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Welcome to the Power Generation. Given this community has been going strong for almost two years now, there is a lot of information scattered about that is useful for those who wish to participate.
Therefore, to make everyone’s life easier, we’ve collated everything you need to know about the Power Generation in nifty little one post! If you're new to the community, we urge you to read this post. It will make everything so much clearer!
FAQ
1. What is Power Generation? Where did it come from?
Power Generation (PG) is a fan-constructed universe that began life in the ‘Everyday Superheroes’ challenge, which asked writers to give characters in other fandoms superpowers. We took the idea and ran with it…and ran with it…and ran with it… PG now spans over a dozen fandoms and keeps growing.
2. So what’s the basic idea?
The basic idea is that a small but significant proportion of the world’s population exhibit special but classifiable abilities. See the TIMELINE for the history we’ve created which explains how these classes were developed, the TEXTBOOK for the various classifications and grades, and THE RULES which explain what is and isn’t possible in this world.
3. What fandoms can I bring in? What characters can I ‘power up’?
The fandoms are all ‘reality-based’ fandoms: that is, no aliens, ghosts, demons. (We do have an AU tag if you really really want to play with Buffy or Supernatural or Threshold or Torchwood in a PG setting, but such stories are not considered part of the communal canon). However, this still leaves a wealth of fandoms and characters to play with - as diverse as CSI, Jeeves and Wooster, High Fidelity, Empire Records, and House MD.
As for ‘powering’ a character, all we ask is that you have a reason for giving that character this power - not just ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’ but ‘hey, Horatio Caine always wears sunglasses, maybe he’s got something different going on with his eyes…’ See META for more on how to work this out.
4. Is anything off limits?
No aliens, vampires, demons or ghosts, as already stated. Your powered characters must fit within the classification system already in place (see THE TEXTBOOK and THE RULES for further details). So you can’t have a character with a grade of six, for example. Also, your character can only have multiple powers if they are congruent - for example, Gil Grissom (CSI) has empathy and psychometry. These are considered congruent - telepathy and telekinesis, to take another example, are not. When in doubt, ask your friendly mod! Finally, there are windows of opportunity for different types of powers. Structurals are born that way, and at puberty some kinds of structurals experience a second set of changes linked to their structural abilities (for example, check out the entry for Dew Claws in THE TEXTBOOK). Starters (the other four power classes) can only start in the age range 20-27. Once their power starts, it plateau’s relatively quickly and settles into their final grade. THE RULES has all the limits and boundaries on who, what, when, and how powers work.
We have these for a number of reasons, but the main one is: THIS IS NOT A SUPERHERO universe. There are no capes, no saving the world from supervillains. These are ordinary people who can do weird things. When in doubt, remember the semi-official motto of PG: "Having powers is a pain in the ass."
5. Are there mods? What is a ‘communal canon’?
Yes, there are mods, and no, they don’t bite! hannahrorlove, lasergirl69 and akire_yta run the community, but mainly in terms of admin and so on (such as writing info posts!) All three mods have been here pretty much from the beginning and are a wealth of information regarding the verse, the rules, what’s been done, and how to get involved. Feel free to contact any of them for help, or even just to say hi.
The mods administer the community, but they do not dictate terms beyond making sure everyone follows the rules. This brings us to the communal canon - every story written within PG helps to build the canon, the backstory, the ‘look and feel’ of PG. You write a story, you help build the world. Isn’t that a nifty door prize for writing? The communal atmosphere makes this different from most AUs, which lends some fun to it - and the discussion aspect makes it easy to iron out wrinkles. (Just ask us about the ongoing discussion on who to power-up in Numb3rs!)
6. I really like how someone has defined this fandom/world. Can I play with their characters?
Yes, but bear in mind when writing established characters that you should keep them well within the reality defined in the PG 'canon' for the fandom. No killing (without the original establisher's permission and/or cooperation), no 180-degree personality/characterization changes (i.e. Mac isn't suddenly going to recover from his condition and start grinning madly at everything), no changing of the rules of character's backstory. That's really the only ownership the establishing writer has, in setting up the characters and letting them go. If you think you'd like to write in an already-established fandom, it's up to you to make the authentic-sounding. And giving the original writer a little heads-up is always a nice touch, even if only so they can wait in anticipation then squeal loudly over the story!
