Remember that yes the psionic suppression is a real thing, it very strictly enforced. That doesn't mean that imperial psions don't exist (publicly they dont), they just arnt a thing to 99.999% of the population. They belong to the Corps now, with mnemonicly enforced conditioning that if triggered activates some sort of kill device. Psioncics too dangerous to run free, too valuable to not have.
Imperial Psionics IMTU
- Thread starter ottarrus
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
There should be two formal institutes for psionics left within the Imperium, besides the ones funded by the Imperium's covert agencies:
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
Hogwarts
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
Hogwarts
IMTU, I deal with the Love/Kill relationship my version of the Third Imperium has with Psi talents
Oddly enough, In our past two sessions, one character has just undergone "Tolerance training" because she was beginning to suspect a crew member of being a psion.
If you want to see how handled it, check out the after action reports:
http://www.usedstarships.com/Hist_184_questions_answers_decisions.htm
http://www.usedstarships.com/Hist_185_recovering_reorganizing.htm
Also,
@ottarrus :
The Psi Institutes on Regina and Terra were relocated for safety.
In my research, I found the Regina institute was relocated to Wypoc, and under the cover an Imperial lab working on improved Haz-Env suits.
I have not found clues to where the Institute from Terra was moved?
Oddly enough, In our past two sessions, one character has just undergone "Tolerance training" because she was beginning to suspect a crew member of being a psion.
If you want to see how handled it, check out the after action reports:
http://www.usedstarships.com/Hist_184_questions_answers_decisions.htm
http://www.usedstarships.com/Hist_185_recovering_reorganizing.htm
Also,
@ottarrus :
The Psi Institutes on Regina and Terra were relocated for safety.
In my research, I found the Regina institute was relocated to Wypoc, and under the cover an Imperial lab working on improved Haz-Env suits.
I have not found clues to where the Institute from Terra was moved?
Midnightplat
Banded Mongoose
Imperial lab working on improved Haz-Env suits would be a good front for a Institute that doubled as a materials research facility looking into substances that can block or enhance psionic abilities, gear you can teleport with, etc. Those in the know are aware of developments in so-called "sympathetic materials".
It hasn't got running, but I worked up a pair characters with some eventual players, one rolled psionic and we interpreted her SOC and noble rank as being a member of a well regarded "fashion house", and aside from representing the family label, she has a side agenda to do psionic haute couture that would involve hunting psionic megafauna and has a sort of Ahab bent about her. Her partner, with a ship, was an aspiring xenoveternarian whose plans were upset by draft resistance ... and will likely not be cool about the intended quarry of the big hunt her survey ship's been hired for.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
@Marc
I'd read that too, but that doesn't mean that the Institute [now under Navy control] didn't leave behind a few psions as instructors to keep an eye out for personnel who might fit the bill for training. A lot of authors have hinted at Imperially-authorized psion organizations, from the Order of the White Star /Order of Arbellatra to Omicron Division in MgT's Ancients series.
My IMTU take on the whole Imperial psion thing is very low-key. To whit:
- Psions are not recruited to invade minds or any of the other Dark Imperium violations. First and foremost, psions are usually serving officers who have been indoctrinated in loyalty to the Imperium and the Iridium Throne and the ethics of Imperial Naval service. They are as trustworthy as a human can be without Zhodani Tavrchedle' intervention;
- Psions are given a free and informed choice to be a psionic officer. Once tested, they may choose to be trained or they can have limited lobotomy that renders them 'non-psionic'. After psionic training their career is in the Intelligence field with detailing as INI officer. As career Intelligence officers, it is highly unlikely they will ever get command of a ship and/or reach flag rank.
- Given the rarity of authorized psions, such officers are sent where their talents are needed. Telepaths and clairvoyants are usually given investigative assignments, teleporters usually get retrieval jobs, etc. Most of the time, these assignments are not on fast-promotion tracks.
- Psion officers are monitored the rest of their lives. In the Spinward Marches, it is Station Wypoc's policy to install a chip in psionic officers that has a timer. If the timer is not annually reset the chip shorts out the frontal lobe... with predictable results.
I'd read that too, but that doesn't mean that the Institute [now under Navy control] didn't leave behind a few psions as instructors to keep an eye out for personnel who might fit the bill for training. A lot of authors have hinted at Imperially-authorized psion organizations, from the Order of the White Star /Order of Arbellatra to Omicron Division in MgT's Ancients series.
