Talk:Biological Essence Manipulation/@comment-9597460-20130617135926

The tags and description of the power keep emphasizing the merely genetic. There's already DNA Manipulation. Isn't this just Enhanced DNA Manipulation?

When I read the title, I was hoping for more, like the ability to change essence at spiritual level. For example, there are energy/psionic/spiritual-bodied entities which, despite the absence of DNA, also have an "essence." Can't they also be manipulated? If so, I'd makle it more clear in the definition.

I really don't think it's a good idea to equate "essence"—which is a metaphysical quality—with a merely physical attribute like DNA. I would say that in a verse where metaphysical forces have a real influence on reality, one's DNA is just the physical expression of an intagible essence that precedes physical embodiement. That is, I'd put an entity's spiritual or metaphysical essence before it's biological and physican DNA-based existence.

Remember all those college debates about which comes first, existence or essence? That's what I'm talking about. In a superpowered verse with actual transcendant creators and spirit beings, metaphysical essence is actual, not imaginary, and precedes physical existence.

Maybe this needs to be broken up into two different powers. Essence Manipulation can be the larger version, whereby a user can make even spirit-deep alterations to someone. Then you'd have Meta DNA Manipulation which could do many of the things this power does but be limited only to physical alteration.

For example, let's say a cosmic entity with Essence Manipulation is going to change my "essence" from human to angelic, that is, Human Physiology to Angel Physiology. Does that kind of change only occur on a genetic level? You've got to literally transfigure someone at a soul-deep level to bring about a transformation like that.

(Incidentally, that was a storyline in Silver Surfer a number of years back which revealed that Galactus had made alterations to the Surfer's soul. I don't know how that storyline worked out or how it was later retconned or reinterpreted (it is comics, after all), but that's the kind of phenomena that sounds like real Essence Manipulation to me.