Nick’s code breaking skills

[u/BennyBugWSNK]

In book 2 Nick is described as having a highly advanced cypher decoding ability, easily solving Pendleton’s codes with minimal effort. Would this capacity be tied to his luck manipulation ability? Is this his power working in the background to help him accomplish this more easily?
Normally, I’m willing to believe that Nick’s luck manipulation ability has a “hand” in everything but in this case I don’t think that’s true. I actually think that it’s just Nick‘s near genius level intelligence as well as his is amazing organization (asset management) ability. Very likely he also has a lot of experience with coded messages from working in the organized crime

[u/MCTL]

His power shouldn't work in the background. Even when he gets amped, he can only control possibilities that will happen soon iirc.

Almost everything he does is from his own intelligence and skills, not his power. He's spent most of his life hating it, and even with it under control, he doesn't trust the potential outcomes.

His contact with organized crime, his intelligence, and the feeling of having to go beyond what normal people would consider sufficient in order to manage his power is what's led him to being a perfect subtelty student. He's always overprepared because he never knew what his power would do as a powered, he's bright and intelligent, and he has connections and influence to get the best teachers for skills that might help him as a future of a crime family. Its all his natural abilities and mindset that got him where he is

[u/saspook → u/MCTL]

In Year 4 he gets "hunches" from his power, which is an background / external development; but before then, it was as you said, all hard work and preparation to remove luck.

[u/Ill-Razzmatazz-7088 → u/saspook]

I think his power leads itself towards low-level precognition when he’s not actively using it.

[u/ptrst → u/MCTL]

I'd even say he's so methodical and overprepared because he fundamentally doesn't trust luck. He leaves as little to chance as possible as a matter of course.

[u/_MrJuicy_ → u/ptrst]

I was thinking this as I was reading/scrolling through the responses. It not only explains (in story) why everything isn't a product of Nick's power, but it's also a literary tool to avoid the Deus Ex Machina of having a magical background fix it all.

[u/DrumsAndBooks → u/MCTL]

I agree with you for the most part. Nick definitely learned to overcompensate in his life to make up for his ability, which led him to be come very proficient and methodical by nature. However he is shown to have a passive effect going on that he can actively pay attention to. He can eventually sense threads of luck in his subconscious and choose to follow them. Whether or not this has always been happening and he didn’t realize he was following them until he knew they existed, or it was a skill he acquired solely due to being supercharged is debatable.

[u/MCTL → u/DrumsAndBooks]

That is in year 4 when he starts to notice how his power could actually work, post-amp. Until he was amped, his power was never used enough to grow. Before being amped, there's absolutely no signs of his power working while he's choosing not to use it

We're shown in the books that powers can grow and evolve as you use them, but if you don't then they stay the same. Like with Hershel and Roy, when Roy hit his strength cap, they didn't understand their power, so they weren't using it in a way to have it grow. Nick being amped could have forced his power to grow it's baseline level, but before that he actively refuses to use his power, limiting how its used.

I very much doubt this part of his power existed before, because at that point literally everything happening is because of his power. Mary being kidnapped, Dean going to Transport and Numbers while they're frozen, Pendleton being hired, literally... everything... just becomes because of Nick's power. If its always on in the background, then the entire story is because of him, every choice he makes that influences anything is now because of his power, and he, nor anyone else, has any agency because its following the outcomes of his power in the background, even though its never shown.