My IMTU take on the whole Imperial psion thing is very low-key. To whit:
- Psions are not recruited to invade minds or any of the other Dark Imperium violations. First and foremost, psions are usually serving officers who have been indoctrinated in loyalty to the Imperium and the Iridium Throne and the ethics of Imperial Naval service. They are as trustworthy as a human can be without Zhodani Tavrchedle' intervention;
- Psions are given a free and informed choice to be a psionic officer. Once tested, they may choose to be trained or they can have limited lobotomy that renders them 'non-psionic'. After psionic training their career is in the Intelligence field with detailing as INI officer. As career Intelligence officers, it is highly unlikely they will ever get command of a ship and/or reach flag rank.
- Given the rarity of authorized psions, such officers are sent where their talents are needed. Telepaths and clairvoyants are usually given investigative assignments, teleporters usually get retrieval jobs, etc. Most of the time, these assignments are not on fast-promotion tracks.
- Psion officers are monitored the rest of their lives. In the Spinward Marches, it is Station Wypoc's policy to install a chip in psionic officers that has a timer. If the timer is not annually reset the chip shorts out the frontal lobe... with predictable results.
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Midnightplat
Banded Mongoose
Curious if your Navy has a protocol in place if the Psion Officer encounters previously unknown Psions? What is the Navy Psion expected to do?
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
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ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Thinking of all this, I think I should mention that a potential candidate wouldn't be told about INI or psionics for their initial interview.
Before the candidate is even interviewed would be a vetting process where the family background and other records are thoroughly checked and verified. The candidate is observed through most of their Academy education checking 'suitability' and, after their Midshipman Cruise [about halfway through their senior year], this is when the offer is extended.
After Midshipman's Cruise, every cadet is interviewed by officers of all the branches of the Naval Service. It is at this point that the psionically gifted are interviewed for possible assignment to INI. Once the candidate graduates and is commissioned, the candidate is offered psionic training and the full magnitude of the commitment is explained. At that point, the candidate has done the traditional 'volunteer three times'... once to serve the Imperium in the Navy, once during their oath of allegiance as a commissioned officer, and last to undergo 'special training' for an Intelligence assignment.
Before the candidate is even interviewed would be a vetting process where the family background and other records are thoroughly checked and verified. The candidate is observed through most of their Academy education checking 'suitability' and, after their Midshipman Cruise [about halfway through their senior year], this is when the offer is extended.
After Midshipman's Cruise, every cadet is interviewed by officers of all the branches of the Naval Service. It is at this point that the psionically gifted are interviewed for possible assignment to INI. Once the candidate graduates and is commissioned, the candidate is offered psionic training and the full magnitude of the commitment is explained. At that point, the candidate has done the traditional 'volunteer three times'... once to serve the Imperium in the Navy, once during their oath of allegiance as a commissioned officer, and last to undergo 'special training' for an Intelligence assignment.
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Well,
Yes, there may be psions on Regina and Terra, but "'known, trained and serving" psions would IMO (and IMTI) be there hunting for threatened psions and getting them out of those systems.
In the meantime, those psions (and non-psions) who had been part of the institute would be in danger of being recognized and outed by those who knew what they did before the institute was forced under ground.
Also IMTU, I have IRIS per DGP.
IRIS was first formed to find a legitimate heir to the Iridium Throne by Arbellatra(as Regent).
They became experts and following the most tenuous threads of genetics.
So, when Paula II was succeeded by those rulers who followed her, they had a ready-made, "Report to the Emperor ONLY" organization working mostly in the shadows.
So...
Now, you have them look for any genetic traces of known psions, even if the specific known Psi-talent were killed off during the Pis-suppression wars. They are aware that being caught, or accidentally outing located talents, or genetic carriers, would be bad for their careers and continued survival...
So, IRIS is out there supporting the stability of the Imperium in various ways, one of which is hunting down and saving psions in order to build up a psionic service.
It will be some time before that service starts to bend to the vices of sophonts and we end up in a PsiCorp (Babylon 5) situation, but my player's characters will be long dead before that happens..
@Midnightplat
No, this is not trusted to the Navy, since many of the Nobility have their proteges and distaff family off "earning the family glory" in the Navy.
In the OTU years between Norris being named Arch Duke, Grand Duchess Delphine certainly had agents within the Navy reporting to herself and her people.
This is the reason, as stated above, that I chose IRIS. They are a less impeachable organization than the Imperial Navy.
And, they can better play the "The Emperor sent me" card.
No, this is not trusted to the Navy, since many of the Nobility have their proteges and distaff family off "earning the family glory" in the Navy.
In the OTU years between Norris being named Arch Duke, Grand Duchess Delphine certainly had agents within the Navy reporting to herself and her people.
