In this case, there’s no million dollars. And there’s no actual superpowers.
Just go to the Random Superpower Generator and collect the first seven powers it gives you. Then post your list in this thread, ranked from one to seven. Seven is the one you think is best. One is the your least favorite. And if you have one you really hate, you can rate it zero and then you won’t receive that power.
My superpowers are:
7: Enhanced Intelligence (The power of extremely heightened and enhanced intelligence and other mental abilities/skills.) An easy choice for the best one.
6: Supernatural Senses (The power to possess senses drastically beyond what is naturally possible.) A very good power. Although I’m assuming I can turn it off.
5: Power Detection (The power to sense the presence of supernatural powers within others.) Very useful if we’re assuming people are getting superpowers. Not very useful in the real world.
4: Dream Manipulation (The power to manipulate dreams.) Useful but not spectacular.
3: Reanimation (Power to reanimate corpses and dead beings.) A power I might never use but I can imagine scenarios were it would be useful.
2: Anatomical Liberation (The power to split one’s body apart and control the pieces.) I can’t even think how I would use this one.
1: Goo Generation (The ability to create ooze, slime, and goo.) And this one seems even less useful.
I would personally rank this a lot higher. It’s been a longstanding fantasy of mine to be able to target hypocritical public figures who wrap themselves in religious armor while privately (or not-so-privately) engaging in harmful behavior, giving them constant nightmares every single night about Jesus (or whoever) telling them he’s angry and disappointed and if they don’t change their ways they’re going to wind up in Hell. (And this has no implicit political angle; you can perceive hypocrites on both sides depending on your individual persuasion.) I have no expectations about what will result one way or another, I just want to see what happens. So if that power is available, I’m jumping on it.
Given how easily Discourse creates numbered lists that count up, not down, I’ll put my number 1 (least useful) power first. Besides, dramatic convention says you save the best / most climactic item for last. They call it the “grand finale” for a reason.
I just clicked [randomize] and my 7 are pretty interesting. One meh-ish, one semi-useful on its own, and 5 that make me as a god individually, much less synergistically. So rendering the first two nice to have but mostly irrelevant. This would make super-powered me into a real fun guy to be around, but it’s gonna be kinda hard to rank the upper 5. Here goes, again from least to best:
Sonic Scream (The power to emit highly enhanced scream of a high amplitude.) Sounds (heh) useful if you’re being mugged or lost in thick jungle, woods, etc., but you know you’re not that far from help. But otherwise meh.
Deoxygenation (The power to remove oxygen from one’s surrounding environment.) If it’s only your immediate environment that sounds pretty much like a suicide pact with whoever else is nearby. Notso hotso.
But if you can retain a bubble of oxygen right near you, that becomes in effect an area stun weapon. Zap all the oxygen out of the air within, say 100 feet of you, the entire crowd faints in a few seconds, you walk through or away or pick their pockets or whatever, and within a couple minutes enough oxygen will diffuse into the area they start waking up. The infirm and elderly are at risk of permanent damage, but pretty much everybody else will be no worse for wear than from their falling to the ground.
I could see uses for that. And coupled synergistically to the royal flush I drew below, I can rule the world with this alone. Or at least assassinate a lot of baddies until the cowed survivors fall in line.
Muscle Manipulation (The ability to manipulate the muscular structure of oneself or others.)
Step 1: I look like Adonis, and with no pesky time wasted in a gym, no annoying perpetual soreness, and no long term arthritis and trashed joints. Yaay!
Step 1a: Same for my GFs. All of them. Lot to be said for hard-body gymnasts! Hmmm. I wonder if that de-oxygenation power works in reverse? We could all have a lot more stamina for … ahh … exercising while breathing air containing, say, 80% oxygen.
Step 2: If you piss me off I’ll convert you into a pile of organs & bones encased in an oversized sack of skin mostly unable to move. Mostly.
Psychic Navigation (The power to track people/objects with one’s mind and/or create mental maps of an area.) Mental maps I can already do, at least for places I’ve been. The other part is more useful: “I know where you are”, for any “you” and any “where”.
Precognition (The power to perceive future events.) “I know where you’re going.”
Mentifery (The power to turn thoughts and imagination into reality.) “If I don’t like where you’re going, I can change that for you.”
This is really the all-purpose god power. Some hackneyed motivational speaker used to say something close to “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Now I can. Yaay me!
