Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I've been digging into the source literature that inspired Traveller (see, inter alia, Deciphering the Text Foundations of Traveller). I've found some interesting insights, which I'm still digesting.

One thing I haven't found, however, is an antecedent for Traveller's public prejudice against psionics. Some works (e.g., Andre Norton's) have criminals with psionic abilities. It also seems to be widely accepted in these sources that a crime is a crime, whether it is committed by a psychic or by mundane means. The idea that the mere use of psionics is objectionable and may result in lobotomy or death has not appeared in anything I've read so far.

Is this original to Marc Miller and company? It makes sense from a game balance perspective: it's a fairly simple way to keep the game from revolving around developing and using psionic abilities (unless that's what you want to do).

If not, what are the literary sources or inspirations for this feature? Remember, the source would have had to be available prior to 1977, since the section on "public prejudice" appears in the first edition (and, indeed, pre-dates the OTU).

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Slan (AE van Voght), perhaps .
Cat the Psion (Vinge) is slightly more recent.
X-men, sort of.
Some of Campbell era pulp short stories , I would bet, but no title come to mind immediately .
Carrie (King) was published and filmed right before that time. May have contributed.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

It´s not psi, but Heinlein´s Methusalah´s Children covers prejudice against longlived humans. It wouldn´t be that big a stretch to assume similar problems for psis.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Zenna Henderson is a plausible source, though there's not a huge amount of evidence for that influencing Traveller. I think I first ran into the concept in Escape to Witch Mountain (novel 1968), but Key was likely influenced by Henderson.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I read Alexander Key's books growing up, but I've never run across Zenna Henderson before. Either one sounds plausible, especially as GDW's staff was more your age (as I recall it) than mine.

On a side note, I wonder if Zhodani commandos were influenced by Andrew J. Offutt's Galactic Rejects (1973).

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I do think Slan is probably the root of the theme in science fiction, and it's been a handy trope to allow you to address themes of racism or religious bigotry without actually quite saying so ever since. Though it's not as if prejudice against witches has no antecedents elsewhere. The attitude of the characters in Foundation toward mutants might play a role too.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Psychic abilities appear in much of the explicitly identified Traveller source material -- it was as much a part of the Known Galaxy as neofeudalism.

In Traveller, anyone could potentially be a psionic with some luck and the right training. Adventure 0 suggests (p. 7) that seeking out a psionic institute is a common early goal for player character groups. The "public prejudice" rules have some echoes of witchcraft trials, but the stigma is about what psionics do rather than what they are or how they look. It's analogous to intolerance for sexual deviance (perceived as a choice), say, versus racism.

I'm resisting Van Vogt as the source because the Slan were overtly superhuman and physically identifiable as a separate subspecies. The Henderson and Key alien psychics were also genetically distinct, but at least physically indistiguishable.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Ubik? The initial premise is that Joe Chip's company protects clients from psychic abilities.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Anne McCaffrey's "To Ride Pegasus" [Followed by "Pegasus in Flight" "Get off Unicorn" and "Pegasus in Space" collectively know as her Talents Series] cover the Societal arch from Psi first being Verifiable Documented, and the Journey to go from prejudice to just one more accented minority in security.

as such it goes into the reason why the anti-psionics prejudice would exist.

Sidenote: Despite being published in the early 70s unlike many of her contraries she guess right about computer ministration and communication interrogates and the effects of what having a cell phone like device would have on story plots. (thorough two of the chapters date back to shorts stories she wrote in 1969)

Footnote: Get off the Unicorn was meant to be Get of the Unicorn and the printer [not the publisher] not recongizing that meaning of Get, though they were catching a typo and changed the Title to Get off the Unicorn at the last moment.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

There's some possibility of influence from Witches of Karres though the psi "Klaatha magic" is very high powered there. Also, Schmitz' Telzey Amberdon series.

Another possibility would be Niven's Known Space series. It at least has psis and has to have had some influence on Traveller.

There was some occaisional psi in the Van Rijn/Flandry universe of Poul Anderson and that's influence on Traveller would be difficult to deny.