This is the reason, as stated above, that I chose IRIS. They are a less impeachable organization than the Imperial Navy.
And, they can better play the "The Emperor sent me" card.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Well, my version of 'authorized psions' is that they are not just assigned to the psion training centers /institutes /whatever. They're out with the Fleet serving as intelligence officers at bases scattered far and wide. Mostly they'll be assigned to the Reserve Fleet at the Subsector level. The logic of that is that battleships tend to deploy as squadrons, either as a group or heading a task force of cruisers. Nobody with ill intent is gonna mess with that force package if they can possibly help it. The numbered Reserve Fleets consist mostly of patrol assets, the ships that get out and about and are detailed to 'keep an eye on things'. They're MUCH more likely to get a whiff at corporate or criminal mucking about than battle squadrons are.
As for being 'psi-sniffers', there is certainly a task group in each subsector to watch for such activity... ESPECIALLY in the Spinward Marches and Deneb Sectors. IMTU that's a joint task force of Navy and IMOJ agents who have authority to investigate possible psionic incidents and deal with them.
When called for authorized psions are added to investigative teams as an 'INI Specialist'. They often have special directives from the Big Picture intell types as well as the Little Picture duties to 'this investigation right here'.
Changing the subject to IRIS, I really liked that idea too. It always seemed to me that for a polity with as many enemies as the 3-I had its intel apparatus scattered all of the place in parochial mini-empires.
Midnightplat
Banded Mongoose
I think the way I'd address something like IRIS in the context/world developed in this thread so far is that IRIS may claim, and may even be declared from the throne, to be the "premier" agency tasked with let's call it psion affairs; but that doesn't mean other entities with intelligence components (military, law enforcement, economic/treasury and pvt/corporate) will simply let the matter rest on that proclamation and put all trust in IRIS. IRIS's mandates are in line with those of contemporary national security agencies in our world. How supreme the exercise of those mandates is varies from country to country. In a structure as large as the imperium there's lots more room for compartmentalized programs that may seem to challenge the IRIS mandate; but, from the point of view of the entity hosting the program, such programs serve a vital need to further the hosting entity's service to the empire. In the USA, the CIA since its inception butted heads with the intelligence offices within the military branches, who were always butting heads with each other already plus the former war then defense dept.'s intelligence agency, and state dept during peacetime. Add a National Security Council and a National Security Advisor to the mix; and let's add a bunch of new agencies like the NRO, FinCen, DEA with a bunch of other preexisting DOJ and Treasury agencies also getting into the intelligence racket. Things get redundant and competitive, and if you think the post 9/11 realignment of all this under the Directorate of National Intelligence (who reports directly to the Executive) really cleaned things up in the world that exists outside of an org chart on a powerpoint slide ... well, I haven't even really touched on the private sector entities servicing these intelligence apparatuses, but I'll just say intelligence games are almost by nature tedious, and that level of verisimilitude doesn't always make good game at every table, though mine at least indulges me.
So, sure, in the default Traveller Imperium, with its psionic legacy, some agency is going to be designated the lead/point agency on the matter. The Emperor may treat IRIS as their most trusted source on psion affairs. An older institution like the Navy may not extend the same level of trust and develop its own sources on psion matters, including its own psions. An advisor to the Emperor may be officially required to take briefings from IRIS, but that Advisor may be former Navy and may well call upon what the advisor deems more trusted sources, and respectfully offer that perspective to their Emperor.
So, sure, in the default Traveller Imperium, with its psionic legacy, some agency is going to be designated the lead/point agency on the matter. The Emperor may treat IRIS as their most trusted source on psion affairs. An older institution like the Navy may not extend the same level of trust and develop its own sources on psion matters, including its own psions. An advisor to the Emperor may be officially required to take briefings from IRIS, but that Advisor may be former Navy and may well call upon what the advisor deems more trusted sources, and respectfully offer that perspective to their Emperor.
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I think we're talking apples and oranges here, and it may be my fault.
I may not have made it clear but I was specifically speaking about recovering, safeguarding and co-opting psions.
Once they are identified and safely recovered, "where they end up" is a question of how they accept their situation and 'chose to' or 'are allowed to' serve.
That said, my opinion remains that the hidden "Wypoc campus" remains an Imperial safe facility for the Psionic Institute evacuated from Regina.
It remains there, because:
1) Wypoc's atmo is acidic/caustic, so no one will just be "wandering around" there.
2) It is registered as an Imperial research facility (Ostensibly, researching newer and better Haz-Env suits for the Imperial Marines) so no one is just gonna go there to ask for a job, or to look around, or to write a news item for TAS News. They are _All_ gonna call first and set up appointments.
