I have been given new powers.

I'm still trying to figure out what all they entail.

Unfortunately I apparently can't experiment on my own posts, because they are my posts. Does anyone know if a thread disappears if I use my administrator powers to remove the only message in that thread?

>1 LShelby: Would you like someone to post a test thread for you to experiment on?

ETA: I'm going offline now but I'm sure someone else will volunteer. :-)

I believe the answer is no. It is just hidden

>3 gilroy:
Pity.
I don't really want to remove any posts, but I would sure love to be able to move them to where they actually belong, and then delete the thread.

>2 spiralsheep:
I will have to think about that... I want to have fewer pointless threads cluttering the group instead of more. But maybe I can come up some way around that.

See, as a genre fiction author, I read your post's title and just *assumed* it was invisibility or the power of flight or something...

Not that this isn't cool, too...

_Mark

Nah... the "superpower" I always wanted to have was four arms. Or, if that wasn't an option, a prehensile tail.

Even now that my kids have grown up, I still have a tendency to try to do more things at once than I really have hands for. Either it's a habit I've gotten into, or it's my way of trying to get as much done with as little energy as possible.

Rather than an extra pair of arms, I really think I'd rather have an archibras: the "Harmonian arm" of Charles Fourier that he expected to appear among humanity sixteen generations after Civilization had been transcended. It was supposed to be a terribly long and powerful prehensile tail, with 144 vertebrae, and a strong but tiny hand on the end.

>6 LShelby:

>7 paradoxosalpha:

I'll go "meta" with my superpower. I'd like to attract willing and competent minions. They could do all the stuff I don't want to bother with, without my having to pay attention.

>8 MHThaung:
Minions would be awesome, but only if they are self-directing. If you have to tell them what to do all the time, then I might as well just make do with my kids. ;)

>7 paradoxosalpha:
Oooh! Put a hand on the end of the tail. Now that sounds useful.

I don't believe that humans will evolve tails, though. I think it would take genetic engineering of some sort.

I remember Ryk E. Spoor thinking that once humans had the ability to surgically give themselves "superpowers"" and likewise add tails and wings and so forth, it would be very common. I'm not so sure. You see so many people up in arms over genetically engineered food products... would tails really be so popular.

...They would make sitting down on ordinary benches and chairs and bit awkward.

>9 LShelby: I tend to think that like every fad trend, there will be just enough people rebelling against the norms of society that it might not be uncommon to see a tailed person here or there. Especially in Walmart. But I doubt it would ever be more than a small percentage of the population. Too expensive, and too much of a life-long choice that they're stuck with if they change their minds.

That's my opinion, anyway, haha. Make a great book though...

IIRC, the book we were discussing at the time was his Grand Central Arena. Fun is probably a good descriptor, especially if one is into scifi action-adventure. :)

I believe the book mentioned humans retrofitted with wings in passing, but unless the wings are just a decoration, I would think those would be much harder to do than tails, even prehensile ones. It's not just the need for more chest muscles, and some additional bone structures to anchor them to, there is also the problem of weight. Birds have hollow bones -- I would think that would be a very dangerous alteration, especially in conjunction with an increased potential for falling from high places.

...
My sister says that she wants to have long-distance teleportation as her super power. It would make visiting friends and family SOOOO much easier.