I'm writing a story about superpowered people, and I'm stuck as to how I can insert the back story of how the powers came to be and the government regulations around them organically, but they definitely need to be in the story for the world to make sense. Any tips or ideas?
Could you do a flashback? Or maybe a history class? Or if there's some sort of ceremony you could have someone talk about the history as part of the ceremony.
In my story, the main character is an alien and doesn't know how he got his powers but the villain is from his home planet and shows up and explains it all to him.
Yes maybe some history lesson rather than a flashback (that is my personal preference)
If you take that idea you could do something along the lines of not directly explaining the government’s system but people who disobeyed the law and getting punished. Like cases of people doing various illegal things, this could possibly raise some stakes as well for your characters using their powers in dangerous areas.
But just out of curiosity, how exactly does the government work? Is it kinda like My Hero Academia or something different?
Basically, the superpowers originated as these really expensive, non-fda-approved, designer steroids that increased intelligence and strength. People didn't realize at first that it permanently altered people's DNA with repeated use until people started having superpowered kids. A couple of generations later, the superpowered population has grown a lot and to shrink it down (because supers cause problems normal people can't always solve) the government registers supers in a database and arrests them for using their powers.
Yeah then you should probably do more of the history lesson route, obviously if it works for the story and plot.
Or if your MC is a superhero, you could have them or their parents complain about it.
Or even be generally concerned about the use of their abilities and tell them about others who have been punished.
OOOOOO OR EVEN they could have had a family member get punished so their parents could be more concerned and tell your MC not to follow into their footsteps.
Something that could be interesting and not a generic history lesson could be your character seeing someone get arrested in the streets for using their powers and someone yelling at all the passersby about why they are not allowed to be using powers. Or something on the news, if there is a broadcasting system like that of course, about someone being arrested and the newscaster talking about it.