Psionics and Aliens

[stofsk]

Note: if you don't like or use psionics in your campaigns, you can safely ignore this thread.

I've been wondering at something, do you treat psionics any differently when used by aliens than you would if used by humans? Is there a difference, or should there be one? I realise the Droyne have a strong affinity for psionics, while Chirpers use a type of invisibility that is related to psionics. But what about other races, like Aslan or Vargr for example? Hivers, K'kree, et al?

Can they turn into psykers or not, and if not why not? What is different about them?

There is also the question of how psionics can even develop, but leave that aside for the moment. I have an idea on that which I'm going to explore in a campaign. Suffice it to say I'm trying to think of what can cause psionic manifestation in humans and aliens, and since I created my own races I have to make a statement on psionics in each species profile.

 

[Golan2072]

The real question is what is psionics, i.e. is it a natural phemnomenon based on complex physics (and then replicatable by high enough technology; this is backed by CT-LBB8's claim of Ancients robots being psionic)? Is it an extension of one's "spirit" or "soul" (and is there such a thing IYTU)? Does it involve transdimentional perception/manipulation (similat to the first option, but more focused, and probably related to Jumspace)? Or will you leave it intentionally beyond explanation, a freak of nature, a fluke of the universe?

If psionics is a natural phenomena based on some of the more complex rules of physics, then it is a question of whether or not a species has evolved to exploit these phenomena (i.e. to percieve using a "sixth sense"). If it is a matter of 'soul', deeper phylosophical questions are raised... And so on.

 

[stofsk]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Does it involve transdimentional perception/manipulation (similat to the first option, but more focused, and probably related to Jumspace)?

Yes.

It is intimately connected to jumpspace IMTU. So much so that the first recorded psionic phenomena occured after the first FTL flight.

Whether a species has that 'third eye' you need in order to make use of psionics is another matter. Do you have 'it' before you're exposed to FTL or does the exposure itself force you to perceive or develop it? The question about aliens and psionics is also one that you can apply to mundanes and teeps. After all, if psionics is related to jumpspace then shouldn't everyone that enters FTL become sensitive to it?

On the other hand, natural selection may not mean everyone becomes sensitive, only those that have either the genes for it or some other attribute that allows them a step up the ladder over their peers. That raises other concerns, as I can't see a race naturally evolving to make use of senses it can't utilise unless it goes into FTL.

I fear I'm not too knowledgable over how evolution works in this regard. I'm guessing evolution would kick in after the environment you're in changes. On the other hand it could be a question of one's 'soul' in that you either have it or you don't. If you do, you can perceive through the sixth sense, but if you don't, you can't hope to ever train or what not.

Traveller suggests to me that anyone can train and be a psionic (my only frame of reference is T20) you just have to pay the Institute for the training, while also being of a young enough age to be sensitive to it. That sounds too easy though.

Or will you leave it intentionally beyond explanation, a freak of nature, a fluke of the universe?

Well, how it works can be left vague to give a sense of mystery and wonder to the universe. However, it is necessary to show that it works and that it has limits.

If psionics is a natural phenomena based on some of the more complex rules of physics, then it is a question of whether or not a species has evolved to exploit these phenomena (i.e. to percieve using a "sixth sense"). If it is a matter of 'soul', deeper phylosophical questions are raised... And so on.

My thought was that only those who have gone through FTL can manifest psionic ability. But that might not work if you expect psionics to affect the larger community (who won't go through FTL), which leads me to wonder if the trait is heriditary. Can two psionics sire a child that also has the ability? Can mundanes reliably enter FTL and reasonably expect not to 'change'? Those are question which I'm struggling to answer.

If yes, then FTL takes on a new dimension to a species' advancement. Not only does it represent a kind of transcendental step for your people, but one that affects them on another, deeper level. FTL gives you access to the rest of the universe but it also opens up a pandora's box for your species, because those that come back - some of them, not all - will have changed and will pass on that change to their children, on and on.

If no, then FTL travel is almost like a lottery. Only you hope to never win the jackpot. I'm dissatisfied with this one and I'm leaning toward yes, because it tells a particular type of story that I find intriguing.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by stofsk:
I fear I'm not too knowledgable over how evolution works in this regard. I'm guessing evolution would kick in after the environment you're in changes.