As the god power this ought to be my #7, but I like the structure of my narrative descent into supervillainy better with it here as number 6. Besides, who among you is brave / foolhardy enough to complain about my decisions?
Possession (The power to inhabit the bodies of other beings/entities.)
The Good: I finally get to try orgasms from the other side. And multiple too. Woot!!1!
The Bad: Make my enemies dance a jig, say self-incriminating things, reveal their secrets, and generally make themselves into laughingstocks or confessed defendants at trial.
The Ugly: Make them watch themselves helplessly as I force them from the inside to commit suicide by ever-more grisly methods.
See: relatively mild-mannered nice guy (not Nice Guy®) to supervillain in 7 easy steps. With a major side order of harem-keeping. Rowwwrrrr!
My new superpowers from the generator seem more interesting than my old ones. . . But following @LSLGuy 's order of ranking (1 = worthless, 7 = most useful), here goes:
Movement Vision (The power to instantly take notice of things if they move.): Useless. I already have this power.
Plant Merging (The power to merge with plant-life.): What the . . . ? Do I really need to get in touch with my inner rutabaga? “Activate cruciform fiber diet powers!” seems like a pretty crappy battle cry to me.
Projected Thermography (The power to imprint marks onto surfaces without the need of scribing tools.) This might be useful if I worked in a machine or carpentry shop.
Fire Vision (The power to generate beams of fire from the eyes.). Now we’re getting warmer . . .
Water Manipulation (The power to manipulate water.) This’d be kinda cool. . . and useful when I accidentally set the newspaper on fire while staring at the crossword puzzle clue. I could tap into the atmospheric water too, to help with wildfire fighting which’d earn me some good karma points.
Ultimate Vision (The power to have all vision-based abilities.) Kind of a catch-all, that would be useful in a variety of situations.
Possession (The power to inhabit the bodies of other beings/entities.) I could quite literally effect World Peace with this one. Just imagine if I could inhabit Putin for fifteen minutes on the world stage, and recall all of the Russian forces wreaking wanton havoc. Or, I could inhabit Trump, at trial, to embarrassingly drop trou and ‘self-pants’ himself in front of the Judge, Jury, and media both ruining his trial and chances at the nomination. Yeah, it’s scary to imagine Trump bending over and mooning his pasty cheeks to the Bench, slapping them while saying “I alone can fix this, this is a witchhunt,” but I’d make that sacrifice for the good of the world.
MENTIFERY, defined as the ability to turn thoughts into reality. Well, that’s about as powerful a superpower as you can have. The ability to simply will things in and out of existence makes me a god. You can really stop here.
SUPER STRENGTH. A rather obviously huge number of profitable applications here. Guess who the world’s new weightlifting champion is? I can dominate most sports.
ENHANCED LEAP. That’s cool.
ATOMIC VISION, “the ability to see bonds between atoms,” how dumb. I can see that now. I can see the atoms in this table are bonded, it’s a solid object.
GAMMA VISION, the ability to see gamma radiation. I have never been perturbed by my inability to see gamma rays.
SUPERPOWER MANIPULATION, defined as being the ability to manipulate superpowers - uh, what? Like, change OTHER PEOPLE’s superpowers? They don’t have superpowers. Only I do.
MAGIC VISION. This is defined as being “The power to project magical beams/blasts from one’s eyes.” What the hell does that mean?
7 Psychic Constructs (The power to create constructs out of psionic/psychic energy.) Very useful if I don’t have to have a mohawk to use it.
6 Freeze Vision (The power to emit beams of freezing energy from one’s eyes.): I sometimes think about how we have microwaves for quick heating but no compact appliance for quick cooling. Freeze vision would be very useful for cooling drinks and making ice cream.
5 Invisibility (The power to render oneself unable to be seen.): This would be very useful to just be able to hang around outside without having neighbors try to interact with you.
4 Pressure Manipulation (The power to manipulate pressure.): I can see potential uses.
3 Organic Constructs (The power to create constructs from organic material.): Like what? A building made of wood, or a bridge made beef? Because one example is a power I already have, and the second is a power I don’t need.
2 X-Ray Vision (The power to see x-rays.): Not especially useful, as I don’t expect that I’d see a lot of random x-rays in my normal life.
1 Graphic Vision (The ability to view things in a dimensional form (e.g 2D, 3D).): I already have this power: it is called “an imagination”.
