Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-17714224-20131122225810

I have been under the impression that the sytem scan is entirely a farce and doesn't have really anything to do with how powerful you are but instead has been rigged from the begining and that the strongest esper may not even be a level 5.

The way I understand it is that the ranking system is not based on how "powerful" your ability is, but instead how "useful" your power is. The less "useful" or "more detriment" for that matter, Academy City feels your power is to their (Aleister's) plan the less they are willing to develop it.

An example of this can be seen when comparing the level 5's to Touma and Hamazura. Touma came to Academy City with a power that is easily the strongest but was catagorized as a level 0 becouse he also holds enough power (and the type of personality) to put a stop to their plans. Aleister straight up and says that he can effect like over 90% of his plan or something. Hamazura on the hand, despite being a true level 0, is the only person to ever F#ck up Aleister's plans to such an unrecoverable extent and the only one to P#ss him off enough to send assasins half way around the world to take his head becouse of it. What ever ability he has they sure as hell ain't gonna develop it making him even more powerful. Also Uiharu's power could shake the world "literally" if it was fully developed and with her strong sense of justice and inability to be manipulated unike Misaka, or even Kongou for that matter, could also be a reason why she's such a low level

The only real exception I found to this rule are gemstones. For example Gunha and when it comes to his ability, well they can't even figure his power out and he's useless to them, they only marked him as such to keep face. Being a gemstone they don't have the luxery of "not" devolping his power and his power's strength is impossible to hide unlike Touma's. All other gemstones were ranked reletive to the general strength of other developed espers, assuming that it is flashy enough to be noticed for example, Himagami has the ability to "bait" out an ARMY OF VAMPIRES but she's ranked rather low because it's not something likely to be seen.

Is this understanding of the espers system scan at all accurate? And if not where am I wrong?

Thank You 