So I’m in Dallas, watching Railgun with Dr. Heinous, and I’m picking up on some hints that weren’t obvious before. One of the things that occurred to me is that Uiharu’s power might be related to computers–her hairband of flowers is a red herring. She seems to be unusually powerful, in that she is able to quickly tie together all the CCTV’s across the district surrounding Tokidawa junior high, which amazes her friends. The fact that she is using a keyboard also surprises them. Uiharu remarks that its the only way she can do it so that the system can keep up with her. (I suppose the alternate is verbal programming, although we never see it used elsewhere.)
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The problem is that she is Level 1. Whatever her power, it exists but only at a rudimentary level. Her computer prowess is way beyond that.
At this point, we don’t really know what they base the Level on. “Power” seems to be the key, but what sort of power? Do they measure it in ergs, or strength of the AIM field? Precision, power, and repetition seem to play parts from the tests we see Kuroko and Mikoto go through, but how is each weighted?
Whatever it is, it’s intended to allow differentiation among people with the same skill. The criteria probably change as a function of the kind of talent. And so “Level 1” means “talent present but not very impressive”, and that doesn’t apply to Uiharu’s computer skills.
Before you bring up the fact that Touma is classified as level 0, my opinion is that the powers that be (i.e. Crowley) have deliberately unrated him in order to avoid painting a target on his chest. Touma is Crowley’s ace in the hole. So his “level 0” rating doesn’t prove anything. My own opinion is that it will eventually be revealed that he is the only true level 6.
I wasn’t going to dispute it based on Touma because I disagree with Touma’s classification also. I’m not sure exactly why he’s a 0, but I am not sure it’s a lie — it may be that neither Crowley nor the Church understand him — so for the time being he’s classified normally. The fact that his power works on both magic and esper abilities makes me think he’s a “wild card” that isn’t from either of the nominal power sources. I do agree that Crowley has plans for him, and is trying to keep him under wraps — I just don’t agree that it’s an esper power.
The key to his power is that it doesn’t counteract the opposing force, it negates it. For example, if Mikoto fires her railgun at Kazuki, who uses magic to block it with her sword, then she has opposed it. But if Touma touches either one of them, he doesn’t oppose their power, he prevents it from working; that is, negates it. (Aside — interesting experiment: Have Touma touching Mikoto while someone tries to taser her. What happens? Is her immunity to electric shock passive or active? Based on the way psionics are explained, I would think active, and she’d be tasered.)
I know of no other cases in the Index/Railgun universe that work like that. The implication of psionics being able to negate magic is that magic should be able (in theory) to negate psionics in return. The spell would have to be really, really difficult and/or rare. It’s possible that it might be in one of Index’s 103,000 grimoires — but if that’s the case, then why didn’t the guardian program recognize it and take an appropriate action to stop Touma from disabling it and freeing Index from the memory wipe curse?
I have an idea about how Touma’s power works. I think I’m going to have to write it up.
Oh noes! The poor catgirls!
Speaking of which, that blasted kitten still hasn’t turned into a catgirl yet. Source material is now deemed suspect. However, she has proven adept at getting behind my computer to yank on the cords. Just like a jealous girlfriend.