7. Why?
Because we love the source material, and the verse we’ve created, and playing around with ideas and concepts and just playing the ‘what if’ game - the fics are awesome, but if you spend any time in the PG verse, you’ll soon discover that there is ten times as much meta as fic. We love to speculate, we love to think about and play with these characters, and it is a lot of fun.
Seriously. Very fun.
TIMELINE
PG has a pretty solid ‘history,’ interwoven with real-world events. Key dates and events have been listed in the timeline post. This post is being updated constantly, not only with historical events, but also with useful details such as who was born when, when did they start, etc.
THE PG FANDOMS (and who’s who in them!)
See The ever evolving character list. Post a comment here to have your character added to the cast roll.
Current fandoms that are being actively written in the PG-verse:
CSI: LV
CSI: Miami
CSI: New York
Domino
Empire Records
High Fidelity
House, MD
Jackass
Jeeves and Wooster
Mr and Mrs Smith
Numb3rs
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Plus assorted real-life (RPF) and original characters
There are a smattering of AU (Alternate Universe) stories featuring fandoms that do not fit the rules of the universe, but these are not considered part of the communal canon.
THE TEXTBOOK
Grissom slapped the textbook down in front of Greg and enjoyed the little nervous twitches he made as he read the marked entry. He looked up in disbelief.
"You can't be serious. How do they know this?" Greg suddenly made a face and snatched his hands away from the book. He scrubbed them roughly across the front of his lab coat. "Eew, and you had sex with someone. I don't believe it."
"Well," Grissom took the book back daintily and perched it on his knee, "Powers have been around since 1921. You are merely one man in a long history." He ruffled a finger along the pages until it fell open at 'Empathy, distal.' The page was well-thumbed. Object Lesson
The Textbook is where we keep the formal references and information about characters, powers, classes and grades. Using the textbook tag will bring up the posted textbook entries. If you make a character a power, particularly one with a power or grade that hasn’t been written about before, we encourage you to create a textbook entry. The template for the textbook can be found here. And if you’re working with existing characters, then the textbook will be an invaluable reference.
The Textbook also has meta entries (see below) that may be of interest, including timelines, grade and classification structures, and other general information. The Textbook is probably the core of the communal canon, and as such is constantly being evolved and updated.
THE META
As has already been mentioned, the meta in this place is phenomenal. It is well worth browsing through the posted meta (and the meta tag is constantly being expanded as we get around to cleaning up and posting ideas from the chat sessions) to get a feel for the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of how this verse ticks. That said, there are a few posts that you should definitely familiarize yourself with.
Terms and Definitions: Explains some of the key terms we bandy about, such as grade, acclimation, etc. A useful glossary, especially for technical terms we use in very specific ways.
Definition of Powers: What is a structural? Where do I slot a character who can make waves? What’s the difference between a kinetic and an elemental kinetic? Part of the textbook, this page should be open constantly if you are working up a new powered character.
Rules Regarding Writing: The Ten Rules to live by in the PG Universe.
The Meta Tag
THE RULES AND WHY WE HAVE THEM
PG is not about superheroes. It isn’t about flying around in a cape and having wild, earth-shattering adventures. It is about the ordinary, small, everyday lives of people who have unusual abilities. In the meta, parallels have been drawn between being powered and being of colour or ethnic background, of being autistic, of being gay.
PG is about people. The powers are just tools to tell these stories. If you remember that, the rules make sense. The rules aren’t there to constrain you. They’re to keep things consistent, coherent, and to provide the common ground in which to tell these overlapping stories.
If you don't like any of the rules, then feel free to take an idea or two from us, but please play in your own sandbox. The internet is big enough for multiple variations on this theme. If you do use any of our ideas, please provide a link back to the community.
