Keeper of the Lost Cities Thoughts

Thoughts About Abilities: Part 3

Yet again that chart.

Geokinetic:

We've never met any elves that can control earth, but there are elves that can control fire, water, and wind. There's got to be earth-controlling elves somewhere. It just wouldn't make sense otherwise.

The way I see it, a Geokinetic would be able to pick up earth telekinesis-style, shape it in any way they liked, and stuff like that. Maybe a powerful Geokinetic could cause a small earthquake, but it would be really draining. Shaping earth in big ways is equally draining, but they can also shape it in smaller, more focused ways. To shape earth the most precisely, they need physical contact, but they can shape it pretty well at a distance.

We might never meet any Geokinetics, or we might find out this ability has a whole different name (I just guessed Geokinetic), but I'm still telling you my thoughts on how this works.

Hydrokinetic:

Third elemental ability in a row! Yay!

Wow, things are kind of vague about the elemental abilities. But this seems pretty cool. I've always liked the element water, though that's probably because my favorite color is blue and I, you know, need water to live. I am a human after all.

I really like the detail of how elemental abilities can be so difficult to control. It adds an appropriate disadvantage to such a powerful ability.

It seems like Hydrokinetics can control water in liquid, solid, and gaseous form, but ice is a lot harder for them to control usually. I'm not sure what to think about this. There's already an ice-controlling ability, Froster. Or can Hydrokinetics only affect ice that's already there?

Hydrokinetics are ridiculously powerful. I mean, read a few of the scenes with Linh. Her power drains her a lot, but it's also so impressive! In case you couldn't tell, I think Linh's a really cool character, though we haven't gotten to see as much of her character as I might've liked. And I have a lot more to say about that, but I'll put it somewhere else. We are discussing the ability Hydrokinetic, not Linh in particular.

It seems really fitting that hydrokinesis is as difficult to control as pyrokinesis. I mean, think about the ocean. And tsunamis. And storms. Dangerous, powerful, unpredictable. Water isn't just calm lakes and ponds (and even those aren't always calm).

Inflictor:

Gathering emotions into a tangible force you can use to incapacitate your enemies? What's not to love? I think it's a creative power. My take on it is that being inflicted on overwhelms you so much that your brain struggles to represent it and uses pain, even though you aren't being physically harmed, because it seems like positive inflicting can incapacitate people, too. It's the effect of the sheer force of so much emotion that affects you, as much as the wave of joy or fear or anger.

While we're discussing this, I don't believe that being able to inflict positive emotions is a Special Sophie Skill. I don't see why inflicting would only affect negative emotions. Empathy senses negative and positive emotions. I suspect that Bronte, being such a grump, could never gather enough positive emotional force to inflict it on someone, and therefore deemed it impossible.

And I just realized that there are some similarities between inflicting and Keefe's new mysterious ability. Inflicting affect emotions, which Keefe's ability also seems to do to a similar degree. And they both can incapacitate people, and I suspect that Keefe can do positive commands like Sophie can inflict positively.

 Warning! Weird theory ahead!

What if...Keefe's new ability isn't a combination of Polyglot and Empath (I don't see how being able to speak every language would make him able to order people around like that), but a combination of Beguiler and Inflictor? Yes, I know he manifested as a Polyglot and re-manifested as an Empath, but what if that was a side effect of triggering some other ability? What if Gisela was really fusing dormant Beguiler-Inflictor genes together to create an ability that had similar powers to beguiling, but was weaponized in a similar way to inflicting. Because it does seem like Keefe was inflicting commands on people.

Mesmer:

This ability doesn't really seem like the most useful? When would you ever need to mind control people, unless you're plotting something sneaky and underhanded? And no one would trust you.

I mean, Grady's ability has been useful, but only because he's fighting evil villains, which was not supposed to happen! In a normal life, none of that would have happened.

I don't have much else to say about mesmerizing, really. We don't know much about it, except that Grady gets really freaked out when Sophie enhances him. Any theories about what happened there?

Phaser:

My favorite ability! You can walk through walls, you can make yourself pretty much invulnerable, you can even climb sheer surfaces by making your hands just insubstantial enough to sink into the surface and get a grip. (I'm not entirely sure I explained that well enough, but it makes sense in my brain.)

Now for some weird science behind it I thought up. I remember reading somewhere that atoms are mostly empty space. Maybe Phasers are just really good at taking advantage of that empty space.

Another thing I though about: It wouldn't make sense for a Phaser to be able to turn completely incorporeal because then either they'd fall to the center of the Earth or they'd no longer be affected by gravity (probably the first one, but I wanted to through the second one out), both of which probably wouldn't be the most convenient.

I propose an alternate solution: A Phaser can go from completely not using their ability to fully using their ability. When a Phaser is not using their ability, solid objects feel normal to them, but they can activate their ability further until they treat solid objects as if they were liquid. This would mean that they wouldn't full-on fall through the object, but they'd be able to "swim" through it. Which is a weird mental picture. Density probably also plays a role. Additionally, I suspect that, with practice, a Phaser can use their ability on one part of their body but not other parts. Making their hands solid but the rest of their body not solid, for example.

I also believe that Phasers can phase through solid objects, but they're still vulnerable to energy forms such as fire, lightning, and Psionipath shields. I can't exactly explain my reasoning, but this makes sense to me.

In Part 4, I'll share my semi-coherent ramblings about Polyglot, Psionipath, Pyrokinetic, Shade, and Talentless. (Yes, I'm going to make a whole section for Talentless. They deserve some recognition.)