How does offensive telepathy work in the SARP?

[Zakalwe]

I have a few questions about what telepathy can do to others in the hands of a powerful telepath.

1, Since telepathy in its most basic forms is the transfer of information, your thoughts into their mind, could you not send visual style information instead? For example could you send what you are actually seeing (not really offensive), or send your minds eye? By this I mean whatever image you are imagining at that moment.

Another argument for this is that not all people 'think' in words, some think in images. I have a friend who does that for example In that situation thought protection would be in images, and as such sending images should be possible. Does this follow?

2, In my mind I can scream as well as create thoughts. Is it possible, as an attack, to send a telepathic scream of incredible magnitude? This would most likely cause a distraction, possibly great psychological pain. Following on from this could you send your thoughts but at a huge magnitude, and by doing so make it incredibly hard to think?

3, If you can send thoughts into someone else's brain, could it not be possible (for a powerful enough telepathic), to send commands as well? I command my arm to move, and my fingers to type, much in the same way as I think. Since what telepathy is allowing you to do is send these signals over a greater distance, why should you be able to send your thoughts and not your commands for movement? I would suggest that if this is possible it is only possible in a limited form and only for the most powerful of telepaths.

 

[Yangfan]

Ah. Allow me to qualify my remarks. I was talking about telepathy as it applied to player characters: Nekos, Yamataians, Lorath, etc.

I don't know enough about the MEGAMIs to know if they can defeat telepathic encryption. I wouldn't be surprised if they could, considering that they have quantum computer cores. The MEGAMI already observes everything else that goes on the ship, so I don't take it as a big deal.

As the meme goes: "MEGAMI, she is watching you pee."

In a combat situation, there would be a lot of telepathic chatter between the Nekos. (Some Nekos even consider it rude to use telepathy outside of battles.) An outsider might be able to pick up the noise, but "messages are being sent" isn't very useful information, unless you didn't know that the Nekos were telepathic beforehand.

The Mishhu and the Seraph are not meant to be player races. (Although the CCG still has a listing for Seraph, it has been noted there that one cannot currently play a Seraph without GM permission.) Both were created to be "the bad guys".

Excellent questions though. You've obviously been doing a lot of reading on the setting. I'm impressed.

 

[Xerena]

I rarely rush into something (except in the case of a battle in which that is exactly what the enemy is NOT expecting - ever watch Stargate: SG-1?), though at the same time I do try to avoid the other extreme of "paralysis by analysis" (a common problem among scientists and other experts, according to my high school senior research project mentor).

Anyway, my point was more that, in a non-combat situation, such as a negotiation or undercover operation, an encrypted message is impossible to understand, but a dead giveaway that you, or someone, is saying something you don't want others in the area to hear. In the case of a negotiation, this might make the other person suspicious, or (depending on who you're negotiating with) simply kill you before your henchmen can respond to yoour telepathic orders and storm the place.

Speaking of which, what are the rules regarding telepathic interactions with nontelepaths? Can you only communicate with other telepaths, or can anyone hear the mesage, or can any telepath hear it bu only those non-telepaths who were meant to hear it? Or is it that you can choose to send to either everyone in range or only all telepaths in range?

 

[Wes]

Only telepaths can hear telepathic transmissions, and any telepath can hear them, for the most part.

 

[Xerena]

So a telepath can't coordinate the actions of a small band of, well, gangsteers, unless thee whole gang is telepathic?

 

[Wes]

It'd be like giving directions to your team through a walkie-talkie when they were going around without ones of their own.

 

[Xerena]

Could a telepath and a non-telepath be trained to be able to work together, or would the only solution be to give the non-telepath cybernetic telepathy?

