Non-conventionally powerful Super Powers

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 5:42 am

Sajber wrote:So, if I wanted to make Maxwell's Demon (which is totally a name I could see myself using for him) have the power of moving heat around, what would be the most disasterous thing he could do, on a global scale? How would he destroy the earth (universe?) or hold us all hostage?

That's an unanswerable question because transferring heat isn't enough information to say what your character can do. We still need the parameters, because the parameters define the power.

How much heat?
How fast can the heat be transferred?
How obvious is it that this is happening?
How far away can the heat be moved from its source?
What maximum and minimum temperatures limit the transfer?
How big or small of an area can the heat be transferred from?
How big or small of an area can the heat be transferred to?
How rigorously do you have to define and understand and perceive the two targets?
Can you move things against their entropy gradient at all? Or do you just act as a conductor from one place to another?

So if you can move heat into an area faster than particles can move out and you can jack up the temperature high enough, then you can create enough pressure to cause nuclear reactions. If heat transfer is too slow for that, then the heated particles will just expand, and if the temperature caps aren't high enough it'll just get really hot and then expand.

If you can quickly and precisely target peoples' brains and shift even a few dozen kilojoules, you can turn people off as fast as you can do that - and do it to as many people at once as you can designate at once.

And so on. Being Maxwell's Daemon doesn't really tell us anything. Power parameters are everything. Literally the entire thing. If the power parameters are one way, the character is basically just a guy with a lightsaber who makes the room around him a few degrees colder while it's on. If the parameters are another way, the character can put whole cities to sleep with hypothermic comas. If the parameters are another way, the character has a forcefield where he can stop bullets in mid air. And on and on and on.

-Username17

Sajber · Post by **Sajber** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 12:36 pm

Ah, yes, parameters... Well, seeing as this is a concept that somebody posted in this thread that I happened to like, I'm not really too fuzzy about exactly what the parameters are, to be honest. I will do my very best to describe them as far as I see the character, so far:

I don't really like the "doing something to the sun" approach, that just seems powerful in a boring kind of way. Basically no ramp-up, just "take heat from sun, win". Same thing with "move heat into an area faster than its particles move out", at least not without some technological kind of help (doomsday machine?).

I like the "taking heat from stuff, like breathing"-idea. I'm not sure if the heat can build up infinitely, or if some dissapates after a while (giving the character a need to have a really big source of heat to "feed" off of before he wants to do anything really fancy, or having a continuous source of heat).

I dislike the "turn people's brains off" idea on a purely game and story-level - too much win for too little effect/fun/possibility to evade. So, maybe he has to see or somehow percieve the things he takes heat from? Touch? Maybe he can do the brain-thing if he's close enough (i.e. hugging distance)?

I like the idea of him walking into burning buildings as a way of building up heat. I don't know whether he should be able to do the same with a volcano, though - maybe he can only absorb so much heat per time, and a volcano is simply too much? Again, technology could possibly help with that, like an insulating suit that helps him absorb the heat somehow? (If he could, why hasn't he destroyed the earth yet?)

In general, I think I would like some combination of parameters that doesn't allow him to instantly win without needing some kind of Master Plan and/or Doomsday Device, but still being very powerful if using his powers creatively. Just below instant world-shattering, maybe?

I'll try to answer your points, Frank:

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How much heat?
Not sure, see above.

How fast can the heat be transferred?
Not sure. Touching the object in question probably makes it go faster, though.

How obvious is it that this is happening?
Depending on how much he's currently taking, i.e. ranging from "not at all" to "I should have brought my winter jacket".

How far away can the heat be moved from its source?
Probably not that far, unless stored inside him. I'm thinking maybe 10 meters? His range is probably not as good as the speed and amount of heat he can transfer.

What maximum and minimum temperatures limit the transfer?
Not really sure what this means. If it means how cold something can get before he can't take any heat from it again... probably some way above 0 K, at the least. Maybe -100°C, or somewhere along those lines? Maybe -40°C is more "realistic"?

How big or small of an area can the heat be transferred from?
Probably all of the immediate area around him, i.e. same range as above. Not sure if the heat transfer is uniform or faster closer to him or not.

How big or small of an area can the heat be transferred to?
Not sure. Heating himself/his hand up and touching somebody to damage them is probably a lot easier than targeting somebody else's hand and heating that up (without touching it, that is). Actually, I think touching stuff makes whatever he wants to do be easier for him, in general.

How rigorously do you have to define and understand and perceive the two targets?
See brain discussion above.

Can you move things against their entropy gradient at all? Or do you just act as a conductor from one place to another?
I'm not a physicist, so I'm not really sure what moving things against their entropy gradient means...
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All of you guys seem to be quite a lot more versed in heat-transfer mechanics than I am, so I don't want to set any parameters I make in stone - I'd rather have well-thought out parameters given to me by what idea of the character I'm trying to convey. Granted, re-reading what I just wrote doesn't really make it all that clear...

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 12:59 pm

Without going into the territory of semantic superpowers (I can create alternate dimensions because my power of 'pick pockets' allows me to pick out portals in the pocket of the fabric of reality) are there any baseline SFX that are just simply more versatile than others?

For example, while in broad strokes the ability to control orange juice and the ability to control space can do much of the same thing such as force fields, transportation, blasts, detection, etc., it still seems like space has the leg up because you can do things with it like time travel without having to go into Treknobabble about how you individually disassemble the orange juice particles at the subatomic level and use the released energy to blah de blah.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 1:12 pm

Time control and "magic" are pretty powerful, basically no matter what. Mind control as well, but in a different sense of 'powerful'.
Anything that operates independently is pretty good.

I'm reminded somewhat of McCaffrey's Talents series by this thread.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 1:16 pm

Sure. Silver Surfer gets away with a lot of shit because his power source is 'Cosmic,' which is so poorly defined as to be without limits. Proteus has 'reality control' as his mutant power and is in a similar boat.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Sep 03, 2014 2:27 pm

So it looks like you want a character who is more like a heat capacitor with control over conductance than someone who can shift heat from one place to another. Your references to going into hot places to power up really point in that direction. In physical reality, all the heat you'd need to burn someone into a cinder is pretty much held in any random cubic meter of solid you'd care to look at.

Every degree of temperature held by every gram of everything is worth a number of joules equal to its specific heat. A human is mostly water, which has a moderately high specific heat (about 4), but they are also only 70,000 grams. A cubic meter of asphalt, meanwhile, is 2.43 million grams and has a specific heat of about 0.9. So if you lower the temperature of a cubic meter of asphalt by 1 degree, that's enough heat to raise the temperature of a human being by nearly 8 degrees - enough to incapacitate them.

Given that your vision for the character in action is not to have them imperceptibly raise or lower the temperature of whatever patch of floor they are standing on in order to cause people they point at to have incapacitating (or even lethal) hyper or hypo thermia, we're well outside the boundaries of simple heat math. Your vision is instead that they go into hot places to "power up" and then shoot gouts of flame at things, right? So instead we're talking about conductance. Human beings are quite good insulators, so we can announce that they are resistant or even immune to the powers, forcing the character to heat up metal (and other conductive materials) they are in contact with in order to harm them.

So my suggestion would be to go look at the list of thermal conductivities of various materials, and decide what your limit is for what they are able to heat or cool in a reasonable amount of time. And then what they are probably going to do is run around with kind of a thermal lance made out of a rod of metal that they superheat to turn into what is essentially a light saber.

-Username17