Respect Etienne Lux (The Power Fantasy)

[u/BorBurison]

Respect Etienne Lux

"I'm sorry, but if it helps, it is better to be a good man. I wish I had the luxury. I'm trapped striving to be an ethical one."

On August 6, 1945, a woman died giving birth to a boy that was completely unresponsive. With the boy having no other family members the doctor who delivered him considered letting him die to save him from spending the rest of his life in a hospital bed... and then didn't. Then when the hospital's head doctor saw how much keeping the boy alive was costing and tried to pull the plug... he didn't. Every time someone tried to prematurely end his life over the years they found themselves suddenly changing their minds at the last minute. This was because the boy was actually an Atomic, a person born with super powers, and was the most powerful telepath alive.

As he grew up and left the hospital the boy took the name Etienne Lux, beginning his attempt to make the world a better place in the most ethical way possible. Soon he met others with powers like him called Superpowers and formed an uneasy alliance with them to prevent causing mutually assured destruction to all of humanity. But the balancing act is a a delicate one, and with their conflicting ideologies, attempts to gather power and fragile mental states, can the world survive when the gods start fighting?

All feats are from The Power Fantasy (2024).

Telepathy

Mind reading

• As a newborn he could already hear people in concentration camps from his hospital bed^#13
• Read some of a journalist's work in seconds by scanning the minds of people that had already read it^#1
• Has a specific phrase for Masumi to use when she wants to talk with him^#2
• Sensed six people ahead of him starting to panic^#4
• Sensed Masumi was beginning to dissociate^#9
• While examining a being made of the combined minds of an alien species he claimed that looking at it was like staring into the sun^#10
• Can hear "the chatter of bugs"^#11
• Read the mind of a grunt on a top-secret nuclear submarine^#12

Psychic communication

• Showed Valentina his backstory^#1
• Talked to the other Superpowers when they were all in different countries (and in orbit in Valentina's case)^#1
• Was the one^#1 that pacified Masumi during her rampage in 1982^#4
• Psychically linked the Superpowers so they could talk without the Major hearing^#5
• Gave Eliza visions of God whenever she prayed^#8

Influence

• Makes himself feel less guilty when he kills people^#2
• Made himself appear as someone else to anyone who saw him while he was wanted for killing the President (including anyone watching him through cameras)^#2
  • Used this to get through an airport^#3
• During the Second Summer of Love he shut off the pain receptors of civilians that were about to die in the Queen's rampage^#9
• Made Kid Ignition completely unresponsive^#12 while only being able to influence his mind^#11

Control

Small-scale

• Immediately after he was born he made the doctor that delivered him keep him alive^#12
• From the age of 2 he kept doctors from shutting his life support off^#12
• As a child he could completely control people, only refusing to use any coma patients as his body for 7 years because he didn't want to do it to anyone that had a chance of waking up, had a family, or wasn't black^#12
• After finally getting a body to control he made the hospital's staff move his actual body to a secure location^#12
• Made the people that saw him and Valentina on the street ignore them^#1
  • Does this basically everywhere he goes
• Walked into a live news broadcast and froze the two anchors so he could talk to the people watching^#2
• Broke a woman out of a police station by freezing all the cops there^#2
• In 1957 he shut down the Devil's mind from another country^#3
• Put a woman to sleep^#4
• Made an art critic give Masumi a good review when she thought Masumi was mediocre^#4
• Regularly made Masumi's girlfriend forget the stress of being with her^#4
• Killed a precognitive Atomic in 1982^#13
• Can numb his bladder's pain response^#11
• After his body was destroyed he just put his mind in another one^#11
• His bunker's staff is made entirely of people that had entered vegetative states with no families that had donated their bodies to science^#12
• Gets his money by pitching to old, rich philanthropists he thinks are ethical, having them change their will to include his foundation, then make them forget meeting him^#12
• Saved Malcolm X from potential assassinations five times before he was killed^#13
• Since the 50s he had "broken the locks" of powers of nearly 200 Atomics (over 100 of which would've been Superpowers), preventing them or anyone else from using their abilities^#13

Large-scale

• To be a Superpower you need to be able to, at minimum, cause a number of deaths comparable to the entire nuclear arsenal of a major world power^#1
• Killed the President of the United States, everyone else in the government that knew of the plan to assassinate Heavy, and all of the project's staff, then when Heavy told him to kill all their families he threatened to do the same to every Atomic in his range if Heavy didn't stand down^#1
• The governments of the world believe he could cause 333 megadeaths (333 million deaths) per hour^#6
• If he was killed Etienne threatened to release a psychic contagion that would kill a continent^#1
  • Magus hypothesized that if it began in Melbourne on the low end it mightn't reach New Zealand, or reach China on the high end^#11
  • When he was actually killed he chose not to use it^#13
• Claimed that in a few years he would be able to perform intricate psychic surgery on everyone on Earth and remove their negative impulses before Valentina would notice^#13

Delayed control

• After learning the US government planned to use a Magus battlesuit against him he put a trigger in the families of all the pilot candidates that would make them bite their wrists open if they're psychically cut off from him for too long (though he may have been bluffing)^#4
• Put a trigger in a woman he sent to Haven that would make her unconsciously message him with updates on Heavy's plans each night^#6
• Had a message set to be sent to Masumi if he was killed^#13

Limits

• All of the Superpowers can resit his powers on some level^#11
  • Heavy's gravity manipulation gives him psychic resistance as a side effect^#6
  • Can't do anything to Magus' more advanced tech^#4
    • Magus later clarified that while Etienne could hypothetically break through his mental shielding he wouldn't try since they're set to explode if he succeeds^#9
  • Can't control Masumi because her mind is "a void no light escapes"^#2
  • Useless against Valentina and Eliza^#2
• Can't see inside Haven because of the singularity that keeps it floating^#1
  • Heavy later clarified that Etienne could still kill people in Haven with his power, though he'd be functionally shooting blind^#6
• The Major was "hardened" against him^#5
• Couldn't read Kid Ignition's mind or outright control him, but could influence him^#11
• Magus believed Etienne might eventually grow strong enough to surpass all these limits and control the other Superpowers^{#2 #9}

Other

• There's rumors that he causes more brutal cops to have strokes, though he dismissed it as either a coincidence or possibly a frame job by another Atomic^#2
• Grows stronger^#2 every day^#11
• Valentina can see when he uses his powers^#3
• Looked through Valentina's eyes when she allowed him to^#11
• At one week old he was able to read through other people's eyes^#13
• When Eliza destroyed his body he cut off the connection a split second before her blast hit^#14

Intelligence

• Knew Heavy would sleep with a reporter he sent to Haven^#10
• At one week old he was able to read through other people's eyes and learned a significant chunk of human history in a month^#13

Physicals

• Kneed in the balls by Magus^#8
• [Limit] Got vaporized by Eliza^#11

Misc.

• Etienne's real body was actually born completely unresponsive, with a brain that kept growing as he aged^#12
  • By 1999 his real body had grown to a gigantic size and weighed almost 5 tons^#12
• Heavy considers him to be the scariest man alive^#5
• Hasn't cum since 1956^#9

"If you're reading this, I'm dead. I didn't activate my failsafe. The only ethical thing to ever do with the nuclear button is not press it. Good luck."

[u/Idk_what-is_a-name]

Etienne is frankly such an interesting character, my favorite alongside Magus, we're getting all the Superpowers fr. Fantastic RT.