LIMITATIONS:
- Flight – Cannot fly faster than 48 kph/30 mph.
- Speed – Cannot move faster than the speed of sound or run on penetrable surfaces (e.g., water). Super speed is not restricted to running.
- Telekinesis – Cannot lift more than 2,270 kilograms/5,000 pounds. Cannot use power on your own body.
- Invisibility – Must be conscious to remain invisible. Your clothes become invisible when you do.
lower right - the ability to use public transportation.
As some that lived where I had to drive everywhere I wanted to go for all my life, then moving to NYC for 5 years and relying on public transportation, I’m not sure which is better, they’re both really fucking annoying.
Driving: this traffic sucks
PT: It takes me an hour to go 4 miles every day, assuming the subway is on time and nothing decides to divert itself, or any of the 10 other things that happen on a weekly basis.
What if God was one of us?
Telekinesis is a lot more versatile than people make it out to be. Yeah sure I lift heavy things with mind but also I can
- nuclear fusion and fission (depending on the amount of force I can inact and its precision)
- pull air from a room or someone
- use pinpoint force to shatter and break things
- fly by lifting something below me (if you want to allow that)
- compress gasses into a liquid or liquids into a solid, possibly also weather control
- heat objects by rapidly moving their molecules (if you allow that sort of precision) therefore allowing for combustion as well
- call lightning by manipulating ions in the atmosphere
- possible light manipulation and production if you moved electrons up and down energy levels or rapidly heat certain materials
- hell you could do fire bending if you compress the oxygen and add some sort of powdered fuel then heat it
- create magnetic fields by compressing and aligning electrons in a substance
- fucking compress air to make the sharpest blade known to man and use it as a wind shear or just throw telekinesis sharpened metal at people idk
- you could fuck people up if there is even enough dust in the air, just use telekinesis to hold the dust in place. Guarantee you they can’t beat 22,246N of force, so suddenly all those tiny particles cannot be moved by them.
Most of these ideas can also be used for strictly non combative purposes but I think if combat when I think of superpowers. With enough understanding of the world around you very subtle manipulations that require very little amounts of force/energy when done rapidly in combination with each other can have drastic effects.
Telekinesis is an absurd power if you don’t put enough limitations on it
22,246N is a lot of force if you use it right. Granted I have not done the math on this because I don’t feel like it but I guarantee that some of these would be possible and even 1 would be absurd. I would give a no to nuclear fusion though, probably not that.
You forgot the best part: grab something when you’re too lazy to get up and get it or after you just sat down and realized that you need something across the room.
You’re so right
Jesus. You said angry. /s
And here I was just going to use telekinesis to manipulate the ball in a game of roulette.
I’m a physics major and my passion for it started from overanalyzing superpowers. I was always super frustrated by how underutilized telekinesis was.
There was this book when I was a kid called quantum league that looking back was just pretty ok and not super scientifically perfect but it placed the idea of using telekinesis in an atomic sense. I don’t think it ever got a sequel because I remember being frustrated that it clearly left on a cliff hanger and I’d check every year only to be disappointed.
I just checked and it still doesn’t have a sequel
Do you have any other book recommendations? Although I dislike the trope of the application of actual scientific knowledge, as characters get very OP very quickly, I love seeing characters using yhe scientific method to figure out what they can or can’t do.
Quantum League
I looked up the book description, and a strong sense of deja vu hit me at the word “actuator”… I think I’ve read this book before.
Currently reading Industrial Strength magic by Macronomicon, and it scratches this itch for me, but waiting for chapter updates, even when daily, is so painful.
Use telekinesis to make a carpet fly, bend the light waves around it to cloak it and ride it. There, you are fast as hell, flying and pretty much invisible.
It would probably take a lot of concentration but it wouldn’t be impossible. Good luck seeing where you are going without the photons though. I’m certain you could let some in but it would be very difficult to stop them from bouncing back out at that point.
I suspect this would be a one item at a time. I know hard to define what one item really is but I am thinking of some notion of a limited amount of mental capacity to focus on the object you are manipulating. So I suspect there would be a difference between applying a force to a cube at a single point vs trying to apply thousands or millions of tiny little forces on many objects
Pretty much everything you mentioned falls under the OP “hella kinesis”.
Telekinesis is being able to levitate cookies and small cats.