I'm thinking particularly about races such as Humans among which psionic individuals are the exception to the rule, but common enough that meeting one is an everyday occurence (unless you're living in a sparsely populated area). Typically, a few individuals can smash capital ships with their minds (a deliberately extreme example - I know that this kind of thing is no longer allowed, and probably required a PSA for player characters even when it was), some individuals (usually the majority) with no apparent psionic abilities, and other individuals all along the spectrum between these two extremes (with an inverse relationship between frequency of occurrence and extent of power). This suggests a common, but mostly latent, psi potential is present to some degree in most or all members of these races. While this potential only manifests itself naturally in a few people, it is still present in (at least a large fraction of) the rest of the population. If this is true, then many, if not all, of the "non-psionic" members of these races might be able to realize their untapped psi potential with proper training. I would imagine that a "born psion" could use her powers more readily, while a "trained psion" would have to focus and consciously use his powers (like growing up with parents who speak two languages vs. growing up with one language and taking a few courses in the other at the local community college). On that note, is artificial telepathy (IE by cybernetics) more like a second native language (the way I imagine "natural" telepathy would be) or more like a foreign language he took a few courses in but has to concentrate on getting each word right when he uses it?

 

[Doshii Jun]

Just ... no. No dude. No. Nekos and Yamataians only, unless you do it cybernetically. Cybernetics means you basically put the transceiver in a person's head. No "latent psi talent" or any of that other stuff from the Joan D. Vinge books.

 

[Xerena]

Actually, its more like "stuff from Starcraft", the idea being that some species (IE the Seelies in SA, the Protoss in SC) are naturally telepathic, but if you go back far enough chances are their evolutionary ancestors weren't (note that the Protoss were already telepathic before the Xel'Naga accelerated their development - if you're not familiar with SC, ignore everything here about the Protoss if it doesn't make any sense). Since evolution is a gradual process (a new trait or adaptation, like telepathy, doesn't just suddenly appear across the race, or in every child born after a certain instant in time), therw would have been a point in the evolution of naturally telepathic races where they were in the process of becoming a telepathic race, but not completely there yet. In other words, telepathy would at first be present in nobody, then it would start to appear in the tiniest fraction of the population, then it would start to become increasinglly common, until most or eventually all of the species had that trait. During the intermediate period, some would have it, some would not, and especially in the case of something like telepathy, some might technically have it but not have any idea, on a conscious or subconscious level, of how to access it. It's like plugging a fancy new printer into your computer without installing the associated printer drivers. Your machine could print, but it doesn't know that it can print, or at least doesn't know how to print, and won't until you install those drivers, except if it has some type of general AI, it just might possibly figure it out on its own but there are no guarantees even then.

Also, I was referring specifically to Nerimans ("Terran" Humans), who are present in the Yamatai galaxy (who do you think crews NDI ships and occupies NDI-occupied planets?), and at least some Nerimans have telepathy (and other psi abilities that make telepathy look like childs play, for that matter), without any cybernetics, yet other Nerimans do not.

 

[Doshii Jun]

And yet.

Nerimans are part of the SARP yet outside of its canon, to some extent. They are Derran Tyler's creation, in essence, and were accepted into the SARP, as far as I can tell, with an understanding something like "we're going to try and avoid fucking each other over here with canon, tech, etc. etc."

Nerimans obviously have tech all over the SARP, as the NDI eventually became a trading partner and ally with Yamatai as well Nepleslia. But the avoidance of mixing any of the races is, near as I can tell, purposeful. And frankly I like it because otherwise the rules we've created to limit telepathy would be out the window.

So yeah. In short, the answer's still no.

 

[Xerena]

But the avoidance of mixing any of the races is, near as I can tell, purposeful. And frankly I like it because otherwise the rules we've created to limit telepathy would be out the window.

I don't see why this would necessarily be true. Aside from the Otomo's PSAs being fairly useless to PCs, I don't see any a problems with simply saying that Nerimans are "sometimes" telepathic, give them a range somewhere greater than that of a cybernetically-enhanced Nepleslian or a Yamataian but less than a Neko, with possible variation from person to person, for the telepathic ones, give NPCs the bare minimum they need for continuity (or find a way to stop or limit them using their old abilities in the Yamatai universe; most of the really powerful psion NPCs are probably either retired/KIA/dead of old age by now or still back in the Earth/Ayenee universe anyway), and then holding them to the current psionics rules just like everyone else. Of course, this would mean that the Otomo's PSAs would be little more than telepathic megaphones (at least for PCs), but that's something the NDI would just have to live with.

