So the idea for ophthacasts came when I was looking to come up with a better username. The idea was to find a more sci-fi/scientific word for Seer without borrowing terms from the field of parapsychology. In the beginnings of this forum I went with telecast, the idea being that it was someone who could cast their awareness far away...but I decided that telecast had too much of a television/media broadcasting connotation so I brainstormed for a new word, one that delved closer to the roots of the word "seer" and had the concept of seeing what others couldn't. So I went to Greek which is one of the default languages looked to for scientific terms and I grabbed the word for eyes, "ophthalmis" and tacked it onto the already chosen suffix "-cast" and "ophthacast" was born. And out of that came the definition found in my signature:


And so the ophthacasts were born. They are able to see things beyond the spacial and temporal limits of their physical eyesight. So they can see things happening in places that their eyes can't see, they can see things that have already happened or have yet to happen, and of course, their physical eyesight is far more acute than that of normal humans. And that's not so much of a list of all that every ophthacast can do, but rather the basic spectrum of abilities that any given ophthacast can manifest. Oh! X-ray vision would be included in that spectrum too, along with being able to see soundwaves, and spiritual realities. As you can see, an ophthacast is someone with the potential to see a whole lot more than you or I could see.

The origins of this ability? Never worked that out.
Are there other similar abilities to this? Yes, but I can't remember them. It's been a while since I came up with the concept.
What world/planet do they live in/on? Our very own planet Earth.
What time period? Uh....Idunno....Like I said, it was a loose concept that emerged out of me crafting a username. I really haven't done anything with it.

But there they are, the ophthacasts. Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions?

So they're a tad like Jedi, except more sight oriented and with more possibilities.

It might be able to caused by differences in a different genome that has different alleles for sight, which would also give them an explanation for differing abilities due to recessive genes.

Like Jedi? My instinctive response would be no. But that's because their essence in my mind is very different from the essence I have of Jedi.

But what exactly do you mean by that?

Jedi can use the Force to see beyond what they could through eyes- like what's happening now, things in the past, and things in the future. I guess though, where as Jedi are more guardians, the Opthacasts are more watchers.

Cool idea, Jordan.

Yeah, if that's the only connection you're making between the two then I guess in that very loose sense one could say that ophthacasts are like Jedi. I would honestly have to say that ophthacasts are more like average citizens who discover clairvoyant abilities than Jedi though.

Okay. Yeah, that was the only connection. Sort of citizen sentinels then to warn the government and guardians of what's approaching?

Not really anything that noble... they just see things. They're very unlike the Jedi in that the Jedi was an intentional, organized order, and these are just average people with a unique ability. What each ophthacast does with what he/she sees differs based on his/her character and personality. And I guess this would be as good a place as any to mention that they're a pretty rare occurence.

Ah, okay. I missed that part. I always assume people end up organizing themselves for one reason or another.

There may be a few that band together for some reason or another, but not to the degree that Jedi do. At least not at this point....like I said, fairly raw concept that I haven't done much with and don't really expect to do much with.

I guess I should've also mentioned that for most ophthacasts, their abilities are largely involuntary, unless they take a lot of time and effort to bring it under a semblance of voluntary control. Of course, there are those who with years of experience and practice manage to almost master the ability, but if ophthacasts are rare, then this level of mastery among ophthacasts is even more rare.

How rare are they? One in ten billion? One in fifty billion? One in one-hundred billion?

Well, considering that there's only seven billion people on the planet, if it was one in ten billion, there wouldn't even be one ophthacast around.

I'm thinking probably somewhere between one in ten million and one in one hundred million, which would mean somewhere between 70 to 700 ophthacasts in the world. Though honestly, I could move it all the way back to one in a million (aka 7,000 ophthacasts) and it would still be relatively rare.

Something to play around with, definitely.

Cool idea.

Good point.

Seven thousand is rare from seven billion.

This sounds somewhat similar to the perception-sense ability in E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series.