Oh, forgot Alfred Bester's Demolished Man which may have had some influence on what Zhodani society would be like.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

A real life example are people who are legally declared schizophrenic, with a typical symptom being that they believe their minds are being read with "microwave" technology. Ergo crazies who wear tin foil hats.

The truth of the matter is that it's a psychiatric technique to discover why someone is acting out by drugging them up. You can get a subject to talk in their sleep about their daily thoughts, and toss it back in their face in casual conversation. The cumulative effect is that they believe they have no privacy (which they don't due to doctor and/or court order).

It's actually a facet of Traveller, as it seems to have riffs on security and law enforcement themes as seeds for adventures. So called "psionics" stemming from this practice.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Though only the first of them predates Traveller. I suspect the most discussed work with a persecuted psis theme around the time Traveller was being written would have been Katherine Kurtz Deryni series. Society hates and persecutes psis is not a rare theme in SF.

The bit that may be original to Traveller are the Psionic Institutes, I can't actually think of a precedent for those - there are organizations that train people that are *already* psis, but the teach anybody model, and the related concept that anybody can join this persecuted minority by attending one, seems new. Though of course it follows the religious persecution model quite well - underground religious academies that seduce our children into their evil cult certainly aren't an unprecedented fear.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Would this have literary sources, cinematic sources, or both?

There are quite a few 1950s and 1960s atomic-horror movies where somebody gained powers that nowadays we would call psionic, and was persecuted and hunted because of those powers - some of those movies ended up on MST3K. The "powers are evil" attitude also appeared on television shows of the time (for example, the second pilot episode of Star Trek).

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Well many apologies, mister Hackard, it wasn't meant to be. It is an actual psychiatric technique.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

For the matter of that do you have examples of a psiocracy that would seem oppressive to anyone not immersed in it? Actually yes, the Tripods trilogy. Though that included an attempted genocide of humans, and so was oppressive by any standard. Zho are not saints and few non-Zho would want to live under their system but they have never gone to such a point.

In any case Traveller had an elegant arrangement wherein psi were an oligarchy in one empire and a persecuted minority in a rival one.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

That is possible, although the rest of the series wasn't published until the 1990's. The Center may have served as a model for the Psionic Institutes as well.

These appear to also be possible, although I'm not familiar with them. Thanks for the pointer.

On the other hand, these -- while explicitly cited as inspirational for Traveller -- don't have the overt public prejudice aspect to psionics that I'm trying to source.

The cited sources are strongly literary. The only exceptions are Star Wars and Star Trek, which I think we can agree are only peripheral influences at best.

Mostly irrelevant to the current discussion, as these features came much later in Traveller's development. Both the Psionic Institutes and public prejudice against psionics were there from the beginning.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I'd be reluctant to use that, psi in the Deryni uses an awful lot of traditional magical symbolism, rather than making an attempt to be faux-scientific.
The Xavier Institute.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

... for Gifted Youngsters? I agree with malloyd, this is the usual: a school for people with already identified paranormal abilities. The ability comes first, and mutants are distinct from the general populace.

We're looking for a setting where (1) virtually everyone has psionic potential, (2) an "extremely low profile" organization exists to test and train that potential, and (3) "[t]he climate of public opinion about psionics is extremely negative."

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I'm inclined to believe that these three elements, taken together, are original to Traveller; that is, without literary antecedent.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

It might be interesting to invite Michael Andre-Driussi into this discussion, since he did such a good job on other aspects of the literary origins of Traveller. He has written for SJ Games, by the way (specifically GURPS New Sun), so he may even have a SJ Games forum account already.

Additionally, there are some Traveller pioneers who could offer their own histories if they were asked at the right time -- for example, if Marc Miller turned up at a game convention Q&A. Sadly, the most accessible Traveller pioneer is gone. Loren probably could have told us a lot if we had asked him while he was alive; he probably could have written a great JTAS article about it too.

One possible literary explanation for Traveller psionics, particularly suppression, is inversion of literary examples, rather than copying. There are a fair number of examples of psionic aristocracy -- notably the Darkover series, which dates back to the 1950s -- and it's not ridiculous to imagine designers looking at a source and saying, "Let's do the opposite of this."

