Subject: [FFML] [Pseudo-fic] Speculations on Powers in El Hazard
From: Matthew Lewis
Date: 2/10/1999, 4:20 AM
To: ffml@fanfic.com


An excerpt of this can be found in Second Sight. Reprinted
here is the entire thing. 

El Hazard is the creation of Hayashi Hiroki, who has really
created a lot of stuff for AIC/Pioneer when you think of it,
and not my own. I hold no rights to El Hazard, and this is
not an attempt to subvert El Hazard or the creators of, but
merely an attempt to reconcile in myself some of the hows and
the whys.


			Speculations on Powers in El Hazard


                        --Begin File--


    Yes, well, let's begin.

    First off, I should thank Makoto for fixing one of these
recording devices, and for finding a blank disk for me to record
on. Secondly, I should introduce myself, so you who are now seeing
this might know who I am. Perhaps I should have done that first?
What do you think? No matter, any reply you could give I wouldn't
receive anyway. 
    Where was I? Oh yes, Now I recall, I had just given you my
name. No, that's not right, I was just about to _give_ you my name.
I sometimes have troubles keeping track of whether things have
happened yet or not, you see, or maybe you don't. Anyway, my name
is Hayashi. I have another name now, although to be more accurate
it is my title-- Oracle.
    I know the question you're all asking: "Why is he doing this?"
These disks are a good way to record my thoughts, somewhat like a
journal, I suppose, but more than that because I will not be
talking about my daily life or anything like that. As you can
plainly tell, writing it down is of little use to me since I
basically need someone to read it back to me. No, this is much
better and more enduring as well. I like to think that what I have
to say might be of interest to future generations.

    Now, on to what it is I have to say.

    Psychic powers in El Hazard exist mainly in two specific and
discrete groups: telepathic and telekinetic. It should be noted
that while non-native life-forms seem to possess a power of some
sort (I'll go into why I think this is so slightly later),
manifestation of psychic ability is not limited to them. 
    The best and most famous example of native life exhibiting
psychic ability would have to be the priestesses of Mount Muldoon.
Each priestess possesses an ability which at its root is
telekinetic in nature. The fire priestess, Shayla-Shayla, for
instance is a pyrokinetic-- able to control and to cause fires.
This would be achieved by causing the molecules to vibrate quicker,
resulting in heat and finally fire. The control of the fire is also
primarily telekinetic in nature, and does not need to be described.
The speed with which she can create a fire is absolutely staggering
and with her booster, a psionic amplifier (each priestess has an
amplifier, which varies in design but not effectiveness) known as
the Lamp of Fire, she can create larger, hotter fires with much
greater precision.
    Shayla-Shayla as the fire priestess controls combustion, while
Afura Mann, being the priestess of wind, has control over air. I
suspect that Afura actually is able to exhert control over all
gaseous matter as the atmosphere is composed of various different
gases. This ability includes the manipulation of the gases to form
a vacuum, indicating she has some control over Brownian motion.
    Mizu Mishtal then has control over water, or more likely all
liquids, as most water is not pure dihydrogen-oxygen. Of course, I
could be mistaken, but it is a possibility. Again, this ability,
like that of the other priestesses, is fundamentally of a
telekinetic nature (although I believe it was once mentioned that
she could sense an underground river, and where said river would
take them. This might imply that she does not need line of sight to
control her ability, but to exact any means of finesse or control
she would certainly have to be able to observe it-- simple logic. I
would assume the same holds true for the other two).
    There is a question that nags me. Why no earth? Why is there
not one who manipulates the ground? There could be, I suppose, but
most likely the power, well, the effects would be less than
spectacular. The ground is a solid mass, and would require much
more effort to shape and manipulate, owing to the much stronger
bonds within the material. Most of the psychic's power would have
to go to breaking down these bonds before he or she could do
anything.
    It occurs to me that they are not priestesses of the elements
so much as they are of states of matter. Testing would need to be
done on this theory, mind you. Specifically, to see whether or not
Afura could manipulate other gases, or whether Mizu could control
more than water. Also needed would be to see how hot Shayla's
flames really are, because she would need to make plasma for my
theory to work (plasma being a very hot ionised gas, having
approximately equal numbers of positive ions and electrons and
being highly conductive, and considered by many to be a fourth
state of matter, on a higher energy level than gas_.
    This takes care of the native El Hazard psychic population and
their powers, as I understand them, for the moment, with a possible
exception. I am not quite sure why I mention it, because it seems
too far-fetched to be true, and too frightening if it were, but I
ask what if the princesses, Lune Venus and Fatora, what if they are
also psychic?
    Their power? Let me start off by asking this: what if the Eye
of God was not an engine of destruction so much as it was an
amplifier, like the Lamps the priestesses wear, but only much more
powerful. Such a large amplifier might be so powerful so that one
single person could not hope to channel or control it, hence the
need for two. A genetic trait, passed on only through the royal
family. 
    Nonsense, of course. Silly, obviously-- large holes in this
argument exist. If it were true, why have we never seen them able
to manifest that power on even a minute scale, like the priestesses
seem able to do. Then again, the priestesses do train to use their
powers, which might conceivably strengthen said powers. 
    This idea of the Eye, being nothing more than a magnifier,
would be copacetic with what we know of some ancient El Hazard
technology; that it was able to interact and sometimes mimic human
psychic powers. Ifurita, for instance, while a construct was able
to accurately and devastatingly replicate the attacks the
priestesses used against her. I'm just spinning out fanciful
theories right now though, there is no viable way to prove it
incorrect. 

