OK. One more question. Billionare wants a painting that is not for sale. Pays projector to visit projection where it is for sale and buys it. Can Billionare bring projection version of painting back with him to our world? If projected world has a cure for cancer we don't, can billionare visit projection hospital get cured and come back healthy? Can billionaire look up the details while he is at it, and bring back the secret of the cure to our own world?

Okay, that's different from what I was thinking.

I was thinking perhaps than for a brief period of time they could change the outcome of a probability. What if person A decided to say 'no' instead of 'yes' and, bang!, reality has shifted. But once manipulated a probability can never be shifted again and once the time window closes it's done with. Could get really strange if you have two of these people trying to accomplish different goals, reality could be changing all over the place.

And again, I would not worry about means yet. Equipment no equipment, warehouse no warehouse - let the story decide that.

Ursula K LeGuin wrote the Lathe of Heaven about a far more powerful version of what you are talking about invoked simply by , well won't contaminate your process by talking about what others have done. But what you are talking about is not something we have any idea how to do anyway. It is a mistake to focus on the how anyway. It is like those SciFi writers who spend pages explaining how FTL ships work. Dude, if you know how to do faster than light travel don't waste your time writing novels. Otherwise don't waste our time: neither of us knows how to do FTL. Just take it for granted, along with any limitations or extra features your story requires.

Billionare wants a painting that is not for sale. Pays projector to visit projection where it is for sale and buys it. Can Billionare bring projection version of painting back with him to our world?

No-- I'm not envisioning that physical spoils can be brought back from projections-- more like a broader application of the premise from the television show Early Edition. The protagonist got the next day's paper and always saw something that he would engender to change.

Maybe something like that?

This is very headache inducing, which is probably why I shouldn't think of stories like this. ::headdesk::

OK got it - information only, but you some risks. IF you are bitten by a ratttlesnake maybe when you come back no actual venom or infection but your body has reacted as though you had, so if you have a dickey heat you could still have heart attack. If you are shot, somethign super traumatic even if you are healthy you could get a heart attack from having experienced it.

Barb, maybe write the background out, sketch a few short scenarios, and then see if the result prompts character action? Sometimes it's not the technology, it's how the characters behave in relation to the technology that is compelling.

Dude, if you know how to do faster than light travel don't waste your time writing novels.

SNERK. Also, yes.

May it's because I've spent way too much of my life dealing with probabilistic risk assessment, but I'm thinking you could make it a smaller and more likely power. Probabilistic risk assessment rates how likely something is based on the probability of the individual events that can lead up to them. Suppose your hero could mentally zip through the probabilities and pinpoint how to shift small things for the desired result.

Suppose your hero could mentally zip through the probabilities and pinpoint how to shift small things for the desired result.

That's sort of like Longshot.

Barb, what you described sounded more, to me, like Total Recall or a virtual reality video game, except with probabilities, so that a projectionist could create a scenario for someone to walk through and explore and see what might happen based on what he or she did.

I actually like the superpower as stated. You actually experience the scenario and there is some risk of dying. In the end all you bring back is info. So it could just be a human holodeck, just experiencing a very realistic illusion that include real information. (Also it could be probabilistic.`Your novel, the risk of getting wrong information can be zero or very low or as high as you want.) Explaination whatever you need for the story:

Fantasy: projectors have spirit guides and take superhero and guest on tour through dream world to get infor. bonus: misuse loses major karma points. Pychic pollution in form of bad luck for world is a side effect.

SciFi pseudo science: projector is actually creating branching alternate time line. Time line collapses on return which is why physical effects are not retained. But trauma is, and that can have major physcial affects. stimata an example of how real.

Sci-fi two: information from unknown source, presented in shared dream. Pyschic info, tapping some other mysterious source. Same reason for physical effects as above.

By no means the limit. Really easy to define power in way that gives you any pluses and minuses you want. Time to play with scenarios. Let the story or character define the power for you.