Question about Shrinking Level 5 and Mental Powers

[WaylanderPK]

I was planning on creating a super villian who was basically a nano virus that inhabits people and controls them. (below)
But Shrinking Level 5 says

Level 5: Characters who shrink to the molecular level use
different rules. You effectively seem to disappear to people of
larger size- and you cannot see or interact with normal sized
people or objects at all.

Does this hold for mental powers, given the phrase "and you cannot see or interact with normal sized people or objects at all" I'd say it would . Two questions really. One am I reading the rule right, and two, how would you go about the basic concept yourself?

Synapse (41)
Syapse started off as a miltary project to control enemy soldiers and turn them against their own forces. Developing self awareness the program escaped to persue its own agenda. Able to manufacture clones of itself the nano virus is capable of infecting both human and machine.

Brawn 1 Agility 1 Mind 4 (12)

Powers (29)
Shrinking 5, always on,Cannot be nullified (5)
Boost Mind 1(Mental Powers) (1)
Duplication 3 - 10 Clones 3 (3)
Super Speed 5 (For Clones to act only,Second Nature) (5)
Neural Attack Multipower (10)
-Mind Control Effects Machines (6)
-Weaken Mind 5 (5)
-Nullify Mental Defences, Machine (6)
-Mind Blast 5 (Second Nature) (6)
-Illusion 5
-ForceField 5 (Second Nature) (6)
Calirvoyance (Present,what Hosts see, Second Nature) (2)
Telepathy (3)
Advantages/Disads: Unliving, Outside
Mental Malfunction: To rid the world of the virus named humanity

[urbwar]

If as written, you can't see normal sized people, I'd suggest some kind of sense power to negate that.

The writeup itself is pretty awesome

[MrJupiter]

Wow, this is a very cool villain idea! Synapse makes multiple copies of its microscopic-self by infecting and dominating other host bodies (or machines). I can see your dilemma regarding the power’s phrasing; "and you cannot see or interact with normal sized people or objects at all". Essentially, each host is an entire world at that scale! However, that’s not where the scale of the game is really taking place (unless all the players shrink down to germ size and scour the host for the Synapse controlling it).

If I understand you idea correctly, the heroes would be facing infected people that now are effectively copies of Synapse. These people could be anyone: like their best friend Bob; some clerk from a coffee shop; and now the police officer that pulled Bob over for speeding. The essence of Synapse is not a human-scaled being, but his manifestation in the world would effectively be such as the heroes are not battling directly with the Synapse-germ (virus): just its hosts.

In some ways I’d almost want to handle it like Astral Projection linked with Mind Control. Synapse might not be a floating spirit but, on a microscopic scale, he certainly isn’t tangible either; so he (I mean ‘it’) does share those kind of qualities. Also, thanks to duplication, the villain can dominate multiple hosts. Perhaps with a mere touch, Synapse can attempt to ‘infect’ another host (at which point its total Hits pool further divides). As long as one copy survives, it would eventually be able to heal from its lost copies.

As to your build, I have a concern about listing Mind Control in a multi-power. I could be wrong in my interpretation, but would you loose control of the host while using other powers in the same list (as you can only use 1 such power at a time).

[WaylanderPK]

Thanks for the feedback, I think you're right Mr Jupiter, the Mind Control would only work when the slot is selected. Thats ok i think, the other powers are more for the initial assault of the host or self defence, I probably should have also listed that the illusions can only be seen by the host, for that classic 'everyone looks like monsters' scenario.
I was planning on using the clairvoyance as the villains major sense, but probably somekind of sense power is also in order.

Synapse (43)
Syapse started off as a miltary project to control enemy soldiers and turn them against their own forces. Developing self awareness the program escaped to persue its own agenda. Able to manufacture clones of itself the nano virus is capable of infecting both human and machine.

Brawn 1 Agility 1 Mind 4 (12)

Powers (31)
Shrinking 5, (always on,Cannot be nullified) (5)
Boost Mind 1(Mental Powers) (1)
Duplication 5 - 50 Clones (5)
Super Speed 5 (only for differing clones to act ,Second Nature) Linked to Duplication (2)
Neural Attack Multipower (12)
-Mind Control Effects Machines (6)
-Weaken Mind 5 (5)
-Nullify Mental Defences, Machine (6)
-Mind Blast 5 (Second Nature) (6)
-Illusion 5 (Host only) (4)
-ForceField 5 (Second Nature) (6)
Senses (6)
-Clairvoyance (Present,what Hosts see, Second Nature) (2)
-Telepathy (3)
-Detect 'Normal' World (1)
Advantages/Disads: Unliving, Outside r
Mental Malfunction: To rid the world of the virus named humanity