I don’t bring up Paragon’s weakness often enough. Her sense of touch is normal, as are her pain and pressure recepters. Also? Shiitake Mushrooms is my favorite fake curse words.
10 Comments
Bergman
on February 23, 2018 at 7:36 pm
So basically she’s NOT invulnerable to injury, she just heals really quickly?
Scott
on February 24, 2018 at 1:15 am
She’s invulnerable, but her sense of touch works normally. Bullets dont pierce her skin or bruise it, but she feels each hit like a knife stab. The fire doesnt burn her skin but heat recreptors go nutz.
Autoskip
on February 25, 2018 at 8:58 am
…So basically, no one can hurt her, it’s just that they forgot to tell her pain receptors?
Scott
on February 25, 2018 at 9:47 am
It’s always an assumed super power that the invulnerable are also able to not feel pain or cold ot heat. Which then makes eating, kissing, hugging, even drawing difficult. Touch is a very underrated sense.
If superman’s sense of touch was as strong as his skin, he couldnt feel the pressure change in shaking someones hand. He’d crush it, or be awkward.
Superman has been shown to feel cold and heat, but yet not feel flame throwers. Does he turn it off and on?
We ignore the nonsense of it because it fits the story. Much like how we ignore how spider-man can wall crawl in costume. He has to take of his shoes to wall crawl, but costume shoes are fine.
Her tear ducts are also normal, so her eyes dry out when flying at high altitude or high speed.
Autoskip
on February 25, 2018 at 11:20 pm
The thing is, the senses of heat and pain are actually seperate from sensing pressure (usually called touch) and are not required to function normally in society (especially if everyone knows you’re invulnerable). Clark Kent would definitely benefit from them to help hide his identity, but all he actually needs is to be able to tell how hard he’s pressing in order to avoid accidentally crushing anything he holds.
From the wikipedia page for “congenital insensitivity to pain”, a genetic condition that leaves sufferers either without the ability to sense pain or without the normal responses to pain (depending on type) I found this line: “For people with this disorder, cognition and sensation are otherwise normal; for instance, patients can still feel discriminative touch (though not always temperature)” – which, unless I misread something, suggests that despite not being able to feel pain, they would not have problems doing the many tasks that require our sense of touch.
Scott
on February 26, 2018 at 3:36 am
Doesnt matter. If the biology follows physics, to be bullet proof the skin could not convey pressure and heat conduction at the same levels as normal skin.
This means for invulnerability to “feel” at normal levels there must be more receptors or different neural responses to the signal strength.
If she can feel normally than invulnerability has no bearing on heat, touch, pressure. Its compensated. It either works or it doesnt.
It does have a bearing on the extremes she can experience. Larger force would still fire more receptors. A bullet would set off more sensation than a feather. Fire is a greater conduction of heat than a warm sunny day.
If the pain receptors compensate for the skins toughness, than fire would hurt even though it did no damage. Bullets would hurt even though they didnt pierce.
If they dont hurt, you cant sense lesser sensations. If you can sense the pressure required to do a safe handshake, you would be hyper responsive to the pressure from a bullet.
Of course its all just neural signals and interpretation. Maybe kryptonian neurons are also so different that superman can manage turning off pain response at extreme thresholds.
Liza is human.
Theres no reason to assume her neurology is different. We just do assume it becsuse it fits how we hope it would work. We assume fire wouldnt hurt because she cant be burned. If the heat doesnt conduct, the cells wouldnt feel it. But with normal neurology that also means she couldnt detect a cool breeze.
By assuming she can feel touch at normal levels means fire hurts because thats what normal levels mean. But we dont assume that. We assume it wouldnt hurt.
That makes no sense from a biology perspective responding to normal physics.
Scott
on February 26, 2018 at 3:40 am
This actually will be dealt with. I plan on explaining how super powers work in this world in defiance of biology and physics.
It’s not impossible biology, but it is a single violation of physics that isnt that much of a change.
Autoskip
on February 26, 2018 at 5:48 am
What I was trying to suggest was that, while normal sensitivity to heat, pain, and pressure all at the same time makes sense, it’s not actually required – even for humans. There are people who, due to one flawed genetic marker, do not feel pain but do feel pressure (to the point that it’s a good idea to put a helmet on your child if they have that condition because some of them tend to hit their head against the wall to feel the interesting vibrations). It would be perfectly possible for her super powers to come with that defect and this would not be a problem, but just because it could happen, doesn’t mean I think it should happen. This is a fun limitation, and works well in this story – I just found it interesting that it wasn’t the only logical option and wanted to share that knowledge.
Scott
on February 26, 2018 at 6:49 am
No its not the only logical option. And you’re right.
Hardcase is completely different. So is the concrete man. I have done different combinations in this universe.
The Paragon’s is even weirder in that it can be given to someone, and she shares it now with her son. It changes your appearance. As the first female paragon it changed her children, which is why they are blond. She’s the fouth Paragon to wear a costume. The first Paragon was Sigfreid. Something i havent revealed before.
bracey100
on February 26, 2018 at 11:16 am
I really like this idea that while Paragon s invulnerable she still experiences human levels of pain. Its a nice touch that you dont see very often in the comics. I remember when the New Mutants came out that Sunspot was the first super strong guy Id ever seen who wasnt super durable as well. He could still be punched and shot like a normal person but he could convert solar energy into raw physical power.
Spiderman’s boots work because they are extremely thin soled. He doesnt have to make actual physical contact with a surface with his bare hands to cling to it. Unlike the movies which show him using tiny hairlike combs to climb like real spider feet, Spiderman actually uses a property of atomic attraction to interact with the surfaces he clings to. This is why he can use his power through gloves, socks and even thinly soled shoes. If he tried to cling to a surface with his sneakers on his feet would just be sticking to the inside of his shoes.
