Touma's Power: What can he block ?

[MeisterBabylon]

As weird as it sounds, that really looks like how it works. Just that the name then becomes a misnom--

...no wait it does! This removes the illusion that the coin is traveling at 1030m/s! After all, it is only the imagination of the ESPer made into reality. Imagine Breaker thus works by giving all magic and science a "reality check", where it returns things to the state of "Absolute Reality".

Does sound like what Touma does in the story thus far, what with him constantly giving everyone reality checks with his long speeches.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by shmaster

Gabriel's water just fall apart like same reason the Ars Magna clones simply fell apart when Touma touches it.
The clones are made of regular phsyical material depsite animated by Ars Magna, so by your logic, when Touma toches them, they'll just stop mvoing, not break apart.

Not my logic, the series' logic. It's the series that show us these contradictions. One moment Touma can stop incoming projectiles enhances by magic or psychics, the other moment he can't.

We can argue real life physics all we want, but according to real life physics Mikoto's railgun shouldn't even work at all, so obviously applying physics and saying its impossible is futile to begin with. Various examples show us that Touma can very much block objects enhanced by supernatural powers, Touma himself is convinced he can block a railgun, and we even have the railgun manga showing him do it.

Every single source, from novel to anime, either say or show he can block a railgun. With no evidence of the oposite, why can't he?

[Clarste]

I find it amusing that we have this whole thread to argue about what seems to be a plothole. If it says he can, then he can, it just doesn't make much sense so no use arguing about it.

[MeisterBabylon]

It happens. And this thread got it no where as bad as the Nanoha tech thread. It's just when guys disagree, expect one hell of a fight. =P

[dahak]

Originally Posted by Clarste

...so he can revive someone who's blasted by a fireball?

He didn't restore the memories he lost to the angel's feather when he touched his head after waking up and he doesn't restore the things the Golems destroyed when he deanimates them.

[willyvereb]

yeah...just the direct cause. But it's good enough to block Mikoto's railgun with it.

[Clarste]

The momentum of a coin is no more direct than all the other numerous examples where he couldn't do things. Stop trying to justify it.

[dahak]

Originally Posted by Clarste

The momentum of a coin is no more direct than all the other numerous examples where he couldn't do things. Stop trying to justify it.

Actually in general if the person causing the effect is still concentrating on it [or possibly just still pumping AIM into it] Touma seems to be able to cancel active secondary effects by touching the primary. Style being dismembered, Railgun secondaries, the way the Chainsaw Whip totally collapses when he touches just a small part of it.

While Touma is actively relying on the imagine breaker it appears to be able to provide an area shield that works against active secondary effects. The graviton bomb and Styles Fire Elemental are examples of Touma and people behind him not being effected. Electrokinetic telepathy not working might also be in this category. When he has to rely on this his bad luck seems to get worse for a while, things in this category are mostly among the most powerful we've seen and in generaL are not totally cancelled by the imagine breaker.

Effects that have finished [No longer having AIM input?] don't seem to be affected. The power grid being out due to the Lightning strike on the bridge, Angels Feather, Golem damage to doors, Tree Diagram being destroyed. It isn't much good at reversing entropy.

Like all the other supernatural abilities, Magic, divine or Psychic in this setting, it appears to work at least partially based on what the user thinks it can do. Touma thinks it can stop railgun strikes and so his power does what is necessary. Touma doesn't think it can resurrect Imoutos killed by Accelerator, but whether that is a lack of raw power [if his power was stronger it could], capability [he can't cope with the subconscious calculations necessary to put everything back to normal or he can't reverse entropy] or just be cause he doesn't believe it can is up in the air.

[Clarste]

So basically he breaks the laws of physics and even internal consistency because he doesn't understand them. I can live with that.

[dahak]

Originally Posted by Clarste

So basically he breaks the laws of physics and even internal consistency because he doesn't understand them. I can live with that.

He is reasonably internally consistent in his power use. And only Saten and Maika that I can think of haven't yet seriously bent the laws of physics as we know them. And Uihara because we haven't yet seen her power.

This is a setting where normal or better luck is a supernatural blessing from god, there is a measurable psionic field that can generate an anthropomorphic avatar and healing spells powered by imaginary angels. They have a number of additional codicils to our laws of physics.

