Question Silver Ghost

So I've been re-reading the Silver Ghost stories and The question that really stands out for me in this one is: How is she getting away with not having an MID, other stories seem to imply that having powers and not being able to produce an MDI is itself somthing that the police will hand you over to the MCO for.

Saying that SPECTRUM can protect here is a bit of a problem again based on other stories, which repeatedly show other Super groups being rather limited in their ability to prevent young mutants from being seized by the MCO.

And in seperate speculation I have to wonder how much of her resitance to going to Whateley is based on the fact that she hasn't finished changing into a girl.

The NEED for a MID just for being a mutant is a bit of anti-mutant propaganda that's creeped into quite a few places... officially a mutant only needs an MID for certain actions such as air travel and entrance and exit from foreign countries.

The MCO has LITTLE to NO legal authority in most places. Their charter is set-up so that they need to work with local law enforcement. However, they tend to overstep those boundaries and overstate their power in order to get mutants into their custody.

What he said, and have they admitted she's a mutant to the public? Because none of the members of Spectrum are mutants.

There was all that MCO concerted attacking along the lines of "why is Spectrum hiding she is a mutant", so yes, it's official that Silver Ghost is a mutant.

DanZilla wrote: The NEED for a MID just for being a mutant is a bit of anti-mutant propaganda that's creeped into quite a few places... officially a mutant only needs an MID for certain actions such as air travel and entrance and exit from foreign countries.

The MCO has LITTLE to NO legal authority in most places. Their charter is set-up so that they need to work with local law enforcement. However, they tend to overstep those boundaries and overstate their power in order to get mutants into their custody.

Yeah and political influences keep the FBI from arresting their asses for intimidation, overstepping their bounds lying about their authority, distorting the law, wanton destruction and endangerment, kidnapping and excessive force.

Valentine wrote: What he said, and have they admitted she's a mutant to the public? Because none of the members of Spectrum are mutants.

Well they have made a soft admission, without actually admitting it, seeing as they suddenly have displays about mutants in their public access areas, whcih jsut happens to include an unlableed Silver Ghost cape.

But hay so far she has a good relationship with local law enforcement.

Reread completed. I really hope that Kirstin has the next part of Silver Ghosts story lurking in her queue of works to be published.

konzill wrote: Reread completed. I really hope that Kirstin has the next part of Silver Ghosts story lurking in her queue of works to be published.

Strangely

It surprises me that there's so little discussion about Stacy's powerset, not that it's a bad thing (it just means that the story is about the choices and reactions of Stacy, SPECTRUM and the people of Cincinnati, which is way better than 'look the cool powers I have and how clever I am in their use' type of story), however it's a perfectly valid excuse for some wild guessing and, who knows, maybe we can even get an epileptic tree out of it (Don't let it die, plant your tree today!).

Anyway, my guess is that Stacy is an Exemplar (for obvious reasons), a Paragon and an instinctive Psi (similar to Carmilla). She seems to have a knack to always do the right thing, the only times when she doesn't are when she doesn't use her trait because she thinks she already knows how things are, usually because her low selfestime tells her that she's worthless and everyone else acts based on her worthlessness, but there are also cases like origin story when she believed to that creep because she could read his mind but he was lying to himself and so managed to play her for fool, the other timse? New powers when she needs them (Silver PK Field when her stepfather tried to beat him/her to death, ESP and Telekinesis while running from home, Invisibility when stowing away from his hometown to Cincinnati, Telepathy when she found herself dealing with people she didn't know.... even if it bit her in the ass later, Flight to escape from Tawny, more ESP when helping Cal with his rig, Precog or at very least Danger Sense when fighting Mockcap), dealing with sticky situations in an effective manner (when the guest girl planted the drug in her room) and managing to work with (almost) everyone, from a Mind Web-ed Capitain Patriot to a beat cop that has to put up working with a costumed freak. Last but not least her power set seems to be extremely flexible, normal TK, TP and ESP (unless I'm mistaken) are rigid, you can do this and that but if something isn't in your power set, it just isn't in your power set, an Empath can't pick up Precognition, a Pyrokinetist can't develop Electrokinesis, sure, they might have a few things locked up needing a preakthrought to unlock but in Stacy's case it would be up to beyond eleven. This leaves us with two posible traits: Psi and Wiz. Considering the absence of any reference to essence or any aspect associated with magic I think that we can rule out the second, even if that part with Sobek did raise a few questions (maybe it's just Stacy's Paragon trait putting her in the right state of mind, who knows, she might have the potential to become a good mage even without a wiz trait).