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

It becomes obvious whenever one imagines psis existing in sufficient strength for someone to ask how they avoid a psiocracy.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Odd John by Olaf Stapledon.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

New Sun is from an era pre-dating this forum by a good bit. I don't recall him being active on the Pyramid fora back then either.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

This is the same as the premise of STAR WARS (1977), where everyone contributes to the Force, Jedi are underground, and Vader is busy Force-choking rivals.

Perhaps it is influenced by Wyndham's THE CHRYSALIDS (1955), where mutants are literally, religiously persecuted in Newf, regularly produce a telepathic minority, and are supported by an advanced, hidden enclave of fellow talents.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Didn't Marc Miller say somewhere that the limitations on psi were entirely for game balance purposes?

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I think a simple mechanic allowing someone to attempt to resist psionic influence -- which CT lacks -- would have been a much cleaner solution to game balance.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

On the other hand, ObiWan Kenobi is a hero. Regardless, Marc Miller has said that Star Wars came out too late to really influence the original design of Traveller. At best, Star Wars and Traveller drew from the same source material in similar ways.

I would love to see a cite to this.

I have to modify this: in his White Dwarf #23 interview, Marc Miller said, "Movies and television particularly affected me."

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Believe me, I wish I had one. I vaguely remember seeing something to that effect in the run-up to T5, but I don't even remember if it was in a new article or something archival.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Hrmpf. movies and TV pre-77 that even vaguely resemble Traveller are not thick on the ground.

You've go to pick and choose your star Trek even. Cyrano Jpnes and Harry Mudd, the odd mining colony and space station might be it.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

But this one carries a useful drama to it.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Only if you are using the 3I setting, which I rarely do with Traveller.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

IIRC, Yes, but I cannot recall where.

Note that it's blamed on a failed psycho-history action...

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

It's coded as rules, in CT & MT... the distinction was always fuzzy between setting and rules, as much of the OTU was codified in rules mechanics rather than spelled out as prose.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

How psionics were viewed varied by race and culture. Imperials, Zhodani and droyne all viewed psionics differently. That's not a rule, it's a guideline for one culture.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

You can't play them. The LBB psionics rules (Bk 3 p38-47) don't cover them, but do explicitly tell you if the public or authorities find out you are psionic you roll 2d for the result: 2-3 nothing, 4-5 deported, 6-7 imprisoned, 8-9 tarred and feathered (Where did the inhabitants of this vacc world find tar and feathers? Nevermind), 10-11 lynched, 12+ lobotomized. There is nothing about cultures that have a different view of psionics (or laws or punishments for that matter), it's hard coded in the rules.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

They were in shipping crates. Which is how they manage the "ridden out of town on a rail" thing that's the traditional follow-up to tar and feathers.

You could call it "informal deportation" but "covered in unpleasant gunk and shoved into a shipping crate" actually doesn't sound that weird for a world such as you outline with Government type 0.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Sure you could. That's what the CT Alien Modules were there for -- to play characters other than Imperial humans.

It is my duty as a GM to ignore or override a nonsensical rule. To do otherwise is a dereliction of my duty.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Not until 8 years later (AM4 and 5, for the Zhodani and Droyne are both 1985). Traveller originally didn't even have a setting, much less one that included those races. Even in Mercenary and High Guard (1980) the Imperium is still a "remote centralized government referred to in this volume as the Imperium" rather than an actual setting.

Indeed from the wording of the psionics section, it's reasonably clear that it was written from the standpoint of psionics as something relatively new, poorly understood, and likely to be the wave of the future, not as an long established weapon of the enemy.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

It's also clear GDW ignored this in pretty short order. I see no reason I couldn't it either.

Also, looking at Supplement 11 (1982) they had something else in mind that conflicts with the Book 3 picture of psionics in several respects.

Since I started playing Traveller in 1983, precisely what was the "correct" version of psionics for me to use?

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

That misinterprets the game balance issue.

