Unnatural Powered Characters Explained with (Mostly) Science

DVationz

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So I've been thinking back on the many stories, characters, rps, and ideas I've run into over the years and decided I wanted to try and make some rather in depth characters while making them believable to reasonable extent. Think of those sci-fi films with individuals who have mutant powers. Or think of X-Men because pop culture is over-saturated with Marvel content. Regardless, I'm going to use this thread to dump my ideas and I'd love for you all to give me your thoughts and maybe some suggestions that would be more believable. That being said. Here's the first one.

PROJECT: Venus
DAY 1
I wanted to see if I could use pheromones to essentially momentarily brain wash a target into doing whatever based on what kind of pheromone is used. Unfortunately the studies I found haven't been able to prove if humans regularly use pheromones let alone detect them in the same manner as insects and animals. So instead I tried to see just how far I could go with chemical imbalances in the brain to alter ones state of mind. Too much of one chemical causing the target in question to become less able to resist influences for example. That, in theory, works, so now i'm trying to think of a delivery system for said chemicals so that I can make it work in an interesting way.
DAY 2
When I think of it I think the best way to make these powers work how I'm envisioning them would be to combine psychological and chemical methods. Through the use of telepathy or some other similar power, she coerces her target into doing what she wants. But of course people aren't just going to listen to the voice in their head. So, she does whatever it is I haven't decided on yet, to cause a huge chemical imbalance in their system making it so that they're essentially incapable of refusing her command. The chemicals make it easier for her to "control" them while she uses the psychological powers to actually make them do whatever it is she wants.
DAY 3
I figured out how to implement my idea. The issue with causing a chemical imbalance that doesn't also affect my character is how to store the chemicals within the body until use and then the delivery system itself. So here are my ideas. Much like venomous creatures they have glands and organs that house the venom until being injected. Problem one solved. The second and more important problem is delivery. So here's the solution, again, like venomous creatures they use fangs to inject their venom. In this character's case she'll do the same thing but through scratching her victims (although I may keep biting as an option idk yet).
 
This seems like a good idea. Making your various power scientifically plausible also makes them have requirements (for instance needing to scratch someone to inject the chemicals that make them susceptible to psychological suggestion as you describe here.) is nice because it opens up a limitation on the power, a way that people can defend against it without having dedicated anti-psionic defenses, and also challenges the character more for the reward of being able to control one.

Personally I'd be wary of rabbit holes in writing, as in going too far into the specifics of something when they aren't really relevant to the plot. It might be nice if you want to define that this ability is not strictly magical that it is conducted via this mechanism, but it isn't necessary to define what specific chemicals are at play and what form of psychological manipulation is being used to bend the target's will, lest those things are actually relevant to your setting, and the amount of detail you have here is ample. If you think these specifics might be important for your setting (for instance some race of beings might not be affected by the brain chemicals and mainpulation due to different brain chemistry and structure) then you can delve more into detail that.
 

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