Future Imperfect chapter 8

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Psionics

Psionics is the pseudo-mystical science of the mind and the underlying energies of the universe. When one is attuned to these energies, and their mind has been trained and conditioned to them, a person may sense their influence just as we can see when we open our eyes; he can manipulate them by projecting these energies from his own mind, just as we can turn a knob with our fingers. Psionics is the manipulation of the universe by normally unseen forces. It is easy for the unschooled to pass if off as magic or sleight of hand, or for information gained from telepathy or psychometry to be discounted, but the psionicist knows the truth. This struggle against ignorance will likely play a role in the life of any adept. The story often lies in how they deal with it.

Of course for some, ignorance is bliss, and many adepts couldn’t agree more. Dependent on the views of the local culture or government, an adept may be seen as a witch, heretic or enemy of the state; some adepts may choose to wear their mundane lives like a cowl and cape, always keeping the secret of the power beneath from those around them at all cost. To do otherwise might risk persecution or worse, and the chains will ever be stronger and tighter on those who may have the means to break them…

Latent Psionic Ability

During character creation, there are 5 categories of psionic ability. These are null, normal, conditioned, latent and adept.

Normal— This is just what it sounds like—nothing. The character is more susceptible to many psionic abilities. His mind is not prepared to stave off mental attacks. Perhaps the psychology behind the way he thinks makes his “inner voice” easier to hear. He also leaves a greater psychic stain wherever he goes that can be picked up more easily by clairvoyants. Luckily for the psionically normal character, Psionicists are a rare breed. Unless they are not. While normal characters do not start the game with the mental conditioning skill, they can still purchase or learn it. These characters will never have access to psionic abilities.

Conditioned—These people have had some form of mental conditioning, formal training or are naturally chaotic in their thought patterns. This character has no psionic abilities, but starts with one level in the mental conditioning skill as an everyman skill. This allows them to make defense rolls against mental attacks instead of unskilled Essence rolls.

Null—Psionic nulls are those rare people whose minds are resistant to psychic meddling. Some aspect of their biology or sometimes arduous mental conditioning will proof their minds from being read, having thoughts or feelings implanted, or even make them resistant to mental attacks. They will also be resistant to any kind of psionic aid one can render, but it’s the price they pay. Psionic nulls can never use psionic abilities.

Latent—The latent character has the ability to use psionic abilities. Maybe they know, maybe they do not. They have likely suspected things have been different for them their whole lives compared to the experiences they have heard from those around them. Latents can use experience gained to purchase psionic abilities, and once they have sacrificed enough fate chips or experience, opportunity will come knocking, and they may have the opportunity to be "awakened" and possibly find a PK crystal of their own (see below).

Adept—The psionic adept is not one to be taken lightly. These individuals can wield great natural talent, and often discovered their abilities—or were discovered—years ago, giving them plenty of time to train and hone their talents. Characters who spend their highest rank on psionics at character creation are considered adepts, and can use attribute points to purchase psionic foci and talents during character creation. Adepts also begin the game with a PK crystal.

The Psionic Adept

Adepts have the capacity to master all fields of psionic talent. Psionicists with latent abilities may dabble and learn of Telepathy, Telekinesis and Clairvoyance, but only adepts can learn the focus of Self-Awareness, the art of knowing oneself so completely that, with mastery, they verge on becoming transcendent.

Psionic Awakening

Even with great natural ability, one cannot exercise any psionic talents. The minds of all known races during this age of the galaxy simply do not operate on those levels, they are not built to pick up on the forces and energies that a psionicist taps into and manipulates. It is believed that these abilities were commonplace, once. Perhaps even a racial trait as natural as a canine’s nose or some humanoids’ ability to breathe underwater with mutant gills. The truth is not fully understood, but what is known is that those with psionic talents were at some point exposed—awakened—and at that point the structure of their mind began to change to interface with a whole new world of energies all around them. The awakening usually happens in one of three ways:

1. The latent suffers a mental attack. Perhaps a psionicist sensed some great potential in the latent, and targeted him to jar something loose, to get his psychic gears turning, or possibly the latent was the victim of a psionicist who didn’t realize the can of worms he was opening up.

2. The latent comes into contact with an unaligned PK crystal (see below), and its energies sync with the latent, stripping bare the mundane mechanisms of their mind and re-forging it anew with the capability to detect and influence the subtle underlying energies of the universe. This will sometimes happen to explorers or archaeologists attempting to uncover secrets of the ForeRunners or other ancient civilizations, or to colonists on freshly terraformed frontier worlds who happen to stumble across ancient ruins.

