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Figuring out "Scanners" type powers


seneschal

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Psi Corps in Babylon 5 is an example of g33k's 'psi vs psi'. Its enemies are the 'free' psychics, whose lives it tries to make worse until they join. Psi Corps is part of the establishment.

Xavier's X Men vs. Magneto's mutants; each of these non-governmental organisations tries to recruit any newly discovered mutants to its cause. (Not quite the same idea as g33k's).

 

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4 hours ago, Questbird said:

Xavier's X Men vs. Magneto's mutants; each of these non-governmental organisations tries to recruit any newly discovered mutants to its cause. (Not quite the same idea as g33k's).

Both see their own organization as protecting them from the non-mutants.  They are in conflict with one another over the question of mutant/normal relations.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I just read Jack Vance's story Nopalgarth. It's not a well-known one but it has some relevance to this thread. An Earthman is abducted by aliens who seem to be torturing members of the losing side of a war. The aliens strap him down too. He passes out and they explain that they've removed a psychic parasite from his brain, as they have done to all the survivors of their war. They then send him back to Earth. He realises that everyone else has one of these psychic parasites attached to their heads. His mission is to cleanse the Earth of these parasites. There's more but here's some salient points for our discussion of the psychic genre:

Everyone on Earth has a psychic parasite attached to their heads, but they can't see it or anyone else's. The psychic parasite affects its host's emotions, and suppresses psionic powers. Only those without a parasite can see them (and be seen by them). People without a parasite may have improved psychic powers BUT everyone with a parasite suddenly views them with mistrust, malice, hatred, repugnance, suspicion -- fed to them by the parasite. The only way the aliens know to remove the parasite is a sort of electric torture device which causes such pain to the subject that the parasite can be detached and crushed like an eggshell in a bag made from a psychic material made from dead parasites. Attempts to remove the parasite without this method result in the death of the host. Furthermore, the parasites are ambient, and they can re-attach to a naked brain after a month or so, so the process needs to be repeated.

So we have a classic psi-paranoia setup. The few who have no parasite (the psionics) are hated and persecuted irrationally by those with the parasite, who don't know that they are infected. They see only suspicious, deranged and malignant characters intent on abducting and torturing normal citizens. And those with the psionic powers know the truth, but can't trust any parasite-infected human -- they need to isolate and 'convert' new followers. And the psionics can't just kill the normals, because they know their malignancy is not their fault. Paranoia and seeing things other people can't see is not generally well-regarded in our society, so the mental asylums might be full of psionics who have been captured (as well as actual crazy people). 

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  • 1 year later...

Have any of you ever played Earthbound? It is a pretty good game based around psychic powers. Lot more powers that could fit either in the super powers list or the psychic list. One of the more powerful abilities would defenately be the psychic power shields that could deflect both physical and psychic damage back onto the enemies.

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On 3/21/2018 at 5:56 PM, Questbird said:

I just read Jack Vance's story Nopalgarth. It's not a well-known one but it has some relevance to this thread. An Earthman is abducted by aliens who seem to be torturing members of the losing side of a war. The aliens strap him down too. He passes out and they explain that they've removed a psychic parasite from his brain, as they have done to all the survivors of their war. They then send him back to Earth. He realises that everyone else has one of these psychic parasites attached to their heads. His mission is to cleanse the Earth of these parasites. There's more but here's some salient points for our discussion of the psychic genre:

Everyone on Earth has a psychic parasite attached to their heads, but they can't see it or anyone else's. The psychic parasite affects its host's emotions, and suppresses psionic powers. Only those without a parasite can see them (and be seen by them). People without a parasite may have improved psychic powers BUT everyone with a parasite suddenly views them with mistrust, malice, hatred, repugnance, suspicion -- fed to them by the parasite. The only way the aliens know to remove the parasite is a sort of electric torture device which causes such pain to the subject that the parasite can be detached and crushed like an eggshell in a bag made from a psychic material made from dead parasites. Attempts to remove the parasite without this method result in the death of the host. Furthermore, the parasites are ambient, and they can re-attach to a naked brain after a month or so, so the process needs to be repeated.

So we have a classic psi-paranoia setup. The few who have no parasite (the psionics) are hated and persecuted irrationally by those with the parasite, who don't know that they are infected. They see only suspicious, deranged and malignant characters intent on abducting and torturing normal citizens. And those with the psionic powers know the truth, but can't trust any parasite-infected human -- they need to isolate and 'convert' new followers. And the psionics can't just kill the normals, because they know their malignancy is not their fault. Paranoia and seeing things other people can't see is not generally well-regarded in our society, so the mental asylums might be full of psionics who have been captured (as well as actual crazy people). 

Never read that one, no.  It's a NASTY little setup there!

The nominal "good guys" are inherently untrustworthy to the vast majority, without actually having to do anything wrong or bad... They just make all the Normals uncomfortable.

But then you add that this minority says (if they even speak up to say it, since it's liable to get them further distrusted) that it's the "normal majority" who's actually abnormal, being mind-controlled by an undetected parasite!

And then... they go and kidnap & torture the Normals... apparently "breaking" them and "brainwashing" them to become more of these inherently un-trustworthy wierdo sociopathic kidnapper-torturers.  And even then, the wierdo sociopaths will recover (or get reinfected, depending on POV) after a month, or maybe a bit longer.

I mean... each group has an internally-consistent POV.

How does even the reader of the story actually know whether the psionics are just deluded torture-victims?   I mean... maybe Vance wrote a victim-POV story about evil aliens brainwashing an Earthling to become the nucleus of a deluded cult of evil torturer/brainwasher types?

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