What if you had a superpower?
- Thread starter Laer Carroll
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I think I'd want to stop time. Think about all the things I could get done in a single day if I could stop time? Deadline coming up? No problem, library closing in ten minutes, HA! It would be perfect. Imagine if you could get a new story out every week!
Honestly, the older I get, the more I wish I were telekinetic. There's always something I threw up on top of the cabinets that's a pain to get down when I need it. And my apartment could use some cleaning but I'm just feeling lazy. Or when I sit down and my remote control is over on my computer desk.
Stuff like that just bugs me.
Stuff like that just bugs me.
This would just make my procrastination that much worse. TBH I'd just slack off indefinitely.
The ability to stop aging though...I can see some potential with it.
I'd choose a form of active electroreception. Generating an electric field around myself that I can sense changes in whenever something approaches. A 6th sense like sharks and some fish have.
If not that, a perfect memory. Learn something once just by reading/hearing it, boom, never have to practice it to make sure it goes in. Save a lot of time.
If not that, a perfect memory. Learn something once just by reading/hearing it, boom, never have to practice it to make sure it goes in. Save a lot of time.
Bring superstrong wouldn't be much of an advantage to me, as my interested don't go in a direction where physical strength is a plus.
If I could choose a superpower, I'd choose (in order of how much I would like it):
1. Being able to tell which women would like to get to know me
2. No longer being socially anxious
3. Content with a regular paying job (instead of wanting to be a writer but being unable to earn a living with it)
If I could choose a superpower, I'd choose (in order of how much I would like it):
1. Being able to tell which women would like to get to know me
2. No longer being socially anxious
3. Content with a regular paying job (instead of wanting to be a writer but being unable to earn a living with it)
Ever read Funes, the Memorious by Borges? Perfect memory is not as fun as it sounds. I seem to have a better memory than most of the people around me (or so I am told, and its a far cry from photographic). I think it's done more to make me a grievance collector than a prodigy.
Eviora
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I think it would be ultra fun to have a shape-shifting superpower (like Mystique's.) If you played your cards well, you could avoid schemes requiring you to use your power to make money. Then you could just try living all sorts of different lives. Keep what you like; replace the rest until you have exactly what you want.
Funny you should mention that. That's the subject of my Shapechanger Tales series. So far all my main characters have been female, but I'm two-thirds of the way through The Twice-Dead Boy who changes upon his second death into a 17-year old boy.
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I agree about shapeshifting. It would be really cool to be able to change into other humans or animals. It would be a bit like having all the superpowers in one. Want to fly? Become a bird. Want to be strong? Turn into a bear (or elephant). Want to run fast? Become a gazelle? Want to spy on other people? Become something unobtrusive, like a rat, or simply take the shape of another person to blend in.
As a biologist, it would be interesting experience what it is to be another species, and as someone who enjoys writing, being able to adopt the skin of different people would be useful in internalizing different perspectives and experiences.
As a biologist, it would be interesting experience what it is to be another species, and as someone who enjoys writing, being able to adopt the skin of different people would be useful in internalizing different perspectives and experiences.
Remember Ged from Earthsea? I think the major challenge would be remembering to shapeshift back.
The degree of specificity here is amusing.
If I had a superpower it would be precognition. I would set myself up like your run-of-the-mill charlatan and only be 12% more accurate than Stella Moonheart, the Clairvoyant from down the way. So my power would be super pettiness.
Agreed. I've always kinda wondered about the physics/biology of shapeshifting, though. Like, what happens if you eat three tonnes of vegetation as an elephant, then need to change back into a person in a hurry? What happens to all that fermenting greenery in your guts? These sorts of questions keep me up at night.
Seems like you could create free energy by standing on a balance scale with a medium-sized rock on the other side and changing back and forth between an elephant and a flea. Perpetual motion is a problem with many superpowers. Therefore logically superpowers should require some form of energy to use.
Shapeshifting. I would love shapeshifting, that would be the be-all and end-all of powers for me. Well, if it allowed sufficient variety, anyway. I'd settle for being able to turn into anything that's biologically-based and back again. Or magically-based. Dragons? Yes please!
