Nerd Pride Radio

Feel like we may have hashed this through before but I need a final answer by Sunday, for reasons. Heh, I am getting a choice. Lol

Telekinesis

Telekinesis.

Both.

How much telekinesis are we talking about? As much as we could lift physically? Or as much as we can psychically manage?

How long does our invisibility last? Does it extend to objects we are touching?

Psychically. I don't know how powerful you can be but... Enough to accomplish a lot.

Telekinesis

Telekinesis would probably be most practical and useful, but invisibility is more fantastic and amazing.

Telekinesis is essentially just moving stuff. Moving stuff can be accomplished without super powers. Invisibility let's you do the impossible

Invisibility.

Mike couldn't be more wrong (as usual).

Telekinesis is multiple powers rolled up into one. Because telekinesis isn't simply "moving things." In well over half of its most common media appearances, it involves using mental force as a physical manifestation. That means telekinetic limbs are a thing. That means you can Doc Ock your way down a damn building. Have TK wings. Have extra TK legs. Whatever. That gives you object movement, defensive barriers, enhanced melee capabilities, flight, enhanced climbing abilities, enhanced land speed, EXTRA GODDAMN LIMBS.

When you're getting one power that gives you like 13 others...everything else pales in comparison.

TK all the way.

Oh right, I completely forgot that invisibility is the ability to bend energy around yourself so perfectly as to make you undetectable in visible wavelengths while still managing to filter it through to your eyes so that you can see. That level of energy control allows you, with practice, to extend this out to not just rendering things invisible, but actually creating complex illusions and actually determining what each person in the room can see. You wanna next level that shit? It's all a matter of wavelengths. Extend that level of energy manipulation out to infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, radio, x-ray.

So what do you want? You wanna push matter around, in admittedly spectacular ways? Or would you rather be the master of the full electro-magnetic spectrum?

Oh wait... E=mc2. Are they even different?

What if we restrict telekinesis to the movement of other objects and not one's own self or any extra limbs that aren't just, like, fastened on somewhere in the usual style? Like you can still get up the side of the skyscraper, but you can't grow wings or legs 5-8 to do it, but need to float up on a garbage can or wood plank you then lift; likewise you can very effectively throw the brass knuckles or mace you're holding in your hand, but the rest of your body moves along only as a potentially ungainly side effect of being pulled that direction. Which is funny. You could ride a magic carpet.

Invisibility without a second thought.

Without going off the rails that control of a section of energy/matter bandwidth makes one master of the universe, or that one would live long enough to analyze and master it without somehow being labelled an enemy of the state, our discovery of the anomaly would likely be similar to HG Wells, or Roald Dahl (Invisible Man, Matilda).

You discover that you can, at will, bend visible light around a presently finite distance from your body, maybe at first, a micron or two, so, no clothes. Perhaps after time you get about ten centimeters, which means with practice you can make small objects, perhaps a handgun, or a pastry, appear and disappear. This presumes improvement and development and some awareness of the conscious faculty, and that you survived the experiments and accidents where you crossed the street forgetting you were invisible, or entered a space you couldn't unlock in order to escape. Maybe a bout of the flu, or a blow to the head triggers it. Regardless of your invisibility, you are still there, present, wherever you are. Sometimes reality trumps perception.

You discover that you can, at will, exert remote force on objects you are not touching, maybe at first a mosquito (presuming there's no distinction between organic and inorganic or living and non-living matter) or a shot glass. How much force, and at what range? Because this is a thought experiment, let's say it's your body weight (would You bulk up to increase the encumbrance limit?) Let's say the range is your height. You can't levitate, except naked. Objects are still subject to normal laws, which means the most you can throw something with is 200 pounds of force. Is that stage light you wish to drop on Simon Cowelll's head attached with a bolt? Will 200 pounds of force loosen it? Only if it's only six feet from me, not enough to say I wasn't there. Could you learn to shuffle a deck of cards? Certainly within parameters, but many adults can't manage it. Again, while it has defensive uses, there is still room for accident. Does it seem to me thatthere's maybe more control than invisibility, perhaps less immediate utility, unless you escalate quickly and exert 200 pounds of force on someone's heart while they're shaking hands with someone else. What if I never get past 20 pounds? or 20 ounces?

Especiallyf the limits are tight, I chose telekinesis. Reaching unreachable objects, opening doors that are otherwise locked, I chose force over light.

If invisibility, you know game master is going to have a villain with ring of true seeing.

If telekinesis, villain with ring of true seeing ain't going to do much. Duh.

From a practical standpoint, invisibility doesn't work for me either. To use it to its full advantage, you need to be someone who handles stealth well normally (dealing with acoustic, scent, and motion tells, as invisibility only covers the visual ones). And the power lends itself far more to risky, dangerous, or potentially harmful careers.

TK lets me go be an awesome engineer, welder, or any other number of run of the mill, but great paying, professions. So while Invisa-Person is off in godawful wilderness somewhere spying for the government, or crouched in an smelly alley somewhere to work with a heist crew...I'm at home reading a PDF and drinking a cider after a fun day of lifting and welding beams or throwing liquid concrete. I'll take that.

Either one also lends itself to an awesome career in entertainment.

According to the Jones-Jones Law of Superpower Applications, invisiblity is more likely to let you see other people naked.

Points to Darcs.

Just pointing out that that was Mike's 6969th post.