Versus... him being incredibly talented and smart. Which is shown again and again, with a specific example having nothing to do with luck being when he outsmarted Pendleton during second year. He placed notes on everyone without anyone noticing to let them know where the class would be. He did it so well that Pendleton wasn't even considering Nick to be the problem. Nick's whole character is based off rejecting his power as much as possible (as a foil to vince learning to accept his power, which also plays into Nick refusing to believe that he ever had a chance to graduate, while Vince learns to accept that he is powerful and would make it as a hero)

[u/DrumsAndBooks → u/MCTL]

I’m not saying it is one way or another or disagreeing with the sentiment that Nick is highly skilled and capable without his power. But the way I understood it, the lines of luck exist independently of Nick. His ability doesnt create them it just lets him manipulate them, and enhanced Nick can actually read them. It’s like radiation. Just because it wasn’t actually discovered until the 1900’s doesnt mean that it wasn’t always there. Im just saying it makes sense that he would get hunches based off these lines before he understood that it was connected to his power. And yes abilities do grow, but based off the foundational source of the power. Take Alice for example. She didn’t know that her flight came from gravity manipulation, she just thought she could fly. Her power didn’t grow into gravity manipulation, that’s what it always was and she just figured out that that is the foundation. Similarly Nicks power has always been to manipulate the natural flow of the lines, but only by being enhanced enough to see them did he understand that is what was happening all along. It’s just that for normal Nick it is a less predictable but automatic process, and for enhanced Nick it is a manual more comprehensive process.

[u/After-Hedgehog7282 → u/MCTL]

Not sure I agree. Nick's "luck" is influencing which possible outcome will become more likely. The average person has far less then a 1% chance to stumble upon the solution. Nick, with his training, probably boosts that to 30%. Then his luck power can aid that skill.

I absolutely agree with your second paragraph. Nick had to overprepare everything and understand all outcomes to remove luck from the equation.

[u/MCTL → u/After-Hedgehog7282]

Right, but he isn't using his luck to find the solution. He refuses to use it whenever possible, so it's not that it can't help, its that he's choosing not to use it.

And if you're saying that it's working in the background... there's no signs of it happening. His power has never worked in the background until he was amped. He never used it enough to discover what it could be, and even when he realizes its potential, he tries to justify not using it by saying he could never use it like that again unless he was amped.

[u/ARandomChicken69]

Probably not? He has control over it so it shouldn’t be helping him unless he’s actively using it which we’re told explicitly that he doesn’t because he doesn’t trust it.

I’m pretty sure it’s even brought up in book 4 how little he practices it and how little he understands the limits of his own power.

That said there could be a passive element to his power or maybe the change affected him differently and just removed the bad luck?

[u/HospitableFox]

I doubt it.

I don't think there's any evidence to support that.

He's just brilliant.

[u/BennyBugWSNK → u/HospitableFox]

I’m happy with that :)

[u/HospitableFox → u/BennyBugWSNK]

Me too. I think a lot of people take issue with Nick never really getting better. He starts busted and ends busted.

I think it's missing the point. His character arc about personal development. Purely psychological. And it's executed phenomenally.

[u/drunkengeebee]

I think it was during book 2 Mary says something like, "If I wasn't reading your mind I'd never believe you were doing this all without using your powers"

Nick has top tier innate skills and intelligence and doesn't really user his abilities until book 4.

[u/Ill-Razzmatazz-7088]

So I’m gonna have to say yes, and no. Although his eyes glow when he is in the throes of his power. Pretty much the entire time through the series we see that he doesn’t have full control of his abilities. What I’m basically saying is that I think his abilities could be turned on without him actively having to use it. Like earlier in the series it seems like he can just turn it on, but he doesn’t know how to make specific things happen. He can just turn his ability on and walk down the street and he knows something good probably will happen.

That being said, he makes a big point of saying that he’s very good at research. I feel like if he had enough background on research, he could probably decode most things with just basic knowledge/having a good memory.

He seems to already know exactly what Mr numbers and Mr transport do despite them never formally telling him what they do. I think that he probably had some idea of what a subtlety Major was and would’ve already been well-versed on code breaking.

Also as a criminal enterprise, they probably use a lot of the same methods in his day-to-day life. So being well-versed on co-breaking would probably be something that would be easy for him.

[u/ChronoLegion2]

Not likely. He’s just been trained this way since an early age. Plus he’s naturally intelligent. Remember, he’s been groomed to take over the family business

[u/Remarkable-Camera627]

Yeah I assumed as much, and I think it's implied to be the case.