astra_aurora | Power Theory: Telepathy, Empathy and Skill Levels

Welcome to the Power Theory posts, in which I attempt to explain exactly how the superpowers I have created for my characters in my original (and still without a title) fiction work. In these posts, I'll also end up explaining the basic theory of powers.

I'll start with the basics: telepathy, empathy and skill levels.

Anyone can have a power, but depending on how skilled they are, they will be able to do certain things. Basic paranormals can only do so much, while the professionals can do things that usually aren't considered to be part of that power but are. Everyone starts off at a certain level of skill and through work, study and practice, will improve- but you can only progress so far.

First power: telepathy.

Telepathy is the power of reading minds, as most people know. However, with it comes other powers, such as creating mental shields. Even non-telepaths can create a shield, but these shields will vary in strength depending on the strength of the individual, and most telepaths can easily bypass such a shield.

Basic telepathy involves hearing the thoughts of others. Medium level telepaths can delve into someone's mind and discern more of their thoughts. High level telepaths can see every part of a mind, tell if someone's lying when they think of something, and attempt to influence their thoughts.

When I say influence, I mean that they can slip a thought of their own into someone's mind. However, no telepath can take control of someone's mind; they simply aren't strong enough. Any telepath can put a thought in someone's mind, but it takes real skill to shape the thought so that the recipient doesn't immediately think, 'Wait, I would never do that, someone must be in my head'. Telepaths who aren't skilled enough to do so are reduced to the mental equivalent of repeatedly screaming the thought at the poor bastard until they either do it or find a shield.

Telepaths can mentally contact anyone. Non-telepaths can think the answers or the questions in their heads for the telepath to hear, but they can't contact anyone else mentally.

Now, onto empaths.

Empathy involves feeling the emotions of others. A skilled empath can alter the emotions of others subtly enough so that they don't pick up on it. Really skilled empaths can feel the reasons why people are feeling the way they do.

There's also the science of fixing emotions to objects. Think Harry Potter, where the Horcrux locket makes anyone who wears it moody and depressed. An empath can summon up really strong feelings and fix them to an object. The emotion won't wear off except under the durance of time, or unless the object's destroyed.

That concludes our first Power Theory post. I'll continue to discuss the basis of superpowers in subsequent posts, and then I'll start analyzing the powers of certain characters.