Zhodani without Psi

[Malenfant]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Why do we need Traveller at all? Why do we need Science fiction at all? Heck, why do we need to do anything but get up eat, work enough to eat, work enough to satisfy prospective mates, reproduce, begin process over? Why not just live like Really Smart Apes? We don't NEED a lot of the things that are worth doing. Since when has that had anything to do with it?

I have no idea - you're the one who's going off on a rant for no reason here.

The question in the OP asked is "what would the Zhodani be without supernatural psi?". I just took it further and asked why people were still trying to have them with any "psi-like abilities" at all (whether technological or otherwise) - why not just go the whole hog and have them without anything like that? There are plenty of ways to control a populace without psychic powers after all.

I don't think we "need" them to have psionics at all. As you point out, they'ree an interesting enough race without them - just in having a civilisation where freedom of thought is so controlled yet apparently so harmonious is a good scifi issue to explore. Is it better to be miserable and free or happy and restricted? Is Zho society really so morally repugnant? It's like the episode of Angel where they avert the "apocalypse" only to find that actually most people would have been quite happy and content if it came to pass. Were they right or wrong?

That's a great 'what if' to explore and scifi is all about the 'what if', after all.