Fat Manipulation (The ability to manipulate fats and fatty tissues of oneself and/or others.) (I’d finally be skinny!! And I could use it to get RICH!!)
Enhanced Wits (The power to have wits that are far beyond other members of one’s species.) (better brains are always good, right? Though with society as it stands, this might lead to being terminally horrified at the general stoopidity surrounding me)
Enhanced Senses (The power to possess extremely accurate senses.) (just seems generally useful)
Extrasensory Perception (The power to acquire information by means other than the ordinary senses or previous experience.) (sort of more of the previous. Not sure how I’d use it, but I’m sure I’d find it good for something)
Psychic Shield (The power to be highly resistant to psychic attacks.) (was gonna rank it lower, but assuming I have ESP, others would as well)
Wind Vision (The power to generate beams of wind from the eyes.) (not sure what this would be good for, really; maybe in combination with other powers not listed? At the least, I’d never need to buy another fan).
Body Part Substitution (The power to replace one’s missing appendages with those of another.) (er, EWWWWWWW. What happens to the person I swipe the parts from??).
(ooookay; I redid the numbers, and it prefaced stuff. But it should be counting down from 7 to 1).
I, the nascent supervillain, OTOH was immediately thinking tsunamis, followed by floods, hurricanes, and perpetual downpours.
As to the last, I’ll take your “make the desert bloom with crops” and raise you “I’ll make the desert an inland sea under perpetual roiling clouds and lightning. Take that, e.g. Iran!”
I haven’t done the exercise yet (will return to this later) but that could really be a mixed bag. I’d expect it comes at great costs.
Possibly great loneliness. Imagine that you are literally orders of magnitude more intelligent than any possible partners or friends? They are intellectually at the level of pets.
Knowing all doesn’t mean anyone listens to you. Always being right but not always being able to do anything about it? Nightmarish.
7 Vampire Physiology
(The power to possess the abilities or be a vampire.) Cool as long as I don’t have to kill people and drink blood.
6 Enhanced Craftsmanship
(The power to craft weapons, armor, items, artifacts, structures, etc. to near perfection.) Building awesome perfect things would be a nice change
5 Shared Vision
(The power to share the visions of an individual’s past and present sights.) I guess if I wanted to steal stuff this would be helpful?
4 Social Cloaking
(Power to instantly assimilate into any society or social group.) How do you do, fellow rich people on a yacht? Where are we headed?
3 Supernatural Flexibility
(The power to possess flexibility drastically beyond what is naturally possible.) Yeah, who cares?
2 Graphic Vision
(The ability to view things in a dimensional form (e.g 2D, 3D)) I can already see in 3D
1 Melting
(The power to liquefy objects/organisms into a liquid form.) Ewwwww.
First time out of the box, I got a pretty good mix.
Enhanced Lung Capacity (The power to have extraordinary lung capacity.) Not much use in this mix. In situations where this would be needed, I can just Warp Reality
Water Generation (The power to generate water.) I already have this power, on a small scale. And I can write my name in the snow!
Darkness Manipulation (The power to manipulate darkness.) Finally, I’m the Jack of Shadows!
Petrification (The power to transform matter into stone.) What kind of stone? Do I get to choose? Diamond’s a stone.
Power Detection (The power to sense the presence of supernatural powers within others.) Important defensive weapon. If I feel threatened, I’ll just Generate Water in their direction (Just kidding, I’d Warp them right out of Reality)
Probability Manipulation (The power to manipulate probability.) I think non-STEM folks underestimate how powerful this is (Maxwell’s Daemon incarnate!)
Reality Warping (The power to manipulate reality.) This alone covers most (maybe all) of my lesser powers.
Mental Manipulation
(The power to manipulate the minds and mental functions of oneself and/or others.)
Intuitive Aptitude
(The power to instantly learn and understand the complexity and exactness of organisms, objects, etc. without the need of long-term or special education.)
KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!
Where were we? Oh, yes…
Electronic Communication
(The power to intercept, generate, and interpret electronic, digital, and radio transmissions.)
Heat Vision
(The power to generate beams of heat from one’s eyes.)
Pressure Manipulation
(The power to manipulate pressure.)
If I’m really going Zod, this one will be fun. Think Scanners.
Siren Song
(The power to emit irresistible sound that lures anyone who hears it towards the user.)
