Theory about Vasic

Killing people is killing Vasic. As he tells Dorian in HtP, “I can’t continue to erase lives as if they were nothing more than marks on a page. I’ll make a mistake. Then I’ll die.” In Tangle of Need, Aden says that Vasic has not been assigned a group of children to look after because Vasic fears that he would do violence if one of the kids was abused on his watch. Judd attributes this to Vasic having a conscious. I think it might be something more. I think Vasic might have Empathy in his skill set.

The Silence Protocol works by taking a young Psy's abilities and turning them against him anytime he starts to feel an emotion. Which is why it doesn't work on E-Psy. There is no way their abilities can be used to punish them. However, if Empathy is *not* their primary talent then their empathetic instincts can be overridden by an even harsher Silence Regimen which is designed to repress their secondary ability. The ability is still there, its just not being used on a conscious level.

Unfortunately Empathy isn't the sort of thing that goes quietly into the night. As Toby demonstrated, a person with empathetic powers cannot help but to express them when there is a need to do so. And if there is any group that *needs* an empath, its the Arrows. Unfortunately for the empathetic psy, violence and empathy don't mix. Just being in the vicinity of a murderer make Sascha sick to her stomach. If she were to kill someone it would probably kill her.

Which brings us back to Vasic. Unlike Judd and Sienna, Vasic was not recruited into the arrows because he was naturally aggressive or dangerous. He didn't almost kill someone when his abilities manifested themselves. Nope, he was drafted ('recruited' implies he had a choice) into the Arrows because he was a natural born teleporter, a skill that was too useful for Ming not to take advantage of. But Vasic didn't want to be there. Even as a child he knew that these were not nice people. Not only was he able to feel but he couldn't understand how others couldn't. Even after he finished the Silence protocol he wasn't a robot, he still felt something when he happened upon a young and scared Sienna in Ming's office. He felt something for her, something which told him that he wasn't like the Traveler who raised him. He was something different; something more.

Vasic is not an E-Psy. He's a traveler. Therefore the dissonance programming is tied into his TK and TP abilities. Never the less, his empathy is still there. Its not strong enough to kill him, but it is strong enough to punish him. So he feels every murder he is around and he picks up on the suppressed emotions of the other arrows. Everytime he kills the act reflects back on him and hurts him further...which triggers the dissonance programming. Between the dissonance programming and his latent empathy, he is going mad and that's why he retreats to isolated places like the desert. Only by being totally alone is he able to find relief from the dual pulls of his gifts and his programming.

Excellent theory Katherine, something I hadn't thought of myself, it makes perfect sense though It also explains why he wants to die to acheive peace.

Very plausible. It also explains why Aden didn't want Vasic to kill Henry alone, and said afterwards he will not let him die. :3

Nice theory!

I like it.

makes perfect sense.

Thanks everybody. Its the mark of a good author that I was able to come up with such an airtight theory.

Hah! I´m not the only one to pick up on it!
Excellent theory, and not only because I´ve had it cooked up, too.

There is another reason for Vasic´s bad state of mind though.
I talked to Nalini about it and she confirmed, that Vasic, as a TK, has a very strong connection to the net mind and that plays a pretty big part in his depression.

I always kinda though, that a highlevel TK and midlevel TP wouldn´t have any more relevant abilities... but then along came (HOLY FUCK) Kaleb and Faith has some pretty vast assortement of minor abilities as well...

So.. entirely possible. And totally plausible.
Especially the way he picked up and stuck to Adens pain, when they where children. I mean... a telepathic connection? err....
There must have been quite a few telepathic children like Aden in there but they still didn´t latch on to each other.

But what if Aden reached out, with those sneaky abilities of his and Vasic reached back with his empathic ones?

Katherine, excellent theory! I'm really impressed!

True . It really seems he like a empath strongly affected by negative emotions . And being exposed to death so much he is broken