Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

This would be the biggest threat I think, with 53k Psis working for them, AH can basically almost do what it likes and put itself in a favourable situation while doing so. But if those psis decided to do their own thing or even just enough of them do it gets complicated quickly. (AH might stop being recognisably AH). Without a universal and infallible counter, controlling Psis by the very nature of their powers is difficult.

One other thing what is the spread of power total, you said in the OP the average is 50cp, but what's the range here?

I'm not very up on the GURPS psychic powers rules so I'm not sure exactly what 50cp gets you (although I'm guessing you'll get more bang for you buck in this context with ESP, telepathy, mind control than more flashy psychokinesis etc)


But if you have a few individuals in the 500-1000 range in a world that doesn't believe in Psychic powers they're going a have a huge effect.

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

Nice! I'm now thinking some kind of competing super secret Tsarist programme run by Rasputin.

However he would in 1916 try to escape official control (who where by then having doubts about his true agenda and their ability to control him) by psychically faking his death by persuading his assassins that they were successful. He fluffed a few rolls which explains why he seemed so very hard to kill due to conflicting perceptions of him being dead and still needing to be killed.

After defeating AH, Rasputin's organisation decides to promote it's own ideas of changing Russian society while cementing its own behind the scenes central control via toppling the Tsar and it's enthusiastic but unaware cat-paws the Bolsheviks. Reshuffling and re-education follows.

However the remains of the AH programme which for whatever reason (maybe local nationalism) are disenchanted with the AH empire so are happy to see it disintegrate but would have one last chance to try and take revenge on Rasputin and Co. via the Civil war, using white Russian nationalists and international allies as their cats-paws.


Not sure if the AH remains end Rasputin's organisation at the cost of themselves, leaving the communists truly in charge* (albeit slightly bemused as they are no longer being controlled), or if Rasputin's organisation continues to be behind the scenes


*although aware enough of their initial situation to still continue in their later RL research into this area and still to be keen on reeducation, social manipulation and control.

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

I am thinking that 90% of the psychics would have between 1-50 CP, 9% would have between 51-100 CP, 0.9% between 101-150 CP, and 0.1% between 151-200 CP. If the House of Lorraine (and other noble houses) possessed significant antipsi abilities, they could easily control the psychics and avoid psychic control. Strangely enough, psychic abilities would be the mark of common blood then while antipsi abilities would be a sign of noble blood.

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

That … is an interesting point. would it be more likely that the AHE controls a force of psychics, or a force of psychics takes control of the AHE? Once you identify and segregate a group of people based on a shared feature, there is an excellent chance they will adopt a group identity and interest.

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

Well, that depends on the initial formation. Let us first assume that the House of Lorraine (and related noble houses) naturally manifest antipsi abilities due to their centuries of inbreeding and interbreeding. If they reward psychics generously for their efforts, and if they make sure that their telepaths condition the minds of newly recruited psychics, then they will be able to retain control (their antipsi abilities would prevent psychics from knowing the true intentions and/or opinions of the nobility). If they mistreat psychics, then there will likely be individual who throw off their conditioning (and their antipsi abilities would not terribly matter, as their true intentions and opinions would manifest in their treatment of the psychics).

I think that making antipsi abilities common among the nobility would explain why a lot of incompetent and/or disloyal nobles could remain in the AHE (it would also help to explain why other nations might be slow to adopt psychics if their nobility are immune/resistant). It would also moderate (though not negate) the impact of psychics of the war, as they would only be able to forsee the consequences of actions, not necessarily who or what caused the actions. For example, if the Archduke was a powerful antipsi, his psychics might have been unable to predict the exact nature of his death, just that his death would lead to war.

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

I think that these point values are overly high for such a large group of people.

In one of my previous sf campaigns, the average trained psi had around 5-10 points of psionics. Now, the average trained psionic agent that the pcs ran into had about 50.

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

Really? I have never had a campaign where the average psychic had less than 100 CP of psionic talents and abilities. 10 CP is not even Danger Sense, Empathy, Intuition, or Luck with Psionic (-10%).

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

Yeah, a 5 point trained psychic isn't going to be very useful. 10 points CAN be, but its still a very strained budget. 15 to 20 points can do a lot of low level stuff though.

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

Yes, you can potentially do something with 20 CP because that allows for talents and abilities, though it is still difficult to identify subtle psychics at the level. Since 20 CP is Empathy with Telepathy 1 or Intuition with ESP 1, it is quite possible that the majority of psychics at that level are unaware of their abilities. They just know that they understand people better than most people or that their gut instincts are better than most people. I think that 25-50 CP in talents or abilities would be the minimum for someone to realize that they are psychic and for testing at TL6 to reveal that they are psychic.

Re: World War One Psychics [Powers]
 

A lot will depend on how psi works. For instance, does Precognition give completely reliable information, or does it give probabilities and likelihoods? Is there a range to telepathy? Can you read peoples' minds against their will? Can you mind control them? To do things really out of the ordinary, like treason, suicide or shaming themselves publicly (punch the King)?