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Conflux


twinborn97

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He generates electrical power. He can gift the ability to generate electrical power to others, or use his power to charge energy cells directly. He can apparently also use his ability to power objects directly, which is how he accidentally killed his wife. I don't believe he has any offensive capabilities such as shooting lightning from his hands, but have no way to be certain of that.

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I'm actually not positive that when he charges things, like the penlight or those huge batteries, those aren't also considered gifting. Does anything say that gifting HAS to be "to a human"? It could be that his "power" is to build up enormous quantities of electric energy, and that he can "gift" this energy to a battery as easily as to a human.

 

For evidence, Prof said that gifters have the power to take their gifts back whenever they want. When Conflux does, it's not just back from the people he gave the power to; he drains every battery, every power plant, everything, all at once.

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  • Gifting is the process through which an Epic grants one or more of his powers to a regular human. The human receives a fraction, up to the entirety, of the Epic's power, but the Epic can withdraw it at will.
  • To me, it looks like when Conflux uses his power to charge an object, he forms a link with that object - and terminating this link removes the power from the object. If this is true, then it stands to reason that the people Conflux gifts his power to will also function the same way, so when he ends the gifting, the recipients' links to the batteries are broken, and Newcago goes dark. 

It just makes more sense to me that way. Gifting feels similar to what Calamity does, only it's temporary, potentially weaker, and more limited in terms of the powers it can grant. Since Calamity can't affect Epics or non-humans, it sounds right that Gifters won't be able to either.

 

Which reminds me, I wonder of gifting is technically a power...

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I believe that an epic can gift an ability to an object or a person, or even a person through an object. Both Edmund and the Prof seemed capable of doing any of them. The Prof gifted people through the tensors, the jackets, and by using the harmsway. Sure, he could have gifted them directly, but I don't think he did. I think he figured it was safer to gift people through an object. That it might be an insulator from Calamity. Keep them from going insane like the diggers.

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I am not sure maintaining this link counts as using the power. I think of it in terms similar to how denizens of Nalthis invest their Breath - the act of doing something with their Breath(s) is magic usage, but once an object has been invested, the Breath is just sitting there, not requiring active maintenance. 

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If so, why is Edmund so normal? By what you're saying, he's using his power actively 24/7, whether asleep or awake.

 

Because he's been gifting his power rather than using it him self. Same as the Prof doesn't go Heart of Flint when the Reckoners use the Tensors, Harmaway and Jackets.

 

 

I believe that an epic can gift an ability to an object or a person, or even a person through an object. Both Edmund and the Prof seemed capable of doing any of them. The Prof gifted people through the tensors, the jackets, and by using the harmsway. Sure, he could have gifted them directly, but I don't think he did. I think he figured it was safer to gift people through an object. That it might be an insulator from Calamity. Keep them from going insane like the diggers.

 

I thought the Digger's were people who'd been gifted their ability and went mad from using it too much. David has mental swings when using the tensors and the Prof implied after the bike crash that David should still be able to use the tensor effect even though it was wrecked.

 

The devices were I thought because the Prof didn't want anyone thinking the Reckoners worked with Epics and so handed out props.

Edited by Dahak
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Because he's been gifting his power rather than using it him self. Same as the Prof doesn't go Heart of Flint when the Reckoners use the Tensors, Harmaway and Jackets.

 

This was my original point, and I agree with you.

 

Prof implied after the bike crash that David should still be able to use the tensor effect even though it was wrecked.

 

Alternatively, it's possible he DID gift the power to the gloves, but that the lights and things were all showmanship. It's possible that any scrap of the glove would work as well. He could "gift" the power to a brick, then any human carrying the brick could use it. If the brick shattered, you could pick up a chunk and still use it. Just an idea; personally, I still think the devices were ALL just smoke-and-mirror, and that he really did just directly hand over the powers.

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I thought the Digger's were people who'd been gifted their ability and went mad from using it too much. David has mental swings when using the tensors and the Prof implied after the bike crash that David should still be able to use the tensor effect even though it was wrecked.

