Telekinesis

Well, I am doing a superhero comic. And to prevent power creep I am clearly defining all powers from the begining. Not by prescribing arbitrary limits such as "can do X but not Y or only <Z" (in my universe there will be no power levels, if you've got it, you've got it). But by working out how the power actually works. Which has worked fine for most powers, except telekinesis.

It basically boils down to this: Is telekinesis moving an object with some invisible force (IF) or is it moving the object itself (MI)?

And how on earth am I to limit the power of them? I'll give some examples.

Telekinetics can pick up an object with their mind. Now can they break it in half? They can pick up two objects, not too difficult, but what limit is there? MI They can make forcefields. IF They can pick up liquids. IF They can move an object they can't see. They can bend and reshape objects.

Really, if I put telekinetics in then they will be far too overpowered. Unless I limit them a lot. The problem seems to be that telekinetics run off rule of cool. There's no consistency.

Limit them to what they could do with their hands if they were touching the object?

You could base it on moving energy around, which stops it being too egregious.

I like the hands thing, although I still need way to limit the range. Currently I've got it so that they can only move things a distance they can comprehend. Except that's rather vague. I might just have to put an arbitary limit anyway.

You could wrap it in pseudoscience by saying that telekinetic strength obeys the Inverse Square Law. (Basically, doubling the distance makes certain quantities 4 times weaker, rather than just twice as weak)

In ElfenLied, the Diclonius have extra arms that are very fast, invisible, and very long, which basically looks like telekinesis. Their range is limited by the length of these arms.

Their strength can be affected by their level of concentration, their speed affected by how fast they think.

Also, remember bell curves? Most average people can only lift about forty pounds comfortably from a dead start, and that's assuming they do it properly. Establish an average range, make it so most telekines don't exceed it, and show that these people exist so that whenever there is someone who exceeds the limits they stand out.

They should only be able to lift things that normal arms can lift, but without touching them and at a greater distance, and at a faster speed. That would stop the sheer overpowering effect of a telekinetic character picking up the Titanic out of the ocean, or turning the ground below them into an impenetrable cage.

edited 14th Oct '10 3:31:31 PM by LilPaladinSuzy

Hmmm... I would think they would be a bit stronger than that, but not too strong. Able to lift a car, but only with focused effort and certainly wouldn't be throwing it everywhere.

Launching smaller things is still game though. A telekinetically held stone would be a deadly weapon.

edited 18th Oct '10 12:23:50 AM by doorhandle

I'd also worry about fine control.

For example, my TK guy in an RPG would typically start out a fight by telekinetic-ly grabbing people's eyelids, and then holding them shut. Also pressure points. And ejecting the magazine from their gun. If he was really pissed off, he'd rip apart your optic nerve from the inside.

This is with less than 10 pounds of force to work with, mind you.

Can you rip apart someone's optic nerve with your bare hands? I doubt it.

Dunno about ripping out optic nerves, but any kind of telekinesis that can be applied directly to the internal organs is going to hurt. Badly. Blow to the lung? The heart? The brain?

Even if you limit it to, say, the amount of force you can apply with your hand.

Let's do the math on that one!

Assume a diameter of 15mm for the optic nerve, and assume that its cross section is cylindrical. Assume an ultimate tensile strength of .5 MPa (I could not find a direct quote anywhere, but this seems reasonable based on some papers talking about reinforcing neural circuits; if you have a better source please let me know. [1]). If this is the case, then it would take ( .5 MPa * ( 7.5 mm * 7.5 mm * pi) ) = 88.4 N, or about 20 lbf. So you were correct that 10 lbf would not do it, but it is also far from the real of possibility, particularly if the TK could focus the power.

Note that I don't need to tear the nerve out; just break it so that the target goes blind. Really, any TK that can apply directly to internal organs is going to such. Instant knockout blows by cutting off oxygen to the brain, for starters.

