Meta

Enhancing powers, dampening powers, nullifying powers, bestowing powers, mimicking them stealing them, acquiring them on the fly… in short, all powers that deal with powers fall under the Meta classification. As a rule of thumb, a Meta power always affects/steals/copies/acquires powers one tier below its own.

## Arise due to

A common theme of triggers that result in Meta powers is that of being exposed to other powers in a pervasive way - for example, if you have been controlled by another metahuman for a long time, and trigger while still under their influence, or some such. Also possible is a lack of trigger themes, an emptiness that needs to be filled in, somehow.

### Types of Meta Manifestations:

#### Plus:

This term is applied to Origins where powers played a *positive* role. They may arise from someone being protected by a power during a crisis, being healed or otherwise supported by powers (such as a person manifesting while under the effect of a power-granting power). This most commonly results in powers which, in turn, affect other powers in a positive way – enhancing powers, granting powers, mimicking powers and such.

#### Minus:

The exact opposite of Plus, the term ‘Minus’ refers to Origins which involve a negative relationship to powers. Someone who’s being electrocuted by an Electrokinetic, or being mind-controlled or otherwise harmed in some fashion, be it physically, emotionally or mentally. This tends to heavily emphasize powers which affect other powers in a negative fashion: countering powers, negating powers, shielding from powers, stealing powers and so on.

#### Null:

One of the rarest kinds of Origins of all are those which are so lacking in definition as to be best described as *empty*. A person has lost all their memories and has not yet had time to build much of a foundation for their personality, lacking the usual lifetime of experience that powers mold themselves to. An abused child, kept locked up in a room since birth, leaves its prison for the first time. Two girls manifest powers before even being born, having not yet made a single experience for their powers to refer to. With such an utter absence of definition, the resulting powers usually lack definition of their own and work with that – power mimics, thieves and shifters are most commonly Nulls.

#### Wyrd:

As the name might imply, this is possibly the weirdest kind of Origin one can have – Wyrds are those who manifest due to or while a power breaks reality in the vicinity or in relation to them. A man manifests while caught in a time loop. A child manifests while being teleported away from its mother. A youth manifests as a cataclysm shatters the world around him, setting him adrift between realities. A girl manifests *after* her own death. When reality itself no longer applies, the weirdest of all powers are born. Unlimited power shifters (often with heavy drawbacks), powers which interact with reality, including other powers, through non-standard vectors. The specific law of reality which was broken tends to heavily inform the resulting power (if time was broken, then the resulting power will often involve a temporal aspect; if space was broken, there will be a spatial theme). These are the rarest of rare Origins, with only four confirmed cases known.

## Meta-Powers Sub-Types:

While the individual powers tend to be extremely diverse, there are some common types of effects that can be described:

**Negation**

All but exclusively Minuses, these powers reduce other powers in some fashion. This can range from reducing the intensity of an effect all the way to negating it entirely. However, few are so powerful and comprehensive as to categorically negate any power at all – the strongest known Negator, Ember,  found himself unable to negate The Dark’s power, with the implication that it wasn’t that the Dark was unique in some form, but that there was a flaw even in his power – aside from the fact that he had to be touching his target anyway. Most Power Negators usually work in a lesser fashion, such as dampening powers, cutting down their effect by a set percentage, or preventing them from being used under specific circumstances. While not technically power negators, metahumans who add negative side-effects to other metahuman’s powers are usually lumped in together with Negators.

**Enhancement**In contrast, these powers arise all but exclusively from Plus Origins. Enhancers boost the powers of other metahumans to varying degrees. This can mean outright boosting its raw power (flames burn hotter, strongmen lift more weight, teleporters reach further) or affecting other parameters – making powers easier to use, negating negative side-effects, preventing backlash, and so on.

**Power Control**The power to control another’s power while still leaving it in their hands. This can range from having complete control over another person’s power to merely being able to set when it is used, but not how (or the inverse) or to affect a single parameter (like being able to determine at what range a power will take effect if used, or preventing it from turning off).

**Endowment**The ability to grant powers to others; specifically, while Enhancers improve on existing powers, Endowers *add* powers, either to metahumans, norms or both. This may well be the most coveted kind of power there is, at least as far as the world’s governments are concerned.

**Mimicry**

Being able to copy powers (usually with some limitation) used by other metahumans. Very rarely able to assume powers on a permanent basis, and even then only with other limitations (such as being able to retain a copied power permanently, but only being able to hold three such powers at a time). The prototypical Meta-Power.

**Theft**

Powers which steal powers from other metahumans. The difference between these and Mimics is that Mimics generally don’t affect the ‘target’, Power Thieves most definitely do, reducing their powers in some fashion, in the rarest cases even permanently!

**Cultivation**The ability to grow powers over time, often adjusting them as they so grow. Only two known cases, both the result of Wyrd Origins.

**Adaptation**

Gaining powers in response to specific circumstances (such as assuming defensive abilities suited to environmental threats, or the feared Nemesis-type, who gain powers suited to fighting a specific metahuman they target).

**Shifting**

Similar to Adaptation, only more active, with the metahuman being able to actively choose powers, usually from a limited (but not necessarily fixed) selection.

## Known Metas:

**Name** - Rank, Manifestation type, Power Sub-Type

**Aheri** - Unknown, Plus(?), Endowment

**Aphrodite III** - Unknown, Minus/Plus, Enhancement/Negation

**Baba Yaga** - Unknown, Null, Theft/Endowment

**Corporal Disorder** - Unknown, Minus(?), Power Control

**Cyclops** - Unknown, Wyrd, Shifting

**Dajisi** - Unknown, Plus(?), Mimicry. Unclear. Could find no sources, but this article's original author put her here.

**Desolation-in-Light** - Transcendent, Null, Adaptation/Shifting

**Ember** - Transcendent, N/A, Negation

**General Disarray** - Unknown, Minus(?), Power Control

**Gloom Glimmer** - Transcendent(?), Null, Adaptation/Shifting

**Heckler** - Unknown, Unknown, Enhancement? Does not seem to match any category.

**Major Mayhem** - Unknown, Minus(?), Thief

**Rounds/Percy Norton** - Unknown, Plus, Mimicry(Spawning)

**Queen Madeleine** - Unknown, Wyrd, Cultivator

**Zincar** - Unknown, Plus(?), Endowment

## Refrences:

Brennus files 16: Meta-Powers (https://tieshaunn.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/brennus-file-16-meta-powers/)