How can world governments regulate the use of super powered creatures?

Question

In this setting, humanity has evolved on a very different earth. Creatures roam the planet, with each species being capable of unique abilities. Powers range from breathing fire, shooting electricity, to releasing acid mist that melt skin. These creatures love to fight, and share the ability to metamorphose. As they continue to fight battles, they get stronger and change into more powerful versions of themselves, with their abilities becoming more destructive and numerous.

Many of these creatures are dangerous and hostile. Humanity has managed to survive by taming these beasts and enslaving them. Technology has developed around these creatures in order to make use of them. A self contained unit has been designed to "capture" these creatures and transport them to an alternate dimension inside the unit. It is encoded with the user's DNA and enslaves the beast to the user's will, and allowing them to be used in modern day life.

The super beasts are utilized in many ways, such as healing, free energy, war and defense, as well as other numerous applications. They are also used as pets and companions. This has led to an age of prosperity in the world. However, there is the potential for misuse.

Many foolish owners take to the streets or gather in underground clubs for "beast battles" in which two beasts are made to fight one another. The collateral damage can cost millions of dollars, with innocent civilians sometimes getting hurt or killed in the crossfire. Some nefarious owners use these pets to assassinate their enemies and commit crimes. To make matters worse, there are nation's or groups who use these beasts for grand nefarious goals.

An evil organization, dubbed "the organization of evil, routinely murders owners and steals their creatures, for the purpose of selling them to the highest bidder. They have become a terrorist superpower, supplying rogue states with powerful beasts to use as weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). As a result, the world is engulfed in many wars, and lone wolf terrorists use these beasts to further their agendas.

Based on this scenario, how can the world community control and regulate the use of these super beasts? What limits can they impose to limit opportunities for violence?

Answer 1

I'm not sure this scheme would work in practice.

Problem is these "super-beasts" (suspending belief about their existence and characteristics, of course) are used "as-if" weapons, but they seem not fully controllable. This is a military no-no for several reasons including:

• no country would really admit defeat "just" because their "champions" are defeated (the mere fact they managed to tame them is proof enough humans are more powerful than the "super-beasts").
• no country would use units it cannot control to a large extent. Such "units" can be used in special actions, but not as the only means of war.
• if the "super-beasts" are intelligent ("taming" an intelligent "beast" may prove quite difficult) you may equate their behavior to that of mercenary troops with all related problems (first of all ensure loyalty, as mercenary troops are notoriously selling themselves to highest bidder, even after begin of conflict).
• if they are not intelligent then there must be some kind of trainers controlling them on the field, while in action.
• Ensuring loyalty on battlefield is a major concern.

If you manage to completely "weaponize" the beasts (e.g.: with some kind of "remote control" capable of acting real-time on the beasts, at least acting on their punishment/reward system) then all "normal" weapon escalation mechanisms will apply, otherwise they would be used only under high control (think about Hannibal elephants or dogs used mainly at short lash).

Update:

I now realize Your question was geared about controlling usage and, possibly completely ban super-beast usage via international treaties or something such.

Details (as always) heavily depend on specific characteristics of the society You are modeling. Only a few general remarks can be made.

• The only foolproof way to be sure these beasts won't do damage anymore is completely exterminate them.
• Treaties like what we see in our world about nuclear or chemical weapons are very difficult to enforce in Your framework because:
  • the "not dangerous" beasts are very common.
  • apparently no special skill or plant is required to breed them.
  • moderately dangerous beasts can be bred from the "not dangerous" in very small and undetectable sites (practically you can do it in your basement, if you're careful).
  • military-grade beasts still do not require large, easily detectable, plants or special materials (e.g.: refined uranium) that can be traced with (relative) ease. You "just" need some place "safe" where to breed them and make them fight to "evolve" while keeping them out of (satellite) sight.
• Situation would be more similar to trying to control drugs than nuclear warheads.
• You may have governments to agree to keep the "beast-proliferation" in check, but you will have problems from a lot of "independents", not only "rogue States". Your master problem will be super-beast-powered terrorism.
• Most likely "good" Governments will keep some beasts ready to quench terrorists, but logistics would be a nightmare. Best way to avoid collateral damage would be to insert some device to "deactivate" the police-beasts as soon as their job is over.
• Lots depends on specifics on how you plan to control the beasts.
• Active (fighting) military-grade beasts would generate enough energy to be easily detectable with proper sensors, possibly with special-purpose satellites, but shielding while training is always possible (e.g.: some large cave like Carlsbad)

Bottom line: if You really need these "Pokemon-on-steroids" you'll get a terrorism problem, more likely than a gull-blown World-War. Further hints need details on specifics of Your world.

