Required Secondary Powers: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{cleanup|The examples section is too long. If you find an example discussing only one of the powers listed here, move it to the examples section of that power's corresponding page, if it isn't there already.}}

 

{{quote|'''Invulnerability:''' Not much of a downside to this, as long as you're also invulnerable to things you might want to get a shot for. And your hair and fingernails aren't invulnerable. And you're not planning on getting into the piercing and tattooing scene. And your skin doesn't have the texture of cold bicycle tires as a result.

 

Okay, so you've got [[Differently-Powered Individual|one of those people]] who's got a "[[Stock Super Powers|Special Power]]". But even if you supposedly only have the one ability, if you're going to actually ''use'' it for anything, [[Fridge Logic]] demands that you have myriad other passive powers in order to make it work the way it usually does. This is sometimes directly referred to and explained, and sometimes not.

 

'''[[Super Strength]]'''

To use super strength effectively also requires the ability to strengthen objects by touching them (Unless the object is made of some advanced material, of course). Otherwise, holding up (for example) an airplane with one hand would simply result in a hand-shaped hole in the still-plummeting airplane. This was addressed in the second episode of ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'', as the characters discuss a scene from the original Christopher Reeve ''[[Superman]]'' movie:

{{quote|'''Sheldon''': Lois Lane is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of 32 feet per second per second... Superman swoops down to save her by reaching out two arms of steel... Miss Lane who is now traveling at approximately 120 miles an hour hits them and is [[Not the Fall That Kills You|immediately sliced into three equal pieces]]...Frankly, if he really loved her, he'd let her hit the pavement - it'd be a more merciful death.}}

 

'''[[Healing Factor]]'''

Any character with a healing factor presumably also requires superhuman pain tolerance, to avoid falling unconscious from the crippling pain and then waking up ten minutes later good as new. Still would be useful, but not so much in a combat situation (where being unconscious makes you useless at best, and makes you a liability or opens you up to a [[Coup De Grace]] at worst.)

 

 

'''[[Super Speed]]'''

These characters are somehow immune to the effects of friction - specifically, the chafing that would naturally occur from using extremely rapid speed for extended periods of time, especially while wearing spandex. And they face a problem the other direction, of having too little friction. Feet coming down at superspeed would presumably have super impact, and push them off the ground and at least a few feet in the air. Even once that's explained, someone going at superspeed over the slightest hill, or up stairs, or just random dips in the ground, would lose contact with the ground, they would keep going in the 'same direction' as before, into the air.

 

 

'''[[Flight]]'''

Other than those with obvious mechanical assistance (either [[Winged Humanoid|wings]] or rockets), flying characters possess the ability to propel themselves through no effort of their own. This might be due to some inherent [[Mind Over Matter|telekinetic]] ability, or perhaps it might be due to the ability to manipulate their own personal gravity. [[Winged Humanoid|Winged flyers]] don't have it much better; they need some way to offset the [[Square-Cube Law|mass and awkward shape]] of the human body, whether it be super-powerful wing muscles (and more importantly very large wing surface area, about that of a hang glider would do), a bird-like hollow bone structure (which would only save a few pounds for something with the body mass of a human - some engineering doesn't scale up well, as the ostrich can attest), or perhaps even a method of non-powered flight or levitation that is merely augmented by the wings (or some combination of the three).

 

'''[[Shapeshifting]]'''

Characters that shift into other objects also have the ability to ignore how said objects would ordinarily hurt people. For example, someone who could become living flame is also immune to being burned (either by their own flame or that of others). Someone who can turn into water often gains the ability to breathe in water (or has no need to breathe at all).

 

 

'''[[Time Stands Still|Time Freezing]]'''

Those that stop time should be blinded. If time were stopped, everything else stops too, including light. And air, which would hold them in place because the air they displace when they move can't get out of the way. In fact, those that stop time should be frozen along with everything else by the mere nature of the ability.

 

 

'''[[Time Travel]]'''

Most time-traveling heroes have the benefit of being immune to [[Temporal Paradox]] and the physical effects of [[The Time Traveller's Dilemma]]. Even if they do accidentally erase their own parents from history or create an even worse [[Crapsack World]] by [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act|killing Hitler only to have someone worse take over]], the hero will remain unchanged and still be capable of trying to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]].