Evolution is all about survivability and reproduction: if a given trait gives you an advantage in either or both of these fields in your given environment, that trait will become more common in your species as you'll survive longer and bear more offsprings (who will carry the trait; or, in higher organisms with sexual reproduction, some of them will carry the trait). If a trait gives you a disadvantage in either survival and/or reproduction, it will become less common as you will have less (if any) offsprings than other members of your species (who lack the trait). If a trait gives niether an advantage nor a disadvantage in the given environment, it will remain in your offsprings but its percentage in your species' gene pool will change only due to non-genetic parameters (i.e., if by chance most of the ones without the trait will be caught by a forest fire and killed, your trait will be dominant without giving an advantage - this is called "genetic drift").

Evolution takes many generations to bring significant changes; in bacteria, "many generations" would bseveral hours. In higher organisms, includingy sophonts and proto-sophonts, this means, at the very least, tens of thousands of years. So exposure to jumpspace should'nt case significant evolutionary changes in most sophont races (who posses jumpdrives for about the last 10,000 years), except for, perhaps, the Droyne (who have jumpspace for about 400,000 years).

Psionics would probably evolve due to its ability to provide an animal with some sort of rudimentry "intuition", a "sixth sense" which will sometimes (and only occasionally) alert the animal about a creeping predator or a bad decision about to be made by that animal.

 

[stofsk]

Is psionics treated as hereditary in Traveller? If your parents had it will you, and if you have it will you pass it on?

 

[jfetters]

In the OTU it is not - I beleive there is reference to this in the Zhodani supplements.

Doesn't mean that you can roll your own system for hereditary psionics, however. I like your idea of Psionics first manifesting when the J-barrier is broken. I like for them to appear in primitives from time to time, so I don't use that distinction, but I think your idea has a lot of potential.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by stofsk:
Is psionics treated as hereditary in Traveller? If your parents had it will you, and if you have it will you pass it on?

Stofsk,

Traveller sidesteps that issue and sidesteps it in a very unsatisfactory manner.

On one hand, the Zho claim that psionic ability doesn't seem to be hereditary. On the other hand, the Zhos say being raised in a psionic household helps your chances of being psionic. Confused? So am I.

Everything written about the Zhos say their nobility is hereditary. Their nobles are also supposed to psionic. They even have a social mechanism for advancing those with psionics into the nobility. But, if psionic ability isn't hereditary how can the Zho nobility be hereditary?

Apparently Zho nolbes routinely adopt newly identified psions and disinherit their own children! Another mechanism may have non-psionic children inherit lesser titles as a sop to their feelings which would lead to a bunch of disgruntled, deadhead, lesser noble running around hoping against hope that their children will test high thus giving the deadhead nobles a chance to 're-enter' the nobility on the kiddies' coattails.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[kafka47]

Using psi potential being unleashed as a result of jump drive is too Fading Suns for me. It is rather the inner complementing that results from the activating of the portion of the brain that is unused.

Rather psionics first manifests itself in the religious and the occult movements as these disciplines help focus the mind on elsewhere thereby granting the ability to perform the miracles of physics we do not entirely understand.

As time moves on it becomes a philosophy, as study and refinement of different disciplines allows for specialization and refinement. These appear as the wizards and witches of yore but in fact they have merely deciphered the texts of the religious texts and learnt its secrets.

Then if one defines philosophy as "love of science": (philo=love sophy=study of an object or science), it begins its final transformation toward becoming a true science. Whereby it can be quantified and measured.

Each civilization whether human or alien, goes through these technological (application of technique) essential stages. The real question, which social forces dominate. Clearly in Terran history the religious element dominated which then prosecuted the witches & philosophers by passing the science aspects for now.

Out there amongst the Stars, each civilization would have to make similar choices, true they can be helped just as the Zhodani had the benefit of the Chirpers side-by-side to teach them the philosophy of psionics or those within the Imperium might not be able to even practice the religious stage because of the prohibition on psionics in the Imperium,

 

[mike wightman]

IMTU psionics are a relic technology from one of the first starfaring cultures that pre-dated the Ancients.