As to what I'd do with it... I don't know. I'd try to find some way to make the world a better place. With great power comes great responsibility.
As to what I'd do with it... I don't know. I'd try to find some way to make the world a better place. With great power comes great responsibility.
I tend to view any superpower as some form of perpetual motion machine/ zero point energy mechanism. It all ends up with you locked in a room on a hamster wheel eventually.
Since these threads seem to have a lot of traction, an 'unintended consequences of superpowers' thread might be a fun place to go to next.
Actually, a power I might like would be one that already exists in the animal kingdom. I'd like to be a repto-mammal. That way, I can either eat to get energy, or alternately, I can absorb sunlight or even ambient heat for energy.
Not all of us want to make our stories seem realistic, especially if we're writing a comedy or a satire or an allegory. And that's fine.
But I want most of mine to have a feeling of authenticity that only comes with staying close to realism. It also helps up the suspense of the story if our heroine has to strive for success.
So I made my shapechangers limited in how much they could change. Their mass stays exactly the same when they 'change. Their outside and their insides change little, mostly cosmetically. Their superior abilities come at a cost. They have to eat more. They have to change more than just their muscles to get greater strength; they have to change their bones to take up the greater stress of lifting a car or of knocking down a door. They store compressed body fat as partly armor and partly food source for when they suddenly have to fight or flee danger.
There are social and personal costs too. They have to hide their nature, so they can only trust a very few people - the old problem of superheroes we know well from comics. It makes it hard to have relationships of love and friendship with ordinary people. Able to kill just about anyone there's the temptation to do so, and real people can hate themselves for going overboard and doing something which cannot be undone.
In short, in real life pluses comes with minuses. And our stories will be better for dealing with this fact.
But I want most of mine to have a feeling of authenticity that only comes with staying close to realism. It also helps up the suspense of the story if our heroine has to strive for success.
So I made my shapechangers limited in how much they could change. Their mass stays exactly the same when they 'change. Their outside and their insides change little, mostly cosmetically. Their superior abilities come at a cost. They have to eat more. They have to change more than just their muscles to get greater strength; they have to change their bones to take up the greater stress of lifting a car or of knocking down a door. They store compressed body fat as partly armor and partly food source for when they suddenly have to fight or flee danger.
There are social and personal costs too. They have to hide their nature, so they can only trust a very few people - the old problem of superheroes we know well from comics. It makes it hard to have relationships of love and friendship with ordinary people. Able to kill just about anyone there's the temptation to do so, and real people can hate themselves for going overboard and doing something which cannot be undone.
In short, in real life pluses comes with minuses. And our stories will be better for dealing with this fact.
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Well, if gut contents don't convert with your body, you'd have to take a heck of a dump. Immediately and uncontrollably. Fasting for at least 36 hours before shifting back to human from large ungulate form is strongly advised. One could craft a humorous story around this premise, though it would be rather in a gross vein.
Someone who just shifted to herbivore form after a good steak dinner would likely get very sick with a deer or horse type digestive tract that is suddenly filled with meat too.
This could be an interesting limitation on the power--the need for fasting prior to shifting between forms of greatly different size and digestive biology.
I always wondered what happened to someone's clothing (in cases where the person isn't naked when they come back from being an animal, or tangled in ill-fitting clothing when they shift from human form), and of course, to their biomass when they shifted to a smaller form (and where does the biomass come from when you go to something larger). Maybe there's a sort of insta metabolism that takes place, and a sort of magically-powered version of photosynthesis (fixing CO2 and water into organic macromolecules) when you need to get bigger.
Though Fritz Leiber had a Fafherd and Gray Mouser story where people shifted down to rat size, and there would be this puddle of fleshy goo waiting for them at the site where they used the spell (or was it a potion). You needed to shift back in the same place to re-incorporate you gooey goodness. Otherwise, you'd "borrow" biomass from the nearest convenient target (who might be delighted if they needed to lose a lot of weight, but otherwise it would be a problem).
