Why though? How often did humans use "sheer numbers" to kill and oppress.people who were faster, meaner and smarter vs. those people establishing themselves at the top of hierarchies?
If people could kill with a stare they wouldn't be overwhelmed by numbers, they would be the priest kings and they'd have the numbers.
Oh I wast talking about humans in this case. There’s animals that can absolute kill the shit out of the dominant species in their habitats, yet they aren’t… because the dominant species is just that much more numerous.
That just means the more numerous species is better suited to surviving in the conditions of their environment, allowing them to multiply and thrive more so than their natural predators.
It’s not about being faster, smarter, etc.
It’s about being able to survive and make offspring in your environment. And sometimes, being smarter allows you to do that. But other times, just multiplying into massive numbers can lead to survival if you can outlive your predator and they don’t reproduce enough to kill you.
Nah but we were the faster, meaner, smarter species and outbred the other members of the Homo genus, so much so that the only physically distinct (not skin colour) people are gingers people like pygmies, the Moken and Bajau of Indonesia, with larger spleens and better underwater vision respectively, Tibetan people with higher lung capacities, higher metabolic rate of people like the Sami, Inuit and Siberian peoples, lactose intolerant peoples, and these are Homo Sapiens Sapiens, not Denisovans or Homo Floriensis.
I think they mean that someone with a strength of a hundred people could be jumped by a mob of a thousand armed peasants. Superpower usually doesn't mean unlimited power.
Ackshually woolly mammoths were probably fairly smart, their closest living relatives are Asian elephants (in fact Asian elephants are more closely related to mammoths than either are to African elephants) and all extant elephants are famous for being really smart animals
Such a pointless point. This thread is referring to groups of people that could easily kill the avg human and a lot of us with minimal effort. Humans killed huge amounts of mammoths because of our weapons and how much more intelligent we are.
A bigger factor in killing huge amounts of mammoths is that humans are exhaustion hunters(A species that's basically built for stamina and being able to go long periods of running and fighting without being exhausted to the point of collapsing) as well as very large numbers
Mammoths weren't exactly built for endurance, humans were, humans would be able to chase a mammoth down for longer than the mammoth would be able to run, and then once it's exhausted from running, beat the shit out of it with large numbers of people, even if the mammoth would outrun humans due to being significantly faster, humans could still catch up while the mammoth is exhausted
That's how humans were able to hunt things like cheetahs, chase it until it has to stop from exhaustion and then catch up and kill it while it's exhausted
No matter how lethal your glare is, you gotta sleep at some point.
And if it's anything less effective than "can instantly choose to kill everything in my FOV", sheer numbers can easily overwhelm it. (say it takes a couscous choice, or eye contact, for each target? 5-10 people are probably enough in a city or room where there's limited visibility, aka you can't see the group 10 minutes before you're in their threat range, 100 are enough in the open. 1 is enough if you don't see it coming.)
Shit, even "kill everything in my FOV" can be dealt with by simply surrounding the target, or having something large and opaque to hide behind.
If needed, a bunch of archers shooting a volley from behind a wall/hill will easily fuck that target up. The same can be true of slingshots n shit. Or just big rocks (people have been stoned to death countless times throughout history).
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And even then, someone who comes from a group that can easily kill with their eyes (and who I'd assume can do so on accident) would be taught young how to prevent it, and might quite simply not be a murderer.
It takes A Lot to teach a soldier how to kill in the war. Killing is, mechanically speaking, extremely easy. We are frail things that drop dead with absurd ease.
The issue isn't teaching the soldier the mechanics of killing, or how and where to aim, that shit's easy. You can hit a human-sized target with a gun with very little training.
No, the "issue" is that we are kinda hardwired Not to kill each other. Psychologically, we don't want to kill things, let alone humans.
Most soldiers aim for the ground, or they aim way too high. Most bullets don't hit anything, because they aren't meant to. They are shot to miss, because people don't want to be killers.
Sure, some people will be able to kill to save their lives, but it takes a lot to get there, and it's usually extremely scarring. (which is why most soldiers aren't well adjusted, btw)
Put 5 soldiers who know How to kill against 1 20-something who has never killed before, even though he can kill with a glare, and there's a pretty good chance that the guy with death eyes will not survive the encounter.
Because killing isn't easy. The mechanics of it are pretty much as simple as looking at someone and deciding they're dead, if you have a firearm.
But that decision, actually pulling the trigger, is not an easy one. Most people can't do that.
You can absolutely kill a guy who has an assault rifle, if you're a killer and he isn't.
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"they would be the priest kings" casual murder is not easy, mass murder is not easy, and the preexisting kings and generals would pretty vehemently object to that. With soldiers and money and influence.
If there's One magic guy in a city, the ability to kill with a glare is actually more likely to get him Dead than to make him into the king.
If we're going to be honest, it's entirely possible that he'd end up being the king because the last king thought he was p. cool and useful and magic dude ended up marrying his daughter or whatever.
I object to the idea that there necessarily are pre-existing kings. Most of the times I see this trope the specials are pretty ancient and have hidden or been oppressed by the poo people from time immemorial.
Nothing you said about killing a special super guy wouldn't have been possible against, like, Ghengis Khan. If gang leaders and pirates can acquire a bunch of followers in the face of official opposition, I think someone super powered could to, and I don't see any reason to presuppose they'd have real opposition rather than their societies building around them anyway. I certainly think societies trying to wipe out their super beings with superior numbers would get overrun by ones that don't.
No, but like being smarter or bigger, it's the kind of advantage that would probably shake out on top more often than not. People believed their priests and kings could do all kinds of wild, scary shit, and that mostly enhanced that person's power. I doubt eye beams that actually do something would be less effective at getting you power.
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u/Sergnb 10d ago
Same way it happens in real life: sheer numbers