3. Adepts are sometimes scouted out at an early age by mysterious agencies. They are observed and studied, and at some point, they may be contacted. When this contact occurs, they disappear for a number of weeks or months, then return to their old lives unharmed, but irrevocably changed. They will find themselves in possession of a PK crystal, and they will have learned some talents. How they use these talents is up to them, but one can be assured that it will likely be in the service and best interests of whoever contacted them in the first place.

The PK Crystal

Even an adept will find it taxing to attempt to channel the energies in our material universe to influence the world around him. The PK crystal is a ForeRunner artifact about the size of a large coin, and shaped like a lens. It is opaque and utterly black—no light reflects from it at all. The few that have found their way into the collections of research laboratories have proven difficult and downright hazardous to study directly. Even still, little is known about them. The material that composes them is completely unknown, and what they do largely remains a mystery. By itself, the PK crystal is inert, but when it becomes aligned with the mind of a latent or adept, it seems to act as a gateway or focus to some alternate, high-energy—possibly even Tachyon—universe beyond our own. With a PK crystal, a psionicist’s powers truly become manifest. Without a PK crystal, a psionicist will exhaust his energy reserves much faster, and his talents will sometimes be much weaker. Some talents require such energies to unleash that attempting them without a PK crystal will be impossible.

A psionicist doesn’t need to worry overmuch about the sanctity of his crystal, however. Since he is aligned with it, he will always know where it is, granting him very specific clairvoyant capabilities to find it. Also, since it has aligned with one person and him alone, its physical composition will become completely antithetical to the mind of anyone else. Physical contact with it will unleash such psychic backlash that it will slowly destroy any other sentient being as though they had come in contact with a powerful neurotoxin that leaves no trace. Each round that a character is in direct physical contact with an aligned PK crystal, they will lose one level of die type from one of their mental traits, starting with the highest. When one mental type is reduced from d4, they will begin to lose coordinations. At this point they will enter a coma. When they have lost all points of coordination with their mental traits, they suffer brain death. These “injuries” can be healed over time, treating each one as a serious wound. As such, a psionicist doesn’t generally need to fear his PK crystal being stolen and used by someone else, though someone may try and take it to temporarily weaken the psionicist or draw him out, because he will surely come looking for what is his...

Talent List

Psionic talents are purchased with attribute points or are learned by spending XP. There are many different psionic talents, though, and they are grouped into four separate Foci. Each Focus must be purchased like a skill. Each level in a focus can be invested in, as well, and it may have several related talents. The greater the mastery of any level of a focus, the more talents become available, and/or the more attuned the adept becomes at using them.

Example: Xenas has chosen to become a Telepath. He invests 5 attribute points in the Psi: Telepathy focus. This allows him to put attribute points in any of the first 5 levels of Telepathy. Since he is a BRINT agent, and being able to get answers out of people or getting them to do what he wants may come in handy, he puts 3 points in level 4 which will give him the talents of Suggestion and TruthTell. Xenas’ player notes the juicy Mind Probe talent available at level 5, and decides to put the points there, giving him the talents of Mental Attack: Stun, Coma and Mind Probe. He puts a single point in level 3, getting Mind Touch because it might be handy to communicate with somebody silently, and one point in level 1 to get Life Sense. He decides not to invest in Level 2 and develop a Mind Shield because the player doesn’t expect to see many adepts in his neck of the galaxy. Hopefully that choice doesn’t come back to bite him in the brainpan… In one fell swoop, Xenas’ player has invested 15 attribute points in his Psionic talents, leaving him pathetically few points left to flesh out his more corporeal skills. To make it in BRINT, Xenas must have rode his talents hard, because the rest of his skills certainly wouldn’t have gotten him far in the organization!

Each talent description will use the following format:

Talent Name (1/5/Dice Pool)—Description of talent. Range (if applicable). Duration (if applicable). Maintenance cost (if applicable).

The numbers in parentheses indicate the (CT cost/activation number/what skill is used for the dice pool) The dice pool will usually be Focus or Mastery (with “Mastery” being the skill level assigned to that particular talent level of the focus). If the dice pool uses something other than Essence, it will be noted as (Focus-Presence), for example.

Telepathy
Telekinesis
Clairvoyance
Self-Awareness

Psionic Nulls

The mind of a sentient being is unique by its very nature and definition, and some of them simply don’t seem to operate the same way as the vast majority of the population. Many psionic talents rely on picking up or syncing with the mental energies radiated by other beings; Psionic Nulls seem to generate no such energy.

