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.

Kevin Smith wrote these thoughts about writing on his blog. iting is the closest any man or woman will ever come to playing God (or a god).

Some will say childbirth, but that’s giving life, not playing God. Some will argue the cruel play at angry gods, but any animal can inflict pain; cruelty is not playing God, it’s playing Man.

Some will point to art or music, but the canvases - while valid & beautiful - are limited to what is heard or what is seen.

Film? I’m living proof that even chimps can make cinema if there’s enough talent to back it up; and the talent is never in the individual anyway, it’s in the group effort of many filmmakers - cast and crew - aiding the one in telling his or her story. I love film; it has given me everything I have today. But even filmmaking is not playing God.

Only writing – amongst not only all the arts, but amongst all of humanity’s waking endeavors – allows we mere mortals a true taste of all-encompassing creation along the lines of that which God (or a god; or a god-like energy from which the universe sprang) knew or knows.

You sit down with a blank page (let’s be honest: a blank screen) and you create a universe. You fashion a world. You populate it with whimsies and desires. You make the world the way you feel it oughta be. And you don’t have to show a single image to convey your creation to others: just words. The more you share it, the more your fiction becomes a reality – a reality that can even manifest itself in that most unimaginative and over-valued currency: cold, hard cash.

But for any writer, money is never the motivator: it’s that crushing need to get that story/blog/script/poem off your chest onto someone else’s mind. A writer doesn’t need motivation because a writer can never shut it off.

When you write, you are as a god – or even the God. Who needs motivation for that? You wanna enjoy the perks of godhood without some jackass nailing you to a cross? Go write something. Right now. Stop reading me.

#SMonologueOff