- The Reckoners:
- Prof: J. K. Simmons, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, Ron Perlman, Samuel L. Jackson, Idris Elba
- Tia: Gillian Anderson, Sigourney Weaver, Gina Torres, Connie Nielsen,
- Cody: Nathan Fillion,
- Abraham: Omar Sy, Idris Elba
- David: Logan Lerman, Brenton Thwaites, Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Percy Daggs III,
- Megan: Chloë Moretz, Shailene Woodley, Tessa Thompson, Zendaya
- The Epics:
- Steelheart: Ben Affleck
There's an obvious hurdle in emulating their powers, which is that they're explicitly physically impossible. Steelheart's most advanced equipment and the Reckoners' gear is based off Transference Epics. The arms dealer who provides highly advanced equipment takes payment in the preserved, still-living cells of Epics. This is supposedly for research purposes, but quite possibly has the real purpose of installing cloned cells into the technology, actually using their powers directly instead of merely imitating them. The gun he sells to the Reckoners may actually be an exception; it's a coilgun (so we know how to make it today, in theory) that shoots highly energized projectiles and has a higher power draw than Newcago. If that were representative of the difficulty of replicating Epic powers scientifically, it would not be a thriving research field.
- Confirmed as of Firefight.
- Actually, it was Jossed. Knighthawk has several items that were taken from Epic powers, and he even makes a full suit with Prof's powers on it in Calamity.
- As of the end of the trilogy, this theory is never explicitly confirmed or denied, but the revelation in Firefight that powerful Epics experience an outburst of mindless destructive rage when their powers manifest certainly lends credence to the idea. Prof could easily have been at work when his Rending occurred.
- Nope - an epic named Digzone gifted them.
- Do we actually know that? Because there's no rule that says Prof couldn't have been using an alias.
- We find out a bit more about Digzone in Calamity, and there's no real indication he's Prof.
- Nope - an epic named Digzone gifted them.
- Partially confirmed. Calamity isn't so much a psychopath as a creature with Blue-and-Orange Morality who thinks that Humans Are the Real Monsters, but his revulsion for humanity infects the powers he gifts and this is what triggers the Epic psychosis.
- As of Calamity Calamity is definitely something inhuman, but whether he's an angel or a Sufficiently Advanced Alien is unclear.
- Sort-of. Obliteration helps the Reckoners defeat Calamity - then cheerfully announces his plans to destroy Toronto in a week. Apparently he conquered his Epic "darkness" a long time ago; he was happy to help defeat a being he perceived as a devil, but apparently the mass-murdering religious nut actually is who he is, powers or no. Even in an alternate universe where Epic powers don't corrupt, he's still a bad guy.
- This is pretty reasonable, especially given that, just like Scion, Calamity showed up at the same time as powers began appearing, the superpowers have a build-in drive for conflict, and when Calamity attempts to force a shard into David it/he uses similar [IDEA] communication as Scion and Eden use in the Trigger vision.
- Fireflight's actual power, revealed to be bringing images and physical parts of alternate realities into her own, and pushing parts of reality into other alternate realities is entirely in line with how Worm powers depend on dimensional shenanigans, and its description is surprisingly similar to (in Worm) Tattletale's explanation of how Shadow Stalker's power works.
- This makes a great deal of sense. And that's also why he attacked David IMMEDIATELY on rising as a High Epic, because letting the person most likely to be able to kill him live is also an unacceptable risk.
- I agree that Prof is pretty risk-averse, but I think that's more a personality trait than a weakness. Megan describes weaknesses as those things you have nightmares about. I seriously doubt Prof wakes from sleep in a cold sweat thinking about the risks he's taking. As to attacking David, David is obviously the most dangerous tactical mind remaining in the Reckoners. If your opponent's queen is exposed, you take it.
- Confirmed. Prof doesn't take risks for the same reason he fears his powers - he fears failure.
- Most epics apparently discover their powers and learn how to use them during the Rending. David unwittingly made himself immune to the Rending about two minutes prior to his confrontation with Calamity.
- He got gifted powers though after that chat. Gifters can't give powers to other Epics which makes this a little more unlikely.
- Or a mental power. There would be little to no indication of that.
- Confirmed in Calamity. He got Steelheart's powerset.
- Close. Prof does fear his powers, but his real fear is failure, and he fears influence/success/his powers because he feels that the more he has, the bigger his inevitable failure will be. Confronting him with his own powers weakens him a bit, but doesn't fully depower him or count as his "fear" for the purpose of escaping corruption.