Two of the other powers are in some ways worse than not having powers. Flying slower than you can drive a car is pretty pointless unless in extremely nice situations. Then running near the speed of soud could cause you permanent damage to the ears or eyes just from pushing through the air.
Invisibility is fine but mostly useful for nefarious purposes. But theoretically you could get a form or invisibility through telekinesis if you can control photons. You probably wouldn’t be able to see or hold it as long without suffocating but it’s something.
Yeah but they said the speed thing isn’t limited to just running so you could probably piss at nearly the speed of sound which is pretty cool except for the possible urethral obliteration. Assuming that doesn’t happen then it’d be pretty cool
urethral obliteration
Are we still calling out band names?
‘Sounding’ like a metal band?
Quantum physics forbid any of these perks. You’ll be limited to macroscopic matter manipulation.
Id love to hear your reasoning for why quantum forbids these. Sure knowing the exact location of a electron an enacting a force upon it would be difficult but as long as you don’t care about its velocity in that moment it isn’t impossible. In fact you could get the probability to be quite high. Hell it even acts as a particle when you’re looking at it.
Furthermore there are plenty of workarounds for causing these effects without direct manipulation of the electron or any quantum level physics for that matter. You just need to find a way to create the natural conditions required macroscopically which is typically possible.
With the exception of photon manipulation
You grasp what’s not there, and both position and velocity cannot be know at the same time. How do you affect something when you don’t know where it is exactly?
If the hypothesis for telekinesis is that you apply force to an object, quantum mechanic is mostly out of reach as well, for the same reason. You need to know where it is.
It’s also hard to admit that telekinesis allows you to move gazeous or even liquid objects. And usually you don’t even grasp a part of a whole object, which solidify the hypothesis of the inability to grasp particuls themselves as discrete items.
Finally, you make the hypothesis that there is no limit to the number of objects you can affect at once.
You can actually know position with quite a high amount of certainty according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle if you don’t know Jack shit about where it’s going. If you could affect it instantaneously then its velocity would be pretty unimportant.
Whether or not it works physically based on real forces is up to the lore as is how it can be used and abused to manipulate gases and liquids. I’ve seen examples where than can but I think that putting a limiter where they can’t is also totally fair. Also a limiter on how many objects can be affected at once is to be expected. These things can make the difference between near godlike status and pretty decent superhero
Ultimately it’s really up to how the power functions as in what specifically allows for the telekinesis. Just calling it magic for example gives you a lot of wiggle room but making it a physical thing based on forces would certainly limit how you can affect things on a quantum level. There’s also the question of what you can affect based on you senses. Do you need to see it or is visualization and knowledge enough?
Actually, knowing the exact position of an electron is imposible.
And not because of the uncertainty principle. It’s simpler than that.
Let’s see…
- Flight - Seems pretty useless to me if you can’t go over 30, you couldn’t easily fly to other countries for example.
- Speed - Reminds me of all the times I missed my train by literally two seconds but bumping into people while running inhumanly fast would be even worse IMO
- Invisibility - I don’t know what I’d do while invisible. Spy on others? Pull shitty pranks? Not really. I guess crimes but I’m not that kind of person.
- Telekinesis - Pretty overpowered compared to the rest, being able to lift/manipulate up to two tons with your mind sounds incredibly useful
Invisibility - bank robbing, free movies, tasting expensive food right in the kitchen, hiding from people I know in the grocery store that I don’t want to talk to, ect.
hiding from people I know in the grocery store that I don’t want to talk to, ect.
I thought I was sure I wanted telekinesis, but you make a compelling point.
You can grab the moisture in the air and arrange it so that you become effectively invisible to those around you.
Telekinesis would be the most useful, but flight is the most fun.
Question about Telekinesis: can you use it on something that you are standing on or strapped onto?
Yes you can. Try not to fall off though lol
Doesn’t that make flight totally pointless as an option then? You could just do it on something you’re strapped into or inside of like a body harness or a replica iron man suit
Makes me wonder if flight propels your body equally. One could easily turn one’s self into applesauce by accident with the tk suit.
Either way, it’s flight for me
I’ll telekinetically hoist myself up by my underwear. The ultimate wedgie, but Two powers for the price of one!
Buy an inexpensive snowboard
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That’s the deciding factor for me then.
I’m gonna die falling off my snowboard, but it’ll be worth it.