 

 

'''[[Deflector Shields|Force Fields]]'''

Force fields are often air-permeable, which not only allows people to speak and listen through the field, but it also allows oxygen to filter in through the force field and thus allow breathing. However when a force field is used to keep water out while underwater, the force field often appears to have the power to actually extract breathable oxygen from the water around it and remove carbon dioxide from within it.

 

 

'''[[Invisibility]]'''

Applies not just to you, but to things you are carrying, or wearing. Any dirt on you becomes invisible, and either you get clothes made of some [[My Suit Is Also Super|suitable material]], or provide some [[Fan Service]]. Also, your light distortion fits that of your surroundings, and food remains invisible through the digestive process.

 

 

'''[[Intangible Man|Intangibility]]'''

You are immune to gravity or gain some kind of buoyancy, hence not plummeting through the ground. You also gain some self locomotion, so as not to worry about friction, (though many intangibles can float or [[Not Quite Flight|explicitly fly]]). You can still interact with air normally allowing you to breathe (if you need to breathe), hear and speak.

 

Clearly, a lot of potential downsides to this one. The ability to selectively screen your input is an absolute necessity unless you want your hero to be called "Captain Migraine", "The Squinter" or "Curled-Up-In-The-Fetal-Position-On-The-Floor-Man," and let's not even go over issues with sensitivity in the nether regions. Likewise, being able to [[X-Ray Vision|see through things]] is only good if you can also see the ''outsides'' of them when necessary.

 

 

'''[[Immortality]]/[[The Ageless|Agelessness]] in its various forms'''

As an immortal, you are in some way exempt from being tied to the normal mortal coil. You're either fully immortal, reincarnated immortal, or ageless but vulnerable. The latter type requires a lot of intelligence and careful planning if you don't want to be discovered. You should ideally have a lot of resources financially, and certain contacts, like people who can change your identity. Also it helps to be VERY mentally resilient, because [[We Are as Mayflies]] and so forth. There's an [[Age Without Youth|eternal life that does not include eternal youth]], leaving you in worse shape every year but knowing that your condition has nowhere to go but down.

 

'''[[Teleporters and Transporters|Teleportation]]'''

Teleportation-users would need to have some way of extending their teleportation to their clothes and items if they do not wish to reach their destination naked. Clothes are one thing but dental fillings, bone pins, pacemakers, etc would be unpleasant to suddenly be without. Ignoring the ludicrousness of trying to extend quantum-scale barrier tunneling to the classical scale (assuming that's how matter teleportation works in your particular [[The Verse|'Verse]], or that the [[Real Life]] rules of quantum physics even apply at all), such motion usually needs large amounts of energy as well.

 

 

'''[[Shock and Awe|Lightning]]'''

Electricity has a tendency to take not only the path of least resistance, but to a lesser degree all other possible paths as well. Hitting your target without inundating everything around it with current would require a great deal of setup, meticulous planning, prior knowledge of electrodynamics, and the resulting hours of linear algebra to ensure that all other available paths are sufficiently resistive enough not to cause collateral damage. Here's hoping you're ''really'' [[Good with Numbers]].

 

 

'''[[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|Size Changing]]'''

The ability to shift one's size would require the following abilities:

* Control over one's mass and density so that one does not blow away or sink into the earth (due to the shift in surface area and pressure).

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Momo from ''[[My Hero Academia]]'' quirk (super power) requires her to know the atomic structure of the objects she is making. If she wasn't a genius, she'd probably be able to only make rather simple substances. Even so she still needs to study. But it is easy to think about how much less useful her power would be in the hands of someone less smart (there are quirks that steal or copy other quirks). Momo can make painted ''wooden'' Russian nesting dolls!

