You Choose Between Money and Power

[Shai-Hulud]

You find yourself in a realm of gray mists. There are two freestanding doors. A being in a hooded white robe in a Venetian carnival mask appears.

"Once you walk through one of these doors, you'll return to your world and no time will have passed. Your body will be fully healed of any diseases or injuries and you'll be granted a potential 120-year lifespan, full health and faculties the whole time.

"If you walk through the left door, you'll have a fortune of one billion dollars. All the taxes will have been paid. Plus you'll get a grand mansion and secret bug-out bunker in locations of your choice. Everyone you know will remember this as has having been the case for quite some time.

"If you walk through the right door, you'll get the power of telekinesis sufficient to lift twenty-five tons of weight. Your level of control is fine enough to thread a needle or levitate all the individual grains of a spilled salt shaker. You can effortlessly stop .50 caliber machine gun fire coming at you from all directions without strain.

"Now, you must choose, or remain trapped here in the land of gray mists forever."

[Sharpandpointies]

Gimme the money. The power, really, is good for nothing more than 'working to make money' or 'parlor trick at parties' in my case.

And with the money, I can put a massive chunk of that toward research for alternative energies, etc, and still have a ridiculous amount left for living the rest of my life work-free, while travelling.

And I can donate the mansion to charity. Not sure what to do with the bunker. Put it close to where I plan to live, I guess.

[The Arbiter]

Gimme the money. The power, really, is good for nothing more than 'working to make money' or 'parlor trick at parties' in my case.

And with the money, I can put a massive chunk of that toward research for alternative energies, etc, and still have a ridiculous amount left for living the rest of my life work-free, while travelling.

And I can donate the mansion to charity. Not sure what to do with the bunker. Put it close to where I plan to live, I guess.

I adore reading your responses to these kind of threads. It's like an example of how to be a good person.

[Captain Smith]

The money. The powers are trivial. 50 BMG is trivial firepower. Check out the versions of the Carl Gustav AT weapon in common usage.

All you can do with this power set is go on Jimmy Fallon's crappy show.

[Sharpandpointies]

I adore reading your responses to these kind of threads. It's like an example of how to be a good person.

I try.

I'm told I'm VERY trying. ^_^

More seriously, a billion dollars? A mansion? I mean...I'm accustomed to living in a 770 square foot apartment condo, and very happy with it. I could buy a great condo in whatever city in which we choose to live, with a bigger kitchen (basically our only gripe with ours). And I could rent something close by for a combination personal gym/teaching space. Probably hire someone to clean our condo because why not (gives them employment, saves our time), and maybe get a food service provider to make us delicious and healthy vegan dinners for our freezer, to save us the time (give them specific recipes).

After that, I'm just going to travel.

I don't need to be a billionaire with a big mansion to do that AND set up the people I know pretty decently themselves. I could easily give away the mansion and $950 million dollars (for charity/research), and still have ridiculous amounts of cash I probably won't need for the rest of my life.

[The Arbiter]

I try.

I'm told I'm VERY trying. ^_^

More seriously, a billion dollars? A mansion? I mean...I'm accustomed to living in a 770 square foot apartment condo, and very happy with it. I could buy a great condo in whatever city in which we choose to live, with a bigger kitchen (basically our only gripe with ours). And I could rent something close by for a combination personal gym/teaching space. Probably hire someone to clean our condo because why not (gives them employment, saves our time), and maybe get a food service provider to make us delicious and healthy vegan dinners for our freezer, to save us the time (give them specific recipes).

After that, I'm just going to travel.

I don't need to be a billionaire with a big mansion to do that AND set up the people I know pretty decently themselves. I could easily give away the mansion and $950 million dollars (for charity/research), and still have ridiculous amounts of cash I probably won't need for the rest of my life.

Hey, you can use the bunker for the next time Rumbles needs to fight off giant spiders!

[Sharpandpointies]

Hey, you can use the bunker for the next time Rumbles needs to fight off giant spiders!

...you mean 'when I sit inside and gibber'?

The sole reason I was 'capable' of fighting in that situation was because we had no choice (also fictional situation, yay!). Give me a bunker, my phobia is going to push me into it and slam the door behind.

Cue gibbering.

[Sharpandpointies]

I guess if I have the secret bunker below my apartment building...somehow...I can make it not-secret and use THAT for my classes. ^_^

[Cyke]

If I had a choice, I'd get sugar. Sugar leads to everything else.

[The Chou Lives]

Money. The tk is handy but limited to my tastes. With cash and selling the gigantic mansion I go off to a more modest life style and donate some to charity and make sure my loved ones are fine.

[Harbinger19]

I’m leaning towards the power. I can make plenty of money with it if I play my cards right and don’t make too many enemies.

25 tons of force + that much fine control sounds good but I guess I have questions on how versatile the power is.

Can I create autoshields while I’m asleep? Can I spread the force over multiple targets? Can I use it to increase my physical stats indirectly? If I can stop .50 cals effortlessly can I stop tank shells and small explosions with effort? How fast can I make myself fly?

[Shai-Hulud]

I guess if I have the secret bunker below my apartment building...somehow...I can make it not-secret and use THAT for my classes. ^_^

For the past ten years or so, bug-out bunkers have become a thing with certain billionaires. It's possible they suspect something about what the next twenty years might be like that isn't reported on CNN. Possibly, they have access to information we do not ... although enough collapse literature is quite public and accessible already.

So I would not recommend placing your bunker on property someone else owns, or in an urban area, or allowing knowledge of it to become public. The whole idea is to have a safe place to retreat to if there's an event that changes the nature of civilization.

Of course, if you're going to tell everyone where your bunker is, it kind of frees me up to choose telekinesis....

Just kidding. But you see what I mean?

[Shai-Hulud]

Can I create autoshields while I’m asleep? Can I spread the force over multiple targets? Can I use it to increase my physical stats indirectly? If I can stop .50 cals effortlessly can I stop tank shells and small explosions with effort? How fast can I make myself fly?

"As with any power," says White Robe, "you start out with certain basic feats and functions, and then learn and develop further as you go."

[Sharpandpointies]

For the past ten years or so, bug-out bunkers have become a thing with certain billionaires. It's possible they suspect something about what the next twenty years might be like that isn't reported on CNN. Possibly, they have access to information we do not ... although enough collapse literature is quite public and accessible already.

So I would not recommend placing your bunker on property someone else owns, or in an urban area, or allowing knowledge of it to become public. The whole idea is to have a safe place to retreat to if there's an event that changes the nature of civilization.

If that happens, everything has gone to crap anyway.

So I guess it might even be better to put the bunker somewhere nice and safe, then sell it to some billionaire and send that money toward research as well.

And there's my full answer. Sell house, sell bunker, keep about 40-50 million, everything else goes toward research and such.

[theoneandonly]

I am getting the wonderful story of Henry sugar vibes from the later stipulation.