[Psionic Powers] "Get by with a little help... from myself?"

[tetrahedron]

Ken Hood created a wonderful world in the Sleeping Imperium and I want to incorporate some of his psionic powers into my game. But I'm having some trouble with one - Non-linear Time Perception. I'm thinking Snatcher (information) would work, but not sure of the modifiers. Also not sure about the "I told myself retroactively" bit is Snatcher... The power is written in the original d20 below:

For a normal sentient being, consciousness and selfawareness is an instantaneous point in the ever-forwardmoving present. However, you – for very brief moments – can expand your awareness beyond and through that point, becoming an infinite wave-function of consciousness that stretches through all your possible pasts, presents, and futures. During this moment, you can perceive an effect without or before its cause, you can think to all your possible selves, transmitting a message through every point in your existence, or you can attempt to remember events that occur outside your time-line.

This is a taxing ability that exhausts you after you use it, but that is a small price for peering beyond the boundaries of space and time.

Check: There are three basic tasks you can perform with Non-linear Time Perception: Non-linear Memory, Non-linear Thought, and Perceive Effect before Cause. Each use of this skill is an active application of psionics. Furthermore, ESP can detect the use of Non-linear Time Perception as if it were a “major distortion to reality.”

Non-linear Memory: For a brief, eternal moment, you expand your consciousness to all your possible past, present, and future selves and attempt to remember some piece of information. This piece of information could be something you remember in the future, such as the contents of room beyond a locked door or the winner of a sports event several years from now. It could be a piece of information you could have possibly learned in an alternate past or present where circumstances different, such as recalling a memory from an alternate past where you overhead the conversation of an important political official at a dinner party you attended recently.

To perform this task, you must state the memory you wish to recall. Then, you enter a meditative state of total concentration for 10 minutes. At the end of this time, you perform a Non-linear Time Perception skill check. The DC is based on the likelihood that you would possess the memory, per table NLM-1.

If the skill check succeeds, you “recall” the alternate memory. It exists side-by-side with your old memory (if any) of the event and seems just as real. If the skill check fails, you cannot use Non-Linear Time Perception for twenty-four hours.

Any use of non-linear memory – successful or unsuccessful – immediately fatigues you. Also, you must make a Will saving throw against DC 20. If failed, you are stunned for 2d6 rounds after use of non-linear memory.

Non-linear Memory Example . . .
Jack has Non-linear Time Perception +15. He and his companions are exploring ancient ruins. They find an ancient set of hieroglyphs. Jack dimly recalls something about these glyphs. He had been in a lecture about the civilization that built the ruins, but had fallen asleep as the lecturer droned on.Jack decides that he wishes to “remember” the contents of the lecture from an alternate past where he actually paid attention. The information may be helpful.

The referee determines that it is highly probable for Jack to possess this information. All he had to do was stay awake. This sets the DC at 20. Jack rolls 30. He clearly “recalls” the lecture and uses that information to decipher the hieroglyphs.

Non-linear Thought: For a brief, eternal moment, you expand your consciousness to all your possible past, present, and future selves and transmit a single thought to one of your selves. The thought must be brief, no more than a couple of sentences. For instance, you could send a message to yourself in the past, saying “Do not trust the vizier.” You could think to yourself in the future, “Remember to pick up milk at the grocery store.” (Always helpful if one has a spouse.)

This ability allows you to send messages that can potentially change your past, present, or future, creating an entirely new time-line. For example, you could tell yourself several years in the past to bury a pound of uranium in the middle of the desert because you need it in the present to power an atomic device. To form a non-linear thought, you must first determine the thought you wish to send and where/when in your timeline you desire to send it.

Then, you enter a meditative state of total concentration for 10 minutes. At the end of this time, you perform a Non-linear Time Perception skill check. The DC is based on the likelihood that you would be able to implement your thought, per table NLT-1.

If you succeed in the skill check, your non-linear thought has made some alteration to your time-line, though not necessarily the one you intended. The actual change, its effectiveness, and its consequences are the discretion of your referee.

If you fail the skill check, you cannot use Non- Linear Time Perception for twenty-four hours. Any use of non-linear thought – successful or unsuccessful – immediately fatigues you. Also, you must make a Will saving throw against DC 20. If failed, you are stunned for 2d6 rounds after the use of this psionic ability.

