Telepaths vs. Shadows
- Thread starter E Nicely
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lastbesthope
Mongoose
Lowly Uhlan said:
No such animal I'm afraid. We only see Telepaths in Starfuries (telepaths fly Black Omega Starfuries, at least officially) on a few occasions. Here's all I can remember off the top of my head for now:
1) Bester comes to B5 and is discovered by Sheridan whilst testing the T'bolts. No combat ensues.
2) Byron is out with a group of Black Omegas when Bester orders him to fire on the ship (and destroy it) that had a blip on board but had surrendered the blip and was no longer a threat. Byron was 'persuaded' by the fact that every other Black Omega was turned to fire on him. And anyway "They're only mundanes!"
3) A group of Black Omegas is sent to attack one of the blockades around the jump points leading to B5 and have the attack blamed on B5 to discredit them during their secession from the Earth Alliance. B5 is tipped off by Bester (who also sent the attack on Clark's orders) so he gets their help with Carolyn (his lover with the Shadow implants in her). Ivanova leads a wing of B5's Furies and sees off the Black Omegas, saving the Earth Furies.
"Rumours of our disloyalty have been greatly exxagerated!"
4) During the Season 5 episode "A view from the gallery" Byron telepathically projects one of the two maintenance chaps (the tall dark one, I can't remember if it is Bo or Mac at the moment) into the cockpit as a pilot of the Starfury. He sees the carnage that is space combat and realises he really doesn't want to be out there after all.
As far as I know that's all that's close to telepath combat in Starfuries.
LBH
B5 Ubergeek
ShadowScout
Mongoose
Telepaths do fight Shadows, but never in Starfuries.
In "Ship of Tears" Besters presence on the WhiteStar scares off a ShadowShip, but he does no fighting (the WS shoots down a few ShadowFighters, but without teepy help).
In "Walkabout" Lyta is the first telepath in B5-era history to attempt (and succeed - barely; as she hasn't yet accessed her enhanced powers at that point) jam a ShadowShip from a WhiteStar, and three Minbari teeps jam three more ShadowShips from a Sharlin.
And in "Shadow Dancing" we see Minbari teeps jamming ShadowShips from the relative safety of their Sharlin again (and how that safety is not so relative when dealing with Shadow Slicer Beams).
I suppose that in the big battle seen in "Into the Fire" there were also teeps jamming ShadowShips, but we don't see them.
After that time there are no more ShadowShips around to jam.
And thought logically, if you had teeps that could jam shadows, you'd be stupid to put 'em in Starfuries where even a lowly ShadowFighter could take them out of the fight with one blast from it's Polarity Cannon; you'd put them on your biggest and best defended ships - even if those defenses can't hold off a true ShadowShip, it will at least keep your teeps relatively safe from all the smaller ShadowVessels.
Now... following AoG rules it would be possible to do a fight of a Black Omega starfury flight, every fighter with a telepath as pilot against a group of ShadowVessels. And I suppose if they were to jam their opponents, they might even be quite effective - as long as they can kill the enemy before they can no longer jam them (then it becomes a simple "ShadowFighters against Starfuries", with predictable results barring too good luck with the dice).
But in the big picture it would be a stupid idea, since in most fleets you have a rather limited number of telepaths (like, one teep per 5 big ships or so) - and it'd be dumb to put them in fighters where they could be killed soo easily.
One thing that I have wondered is what effect a less powerful telepath would have. Could a P3 or so have enough of an effect to degrade the Shadows targetting, especially the fighters without living CPU's? It might make for an interesting mechanic where a telepath pilot has an edge with the Shadows, even if they can't jam them.
Matt
Matt
A
Anonymous
Guest
Don't forget the begining of Mindwar when 3 Black Omegas try to stop Ironheart and are destroyed by him.
Jamming should be a P5 level ability (see also Mindwar) since that is what Ironheart taught at the Psi Corps Academy to P5 and above.
Jamming should be a P5 level ability (see also Mindwar) since that is what Ironheart taught at the Psi Corps Academy to P5 and above.
A
Anonymous
Guest
crizh said:
MIND SHIELD :!: :!: :!:What are you smoking???
Jamming puts out a field of Telepathic Silence that makes it harder for other Telepaths to use their abilities. They may not even realize that they are being jammed as in when Bester was being jammed by Lyta when he and the BloodHounds were looking for the Rouge Telepaths.
A Mind Shield is a personal thing that only affects the Telepath.
Jamming = Field of effect
Mind Shield = Personal
The fact that Ironheart was teaching that skill to P5 through P10 means that a P5 can do it. Maybe not as powerfully as a P10, but it could affect another Telepath.
I was in Radio communications in the US Army and I know that when you are being jammed, you can change frequencies or apply more power to cut through the jamming. A Telepath cannot change frequencies, so a more powerful Telepath can cut through.
A
Anonymous
Guest
Jamming is amongst the skills that Jason taught to a group ranging from P5 to P10.]
Correct. Ironheart taught fringe skills to telepaths. Jamming was only one of them.
Correct. Ironheart taught fringe skills to telepaths. Jamming was only one of them.
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