Evil geniuses of Mythic Scribes, I need an evil application of a magic power

[sashamerideth]

You have heard that knowledge is power. That is esecially true with main character. He is naieve, but eventually corrupted by his ability to steal knowledge and skills from another, from a distance.

You have been a master duelist, unbeaten for a thousand matches. My MC comes along, likes your skill and boom, he is now your equal with one caveat. You have forgotten everything you ever knew about sword combat.

Particle physicist? Not any more, he's now a particle physicist and you can't remember what an electron is. Ballerina, not any more, he's off dancing away and you're as graceful as an elephant with one short leg. Sure you can re-learn and may find it easier than the first time around, but that knowledge is gone.

Note, he cannot read minds, so no spying. If someone else has a magic ability, he can't learn it because of the rules of magic. In my world, magic is a genetic trait that isn't inherited, but can be created if you know the right extra chromosomes to add. Painful and will probably kill you, but it is possible. More X-Men, less D&D.

My MC needs to get to the point where this goes to his head, and he needs to be stopped by his friends. I am thinking vendetta against my big bad (alters brain function. Erasing memories, stopping instinctive actions, that stuff). I will have a trigger in there, but I need things my MC can steal that would allow him to usurp power or rally an army. I have already thought of interspecies communication, rallying an army of my semi-intelligent lizard-bears to rate against an army of humans in armor (crunchy on the outside, soft and squishy on the inside), but I don't know if that is pushing the ability too far.

What do you think, evil geniuses of mythic scribes?

 

[Phoenix]

MUHAHUHA! Deliciously evil! Before pondering the question here though I must ask some questions. What is the time period? (Future, ancient, etc..) Also, can he keep more than one power?
P.S. I already know the perfect way for him to lose, if that's how your story goes.

 

[sashamerideth]

MUHAHUHA! Deliciously evil! Before pondering the question here though I must ask some questions. What is the time period? (Future, ancient, etc..) Also, can he keep more than one power?
P.S. I already know the perfect way for him to lose, if that's how your story goes.

Starts in a world about 300 years ahead of our own, he flees, with others to a world on the verge of a steam powered industrial revolution.

He can keep more than one but they degrade over time. The more mundane the longer lasting.

Edit, he does lose, don't know if he dies yet or redeems himself.

 

[Codey Amprim]

That's a cheap trick, albeit a powerful one. How about the use of a mirror? If someone had one or something of the like while he tried to use his power, he would copy himself into a paradoxical coma; that, or he loses his ability altogether or it damages it depending on the force or willpower he was using at that moment.

 

[ThinkerX]

There is at least one very serious limitation that leaps right out.

So, he 'steals' the moves of somebody who has been practicing swordsmanship for a decade or more. Thing is, he does not 'steal' that guys stamina or strength or muscle tone. So, yes, he can maybe manage a few cool moves to start with - and then the pain hits - pain from muscles he never knew he had. Quite possibly he could end up in serious need of major medical treatment.

As to the victims...well, the swordsman would still retain his strength and reflexes. The particle physicist would retain his intellect, and so on.

 

[sashamerideth]

That's a cheap trick, albeit a powerful one. How about the use of a mirror? If someone had one or something of the like while he tried to use his power, he would copy himself into a paradoxical coma; that, or he loses his ability altogether or it damages it depending on the force or willpower he was using at that moment.

Not everyone gets the cool toys. I am not looking for how to beat him, I am looking for ideas as to what he could do on his journey to not a nice person that needs to be stopped. This won't have battles on an epic scale, at least not where my MC will command a force of a hundred thousand.

 

[Sparkie]

How about stealing the ability of a benevolent healer in order to stop the 'big bad' from receiving neccesary care?

 

[sashamerideth]

There is at least one very serious limitation that leaps right out.