I stand on a man hole cover and use telekinesis on it to fly myself through the air. Boosh.
Static Shock is back!
Mighty
everyone is forgetting that the invisible picture shows you get to ride a cool train
*living in a society with functioning public transit not included
I don’t know how anyone can watch the Quicksilver segments from the X-men movies and not be hot for speed.
I’m a Lazy fatass, I don’t wanna run all the time. I’ll take telekinesis
I mean, okay, relatable, but people with superspeed rarely seem to be suffering for using it? I suppose w could be talking about bounded speed, where you get access to superspeed but have to train for it…
In invincible there is a guy that lives so fast everything in his life is too slow so he can’t concentrate in anything. I guess you can turn this superspeed on and off.
I’d much rather prefer the invisibility because I can just go to a bank and take some bills, put them in my mouth and launder them later. I don’t want to be rich, just live confortably
I already can’t concentrate on anything. Checkmate, atheists!
But OP said it isn’t isolated to just running.
You could eat super fast, too. Maybe even shit super fast and shoot people with it. A hot dog eating contest could make you a living LMG.
How about the power of flight? That’s levitation, Homes…
How bout the power to kill a yak from 200 yards away… With mind bullets! That’s telekinesis…
How bout the power… To move you
guitar lick plays
well, since terminal velocity of a falling person is around 150mph, does that mean I can gain speed falling, then turn on my flying powers to slow down/maneuver? If so, then flight.
If not, then telekinesis.
Also with telekinesis you cant lift yourself, but couldn’t you lift a car you’re sitting in, or even a board you’re sitting on and effectively fly?
What about a carpet?
Yea, but then me and my monkey friend would have to fight Jafar, and I’m still traumatized by Will Smiths realistic genie nipples.
Remember static shock?
That’s an interesting loophole, so long as you don’t run into anything.
Flight > Speed. Just get yourself a wing suit and you have free horizontal velocity, and a path over basically any obstacle.
Telekinesis doesn’t seem to have a range or speed limit. This minor oversight has disastrous consequences.
Invisibility is just invisibility, but it has a niche. I could think of a few uses, most of them unethical.
I might pick flight, though. It might encourage me to actually go outside.
Or for invisibility asocial(autistic) niche. I would love to walk around, not being scared of misscomunication.
Telekinesis. Build a platform, stand on platform, lift platform.
Now I get flight along with it, and without the speed limit.
Can not lift yourself. The platform will plummet once you step on it.
Who died and made you king of how imaginary superpowers work?
You push it too fast and fall off the platform in the air at high speed.
Use telekinesis to compress the air in front of you and slow your fall.
Or just use your car to fly.
I think telekinesis is the way to go.
- You can only fly so high before the cold or lack of oxygen get you.
- Poo is technically not part of me, so you’d see shit floating around when the rest of me is invisible.
- Speed is only good until you need to turn, and i see no mention of an adamantium skeletal system.
- Moving all kinds of shit with my mind? I’ll be over here not jerking off with this empty velvet glove
Bro that poo example was just fucking weird.
Poo most definitely I a part of you. Hair is too. Get over it.
Telekinesis. It’s not even a context
Telekinesis (especially at the “multiple tons” level) is an extremely flexible tool, a weapon, and a defense. There’s an endless amount of creative stuff you can do with it.
It can also still be used somewhat discreetly which is important.
Flight would probably be the most fun, though.
Agreed on all points.
But let’s face it, we’re really going to use it primarily to fetch a drink and some chips without getting up.
Telekinesis, for sure.
Even if you can’t use it on your own body, it’ll work against the ground. And 5,000 pounds of thrust will get you going pretty fast. So that covers both flight and speed.
Or does telekinesis make me gain 5,000 pounds? If so, then maybe flight. lol
Most depections of telekinesis do not exert an opposing force on the user, in other words the force is exerted in an arbitrary vector from an arbitrary point in space. That means you could compress a hole in the ground under you but not levitate at all because the force doesn’t act on your body. If it did act on your body lifting 5000 lb would crush your bones to dust.
As other people have pointed out a better option is the “magic carpet ride” or more desirable “flying motocycle” angle, where you Exert force on an object and it moves you as it normally would when pushed or pulled by any other force. I personally like the “infinite parasailing/paragliding” angle as it is possible to do without immediately being noticeable as strange by the public, and it requires less mental effort since you are still using lift for upforce.
