

Edited 15 hours ago by BasiliskXVIII