One thing that makes me wonder is, why is Stacy so afraid of being outed if she hasn't had any issues when she was hospitalized after being hit by H1! sonic weapon?

I think that the reason you haven't seen much discussion is because there was a great deal of discussion... back when the story began, and before the site migration toasted our forum history. Since the new stories haven't provided much new information on her powerset, the speculation never picked up again.

Until now.

(sorry, just trying to sound ominous)


On the surface, I'd say her powerset looks most like a standard PDP. TK shield, telepathy, and some ESP. On the other hand, one of the hallmarks of the PDP trait is that the traits can't be used at the same time, which Stacy has. Also, PDP rarely combines with the exemplar trait, which Stacy also seems to have. So either Stacy is a particularly special or powerful PDP, or there is something greater going on here that we don't understand.

Usualy.

There was one PDP at Whateley iirc to whom that limitation didn't aply.

Or she has in instinctive grasp of the flicker technique.

Arcanist Lupus wrote: I think that the reason you haven't seen much discussion is because there was a great deal of discussion... back when the story began, and before the site migration toasted our forum history. Since the new stories haven't provided much new information on her powerset, the speculation never picked up again.

Until now.

(sorry, just trying to sound ominous)


On the surface, I'd say her powerset looks most like a standard PDP. TK shield, telepathy, and some ESP. On the other hand, one of the hallmarks of the PDP trait is that the traits can't be used at the same time, which Stacy has. Also, PDP rarely combines with the exemplar trait, which Stacy also seems to have. So either Stacy is a particularly special or powerful PDP, or there is something greater going on here that we don't understand.

Could be a number of traits that emulate PDP, or the Exemplar physical package though we might rule that out because of the mental package, she doesn't have the appetite for an Energizer, however that could mean warper, lack of hobgoblins reduces likelihood of the Wizard trait,

Personally I don't think she's a PDP, IIRC Cavalier is described as being an anomaly because he has two different ESP in his PDP trait (along being a supposedly rare Ex/PDP combo), Stacy has too many abilities to be a PDP, as for the flicker techinque, it's and advanced technique, I don't think that a newly manifested PDP would use it without some trial and error first, and certainly not without even realizing what she's doing.

I am going with the canon answer for what her powers are: "not enough information please consult the experts at ARC"

Jarjaross wrote: I am going with the canon answer for what her powers are: "not enough information please consult the experts at ARC"

Where's the fun in that?

On the top of that, how does that qualify a Wild Guessing?

PDP has been established as being a "one at a time" in a majority of cases, but there are exceptions, usually at the high end of the power scale. Stacy avoids the hassles of not having an MID because SPECTRUM has gone to ball for her and kept the MCO out, and as noted, she doesn't need it for most of the normal legal reasons like travel. If she DOES go to Whateley, she will need an MID, but until then, she can skate. She's probably an advanced PDP with multiple esper traits or a single "trait" containing the other traits within itself. She could also be an avatar of some kind. At least we can all agree on the exemplar bit.

Which brings up a question. Is Stacy's outward appearance the only thing going (slowly) girl, or is she undergoing a full transition just, again, Slowly?

Otherself wrote:

Jarjaross wrote: I am going with the canon answer for what her powers are: "not enough information please consult the experts at ARC"

Where's the fun in that?

On the top of that, how does that qualify a Wild Guessing?

You want a guess? Alright I have 2.

Guess 1:
The invisibility and superstrength come from a manifested. Her changing appearance is from MATD and only seems to be going at a constant rate due to her power usage.

To explain her increased natural strength the form the MATD is moving her towards is stronger, thus she acts as a faux exemplar.

The shell is made of some magically receptive material which is why she work so well with some artifacts.

Lastly she has a totally seperate psychic power that lets her find things (as scene when she looked for the safe) but has more meta applications such as allowing her to find solutions.

Guess 2:
She is some kind of avatar and her spirit has something to do with ancient egypt and the Ankh.

Avatar of Amunet probably.