They couldn't break the light speed barrier but they did discover extra-dimensions. They built machines that could access those dimensions to produce the effects Traveller calls psionics. Over millenia the machinery became smaller and smaller, with some of it actually hidden away in the extra-dimensional space.

As the line between nanotechnology and biotechnology is so blurred, eventually the machinery was hidden away in junk DNA.

Some of the probes that were sent out by this race carried this machinery with them. It had the purpose to "infect" any living organism it came across, within certain parameters. It would use the infected organism, if possible, to gather data about the new syatem it had found itself in. It would then transmit this information home.

For millenia this psionic disease travelled from world to world, spending thousands of years at a time evolving organisms to a usful state for gathering data.

One day this "disease" infected a race of semi-sentient reptilians, one of which was able to recognise this disease for what it was. He learned to control and manipulate it, and was also able to use it in a way its long dead creators couldn't have forseen (or perhaps they did?). He used it to bio-mod his own species, and also made connections with other technological advances.
Eventually he was able to connect the extra-dimensional space with the real universe, but only through an imperfect interface that allowed him to teleport machinery for parsecs at a time - and it always took a week

As he explored the galaxy for more evidence of the races that had gone before, he created helpers - first as copies of himself (and the copies made copies), and later he manipulated other races (although sometimes it was the copies that did this - or even the servant races).

All of the servitors, even the machines, had the biotech built into them to access the higher dimesions.

With time though, this knowledge was lost. Even though the potential remained.

 

[stofsk]

Originally posted by Jim Fetters:
In the OTU it is not - I beleive there is reference to this in the Zhodani supplements.

Doesn't mean that you can roll your own system for hereditary psionics, however. I like your idea of Psionics first manifesting when the J-barrier is broken. I like for them to appear in primitives from time to time, so I don't use that distinction, but I think your idea has a lot of potential.

You can still encounter primitives with psionics. After all, did not the Ancients transplant Humanity all over the place? Also, things like the Long Night can make primitives of lots of planets.

 

[jfetters]

Oh, absolutely. I was thinking more of the lines of a pre-spaceflight Terra campaign set ala GURPS:Interstellar Wars.

 

[Ran Targas]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
IMTU psionics are a relic technology from one of the first starfaring cultures that pre-dated the Ancients.

With time though, this knowledge was lost. Even though the potential remained.

This is a cool idea Sigg; I think I'll mine it for some ideas if you don't mind. I particularly like the extra-dimensional factor.

Up until now, the race IMTU who is seeding psionic genes is doing so because they are extremely (i.e. paranoid) xenophobic and want to keep tabs on all their potential enemies. What most psionics don't know is that their minds are literally open conduits for these aliens to gather information.

 

[Plankowner]

Assuming you allow the other Major races in Traveller to be Psionic, then the PROBABILITY of each type of PSI ability might vary between races. Humans tend toward Telepathy and Telekinesis, but the Aslan, for example, might tend toward Awareness and Teleporation. The K'Kree might tend toward TK and Specials.

Mix up the probabilities between the races and you might get a better feel for how that race reacts to PSI in general.

I would argue that one of the reasons that humans in the OTU are so distrustfull of PSI is because Telepathy is the commonest Human ability. If humans rarely had Telepathy, but had TK instead, PSIs might be welcomed as "lifters of heavy things" and not feared as Mindpeepers.

 

[mike wightman]

Oddly enough the hivers are the major race with the least psionic potential (they couldn't be psionic at all in CT, while TNe introduced the first ever psionic hiver...) and they are the furthest away from the playground of the Ancients (and possibly the fist starfaring races too - including the psionic plague spreaders IMTU ).

Does the psionic talent table change between races? I'll have to go and read through my CT alien modules to find out.

It is also noticable that the Droyne and the Zhodani can train PSI up like any other characteristic. So in a psionic society a character with a PSI of 5 or 6 could raise it with luck on the right tables

 

[Cymew]

"the playground of the Ancients" Where is that? I had gotten the impression that Grandfather had all known space as his playground, and then some.

