[Psi/Space] Irar, the Jewel in the British Crown

[Inky]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Psionics and the Law: Uncontrollable Abilities

This will probably be a series of posts, but psi abilities that go off against the users' wishes seem like a good place to start. On Irar, the standard is that anyone who possesses an Uncontrollable psi ability that a reasonable person would expect to be harmful to self or others must carry a psychotronic device (supplied at government expense, as long as you aren't found to have destroyed or 'lost' a previous one intentionally) which provides control or suppresses that ability; they are also offered training or psychological help (again, at government expense if not abused) to train in control (buy off the limitation). Laws basically like this have been adopted by the UK, the USA, Japan, and many other nations, though the details often differ.

Hmm. I'm not sure how utopian/light-hearted this setting was expected to be. The laws adopted by the Earth nations might well say that, but it sounds a little utopian for that to be necessarily how it works in practice.

At the risk of getting close to real-life politics, if it went anything like normal mental health services, in practice it might be psychotronic suppressors straight away, thus getting the immediate risk out of the way, and training some time, maybe, in theory, with a waiting list several years long. (Especially if the Conservative Party were still in government at the time). Though maybe if the UK was striking it really rich due to the alien technology, they might be this lavish!

This might be useful for plots - it would provide an excuse for a character to have Uncontrollable psi abilities and have been unable to get training yet and thus be able to use them only by disabling her suppressor at the risk of Uncontrollable happening. (Not sure off-hand how you'd stat an ability that can be either off or Uncontrollable).
It also seems likely that both governments (e.g. military) and private companies would run schemes where they'd provide private training for free to psis who signed up to work for them - again providing plot.

The USA providing free anything seems even less likely on the face of it :-D But they might splash out for this if they really wanted more psis - especially since the UK has access to better psychotronics than them so the USA might be in danger of getting left behind on psis.


In a more utopian scenario where the training genuinely is readily available to anyone who needs it, if a PC wanted their character to have Uncontrollable abilities (e.g. for reasons of cheap) they might just be a novice psi who'd only just started lessons.

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Some countries on Earth have begun using the psi drug Reminder (link to Psi Drugs article) to suppress psi abilities (some limiting it to those with Uncontrollable abilities, or criminals, some just trying to suppress psi in general), despite the long-term side effects being unknown. Others are not using it for this, or perhaps at all, because of the unknown long-term effects, and the availability of safe and reliable mitigating devices.

Copied here for convenience:

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

* Reminder (not from the book) is a Gormel-native drug often used on prisoners, which in hominins grants Eidetic Memory for the duration of effect, and a +1 bonus to IQ skills that do not involve abstract thinking, but also gives a -2 penalty to skills that do involve abstract thinking, and a -4 penalty to all psi skills

Well - ouch. Yes, it sounds like there'd certainly be trouble if any government tried to use that in general, especially if there was any attempt to give it to under-18s. What did you mean by "abstract thinking", specifically? Imagination? Generalising from specific things? Or something else?

Originally Posted by johndallman

If these can be incorporated into smartphones, lots of people who don't need them will nonetheless carry them. The street-credibility appeal of "I have dangerously uncontrollable psi powers" among young men will be huge.

I hadn't thought of this, this is hilarious :-D and sounds like something that might happen. Possibly even more so if it is a collar or wristband or something more obvious and distinctive than a smartphone. And heavy metal bands might wear fake psi-suppressors on stage for shock value.

We have to wear these because the government fears our powers of ROCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!