Sechen ranges

Sechen ranges are the tendency for powers to vary in presentation given specific circumstances.<ref>As Tristan glanced at me, I made a rectangle with my fingers. “It’s complicated. It fluctuates. I could name some terms and things that apply there, but I don’t want to bore you.”

“I’ve been bored enough times. I know a lot of the terms. Sechen ranges?”

“That’s one of them. Powers often get stronger with certain influencing factors. You read up on that?”

“We did a ton of testing with Reach, and we saw a lot of parahuman science people while we were trying to figure out a solution. - Excerpt from Shade 4.5</ref> The terminology relates to how in tune someone is with their powers at a given time.<ref>“You’ll want to look up the Sechen ranges,” Victoria said. “Put someone in a mindset close where they were at the trigger event, they get stronger. Don’t push that button unless you want to deal with someone who’s going to be more emotional and more in tune with their powers. As a case in point, even talking about my background helps get me to a point where I can bring out my invisible friend here, sending that forcefield that’s meant to protect me out to do other things. A little shaky, but usable.” - Excerpt from Last 20.end</ref><ref name="Interlude 10.y">Powers and agents, as the literature called them, had a way of connecting better to the hosts when the host was in alignment with the moment they triggered. It was at this time that the agent performed its deepest study of the host, the context around the host, and all necessary things relating to the power. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.y II</ref>

Tattletale proposed the function was twofold; that it exists both as a defensive mechanism to keep a parahuman alive in an emergency and as a way to condition a parahuman to seek out the inevitably dangerous situations that improve what they can do with their power.<ref name="Infestation 11.4">“Just going by how my own power fluctuates, hearing what you’re saying about yours? You got a range boost that day of the hearing, right? When you went to your school to talk about the bullies, and everything fell apart?”

“Right,” I said. “And the day Leviathan came. It wasn’t just range. The bugs were responding just a bit faster. Maybe a tenth of a second faster, but yeah.”

“Ok. Here’s my theory then. I think your power’s strongest when you’re closest to the situation where you had your trigger event.”

“What?”

“Honestly, I’m highly suspicious that it’s true for any cape out there. Whenever you’re in the same kind of mindset or same sort of physical situation you were in when you got your powers, your powers get stronger. The bad news is that you probably can’t leverage that to your advantage. Your powers would operate off of hopelessness and frustration, because that’s what drove you to get your powers in the first place.”

Fuck. It fit, more or less.

“The really scary part is that it might be doing us a disservice, because it works like a Pavlovian trigger. Like how the dog who hears the bell ringing every time he gets food starts to drool when he hears the bell, this might be subtly urging us back into ugly, violent or dangerous situations with the benefits of having our powers temporarily boosted.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the implications of that. “Then what’s the good news?”

“It’s kind of like a defense mechanism. The worse a situation gets, the stronger you’ll get. It’s probably happened before, to small degrees, but you haven’t noticed it.” - Excerpt from Infestation 11.4</ref> This seems to be supported by academic research.<ref name="Heavens 12.8">I acted before he could get his composure together enough to lunge forward and drive the dart of disintegration into Bitter Pill’s back. Wretch-strong, I hit him full in the chest with my arm that didn’t have deep cuts in it. Sternum and ribs shattered in my hand.

[Paris] was laid flat, obviously enough. I saw him flounder, trying to sit up, immediately and intensely failing, small sounds escaping his mouth.

In his floundering, he created a dart, larger than any I’d seen him make. I had to wonder if it was reflex, while he was stunned with pain, or if the expression of power was an automatic thing. In addition to the principle of stronger powers in times of appropriate kinds of stress, there was a tendency for powers to unlock additional capabilities if the situation was dire enough. Not second triggers, but adaptations to changes in the host’s core physical or mental state.

The Wretch, I had to assume, was that. - Excerpt from Heavens 12.8</ref>

This functionality is still present in parahumans with 'dead' shards,<ref name="From Within 16.3">I looked through the portal at the distorted picture beyond it. I thought of the rising anger, the frustration at Byron’s condition and not fucking knowing. Then the black mood that had settled in, as Kenzie had reported that Swansong was dead.

In the midst of that mood, the Wretch hadn’t moved how I’d wanted it to.

I’d moved like it wanted. - Excerpt from From Within 16.3</ref><ref name="Sundown 17.4">I went on, “I was closer to Teacher’s gate. I found the wavelength with my agent. Later, I’d chase that wavelength and find it to hold onto it.” - Excerpt from Sundown 17.4</ref> but if the trigger event is forced through a Cauldron Vial stress can damage the initial connection <ref name="21.x e1">The deviations, the ones who didn’t take to the formula, tended to fall into certain categories. There were those who had some minor physical or mental changes; they were little different from the most extreme deviations that appeared in typical trigger cases. Such deviations occurred a mere eighth of a percent of the time. They weren’t what he was thinking of.

The formula wasn’t exact. Though they learned more every day, there were still unknowns regarding powers. Whatever connection the agents formed with individuals before or during a trigger event, it didn’t manifest as strongly through the formula. When the subject was stressed, their body engaged by that distress, the connection grew weaker. - Excerpt from Interlude 21.x</ref> as the baseline for the trigger event generally did not feature an overtly stressful situation.^{[citation needed]}

Examples

Taylor Hebert<ref>It wasn’t long before I was close enough. My range was longer, now. Odd. It was supposed to get longer when I felt more trapped, but ‘trapped’ wasn’t the word I would have chosen. - Excerpt from Chrysalis 20.5</ref>
Victoria Dallon<ref name="Sundown 17.4"/><ref name="Heavens 12.8"/>
Black Kaze<ref name="Reddit1">Black Kaze teleported by using her weapon - any movement of the weapon could teleport her. Bigger swing, more distance covered. Swing multiple times, teleport multiple times. Strike the ground a hundred times, raise up clouds of dust, move unpredictably, cover the distance between herself and her target, execute multiple targets in one final teleport.

At the end of the day, though, she was human, and living on one's own, scavenging, possibly getting sick, or having tooth problems, or missing nutrients, she started to slip. Maximum connection to passenger, minimum quality of care for her own body. Might well have passed out or fainted in the midst of a confrontation. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
Paris<ref name="Heavens 12.8"/>

References