So, he 'steals' the moves of somebody who has been practicing swordsmanship for a decade or more. Thing is, he does not 'steal' that guys stamina or strength or muscle tone. So, yes, he can maybe manage a few cool moves to start with - and then the pain hits - pain from muscles he never knew he had. Quite possibly he could end up in serious need of major medical treatment.

As to the victims...well, the swordsman would still retain his strength and reflexes. The particle physicist would retain his intellect, and so on.

I think you missed, or I didn't properly explain, something. He gets the instincts, the muscle memory. In the swordsman example he may lack the strength, but he gains the instinct and body control. He also has to use his stolen skills otherwise he forgets them. It's a new part of his brain that goes away and gets that stuff, and it doesn't get ingrained in his normal brain without practice.

His victim would lose those instincts and muscle control, but the neural pathway in the brain related to it physically exist, the victim forgets how to access it. Maybe while they are trying to regain lost skills, something just clicks, and it all comes back.

Thing is, my MC has never seen the effects of it long term. He has only conciously used it a couple times, once out of desperation over a math test when he was ten, stole math skills of an older kid from another school that he only rarely saw. Once from a pilot, shortly before the pilot was killed, again out of desperation. Other times it was instinctive, undocumented, but he knows he can do it.

 

[sashamerideth]

How about stealing the ability of a benevolent healer in order to stop the 'big bad' from receiving neccesary care?

Cool idea. Because of my magic rules, the healer (already have one, female) would forget how to use her healing ability, my MC would know, but not be able to heal, he doesn't have the right physical makeup.

 

[ThinkerX]

I am not looking for how to beat him, I am looking for ideas as to what he could do on his journey to not a nice person that needs to be stopped.

Pretty much using the ability at all - he essentially wrecks other peoples lives for temporary gain. Once he's used it a few times, gotten over his initial revulsion - especially if he stole the abilities of somebody really talented - then he becomes a hunter. He judges everybody else by what their abilities can benefit him.

Old deal about murder: first time you kill somebody, its real, real rough. Major psychological trauma. Same with the second time. Third time, it gets a bit easier. After about the fifth or the sixth time...barring a really unusual personality...you're dead inside. Same way with this guy.

 

[sashamerideth]

Pretty much using the ability at all - he essentially wrecks other peoples lives for temporary gain. Once he's used it a few times, gotten over his initial revulsion - especially if he stole the abilities of somebody really talented - then he becomes a hunter. He judges everybody else by what their abilities can benefit him.

Old deal about murder: first time you kill somebody, its real, real rough. Major psychological trauma. Same with the second time. Third time, it gets a bit easier. After about the fifth or the sixth time...barring a really unusual personality...you're dead inside. Same way with this guy.

Now this will work. His first few thefts were out of desperation, not malice. He also doesn't know that what he does ruins lives yet. It won't be long before he uses it for personal gain instead of survival, bear in mind he's in his late teens with all the baggage that comes with it. For added fun, people like him are hated and being exterminated.

 

[ThinkerX]

He pretty much doesn't have a chance, then. Doom compounded by doom.

 

[Codey Amprim]

Not everyone gets the cool toys. I am not looking for how to beat him, I am looking for ideas as to what he could do on his journey to not a nice person that needs to be stopped. This won't have battles on an epic scale, at least not where my MC will command a force of a hundred thousand.

I'm confused... in the OP it said how you needed a way for his friends to beat him. Are you trying to defeat the character that has the copying power or are you trying to use that character against another person?

 

[Ravana]

Actually, stealing a duelist's reactions would be catastrophic for him unless his body was identical or very nearly so to the duelist's: otherwise, the reactions would be all wrong, and he'd be worse off than if he were fighting on his own far more limited experience.