Traveller had no real mechanic for character advancement. Characters who are young and unseasoned suck, and will always suck for the duration of the campaign. Oh in theory if the campaign goes on for year after year of in-game time you can improve a rookie...slightly...but no faster than the grizzled 50 year old. Comparatively speaking the rookie will always suck provided that the veteran managed to get his anti-aging roll pills. That's the primary driver for a default campaign, the quest to get enough money to arrest the aging of the elderly protagonists.

Except...there's another driver. There's the bit where you wander from planet to planet looking for a psionics institute so the characters who aren't grizzled veterans can suddenly not suck because while they may be lacking actual skills they make up for that by being the only ones who have superpowers.

That's the game balance trade-off. The Psionics Institutes are rare and illegal in the original game's default setting because that gives firstly something to quest for, but more importantly it explains why the grizzled veterans don't have have just as much woo-woo as the kids because like the kids they were tested and trained in high school.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I don't remember a single PC in any campaign I ran or played in who showed any interest in antiagathics. No, really. It was NPC motivation only.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Adventurers who worry about dying of old age do seem to be a little fuzzy on the concept of "adventure".

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

"Default" doesn't mean "there are no exceptions". In particular among short run games where aging rolls never enter into it and nobody ever ever improves at all except by, again, seeking out a psionics institute.

It has more to do do with worrying about dying of "I'm not as fast as I used to be".

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Irrelevant, since the OP (me) asked about possible sources or influences for the original, first (1977) edition rules.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

The chances of being lynched are in the core rules for CT, MT, and TNE. They're not in the fluff; they are presented as a specific throw to find the reaction.

Procedural, not setting description.

That the prejudice is the result of a failed psychohistorical manipulation gone seriously wrong, that is setting fluff for the 3I.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

The same effect can be had with Vacuum rated slap patches ...

I've had players experince more than 4 character years in a campaign played out over one year of player time. They just happened to be going places. And that eats time at prodigious rates.

I've seen a 3 month merchant campaign cover more than 3 years (8 hour weekly sessions, suitable spreadsheet support).

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Not relevant to the kind of setting I want when I run Traveller, rule section ignored. Please move on, you can't force me to use the section.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Perhaps you could move on as well. "The kind of setting you want when you run Traveller" is pretty thoroughly off-topic to this thread.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Yeah, I probably should. GURPS Traveller hasn't had anything to offer me in over a decade, no reason to linger here.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Jack L, Chalker's 4 Diamonds series. Fairly decent scifi reads. A very different approach to psionics.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Interesting, but too late (1981-1983) to be an influence on the original Traveller (1977).

Overall, I'm inclined to the conclusion that the elements of Traveller's psionics (including the extreme prejudice against its use) were present in the broad science fiction canon at the time, but that Marc Miller and company combined them in a novel fashion -- probably motivated by a desire for game balance.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

A lot of scifi are psychiatric themes or even experimental psychology dressed up as aliens, monstes and spaceships. Not most, but a good chunk of them. I think Traveller takes some of its cues from those books. Ones dealing with "strange powers" or alternate cultures.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Yeah the prejudice in the science fiction of the 50s and 60s was against mutants with psi powers in settings where normal people had no psi potential.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I guess I brought up Chalkier because scifi in the 70s seemed to get hijacked from the true speculative authors by the psychology "revolution" that happened in the mid 60s up through the 70s. And where Traveller tackles a lot of security or law enforcement themes, a lot of that works hand in hand with psychology and psychiatry. And it pervaded only up until recently (say mid 90s) where military scifi has pushed back.

Traveller's adventures, to my mind at least, have players tackling ramifications of "poor thinking" or bad societal choices by the masses. And that's where psionics are a two fold lynch pin (or a microcosm) in the OTU (and one of the reasons I've stuck with it as a hobby), because it falls back on traditional scifi as a narrative for themes other than mental health.

Anyway, I hope that clarifies why I brought up that example, and I posted on this thread.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Kenobi is a sympathetic hero to the audience, but he's still a survivor of the the previous galactic civil war who apparently fought on the side that is losing the current civil war, but more importantly:

This means Marc Miller inhaled as much FORBIDDEN PLANET and its train of influences (TWILIGHT ZONE, OUTER LIMITS) as Lucas et al did.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Not to get too off track, but there's some speculation by the authors of the French scifi comic book Valeria that he or members of his team drew from their publication.