 

The devices were I thought because the Prof didn't want anyone thinking the Reckoners worked with Epics and so handed out props.

 

We don't know precisely why the diggers went mad. Their is speculation in the book about it, but no hard facts. I believe that the diggers were gifted directly, and that over time, a direct link can cause insanity. I can't remember what led me to believe this, but it was something in one of the conversations that mentioned the diggers.

 

The devices the Prof. used were complex enough to convince the Reckoners that they were new tech. This was the point, the Prof. didn't want it widely known even amongst his own people that he was an epic. I don't think they actually do anything except look fancy without being gifted.

 

Alternatively, it's possible he DID gift the power to the gloves, but that the lights and things were all showmanship. It's possible that any scrap of the glove would work as well. He could "gift" the power to a brick, then any human carrying the brick could use it. If the brick shattered, you could pick up a chunk and still use it. Just an idea; personally, I still think the devices were ALL just smoke-and-mirror, and that he really did just directly hand over the powers.

 

I think the powers were gifted to the objects. If one of them got shot without their jackets on and the bullet stopped, that would raise some interesting questions if it were otherwise. I don't believe all the Reckoners were aware that the Prof. was an epic himself. It also keeps people from activating a tenser field inadvertently. I'll use the Harmsway as my evidence. There were several times in the book when people were injured and didn't heal until they were treated with the Harmsway.

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Wasn't prof always present when they used the Harmsway? He could have just been gifting them while it was being used.

 

Your point with the Jacket is valid. I assume Prof would have no way of knowing when one of them takes off their jacket during a mission. Also Megan didn't seem to have a problem using hers. So in that case it does seem likely that the prof bonded his power to the jacket rather than the person.

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If one of them got shot without their jackets on and the bullet stopped, that would raise some interesting questions

 

On the one hand, I agree with you that stopping a bullet without your jacket would raise questions.

 

On the other hand, Prof isn't psychotic when he isn't using his power. And presumably, he'd be more comfortable answering difficult questions and taking someone into his confidence than losing a trusted ally, one of very few in his war.

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On the one hand, I agree with you that stopping a bullet without your jacket would raise questions.

 

On the other hand, Prof isn't psychotic when he isn't using his power. And presumably, he'd be more comfortable answering difficult questions and taking someone into his confidence than losing a trusted ally, one of very few in his war.

 

The problem is that some of his allies could turn on him if they found out.  While we don't know anything about any cells other than Prof's cell, it's possible that people in one of the other cells might have a more sociopathic attitude toward Epics (understandably), and might be more than willing to string up even a friendly one.  And even Prof's own cell doesn't all know.  Tia knows, but it's clear that Cody doesn't.  I suspect that Abraham doesn't know, either.

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On the one hand, I agree with you that stopping a bullet without your jacket would raise questions.

 

On the other hand, Prof isn't psychotic when he isn't using his power. And presumably, he'd be more comfortable answering difficult questions and taking someone into his confidence than losing a trusted ally, one of very few in his war.

 

Oh, I don't doubt that the Prof. would either find a way to explain the occurrence, or take a trusted team member into his confidence. I'm close to as certain as I can be without having a view point that Tia knows the Prof. is an epic. So he has shared this knowledge, and he hasn't eliminated David now that he is also aware of the Prof.'s secret.

 

The question though, is weather or not gifting can be done through an item. I feel pretty certain it can be. Between the Jackets, the Harmsway, and the fact that Edmund didn't become an epic slontze when he gifted the pen light we have evidence that can support this theory.

 

I also think that by gifting an object it insulates the user of that object from Calamity's influence. Calamity, or at least the power that epics use, influence their behavior. If gifted directly to another human, there is no reason why it wouldn't also affect their behavior. I believe, that in the case of the diggers, Digzone gifted them directly, and as a result, either Calamity, or the power itself, drove them insane. An object can't be driven insane. The person using that object may be insulated from the effects of the power in the object limiting or preventing that power from harming the user.

