Though they had not been recognized as such, superhumans have been around for just as long as humans. No one is quite sure where they came from or why humans didn't have powers like that, but the current theory is that the original genetics that separates the supers from the normals was from an alien source. There is no proof of this belief, but it is the best explaination they could come up with to explain it, as it seemed somewhat consistent with the records of the gods, even if they were not known as reputable history sources. Even if it is just a theory, this is treated as fact.

During ancient times the gods reigned with threat of violence, promises of blessings, and, eventually, by shrouding themselves in mystery and giving the humans only what information they wanted them to know.

The god were far from immortal, however. In fact, the average super's lifespan is typically much shorter than that of a human and was likely even shorter back then. According to some experts, the average lifespan of these gods were about 30 years. To make it look to the humans that they were more powerful than they actually were, they used the names of the first ones as titles, like our titles of king, queen, or president, and put on the facade to the humans as if the original had never died. (Eg: Zeus, Ceres, Loki). For instance, the Greeks and Roman gods had a system--when a god died that was a Greek, the next one to take their place would be a Roman, and would go by the Roman name, and vice versa. An example would be Zeus to Jupiter back to Zeus. Because the humans never saw them but on occation, they never knew about the sham. Those groups, with different groups located around the globe, would rise to power and be worshipped in their peak, but in the end greed made them turn on each other or they would die out, leading to the collapse of their group. Most groups of gods were isolated and didn't know much, if anything, of the others, despite using the same system of control and extortion.

Soon after the collapse of many of the groups of gods, the opinion of humans about powers changed drastically. Powers became associated with the occult and evil. Those with powers were undeniably evil. This expectation, mixed with the fear for their lives forced the supers into becoming just as terrible as the humans described. Depending on what the powers or appearances were of the super, they were called witches, or, in less common cases, fairies, dwarves, vampires, werewolves, or other mythological creatures.

 There were two possibilities for supers captured. Most commonly they would be tried for witchcraft and killed, but some that were more 'tame' were taken to royal and noble families as part of a collection of freaks that they would show off and trade with other royals and nobles like trading cards. An educated and civil super was considered an impossibility and was very treasured by the royalty.

For centuries, the supers lived in terror of the humans and the humans lived in terror of them. Powers were hidden no matter the cost. During this period, with the trials, the super's naturally shorter lifespan, and how isolated supers were from each other, supers almost went completely extinct. The only reason they had survived at all as a species were because of families who would only marry their children off to people with powers too. Even to this day, some of those families still exist, even if it is just to uphold their family legacy. These families' careful record keeping forms a large amount of the historical record of pre-IBSA supers that is used today.

When the New World was discovered, supers flocked there to escape persecution and find a place for themselves. They had every intention of making that a land of superhumans, completely separated from human influence. Their plans never succeeded. It seemed that the absence of powers made humans more stubborn and driven. The fact that the humans had numbers on their side didn't help the supers. Lack of courage in taking a stand against the humans, power instability, lack of unity, few numbers, and fear of themselves were hurdles they never overcame. Though, to be fair, many supers were so isolated they thought they were the only ones. Even without powers, the humans somehow survived and conquered the land and continued their fight against the supers. That isn't to say the supers never fought back. Typically their attacks were done on an individual basis and were covered up on their own, either leaving the case unsolved or assuming the witnesses were insane. If there are any disasters, big or small, with seemingly no known cause, it may have been caused by supers. 

At the time of the American Civil War, the supers had finally had enough. In secret they had a meeting with all of the supers they could find with the help of one who could sense the superhuman gene. Together, they formed an alliance--they would look out for each other and strive to make the world a less hostile place for future superhumans like them...Even if that meant turning it into a much more hostile place for humans. They would find a way to take over again. It was only a matter of time. Violent takeover while the country was torn, both during and after the war, were discussed and even attempted by smaller, more impatient groups. Before action could be taken, the minority who wanted to stay silent for fear of attracting other countries who would want to take over, among other disagreements, turned against their fellow supers, slaughtering over 500 of them in a surprise attack when a wood manipulator made the trees they were marching under collapse on top of them. The supers were once again scattered, their trust for each other broken so badly it would take centuries to mend.

