Keeper of the Lost Cities Thoughts

Thoughts About Abilities: Part 5

Technopath:

This seems like a great ability. Its main limitation is you need supplies to make things with, and the time to make them. That's a pretty serious limitation, but, if you have time to prepare, you can make gadgets that do all sorts of things.

In fact it seems like technopathy gadgets can imitate many of the other abilities, particularly the physical ones. You could make a gadget that generated electricity like a Charger, cold like a Froster, or a gadget like an Obscurer that can bend light and turn you invisible like a Vanisher.

Another thing that makes it powerful is that you only have to prepare beforehand. If a Technopath has some neat gadgets on hand, all they have to do is activate them, no concentration, finger-snapping, or trust exercises required, unless activating the gadget requires that for some reason. But it wouldn't need to.

However, I suspect that Technopaths aren't given as much respect as, say, a Telepath or a Guster, because it's a more practical, less "magical" ability. (Yes, I know that Fitz said, "Magic is a stupid idea humans came up with to explain things they didn't understand," but it's the quickest way to say what I mean.) Requiring material supplies also distinguishes technopathy from abilities like pyrokinesis (they require heat to use their ability, but heat is pretty much everywhere) and Mesmer. This could also explain why Dex was so disappointed to manifest as a Technopath.

However, in many ways, Technopath is a more useful, versatile ability than most of the others. You can do all sorts of things with it, and it is probably one of the main reasons the Lost Cities are what they are today.

Telepath:

Before we get started, go find the bright blue slice on the left of the graph. You know which one I mean: that big one labelled Telepath. Fitz says telepathy is one of the rarer abilities, so why do more characters have it than any other ability?

Now that I've got that typed out, let's look at all of the powers Telepaths have. Transmitting, reading minds, erasing memories, making false memories, probing minds, breaking minds, projecting images, Cognates, (That counts as a power, right?), and that's just the ones I could remember. A lot of these are variants of the same thing, but it's still a lot. I for one don't completely understand how reading minds gives you the ability to be a sentient camera.

Though telepathy has some huge downsides (unless you're Sophie, of course). Tiergan was amazed when Sophie transmitted to him from across the school campus, so an average Telepath's transmitting wouldn't be very effective in most circumstances. And reading people's minds is pretty weak without physical contact. It takes a lot of skill to search through someone's memories, not just their current thoughts, at a distance.

A useful ability, though others seem more interesting and even more practical.

Teleporter:

You know the list of abilities in Unlocked, and how it says "Known such-and-suches" with each ability (Known Telepaths, known Gusters, etc). Well, in my copy of Unlocked, it says "Known Telepaths" instead of "Known Teleporters." :(

At first, this seems super useful, though there are two big downsides. One, Sophie has to jump off a cliff/run really fast to activate her ability. (I suspect it's the movement that triggers teleporting. Conjurers activate their ability by snapping their fingers, so it seems reasonable that a more extreme motion would trigger teleportation. This also implies that Conjurers don't have to snap their fingers, which is good for me because I can't snap my fingers.)

Two, Sophie can't teleport through solid ground. Or...did she do that after the battle at Loamnore? I can't remember for sure and I'm too lazy to check, but I vaguely remember that something like that happened. Pretty big limitation. (Though I'm not quite sure why the void cares about solid ground.)

The main thing that makes teleportation better than light leaping is that she doesn't need a crystal. All Sophie needs is to be able to picture somewhere in her head (that photographic memory probably helps) and she can go there. No need to rely on crystals that must be carried around and might be stolen.

A vague idea I have is that Conjurers can only transport nonliving things. If they could transport living things, it would make them like an extra powerful Teleporter, especially since I suspect Conjurers can conjure things through solid ground. This gives Teleporters and only Teleporters the ability to transport living creatures with their ability.

In most circumstances, however, light leaping works just fine.

Vanisher:

Being able to turn invisible sounds like a really cool power. Honestly, this might be one of the most straightforward powers with the fewest downsides.

Yes, you blink in and out of view when you walk, making it impossible to hide your ability (though maybe some Vanishers can, we don't know for sure), but that blinking has got to make it more difficult for people to attack you, and someone knowing you're a Vanisher won't cause as many problems for you than if someone, say, knows you're a Pyrokinetic.

Vanisher doesn't seem to have much of a physical downside, besides making it difficult to turn invisible and uninvisible when you're still learning. It seems to be one of the easier abilities to master, as well. If it gives you headaches or makes you sick or something like that, we don't know anything about that.

There is some weirdness about Shades being so similar to Vanishers, but here's an easy solution: a Shade's shadow-cloaking is only really effective when it's dark/there are shadows and takes more time to pull together, but Vanishers can vanish anytime, anywhere. This isn't said in the books, but I think it makes sense.

Not the most powerful ability, but seems useful, easy enough to use, and also fun.

Vociferators:

We don't know much about this ability except Vociferators can scream really loud, which seems like something that any elf can do (especially Lex, Bex, and Rex). Since there's a Councilor who's a Vociferator, it seems reasonable to assume they can do more than scream, but we have no idea what else they can do?

We don't even know if Vociferator is a rare or common ability. I think it would work in either category, depending on how powerful it is.

Will Vociferators become really important because Keefe also has a voice-related ability, or will this remain a vague ability we know nothing about?

Keefe's Abilities:

I'm not going to discuss Keefe's weird abilities here, because I don't want to right now, and, if I decide to talk about them, they deserve their own chapter. Maybe you'll see that show up eventually.

And those are all my thoughts on all the abilities, some a lot more relevant than others. Thanks for taking the time to read this.