 

I have no proof of this, but it feels right, and makes sense to me.

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Are we sure about Megan being able to use the jacket?

Megan's main role on the team was acting as point. If she could not use the jacket she may have been bumped from the team. Therefore if she couldn't use the jacket she would have had incentive to fake it using illusions. On the other hand using the tensors and the harmsway where more difficult things to fake long term.
 

If she was unprotected this entire time it would explain why Megan was killed in the motorcycle crash while David was able to walk away in fighting condition.

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Wasn't prof always present when they used the Harmsway? He could have just been gifting them while it was being used.

 

Your point with the Jacket is valid. I assume Prof would have no way of knowing when one of them takes off their jacket during a mission. Also Megan didn't seem to have a problem using hers. So in that case it does seem likely that the prof bonded his power to the jacket rather than the person.

 

Megan mentioned problems using her jacket after the fight on the way to Diamond's.

 

“The jacket didn’t stop them all?”

“They aren’t perfect,” Megan said as Abraham took off the shirt. “Mine fails all the time.”

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Conflux was apparently only able to charge electronics and gift the power to do so, or at least used no other powers and did not act in a way that would imply he had them. If he does, they're apparently not up to staging a breakout from secure facilities while the other Epics are away and without the more exotically powerful technology that's dependent on him, because he was confined for five years. The charging seems to be distinct from gifting because when the plant power cells were stolen, Steelheart didn't have him cut the connection. However, he was sedated for transfer shortly after the theft, so that's not conclusive because they wouldn't have been able to tell exactly which cells were stolen for a while. The Reckoners didn't seem to think they could be remotely shut down, though, and they acted exactly like one would expect a high-density battery/capacitor to behave. Apparently he can induce a voltage in an electronic circuit, which will operate a device which does not have a power source and can be stored in normal power storage systems. He does not seem to have arbitrary electomagnetic powers because holding a gun to his head was at least plausibly threatening. Plus, during the fights with Enforcement none of them shot lighting.

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 when the plant power cells were stolen, Steelheart didn't have him cut the connection.

 

Depends on what info Firefight was sending back. They blew up the place in order to disguise their theft. The only way he could've known would've been if Firefight told him, and if he acted on the intel it would have given the Reckoners the idea that they had a mole. It's possible he decided to risk it until the Conflux trap, and after that he obviously couldn't tell Conflux to de-power the cells.

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They blew up the place in order to disguise their theft. The only way he could've known would've been if Firefight told him

 

Incorrect; Conflux apparently knows instantly when one of the people he gifts powers to is killed, going by what the Enforcement member at Davis's apartment said. If the power cells operated in the same manner, he'd know they had not been destroyed. Granted, figuring it out would require information sharing between him and Steelheart.

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I don't think Conflux maintained a connection to the power cells after they were charged. If he continued to gift the power cells after they were charged, then why would the battery lose power as it was used?

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Incorrect; Conflux apparently knows instantly when one of the people he gifts powers to is killed, going by what the Enforcement member at Davis's apartment said. If the power cells operated in the same manner, he'd know they had not been destroyed. Granted, figuring it out would require information sharing between him and Steelheart.

 

Ehhh.... you do have a point. However, we can't know that the Enforcer told David the truth, or that the Enforcer was TOLD the truth, and even if so, he would have felt the loss of, what, thousands of power cells? Can he feel the difference between losing 2,000 power cells and losing 1,996 power cells?

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There's no particular reason to believe the Enforcer was lying in that instance, and it's doubtful that Steelheart would use that particular lie with his Enforcers, because it'd be pretty hard to keep up and not terribly useful. Whether he would notice some links not being broken is questionable, true.

 

Overall, though, theorizing that Conflux gifts to objects raises a very large number of questions that assuming he just electrifies things does not, and I don't see any compelling reason to reject the assumption that he charges things directly for a more complicated set of assumptions. Plus, what is he gifting to the Enforcement officers in that case?