[Clarste]

Uh.. he's not internally consistent at all. Have you even read this thread? That's the entirety of what it's about.

[JokerD]

Instead of treating it as an passive ability, I wonder if we should instead treat as an active ability, although a subconscious one.
eg he can dispel a railgun shot since he doesn't know what it was (instinctive block), block the bomb blast (aoe shield) but not able to stop the objects thrown at him by accelerator since he knows logically it would fall on him due to gravity.
Something to note is that Lazard was able to alter his memory, although it got broken once he touched his head, this was when he was unconscious, but teleport girl was not able to teleport him out of the dorm.

[MrTerrorist]

How about this theory:
Anythings related to science will follow the Laws of Science and anything related to Magic will follow the Laws of Magic.

PS. Don't bother asking me about it. I'm not getting involve with this subject again.

[-Sho-]

Well , Touma's hand can break all magics . Then he use punch combo to beat down the bad guy.
It works , he beats all the freakings boss badass (Accelerator , The fire guy etc .. )

But against real weapons , he'll be nothing more than dead .

[Ice Block]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Anythings related to science will follow the Laws of Science and anything related to Magic will follow the Laws of Magic.

This. As I said in my first post on this topic, magic does not necessarily follow the physical laws. Thus, IB's interaction with magic should not necessarily govern its interaction with ESP, and vice versa.

And as I said in my previous post, obviously, IB is horribly OP and broken in the Railgun Manga (funny how this makes Touma look more badass), so all renditions of IB in said manga and subsequent adaptation are not to be taken too seriously (regarding IB's intended role and power/utility).

[Keroko]

Psychic powers also fail to adhere to the laws of physics, so this argument is kind of moot to begin with.

[Ice Block]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Psychic powers also fail to adhere to the laws of physics, so this argument is kind of moot to begin with.

Elaborate.

[MrTerrorist]

Here's a better explanation:

"It's just a show, I should really just relax."
"It's just a show, I should really just relax."
"It's just a show, You should really just relax."
"It's just a show, You should really just relax."
"It's just a show, We should really just relax."
"It's just a show, We should really just relax."

PS: I not getting involve with this debate anymore so leave me outta of it.

[Keroko]

Nobody is forcing you in this thread. If you want out of it, all you have to do is stop posting in this thread.

Originally Posted by Ice Block

This. As I said in my first post on this topic, magic does not necessarily follow the physical laws. Thus, IB's interaction with magic should not necessarily govern its interaction with ESP, and vice versa.

And as I said in my previous post, obviously, IB is horribly OP and broken in the Railgun Manga (funny how this makes Touma look more badass), so all renditions of IB in said manga and subsequent adaptation are not to be taken too seriously (regarding IB's intended role and power/utility).

Except that Railgun was written by the same author that wrote Index, which means there is no reason to assume it works differently in either.

Originally Posted by Ice Block

Elaborate.

As we've discovered in the episode 1 thread, Mikoto's Railgun fires a coin at speed barely matching some of our more powerful rifles, which also fire far more effective projectiles, yet she causes tremendously more damage. A true railgun shot also causes massive amounts of heat, and a recoil of the same force as that propelling the projectile. In other words, realistically speaking Mikoto would be blasted away by the same shot she fires.

According to physics Mikoto's Railgun would either be not nearly as powerful, or as deadly for her as it is for her target.

Which leads me to one of the explanations. Of course, the most obvious one is that Kamachi went with a bit of physics to make things sound scientific, then added copious amounts of rule of cool to make things work. However another, more in universe explanation was given by our favourite loli sensei. When she explained psychic powers, she explained that psychic powers are basically the user replacing normal reality with their own.

In other words: The very basic principle of psychic powers is saying "screw you" to physics.

This means that psychic powers don't work because they're physically possible, they're possible because the user thinks they're possible. Kind of like Orks in Warhammer 40K, if you're familiar with them.

[MrTerrorist]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Kind of like Orks in Warhammer 40K, if you're familiar with them.

Like this one?:
If Orks believe Red paint makes their Rides go faster, then their Rides will go faster because their united Psychic powers made it so.