I do like the suggestion of her actually being an Avatar or some kind. It could be that not all her powers are from the Avatar, and that the Avatar boosted her actual powers somehow.

Iwasforger03 wrote: PDP has been established as being a "one at a time" in a majority of cases, but there are exceptions, usually at the high end of the power scale. Stacy avoids the hassles of not having an MID because SPECTRUM has gone to ball for her and kept the MCO out, and as noted, she doesn't need it for most of the normal legal reasons like travel. If she DOES go to Whateley, she will need an MID, but until then, she can skate. She's probably an advanced PDP with multiple esper traits or a single "trait" containing the other traits within itself. She could also be an avatar of some kind. At least we can all agree on the exemplar bit.

Which brings up a question. Is Stacy's outward appearance the only thing going (slowly) girl, or is she undergoing a full transition just, again, Slowly?

Well the transformation could also be, at least in part MATD related, the majority happened early on when she was being manipulated to use her powers to steal things, and she used them a LOT at that point, since then, outside of emergencies and training, most of her day she spends in classes NOT using her powers, doesn't mean she isn't an exemplar, just that her BIT is presenting itself more through use of her powers then as a constant thing, she would be far from the first mutant who's transformation was progressed through use of their powers.

Just to throw fuel on this, and it's all IIRC, so I might get something wrong:

-On the previous forums, there was a topic on "Psi: PDP and you" in which if I remember correctly:
- Kristin said that PDP's don't have to conform to equal tri-part of TP, ESP, and TK. Any combination of Psi powers will do. I believe the examples used had a PDP with two forms of ESP and TK, and another that had TP and two forms of TK.
- Bek said that PDP's don't have to have just three powers split equally. I believe it was phrased in a way that talked about how researchers wrote their doctorates on how the power accessed the brain in some way, but that the psychic community knew they were wrong.

-Regarding Breakthrough, (spoiler for The Big Idea) which shows that Stacy's growing "powers as the plot demands" ESP talents aren't a unique thing.

-Early on, when Stacy was only really showing TP, Paragon, Silver TK and Ghost TK, each one at a time, and applications that could be attributed to the first two, she was subjected to Dr. Diabolik's mind web, which is noted in story as giving a MASSIVE mental boost to those who can break out of it on their OWN, more so than anyone who has assistance doing so. Which she did.

-Regarding Sobek: Sobek is a mystical entity. Lady Jettatura is evil. Green Witch has connections to the pit. Stacy is a child, and pretty innocent. Sobek isn't likely to care about the thievery that she was tricked into. So why could she control him when Karen couldn't? Either Telepathy or Magic Mysticism bridging the communication gap, and Stacy has virgin power.

-The previous mention in this topic of how she gets along with almost everyone, especially law enforcement, isn't a power. It's her being just shy enough to shut the hell up and be humble, but after the Danny Ferris matter, not so shy that she's a doormat. It's noted in the story that the main reason police hate dealing with superheroes, and the Knights of Purity for that matter, is that they try to show up and handle everything like they're the boss. Stacy, however, touches base with the local police on scene as her first action, using invisibility to do so without drawing attention, and she lets the adults make the big decisions.

So my take on Stacy's powers is that she was a non-standard Exemplar PDP, having four powers instead of three, and the mind web broke her through to not only have more ESP than Paragon, but also the multiple powers at a time.
Either that or Exemplar and standard PSI, with the mind web breaking her through to the later powers.

Really, PSI powers allow a lot of flexibility thanks to breakthrough. For a character who just lets things come up as Stacy does, it goes far to justify the "I didn't know I could pull powers out of my arse as I need them."
And really, as long as the story is good, it doesn't matter if the character has 'powers as the plot requires'. The problem with that trope is when it becomes lazy and the resolution is cheap. The focus on Stacy's stories aren't the powers, it's the personalities.

Because Stacy isn't the most "PatPr" character in story. That's Madcap. And nothing suffers for that.

Iwasforger03 wrote: I do like the suggestion of her actually being an Avatar or some kind. It could be that not all her powers are from the Avatar, and that the Avatar boosted her actual powers somehow.

That certainly a possibility; the intro story mentions that it was though Champ-2 had several significant TK/PK powers (appropriately enough, mostly used in ways fitting the Silver Age Superman powerset) but that it wasn't clear how strong they really were because they might have been boosted by the Champion Force.

