ESPionage/Cold War and Psionic Powers

[safisher]

To get you started:

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) by Jon Ronson
Modern Alchemy: Occultism and the Emergence of Atomic Theory
(2007) by Mark Morrisson
Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis (2017) by Annie Jacobsen

And the DIA report on Soviet Parapsychology (1975)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingr...00350001-3.pdf

and here
http://www.aspr.com/jaspr.htm
http://www.unconv-science.org/en/

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by safisher

To get you started:

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2004) by Jon Ronson
Modern Alchemy: Occultism and the Emergence of Atomic Theory
(2007) by Mark Morrisson
Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis (2017) by Annie Jacobsen

And the DIA report on Soviet Parapsychology (1975)
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingr...00350001-3.pdf

and here
http://www.aspr.com/jaspr.htm
http://www.unconv-science.org/en/

Wow. That is incredibly useful. Thank you, Shawn!

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

That's definitely one stream, which combines a lot with UFOlogy, alien cover-up conspiracies and US marine outposts on Mars-style beliefs, but there's also the "New Age" stream of psychic belief that traces from 19th century spiritualism and mesmerism, through Blavatsky and Theosophy and such, to modern day transcendental meditation and new age cults.

Psi-tech probably lends itself more to the former though.

Yeah. I grew up with transcendental meditation and in the culture you're talking about. Went to Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment. Had EEGs strapped to my head to measure my brainwave coherence while practicing meditation several times. Have also done the courses to learn the advanced techniques for training up ESP, flight, etc. If you want more of this feeling then I can definitely make more suggestions, in GURPS terms as well as metaphysics suggestions, about a thing or two the Psionic powers book is missing.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I suppose so. Do keep in mind that I kind of want the feel of psi powers in the Cold War, but they've been around for a while. They've been researched since 1920 or so in-world so there's been time for scientists to figure out how they mostly work.

If you want a little more of the spiritualist angle on the whole thing then the biggest suggestion I could make is a combination of using "Meditation, Holiness, or Study" as a means of acquiring energy reserve for performing stunts. And also give most psi's who have actually trained and are not just relying on innate gifts Wild Talent (ability use) that costs energy that can only be acquired by Meditation, Holiness, or Study, and allow universal psi talent at low levels as well as varying the amount of prep time required for wild talent from nothing up through 8 hours.

EDIT: I'd also suggest looking at the Logos and Noumena powers from GURPS Powers The Weird. Since the ideas behind those were basically how everyone I knew who believed in psionic powers believed and taught that psionic powers worked. We definitely believed that psionic powers would evolve into Cosmic powers in line with those things.

[AlexanderHowl]

It would be thematic to allow psychics to treat time meditating as training and intensive meditation as the equivalent of intensive training. For a proper Cold War feel, I would suggest offering TL9^ ultratech drugs that give characters psionoc powers. For example, in a TL8^ setting, you could have a medium duration injectable drug exist that gives characters Mind Control [50] for ([25-HT]/4) hours, which would cost $1,500/dose ($50, ×10 for duration, ×1 for form, ×3 for +1 TL) or a very long duration injectable that gives characters Mind Shield 10 [40] for a week, which would cost $30,000/dose ($40, ×250 for duration, ×1 for form, ×3 for +1 TL).

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It would be thematic to allow psychics to treat time meditating as training and intensive meditation as the equivalent of intensive training. For a proper Cold War feel, I would suggest offering TL9^ ultratech drugs that give characters psionoc powers. For example, in a TL8^ setting, you could have a medium duration injectable drug exist that gives characters Mind Control [50] for ([25-HT]/4) hours, which would cost $1,500/dose ($50, ×10 for duration, ×1 for form, ×3 for +1 TL) or a very long duration injectable that gives characters Mind Shield 10 [40] for a week, which would cost $30,000/dose ($40, ×250 for duration, ×1 for form, ×3 for +1 TL).

That's super thematic. Although on the topic of drugs: if you want to use the spiritualist angle I described above then drugs of any kind, including the psi producing ones, should be actively detrimental to a psi's built up spiritual power from Devotion, Study, and Holiness. Basically along the lines of "They help a lot in the short run, but with some measure of unpredictability. But they ruin your ability to do it in the long run."

[AlexanderHowl]

I agree, though I believe that is more narrative than mechanical. Drugs would be the quick and dirty way to temporary power while meditation would be the slow and sure way to permanent power. In order to discourage overlap, you could increase the effective HT of characters for the purpose of duration calculations by their total level in Psionic Talents, meaning that characters would burn through the drugs quicker the more powerful they become.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

If you want a little more of the spiritualist angle on the whole thing then the biggest suggestion I could make is a combination of using "Meditation, Holiness, or Study" as a means of acquiring energy reserve for performing stunts. And also give most psi's who have actually trained and are not just relying on innate gifts Wild Talent (ability use) that costs energy that can only be acquired by Meditation, Holiness, or Study, and allow universal psi talent at low levels as well as varying the amount of prep time required for wild talent from nothing up through 8 hours.

That's an interesting thought. I should raid Thaumatology for more ideas like that. It would produce something like what we think psi works like. Yes, indeed.

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

EDIT: I'd also suggest looking at the Logos and Noumena powers from GURPS Powers The Weird. Since the ideas behind those were basically how everyone I knew who believed in psionic powers believed and taught that psionic powers worked. We definitely believed that psionic powers would evolve into Cosmic powers in line with those things.

One of the things I'm allowing is Reality Control as a psi power. I'm still trying to decide how to treat it. I'm not a fan of Illusion for this. It produces too big a result for too little. I think I'll end up using a version of Godlike Control suitably altered and defined.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It would be thematic to allow psychics to treat time meditating as training and intensive meditation as the equivalent of intensive training. For a proper Cold War feel, I would suggest offering TL9^ ultratech drugs that give characters psionoc powers. For example, in a TL8^ setting, you could have a medium duration injectable drug exist that gives characters Mind Control [50] for ([25-HT]/4) hours, which would cost $1,500/dose ($50, ×10 for duration, ×1 for form, ×3 for +1 TL) or a very long duration injectable that gives characters Mind Shield 10 [40] for a week, which would cost $30,000/dose ($40, ×250 for duration, ×1 for form, ×3 for +1 TL).

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

That's super thematic. Although on the topic of drugs: if you want to use the spiritualist angle I described above then drugs of any kind, including the psi producing ones, should be actively detrimental to a psi's built up spiritual power from Devotion, Study, and Holiness. Basically along the lines of "They help a lot in the short run, but with some measure of unpredictability. But they ruin your ability to do it in the long run."

I think that drugs will be either temporary for psi or only boost those with psi. In the setting, psychic powers are something you're born with, not something you can get.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

One of the things I'm allowing is Reality Control as a psi power. I'm still trying to decide how to treat it.

Powers: The Weird has material that can help with this, especially the Power of "Noumena."

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Powers: The Weird has material that can help with this, especially the Power of "Noumena."

I remember from the playtest. I'm not sure I want to use the Illusion route for that. I think using Godlike Control with specific example usage might be better. Still, I'll look at it again and see what functions better.