[Psionics] [Space] Psi Trek - Worldbuilding

Prince Charon · 09-15-2019, 08:37 PM

Beings of 'pure energy' options

Do you want them to exist at all, and how powerful should they be? Sufficiently Advanced Aliens are a pretty common trope in SF in general and Star Trek in particular, and a lot of them claim and appear to have 'evolved beyond the need for physical bodies' (which is not how evolution works, of course). OTOH, Space Gods showing up can be pretty annoying, and if not handled well, can ruin people's fun (though on the gripping hand, the same is true of gods in fantasy games, and some GMs and player groups have no problem handling that). So, this one is another 'more optional than usual' post.

If they do exist, the easiest justification in the Psionics rules is Astral Projection. If you have Astral Travel 6, you don't technically need a biological body (replace 'Projection, -50%' with 'Always on, -50%,' with no need to recalculate the price). Those that interfere in the physical world most likely have high levels of Barrier Breaking, or at least Cross-World Communication... or they replace 'Always on, -50%' with 'Usually on, -40%,' and/or 'Substantial Communication, +40%' with 'Affects Substantial, +100%.' Such beings could have massively powerful psychic abilities - or might just be really good at psionic illusions of various types. The ones with massive powers are a good answer for who it is that moved ancient humans and other creatures from Earth to worlds many parsecs (or kiloparsecs) away - that may be too much like Johnny1A.2's Eldren, though.

Another option is some form of ergokinetic 'biology,' which may be a result of organic life with highly advanced ergokinetic abilities creating self-maintaining ergokinetic bodies for themselves, or a result of experimentation with ergokinesis. It might even be the result of natural evolution (as in, they were made of 'energy' all along), but that's pretty strange (then again, they might consider life made of matter to be pretty strange).

Perhaps the 'energy beings' are only called that because they exist as highly-sophisticated software, possibly in extra-dimensional computers.

Each of these types of energy beings could plausibly all exist in the same setting, or only one, or neither. All of them are reasonably good candidates for our version of the Preservers, though on the other hand, the Preservers could simply be regular Ancient Aliens.

Thoughts?

09-15-2019, 08:37 PM	#23
Prince Charon Join Date: Dec 2012	Re: [Psionics] [Space] Psi Trek - Worldbuilding Beings of 'pure energy' options Do you want them to exist at all, and how powerful should they be? Sufficiently Advanced Aliens are a pretty common trope in SF in general and Star Trek in particular, and a lot of them claim and appear to have 'evolved beyond the need for physical bodies' (which is not how evolution works, of course). OTOH, Space Gods showing up can be pretty annoying, and if not handled well, can ruin people's fun (though on the gripping hand, the same is true of gods in fantasy games, and some GMs and player groups have no problem handling that). So, this one is another 'more optional than usual' post. If they do exist, the easiest justification in the Psionics rules is Astral Projection. If you have Astral Travel 6, you don't technically need a biological body (replace 'Projection, -50%' with 'Always on, -50%,' with no need to recalculate the price). Those that interfere in the physical world most likely have high levels of Barrier Breaking, or at least Cross-World Communication... or they replace 'Always on, -50%' with 'Usually on, -40%,' and/or 'Substantial Communication, +40%' with 'Affects Substantial, +100%.' Such beings could have massively powerful psychic abilities - or might just be really good at psionic illusions of various types. The ones with massive powers are a good answer for who it is that moved ancient humans and other creatures from Earth to worlds many parsecs (or kiloparsecs) away - that may be too much like Johnny1A.2's Eldren, though. Another option is some form of ergokinetic 'biology,' which may be a result of organic life with highly advanced ergokinetic abilities creating self-maintaining ergokinetic bodies for themselves, or a result of experimentation with ergokinesis. It might even be the result of natural evolution (as in, they were made of 'energy' all along), but that's pretty strange (then again, they might consider life made of matter to be pretty strange). Perhaps the 'energy beings' are only called that because they exist as highly-sophisticated software, possibly in extra-dimensional computers. Each of these types of energy beings could plausibly all exist in the same setting, or only one, or neither. All of them are reasonably good candidates for our version of the Preservers, though on the other hand, the Preservers could simply be regular Ancient Aliens. Thoughts? __________________ Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. Last edited by Prince Charon; 09-15-2019 at 08:56 PM.