 The days of planning a hostile takeover were over. Weapons, technology, and human numbers made taking over violently much less appealing, so they decided to take a new angle. Politics. At first, it was only individual supers without any connection to others. They were quiet, subtly trying to do things that would help their kind, though never revealing their true identities or intentions. It wasn't until the early 1900's that they would petition with those in authority, making sure to keep it secret from those who didn't absolutely have to know for the sakes of the other supers. While they wanted freedom themselves, they weren't prepared to fight a war of mass hysteria after revealing their existence to the public totally. That same distrust still plagued them as an example of what one bad super could do, and how one bad super could ruin it for all of them. They wouldn't even fully tell those they were petitioning what they were, fearing both themselves and the others. Unfortunately, soon after a superhuman tried to find a way to get rights given, that superhuman would often be removed from office, either by force, false scandal, or assassination.

Using the supers as weapons behind the scenes in warfare, the countries struggled for power and the demand for superhuman soldiers skyrocketed during WWI. This was a bad thing for the supers. Scientists of the time didn't understand where the powers came from, and didn't know how to duplicate them. That's when the testing began. The testing was cruel, and most didn't survive. This was also where power warping began, though that will be discussed more later. The supers were promised their rights in exchange. They were selling themselves into slavery, willingly or not, to get their freedom. The superhumans were still kept a secret from the public, and the government intended to keep it that way. After all, they were more useful this way. It was a time when supers seemed to only be paid in pain, loss, and empty promises. 

In response to the mistreatment, the supers once again gathered into a council, attended by supers from across the world. The result was a document that declared themselves as their own species and, as such, free of the human's authority. Though it may not have made sense to the humans, it was intended to farther drive the wedge between the supers and humans. It was not meant for the humans--it was for the morale of the supers. They were not human. They were better than that. By now, the humans using supers as soldiers knew just how dangerous they were. They had fully trained supers in every country. Once again humans knew what it was to truly fear supers. This time though, the supers didn't hide. They weaponized this fear and used it against the humans. The humans were already in a war at a scale that the world had never known. They had no choice but to accept this or face another layer of war they weren't prepared to fight.

 The superhumans formed their own government, the International Bureau of Superhuman Activity, or the IBSA, still held under the utmost secrecy. Though it held the same name, or at least a similar one, wherever it was, it was never truly unified. Each country of supers would rule on their own to fit the needs of their own people, with the occasional contact between countries. 

The humans agreed to let the supers keep their system, on the condition that superhumans keep their existence a secret, not revolt, and not take any part in human government. If they wanted to be separate, they would have to be truly separate. If knowledge of the supers ever became common knowledge, it would be the scandal of the century.

This secrecy didn't last long. The new generation of supers started wanting to be more part of society instead of walking through it like a spy. In addition, after a while, the IBSA started seeming like a liberator and more like a new master. Under the iron fist of the IBSA the supers suffered an era of oppression unlike any they had ever known. No one was ever tortured or killed, at least not that the people knew of until later, but all of the citizens were all so carefully monitored it was almost hard to breathe. Fear of themselves and humans and the unknown were used to drive the supers and break them down from people to a colony of ants. Though the humans had supposedly left the supers alone, their government still put on so many regulations, the IBSA had no choice but to conform or even exceed those regulations to ensure the safety of the supers' "freedom". The thing was, that fear did not overcome the outrage of those who had lived during more comparatively free times and led them to action.

This silent, non-violent revolt, started in the 1930's, when superhumans started introducing fictional superhuman characters to a human audience to gauge how willingly humans would accept them and normalize the idea of supers to them. They built up a glorious image of superheroes always beating the supervillains and sent this image around until it had completely saturated the human culture. Soon, without even realizing that they were helping the superhuman cause, the humans started writing their own superhero books and comics, and even superhuman books that abandoned the superhero concept completely.