If, during character creation, you chose rank 3 for Psionics, this rates your character as a Psionic “Null.” This means that for the most part, many Psionic talents that detect or influence the mind will have little to no effect on the character. A telepath would not sense a Null with his Detect Life talent, and targeting a Null with most Mental Attacks is extremely difficult (but not impossible). Being a Null would not, however protect him from the TK attacks of a telekinetic adept, as those psionicists are manipulating real world objects to cause damage. If a talent will not work or have reduced effects on a Null, the talent description will make this distinction. Psionic Null characters can never, ever learn psionic talents, and are so out of tune with psionic energies that mere physical contact with a PK crystal will act as the most virulent neurotoxin imaginable as the energies the crystal channels into our dimension breaks down and subsumes the bonds in the Null’s mind. This will result in incurable brain death, regardless of whether they maintain physical contact with the crystal. You have been warned.

Using Psionic Talents

Tapping into the underlying energies of the universe requires that the psionicist expend some of his own energies to channel much greater forces. This will exhaust a psionicist over time, but not cause any lasting physical harm. This is represented in game by talents costing CT to activate or maintain. CT costs listed in the talent descriptions assume the psionicist is using a PK crystal. If using talents without one, double activation and maintenance costs unless otherwise noted. If a psionicist is reduced to 0 or fewer CT by using talents, he falls out, exhausted, until he can recover (just as though he had taken CT damage from injury).

When the CT cost is subtracted, the player makes an activation roll. Each talent will have an activation number. Some talents will use their level mastery (the number of skill points assigned to a particular level) to determine the dice pool. Others will use the focus level to determine the dice pool. This distinction will be made in the talent description. Most psionic activation rolls will use the character’s Essence trait (very important to psionic characters, like deftness is to marksmen). If the activation roll uses a trait other than Essence, it will be noted in the description.

Some talents are known as “mental attacks.” These target the minds or bodies of other beings, and as such, may be resisted, or might just miss. For a Telepathic mental attack such as Stun, roll your dice pool for the attack. The target rolls a dice pool using his Mental Conditioning skill and Essence trait (If the target doesn’t have the mental conditioning skill, they can make an unskilled check using their Essence trait). Psionic nulls add their die type to their resistance rolls (as though their first round of dice had already exploded). If the attacker meets or exceeds the target’s resistance roll, the attack succeeds. For telekinetic attacks such as TK Blow or TK Bullet, determine whether the attack hits as you would a melee or ranged attack, respectively. Some attacks will only work when in direct contact with an opponent, such as DeathTouch. The attack roll will determine if you can touch your opponent if they are trying to resist.

In most circumstances, attempting to activate a talent will cost CT, regardless of whether the activation roll is successful or whether a mental attack actually “hits.”

In Combat

To use a talent in combat, play an action card to use the talent as your action on that phase of the initiative. Action cards will have modifiers for PSI, and when you play your action card, these modifiers will affect the current activation of the talent. Faster cards will tend to have penalties, while slower cards will tend to have bonuses; this reflects that the longer you take to focus, the better it is for the talent to activate properly.

If the psionicist concentrates, they can “aim” to target an opponent (for certain types of mental attacks). Unless otherwise specified, it takes 3 phases to aim to get a +1 bonus. You can “aim” up to twice for an attack. Also, you can increase the CT cost by 2 to get a +1 on the activation roll.

If your action card’s PSI modifier reduces the CT cost to zero or less, it costs no CT for this activation. You managed to tap into energy reserves and were not exhausted at all by using the talent.

Outside of Combat

Each time you use a talent outside of combat, draw a card from the action deck. That card will determine any modifiers to the talent’s activation. If you initiate combat by making a mental attack, and mere seconds will likely not play a factor, the psionicist will almost always be able to gain the +2 bonus from "aiming."

Some of these modifiers might not seem important at first glance. A CT penalty for a non-combat activation may seem negligible, but CT loss from Psionic use should not be replenished until the current scene has ended, or the Master has declared a significant time has passed. If using talents that have a lengthy duration, the adept will not replenish CT until the talent’s effects end or he shuts it down. If you’re using telepathy to communicate with your crew to set up before a fight, it’s just gaming the system to say “okay, now we need to wait 5 minutes before we spring our trap.” Or, if you’re talking to suspects in a bar and use your Detect Lies talent on a bunch of people when you start talking to someone who picks a fight, you should start the combat with reduced CT because you have not had a chance to rest; you’ve been constantly probing people with your mind. Now, if you had planned to wait until sundown to pull off that ambush, or got into a fight on the way to apprehend someone after interrogating a bunch of people in that bar (either one being a potential scene change, either from the passage of time or change of setting), you should likely start the fight with your CT refreshed at the Master’s discretion.