Have we still not answered your question? Please hit the call button and one of our moderators will be with you shortly!
Therefore, to make everyone’s life easier, we’ve collated everything you need to know about the Power Generation in nifty little one post! If you're new to the community, we urge you to read this post. It will make everything so much clearer!
FAQ
1. What is Power Generation? Where did it come from?
Power Generation (PG) is a fan-constructed universe that began life in the ‘Everyday Superheroes’ challenge, which asked writers to give characters in other fandoms superpowers. We took the idea and ran with it…and ran with it…and ran with it… PG now spans over a dozen fandoms and keeps growing.
2. So what’s the basic idea?
The basic idea is that a small but significant proportion of the world’s population exhibit special but classifiable abilities. See the TIMELINE for the history we’ve created which explains how these classes were developed, the TEXTBOOK for the various classifications and grades, and THE RULES which explain what is and isn’t possible in this world.
3. What fandoms can I bring in? What characters can I ‘power up’?
The fandoms are all ‘reality-based’ fandoms: that is, no aliens, ghosts, demons. (We do have an AU tag if you really really want to play with Buffy or Supernatural or Threshold or Torchwood in a PG setting, but such stories are not considered part of the communal canon). However, this still leaves a wealth of fandoms and characters to play with - as diverse as CSI, Jeeves and Wooster, High Fidelity, Empire Records, and House MD.
As for ‘powering’ a character, all we ask is that you have a reason for giving that character this power - not just ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’ but ‘hey, Horatio Caine always wears sunglasses, maybe he’s got something different going on with his eyes…’ See META for more on how to work this out.
4. Is anything off limits?
No aliens, vampires, demons or ghosts, as already stated. Your powered characters must fit within the classification system already in place (see THE TEXTBOOK and THE RULES for further details). So you can’t have a character with a grade of six, for example. Also, your character can only have multiple powers if they are congruent - for example, Gil Grissom (CSI) has empathy and psychometry. These are considered congruent - telepathy and telekinesis, to take another example, are not. When in doubt, ask your friendly mod! Finally, there are windows of opportunity for different types of powers. Structurals are born that way, and at puberty some kinds of structurals experience a second set of changes linked to their structural abilities (for example, check out the entry for Dew Claws in THE TEXTBOOK). Starters (the other four power classes) can only start in the age range 20-27. Once their power starts, it plateau’s relatively quickly and settles into their final grade. THE RULES has all the limits and boundaries on who, what, when, and how powers work.
We have these for a number of reasons, but the main one is: THIS IS NOT A SUPERHERO universe. There are no capes, no saving the world from supervillains. These are ordinary people who can do weird things. When in doubt, remember the semi-official motto of PG: "Having powers is a pain in the ass."
5. Are there mods? What is a ‘communal canon’?
Yes, there are mods, and no, they don’t bite! hannahrorlove, lasergirl69 and akire_yta run the community, but mainly in terms of admin and so on (such as writing info posts!) All three mods have been here pretty much from the beginning and are a wealth of information regarding the verse, the rules, what’s been done, and how to get involved. Feel free to contact any of them for help, or even just to say hi.
The mods administer the community, but they do not dictate terms beyond making sure everyone follows the rules. This brings us to the communal canon - every story written within PG helps to build the canon, the backstory, the ‘look and feel’ of PG. You write a story, you help build the world. Isn’t that a nifty door prize for writing? The communal atmosphere makes this different from most AUs, which lends some fun to it - and the discussion aspect makes it easy to iron out wrinkles. (Just ask us about the ongoing discussion on who to power-up in Numb3rs!)
6. I really like how someone has defined this fandom/world. Can I play with their characters?
Yes, but bear in mind when writing established characters that you should keep them well within the reality defined in the PG 'canon' for the fandom. No killing (without the original establisher's permission and/or cooperation), no 180-degree personality/characterization changes (i.e. Mac isn't suddenly going to recover from his condition and start grinning madly at everything), no changing of the rules of character's backstory. That's really the only ownership the establishing writer has, in setting up the characters and letting them go. If you think you'd like to write in an already-established fandom, it's up to you to make the authentic-sounding. And giving the original writer a little heads-up is always a nice touch, even if only so they can wait in anticipation then squeal loudly over the story!