I find it highly unlikely that the NDI and Nepleslia can be trading partners and yet rarely interact with each other, so I don't see why it would be too implausible to find the odd Neriman Human on Nepleslia, even if most of them are freighter crewmembers and such.

To clarify what I was saying in my earlier post about evolution, I wouldn't be too surprised if, come YE 300 or so, Nerimans were, at least for the most part, telepathic as a species

 

[Doshii Jun]

It exists for the same reasons the telepathy restrictions exist -- game balance. Besides, they're essentially two separate universes we bleed together occasionally for mostly OOC purposes. They don't meet much, save for barebones -- and highly inconsistent -- NPCing, and even the most obvious example was very minor in terms of interaction. Derran had a bigger plot he used once in the General forum, but it was deleted, I think.

Let it go and make your character.

 

[Xerena]

You sem very impatient for me to post that character. I'm almost beginning to wonder if there is some ulterior motive at work here... almost (by the way, is there one?). If you must know, I just spent the last 2.5 hours wishing a very horrible, slow and painful death upon whoever designed certain pieces of electronic equipment being used in a certain physics lab, and I'm in a rather irritated mood at the moment (it will pass). I'm still having trouble reconciling "trading partner" with "hardly interacts at all" and trying to understand what they might possibly be trading, and how, that would not require people from both sides interacting on a daily or constant basis. While it's not really on topic (shouldn't be a problem - people seem to prefer avoiding the general topic of discussion, and directly related topics, anyway), if the NDI and the Nepleslian and Yamataian empires are trading partners, wouldn't Neriman goods, and Neriman merchants and businesspeople, be present, perhaps even fairly common, on Nepleslia? And wouldn't a certain amount of interaction be inevitable, perhaps even desirable?

And I still don't especially appreciate peope simply assuming I'm just taking something from some other setting which I never once referred to in my post (as it turned out, one I've never heard of before in books written by an author I've never heard of before), unless it is something (IE canon Star Wars, non-episode-specific Trek stuff, specific species, ship classes, weapons or fictional characters) that could only have come from that source, or the setting in question is one that everyone can be assumed to have at least heard of, or everyone on this site..

 

[FM]

You sem very impatient for me to post that character. I'm almost beginning to wonder if there is some ulterior motive at work here... almost (by the way, is there one?).

This being a roleplay community, it's generally accepted that people should have characters to roleplay with. I happen to like you; you've done your research and seem to be trying to fit into the setting, something that I've seen regretfully little of with the recent batch of recruits. (I myself am somewhat new but I've been here long enough to know the ropes.)

I myself am looking forward to RPing with you, or seeing your RP posts.

As for the NDI, they exist in an entirely different universe to our own. This makes it somewhat hard to have a true proliferation of immigration and consumer goods trade. (This is my perspective of things; the truth may or may not be close to it.)

 

[Omega724]

I'll just put in my two cents and see if it flys, but from my understanding is that Neriman goods aren't fully clarified, thus the general attitude towards said goods is that while they may be in circulation ICly, there are perhaps better and more detailed goods for PCs to use instead. An example is: Why not just use a standard Yamataian service pistol, then go through fourteen different loopholes and spend hours in debate to get a gun that does the same thing with a different name?

In regard to the merchants and businesspeople, I suppose the same thing goes as well. There may perhaps be Nermian merchants on Nepleslia (or anywhere else for that matter) yet their role in the SARP is so insignificant (sorry for stepping on toes here) that they are taken for granted and ignored. Sure, there are all sorts of merchants selling stuff, but unless your character is DIRECTLY in contact with them, they are just not that important.

Which brings me to the point of character creation. I think the reason that Jake (and others) may push you to create a character is so that not only will we know what might be relevant to your person, but how that character will interact with all of the ideas you might be bringing forth (telepathy, armors, etc.). Without an actual character, you may as well be standing by and just criticizing (sp?) the SARP in general.

 

[Fred]

Okay.

Point 1. Yes, we have ulterior motives. We want you to have fun. Discussing technology and setting details to the point generally leads to bitching contests and we don't want that: we'd rather involve you in-character in the setting and give you more perspective on how it feels as someone living and breathing in it (figuratively).

