Day 74: Mad Scientist Book Learnin'

[itasianinvasion]

Mad Scientist time and for this one I’m taking from a more esoteric character and book, Prodigy from New X-Men.

He’s had both of these powers, and it’s a nice little take on telepathy, but basically Prodigy’s first power set was he instantly acquired the skills (not abilities) of anyone around him.  Therefore he had access to Wolverine’s combat

Comments

[coolhandskippy]

2. I mean, you'd have to take out a shit ton of loans to make the travel arrangements...buy the concert tickets...and arrange for the meetings. But I think you could do a lot of absorbing in one year. Too much, in fact. I'd say a 2-3 months would be a MUCH bigger challenge. Think about it - one day in a hospital and you've already got most of the medical knowledge you'll ever need (surgical, diagnosis, etc.). Same thing with a rock band. Shake hands with every member, and as long as they're a good band, so now are you.

[anonymous]

B) Learning 20 languages could land you one hell of a job with the FBI, CIA, UN, State Department, etc. If you can learn at your normal rate after a year, keeping up with on the job training shouldn't be difficult, especially if you have someone's background in computers, etc. I'd even argue that hanging out with a computer genius would give you more than enough of a base to keep learning about the latest developments.

Sadly, we're assuming the skills we acquire will be from someone competent. Nothing worse that finding out at 30,000 feet that the airline pilot you hung out with could only do his job when drunk and cheated through his education.

Also, just because we acquired these skills, doesn't mean we would have the personality or balls to take advantage of it. For example, you've acquired the skills of the world's premier mercenary, unfortunately, you're shit scared to run out from behind cover and use your skills.

Neil

[itasianinvasion]

That depends on how we access the powers. The comic's never clear, but if it became instinctive, competency is something that must be absolutely considered.

If you can review them, like you recall something from a class you took, and every time you think about landing a plane, you black out and wake up with a hangover, that might be a red flag to go find a Blue Angel or a SOAR operator.

You're absolutely right about having the steel to become the world's greatest killer, but that's like any superpower. Just because you can heal like Wolverine doesn't mean you're going to jump in front of guns. If you have of Iceman, you could become a proactive fighter, or a defensive protector depending on personality. I just want to make sure I'm never on the short end of a stick in a bar fight, or road rage incident, not kill people for money/sport.