DELAWARE VALLEY DEFENDERS - TRAINING CURRICULUM (DRAFT v1.0)
Primary Author: Jeffery Brown (Professor Franklin)
Contributors: Diane Williams, Kwame Adjei, Bianca Agnelli, April Lee
Date: July 15th, 2016
FOREWORD
We're making this up.
I want to be clear about that from the start. There's no handbook for training registered superhuman entities. The NSRA provides legal frameworks and operational guidelines, but nothing about how to actually prepare someone for this work. We've got maybe fifteen years of adult superhumans existing, and most of that time was spent figuring out basic questions like "should this be legal" and "who pays for the property damage."
So we're doing what any good scientist does when facing an unknown: observe, hypothesize, test, refine.
This document represents our current best thinking about how to train DVD members. It will be wrong in places. We'll learn by doing. But having a framework - even an imperfect one - is better than having nothing.
[Note - Diane]: This is very Jeffery. "I'm probably wrong but here's my systematic reasoning anyway." I love it.
[Note - Bianca]: Can we cut the humble academic routine and just write the damn training manual?
[Note - Jeffery]: Bianca, I'm leaving both of those notes in to prove my point about how we're figuring this out together.
SECTION 1: PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION
Before we discuss what to train, we need to establish why we train it.
The DVD operates under a central principle: Overwhelming power creates overwhelming responsibility for mercy.
When you can throw a car, you have a responsibility not to. When you can fry someone with lightning, you have a responsibility to choose not to. When you're functionally invulnerable, you have a responsibility to protect people who aren't.
This isn't naive pacifism. We will fight. We will use force. But force is always the last option, applied with the minimum necessary intensity, and followed by genuine effort at rehabilitation.
Why mercy? Three reasons:
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Practical: Dead villains don't reform. Brutalized villains don't cooperate. If we want to actually reduce crime long-term, we need to help people exit the criminal path, not just remove them from it temporarily.
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Moral: We volunteered for this work. The people we fight usually didn't volunteer to be in situations that led to crime. That asymmetry matters.
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Political: We're federal employees now. We represent the government. Every action we take is political whether we want it to be or not. Mercy builds public trust. Brutality destroys it.
[Note - Diane]: You forgot the fourth reason: because we're not executioners. We're not judges. We're first responders with unusual capabilities. Our job is to stop immediate harm and hand people to the justice system. Everything else is overreach.
[Note - Jeffery]: Adding that to v2.0. You're right.
This principle shapes everything that follows. If we're committed to mercy, we need training that gives us a safety margin - enough skill that we can afford to pull our punches, enough conditioning that we can sustain without desperate measures, enough judgment to recognize when force is necessary versus when it's just efficient.
SECTION 2: PHYSICAL FOUNDATION
2.1 - Mobility Over Combat
Here's what surprised me after twelve years of vigilante work: I spend maybe 5% of my time actually fighting people. The other 95% is getting to places, navigating obstacles, carrying injured civilians, and waiting in uncomfortable positions.
Most superhero work isn't combat. It's:
- Search and rescue (finding people in collapsed buildings, flooded areas, during fires)
- Disaster response (clearing rubble, establishing safety perimeters, evacuation)
- De-escalation (talking people down, negotiating with hostage-takers)
- Investigation (gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses)
- Community presence (being visible, building trust, preventing crime through presence)
Combat happens when everything else fails.
Therefore, our training priority is: mobility first, combat second.
[Note - Bianca]: Firefighters don't train primarily to fight fires - we train to get into burning buildings, carry unconscious people, and get out without dying. The fire response is maybe 20% of the training. Most of it is "how to navigate dangerous environments without killing yourself."
[Note - April]: Same with military flight training. You spend way more time learning how NOT to crash than you do learning how to shoot. Stay alive first, complete mission second.
2.2 - Core Physical Requirements
All DVD members must maintain:
Cardiovascular Endurance: 30+ minutes continuous urban movement without significant fatigue. This isn't jogging - this is navigation, climbing, jumping, carrying weight. If you can't move for thirty minutes straight, you can't do this job.
[Note - Bianca]: Firefighter academy standard is 45 minutes in full gear. I recommend we use that as our benchmark. Better to overtrain.
[Note to self: look up "traceur"?]
Functional Strength: Ability to carry an adult human (120+ lbs) for 100+ yards. Ability to lift/move obstacles (car doors, fallen beams, etc.). Ability to maintain physical control in close quarters without relying on powers.
[Note - Kwame]: Construction teaches you this is about leverage, not pure strength. I can show people how to move things that weigh more than they do. It is technique, not muscle.
Flexibility and Body Awareness: Full range of motion in all joints. Ability to fall safely, roll, absorb impacts. Spatial awareness sufficient to navigate obstacles at speed.
[Note - Diane]: Add: ability to fit through tight spaces, contort when necessary, maintain balance on unstable surfaces. Real detective work involves crawling through places you're not supposed to be.