They've got pics of Leia in her slave getup, the Millenium Falcon and so forth compared with various art in their comic.

Metropolis also helped influenced Star Wars.

I'm not sure if this really has any psionic influence or inspiration for Traveller.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Beware the hazards of the Ancients site that is haunted by monsters from the id.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I don't understand why neither Slan (1948) or Ubik (1969) count. Both have prejudice and paranoia about psionic powers.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Slan are mutants. It's not a situation where everyone could learn to use woo-woo and yet there's a prejudice against those who do.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Ah, well "everybody is psionic" isn't very common at all. Usually it's a heritable talent or something. I didn't realize that everybody in Classic Traveller was a psi.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

At least in GURPS Traveller, "most Humans" have the potential for psionics. (So sayeth Alien Races 1, page 134.) I don't know about CT

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

"The Institute's comprehensive examination provides a measure of personal psionic strength... Each character has a basic potential ... Age constantly lessens this potential, however, unless training is undertaken to use it."

Book 3, p. 38 (1981 edition, but the 1977 version is identical). That this is not meant to apply only to PCs (cheers to the shade of Hans Rancke-Madsen) is indicated by:

"Some hirelings or citizens may have psionic training or ability (throw 12 to have any ability; then determine the actual ability). There is an equal chance that the non-character will be an informant or potential informant."

Ibid., p. 46. Note that this is plot-tastically high -- only one world in 108 even has a branch of the Psionic Institute by the RAW. But I take it as indicative that psionic abilities and training are widespread, despite the penalties associated with their use.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

I think "everyone is equally psionic" is the more unique thing then. Paranoia about telepathy in particular is definitely not so unique (even in 1977).

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

But it only applies to NPCs the player characters encounter...

Am I misunderstanding or are you trying to suggest that 1/36 of the entire population of the Imperium is a trained psionic?

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

You are misunderstanding. I specifically acknowledged that the raw result is ridiculous ("plot-tastically high") on the face of it.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Well, does the institute have to be on the "prime world" of a system? Can't it be on a moon, or some rocky Mars like world, or some body in the system other than what's listed on the map as "where people live"? I think that would explain the higher frequency of institutes.

Also remember that the rule is there as a guideline to help make such places hard to reach, but not impossible to find. Kind of like a Shao-lin monestary or similar place where your PCs (or NPCS) can go (or have gone) to learn the mysterious ways of "mentalists".

That was the vibe I picked up when I first read the rule way back in 81 or 79.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Player Characters are liable to run into more than their fair share of criminals, revolutionaries, spies, and other transients. They do not deal with a representative sampling of the Imperial population.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

D'oh! Second Foundationists, post-revelation of course.

Re: Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?
 

Michael Andre-Driussi, in the article mentioned in the first message of this thread, says that Emperor Cleon I is the only thing Traveller draws from Asimov's Foundation series. An obvious first point where he's wrong is that there's also a Cleon II (or else Cleon I would just be called Cleon). But in reading more about the Foundation universe, I find that its influences on Traveller are pervasive. The only reason I didn't notice that right away is that I read the Foundation trilogy so long ago that it was still a trilogy, when I was a kid, something like a decade before Traveller was first published.

I don't have time right now to start a new Foundation and Traveller thread, but there is opposition to "Mentalics" in Foundation. The first is the Mule, and the opposition to him isn't very effective, and it's not because he's a Mentalic, it's because he's overthrowing the Empire. But the Second Foundation reinvents Mentalics as a way to perform its Manipulations to hasten the end of the Long Night -- and its Mentalics face a fair amount of opposition too, though my memory of just what opposition is lost in over four decades of faded memory.

Maybe someone with fresher memory of Second Foundation can elaborate. On the other hand, if anyone had read it recently enough, they'd have seen that and maybe added to this thread. But maybe someone else has the books closer than a library or buying new books, and the time to read them.

Edit: right after I posted this, I saw mention of Second Foundation in the immediately preceding message, which I initially overlooked. OK, consider this an elaboration on that point, though I wrote it as an independent thought.