Note: The action required by your non-linear thought must be one that you can fulfill personally or at least initiate personally. You cannot send thoughts to other people.

Also, the more people your thought affects, the more difficult it is to perform and less likely to occur. The acts that you must perform to fulfill the request must occur “off camera.” That is, it must occur during times in the game that you have not actually roleplayed.

For example, you could not plant uranium in the desert during the same time you fought a battle. If the act would change or interfere with significant historical events in your life, then it is impossible to reap its benefits. Instead, if your skill check is successful, you create a divergent reality from your current timeline. You do not gain the benefits of this reality, but one of your “other selves” does. (For game purposes, anything that is explicit in your character’s back-story or events that have been role-played count as “significant historical events.”)

For example, assume that you have role-played a battle in which you are surprised and several of your comrades slain. You send a message to yourself to be wary of the ambush. Since not being ambushed would alter a significant historical event (as well as creating a serious paradox, because you would no longer have a reason to send yourself that message), a divergent reality is created – sideways to your own – in which the surprise was defeated. You gain no benefit.

In another example, assume you met an untrustworthy merchant who double-crossed you and stole all of your money. If you sent a message to yourself to not trust said merchant, you would create a divergent reality because you are changing a significant past event. However, if you sent a message to yourself that said, “Bury gold near the tree at the crossroads.” You are not changing the event where the merchant double-crossed you. Instead, “off camera,” you buried the money. In fact, you remember doing that. Off you go, and you now have cash in your pockets again.

Making yourself pack a potion of healing and a rope in your backpack so you can climb out of a pit changes your present circumstances. Sending a message to warn yourself of the pit so you don’t fall into it in the first place changes your past.

The best use of this skill is to change your present circumstances, rather than your past history. A degree of subtlety and cleverness are necessary to use this ability.

Non-linear Thought Example . . .
Jack has Non-linear Time Perception +15. He and his companions are exploring ancient ruins. They come to a hallway blocked by a collapsed section of ceiling. If they had the proper tools, they could easily pass it — with a lot of hard work.

Jack and his companions search through their gear and find no useful tools. Just as the last companion’s backpack is about to be searched, Jack stops them. He is going to use non-linear thought to send a message to himself in the past, telling himself to sneak a crowbar into his companion’s pack.

The referee decides that it is probable that Jack would be able to fulfill this task. The DC is 30. Jack meditates, expanding his consciousness. His skill check is 32. He succeeds in the non-linear thought.

Once he returns to normal awareness, his companions search the backpack and find a crowbar. They begin clearing debris, while Jack rests away his fatigue.

If Jack had chosen to send this thought after all the packs had been searched, it would have only been a mathematical possibility that he could have hidden it.

If Jack had chosen to send a message to his past self to tromp out to this ruined building and bury several tools for future use, the difficulty would have been improbable or highly improbable.

Continued on the next post...

T

[tetrahedron]

Perceive Effect before Cause. Because you no longer perceive time as a progress from cause to effect, you can perform a perceptual trick that allows you to feel (via touch) an effect before you experience the cause.

For instance, while standing on guard, you grow sleepy. You decide that upon morning’s arrival, you shall take a stimulant to make yourself aware now. In another instance, you could have surgery performed upon you and take anesthesia after the surgery to make you feel no pain during it.

To perform this trick, you must be able to enact the cause no more than 24 hours in the future. The cause must be under your control. For example, you could drink coffee in the future to make you awake now, but you could not feel the pain in present for wounds that will be inflicted on you in the future by others.

This trick requires a full round action and Nonlinear Time Perception skill check against DC 20. If successful, you feel the effect before the cause. If unsuccessful, you cannot perform this psionic task for the next 24 hours. Either way, you must make a Will saving throw against DC 15 or be dazed for 1d6 rounds.

Only tactile (touch-based) sensations may be transferred, not somatic results. You could feel – in the present – the pain of cutting off your own finger in the future, but your finger would not be chopped off in the present, only the future. You could not perform first aid in the future to heal you in the present; it might make you feel better in the present, but it won’t actually close any wounds. If you drink coffee in the future to keep you awake in the present, your belly and bladder in the present do not end up full.
Drawback: Development of this skill unhinges your relationship to time, space, and causality. Occasionally, you will remember events incorrectly or out of proper, linear order. Your consciousness might accidentally become displaced in your timeline.

