Verse Equalization for Verses Without Magic/Ki

[Agnaa]

Summary

We say that power systems can interact with each other if they're similar enough, but many verses have highly specific systems that share almost no counterparts in fiction. On the other hand, there's many verses that have no given explanation for how their powers work, so they're not really similar or dissimilar from any system in particular. How should we treat equalization for these verses?

Examples
For some examples of unique power systems, taking from some verses I know well (and some I don't):

• Medaka Box has two main sets of powers - Skills and Styles. Abilities that work specifically on one generally don't work on the other.
  • How Skills work isn't really explained, but they're associated with people's personalities.
  • Styles are much weirder. They're vibrations that produce reality-warping effects based on communicating puns, wordplay, and emotions to the other person.
• Parahumans (Verse) has its powers (essentially, as far as I've heard) come from fragments of an alien god.
• Monogatari calls its supernatural beings Aberrations, and they have the powers and behaviours that humanity believes them to have, without much of an energy source given. They don't feed on human beliefs or anything, their forms just change to what humanity agrees they are.
• Epithet Erased has its powers come from a word randomly etched onto a person's soul at birth. These people can warp reality in accordance to any association/interpretation of that word etched onto their soul.
• The SCP Foundatio has most reality warping driven by people having a high level of "reality" inside them, and creating a low level of "reality" around them, letting themselves alter reality at their whim.

On top of this, there's a huge amount of verses that just have superpowers with no explanation whatsoever.

But you may be wondering to yourself, why does this matter? Can't we just equalize things based on specific mechanics? If someone controls one's mind by manipulating electric impulses, it doesn't really matter whether they got it from aliens or mutation. While this is true for many abilities it's not helpful when it comes to some of the most potent abilities - abilities that directly affect other abilities.

• Iihiko Shishime (Medaka Box) is immune to all Skills as a rule, but is vulnerable to both new normal physical attacks and Styles. Styles work because they involve both people understanding each other to produce effects, which gets around Iihiko's normal lack of recognition. An ability equalizing to a Style is the difference between doing nothing at all and working successfully.
• Butcher (Parahumans (Verse)) (as far as I'm aware) can invade an enemy's Shard, fragments of alien space gods residing in pocket dimensions that bestow powers. The verse also (apparently) has characters who can cut people off from their Shard.
• Kokorowatari (Monogatari) is a sword that can only cut through Aberrations, not interacting with normal matter at all, and which instantly kills Aberrations it cuts.
• The Arsene Amulet (Epithet Erased, profiles coming real soon) can steal people's Epithets - without equalization this does basically nothing.
• Scranton Reality Anchors (SCP Foundatio) are essentially mechanized portals to other universes, which either dump excess reality into those universes, or take in excess reality, to restore the reality of the main universe to normal, preventing reality warping from occurring. For sources of reality warping that don't rely on the level of reality around, these do absolutely nothing (as has been shown in-verse). Making these useless outside of that pretty specific context.

What To Do
Making this thread to ask how we address issues like this. How far or how little do we reach to equalize weird verses like this? Or if it's case by case, what sort of criteria do we look at to determine these sorts of things?

 

[Promestein]

There are some things we just can't be equalized, such as Shards. Some abilities are very strong in-verse, but not so strong otherwise.

I don't see why Kokorowatari couldn't be argued to work against any supernatural being similar to Aberrations. We don't need to be so specific as to argue only Aberrations and things exactly like them, so something like Touhou youkai would be affected similarly under verse equalization.

With things like Iihiko, it's a case-by-case basis.

 

[Agnaa]

I thought while writing that Kokorowatari was probably the weakest example, but I do still have some doubt on how reasonable it is to say it'd work on any other (explained or unexplained) youkai in fiction. I do still now leaning to say it could work on other youkai, but it makes me wonder what sorts of criteria we're using. Is it fine because they're both youkai even if they have different mechanics?

Should Yü Otosaka's power steal work on Shards since both verses have superpowers from alien beings, even if the mechanics and lore behind them differ a fair bit (Charlotte's from an alien virus, while Parahumans are from alien god shards)?

 

[Promestein]

Their mechanics are similar, but not the exact same, and I'd say that may be good enough.

Maybe?

 

[Agnaa]

So is it just about two verses having powers that are reasonably similar enough, so that we say they can interact?

 

[Promestein]

Yeah. Some things will have to be discussed more on a case-by-case basis, though, of course. Nothing wrong with that! The more we try to standardize things, the more issues will crop up.

 

[Agnaa]

Fair enough. I'm not super interested in standardizing it, I just haven't seen this topic talked about much, and I feel like some important implications (like SCP's Scranton Reality Anchors) haven't been applied properly, but that's more of a general feeling I have without any thread to point towards.

It also feels like a bit of a shame that Epithet Erased's Arsene Amulet might be essentially useless on the site, but it's like you said above, some abilities are very strong in-verse, but not so strong otherwise.

 

[Agnaa]

Just had a talk about this with Dargoo on Discord, here's my interpretation of his views.

Dargoo views things through the lens of hard and soft systems. For a tl;dr, soft systems are vague and undefined, with few or no rules, limitations, and explanations, while hard systems have more specific rules on those things. Quite a few verses land in-between, but they generally lean towards one side or the other.

For verses within the same "power grouping" (categories like magic, PSI, sci-fi tech, biological powers, ki/chi, superheroes, etc.). When soft verses interact with soft it's easy to assume they function on each other due to the scarce explanations. With soft verses interacting with hard verses, the soft verse (assuming it falls under the same power grouping) can generally be adapted to the hard verse without compromising on the setting's rules, so we can say they interact with each other. For example, we could say that Worm's interoperable with a generic superpowers verse that doesn't explain its mechanics, so Butcher could probably use its shard invasion.

Now when hard verses interact with hard verses, since they're so specific about their mechanics, they'd have to be very close in how they work for us to assume that they interact with each other.

Maybe this was obvious to other people but it helped me wrap my head around it, and it seems like a better way to treat it than to leave hard verses isolated and unable to interact with others.