The mechanics behind this ability were explained in the old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. I always enjoyed the 80’s versions of those books because they always attempted in a plausible way to explain a character’s super powers (kind of Nerdist’s Because Science series with Kyle Hill). The more recent updates of the book not so much sadly.
So basically she’s NOT invulnerable to injury, she just heals really quickly?
She’s invulnerable, but her sense of touch works normally. Bullets dont pierce her skin or bruise it, but she feels each hit like a knife stab. The fire doesnt burn her skin but heat recreptors go nutz.
…So basically, no one can hurt her, it’s just that they forgot to tell her pain receptors?
It’s always an assumed super power that the invulnerable are also able to not feel pain or cold ot heat. Which then makes eating, kissing, hugging, even drawing difficult. Touch is a very underrated sense.
If superman’s sense of touch was as strong as his skin, he couldnt feel the pressure change in shaking someones hand. He’d crush it, or be awkward.
Superman has been shown to feel cold and heat, but yet not feel flame throwers. Does he turn it off and on?
We ignore the nonsense of it because it fits the story. Much like how we ignore how spider-man can wall crawl in costume. He has to take of his shoes to wall crawl, but costume shoes are fine.
Her tear ducts are also normal, so her eyes dry out when flying at high altitude or high speed.
The thing is, the senses of heat and pain are actually seperate from sensing pressure (usually called touch) and are not required to function normally in society (especially if everyone knows you’re invulnerable). Clark Kent would definitely benefit from them to help hide his identity, but all he actually needs is to be able to tell how hard he’s pressing in order to avoid accidentally crushing anything he holds.
From the wikipedia page for “congenital insensitivity to pain”, a genetic condition that leaves sufferers either without the ability to sense pain or without the normal responses to pain (depending on type) I found this line: “For people with this disorder, cognition and sensation are otherwise normal; for instance, patients can still feel discriminative touch (though not always temperature)” – which, unless I misread something, suggests that despite not being able to feel pain, they would not have problems doing the many tasks that require our sense of touch.
Doesnt matter. If the biology follows physics, to be bullet proof the skin could not convey pressure and heat conduction at the same levels as normal skin.
This means for invulnerability to “feel” at normal levels there must be more receptors or different neural responses to the signal strength.
If she can feel normally than invulnerability has no bearing on heat, touch, pressure. Its compensated. It either works or it doesnt.
It does have a bearing on the extremes she can experience. Larger force would still fire more receptors. A bullet would set off more sensation than a feather. Fire is a greater conduction of heat than a warm sunny day.
If the pain receptors compensate for the skins toughness, than fire would hurt even though it did no damage. Bullets would hurt even though they didnt pierce.
If they dont hurt, you cant sense lesser sensations. If you can sense the pressure required to do a safe handshake, you would be hyper responsive to the pressure from a bullet.
Of course its all just neural signals and interpretation. Maybe kryptonian neurons are also so different that superman can manage turning off pain response at extreme thresholds.
Liza is human.
Theres no reason to assume her neurology is different. We just do assume it becsuse it fits how we hope it would work. We assume fire wouldnt hurt because she cant be burned. If the heat doesnt conduct, the cells wouldnt feel it. But with normal neurology that also means she couldnt detect a cool breeze.
By assuming she can feel touch at normal levels means fire hurts because thats what normal levels mean. But we dont assume that. We assume it wouldnt hurt.
That makes no sense from a biology perspective responding to normal physics.
This actually will be dealt with. I plan on explaining how super powers work in this world in defiance of biology and physics.
It’s not impossible biology, but it is a single violation of physics that isnt that much of a change.
What I was trying to suggest was that, while normal sensitivity to heat, pain, and pressure all at the same time makes sense, it’s not actually required – even for humans. There are people who, due to one flawed genetic marker, do not feel pain but do feel pressure (to the point that it’s a good idea to put a helmet on your child if they have that condition because some of them tend to hit their head against the wall to feel the interesting vibrations). It would be perfectly possible for her super powers to come with that defect and this would not be a problem, but just because it could happen, doesn’t mean I think it should happen. This is a fun limitation, and works well in this story – I just found it interesting that it wasn’t the only logical option and wanted to share that knowledge.
No its not the only logical option. And you’re right.
Hardcase is completely different. So is the concrete man. I have done different combinations in this universe.
The Paragon’s is even weirder in that it can be given to someone, and she shares it now with her son. It changes your appearance. As the first female paragon it changed her children, which is why they are blond. She’s the fouth Paragon to wear a costume. The first Paragon was Sigfreid. Something i havent revealed before.
I really like this idea that while Paragon s invulnerable she still experiences human levels of pain. Its a nice touch that you dont see very often in the comics. I remember when the New Mutants came out that Sunspot was the first super strong guy Id ever seen who wasnt super durable as well. He could still be punched and shot like a normal person but he could convert solar energy into raw physical power.
Spiderman’s boots work because they are extremely thin soled. He doesnt have to make actual physical contact with a surface with his bare hands to cling to it. Unlike the movies which show him using tiny hairlike combs to climb like real spider feet, Spiderman actually uses a property of atomic attraction to interact with the surfaces he clings to. This is why he can use his power through gloves, socks and even thinly soled shoes. If he tried to cling to a surface with his sneakers on his feet would just be sticking to the inside of his shoes.
The mechanics behind this ability were explained in the old Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. I always enjoyed the 80’s versions of those books because they always attempted in a plausible way to explain a character’s super powers (kind of Nerdist’s Because Science series with Kyle Hill). The more recent updates of the book not so much sadly.