On an unrelated note, I wonder if the fact that Briggs was a bully before becoming Champ-3 after Trent's death (which I note was timed to correspond with what some consider the end of the Silver Age and start of the Bronze Age, depending on how you gauge the genre's development) might have been a sly reference to the Superdickery website and/or trope? Just a thought, though it probably wasn't intentional.

Iwasforger03 wrote: I do like the suggestion of her actually being an Avatar or some kind. It could be that not all her powers are from the Avatar, and that the Avatar boosted her actual powers somehow.

The problem with that is unless she has an uninhabited hollow the Avatar trait from a first person perspective is extremely obvious, with the rare exception of hosting a "force"

mhalpern wrote:

Iwasforger03 wrote: I do like the suggestion of her actually being an Avatar or some kind. It could be that not all her powers are from the Avatar, and that the Avatar boosted her actual powers somehow.

The problem with that is unless she has an uninhabited hollow the Avatar trait from a first person perspective is extremely obvious, with the rare exception of hosting a "force"

Not neccisarily. The original Champion didn't realize he was an avatar. No one figured out he was an avatar until Champ 4 if I remember correctly. Champion just kept absorbing spirits until they amalgamated into a force, Stacy could be doing the same thing.

That being said the only reason I sugguested Avatar was because you can never discount avatars because they can have literally any power. I don't want her to be an avatar, personally it would feel like a huge cop out to me. "This person has a unique and confusing set of powers, how should we classify her. I know I'll give her a spirit that she has somehow not noticed until just now and call her an avatar."

Jarjaross wrote:

mhalpern wrote:

Iwasforger03 wrote: I do like the suggestion of her actually being an Avatar or some kind. It could be that not all her powers are from the Avatar, and that the Avatar boosted her actual powers somehow.

The problem with that is unless she has an uninhabited hollow the Avatar trait from a first person perspective is extremely obvious, with the rare exception of hosting a "force"

Not neccisarily. The original Champion didn't realize he was an avatar. No one figured out he was an avatar until Champ 4 if I remember correctly. Champion just kept absorbing spirits until they amalgamated into a force, Stacy could be doing the same thing.

That being said the only reason I sugguested Avatar was because you can never discount avatars because they can have literally any power. I don't want her to be an avatar, personally it would feel like a huge cop out to me. "This person has a unique and confusing set of powers, how should we classify her. I know I'll give her a spirit that she has somehow not noticed until just now and call her an avatar."

Warning: Spoiler! [ Click to expand ] [ Click to hide ]

As for the whole migraine having 17 diffrent power on her PDP that is slightly wrong. She was still a PDP, meaning she could only access one of telepathy, esp, or telekinesis at a time. What she did was find 17 unique applications of her powers which could be broadly divided into one of the three sections. Thus she had access to more than one 'power' at a time as long as those powers were in the same track.

This is how I interpreted it when seeing explantations on the old forum, you may correct me if I am wrong.

This also does nothing to explain Stacy's powers as she has clearly used two powers in different tracks at the same time (invisibility and finding things). This would be using 2 PDP powers at the same time which is a high level application as in it requires a high level of skill and training not a high power level.

As i said, the rare exception of a force, the other problem though not an unexplainable problem is that she LIVES with the Green Witch, and Avatars are inherently magical, though a few of them are significantly less so (Shine) if you use Avatar as a reason to explain her capability with artifacts you would probably require a decently powerful spirit, but regardless her legal guardian should have been able to notice her essence, though the pit could be hiding that. It is however possible that she is a magically inclined wiz 0 the problem with her having the actual wizard trait at all, is no signs of hobgoblins at all

Personally I think that she is a PK supergirl with paragon, TK and limited empath or telepathy. The pk or the tk are responsible for the invisibility.

Regarding Avatars: I believe that's canon that not all spirits are "talky", meaning that some avatars don't get the feeling that they are communicating with some other mind. Take Aquerna, for instance. We have seen a lot from her PoV, but the things she attributes to her spirit are, for the most part, feelings and emotions that she identifies as coming from the spirit, not so much as explicit interactions. Meaning that if she wasn't aware that she was an avatar, she might just think these are her own feelings, and be puzzled by why she's so afraid of cats now.

