Four Vastly Underrated Superpowers

[Doc_Scorpion]

An amusing article by James Nicoll...

"The superhero genre prioritizes abilities that help heroes fight crime and tend to ignore superpowers that don’t contribute to engaging in, and surviving, knock-down, drag-out fights. But if we were to look at the bigger picture, there is more to life than crime-fighting. Abilities of little utility in that specific field may be of far more use than any of the flashy powers.

I can think of several unappreciated powers that would improve everyday life…"

https://reactormag.com/five-vastly-underrated-superpowers/

[Glacier Peak]

Ha that made me chuckle. A telepath can read the mind of someone who speaks a different language than them, but they can't understand what they're thinking. 

[biostem]

TBH, it seems more like a list of pretty useful superpowers with severe limitation applied to them.  It'd be like saying "My character has super strength, but they can only use it to lift single extremely light objects".  Also, the ability to change colors is actually extremely powerful - change your opponents' cornea to some opaque color so they can't see, change their costume to extremely bright colors, etc. The touch-based language acquisition can be very useful if said "language" grants other abilities - like if it's a special language that allows you to cast magic or if there's some alien robot that only responds to its native language.  The "dishman" one is just telekinesis confined to plates, but are you permitted to change the definition of what constitutes a "dish"?  The ice cream creation ability is downright deadly - create some ice cream in someone's brain, (or other sensitive area).  If there's some alien out there that eats "antimatter ice cream", can you create that as well?

Edited 10 hours ago by biostem

[Techwright]

5 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Ha that made me chuckle. A telepath can read the mind of someone who speaks a different language than them, but they can't understand what they're thinking. 

 

I suppose it depends on the telepath.  If they're seeing the images in which the other thinks, they can at least have a good idea of what's going on, but more importantly, it means they're accessing the full brain and not just the speech center.  That should override any language barrier, at least for the duration of the connection.

 

32 minutes ago, biostem said:

TBH, it seems more like a list of pretty useful superpowers with severe limitation applied to them.  It'd be like saying "My character has super strength, but they can only use it to lift single extremely light objects".  Also, the ability to change colors is actually extremely powerful - change your opponents' cornea to some opaque color so they can't see, change their costume to extremely bright colors, etc.

There's also the question of shade (black, grey, white) and intensity.  If the color-changer has that, they can basically blind a person (in addition to what you said about the cornea) by turning everything in a room to intense black.  This can hide things and mess with an opponent's depth perception.  They could achieve similar results by turning everything to intense white, or create a fog effect by turning all particles in the air to intense white.  Even if they lacked these, the color-changer could hide a still object in a room by turning everything the same color.  Once they're extremely skilled, they can change small amounts of an object to different colors.  Imaging changing a "bridge out" sign and guard rail so that it look like they are not there, re-writing interstate signs to give false information, or on the positive side, hiding people's embarrassing scars and birthmarks by re-coloring them.  Lots of possibilities even if "pew pew" isn't one of them.

[biostem]

15 minutes ago, Techwright said:

false information

Or forge any ID by selectively changing different portions of said ID card.  Heck, you could forge bar or QR codes if you were skilled enough.  You'd never have to worry about red light or speed cameras since you could selectively (and reversibly) change the numbers or letters on a license plate, (or just change the color of the light), or even something as mundane as changing the numbers on a check or from a $1 bill to a $100...

Edited 9 hours ago by biostem