The main drawback to this skill is that your selves in the past, alternate presents, and possible futures will be sending you messages. Your referee is free to send you a message at any time. You will receive all manner of requests to perform mundane or esoteric tasks. Whether or not you fulfill them is up to you — but your referee is free to determine the consequences of your decision. (Messages from your other selves make excellent adventure hooks.)

When a character uses non-linear thought, he is playing with the continuity of history (past or future) in the campaign setting. The referee is encouraged to cause minor historical changes each time a character uses this ability — not enough to throw the campaign out of kilter, but just enough to disturb the players. (For example, the first name of the character’s spouse could change or the gender of a trusted cohort could be different.)

Thoughts? Help?

T

[dbm]

This seems to be fluff wrapping of danger sense, tele sense and perception powers like that? Maybe add in Luck or Super Luck with limitations that it only affects knowledge skills too?

Move away from the 'how' and focus on the 'what'!

Cheers,
Dan

[Bruno]

I would use Eidedic Memory (photographic memory) for the ability to remember everything in your life up until that point. Precognition to cover future sense.

Cause Before Effect description makes no sense as described - they're talking about tactile effect, and then they talk about taking a chemical stimulant (which has nothing to do with sense of touch).

You could feel the sensation of wet fluid in your mouth (Tactile) but not experience the chemicals in your body any more than you'd get a full belly.

[chandley]

For Non-Linear Memory, I think this is what the Gurps advantage Racial Memory was built for. The "race" is just all your possible selves.

for Non-Linear Thought, Mindshare that then steals the Time-spanning modifier in Powers might work just fine.

For Perceive Cause before Effect, thats complex. Might be easiest to put together a Modular Ability focused on the kind of stuff the description allows, and then pour enough points in to cover most of the stuff you might want to do. The getting messages from the future, past, and alternate timelines is a Nuisance Effect or possibly Weirdness Magnet of a sort.

[tetrahedron]

Originally Posted by chandley

For Non-Linear Memory, I think this is what the Gurps advantage Racial Memory was built for. The "race" is just all your possible selves.

Brilliant. Simple, uncomplicated.

Originally Posted by chandley

for Non-Linear Thought, Mindshare that then steals the Time-spanning modifier in Powers might work just fine.

Mindshare, as in Powers pg. 148? I see where you are going. Need to think on that...

Originally Posted by chandley

For Perceive Cause before Effect, thats complex. Might be easiest to put together a Modular Ability focused on the kind of stuff the description allows, and then pour enough points in to cover most of the stuff you might want to do. The getting messages from the future, past, and alternate timelines is a Nuisance Effect or possibly Weirdness Magnet of a sort.

Weirdness Magnet is a good idea. Really good. But I'm wondering at how to price the Modular Ability (less sleep for taking a stimulant without taking the stimulant? high pain threshold for taking pain medication without taking medication?). Doesn't seem right yet.

This is a great start!

[chandley]

Originally Posted by tetrahedron

But I'm wondering at how to price the Modular Ability (less sleep for taking a stimulant without taking the stimulant? high pain threshold for taking pain medication without taking medication?). Doesn't seem right yet.

This is a great start!

Cosmic Power (Focus Limited: Only what I could justify by doing to myself in the next 24 hours -10%; Nuisance Effect: Have to do what I rationalized in the next 24 hours, might be asked by alternate selves to do stuff -10%; ) 8 pts per point. Stick say 20 points in there, and then do things like:

Drink some coffee, eat a good meal to offset fatigue in the present: +2-3 FP (4-6 points out of the pool).

Taking medicine could be anything from High Pain Threshold through to Resistant to Disease or Poison. You could even give yourself First Aid in the furture by buying a Limited Use Healing in the Cosmic Pool.

etc, etc.

Edit: Need to add Physical +100% on there, to account for being able to give you things like FP, HP, and HPT. Though if you cant figure out how you could give yourself any mental advantages, you could get away with Physical +50%. That MIGHT be what the d20 version means when it says "tactile".

[tetrahedron]

Interesting idea, but seems to... open, too many possibilities. Which is what we are getting at, but perhaps that is the problem. What could we do if we limit the effects to neutralizing irritating (pg. B428) or incapacitating conditions (also pg. B428).

Is there something that does this? A sort of reverse Affliction?

Edit: Yes there is. Pg. P40. Interesting... chandley, thank you.