Ask Lemmy

Immortality.

Don't even try all the lame excuses about why it is a bad thing. You know who comes up lame excuses? People who are mortal.

• I will never get bored
• I will accept that everyone I know will eventually die
• I am not worried about being trapped in a hole or something because fuck it I will just carry around a collapsible shovel
• I am not worried about heat death because I will just solve entropy Asimov style.
• If they sentence me to life imprisonment I will just wait them out. Also point out to the judge who sentences me that eventually I will get out since no civilization lasts forever
• And if humanity goes extinct I will just remake humanity from my cache of stored fertilized eggs and artificial wombs that I had like a billion years to get working.

Can I get hit by a truck and go to a better reality? The bar is set pretty low.

Probability manipulation can make anything happen. That's the strongest one. Although ofc big risk of tearing up the fabric of reality by messing with small forces probability and just destroying everything by accident.

Time control. I think it's the most powerful one.

Spatial/Dimensional magic from most things that have spatial magic in them. It gives you the ability to teleport, create portals, create/use your own inventory, and even teleport to other worlds.

Do I get the power without possible strings attached? I'd totally be down to be a genie like in Aladdin, so long as I could choose my first "customer". Having to live inside a itty bitty lamp would definitely suck, tho.

I can't think of a fictional character that has this, but the ability to know, and convey the answer to ANY question.

There was this one minor character from a book whose title I can't recall (it was about a kid with a dragon eye behind his normal eye and he was transported to a magic realm, i cant remember much else. i read it almost 15 years ago) that can make one wish a day. Every now and again I remember that guy and wonder why he only settled to be a pro soccer player considering his powers lol.

One single superpower, or a suite of powers that exists within a single character?

Assuming that we're talking conventional media (e.g., not religion), and we're talking about powers that exist within a single character, I'd probably take the powers of a witcher, from Sapkowski's novels. They're not immortal, but they live multiple times longer than a normal human. They're not invulnerable, but they're able to take more physical abuse and heal than any normal person. They're able to use magic in a limited way. They move faster and are stronger than humans. So they're not so far outside of humanity that they can't still blend in with and appreciate humanity.

I feel like most other super powers would quickly lead to intense alienation, because you'd be so far outside of the normal human experience that you'd lose the ability to empathize.

There are a lot of godlike beings who would be objectively the best choice.