User talk:Riddler/Ability byproducts

Alright, and now to discuss. I only made this page because I feel arguing this will be futile. In any case, I personally believe that these "byproducts" aren't byproducts at all. I believe they're just aspects of each ability, and labeling them byproducts will only lead to confusion and inconsistency. We don't say that a byproduct of Telepathy is Illusion, though we know Matt can create illusions with his ability, and we don't say that Time travel is a byproduct of Teleportation, though Hiro can travel through time whereas Manuel Garcia can only teleport. As with the lightnings, we need consistency.--Riddler 01:19, 7 December 2008 (EST)

• Totally agree. I was actually just getting ready to change all the powers listed for Edward to just one ability since that's what we usually do. The only reason Brendan Lewis and Santiago have a "byproduct" listed is because they were confirmed to have one (Brendan in his assignment tracker profile, and Santiago in an BTE). There's an older BTE that talks about Nathan being able to withstand air friction as part of his ability--it's not a separate ability, it's just part of the ability he has. -- RyanGibsonStewart (talk) 01:25, 7 December 2008 (EST)
  • I don't agree with Brendan Lewis having a "Byproduct". I can't find anywhere on the page where it says that. Sure, it lists regeneration next to it, but anywhere else it's mentioned it says "Adaptive DNA." That makes me believe it's just an aspect, and not a whole separate ability.--Riddler 01:30, 7 December 2008 (EST)
    • The normal paradigm we had been working with is that a person can have only one ability, so the names for abilities needed to correspond to all that an ability could do. The reason for coming up with 'byproducts' is that the assignment tracker specifically noted Brendan had regeneration as an ability, not just an aspect, so we felt compelled to add that somehow in the infobox. And when Santiago's bio noted he had more than one ability (plural), we noted the seemingly secondary abilities in the same way. However, the graphic novel itself didn't note Brendan as having more than one ability, and Destiny was rather explicit in that Santiago only had "accelerated probability", so I'm not opposed to getting rid of all the byproduct entries altogether. But if we leave in the byproducts, I think Riddler is right that there is a lot of aspects that should be added as such.--MiamiVolts (talk) 02:59, 7 December 2008 (EST)

Which is the core ability?

Intuitive Empath, I didn't include Mental Manipulation because I didn't have a central ability to go with it, nor did I know the byproduct. All the others I listed are one ability that's byproduct is another characters ability. Should this be the standard for "byproducts"?--Riddler 16:03, 7 December 2008 (EST)

• That's the doubt I expressed in the edit summary, if it ends up being an ability with a byproduct, we can finally end the "it's one ability with two effect/it's two abilities" issue. Intuitive Empath - Talk - Contributions 16:16, 7 December 2008 (EST)
  • Regarding other abilities, check out ability homology for some ideas. For instance, dream manipulation seems to have precognition and clairsentience; and healing and plant manipulation can both perform plant growth. Also, another ability that could be changed to another ability name and a byproduct could be electromagnetism, but just like those previously mentioned, we don't know which part to name as the core ability and which part is the byproduct. Or do we use a descriptive name that encompasses everything shown--'electromagnetism'--and add both 'lightning' and 'levitation' as byproducts??? If we do that, 'mental manipulation' would stay the descriptive name for the Haitian's ability and it would get 'memory erasing' and 'ability negation' as byproducts.--MiamiVolts (talk) 16:34, 7 December 2008 (EST)
  • "Electromagnetism" wouldn't have Lightning and Levitation as byproducts, as both of those together make Electromagnetism. If we do rename it to Lightning, though, by all means we can list Levitation as a byproduct. As for Mental manipulation, again, that could mean anything, and we don't know which the core is. If we don't know the core or we don't have a similar ability to base it off of, like Space-time manipulation, where we have another person who can teleport, then it shouldn't be listed.--Riddler 16:45, 7 December 2008 (EST)
    • Or if we rename "electromagnetism" to "levitation", we could list "lightning" as a byproduct cause in the case of "electromagnetism", we don't know which is the core aspect of the ability: the electric part or the magnetic. The same situation exists for mental manipulation and space-time manipulation. There is likely no way for us to tell which is the core for those abilities or if there is one, which is why I suggested keeping the encompassing descriptive name for them and listing the byproducts (or "aspects of the ability", if that pleases you better).--MiamiVolts (talk) 16:55, 7 December 2008 (EST)