Another possible superpower would be the ability to mind control other humans or animals and temporarily "borrow" their bodies. A sort of possession. The ethical issues are serious, but at least one wouldn't get a bellyache that way.
Laer's solution of only being able to shift into something of roughly the same mass seems like a reasonable constraint if we're keeping things within our universe. Hey: turns out there's a list of mammals by average weight. I've met adults weighing anything from ~35 kg to ~150 kg, so that rules out anything much bigger than a black bear (~154 kg) or smaller than a hyena (40 kg), although there are some outliers who are upwards of 200 kg who could do a sea lion impression in a pinch. I suppose you could postulate that a shapeshifter could become anything smaller than their human self (just try not to think too hard about the mechanics of how that mass would be shed ... it wouldn't be pretty), but turning back's gunna be a problem, unless there's a way to 'borrow' mass from the surrounding environment, as you point out.
As for clothes, I think the simplest solution's to just hide spare pants anywhere you think you might need to turn back.
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I think the restrictions that work best for the story at hand are the best way to go. If the plot needs the person to be able to shift to a mouse or to an elephant, then so be it, but it's amusing (and feels less like a free ride) if the author indicates they took some difficulties into consideration.
Of course, that's the difference between more serious speculative fiction (even fantasy) and the more traditional treatment of superpowers we see in superhero stories. Violation of basic laws of physics, chemistry and biology abound. A lot of the stuff makes little sense if taken at face value, but the limitations and restraints experienced by superheroes are usually relatively mild, and again, something that works for the story. It's about reader expectations. They want impossible battles between people who can fly, deflect bullets, toss trucks, climb up the sides of buildings like a gecko or spider, change shape, and walk intact out of fiery explosions.
I think it makes things easier if the writer introduces some limitations to show that they've thought of these issues, even if the premise is still fundamentally implausible. For instance, we all know that a dog's or bird's nervous system, let alone a lizard or snake's, couldn't harbor human cognition and intelligence without serious remodeling of brain (and skull) structure that would negate most of the advantages that come with the animal form (if those changes were even survivable). I've read novels where authors acknowledge this by implying that spending too long in an animal form will cause the shifter to "lose themselves" to the beast.
Of course, that's the difference between more serious speculative fiction (even fantasy) and the more traditional treatment of superpowers we see in superhero stories. Violation of basic laws of physics, chemistry and biology abound. A lot of the stuff makes little sense if taken at face value, but the limitations and restraints experienced by superheroes are usually relatively mild, and again, something that works for the story. It's about reader expectations. They want impossible battles between people who can fly, deflect bullets, toss trucks, climb up the sides of buildings like a gecko or spider, change shape, and walk intact out of fiery explosions.
I think it makes things easier if the writer introduces some limitations to show that they've thought of these issues, even if the premise is still fundamentally implausible. For instance, we all know that a dog's or bird's nervous system, let alone a lizard or snake's, couldn't harbor human cognition and intelligence without serious remodeling of brain (and skull) structure that would negate most of the advantages that come with the animal form (if those changes were even survivable). I've read novels where authors acknowledge this by implying that spending too long in an animal form will cause the shifter to "lose themselves" to the beast.
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Bulk and Surface
For those of you who want to go down the rabbit hole of how science and impossible superpowers can exist in the same setting. Its an old rpg campaign from Anders Sandberg, bursting with ideas as always. You have to read pretty deep into the setting to find what's causing the superpowers, but it's pretty weird and crazy.
For those of you who want to go down the rabbit hole of how science and impossible superpowers can exist in the same setting. Its an old rpg campaign from Anders Sandberg, bursting with ideas as always. You have to read pretty deep into the setting to find what's causing the superpowers, but it's pretty weird and crazy.
It seems like you could eventually shift to whatever animal you wanted, it just might take time and several steps. You could bulk up as a human, become a black bear, then bulk up some more, and go for a sea lion. Reverse would be harder, as weight loss always is. Now I have an idea for a story: The Bulimic Shapeshifter.
