Thinking about the psionics in my comic
May. 29th, 2005 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesPart of designing a magic system for a universe is figuring out how one gets magic. Psionics is just magic with scientific-sounding mumbo-jumbo attached to it. So, this is what I have so far. C&C welcome.
Psionics is a skill, just like math, a sport, or a musical instrument. In other words, there is a level of talent to it (Which comes both from genetics and from enviroment), but it is far more about hard work. And it is hard work -- most psis start learning it at age 3-5, but only start manifesting real powers around age 12-14 or so. Most people aren't willing to put the effort into learning psi unless they are talented at it (it's like one of those things middle aged people regret later in live 'I wish I stuck with the cello, I wihs I didn't give up writing, I wish I hadn't decided psionics made my brian hurt.') Pretty much anyone can learn some of it -- holding a minimal shield or a psychic link in place, or letting one's mind be used in gestalt (one average person might not be very powerful at telekinesis, but they are a lot more common than TK weightifters). Still, there are a few psis who have no real innate talent, but make up for it in determination -- they are usually not the most powerful, but have the most skill at using what they have. I think I might make Miklin or Aris like this -- both ahve a gifted older sibling, and would stick at it just to prove a point. Or even Phillee (Riki's not -- he needs to be hit with a cluebat that says 'Psy talent isn't everything', whcih I intend on doing) -- the woman isn't an exceptional psi for a Starsailor, but she is damn clever about things, and knows a lot about how the mind/brain works.
Actual psi teaching depends on the tradition you follow. The Starsailor method is the most common, simply because it is one of the few that does not come with much of a philosophical/religious base, and it's very good at picking up things from other traditions. There are a few problems with it -- you very rarly get savants (high-power psis) in it, and a few things (like psysense and psychokinetic abilities that aren't telekinesis) aren't covered well (psysense because it's damn difficult ot train it without accidentalyl blinding oneself wiht one's own teleapthy, and psychokinesis, because Starsailors labour under the belief that it is related to mentla illness, so they don't really want to poke around with it). There are other traditions -- I have a feeling many more mystically-inclined religions/philosophies on Earth and off took to it well. (I'm thinking that centers for Earth-derived psi methods are on the coasts of the US/Canada and in East Asia (possibly including India), while the Starsailor method is more popular in Western Europe. I'm not sure how Latin America and Africa would react, and I have a feeling that if the future Middle East is anything like the current Middle East, they won't care for it much)).
This means Alri's even more shortchanged as a Darynese, because the Darynese psy-tradition has died out on all but one planet they colonized, and the one planet is generally seen as a group of people who are culturally distinct. Darynese are funny -- they are worse than humans about wanting to assimilate into a group, then exclude all alien ideas. It's a bit of a survival trait -- they live on a barly-habitable rockball of a planet, so if you find a group that's doing well, you want to learn what they are doing and stuck to it.
Anyhow, that means most Darynese see psionics as an alien traditon, don't see their tales of mystics as the same thing at all, and so on. So, it's very difficult to get psi tutoring even for the basics. So a Darynese psi is like finding a math genius in a Third-World country. For every one that makes it, there's another 100 learning their father's trade because that's all they can really afford to do. Riki learnd from an offworlder who knew his mother. I think Alri learned some of the basics from some of the humans she interacted with, but never formally.
I also think that the one planet that hasn't forgotten has used that to keep trade agreements with Daryn lucrative in their direction. Riki's mother's more liberal policies towards both trade and psionics is cutting them off. Which will be important later.
Melody's backstory is also mutating, because it was first concieved when I was in high school and stupid.
Psionics is a skill, just like math, a sport, or a musical instrument. In other words, there is a level of talent to it (Which comes both from genetics and from enviroment), but it is far more about hard work. And it is hard work -- most psis start learning it at age 3-5, but only start manifesting real powers around age 12-14 or so. Most people aren't willing to put the effort into learning psi unless they are talented at it (it's like one of those things middle aged people regret later in live 'I wish I stuck with the cello, I wihs I didn't give up writing, I wish I hadn't decided psionics made my brian hurt.') Pretty much anyone can learn some of it -- holding a minimal shield or a psychic link in place, or letting one's mind be used in gestalt (one average person might not be very powerful at telekinesis, but they are a lot more common than TK weightifters). Still, there are a few psis who have no real innate talent, but make up for it in determination -- they are usually not the most powerful, but have the most skill at using what they have. I think I might make Miklin or Aris like this -- both ahve a gifted older sibling, and would stick at it just to prove a point. Or even Phillee (Riki's not -- he needs to be hit with a cluebat that says 'Psy talent isn't everything', whcih I intend on doing) -- the woman isn't an exceptional psi for a Starsailor, but she is damn clever about things, and knows a lot about how the mind/brain works.
Actual psi teaching depends on the tradition you follow. The Starsailor method is the most common, simply because it is one of the few that does not come with much of a philosophical/religious base, and it's very good at picking up things from other traditions. There are a few problems with it -- you very rarly get savants (high-power psis) in it, and a few things (like psysense and psychokinetic abilities that aren't telekinesis) aren't covered well (psysense because it's damn difficult ot train it without accidentalyl blinding oneself wiht one's own teleapthy, and psychokinesis, because Starsailors labour under the belief that it is related to mentla illness, so they don't really want to poke around with it). There are other traditions -- I have a feeling many more mystically-inclined religions/philosophies on Earth and off took to it well. (I'm thinking that centers for Earth-derived psi methods are on the coasts of the US/Canada and in East Asia (possibly including India), while the Starsailor method is more popular in Western Europe. I'm not sure how Latin America and Africa would react, and I have a feeling that if the future Middle East is anything like the current Middle East, they won't care for it much)).
This means Alri's even more shortchanged as a Darynese, because the Darynese psy-tradition has died out on all but one planet they colonized, and the one planet is generally seen as a group of people who are culturally distinct. Darynese are funny -- they are worse than humans about wanting to assimilate into a group, then exclude all alien ideas. It's a bit of a survival trait -- they live on a barly-habitable rockball of a planet, so if you find a group that's doing well, you want to learn what they are doing and stuck to it.
Anyhow, that means most Darynese see psionics as an alien traditon, don't see their tales of mystics as the same thing at all, and so on. So, it's very difficult to get psi tutoring even for the basics. So a Darynese psi is like finding a math genius in a Third-World country. For every one that makes it, there's another 100 learning their father's trade because that's all they can really afford to do. Riki learnd from an offworlder who knew his mother. I think Alri learned some of the basics from some of the humans she interacted with, but never formally.
I also think that the one planet that hasn't forgotten has used that to keep trade agreements with Daryn lucrative in their direction. Riki's mother's more liberal policies towards both trade and psionics is cutting them off. Which will be important later.
Melody's backstory is also mutating, because it was first concieved when I was in high school and stupid.