2.3 - Training Methodology
We train these attributes through:
- Tumbling fundamentals: Running, jumping, climbing, vaulting. Not fancy tricks - practical urban navigation.
- Gymnastics basics: Rolling, falling, spatial awareness.
- Load-bearing movement: Carrying weights (sandbags, training dummies, eventually partners) over obstacle courses.
- Sustained drills: Long-duration, low-intensity work that builds genuine endurance, not just sprint capacity.
[Note - Bianca]: I can lead most of this. Firefighter academy covered all of it. I've also got access to our old training facility in Aramingo if we need space.
[Note - Jeffery]: That would be incredible. Thank you.
SECTION 3: COMBAT FUNDAMENTALS
3.1 - The Problem
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I don't know how to teach fighting.
I've been in hundreds of fights. I win most of them. But that's because I have electricity powers, a physics PhD, and twelve years of trial-and-error experience. None of that is systematizable in a way that helps someone else.
When I fight, I'm using physics intuition (trajectory, momentum, conductivity) and improvisation built on thousands of specific experiences. I can't teach "be me." That's not pedagogy, that's apprenticeship. And apprenticeship doesn't scale.
We need someone who understands fighting as a teachable system.
[Note - Diane]: I learned fighting the same way you did - getting my ass kicked until I stopped getting my ass kicked. It worked, but it took years and I've got permanent injuries from the learning process. We need better.
3.2 - Proposed Solution
[Note to self: Reach out to Elijah Brooks - boxing coach at Knockout Gym on Kensington Ave. Powers: self-duplication with shared consciousness. Recommended by Marcus from the Westside Gym. Reportedly excellent teacher, systematic methodology, experience with powered individuals.]
We need a specialist who can develop our combat curriculum. Requirements:
- Teaching experience: Not just "can fight" but "can teach others to fight"
- Systematic methodology: Progression from fundamentals, not just "here's what worked for me"
- Power-aware: Understands how to adapt techniques for different capabilities
Once recruited, combat specialist will develop detailed curriculum. Until then, holding pattern: I teach what I can (defensive positioning, threat assessment), Diane teaches what she can (grappling basics, ground control), but we acknowledge this is incomplete.
3.3 - Combat Philosophy (Preliminary)
When we do train combat, it must align with our mercy principle. This means:
- Control over devastation: Techniques that let us stop someone without permanently damaging them
- Defensive competence: Don't lose > decisively win
- Graduated force: Multiple options between "talk" and "maximum violence"
- Conditioning for restraint: Fight training that doesn't condition you to automatically go for the kill
[Note - Diane]: This is hard. Most combat training teaches you to end fights decisively - hit vital targets, exploit vulnerabilities, neutralize threats efficiently. We're asking people to fight suboptimally on purpose. That requires way more skill, not less.
[Note - Jeffery]: Exactly. Which is why we need someone who really understands the pedagogy. We're asking people to be better fighters than standard self-defense requires, specifically so they can afford to hold back.
SECTION 4: INVESTIGATION & INTELLIGENCE
[Note - Jeffery]: Diane wrote this section because she is good at investigation and I am not. I am good at libraries.
4.1 - What Investigation Actually Is
Investigation is 10% documentation and 90% seeing patterns others miss.
The 10% I can teach anyone:
- Evidence handling (chain of custody, photographing scenes, preserving material)
- Interview techniques (who to ask, how to ask, reading body language)
- Document analysis (financial records, correspondence, finding anomalies)
- Case management (organizing information so you can actually use it)
The 90% I can't teach, only identify:
- Recognizing when people are lying (not just "they seem nervous" but "their story has structural contradictions")
- Seeing connections between seemingly unrelated events
- Knowing which leads matter and which are dead ends
- Persistence in the face of zero progress
[Note - Jeffery]: Diane, this is what I was talking about. You're describing cognitive traits, not learnable skills.
[Note - Diane]: I know! That's my point! You can't train someone to be a detective any more than you can train someone to be a poet. Either they have the brain for it or they don't. What we CAN do is train everyone in the documentation/process stuff, and then I personally mentor anyone who shows aptitude for the pattern recognition stuff.
4.2 - Training Methodology
Everyone learns:
- Basic evidence collection
- Interview fundamentals
- How to document findings
- When to escalate to specialists (us, police, FBI)
People who show investigation aptitude get:
- Shadowing on real cases
- One-on-one mentorship with me
- Access to my case files for pattern study
- Gradually increasing independence
[Note - Jeffery]: This makes investigation the least systematized part of our curriculum. I'm uncomfortable with that, but I don't see an alternative.
[Note - Diane]: Get comfortable with it. Investigation requires a specific personality type: suspicious, persistent, comfortable with ambiguity, and weirdly obsessive about details. You can't train that. You can only find people who already have it and teach them the mechanics.