It was in the sixties that the alien theory of superhuman origins came to be, and it hasn't changed much since then. This theory became so popular that 'stellas' became the code word for supers that they could say in public. Even now that term is still very common, though now usually offensive, term and is usually used as a prefix. Anything from that era with "stella" or "stellar" on it was likely a marker for a meeting place or had something to do with supers...or humans imitating it.

It wasn't until 2022 that supers revealed themselves to the humans. They waited until they calculated the superhero trend would be at its peak before sending out their own 'heroes' and 'villains.' Both were on the same side originally, only playing a role to make them fit the image they had made in the minds of the humans. Though many were concerned and there was a bit of a backlash, with both how the supers had normalized themselves to the humans before showing themselves and how they presented themselves at first while slowly opened to door to introducing more openly superhuman people. Superhuman civilians. Bad mannered and law breaking supers were instantly taken out by any means necessary to limit bad publicity, and every other super acted as nice as humanly possible to show that they weren't a threat. Even now, superhumans are still typically as nice as possible, even if it is only fake...Except the 2's. They're just jerks...

Shortly after superhumans started revealing who they were, the humans revoked the previous treaty from WWI and all its revisions, but purposefully still kept supers as a legally separate species from humans so they could have reason to instate different kinds of laws for them. They couldn't send the supers back into secrecy now, so they had to make the best of the situation. Press demonized the IBSA for the previous cruelty and it was eventually completely downsized until it became basically a voice for superhumans. It doesn't matter what it tries to do--nothing they do is taken seriously and people hate them. A rename has been considered, but never done.

Through swift motions to integrate superhumans into human society, before any real legislation about the legal differences in the two species could happen, supers swept into many careers that their powers would help them with. Within a year, the police officers, firefighters, doctors, professional athletes, actors, and construction workers were 57% superhumans, which, considering how much of a minority superhumans were, was a huge number. People panicked, but what could they do when it was uncovered that many government officials were supers themselves? The supers focused everything they had on making everyone focus on the superheroes and the sports, which, over time, became rigged for safety reasons. They kept them distracted as once again they started to take over.

By 2040, the humans fought back after genuine superhuman criminals and gangs started popping up like an epidemic. The supers no longer had anything to prove, so stopping them early hadn't been a priority any more. Accidents caused by superpowers were so often that a completely new branch of emergency responders, the SDCP, or Superhuman Damage Control and Prevention, was created. Entire cities were going bankrupt because of the damage, and insurance companies were failing. No one wanted to invest in anything because the unsurety of whether or not what they had invested in would be standing. Many businesses were destroyed and could never get on their feet again. Prices for everything started shooting up. If something wasn't done soon, the supers would topple the countries they lived in, whether that was what they had intended or not.

That was when the humans devised a plan. Supers were the ones who caused the damage, right? So, they would be the ones taxed for the damage caused by their kind. The more damage they caused, the more taxes they would get overall. Insurance companies were approved to be able to exponentially raise the costs of coverage for superhumans and, given the extreme costs of medical bills and how common it was for powers to glitch and supers to contract cancer, not having insurance was not an option. No, that didn't mean they choose to have insurance, it meant that they were forced to have it. If they didn't have any they would be rejected by almost any job, hospital, or anything else.

Due to the punishment system that was put in place, supers either started becoming more sneaky about their wrongdoings or straightened up. Crime became much more organized which, though worse in some aspects, kept the streets from being torn to pieces every day by ten different gangs. In supervillain communities, their insurance cost and criminal record became like a resume for potential customers--lower insurance cost and a clean criminal record showed just how good they were at their job.

Though this became useful to villains, it was crushing the common supers, those who were the bridge between the powerful and powerless. Working regular jobs, they could barely keep up with their bills. Just because the streets weren't being destroyed every day didn't mean that the taxes got lowered--no, the supers had to pay back what they owed for what they destroyed.

No one really cares about the low grade supers, even though they make up 87% of the superhuman population. They are just the average, and no one bothers with them, which is going to cause problems in the future.

Welcome to the future, where there are plenty of problems for everyone. Welcome to 2052.

(Please note that this is mostly American superhuman history, since it's where this takes place. Feel free to elaborate or make up something for other countries if you want. Just check with me first please.)