7. Why?
Because we love the source material, and the verse we’ve created, and playing around with ideas and concepts and just playing the ‘what if’ game - the fics are awesome, but if you spend any time in the PG verse, you’ll soon discover that there is ten times as much meta as fic. We love to speculate, we love to think about and play with these characters, and it is a lot of fun.
Seriously. Very fun.
TIMELINE
PG has a pretty solid ‘history,’ interwoven with real-world events. Key dates and events have been listed in the timeline post. This post is being updated constantly, not only with historical events, but also with useful details such as who was born when, when did they start, etc.
THE PG FANDOMS (and who’s who in them!)
See The ever evolving character list. Post a comment here to have your character added to the cast roll.
Current fandoms that are being actively written in the PG-verse:
CSI: LV
CSI: Miami
CSI: New York
Domino
Empire Records
High Fidelity
House, MD
Jackass
Jeeves and Wooster
Mr and Mrs Smith
Numb3rs
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Plus assorted real-life (RPF) and original characters
There are a smattering of AU (Alternate Universe) stories featuring fandoms that do not fit the rules of the universe, but these are not considered part of the communal canon.
THE TEXTBOOK
Grissom slapped the textbook down in front of Greg and enjoyed the little nervous twitches he made as he read the marked entry. He looked up in disbelief.
"You can't be serious. How do they know this?" Greg suddenly made a face and snatched his hands away from the book. He scrubbed them roughly across the front of his lab coat. "Eew, and you had sex with someone. I don't believe it."
"Well," Grissom took the book back daintily and perched it on his knee, "Powers have been around since 1921. You are merely one man in a long history." He ruffled a finger along the pages until it fell open at 'Empathy, distal.' The page was well-thumbed. Object Lesson
The Textbook is where we keep the formal references and information about characters, powers, classes and grades. Using the textbook tag will bring up the posted textbook entries. If you make a character a power, particularly one with a power or grade that hasn’t been written about before, we encourage you to create a textbook entry. The template for the textbook can be found here. And if you’re working with existing characters, then the textbook will be an invaluable reference.
The Textbook also has meta entries (see below) that may be of interest, including timelines, grade and classification structures, and other general information. The Textbook is probably the core of the communal canon, and as such is constantly being evolved and updated.
THE META
As has already been mentioned, the meta in this place is phenomenal. It is well worth browsing through the posted meta (and the meta tag is constantly being expanded as we get around to cleaning up and posting ideas from the chat sessions) to get a feel for the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of how this verse ticks. That said, there are a few posts that you should definitely familiarize yourself with.
Terms and Definitions: Explains some of the key terms we bandy about, such as grade, acclimation, etc. A useful glossary, especially for technical terms we use in very specific ways.
Definition of Powers: What is a structural? Where do I slot a character who can make waves? What’s the difference between a kinetic and an elemental kinetic? Part of the textbook, this page should be open constantly if you are working up a new powered character.
Rules Regarding Writing: The Ten Rules to live by in the PG Universe.
The Meta Tag
THE RULES AND WHY WE HAVE THEM
PG is not about superheroes. It isn’t about flying around in a cape and having wild, earth-shattering adventures. It is about the ordinary, small, everyday lives of people who have unusual abilities. In the meta, parallels have been drawn between being powered and being of colour or ethnic background, of being autistic, of being gay.
PG is about people. The powers are just tools to tell these stories. If you remember that, the rules make sense. The rules aren’t there to constrain you. They’re to keep things consistent, coherent, and to provide the common ground in which to tell these overlapping stories.
If you don't like any of the rules, then feel free to take an idea or two from us, but please play in your own sandbox. The internet is big enough for multiple variations on this theme. If you do use any of our ideas, please provide a link back to the community.
Have we still not answered your question? Please hit the call button and one of our moderators will be with you shortly!