SECTION 5: SPECIALIZED POWER INTEGRATION
This is where we acknowledge: everyone's different.
There's no universal curriculum for "how to use your power in the field" because powers are wildly variable. My electricity manipulation requires completely different tactical thinking than Kwame's stone-layering or Bianca's gadget abilities.
5.1 - Individualized Training Plans
Each member works with the team to develop personal power doctrine:
- What are your capabilities? (range, intensity, limitations, cost)
- What are your vulnerabilities? (what hurts you that doesn't hurt others?)
- How does your power synergize with DVD fundamentals? (mobility, combat, investigation, rescue)
- What safety protocols do you need? (for yourself, for teammates, for civilians)
[Note - Kwame]: For example: my stone-layering makes me good at protecting others (stone barriers), rescuing people (stone stretchers that I can carry), and controlling crowds (stone walls to create paths). But it is useless for investigation and limited for actual fighting unless I am creative.
[Note - Bianca]: There's no way to train people to make doohickeys except to tell them to go to engineering school. And I didn't even go to engineering school. :(
5.2 - Cross-Training for Team Cohesion
While individual power training is private/customized, team training is mandatory:
- Everyone needs to understand everyone else's capabilities (for coordination)
- Everyone practices scenarios together (rescue operations, disaster response, combat against multiple threats)
- Everyone learns to cover others' weaknesses
[Note - April]: Military calls this "combined arms" training. You're not training individuals, you're training a unit. Each person's role makes sense in context of what others do. I'll get you some training manuals.
SECTION 6: PSYCHOLOGICAL PREPARATION
[Note - Jeffery]: I started going to therapy in 2014. It helped enormously. I think we should normalize it.
6.1 - The Costs of This Work
Superhero work is traumatic. Not maybe, not sometimes - always. You will:
- See people die that you couldn't save
- Make decisions where every option is bad
- Use violence against people who might not have chosen to be there
- Fail repeatedly despite your best efforts
- Watch villains you helped rehabilitate return to crime
This job will hurt you. The question is whether it breaks you.
6.2 - Mandatory Psychological Support
All DVD members have access to therapists who specialize in superhuman trauma. This isn't optional or shameful - it's maintenance, like physical training.
Therapy helps with:
- Processing traumatic events before they compound
- Maintaining ethical clarity under stress
- Building resilience for sustained work
- Recognizing when you need to step back
[Note - Diane]: I've been in therapy since 2005. It's the only reason I'm still doing this. The people who think they're "too tough" for therapy are the ones who burn out or break bad.
6.3 - Peer Support Systems
Beyond professional therapy, we need to be there for each other:
- Regular team check-ins (not just mission debriefs, actual "how are you doing" conversations)
- Senior members watch for signs of burnout in junior members
- No heroic suffering in silence - if you're struggling, you tell someone
[Note - Kwame]: In America, I have noticed that when people suffer, they suffer alone. I do not think this is a very good thing, and we should work to change it.
[Note - April]: In the Air Force we didn't let people who are clearly having problems fly a jet fighter, and we should hold ourselves to better standards than the military, not worse ones.
SECTION 7: COMMUNITY INTEGRATION
7.1 - We Work For Philadelphia, Not Above It
The DVD is a Philadelphia institution. We're registered federal employees, but our legitimacy comes from community trust, not government authority.
This means:
- Regular community outreach (not just showing up when there's danger)
- Transparency about what we do (within operational security limits)
- Listening to community concerns (they know their neighborhoods better than we do)
- Accountability when we mess up (apologize, make amends, learn)
[Note - Diane]: Add: supporting community initiatives that reduce crime without our involvement. The goal is to make ourselves unnecessary, not indispensable.
7.2 - Rehabilitation Focus
When we catch someone, our responsibility doesn't end:
- Check in on them post-arrest (help with legal process if needed)
- Support reintegration programs (job training, education, housing)
- Give second chances (and third, and fourth)
- Recognize that most villains are products of systems we didn't fix
[Note - Jeffery]: This is controversial. Some heroes think our job ends at arrest. I disagree. If we're not helping people exit criminal paths, we're just playing whack-a-mole forever.
CONCLUSION
This document is incomplete and probably wrong in places we haven't discovered yet. We'll learn by doing.
What I'm confident about:
- Mobility matters more than combat
- Mercy requires skill, not just ideology
- Investigation can't be fully systematized
- Individual power development needs customization
- Psychological support is mandatory, not optional
- Community trust is earned, not assumed
What I'm uncertain about:
- Our combat training (need specialist trainer)
- How to scale investigation mentorship (bottlenecked on Diane)
- Whether our mercy principle holds under real pressure
- If we're preparing people adequately for the psychological costs
We'll revisit this quarterly. Every member should feel empowered to suggest changes based on field experience.
We're building something new here. Let's build it thoughtfully.
-Jeffery Brown (Professor Franklin)
July 15th, 2016