Answer 2

Perhaps in the same way our world attempts to control the spread of nuclear weapons. Once major powers have achieved the ability to reach mutually assured destruction, the animals become too dangerous to deploy. It sounds like their use has already become too costly. This forces the major powers to negotiate with each other, establishing lines of communication and mutual codes of conduct. Meanwhile, they work together to suppress minor powers and independent operators, using their combined might to prevent super-creature proliferation. Additionally, they could work together to hunt down and destroy any destructive creatures roaming about free. I'm not saying this would work, especially if your creatures are intelligent, but I could see governments trying this approach.

Answer 3

Your first problem is the use of beasts in international warfare :

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Make the use of those monsters not worth the cost

When space conquest was the main "battlefield" during the cold war the Americans developed space shuttles which are basically space rockets that you can use multiple times. It was a formidable prowess and engineering breakthrough but the program has eventually been shut down because the cost were higher than using basic rockets.

We don't know what kind of weapon your world has but if your 4.5 million dollars drone could kill as much as your 61 million dollars monster on the battlefield then no one would use them.

You can achieve that by making your governments invest massively on drone researches thus lowering the cost. (Any type of weapon goes)

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Create a better weapon than the beasts

The world order follows the terror escalation. Just like the tanks were topped off by aerial warfare which was topped off by missiles and eventually nuclear warheads, you need to have a bigger threat at war than beasts. Anything goes as long as it will inflict more damage, warfare will shift away from beasts.

Pretty much the same as before but rather than efficiency you want your government to work on a weapon that would top your beasts in raw power.

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Your second problem is urban misuse of those beasts :

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Have a particular beast with highly developed senses be bred by the police

A particular type of beast would be that scavenger type with hyper developed senses (I'd recommend electromagnetic fields and blood tracking like a shark) that would be able to detect any wounded beasts in a small radius around her. The police would rely on those beasts to patrol cities and have them track those fight clubs.

The governments would have a breeding and training facility specially dedicated to this type of beasts.

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Find a way to castrate the beasts of their powers

This might not sound fun but having your cute baby burned alive by the flame-breathing pup you just bought is even less fun. Having such creatures running around freely when they can't actually be a 100% controlled is not really something the government can deal with.

You take your inspiration from Pokemon I am guessing so just picture Ash and Charizard relation but in real life. You are gonna have a shortage of teenagers before you get your 8 badges.

The governments allocate a research budget to identify, understand and block the beasts powers at birth to avoid misuses or casualties.

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Your third problem is the evil organization:

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Make the beasts easy to procure and legal

Any mafia will prosper off illegal goods for which people are willing to pay high prices to be in their possession (ex: Alcohol during the prohibition, Drugs nowadays). If you make it so anyone can get a beast at an affordable price or just find them in the wilds then evil organizations will struggle to make a living out of a beast black market.

This would not totally kill the organization for 2 reasons :

• Rare beasts will still be worth stealing and killing their owners for (ex: Paintings)
• Weapons are sold at Wallmart's in America and it doesn't stop criminals from selling non-registered guns (Non-castrated beasts)

There is no realistic way to stop criminal activities completely that I can think of but this would be a good way to slow them down.

Answer 4

Regulate them like Weapons/Vehicles/Exotic Pets

Some nations of your world are likely to impose restrictions on private ownership of beasts. They will require any person to own a beast to register the beast and obtain a license to lead it. Likely in this case the government will control the DNA enslavement procedure so it can only be obtained after proper licensing. Think European and East Asian weapon laws instead of US American.