 

[kafka47]

Grandfather had the run of all of Chartered Space but divided entire what the Imperials call Sectors amongst his children. Grandfather also had his fingers in what is better known as Unknown Space...but not neccessarily giving access to his Children which has been a bone of contention.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Does the psionic talent table change between races? I'll have to go and read through my CT alien modules to find out.

The Aslan are just noted as being unlikely to be psionic. There aren't any changes to the skills, IIRC.

 

[Gvadakoung]

On one hand, the Zho claim that psionic ability doesn't seem to be hereditary. On the other hand, the Zhos say being raised in a psionic household helps your chances of being psionic. Confused? So am I.

Not confusing at all. It's a nature / nurture issue.

Psionics is not hereditary. But exposure to the mental disciplines practiced by psions from an early age could well inculcate habits of thought which make latent psionic abilities emerge more readily.

As for what psionics are, I treat them IMTU as an emergent function of consciousness whereby thought can interact with and cause changes in manifest reality at the quantum level. But this mental stance, like certain states of consciousness attainable through meditation &c. IRL, requires a rare ability to focus in a particular way.

Some animals or plants may possess an instinctual psionic potential. Volition would seem to require sentience. MGT at least has established that characters of any playable race have the same basic chance to be psionic, with the same range of powers appearing across the board.

I would think that the differences that exist among races are those of cultural outlook, rather than superiority of intellect. The Zhodani have a leg up in the psion sweepstakes not because they are more mentally gifted, but because their culture is arranged in such a way that psionic ability is encouraged rather than repressed.

 

[Whipsnade]

Not confusing at all. It's a nature / nurture issue.

Gvadakoung,

I understand that bit. What I don't understand is what the Zhos do with all their "deadhead" and marginally gifted nobles.

In the Consulate only nobles have the vote and only nobles can be elected. Nobles are always officers and only nobles can advance beyond field grade. Only nobles can occupy the upper echelons in business and government bureaucracies too. In a society that quite frankly is as caste ridden as the K'Kree, nobles in the Consulate are the top dog.

However, not every noble in the Consulate is psionic or even a gifted psionic. Despite nature and nurturing, a noble's child could either be a deadhead or so marginally gifted that it is all they can do to flick those psionic light switches the Consulate uses.

What sort of a life do those nobles have? What sort of a career can they expect? How are they treated be society as a whole? Those are the sort of questions I've always had regarding non-psionic nobles in the Consulate.

I'd suspect that a few would become overachievers in order to "show" society their worth, a few would engage in "anti-social" behavior as much as is possible in the Consulate, and most would become nonentities convinced of their own inferiority stuck in various out of the way jobs and postings where they couldn't foul things up too bad.

I have this mental picture of a non-psionic Zhodani noble version of Colonel Klink holding the vitally important post of Consulate Tourism Liaison on Asmodeus. The mind simply boggles when mulling over adventure possibilities...

MGT at least has established that characters of any playable race have the same basic chance to be psionic, with the same range of powers appearing across the board.

Well, that's yet another bit that Mongoose got wrong then.

CT pretty plainly laid out what psionic potentials of the Major Races. The Hivers had none, for example, until TNE added the extremely special, NPC only, don't let your players have it, Dreamer ability.

I would think that the differences that exist among races are those of cultural outlook, rather than superiority of intellect.

I would say that it is a nature and nurture issue as CT's various Alien Modules plainly state. Different races have different psionic natures and different races nurture psionics better than others.

The Zhodani have a leg up in the psion sweepstakes not because they are more mentally gifted, but because their culture is arranged in such a way that psionic ability is encouraged rather than repressed.

Agreed. The Zhodani have no more or less psionic potential than any other branch(1) of humaniti. It's how they detect and develop what they have that makes all the difference.


Regards,
Bill

1 - ISTR that certain human minor races, especially the more "chopped" ones, having psionic potentials differing widely from the human norm.

 

[ThunderChilde]

No book in front of me, but I think Hivers are still non Psions. Further, the alien races are lightly touched upon, their books are still coming, and the Psion book is on the soon to be available list. I am waiting for Psion before I even think about rushing to take any positions.