SuperhumanAbilityModule:Borderline

Borderline is a Superhuman Ability Module which grants the user control over boundaries and separations. If that seems vague and overpowered, that's because it is.

The Borderline SAM is extremely expensive, and is only offered to the wealthiest of Uniqus customers. As a result, the exact cost of the SAM is unknown to everyone except Borderline users and Uniqus executives, and rumors are that wealthier customers are arbitrarily charged more than somewhat less wealthy customers.

In and of itself, Borderline is capable of short-range reality manipulation by removing or increasing the differences between concepts. Reduced gravity, dream-like lack of ontological inertia, the inducement of out-of-season weather and even instant death are all possible with Borderline, much to the ire of the average SAM user.

While Borderline is specifically meant to provide Boundary Manipulation, it does so not by targeting boundaries, but by letting them target things that the user unconsciously views as boundaries. Aside from making the SAM easier to program, this also means that Borderline isn't totally broken OP, as the user can modify and remove physical boundaries but not warp reality or minds to the point of breaking.

An amusing side effect is that overuse of Borderline can cause the user to gradually view all boundaries more and more as "minor inconveniences" rather than obstacles, which slowly renders the SAM less powerful and eventually useless.

Borderline as a Lexis
There are rumors that Leonardo da Vinci and the Illuminated Brotherhood once created abilities known as "Lexes" a few centuries ago, and as "Words of Power" in the 121st Century. Each Lexe supposedly had the capability to manipulate an entire aspect of reality.

The rumors state that Borderline was not originally a Virtue, but one of the Lexes created by the famous polymath or the Illuminated Brotherhood he founded, and that the currently sold version of Borderline exists as the first of these outdated Powers to be made compatible with the Superhuman Ability Module API.

While this sounds like a conspiracy theory, the Illuminated Brotherhood is known to exist, and has generally been involved in efforts to remove corruption from various organizations. This includes recent efforts by the Brotherhood to ban the further sale of Borderline by Uniqus, as well as adding restrictions to the existing copies.

Most who believe that Borderline is part of some sinister master plan are regarded as crazy, while those with more moderate theories - such as the Illuminated Brotherhood considering Lexes to be their worst mistake of hubris and thus wanting to cover up their existence, or that the Brotherhood just likes playing the part of the X-Men with their secret powers - are generally taken more seriously.

Supposedly, Lexes had no names - only a word in Latin that was considered synonymous with the mundane uses of the word - because each was one of a kind, at least until after SAMs were created. The word used for Borderline's predecessor was Terminus, meaning "boundary" and "border".