Requirements for a license are based on the beast’s abilities and certain abilities are banned for private use, mostly the really deadly ones, especially if they don’t have a use besides fighting. Those are treated like military equipment and can’t be owned by civilians.

Beasts that are dangerous but useful, such as those that produce energy, have a license with a usage restriction. They are treated like powerful tools, professional vehicles or nuclear fuel cells, only that the owner may or may not be required to have them with them at all times, depending on how the enslavement works at distance (i.e. can you order them to stay in the facility and not break anything or do you have to be there for them to be obedient).

Breaking the law by either obtaining a beast illegally (through an underground DNA encoding unit or the Organisation of Evil) or violating a beast’s usage restriction will be punishable by law, with the severity probably depending on the outcome. Use of a beast in a crime will make the penalty worse similar to how it works with weapons (even if the weapons are legal), but the ownership in and of itself can be illegal (also as with weapons). The punishment might be more severe if the beast is tied to a special status, such as a member of the military. Obviously beast fights are highly illegal and treated as an appropriate crime (including destruction of property, assault, grievous bodily harm and/or manslaughter/murder).

Because beasts can metamorphose, each new change in abilities has to be registered with the licensing office. Maybe the beasts are forced to wear some kind of collar that has their registration data on it and also notices any transformation. Rules on what happens if a beast develops new abilities that change license requirements may vary.

Beasts that are largely harmless and serve as pets or companions are of course much easier to get a license for. The will be a beast categorization effort based on research which puts beasts into different levels of license through a standard testing procedure. Of course the police will also use beasts, likely with high capabilities for sensing and restricting criminals and their beasts.

Problems will invariably arise when beasts are misclassified (especially for new types), be it through mistake or bribery. Owners may try to obfuscate their beasts true abilities. Illegal beast trade will certainly exist, especially if nations nearby have a lax beast control law. Beast fights will have large betting pools to incentivise criminal activity, so will beast training through fights to obtain high power beasts to sell.

Of course there will be a lot of political discussion about how regulated beasts should or shouldn’t be and different countries will take different approaches, with varying levels of success.

Frankly, you can easily take gun control law and WMD law and smuggling as we have it today and apply it almost 1 to 1 to your beasts.

Answer 5

One possible solution is to control the technology that contains the beasts. Since the container is keyed to the owner's DNA, it provides a way to limit, or at least trace, how the beast is used. Add a transmitter and a verification system to the container, so that the user has to state a reason for releasing the beast (something like a flight plan for an aircraft).

Or add a cross-check mechanism so that the container can only be opened inside certain facilities, where there are barriers to keep the beasts in check. Somewhere inside the facility is a device, like the chip in a credit card, so that both must be present for the system to work. The cross-check operates on a specific radio frequency, so unauthorized use can be quickly detected.

The other side of the coin is the beast's DNA. Whatever triggers a beast's metamorphosis to a stronger form, it must be inhibited until the owner has the training and license to control that new form. If the owner can't or won't follow the regulations, the upgrade doesn't happen. Put off too long, the upgrade may produce feedback in the beast's metabolism and destroy it, which is exactly the result you want for an unlicensed engine of destruction.

Answer 6

Organize the fights as sporting events, regulate those.

You can't really control illegal boxing matches, car races, or super giant robot fights when we get those. Realizing that people are gonna do the deed anyway, the powers that be can legalize softer, safer versions of the crime.

Also - let kids travel the countryside with their pokem.. monsters and expect them to be responsible for people's safety (Ash's mom always asked if he changes underwear while traveling, but neglected to ask if he's healthy, safe, has enough to eat, controls his destructive-power-wielding-giant-beasts, or how many people died in last episode's mega explosion)

Last but not least - Authorize said loose band of kids as keepers of the world's safety in the event that a super monster from the other dimension starts wrecking the planet, and you're all set.

Answer 7

If that world would base on values current average humanity than control over most powerful super-pokemons would be heavily restricted and limited mostly only to force structures like police, army and elite who are currently in power. Naturally there would always be renegades in the form of mafia, terrorists and guerilla forces who would just assume their own right on those means of power. The general public will be only allowed limited access to less-powerful versions of super-beasts which can create some incidents but no total chaos.