** Johnny Storm (or rather, his clone—all of the Fantastic Four of 2099 are [[Cloning Blues|clones]] of the originals)) is at one point exposed to the Negative Zone's poisoned atmosphere through a leak in a labor frame suit he was wearing/driving. He ended up briefly coughing from it, but otherwise he sustained no long-term effects from it. When questioned about this later, he pointed out that as [[Wreathed in Flames|The Human Torch]] he tended to be surrounded by plasma flame, meaning that the very air he inhaled was superheated plasma. His lungs would have been scorched without the Required Secondary Power of enhanced lungs that could very efficiently filter out what he breathed. As a result, breathing toxic Negative Zone air was relatively a piece of cake, and he was shown doing so without a gas mask on at least one occasion.

** On the other end of the spectrum, the clone of Ben Grimm has the same rocklike epidermal layer as his predecessor—which he at one point described as "a full-body callus strong enough to withstand being hit by a missile." Unfortunately, his thick hide was still pierced on a few occasions, but the injuries were slow to heal, leaving deep craters and sensitive scar tissue in their wake.

* From [[Sleeping with the Girls]] vol II

** {{spoiler|[[Tenchi Muyo!|Washuu]]}} restores {{spoiler|[[Sailor Moon|Luna's]]}} ability to turn into human form. Later we learn {{spoiler|she}} also retained cat's muscle density, which makes {{spoiler|her}} really strong and agile but also uses proportionally more energy. So {{spoiler|she}} either has to [[Big Eater|eat a lot]] in human form or stay most of the time as a cat to save energy.

** The protagonist's mentor scolds him and comments that if he HAD tried to push it sideways, he'd likely have been thrown across the continent by now.

* Something similar to ''Belgariad'' also holds for magic in ''[[Discworld]]''. A wizard who wants to move a large weight telekinetically needs to harness some secondary force to avoid being crushed by the mass he's lifting; e.g. in ''Light Fantastic'', a wizard levitates himself by dropping a weight off a roof and transferring the force to himself. This rule seems to be often ignored [[Rule of Cool|if it would get in the way of the story]], however.

** Not to mention Eskarina demonstrated teleportation without an "anchor". Part of the ''Discworld'' narrative causality is things can be possible as long as you aren't told they aren't.

* Directly stated in the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' series of novels with the beautiful (and [[Winged Humanoid|winged]]) character of Peregrine. When a boyfriend tells her he hates mutated "Jokers", she explains to him that she is one. After all, her wings are large deformities that are not the source of her [[Flight|flying ability]], she does that psychically.

* Possible subversion in ''[[Smallville]]'': in a cliffhanger where Clark loses his powers near the end, a doctor must save his life by injecting him with a substance via syringe. Clark's parents (unaware that he has lost his powers) are terrified that the doctor will discover their son's secret, as they expect him to be invulnerable to needles in much the same way that he is invulnerable to bullets. However, the needle goes in fine, because of the loss of his powers.

** The [[Monster of the Week]] is occasionally [[Hoist by His Own Petard|done in by their own powers]]. For example: a guy who was [[Playing with Fire]] died when he tried to blast Clark, but the flames spread to him and burned him to death.

* In something of an aversion of the pyrokinetic version, ''[[Charmed]]'' has offered any number of witches, demons and warlocks who are completely vulnerable to their own fire-based powers, most notably {{spoiler|Christy, who is burned to death by her own flame-throwing ability when she tries to use it against her telekinetic sister Billie.}}

* The [[Doctor Who|Time Lords]] must have spent millenia perfecting all the biological processes necessary with the act of a body undergoing DNA rewriting at the most basic cellular-level across every organ from bone to hair. And it happens in roughly a minute, and doesn't kill the person undergoing it.

== [[Real Life]] ==

* [[We Can Rebuild Him|Cybernetics]] will only reach full viability when they can be tied into the human nervous system. Replacement sensory organs are obvious, but a cybernetic limb will not have the same fluidity and grace of a natural limb until the brain can ''treat it'' like one. Some method of translating between electrochemical and digital transmission is needed.

** Correspondingly, many attempts at power-multiplying exoskeletons have resulted in broken bones and strained muscles when the exoskeleton multiples the force and speed too far. There have been some recent{{when}} successes as designers learn to work around this.

*** At the other end of the scale, there's a robotic arm which has been made deliberately ''weak''. The fact that it is too weak to hurt anybody is a selling point.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Power At a Price]]

[[Category:Superhero Tropes]]

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]

[[Category:Power]]