So, it is safe to place underground facilities beneath the "research lab" and let those there carry out their work.
Beyond that, IRIS was the best organization I could choose to use from the book sources, since I play close to the GDW/DGP universe.
So, that's my choice.
Because their primary mission was genetic in nature, then hunting down the descendants of known psions, this made sense. Working to recover any confirmed genetic strand related to a family that spawned psions in the past, they could infiltrate anything from a gene-bank to the Imperial version of "23 and Me" to carry out their work while remaining almost entirely out of sight.
As you said, "once they are trained", they can chose (or be steered to) service in any organization from the various Imperial military services to the Imperial Science organizations if not choosing to try and find a civilian role in which to hide their talents while benefiting those they serve. The song "Annie's Luck", by Dr. Catherine Fabor comes to mind. The "story" in that song is of a ranger and 'as-needed' wilderness rescue worker who it turns out is a telepath. So, she has a "knack" for finding those lost or injured in time to save them. Of course, that song is based in the babylon 5 universe, so the conflict is that PsiCorp has detected and are coming for her.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
@Marc
I agree with much of your premise here. I think we're using two different routes to come to the same conclusion.
I agree that Station Wypoc's job is to screen, recruit, and train psions for Imperial service. But as we both know, there are a lot of people who would balk at working for a shadowy government agency and of those who are both talented and willing to serve there is gonna be a significant percentage who don't cut the mustard for a host of reasons... a lack of loyalty none the least. The LAST thing the Imperium wants to do is serve as a Psionic Criminal Academy
My original post was about a psionic military intelligence officer but there are obviously LOTS of different roles a psion can play in Imperial government. A psionic IMOJ officer [a Deputy Colonial Marshall for example] would be an interesting character.
I do want to point out that all canon sources state that psionic aptitude [as mechanically represented by a character's PSI score] completely random. Even Zhodani Nobles are born with a SOC of 13 and a PSI of 4. Psionic ability doesn't 'run in families' nor is it predictable despite thousands of years of research searching for some predictive factor. And if the Zhodani haven't discovered it, the Imperium definitely hasn't.
I don't think IRIS as an agency is 'official'. It came from a Challenge article written by Charles Gannon back in the day, and there have been a several attempts at gaming an 'Imperial Secret Service' over the years. I really do think that some kind of 'Imperial CIA' where intel from all sources is gathered, analyzed, and acted upon is necessary, but OTOH I also see the Emperors and the Moot being uncomfortable with some sort of Imperial Ministry of Very Bad Things pulling the strings of power in the background. At least the Navy has to be a lot more visible.
I agree with much of your premise here. I think we're using two different routes to come to the same conclusion.
I agree that Station Wypoc's job is to screen, recruit, and train psions for Imperial service. But as we both know, there are a lot of people who would balk at working for a shadowy government agency and of those who are both talented and willing to serve there is gonna be a significant percentage who don't cut the mustard for a host of reasons... a lack of loyalty none the least. The LAST thing the Imperium wants to do is serve as a Psionic Criminal Academy
My original post was about a psionic military intelligence officer but there are obviously LOTS of different roles a psion can play in Imperial government. A psionic IMOJ officer [a Deputy Colonial Marshall for example] would be an interesting character.
I do want to point out that all canon sources state that psionic aptitude [as mechanically represented by a character's PSI score] completely random. Even Zhodani Nobles are born with a SOC of 13 and a PSI of 4. Psionic ability doesn't 'run in families' nor is it predictable despite thousands of years of research searching for some predictive factor. And if the Zhodani haven't discovered it, the Imperium definitely hasn't.
I don't think IRIS as an agency is 'official'. It came from a Challenge article written by Charles Gannon back in the day, and there have been a several attempts at gaming an 'Imperial Secret Service' over the years. I really do think that some kind of 'Imperial CIA' where intel from all sources is gathered, analyzed, and acted upon is necessary, but OTOH I also see the Emperors and the Moot being uncomfortable with some sort of Imperial Ministry of Very Bad Things pulling the strings of power in the background. At least the Navy has to be a lot more visible.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Well, certainly IF there are sanctioned psions IYTU, there would be role for them in organizations like Omicron Division.
Unfortunately, it would be a Very Bad Thing to be a psion if one was confronted by an Ancient...
BTW, the character generation for Psionic Jarhead is up if you're interested.
Unfortunately, it would be a Very Bad Thing to be a psion if one was confronted by an Ancient...
BTW, the character generation for Psionic Jarhead is up if you're interested.