In an imaginary world with higher than current humanity's ethical standards, abuse of supermonsters would be considered immoral and anyone doing that would effectively set himself outside the limits of society and be thrown out of the community. That would naturally assume highly ethical elite ( like priesthood ) guiding world through tolerance and understanding instead of force. It most likely requires totally free uncontrolled exchange of information between members of society - presumably in form of telepathy or similar technical solution.

Answer 8

The solution ? Charge the use of monster's hospital

Economically, this solution will in the medium/long term cause every battle to stop. Since the whole productivity is ensured by those monsters, humans have a very limited income : they are mainly staying in their house or hanging around with no aim. The only ways to earn money are finding some weird stuff while walking on dangerous roads, or to steal it to another people, under the treat of your alive monsters, which just defeated their. But the loser, who really wanted to buy his plush representing this cute yellow electrical mouse monster at the store, directly goes to the monster's hospital in order to heal his creatures, and starts new fight in order to get his money back.

That happens because hospital is free. Charge it, and the loser won't be able to fight again. The natural healing powers of the creatures are indeed limited : no way for them to get a monster out of K.O. Only human chargeable technologies can afford this. No way to enslave new creatures too, since the DNA capture system is also costly.

The population will divide in two categories : First, an immense majority of people out of the game : no way for them to get new monster ready to fight. Second, a small number of powerful people with a lot of money, who can be ill-intentioned. You want to eradicate those too.

Difficult task ? Yes and no : remember you are the government, so you technically have the complete control on money policies. But maybe not the practical skills to raise those monster efficient enough to defeat the powerful creatures of the other side.

My advice : find loyal, talented trainers in your midst (let's say 4 of them, plus eventually a grandmaster) and give them unlimited credits to travel in the whole world to find and train the most powerful monsters. As soon as they got them, send them defeating the other remaining trainers, again and again, until they run out of money.

Bonus : occasionally, to be sure that your elite trainers are still the best you can find, apply the "helicopter money" technique. Every two years, give everyone a small amount of money (let's say, 3000 MonsterDollars) and eventually a Pokemon, if the human doesn't have one, and see what happens : if, after a while, a trainer appears at the Elite Trainers official headquarter, and defeat them all in a raw (plus the grandmaster), recruit him.

(PS : not against an edit, to correct grammar faults, English isn't my mother language x) !)

Answer 9

The OP asks:

Based on this scenario, how can the world community control and regulate the use of these super beasts? What limits can they impose to limit opportunities for violence?

I see this as just allegory for the modern world and criminal or terrorist organizations today. The Russian Mafia runs Russia, and roughshod over the world. Before them, Nazis, before them, England was the world power. An endless string of psychopathic Kings, Emperors, and Dictators stretches back to Genghis, and before him, the Roman emperors, and before them perhaps the Egyptian Emperors.

The question is always the same; how do the oppressed and victimized overcome the smart and powerful psychopaths that seek wealth and power at any cost in human life? What would motivate insurgents to even try?

It doesn't really make a difference what level of technology or magic is involved; somehow the insurgents must match the advantages or neutralize them. Usually this involves violence and sacrifice; many of the oppressed willingly risk their lives in order to kill their oppressor, and many die in the process. Many times their efforts are for naught; the oppressor prevails.

In the OPs scenario, the only answer I see is the world community has the biggest gun: They have the most powerful beasts at their disposal; acquired through their own training and battles to increase power, or confiscated by force and brutality from illegal owners/users, even if they had to kill the original owners. They have the strongest magic for binding the beasts, and ways to break the bond between the original owner and their beast: Including killing the original owner if they cannot break the bond in any other way, and killing the beast if that doesn't work.

Enforce the law ruthlessly. If the beasts are controlled, then like police dogs (and their near magical sensory abilities IRL) with their human handlers, have these beasts patrol any areas of law breaking, sniff out other beasts and confiscate them. You have magic, certainly you can find magical ways to find magic or know it has been used, and by what, and where it went. If your magic is not good enough for that, train a good bloodhound; their tracking ability on the scantest of trails (like footsteps, in shoes, on concrete) is truly astonishing and baffling.

