[Parson]

Silar's power of gathering "powers" went beyond Empath. If you remember in the first episode he was seen he was putting an intricate old watch back together and it was said that he could always understand how things worked. If his power only was to gather powers, then he might have only had a form of Peter's Empathic powers. But it also worked on inanimate objects. Making it at least a variation, but I would argue for another gift altogether.