Not with my range.
Drill Press Aversion
(The circumstance or negative quality in which the user has a supernatural weakness when in contact with a certain object, occurring event, or emotion.)
Although it’s nice that my weakness isn’t very portable.
Miasma Emission
(The power to emit a variety of toxic gases.)
Bleh.
Enhanced Accuracy
(The ability to achieve complete and utter accuracy on distant targets.) An offensive skill only. Appeals little.
Deoxygenation
(The power to remove oxygen from one’s surrounding environment.) Assuming it comes with ability to survive that I guess world class firefighter? Or murderer.
Supernatural Senses
(The power to possess senses drastically beyond what is naturally possible.) could be useful
Yin & Yang Manipulation
(The power to manipulate the complementary and opposite forces of yin and yang.)
If I knew how to use it I’d guess everything else follows. But do I even believe in Yin Yang?!
Physics Manipulation
(The power to manipulate the laws of physics.)
If I knew how to use it correctly everything else could follow. And I believe in physics. But knowing enough to use it with destroying us all? Scary power.
Healing
(The power to heal.) A clear positive force. Downside risk is overuse on large populations and therefore being placed having to decide who does and does not get healed. But worth it.
These three are pretty top tier. Especially if regeneration prevents cancer and damage from solar radiation. I might be pretty ageless. It is unclear to me what the difference is between immutability and invulnerability. Does immutability mean I cannot be torn apart from an explosion or burnt from a fire? If so, then it might be redundant with regeneration. And not having to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. Sign me up.
Regenerative Healing Factor (The power to rapidly heal.)
Immutability (The ability to be absolutely immune from any alteration or change by outside force.)
Self-Sustenance (The power to reduce or remove the need for bodily necessities.)
Great little self defense weapon that I’d always have with me. Not sure what else I could use it for to help humanity. Kick start a fusion reactor maybe?
Laser Vision (The power to emit laser beams from the eyes.)
#5. Kind of a mixed blessing. Generating oil is great because eliminates any possible oil crisis (assuming I could create a lot), but would greatly worsen climate change as there would be less pressure to change to renewables. Although I could also put every O&G company out of business. They would probably want to kill me sooooooo kind of glad I have those first 3 powers. I guess I could tell countries I would generate free oil for them if they agree to switch to and make progress in converting to renewables.
Oil Generation (Power to generate oil.) … Oh God, the USA is going to invade me!
These next two seem less useful or unclear. Like the ability to detect my children? Useful I guess if somebody kidnaps them. I can re-enact Taken but much much quicker. Also, not clear what aura manipulation does exactly.
Offspring Detection (The power to sense and track the presence of one’s children.)
Aura Manipulation (The power to manipulate aura, the subtle, luminous radiation that surrounds a person or object.)
Aura Detection: The user can detect the presence of auras in their vicinity.
Advanced Level
Aura Absorption: The user can see and absorb the auras of others, taking their life-force, memories, and powers.
Aura Attacks: The user can release/use aura for various attacks.
Aura Charging: The user can charge and refuel objects or others with their aura.
Aura Combat: The user can combine aura control with physical combat skill.
Aura Constructs: The user can create weapons and other materials made of aura, capable of reforming them with complete control and creating anything they need.
Aura Flight: The user can use their aura for flight and direction control, reaching hypersonic speeds at full power (common to all auras).
Aura Infusion: The user can infuse an aura in a body or an object.
Aura Mimicry: The user can mimic the auras of others, understanding their feelings and mimicking their powers.
Aura Solidification: The user can solidify aura into a tangible physical form as per their wish.
Aura Trapping: The user can trap others in their own aura.
I may as well join in the fun, such as it is. So I get 7 superpowers that have virtually no use. I’m not going to number them because they’d pretty much all be numbered zero. Well, a few may be useful if I had ambitions to be a supervillain.
Astral Vision
(The ability to see overlapping dimensions beyond the physical plane of existence.)
Lunar Vision
(The power to see everything via the moon.)
Lunar Manipulation
(The power to manipulate aspects of the moon.)
Fire Generation
(The power to generate fire.)
Supernatural Thievery
(The ability to possess the skills that allow one to rob, steal and loot more than just physical objects.)
Dream Manipulation
(The power to manipulate dreams.)
Dark Vision
(The power to project darkness/shadow beams/blasts from eyes.)