When violent people will only be constrained by physical force and violence against them; your "world community" must come together to be stronger than any other individualized force on the planet. Build up your magic, and use it against the criminals.

You don't have to outlaw the use of the creatures, just like you don't have to outlaw the use of guns or drugs. Just make sure that when somebody uses a creature for an outlawed purpose (like murder, robbery, enslavement, etc) those people end up losing everything in quick order, including their lives, no matter what the cost to the world community: Do not let crime succeed.

Whenever and wherever crime pays off, psychopaths will rise to the top of a criminal enterprise and eventually rule the countries that are the least vigilant in putting them down, for whatever reason. Psychopathy (no conscience, empathy or sympathy and willing to do literally anything to win) combined with intelligence (as it often is) is an advantage in large organizations.

That is where the rogue states come from, the Gadaffi's and Hussein's and many other brutal dictators IRL. The only thing that defeats them is overwhelming force, or the convincing threat of it. (Do not presume they are stupid, if they are convinced by historical precedent that you can and will hunt them down and kill them for using magical beasts, then they will attain their goals by non-magical means, like guns.)

Answer 10

Because the nature of these beasts is fluid and changes as the grow in strength, perhaps a liscensing system could be administered. Beasts below a certain level are relatively harmless and are mostly pets. To legally own beasts above a certain level, you must obtain a permit from a government sanctioned permitting station by achieving a successful test completion as determined by the appointed administer of the testing facility. The more powerful your creature gets, the more permits you need to control them. Permiting recoginzes your ability to handle beasts below certain levels and those who do not have such permits clearly are not experienced and their beasts are not behaved well enough to performe tasking. These permits can also regulate certain skills that could, for example, fell a tree in one swoop, or break rocks with one blow, or allow you to use your beasts as water or air based transport. You would need to demonstrate those skills can be properly managed. The government should also post a limit as to how many beasts one can carry at any given time on their person as well as allow for private storage of additional Beasts that the person may aquire. This ensures that law enforcement with trained beasts will outnumber a criminal beast owner AND that the beasts aren't neglected by horders, as such useful creatures are likely to be collected excessively. Beasts that are in danger of extiction in the wild due to popularity in captivity may even be regulated in capture and unable to be fought in wildlife preserves in it's natural habitat. Certain powerful and/or very rare beasts might even be banned from certian government and popular private sanctioned tournaments and events. Control of exrtemely powerful/popular/rare beasts may even be limited by the Government and only permitted during certain periods of time at their discretion.

These regulations will probably be enforced by a single government entity that will have a board of four to five members that are among the best beast and most knowledgable handlers in the region. They may personally approve of accomplished beast handlers who could then act as agents in working on situations involving Very Powerful/Very Rare wild beasts native to that government's region.

Obtaining beasts that are not native to the region should be made as difficult and cost prohibitive as possible. These should require complying with all laws in your country (including prohibited skills that beasts cannot know), a one time export licesnes fee for the supplier, and possible restrictions on working knowledge of the imported beast. If the market demand is particualarly strong, governments may enter into agreements where beasts may be traded at a rate of One To One, but must comply with both government restrictions in such cases. Since there are sure to be popular beasts that developed to meet certain environment niches in their nation of origin, these controls ensure that the the beasts are carefully accounted for as the animal may prove to be an invasive species that strangles the niche of of other similar creatures. This should be especially watched among rodent and insect beasts, which are prone to these behaviors.

Finally, the government can employ research firms to study these beasts and allow for some assistance by helping to fund such research firms field research teams. This will allow for such innovations as computer field guides which field researchers can use to catalog beasts in the wild and track their own collection of beasts. The governments could even provide services, such as beast health care benefits and wave service fees for participation in permitting centers (even defering permits out of order... a field researcher could obtain his level 70 permit before his level 50 for example) and some import fees and regulations. Field researchers of significant permitting could even be drafted by governments to help investigate said crime rings as they would be closely interacting with other beast handlers and have a working knowledge of the beasts favored by said such organization during the comission of their crimes.