“With the destructive potential of these abilities, why do so very few individuals perish in the chaotic and unpredictable emergence of their talents?
Maybe because the talents in question tend to come with safety measures for their wielders?
For the first two or three weeks of the class, we’ll be talking about these most pivotal moments in a given parahuman’s existence, these trigger events, when an individual first gains their powers, typically through some form of trauma.
Sounds like an excellent starting point.
“Throughout the course, we’re going to be looking at correlations and patterns, both in relation to trigger events and other things. For example, how does the nature of the trigger event shape the power?
Aha! So there is some theorizing around that in-universe. Niice.
Doesn’t necessarily mean there is a correlation, but it does mean there’s enough evidence that a significant portion of the scientists think there might be one.
A study by Garth and Rogers suggests that psychological stress leads to a higher prevalence of mentally driven powers. Tinkers, thinkers, masters, shakers.
Hm, makes sense. Psychological stress is what Taylor went through, and she’s a Master. And whatever happened to Labyrinth (a Shaker) was also very likely psychological in nature, and the power didn’t help on that front.
This also makes me more curious as to what happened to Tattletale.
Also: Which classification does Grue fall under? On one hand, his darkness does have an area effect that shakes up the battlefield, but it’s not really very similar to the “feel” of Labyrinth or Vista’s powers. With those two it’s more like they change reality itself.
I don’t think he fits into any of the other categories any better, though.
The more physical violence that is involved, the higher the bias towards physically driven powers. Garth and Rogers suggest a sliding scale, but it may not be that cut and dry.
If this is accurate, then Tattletale probably went through something that hurt her mentally far more than physically. Meanwhile, Taylor was physically manhandled and forced into the locker, and ended up with the power to control the quite physical bugs.
“A followup study by Garth touches on what we know about cape ‘families’. If one individual in a family has powers, it is far more likely that others will as well. Almost always, this trend is either descending or lateral, it seems to transition from parent to child, or one sibling to another, but not from child to parent.
One sibling to another is a curious one. It’s almost like the parents are carriers of a predisposition, but not necessarily predisposed in their own right.
Maybe everything started a generation earlier than everyone thinks, but the first people affected weren’t able to get powers themselves?
