Mailanka's Musings -- GURPS Content Post

[Mailanka]

Today, I discuss Building Paths, wherein I introduce the concept of Communion Paths and discuss briefly how they work.

[lwcamp]

Reading this last one made me wonder if you could sabotage someone's connection to communion by altering how the majority of people perceive the character. Like how modern politicians try to frame the narrative of their opponents - so and so is an incompetent bigot, while the other candidate is corrupt and criminal. If you set up enough rumors that went counter to the archetype the character chose to follow, and got enough people to believe them, would the not-force stop treating that character as an archetype?

This sort of trick seems more Niven or Brin than Star Wars, so it might be out of genre.

Luke

[Mailanka]

Today, at last, you may partake of Communion.

[Christopher R. Rice]

This is quite interesting. In my Aeon campaign this is sort of how Divine Favor works - except it's fueled by collective belief vs. an overt gestalt of minds. Very cool, though. Very cool.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Reading this last one made me wonder if you could sabotage someone's connection to communion by altering how the majority of people perceive the character. Like how modern politicians try to frame the narrative of their opponents - so and so is an incompetent bigot, while the other candidate is corrupt and criminal. If you set up enough rumors that went counter to the archetype the character chose to follow, and got enough people to believe them, would the not-force stop treating that character as an archetype?

This sort of trick seems more Niven or Brin than Star Wars, so it might be out of genre.

Luke

But we're not in Star Wars anymore we're in Psi-Wars! And the short answer is: "You can totally do that!"

Here's the long answer

The first thing you need to understand is that it's not just about how people perceive someone, but how people will perceive and have perceived, as Communion interacts with both the future and the past (since Precognition and Retrocognition are a thing). So even if you went back in time and tried to convince people that Hitler was a harmless idiot, the shadow he casts across history would reach back and manipulate events to interfere with your efforts. Which brings me to the second thing you need to understand is that Communion creates a feedback loop: if we all believe that you, Luke Campbell, are a bloody-handed dictator rather than a mild-mannered engineer, then Communion itself will begin to behave as though you are a bloody-handed dictator (spies will try to break into your lab, beautiful women will slap you then quiver in fear as you glower at them, and armies of faceless minions will begin pledging their undying loyalty to you). Even if someone tried to convince us that you were really a bumbling idiot, the presence of chained women and armies of minion might persuade us otherwise.

This can be encapsulated in the Destiny trait. Anyone can have Destiny, even non-psionic characters. That is, Communion is real and interacts with everyone, it's just that you need to be psionic to really interact back with it. If someone is on a path, or destined to be on a path, they will accumulate appropriate forms of Destiny. You, for example, might have the Destiny to deal the final death blow to American democracy and arise as its bloody new Emperor, building your throne upon the radioactive remains of Mount Rushmore.

But as I've already established with my discussion of ESP, the future is flexible and vague, subject to reinterpretation. For example, you might rightly point out that the vision was just of you building a throne upon the radioactive remains of Mount Rushmore, which is something a mild-mannered engineer might do! I mean, it's building after all. Destiny isn't a sure thing, it's just free impulse buy points that you can use to move yourself in a particular direction. Destinies can fail or be redirected.

In fact, you can argue that Star Wars did that very thing! Anakin was prophesied to be the Chosen One, to "bring balance to the Force." The narrative implies that this may be wrong. Or a fan theory offers that by destroying the Jedi, he did bring balance to the force. I propose that there was a prophesy, and it was that he would bring balance to the force, but that perspective mattered, and that Emperor Palpatine did exactly what you described: He reinterpreted the prophecy, the vision Communion had of Anakin, and laid down the narrative pipe-work necessary to reshape what that destiny actually meant. The prophecy wasn't wrong, it's just that there was a war over what that destiny meant, and Palpatine won.

Every path has something in them called "Milestones." Milestones are moments of narrative importance. Luke Campbell gets up out of bed and brushes his teeth: Not a moment of narrative importance. Luke Campbell stands over the President of the United States who dangles from the cliffs of Rushmore while nuclear fires burn on the horizon, and the president lifts his hand to Luke and says "You can save me, we can make America great again... together!": Moment of narrative importance. Luke Campbell sees a beautiful woman on his way to work, and she sees him too... could be a moment of narrative importance. Whether these moments matter, and why they matter, is up to interpretation, but they're vital for advancement along a path. You need to have them.