Oh, and you're kind of scarying us roleplayers with the involved tech talk, so, we want to bring you down to our level. Mwuahahahaha!

Point 2. The NDI is Derran Tyler's. Derran Tyler was very present some time ago, but, with his music career going on... his presence has been an on-and-off thing. However, when he does show up, he is very forceful about his opinions, does not fail to declare he consider himself an authority on them and pretty much feel it is natural to claim that the NDI and anything related to it is the greatest thing ever or something like.

However, since he shows up very little presence or invests little effort in actively, continually fleshing out his NDI to the extent Wes does with the Star Army... the efforts above kind of fall flat for us people whom weren't there to see how hot the NDI really was when it was more involved in the setting. Therefore, since the NDI's portrayal is weak... we tend not to put much stock in it (at least, that's my position and even if Derran might not like it... I think even he would admit it is understandable). Ideally, unless Derran would stop just making a handful of posts just presenting the NDI as the super-elite-of-the-elite without actually taking the time to post more to give it more substance, I'd personally would rather ignore anything regarding it since it really isn't all that much part of the universe I signed up in to participate.

Point 3. These are the ESP rules. There are rules mainly because before, there was an abuse of it - just as before, the SARP had a numerical skill system and now it doesn't have that anymore. To ensure that everyone has fun and that no one obtains a tool which would give him an unfair advantage over others, it was decided to set them up to this.

Now, asking about details on how each of those points would exactly function is okay, but weedling for more or for things extraneous to what the setting offers probably won't get you much of anywhere. That's why Doshii recommends for you to move on.

 

[Xerena]

The "extraneous setting" in question is one I hadn't ever heard of until today when I saw that post. I thought I was proposing a theory regarding the presence of psionic abilities in some Nerimans and their more common absence in other Nerimans (namely, that the Neriman species is at that point in their evolution where telepathic and other psionic abilities have made their initial appearance and are in the process of slowly spreading from a few individuals to eventually the entire species, with psionis accounting a greater and greater fraction of each successive generation, along with many more who aren't themselves psions but whose children or grandchildren probably will be,and that these people mostly already posess all the needed brain structures and stuff, but what actual psionic power they may have is too weak to do anything, but Nerimans can and do train and improve their psionic abilities, much like other naturally telepathic races (IE Seelies, Elysians), and with proper mental training these people might be able to, say, receive telepathic messages or sensing emotions at close range, but not much beyod that kind of stuff). Apparently, this was not the case, and I was just bring in material from some other setting.

Correction: I was proposing a theory about psionics among the Nerimans. If someone has a better theory (and if it is essentially mine except it says that by the time their brains fully develop, Nerimans are either psions or not, and will remain that way forever, please give a reasoning why this is so that doesn't amount to "because it is" - I'm just asking that you try to start from the beginning, work forward, and see where it leads you, and not something created specifically to arrive at some previoudly chosen "correct" conclusions).

As for my character, it sounds like you're worried that, to be blunt, I'm trying to push stuff that will give my character an advantage, particularly in the area of psionics. My character will probably be a natural (or more accurately, bio-enhanced, at considerable expense to her parents) telepath, with a range of about 800 meters (a little less than good-quality cybernetics can achieve), but with room for growth should the psionics rules change in a major way (which is EXTREMELY unlikely) so that she will still be useful. She would also have a very strong mind and be somewhat resistant to hostile psionics (against another Nepleslian, she wouldn't notice any ill effects whatsoever; against Mishhu, she'd still be toast without an ADN).

I have made one proposal that would affect her (that was not why I made it though), namely the idea that while a telepath generally has a maximum range, she does not have a minum range (technically, she has a minimum range of zero), and may vary the range of her transmissions at will, but cannot make them trave farther than her maximum range. Much of the ADN-related tech would be fairly useless for her, except possibly a pocket ADN Negator to stay in touch with an accomplice while within an ADN-protected area (it would only affect the area immediately surrounding her body, so she would only be able to communicate with a similarly-equipped accomplice or an accomplice outside the ADN field or someone extremely close to (and probably in bodily contact with) her.

