Powered Hero License Exams

The Powered Hero License Exams is a series of tests that metahumans must sit for to acquire their Powered Hero License which allows them to practice their powers publicly and take on missions from the UMA. The exam takes in account several attributes considered important for a Super such as leadership, teamwork, agility, judgement, communication and, most importantly, combat prowess.

Phases
The Powered Hero License Exam consists of three phases but the exam structure and evaluation processes for the first two phases differ from one exam to the next. This ensures that metahuman students cannot come prepared or cheat to win. Although the exams (specifically the final round matches) are designed to lead to an ultimate "winner", success does not guarantee promotion nor does failure preclude it; if the observing heroes and mentors feel a metahuman student displays the necessary qualities to advance through the exam phases or pass both phases entirely, that student will be promoted regardless of how they place in the exams. For this reason, it is possible for as many as all of the finalists to pass, or even for none of them to. Being victorious simply expands the participant's chances of demonstrating their qualities in the next match as well as attracting publicity and sponsors that can give them a kickstart in their future professional Hero career.

The following phases are examples of the 2018 exams that took place in July at Sinclair's Home for Extraordinary Children.

Intial Phase
The first phase of the Powered Hero License Exam is an obstacle race course in which teams of Supers must navigate and compete with other teams within a set amount of time. It is a fast-paced, elimination-focused physical exercise that test the students' strength, endurance, agility, and teamwork skills. Throughout the course, Supers will be hosed with multiple challenges and obstacles such as blowdart traps, swimming through a shark infested tank, The Jello, jumping through multi-grid laser rings, and much more. Participants are encouraged to sabotage each other during the race to eliminate competition. Elimination occurs when a participant is removed off the track by accident/force or falls unconscious (which happens often due to the intensity and randomness of the obstacle course). If at least one person in a team does the aforementioned, the entire team will be disqualified.

Second Phase
The second consists of a rescue exercise, involving professional rescuees from local metropolitan agencies, who would analyze the rescuing methods of the applicants and reduce points in case of perceived mistakes and waste of resources. They are assisted by public safety workers who monitor every participants' decisions and actions.

This phase used a point deduction system, where all the participants start with full 100 points and are required to score over 50 points until the end of the exam, which happens once every rescuee was deemed safe, in order to pass. Perceived failures and mistakes would result in points being taken away.

Midway through the exam, heroes in digsuise and several equipped workers will show up in order to simulate a villain attack, requiring the students to juggle between rescuing efforts and fighting the new threat. This phase is meant to test teamwork, application of philosophy & ethics, as well as critical thinking skills.

Preliminaries
Should there be too many students passing the Second Phase, a single round of randomly selected one-on-one matches is held where only the victor will get to advance. Participants' advancement to the finals is no longer contingent upon the success of their teammates; it is for this excuse that many participants forfeit and claim that the "system is rigged" as the matches are sometimes unbalanced and dip in favour of metahumans with more aggressive and powerful abilities. Matches are refereed by Stryker and Captain Gamma while Halcyon City citizens and tourists are free to observe. Students are encouraged to watch each others' fights carefully, picking up on their potential opponent's strength and weaknesses to help them prepare for the finals. After the preliminaries are finished, the finalists are told beforehand their opponent in the first round of the finals so they can plan accordingly.

Finals
The finals are held in the Super Stadium, a month after the completion of the preliminaries so that finalists have a chance to recuperate and prepare. Refereed by Acrobat and Knight Owl, the finals consist of two rounds of one-on-one matches and the final round is a three-way match between the remaining finalists. The break between the preliminaries and finals allows news of the matchups to spread thus attracting greater publicity for the event as well as sponsors for potential Supers in the making. At the same time, criminals posing as mundane observers use this as a golden opportunity for gambling and recruitment. Gambling observers who placed a wager will cause the opposing participant to be sabotaged discreetly for the observer's benefit. Due to the infamous "rigged" status of the Exams, some students are also easily swayed by the promises of nefarious individuals and often get recruited into villainous organisations during finals.

Note: Although only one can be crowned the victor in the final match, it does not necessarily mean the losing participants of the matches are blocked from acquiring their Powered Hero License. The final phase is simply a model to assess the talents of young metahumans, particularly by UMA officials and A.E.G.I.S. recruiters, rather than weeding out the entire pool of participants. Therefore, participants can still be promoted outside of the exams through other ways, such as recommendation of mentors or pulling off a heroic feat. The exams is more for publicity, fostering relationships with metahuman agencies from different parts of the world (who send their brightest to compete in the tournament as per tradition), and to essentially show off the best of the next generation.

Exam Retaking
Those that passed the first phase, but failed the second phase were given the choice of retaking the exam after a period of 3 months, during which they have to attend a special extra course provided by the UMA.