More generally, "knowledge is power" is not a literal truth–as you've already noticed to some extent: knowledge of magic isn't the same thing as magic itself in your world. Something like interspecies communication should be treated the same way: first, there has to be someone capable of doing that (non-magically!) who he can steal from; if I understand you correctly, it also has to be a learned ability… which probably rules it out right there. Even if not, knowing how to communicate does not in itself give you command: why should the lizard-bears pay him the slightest mind? How's he going to sell the notion of gathering together in what is probably for them an unnaturally large agglomeration and attacking the humans? What's in it for them? It's not like he's queen bee and they're drones, right? What kind of commander is he going to make even if they go for it–without stealing the mind of a general as well? And what makes him think human tactics will transfer to a lizard-bear army? (He might know what the opposition is likely to do, but would have little notion of how to best take advantage of this.) Does he possess even an ounce of charisma, that he could get so much as a single person, let alone an army or other collection of individuals, to follow his lead? And if you think he's poorly off trying to steal a learned body skill from a human who isn't his exact physical match, imagine how he'd end up trying to steal just about anything at all from a non-human.

There's also the question of how much he steals, or has to steal, in order for the knowledge to be useful. You say he stole someone's math skill to pass a test: would he also (automatically?) steal the math skills of the particle physicist–without which the skill in physics would be useless? (Could be something to explore as he learns the extent of his abilities, by trial and occasional error.) Can he "go back" and hit the same mind up again if he discovers he's missed something vital? Or does the entire body of associated knowledge come at once–and what are the limits of what qualifies as "associated"? Just stole how to make dozens of poisons from the local apothecary, great… do you know how to identify the ingredients, if they aren't labeled? Where to gain access to them, if you aren't in his shop? The codeword by which the local less-than-honest purveyor of illicit substances knows whether you're a legitimate customer and not a police snoop to be disposed of on sight? The knowledge that security forces are actively seeking a poisoner at that particular moment?–not the apothecary in question: he's just been told by the police that they're watching the flow of certain items he happens to stock, and would appreciate being informed about anyone trying to buy them. Where any given chain of knowledge gets cut off can have pretty serious ramifications.

No, it's what you can do with the knowledge that gives it whatever force it confers. Something like particle physics is fairly straightforward–and what he can "do" with it is problems on a blackboard. If he happens to find a discarded cyclotron in a dumpster, he might be able to perform experiments with it. But the duelist's or ballerina's experience and reactions aren't going to be worth squat if he's 20 kilos overweight–his own weight, never mind theirs. Or club-footed. Or paraplegic. Or blind. Even stealing a pianist's talents won't do him a lot of good if all he has is a trombone. ("When all you have are nails, everything looks like a hammer"… or something to that effect.)

If you want knowledge he can steal that would "allow him to usurp power," there's only one way I can think of that's truly likely to work.…

Blackmail.

If you want him to seize power, he needs to seek out the most successful whorehouse madam in the capital city. Or, if that doesn't work for you (though forcing a teenage boy to wallow sordidly through a veteran hooker's memories has its own potential…), the head of the secret police, or perhaps the palace's longest-term butler or chambermaid. Or any political figure's doctor or psychiatrist. Priests, especially if the religion uses confessional. Learn whose skeletons have yet to come out of what closets, and he could go far.

My MC needs to get to the point where this goes to his head

"Gets to the point"? That shouldn't take long.…

P.S. I can think of another interesting twist you could use–doesn't really sound like it will fit what you're doing now, but might be useful somewhere down the road: make it so that he can only use one person's acquired skills at a time… and whenever he swipes a new set, the previous one gets dumped into the latest victim. The ballerina suddenly knows particle physics; the physicist knows swordfigthing. Could make for some very strange asides.

 

[sashamerideth]

Useful as ever, Ravana. Glad you chimed in. I like your twist, and it may be used. Time will tell.

First in-book incident (Needs tweaking before I showcase it) he steals a pilot's ability to fly a transport. It takes him a little while to get the craft off the ground because his brain and body don't know what to do with the new information, but it seeps in over the journey. Sort of like a buffer, all this info that isn't applicable floods in, but the bits that he can use get fed to him as required, adapted for him. Still first draft so everything is up for tweaking.