Schwarz Science
I can't promise great things - I'm not the proud owner of a xenobiology degree or anything - but with a great deal of Anria's help, we worked out a little logic to prove how Schwarz's powers would work. She told me I didn't need to mention her, but some of these ideas are wholly hers (just as some are wholly mine) and I don't want to steal her thunder.
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Honestly, I have very little idea of what I'm talking about, as Anria and I worked out these theories from documentaries and general scientific knowledge, but much of it does make sense. Well, to us, at least. If there's any glaring errors, or you have a more likely solution, please, let us know. Well, me, as I haven't provided Anria's address.
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If you do happen to have a xenobiology degree, or majored in Quantum Physics, it would be wonderful to hear from you.
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The General Theory:
The brain emits electromagnetic brain waves. These can be measured, and are often used in sleep studies to measure intensity of thought, so as to work out when a person is dreaming. It's a vague science, at the moment, but could conceivably be developed and refined to the point of being able to read a person's thoughts.
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Shark's have a sixth (and a seventh, but I can't remember that one) sense we human don't possess: they can 'see' these brain waves and track them to their source. They emit an electric pulse of their own to do this.
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A note towards telepathy - both Anria and I believe this to be possible, though perhaps not yet. It happens to be, in our opinions, the next logical evolutionary step. Most organisms have some form of communication, even if it just boils down to either 'mate with me' or 'go away'. The more complex the form of communication, the more complex the brain of the organism, and so the more intelligent. Most intelligent animals, e.g. dolphins, apes, pigs (pigs have a potential mental age of a three year old) etc, have some form of language. When we were competing with Neanderthal man for supremacy, we out evolved the Neanderthals by developing a more complex language which allowed for a greater depth of communication and understanding between separate members of our race. Vocal language is the next logical step after body language, and it seems that telepathy would be the next logical step after a vocal language, allowing even greater understanding between members of the species and requiring an even more complex brain structure.
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Like I said, it made sense to us.
How it applies:
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Suppose a person learnt to read these brain waves, or control the manner in which they emitted them. Sharks can, so it's not out of the question (though would require some nasty genetic manipulation).
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'Passive' Telepathy and telempathy are simply the ability to pick up on these brainwaves.
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Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis and 'Healing' are the ability to control these brainwaves to the extent that the electromagnetic energy within them can be transformed to other kinds of energy, e.g. heat or kinetic.
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'Active' telepathy/telempathy require the telepath to combine both of the above talents, first understanding the electromagnetic brain waves and then physically altering them, changing the direction of thoughts as they travel through synapses within the brain. There are over 30000 nerve cells within the brain, so would be quite a feat.
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Precognition and postcognition (Yes, I made that word up, though the talent to read the past has been referred to be fantasy and scifi authors) are also a combination of reading and controlling. Both require Quantum Physics to be delved into, and are by far the most complicated. powers to second-guess. I know very little about quantum physics, the string theory (I think that would apply here) and the time-space continuum, so don't expect revelations. Just take it as read - time is neither a straight line nor a constant (the length of a second can vary considerably, depending on where you are, because the speed of light never changes), so a person could conceivably learn to pick up on tiny changes implying the imminence of an action or reaction. Much of Crawford's precognition could be taken as a minor talent for telepathy, picking up on what people are going to do before it is done. Post cognition would work on a similar basis, but could also involve the ability to pick up from the energy traces of a particle it's history, and from the particle content of a room or object it's general past. Of course, you'd either need extremely sensitive skin (unlikely) or the ability to recognise a particle from it's energy patterns.
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Farfarello
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Farfarello seems to suffer more from a physiological deformation than a psychic power. Pain is stimulated by nerve cells reacting to heat, pressure, light etc and interpreting different amounts to provide different levels of chemicals to different parts of the brain. It seems most likely that Farfarello suffers some kind of brain damage, or his insanity is interfering with the synapses in his brain, preventing the chemical that stimulate pain from acting properly. The question is whether he has never felt pain, or whether it is a more recent development. I plump for the former, as Farfarello's insanity seems more inclined to zealous devotion and sociopathy than actual madness. Most writers, alas, tend to portray him as actually nuts.