Is My Character Broken?

Ok, I'm planning to write an Urban Fantasy and came up with a main character and his power.

He can make a replica of ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING, except living creatures (but includes Empathic Weapon). To do that, he has to meet three conditions. He has to

• Have a clear image of the object.
• Understand how it's made, like manufacturing process and molecular structure.
• Know and understand its purpose, given by its creator.  ^*
  ^{He can't replicate any weapon that is specifically designed for a certain person and that person only.}

As long as he meets condition, he can replicate anything, and do things like creating millions of swords or explosives at once, without absolutely no materials required. Yes, he breaks the first law of physics.

So what do you think?

edited 21st Dec '10 5:48:20 AM by DalesKaine

Is he an engineering major? Because if he's not, then I could see how you can limit his power.

Wait, that's only two conditions

Condition number 3!......... follow the first 2 conditions???

Oops. Forgot the third one. I added. For Sand Josieph, no he's not. He's just an Ordinary High-School Student and he's not that good at studying. So at first, he can only replicate really simple matters, like hydrogen, water, sand, a metal pole.... I'm planning to give him an ability to understand the chemical/physical/metaphysical structure of everything he sees, waaaaaaay later in the story.

If you're going to give him the inherent knowledge of chemistry/physical dimensions, that pretty much means he's going to be a somewhat gifted engineer.

Anyway, I have a few issues/comments.

If he understands the manufacturing process of the object and can just POOF it into existence afterwards, that implies that he has the ability to generate, assemble, and combine all of the necessary components of the object he's creating right down to the molecular level, as well as simulate any and all chemical processes which led to its creation. (Of course, I'm assuming all this, so correct me if I'm wrong.) What I don't know, however, is whether he does all of this in his head before the object just pops into reality, or does he generate/gather his resources and simulate the process right in the real world. Also, I don't know how long this process takes. For example, if it's an object that takes hours or days to create mundanely, does the process happen in a split second (literally allowing the creation to "pop" into reality, or does it happen at a somewhat more gradual pace.

edited 21st Dec '10 6:34:07 AM by KingZeal

Maybe you can create a reality where your character draws the energy needed to create the objects.

Also, sounds interesting. Is it going to be published?

To King Zeal.....hmm, good point there. About the process... for now I'm just having him forming/structuring materials in his mind, before matarializing weapons.

Addendum: By step 1 and 2, it means this.

First, the clear image Second, the blue-print Third, knowledge of the materials.

For example, let's say if he wants to replicate a gun.

First, he has to see the gun and have VERY CLEAR image of it, to a point that he can draw it if he can. At the beginning, whenever he tries to replicate something complicate, he replicates them while looking at their picture.

Interesting. So, he has to be able to account for all essential parts in his conscious memory.

In that case, two-dimensional pictures would help, but you wouldn't be able to see every essential detail of a gun with a picture. What about the things inside it, or at an angle the picture didn't capture?

Also, what about the mass of the materials? For example, a gun which is too light or two heavy may produce too much recoil, weigh too much, slightly throw off aim, cock slowly, have the wrong grip, etc. Visuals are fine, but there are some details you can only gather by using your other senses.

Also, I'm thinking that eventually, he'd probably memorize how to build a few "favorite" tools/weapons and commit them to immediate memory. For example, if I had this ability, I'd memorize how to build an MP5 semi-machinegun and recognize the look, feel, sound and smell of each component. That way, I'd always be able to make one blindfolded.

edited 21st Dec '10 9:06:45 PM by KingZeal

Yes, exactly! Even if he has picture, if it's he never saw before, he can't replicate it. If he were to do that, he would need to first see a gun, take them apart, learn what each and every parts do. At one point, he actually he tries to do it. He practiced taking them apart until he could reassemble it blind folded. THEN he had to talk with a firearm expert (one of his mentor's acquintances) and how the components are made et cetera. Cluster F-Bomb ensued.

Mine revolves around a quiz bowl Tournament Arc.

My main character has these abilities:

• Good at Math, but sucks at everything else.
• After saving a girl's life, he obtained a Magical Database in the form of a sapphire pendant containing memories of its past bearers. As a result, he aces in every subject in school and in quizzes, including those he sucked at before.
• The Required Secondary Powers is that he can only access his the Magical Database when he really needs it, i.e., when he needs to ace a test or when his team is about to lose.

The quiz bowl captain is probably worse:

• Telepathy: He can see visions of the past and read people's minds, making him a Living Lie Detector.
• Time Travel: He can travel to the past, but not to the future.
• Proud Scholar Race Guy: Born from an extinct clan of Time Travelers and Telepaths.
• Power at a Price: Naturally, his abilities make him an excellent History quizzer, but at a cost of his own memories, which is why he enters a portal to his own past every night before he sleeps just to make sure he doesn't forget who he is. The one time he forgets to do so after a long day of using his powers, the team almost broke up after he lost all his memories. He Got Better.

Not only that. The Second Tournament Arc of my story features students from Ferdie's own clan as the Arc Villains, with abilities as gamebreaking as his. Some really egregious ones are those which can slow down opponents or speed the users up, and the ability to see the future.

edited 4th Oct '11 8:07:48 PM by judasmartel

Deleted due to double posting.

edited 4th Oct '11 7:53:00 PM by judasmartel

Well, you've certainly put a lot of thought into this. Yes, his power has a lot of restrictions, but it also has a lot of potential power. Maybe you could make a rule that he can only make ONE exact replica of a specific item that already exists, instead of generating stuff like a factory. He could make multiple guns, but they would have to be replicas of specific guns, instead of manifestations of the idea of a gun.

Just a thought. Good luck

Okay, just using the gun as an example, a picture would not show all the moving parts inside. Would he then produce an empty "shell" of a gun with no moving parts inside?

Oh this... Dales Kaine? That's my old title. This is my first thread I posted in this site PERIOD. Ah, nostalgia.

Okay, how do I put this...let me explain his power by showing how he replicate a pistol.

First of all, he needs to know the basic appearance and every little components of the gun. He should know it to the extent of being able to assemble them blindfolded or draw each and every one of them if he could draw. Oh, and this applies to bullets and the chemical make up of firepowder inside it too, which he should know in molecular level.

Once he has every single components completely understood, he needs to understand how to use it and what it is made for. He should have the purpose and basic history of the gun, like, it is created at a gun factory (he should know exactly where it is from, too) to shoot at people and whathaveyou. If he doesn't know how to use it, he can't replicate it.

There's one thing that could skip those laws, however; make a weapon a familiar.

Now, this is something that can be done to weapon that is created/assembled/forged personally, not mass produced. There's a ritual that can make the essence of a weapon, which reflects the attitude of its creator, manifest in various form, but mostly in spirit. If he could make the soul submit to him, it becomes his Familiar Weapon, which he can replicate as easily and often as he want.

He first starts with an exploding sword and builds up his armory at that point. He doesn't appear in my current project, though.

edited 5th Oct '11 1:02:16 AM by dRoy