- It doesn't need to be strictly part of the cosmere to follow similar rules to a shard either.
- As a friend of mine pointed out, we have a character running around with the power to open portals to other dimensions. Perhaps Calamity entered through a similar rift.
- Sanderson did say that that whatever the source is, if it was a Shard, would have an Intent along the lines of Temptation. So he's thought about it.
- As of Firefight, we know that Epics who face their greatest fear/weakness are no longer compelled to do evil. As Steelheart can only be harmed by someone who has never feared him, Steelheart faced his weakness on the Day of Annexation, when he killed David’s father.
- Except they have to accept their fear, rather than avoid it to break Calamity's influence. Otherwise everyone would be immune to Calamity's empowerment like David was: After all the fears the Epics' weaknesses are based on are things in their past.
- Then, for the rest of the book, all of his actions fit with a singular mindframe: Steelheart wants to protect the inhabitants of one of the most populous cities on the continent from the atrocities of the Epics.
- Steelheart declares himself emperor of Chicago and gives a single ultimatum to all Epics in the city: swear allegiance or die. All Epics know where they stand with him, and they need to take care not to get on his bad side. This means not making Newcago a terrible place to live.
- Steelheart keeps the lights on and the water running. Newcago is one of the better places to live in the Fractured States because Steelheart has kept the infrastructure in excellent repair: Conflux and the power station give the city electricity, there’s a functioning sewage treatment plant, and a decent portion of the population can even have jobs. Between that and a functional military/police force, the crime rate is probably at a historic low for Chicago, even with the Epics.
- Steelheart is more than the protector of one of the nicest pieces of real estate on the continent: he is an icon of Power, with a capital P. He’s acting as a lightning rod. He has set himself up as a target for the bravest, stupidest, and most ambitious Epics. They come to Newcago to claim the crown, and then Steelheart kills them, so they can’t go commit atrocities somewhere else. He even turned the entire city to steel so that when Epics come to challenge him, collateral damage is minimal.
- The Reckoners find propaganda suggesting that Steelheart is a way worse person than he is inside the power plant. Given how powerful Steelheart is and how evil all Epics supposedly are, why go through the trouble of having propagandists make up stories about that time you burned a town to the ground and murdered all the inhabitants? Why not actually go out, burn a town to the ground, and murder the inhabitants on camera? Steelheart is taking the course of least bloodshed: inspiring fear to augment his invulnerability while also not actually killing anyone.
- Steelheart’s actions throughout the book have shown that he cares more about his population’s welfare than the local Epics.
- The Reckoners kill Fortuity. Result: No major repercussions.
- The Reckoners kill Refractionary. Result: No major repercussions.
- The Reckoners destroy the power plant. Result: Steelheart goes looking for terrorists, but doesn’t prepare to throw down. Why would he? He can still power the entire city with Conflux.
- Conflux is kidnapped by a High Epic. Result: Steelheart, Firefight, Nightwielder, and basically all of Enforcement mobilize to face this serious and imminent threat that has now knocked out power to several million homes.
- I really like this idea, I'm just not sure it holds up. If just being exposed to your weakness was enough to cure you, not many epics would still be insane. It seems to me that facing your fear requires active effort rather than passive exposure. So in his case it would require doing a King Incognito routine or similar, where noone knows who he is and so he's surrounded by people who don't fear him. That said, if he did indeed confront his fear at one point, that makes him very much like The Lord Ruler from Mistborn.
(Note: Spoilers follow for both Worm and the Reckoners Trilogy.)
- Much like Scion, Calamity is an immensely powerful being (having access to essentially any superpower in their respective universes), and is revealed to be the source of said superpowers. In addition, both Steelheart's Epics and many of Worm's parahumans have serious mental issues that came with the powers. In addition, the superhuman feudalism is remarkably similar to Wildbow's description of a different way Earth Bet could have gone. Eden's Interlude also makes it clear that different Entites work differently, meaning that the concept of one whose projection in a given universe hangs in space is not impossible.
- David theorizes that Calamity is "just" a massively powerful Transference epic. He's right. Or close enough. It's later shown that if an Epic claims their powers for themselves, they can sever their connection to Calamity and keep their powers, inoculating them from his effects and preventing him from taking their powers back. The theory is Just as Epics can claim powers from Calamity, it a normal human were given powers by a more standard Transference Epic, they could claim them for themselves in the same manner, and become Epics themselves.
- The My Hero world is one of the universes where Calamity, or a being like it didn't stick around. Deku is that world's version of David.