Psionic Shield ability

[Fireflame]

Okay, simple question for my first post...

If a Psionic was to try and probe another Psionic who had his psionic Shield active, would he know straight away that he was being blocked?

I have an NPC who is trying to hide his psionic abilities - as they do - but don't want the Psion in the party to discover him before he needs to. If the psionic shield ability wont hide his abilities from another Psion, is there something that does?

FF

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

OOHHH Good Question!

Using Mongoose rules, I would say that depending on Effect of the blocking player, that would determine if they were detected as a Psion.

Non-Psionic people might have a natural block, thinking about repetitive nursery rhymes for example. If you allow things like that, then it might be possible for the Psion to know that his probe was blocked, but not be able to detect that the character doing the blocking was a Psion.

You might also handle it as a second roll. Say that the probe is successfully blocked, then the characters make another opposed roll to see if the Psion can detect that the player is a Psion as well.

 

[Fireflame]

MGT rulebook mention that a telepath would know if telempathy is being used to bend his emotions, but would a telepath know if an attempt is being made to read his surface thoughts?

Would the shield ability would either stop this completely or allow a contested check for the reading?

If a telepath could detect such an attempt, would someone protected by a psi-helm/implant/device notice the attempt as well?

I'm not actually running a psi heavy game, but just want to clarify for the ones present in the party.

FF

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I would say that a Telepath WOULD be able to detect that someone was trying to scan them. If they can detect Telempathy, they should reasonably be able to detect Telepathic scans.

Wearing a PSI Shield would NOT, IMHO, allow the wearer to automatically detect when they were being scanned. I see it more as a Telepathic White Noise being generated around the wearer. Rather, I would think that a Telepath would automatically be able to tell if someone is wearing a Psi Shield.

HOWEVER, if you envision your Psi Shields as being computer controlled, it is quite possible, that the computer would be able to detect variations in the shield force created by someone trying to scan through it and be able to alert the wearer; perhaps a discreet HUD light? Maybe this is better for a higher tech version of the shield.

 

[Fireflame]

Thanks Rikki,

Good point about the higher TL.

The shield is high tech and extremely small, I've allowed a device to deativate the shield temporarily, I guess it wouldn't be too hard to implement a field fluctuation detector that is rather specific.

I assuming that in neither shield type (psi or tech) there is a specified means to detect the source of the probing.

FF

 

[Klaus Kipling]

If the psionicist is to fool another psionicist that he is a norm then he'll need to have some fake or not so fake surface thoughts for the telepath to scan. Probably take some deep self discipline to separate thoughts like that.

A scanning telepath could quite easily be able to tell the difference between a null result (tin foil hat) and a block (psionic shields).

I think we need some official guidance regarding psionics, as right now it's a little vague about the nitty gritty (but then Traveller always has....)

 

[EDG]

IMO...

If a psion tried to read someone else's mind and couldn't detect anything then the psion would know there's blocking going on. Otherwise he'd be able to read every flitting surface thought that was there.

So if a psion was blocking his mind, he'd do well to make a 'cover' of normal looking thoughts to throw the other guy off the trail (like how people in the movies make a tape loop for the security cameras).

Also, only another psion would know that he's being scanned by someone. Normal people wouldn't have a clue.

All IMO.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Agreed. I would also think that normals would be able to train themselves to block telepathic scans: run nursery rhymes in their heads, keep their surface thoughts clear.

We don't want to call it Psi training, because that is a No No after the Psionic Jihad of the 800s, but essentially, your diplomats etc could be trained to block surface scans even if they were not fully trained Psis.

There are a lot of SciFi references to some normals being able to block telepathic scans.