Sir Lee wrote: Regarding Avatars: I believe that's canon that not all spirits are "talky", meaning that some avatars don't get the feeling that they are communicating with some other mind. Take Aquerna, for instance. We have seen a lot from her PoV, but the things she attributes to her spirit are, for the most part, feelings and emotions that she identifies as coming from the spirit, not so much as explicit interactions. Meaning that if she wasn't aware that she was an avatar, she might just think these are her own feelings, and be puzzled by why she's so afraid of cats now.

Was it Mongoose in Poe, he helped Jade and Jinn, that was so well tied to his spirit that he couldn't tell whose thoughts were whose.

Some spirits don't talk back at all. She could also be a paladin type without knowing it, a god of mayhem or trickery might choose her as their paladin without bothering to ever speak to her about it, because it just wants to watch the chaos.

Still, it's also perfectly reasonable for her to be a PDP of some type. I'd say she's pretty weak on the telepathy thing, though that could just be a lack of training.

New theory: the reason why Stacy isn't going to whateley is because Bec doesn't know how to classify her powers and she's stalling for time with every new bit of drama.

Jarjaross wrote: New theory: the reason why Stacy isn't going to whateley is because Bec doesn't know how to classify her powers and she's stalling for time with every new bit of drama.

And I would have gotten away with it, if not for you meddling kids and your DOG!


I've always wanted to say that!

Bek D Corbin wrote:

Jarjaross wrote: New theory: the reason why Stacy isn't going to whateley is because Bec doesn't know how to classify her powers and she's stalling for time with every new bit of drama.

And I would have gotten away with it, if not for you meddling kids and your DOG!


I've always wanted to say that!

Famous Five or that American cartoon?

Bek D Corbin wrote:

Jarjaross wrote: New theory: the reason why Stacy isn't going to whateley is because Bec doesn't know how to classify her powers and she's stalling for time with every new bit of drama.

And I would have gotten away with it, if not for you meddling kids and your DOG!


I've always wanted to say that!

… why is it that only my joke theories are given credence?

You obviously have some measure of ESP going on there, maybe you are a mutant, or you and Bek are secretly the same person >.>

Jarjaross wrote:

Bek D Corbin wrote:

Jarjaross wrote: New theory: the reason why Stacy isn't going to whateley is because Bec doesn't know how to classify her powers and she's stalling for time with every new bit of drama.

And I would have gotten away with it, if not for you meddling kids and your DOG!


I've always wanted to say that!

… why is it that only my joke theories are given credence?

Because it's common knowledge that 99% of theory crafters secretly don't want to be told if their theories are on point.

We don't want to put the authors into a tough spot of being "damned if they do, damned if they don't" in regards to our speculation, but we also want the opportunity to show off a little should we ever guess right.

Bek D Corbin wrote:

Jarjaross wrote: New theory: the reason why Stacy isn't going to whateley is because Bec doesn't know how to classify her powers and she's stalling for time with every new bit of drama.

And I would have gotten away with it, if not for you meddling kids and your DOG!


I've always wanted to say that!

In this forum it should be meddling kids and there velociraptor.

NJM1564 wrote:

Bek D Corbin wrote:

Jarjaross wrote: New theory: the reason why Stacy isn't going to whateley is because Bec doesn't know how to classify her powers and she's stalling for time with every new bit of drama.

And I would have gotten away with it, if not for you meddling kids and your DOG!


I've always wanted to say that!

In this forum it should be meddling kids and there velociraptor.

Or kittyboy, or bunnygirl, or squirrelgirl, or...

Ametros wrote: We don't want to put the authors into a tough spot of being "damned if they do, damned if they don't" in regards to our speculation, but we also want the opportunity to show off a little should we ever guess right.

Hey, if our rampant speculation inspires someone to write a new character, or even inspires a new cannon character, then it's time well spent on our part

I had an entire massive guessing game, that got too big for me to keep up with, based on this concept. It was literally a bragging rights thing where people would post guesses or agree with someone and we'd steadily mark off and what was right and what was wrong. Sadly, I lost the original.

NJM1564 wrote: In this forum it should be meddling kids and there velociraptor.

That's not a velociraptor, it's a badassosauros.