If you are destined to follow a particular path (that is, you have Destiny), the GM is free to throw those events at you (You might ask yourself "How the hell did I get here on the cliffs of Rushmore? What a weird, contrived series of events!"), but you're allowed to arrange them yourself. Does your particular path expect you to rescue a beautiful woman? Nothing stops you from arranging to have that woman kidnapped and then rescuing her yourself! Of course, you have to be careful that the arrangements are kept very carefully hidden, because if they come out or somehow influence Communion, your Destiny could be shaped in an entirely wrong way. But this is the sort of thing I actually expect players to do: to deliberately arrange for events and symbolism associated with a particular path, in the same way that players in a Cabal game will orient themselves towards one of the decans to get as much power out of it that they can.

But nothing stops you from arranging for those milestones for someone else. It's not enough to say that Donald Trump is a fool, you need to start filling his life with the symbols of foolishness: spike his drink, arrange his apartment so that it looks like he had a really wild night, and then make sure his car gets lost, so he has to go looking for it. Then publicize these events. Not only does he look a fool, he begins to look like The Fool. He begins to have mystical power.

Which is the danger of doing this. Sure, I might arrange for you to follow the path of the Bloody-Handed American Emperor, but then you become the Bloody-Handed American Emperor. You become more closely entangled with Communion, and heaven help me with you're psionic, because then cultivating a relationship with Communion becomes easier and easier. You've gained greater narrative weight, and thus greater narrative power.

But you're also trapped in that narrative power. Not all milestones are good, and once you're destined to follow a particular path, as I said before, the GM is free to throw up milestones in front of you. So, now that you've embraced your role as super-villain, if I get a plucky team of misfits to defeat you, then the very destiny that empowered you might push you towards defeat, and if you defy that destiny, your path and your connection with communion can abandon you. That doesn't mean you have to die, but it mean that in not dying, you have abandoned the Path of the Bloody-Handed American Emperor... though if you're very good and very clever, you might redefine what it means to be the Bloody-Handed American Emperor. Of course you cannot be defeated! You were really the God-Emperor of Mankind the whole time!

But I will say that pulling this off is not standard procedure. You'd need Propaganda to make these sort of mystical memetic warfare stick, and you need to have a deep understanding of Communion, its symbolism and how its paths work, and that requires Hidden Lore (Communion), and given that it's hidden, it's rare.

But are there Bene Gesserit knock-offs running around trying to weave an explicit mystical narrative to counter a terrible future they have spied with their epic Precognition? Oh yes, absolutely.

[evileeyore]

It could be argued that this is something that did happen in Star Wars. After all 20-30 years is a very short time for people to begin believing that Jedi were just a myth and that none of that really happened...


The Emperor was strong in the ways of the meme.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

It could be argued that this is something that did happen in Star Wars. After all 20-30 years is a very short time for people to begin believing that Jedi were just a myth and that none of that really happened...


The Emperor was strong in the ways of the meme.

There's a lot of things that happen in Star Wars that I originally dismissed as bad writing, or just didn't notice, until I started digging into Psi-Wars and certain things started to pop out.

For example, Star Wars places far greater emphasis on psychokinesis than on ESP or Telepathy, but the latter two definitely exist, they're just not as flashy. Thus, when someone uses them is less clear than when someone uses telepathy or ESP. I've been rewatching the prequels, and it seems more evident than ever that Palpatine, at least, is using more Force than people might realize, just doing it subtly than I would have guessed, and I don't think that's just someone trying to read sense into nonsense, as other works seem to confirm it.

In any case, Psi-Wars has given me an interesting perspective, especially since I threw away what I thought I knew about Star Wars.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

But we're not in Star Wars anymore we're in Psi-Wars! And the short answer is: "You can totally do that!"

Ooooh niftyness! Much funness shall ensue.

Thanks.

Luke

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Luke Campbell stands over the President of the United States who dangles from the cliffs of Rushmore while nuclear fires burn on the horizon, and the president lifts his hand to Luke and says "You can save me, we can make America great again... together!"

Now remind me - is it only the heroes who get witty one liners just before they dispatch their enemies, or do I get to quip "You're fired!" just before I kick him over the edge?

Luke

[Mailanka]

Today, I finish up my introduction into Communion with a look at the Paths of Communion. Next week, Dark and Broken Communion.