Speed barrier

A speed barrier is a superhero warrior ability that was observed in Gantolia at the end of the first revolution. It involved having a barrier around the superhero warrior that prevented fast traveling objects penetrating it from outside. One had to move very slowly in order to be able to move through it. Movement from within the barrier was unconstrained.

Another feature of the ability was that the barrier would begin as a tight field around its bearer and expand with their age, eventually spanning many kilometers.

It was first documented in the superhero warrior Falit Dentn, but was so strong that made it almost impossible for him to feed himself. A less reliable record of a similar case was reported in the south of Gantolia, with the teenager dying from the barrier as it prevented him from breathing.

Mran Gantorn exhibited a significantly weaker version of the phenomenon, making it less disruptive: one could simply walk normally to get through, perhaps just a little bit slower than usual. But the barrier prevented any fast movements, including projectiles, which made it useful as an actual defensive field.

Mechanism of action

The speed barrier would typically begin to manifest itself when its bearer would turn 10-12 years old. It would be a thin invisible barrier that would stop the propagation of fast moving objects, but when those same objects move slowly, the barrier would let them through with little resistance.

With Falit Dentn simply moving a hand at normal speed would already be stopped by the barrier and one would need to move their hand painfully slowly to get through. This included Falit's own hands, which made it difficult to do simple things, including eating. When the barrier's edges expanded, he lived in an almost impenetrable bubble and ended up dying from starvation when he was just 16.

Superhero warriors with such an ability did not appear to be able to reduce the effectiveness of the barrier, but they were able to actually make it go up with a bit of mental effort.

Initially, the speed barrier would be a sphere emanating from one's neck and being of about a quarter of a meter in radius. With age, the sphere would expand, but after about 25 its expansion would slow down, although not stop completely. The best documented bearers were Mran Gantorn and Tover Ren.

In Gantorn's case the sphere's radius was about 3 meters when he was 18, but grew rapidly to about a 100 meters, so that by the time Mran was 22 he had to stop serving his brother Linnit as a bodyguard: the edges of the barrier were simply too far away to be useful for such purposes.

The edges continued to expand and by the time Gantorn found himself in Nadd, they were kilometers away, so much so that his barrier was able to protect the whole kingdom from an invasion. However, no further measurements of the barrier are known, as the court of Nadd effectively kept Gantorn captive for the rest of his life.

Tover Ren was born almost 30 years after Gantorn's passing and his speed barrier was much weaker, to the point of being hardly palpable. Tover also seemed to lack the ability to make it stronger. However, the expansion of his barrier was well documented and followed a similar pattern to Gantorn's, with significant slowing down after Tover turned 25-26 years old. The radius of his barrier continued to expand until his death at 55 years of age, having experienced another slowing down at 34-35 and 47-49. The latest measurement at 54 found the edges to be almost 64 kilometers. The measurement was assisted by predictions of where the edge would be and by pouring sand on the ground, as Tover's barrier, while weak, would nevertheless disrupt the sand.

One of the unresolved questions regarding the speed barrier is whether it extended into the ground. One of the hypotheses contends that perhaps the barrier was emanating in a fashion similar to a fountain, going up from the bearer's neck and then falling down to the ground and stopping there. If this was the case, it could have been possible to get under the barrier, but placing its lower edge on a stone and then lifting the stone. This would've been especially useful to prevent the deaths of bearers who ended up starving inside the barrier.