She will be skilled in controlling/manipulating others, but she will do this the "old fashioned" way - persuasion, seduction, deception, charisma, diplomacy/negotiation, psychological warfare, all that good Rogue, Leadership and Humanitarian stuff. The extent to which telepathy would be involved is that the might choose to communicate telepathically instead of, or as well as, vocally, or if she wanted to show someone an image and but forgot her holoprojector.

In the psionics/telepathy department, she will be no different than the average cybernetic-telepathic Nepleslian (aside from being limited to only 4/5 of his maximum range; having a very strong mind, she would be better than the average Nepleslian at resisting telepathic attacks, but not any better at performing them).

 

[Doshii Jun]

If she's a Yamataian, it's no problem. They have a 1 km max range.

If she's a Nepleslian, that's a problem, as they're still considered too rare to be played by PCs (or most GMs, for that matter). A Yamataian-Nepleslian hybrid is possible, however, and would eliminate the need for cybernetic enhancements. Easier for all of us.

Psionic defenses ... I don't even know if they exist. Wes, maybe a new thread on "defensive telepathy?" Or just a statement so we know what's what?

 

[FM]

Psionic defenses ... I don't even know if they exist. Wes, maybe a new thread on "defensive telepathy?" Or just a statement so we know what's what?

If they exist, I'm interested. I seriously doubt Elisa would want to be mindraped again by some Misshu attackers.

 

[Xerena]

In terms of my character's being resistant to hostile telepathy, I am not talking about "defensive telepathy" as you are probably mean it. I recall seeing it posted in another thread on a similar topic (I can't remember which one, and I tried search but don't remember enough of the exact wording) saying that telepathic "combat" (such as it is under the current rules) was affected by a variety of factors in addition to the combatants' relative telepathic/psionic strength, including mental state (it should be fairly intuitive that a drunk, "high", severely sleep-deprived, half-awake or otherwise impaired telepath won't be at the top of his game at that moment), illness or physical exhaustion (ever had to take a calculus, physics or chemistry test while suffering from a really bad cold?), willpower/strength of mind (as in determination, stubbornness, being able to endure hardship and stress, having the fortitude to hold your ground despite debihilating pain, or to keep on climbing even though your whole body feels like it's frozen solid, etx.), morale (speaking of which, I would imagine telepathic combat, especially in mass engagements - see below), being caught by surprise and other things I don't remember right off hand.

Offensive telepathy theoretically includes mind control (which I will not discuss any further), attempts to mentally impair, cripple or incapacitate (typically in the form of a psionic "blast" intended to mentally "club the enemy over the head" but without inflicting any mechanical trauma, hopefully stunning or concussing the target(s) (much a stun gun, a flash-bang grenade or a sting grenade), render them unconcious or in some cases (IE Mishhu) completely brain-dead) and extremely direct psychological warfare (attempting to demoralize, or simply scare the #$%@ out of, enemies by telepathy). In the case of a telepathic "blast" attack, if successful the effects shouldn't be too hard to implement (at worst no harder than those of a stun grenade or a mechanical concussion), though like all telepathy such a blast would be omnidirectional and would make no distinction between friend and foe in its effects; one way to try to mitigate the "friendly fire" problem is to warn any friendlies in the area immediately before the blast, like soldiers do today when using grenades. Terror and demoralization might be a little trickier, but nothing that couldn't be caused by other means and would have to be dealt with in any military RP.

"She" and "Nepleslian" shouldn't be a problem if her parents opted for a genetically-enhanced daughter, since any competent geneticist, by this setting's standards, could manage the "daughter" part in his sleep.

 

[Doshii Jun]

I addressed the female Nepleslian part in a PM to you. But to repeat, you need the DNA of another race -- Yamataian or Geshrin are easiest -- to introduce female chromosomes.

I also deleted the second posting of the above post.

I really hate sounding like a veteran codger here. But offensive telepathy, in the hands of PCs, does not exist. Period. You have it for communication only. We could go round'n'round'round, and it won't make a difference for you. Work with the setting, not against it.