[1]

edited 18th Oct '10 8:28:34 AM by Acatalepsy

Instant death by severing the brain stem, for another.

I'm less sure about how hard that one would be to do. After all, it's a lot thicker. I'm sure putting pressure on it would tend to suck though.

Different stages of telekinesis in "MY" universe(Just to give you an idea):

Stage 1- Throw one way kinetic Force Blasts at people.

Stage 2- A branch of other abilities that are basically manipulated Force Blasts. Force Shield, Force Blade, Snake Blast, Force Wave.

Stage 3- Create a bunch of floating hands that you can send out to do things. They can even turn into claws.

Stage 4- The floating hands are now everywhere and invisible. Basically the most well known telekinesis in fiction and commonly Misapplied Phlebotinum.

Stage 5- Like Stage 4 but to a subatomic level. Often even MORE Misapplied.

Decide on what stage you want your telekinesis to be and since you don't have a Power Level system like I just shown, stick to that stage.

edited 18th Oct '10 10:44:51 AM by PsychoFreaX

Stage 5- Like Stage 4 but to a subatomic level. Often even MORE Misapplied.

Wait, what?

edited 18th Oct '10 11:37:35 AM by Yej

Okay Yej you may have point. I was a little unsure about stage 5 myself as well. But in my universe, other psychics are also able to empower their own energy barriers. So it's extra difficult to control living people, especially other psychics, with your powers. Whether the barrier succeeds or fails is defendant on the powers of the opposing psychics.

Maybe stage 5 telekinesis is still a little overpowered though. I'm not sure. Whatever ideas I have are still wip after all.

Also, I made mistake when I said floating hands everywhere. Telekinesis at stage 4 affects all the surrounding the psychic is aware of.

edited 18th Oct '10 11:56:53 AM by PsychoFreaX

Stage 5 need not be overpowered if you handle it right.

How overpowered (sub)atomic TK is depends exactly how much the character knows about atomic theory. (Though it could be argued that they'd grasp the idea of atoms "intuitively.") If you know your chemistry, you can do stuff like pull liquid hydrogen out of the nearest body of water, which could easily be your opponent.

Cool thanks! Though we might be getting a little off topic. What I said was really just a part of my advice to the OP.

edited 18th Oct '10 2:49:35 PM by PsychoFreaX

The inverse square law won't work for telekinesis unless telekinesis is random. So, lifting up a rock at two-miles distance without destroying the house behind you wont follow I Sq L

It might help if you gave us an example of a different power, say...super strength. Tell us what kind of limits apply to that and I might be more helpful.

Re limits, think of the fact that telekinesis must be precisely aimed to the moved object. If you miss, the object will be moved only partially, breaking it, or put in the wrong place.

The closest TK-like abilities I have anywhere are the Powers Gravity and Magnetism. The latter is fairly simple: ability to screw with magnetic fields, range limited to ~1foot or so but propagates along objects with high permeability values. Hence, basically, telekinetic control over ferromagnetic metal, within one foot of any other ferromagnetic metal that you're controlling. (The chaining effect bleeds power such that it stops being useful about 60 feet away.) The guy goes around with a big chain that transmits the power.

Second is Gravity, which is a. horribly overpowered, by design, and b. actually very simple. Can create gravitational fields anywhere around, radius around 60 feet. Limited to five unidirectional fields, but controls the shape and orientation of the fields without penalty. This can, for one thing, make impenetrable shields (inch-thick thousand-G gradient directed away); such shields, if moved around, can grind through any matter like nothing; can also pick up and move anything, weight doesn't matter since you're actually making gravitational fields that move the things according to their mass; can basically railgun random bits of stuff around for easy ranged attack.

Both are obviously IF types; the setting is mildly physics-compatible, so 'invisible hands' are right out, but control of gravity and magnetism works a bit better. Inverse Law of Complexity to Power is in full effect. Also, it only really works because each power is held by precisely one person; if there was a race of either, it would break everything really badly.