    The non-native El Hazard proves to be a little more difficult
to classify. The Phantom Tribe, or what we have seen, seem to share
a single power, telepathic in nature. They are able to project
convincing illusions, consisting of sight, sound and touch at the
very least (from events related to me by Makoto Mizuhara and
Shayla-Shayla of Najato on the Forbidden Isle). I would suggest
they stimulate the appropriate centres in the brain, bypassing the
sensory nervous system entirely-- it would probably be easier.
    Nanami Jinnai, on the other hand, is able to resist the Phantom
Tribe ability-- indeed, she does not even notice it. I would
suggest her power then is also telepathic in nature-- she is closed
off. Whereas everyone else is able to receive such telepathic
suggestions, she is not. Nanami does not see through the illusions,
to her they do not exist and there is nothing to see through. 
    Katsuhiko Jinnai, Nanami's brother, also possesses a telepathic
power. His ability is not only projective, like the Phantom
Tribe's, but also receptive. Katsuhiko is able to communicate with
the Bugrom, to understand and be understood by them, without any
training or research into their language. Most certainly he is
projecting and receiving the 'surface thoughts,' what he and the
Bugrom are actually saying. I would suspect that he does the same
with humans though. However, I believe the ability to be limited to
roughly hearing range, and one must specifically want him to hear
for Katsuhiko to pick up the thoughts (a whisper would go unheard,
then, unless it was for Katsuhiko).
    Makoto Mizuhara is a bit of an anomaly. On one hand, his
ability to communicate with the ancient technology would seem to be
telekinetic (he has made things move and has broken circuits), yet
from what he has told me, with some of Ifurita's memories, and
giving some of his memories to her, as well as being able to divine
the function of some items, Makoto would be telepathic. I would
suggest that his ability is telepathic, because we already know
that the ancient devices can be responsive to psychic abilities.
The breaking of Ifurita's obedience circuit can easily be explained
as a telepathic, rather than telekinetic manifestation of power.
    Masamichi Fujisawa (sensei, it still feels weird not to call
him sensei) is easily telekinetic, boosting his strength to
superhuman levels. I would suggest that his reaction to alcohol and
what I will assume is the nicotine in cigarettes is a defense
mechanism on his part, especially with the alcohol. As his
self-control and motor function goes does, so does his strength so
that Masamichi does not do outrageous amounts of damage. 
    Another popssibility is that it is only when his body and brain
are free of contaminants and pollution that his ability is at its
full potential. This possibility is equally likely at this point,
since I am currently unaware of the full effects of nicotine upon
the human body (does it affect motor control, fine or gross, for
example. I know of nothing which says that it does).

    The only person left to discuss is me. What is my ability? How
do I classify it? Honestly? I do not know. Telepathic? Am I somehow
able to communicate with a future, or set of future mes dependant
upon which choices I make? Yet I see things, and since I now lack
eyes perhaps these alternate future mes never lost them. Perhaps I
am looking through their eyes-- but what do they see then? Am I
usurping their sight, or merely sharing it? I dislike this idea,
too complex, for one. Too many suppositions. 
    Perhaps I somehow mimic the Eye of God, creating small holes in
time/space which I look through. Again, my lack of optics, among
other things, makes this idea faintly absurd. My talent no longer
works like it used to, for one thing, and neither theory fit both
the way it used to work, and the way it does now. The best
approximation of my talent would be memory. I remember the future
with equal clarity that I remember the past-- in a very fundamental
way there has ceased to be any real difference between the two.
Before, when I had sight? Memory, I suppose, but the memory of a
dream, or the dream of a memory, at least. This idea of memory
(imperfect, imprecise. The language is not conducive to what I want
to express-- it is rather foreign) would rule out telekinetic
ability, but it really does not make it fit into telepathy, either.
    Possibly I represent a third category of psychic ability, or
perhaps I merely need to reclassify the abilities using other
categories. It is also possible that I am an anomaly in this
respect, some strange oneshot ability which fits into neither
category. Obviously further study into the psychic abilities is
needed before any definite conclusion can be drawn, including
research and possible classification of my own ability.



                            --End File-- 

Matthew Lewis is:
	Matt on IRC
	Sojiro_Seta on Kawaiimuck
	maybeso@ican.net
	a casualty of causality
____________________________________________________________

	"Khattam-Shud," he said slowly, "is the Arch-Enemy
of all Stories, even of Language itself. He is the Prince of
Silence and the Foe of Speech. And because everything ends,
because dreams end, stories end, life ends, at the finish
of everything we use his name. 'It's finished,' we tell one
another, 'it's over. Khattam-Shud: The End.'"

	-excerpted from Haroun and the Sea of Stories,
		by Salman Rushdie
____________________________________________________________