Solid Light

Solid Light (German: Festelicht) is a Kalharian superhero franchise created by SFLD in 2003. The franchise began as a comic book but has spawned into other media, including video games and a television series. The franchise is set in a futuristic, dystopian Kalharia, and centres on the adventures of Tobias Benz, a young petty criminal who becomes involved with a mysterious scientist who claims to have invented (or discovered) solid light, a potential source of immense physical power. Whilst the series is primarily episodic, an ongoing story arc reveals more about the characters and the setting.

Setting and backstory
The series is set in the year 2093 in the city of Markstadt, which is located somewhere on the coast of mainland Kalharia. The city, like the rest of the world, is technologically advanced, but has fallen foul of pervasive technology, high crime, indiscriminate mass consumerism and environmental damage. The city authorities and law enforcement are rampantly corrupt, and are fully under the control of private corporations. Tobias Benz is, like many young people, unemployed. In order to support himself and his housebound, agoraphobic mother, he resorts to petty crime. One night, he breaks into what he assumes to be an abandoned warehouse but is captured and drugged. When he comes round, he finds himself in the lair of a mysterious older man, who introduces himself only as Schmidt but appears to be some form of scientist. Schmidt reveals that he has CCTV footage of Tobias' attempted break in, which he threatens to release to the police. Tobias pleads with him not to do so: he is on his third strike, meaning that another felony will result in his incarceration in a private labour prison, which will result in his mother becoming destitute. Schmidt agrees to destroy the footage on one condition: that Tobias will 'help' him with one of his experiments.

Tobias reluctantly agrees. Schmidt reveals that he has discovered a hypothesised substance, solid light. He exhibits fragments of this substance, which have peculiar properties. One crystal attracts metal objects, while another crystal of a different shape repels metal. One crystal heats objects; another freezes them. Schmidt shows Tobias a cage of mice that have been injected with the substance. The mice have massively increased agility and stamina, and appear to no longer need to eat: Schmidt theorises that the solid light has given the mice the ability to photosynthesise.

Schmidt then reveals his plan: Tobias is to be the first human guinea-pig to be injected with solid light. Tobias refuses and attempts to escape, but Schmidt uses an unknown weapon to subdue him. When Tobias wakes, Schmidt informs him that he has been injected with serum.

Characters
Tobias Benz is the protagonist of the series. He started out as a petty criminal on the streets of Markstadt, but then became the first human to be injected with solid light. The composite he was injected with gives him, and negates the need for external sources of sustenance.

Schmidt is the alias of an unknown scientist, who claims to be the discoverer of the hypothesised substance solid light. He serves as a somewhat fatherly figure to Tobias, but also uses the power of solid light to control and manipulate him to serve his own ends.

Karlotta Benz is the housebound, agoraphobic mother of Tobias. Initially it is Tobias' love for her that keeps him doing Schmidt's bidding.

Objects and concepts
Solid light is the eponymous substance of the franchise. The in-universe information about the substance comes almost exclusively from Schmidt, so its veracity cannot be certain. Schmidt claims that he manufactured the substance by shining a photon beam into a cloud of super-cooled rubidium. The resulting crystalline material had different properties according to its shape. The compound that was injected into Tobias Benz allowed him to either attract or repel metal at will, gave him a limited ability to manipulate electric current, and imbued him with enhanced agility, strength and stamina. The solid light also gave Tobias the ability to regulate his body temperature. Schmidt intended his ability to only be used in extreme circumstances, but Tobias chose to keep his body temperature constantly high and wear only minimal clothing.