Passive Psionic Talents

Some talents merely require you have learned them and their effects are “always on;” they yield some kind of bonus at all times. Others activate without the psionicist’s conscious thought, and if these trigger, the psionicist only pays the CT cost if the talent activates.

Example: To aid his investigations, Xenas has decided to learn some skills in the Clairvoyant focus. For now, the only talent he knows is Danger Sense. This talent is “always on.” Unbeknownst to Xenas, he is in a situation that the Master knows to be dangerous, so the Master makes an activation check for Xenas. The activation check succeeds, Xenas loses a point of CT, and gets a nudge from his extrasensory perception in the form of a note from the Master: “As you make your way out of the bar and walk to Silas Stargrave’s offices to arrest him, your danger sense tells you that you are being followed with ill intent…” This heads-up allows Xenas to draw his blaster and open fire on a group of Stargrave's henchmen on his tail rather than being ambushed. And, since Xenas is a licensed Psionic Operative, “following his gut” is acceptable BRINT procedure in justifying a use of lethal force… However, if Xenas’ activation roll had failed, his Danger Sense would have told him nothing in this instance. But hey, at least he would have been ambushed with all his CT points at max.

Psionics as “Magic”

Clarke's third law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Future Imperfect embraces the sci-fi genre in many forms and flavors. For the default setting and its history, “Psionics” seems to fit the style of supernatural power we have opted to include. But why include it at all?

In many Fantasy settings, there is often some rationalization or explanation of “how magic works.” Sometimes the devout pray to their gods and are granted blessings that take the form of spells, or they are channeling eldritch powers utilizing a set pool of mana. This is fine. It has an internal consistency that ultimately is part of the story, but at its core, it is still the unknown, the supernatural. It is usually the domain in which the common man can never tread, not without a life of spiritual devotion or arcane studies.

In sci-fi, the supernatural is often touched upon. You have the Lensmen of E.E. "Doc" Smith; the Jedi and Sith of Star Wars; Deanna Troi of Betazed from Star Trek and the Sectoids and Ethereals of X-Com. Instead of deities and mysticism, the sci-fi story often rationalizes the “supernatural” with science. These stories take the “super” out of the natural, but it is still something beyond the common man; without training or the right genes, you’ll never have what it takes, so a similar end result is achieved as in a fantasy setting.

In Future Imperfect, we choose the focus of Psionics—mental powers—and rationalize it as a “science” that deals with types of energy that are normally difficult to detect or manipulate. Hell, X-rays are difficult to detect and manipulate, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. However, if you told someone two hundred years ago you could shine a special light and see their bones without harming them, they’d think you were nuts! And, to put things in perspective, some real-world scientists and physicists might claim that FTL travel is far more magical than the idea that someone may be able to develop the ability to read someone else’s mind.

We will, at our core, aim for a more realistic portrayal of physics and science when possible. Or, you could say that our Mohs scale of Science Fiction Hardness (probably a 3.5-4.0) is a bit harder than George Lucas’ (but maybe not as high as Robert Heinlein’s!). Our system has its phoney-baloney rationales and malarkey explanations, but we have also attempted to adhere to some internal consistencies (mental attacks won’t work on trucks; you can’t read a robot’s mind), which makes Psionics just a part of the setting and sort of a theme for the story. This doesn’t mean that your own Sci-fi game cannot be more of a science fantasy type game. Do with it as you see fit. As a Master, feel free to alter the psionic foci as you please, or remove talents, alter existing talents or make new ones entirely. Or, if you think FTL and artificial gravity are enough "magic" for your sci-fi epic, you can choose not to use psionics at all.

Alternatively, one might wish to use this system for something other than the portrayal of a sci-fi game. You might choose to run a swords-sorcery game using this system. If you so choose, these Psionics rules could easily be adapted. You could have different names for the foci, such as Dark Arts, different types of Elemental Magic, Summoning, Divination, etc. You certainly don’t need our permission or blessing, but these basic rules could serve many different purposes. Or you could make your own, just like we did (kind of).