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Originally Posted by Inky
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!
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The UK has the advantage of both having a lot of money coming in, and the Conservatives not realizing how little the Irari care about most government policies, and thus trying to put their best faces on for the aliens. They don't really figure it out to a meaningful degree until a later election has them out of power for a while.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inky
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.
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The less expensive sorts of suppressor (and thus the kind that you're most likely to get from most governments) do not have the ability to completely suppress the ability, only to stop it from going off outside the user's control (this is also why the CPD didn't just try using one on Conner Elias, above - along with not being able to get a court order for it). Damaged, poorly-tuned, or poorly-made ones might also provide a small skill penalty, make the ability Unreliable, or add some other limitation, but this is less common than the device itself getting a worse Malf number, and thus not always working. Damage to the device also has a small chance of setting off the Uncontrollable ability, even if the wearer does not notice the damage and is not under stress. (EDIT: The more narrowly-specialized a device is, the cheaper it tends to be, and 'Mitigator for one limitation on one ability, and must be attuned to the user in order to work right' is really quite specialized.)
The kind that shuts down specific abilities completely is expensive enough that you're much less likely to see it outside of prisons and eventually specialized police vehicles.
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Originally Posted by Inky
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.
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Exactly. Enlightened self-interest can be very effective, if the people in power are smart enough to acknowledge that concept.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inky
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.
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Yes. Alternatively, they might be from some place that doesn't have the budget to provide decent suppressors.
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Originally Posted by Inky
Copied here for convenience:
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* 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
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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?
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Good question that I'm not 100% sure of the answer to. 'Abstract thinking' was mentioned in relation to other psi drugs in
the book, and it made sense to use it here, as Reminder was inspired by that drug (Mind Hype, I think). I'm sure the author knew what was meant, though.
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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.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Inky
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.
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They can't be incorporated into most smartphones at TL8^, TL9^, or TL(6+3)^, and are usually meant to be recognizable, so that can happen. Unfortunately, them being recognizable, kind of cool-looking to humans, and moderately expensive if you're not getting it free (and it did not take long for the same sorts of people who make smartphone casemods to realize that there was a market in blinging them up, or making blingy fakes) means that muggers with poor risk-reward analysis - which would be most of them - started trying to mug people for their suppressors, fake or real. Being mugged is a rather stressful situation, exactly the sort of thing that sets off Uncontrollable abilities for which the suppressor has been removed...