Children born with special abilities are brought to the “Institute” where they are to be trained. Amy Berg is such a girl. Once a ward of the state, she was allowed to live with Dr. Lonnie Talbot, however when Lonnie was killed in the line of duty, Amy’s official status became in doubt.

 

As she had exhibited an ability to sense things, she was brought to the institute. As Lonnie’s partners (an investigative group) begin to explore this mysterious Institute, they find that via the Patriot Act, the government was allowed to seize all children who exhibited these special powers.

 

Heading the Institute is Dr. Keller and it is revealed his has big plans for the children and especially special ones such as Amy.

 

Background

 

The Savants (formerly known as the Rain People) idea was introduced in the pages of Raven Chronicles which is about a team of paranormal investigators. Amy became a ward of Lonnie Talbot, one of the members of Raven Inc. but she was killed within the series.

 

The first mention of The Rain People was in Raven Chronicles issue 3 and it was revealed that a special drug found in the Amazon (tarit-doca) could release the special abilities that people had. Amy, however, manifests her abilities without ever being exposed to the drug.

 

After the one shot issue, it was decided to branch the Rain People off into their own storyline, and starting off was a 4 issue comic book series to introduce the idea but it was certainly open to becoming an ongoing storyline.

 

The Abilities

 

At first glance, this might seem a bit superheroish but in The Savants, the “powers” exhibited will have more of a realistic base. Most of them will be chemical or based on brain aspects. Ability to perceive, or breaking computer codes, or languages would be the more applicable abilities. There will be some physical abilities such as strength, agility, ability to play with light or process energy but nothing that goes to extreme and is not based on some science feasibility. So, there will be no flying or ability to control the weather or transportation…as none of those are exaggerations of humans’ abilities.