Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

I shouldn't really have to point this out, but being "disproven by science" does not ever make something "science" - these are two different things. There is no scientific methodology in which psychic powers have been shown to operate, and they have not been shown to even exist on a reliable, repeatable level - therefore it is not "science".

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

It took a lot of careful work by biologists and paleontologists and experts in myth to discover that there is no evidence for dragons (even in far away and hard-to-reach places), that they are biologically implausible, and that subtly different versions crop up in myths all over the world. The process to convince many people that magic does not work was broadly the same as for psi and spiritualism, just spread over a long time because magic is an older idea.

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

It is news to me that the existence of dragons was ever seriously considered. Psi was for a while so I class it more with the jungles of Venus.

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

Psychohistory.

Now, granted, its probably also a "cant be true in a real world" thing, but one could have Psi replaced by a very fine grained completely understood science of predicting and manipulating human behavior. The dream world of Asimov's second foundation....quite scary to any who want or value the fact of free will.

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

It looks like, as someone pointed out, that any alternative to psi powers is going to be just as 'magical' as psi.

Psionics was a standard idea in sf. Today an equivelant idea is metahuman/cyberpunk implants. Either is as real as the other and just as plausible. To continue to berate one or the other on their 'reality' is pointless.

Several long lasting, stable cutlures come to mind. Egypt. Basques. Korea before communism - they were known as the Hermit Kingdom centuries before the DMZ. Isolation from outside ideas and economics is probably the key.

Cybernetic zhos probably have AI, to help control the proles. I still like my idea that the ruling class is a hive-mind, or group of hive minds, connected by radio. The masses are controlled by them not by mind-reading/etc., but by the superior intellect and speed that AI and hive minds bring.

Their stable, long lasting culture is enforced on them, not exactly through gun toting force, but through the isolation of the masses from new ideas. New ideas are easy to spot - an uptick in economic output in an area is a great sign. And those AIs and hive minds are pretty sensative to anything out of the ordinary, like an uptick in economic output. If a few subtle sabotages, disappearances and re-educations don't do the trick - out come the gun toting thugs.

And this is why they are so truculent when it comes to the Imperium. The Imperium IS a new idea, something the Zho nobles do not want their masses to know even exist. Any non-Zho human culture is, by its very existance, a threat to the Zho way of life.

An Imperial dealing with Zhos would be kept isolated from the masses, dealing only with nobles, AIs and robots. Any evidence of such interaction would be carefully barred from the Zho public. If an Imperial did get into the contact with non-noble zhos, both the Imperial AND the proles would be in considerable danger.
On the other hand the nobles and AIs would not have the detailed information they are used to when working with an Imperial. Their isolationism would probably put them at a significant disadvantage, at least for a while. A fast talking Imperial might get away, repeatedly, with good sized swindles - as long as they didn't upset Zho cultural, isolation and military.

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

You could push the idea further to have the proles simply being ordinary humans, constantly monitored

Intendents are mobile robots with AI though limited by the size of the processors in their head/housing

Nobles are true AIs on massive dispersed servers

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

Not necessarily. In a way it´s just statistics. That life insurance companies can make serious money by successfully predicting how long people will live on average doesn´t affect my individual ability to live a lot longer or die a lot earlier at all. I can participate in free elections, even if pollsters can often predict the overall outcome.

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

But if your movements, choices, votes can be statistically predicted, is that still free will? And the ability to manipulate these trends on a micro level, that is a lot of power.

The thought that free will is an illusion, that is scary.

However, to me this is more in Hiver territory than altered Zhos, scary and/or effective as it may be.

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

Both are true.

The psyhohistory posited as the outcome of the foundation's success was an invisible hand that guided everything, and swept everyone up in it- your only free choice was in what the plan allowed -and you had no way of knowing.

There's a great pastishe/followup called Psychohistorical crisis that adress the consequences of a fully realized Seldon (psychohistory) plan. (I forget the author). Its not an action packed car crash and space battle yarn, but pretty damn good as an immersion piece.

I've found that the key to presenting Zhos and Bad guys who aren't nazis is to choose one that creeps you (the GM) out -that will translate to your players, believe me.

Re: Zhodani without Psi
 

Yes. Statistical predictions only say what will probably happen, not what will happen.

Uh-hunh. THe goal is not to remove variety from the universe.