Edited by name_here
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What if enforcement suits send telemetry back to their headquarters?

 

If Conflux is a prisoner that is sometimes gagged it would be foolish to trust him to tell you when someone is KIA.  On the other hand the soldiers are told that Conflux is in direct control of enforcement.  It would be perfectly natural for Roy to say "Conflux will know the moment we go offline."  when he really meant "HQ will know the moment we go offline."

 

It is still possible that Conflux knows when a soldier is gunned down, but since the source of that information is a grunt that was being lied to we have to take it with a grain of salt.

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Okay, from what we've been told, some equipment is powered directly. Helicopters and battle suits apparently required too much juice to run on battery power. That isn't to say that everything was run by direct gifting. Conflux charged power cells, and those power cells worked independently of him. If Conflux was still powering the cell in the gauze rifle, it wouldn't have run down to almost empty before David broke it.

 

That being said, I can't believe that SH didn't have at least some of his equipment capable of running off alternate power sources. We do know that SH didn't bring any heavy equipment to the final fight. No additional helicopters, no battle suits. SO it appears that Conflux was powering either the equipment, or the operators.

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There's no particular reason to believe the Enforcer was lying in that instance, and it's doubtful that Steelheart would use that particular lie with his Enforcers, because it'd be pretty hard to keep up and not terribly useful.

 

There is absolutely a reason the enforcer would lie in this instance. It's the oldest trick in the book, and literally the only weapon he's got left. Have you ever seen a movie called Ladyhawke? Matthew Broderick's character is a thief and a con-man. He's in the woods when he hears someone stalking him, and he immediately asks aloud, "Pierre, do you have your crossbow? Francois, run back to camp for help, we can hold this guy." He's alone, of course. Bluffing that your side is stronger than it is is a) an excellent way to scare off enemies who could otherwise kill you and b ) what David is doing at that exact moment with his tale of Limelight.

 

And why wouldn't Steelheart use that lie? He's already lying to everyone and saying that Conflux works with him freely. The main point of this might be nothing more complicated than driving home the idea that Conflux is personally in charge of Enforcement. And it wouldn't be too hard to fake. Newcago is stable. There's little crime and if an Epic does show up, Enforcement is supposed to back off and let other Epics handle it. How often do they die? How often do they die when there isn't some way to verify? Roy doesn't even claim that Conflux is using his powers to know that they're "offline". He could just mean exactly that. Mobiles are cheap, and considered secure. They would be in constant, direct link with HQ. And mobiles can easily register vitals. If HQ saw team leader's vitals spike with adrenaline, then flatline, yeah, he's gonna know. And since Roy does think Conflux is personally in charge of Enforcement, which is a lie we know Steelheart has told him, he simply says what he assumes to be true: "Conflux will know the minute we go offline."

 

Overall, though, theorizing that Conflux gifts to objects raises a very large number of questions that assuming he just electrifies things does not, and I don't see any compelling reason to reject the assumption that he charges things directly for a more complicated set of assumptions. Plus, what is he gifting to the Enforcement officers in that case?

 

I think the opposite is true. I think that gifting has fewer questions. If he's charging them directly, why isn't he Epic-mad? If he's charging them directly, why can he pull the power back as he does when Prof orders?

 

I think what he "gifts" isn't a power in the sense of the other one example we've seen, I think it's a store of energy. In a human, he gifts it in a way that it resides safely in that person for them to use at will. In something like a power cell, it's simply a store of enormous energy that can be drawn off. I think that even if he can Gift literally endless energy, he wouldn't, for the exact reason we saw in the book. If the Reckoners did steal a power cell, which they proved isn't impossible, they wouldn't want people getting their hands on limitless energy. Maybe there were a small cache of more-heavily-guarded cells that WERE literally endless. Maybe one or two trusted (hostages?) human lieutenants WERE given the full, limitless energy (though that might have driven them insane).

 

EDIT: because STUPID EMOTICON.

Edited by Darnam
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