Anomability Learning Curves

[Scedasticity]

Or: How do you figure out you can make people hallucinate fire and throw themselves to their deaths?

It's one thing for a guy who boxes left-handed to realize his left hand has gotten unusually strong, or for a woman who knows how to go about steering men to get really good at steering men, or for a girl to fire a gun she believes is functional, or a woman to cast a really-bad-luck spell she believes in, or a cop to get really good at subduing people.  It's not too hard to envision the man who thinks everyone should feel what he does -- oh, now they do, or the woman who knows it's very important for it to be quiet -- good, now it is, or the quite a lot of people with unusually effective 'I wish you were dead!' feelings.  Some abilities seem to function independently of conscious control; you just have to notice you're sucking all the calories out of people or making everyone forget you, or other people have to notice they're in an immersive illusion while you're in a coma.

But:
How do you realize you can make person X forget person Y?
How do you rationalize giving your self-defense class your combat flashbacks, especially the writing part?
How do you realize you can project someone else's appearance?
How do you figure out you can make people hallucinate fire and throw themselves to their deaths?

(I'd add 'How do you realize you can act as a remote control?' but we saw that in the smashed toys.  We don't see how he got from that to arson.)

Even a lot of the sudden-death anomabilities raise questions about how they first manifested.  Did Clemson McCain know he could kill before he did kill, or did he take out someone by accident, or what?  Did Felicity Tabor go to the school that day planning on killing everyone?  If so, how did she know she could?

(And while I'm throwing questions out, what's Roger Weathers's manifestation, anyway?)

[eschatonic]

I'm going to bet that a lot of them discover this stuff by accident. The OCD component of the Bug prompts them to seek out victims, and they either don't realize why or rationalize it after the fact. Probably a lot of them just go looking for a certain kind of person without any real goal in mind, or a vague goal of something like "give that bastard a piece of my mind". Then when they've got the victim in appropriate proximity, Something Happens.

This would be the ones that start out more or less sane. As we've seen, a fairly large proportion of gammas were noticeably mentally imbalanced before they turned into SU's kind of monsters.

[jimsmyth]

I think it's also the mythology at work.

I can set things on fire with my mind (but I don't get burned" because my sister and I are the twin incarnations of pele.

I can kill people with this gun because guns kill people.  (and talk, apparently.)

nobody notices me.  See?  What did I tell you?  There they all are, not paying attention to me.  I'll show them!  I'll do something that really gets their attention!

I will save this child from growing up unloved and forgotten, like I was.  See?  Your mom doesn't love you.  She doesn't even remember you!


The madness contains the seeds of its own propagation..  (At least for the ones we've seen.  There may be thousands of Gammas out there who never figured out how to use their powers, or wound up dying as a side-effect.)

[DavidG]

Or: How do you figure out you can make people hallucinate fire and throw themselves to their deaths?

Maybe thought comes first, "I'd like to see you burn, you SOB!"

And then something cracks and thought becomes action (The Really Strong Anthropic Principle - physics is what I say it is).

And after that it's just a case of polishing your shiny new toy.

[miminnehaha]

Or: How do you figure out you can make people hallucinate fire and throw themselves to their deaths?

Maybe thought comes first, "I'd like to see you burn, you SOB!"

And then something cracks and thought becomes action (The Really Strong Anthropic Principle - physics is what I say it is).

And after that it's just a case of polishing your shiny new toy.

I am now dancing to The Really Strong Anthropic Principle.  The sky is blue, I am the only conscious mind within 100 yards, and physics is what I say it is.  Only such bliss can inspire me to dance!

[jimsmyth]

Or: How do you figure out you can make people hallucinate fire and throw themselves to their deaths?

Maybe thought comes first, "I'd like to see you burn, you SOB!"

And then something cracks and thought becomes action (The Really Strong Anthropic Principle - physics is what I say it is).

And after that it's just a case of polishing your shiny new toy.

I am now dancing to The Really Strong Anthropic Principle.  The sky is blue, I am the only conscious mind within 100 yards, and physics is what I say it is.  Only such bliss can inspire me to dance!

*taking notes*

Subject's mythology seems to be either Kokopelli or a dancing Wu Li master.  Difficult to say, with all my observers asleep, and physics apparently out for lunch.

[miminnehaha]

Or: How do you figure out you can make people hallucinate fire and throw themselves to their deaths?

Maybe thought comes first, "I'd like to see you burn, you SOB!"

And then something cracks and thought becomes action (The Really Strong Anthropic Principle - physics is what I say it is).

And after that it's just a case of polishing your shiny new toy.

I am now dancing to The Really Strong Anthropic Principle.  The sky is blue, I am the only conscious mind within 100 yards, and physics is what I say it is.  Only such bliss can inspire me to dance!

*taking notes*

Subject's mythology seems to be either Kokopelli or a dancing Wu Li master.  Difficult to say, with all my observers asleep, and physics apparently out for lunch.

I'd love to take physics out to lunch, but I'm too shy to ask.

[DavidG]

I'd love to take physics out to lunch, but I'm too shy to ask.

The WTF Network, where the food's so good the physics is always out to lunch!