Psionic Powers Suggestion Überthread

[Butterrobber202]

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. We could say Wizards are the only real masters of psionic power. Ninjas use a combination of Bluespace and Technology to create psionic like effects. If this is a detection squad, Wizards should be adept enough to be able to mask their signature and the Ninja ones might not even show up due to its technical nature. Then allow “approved persons” to maybe allow them to use psionic abilities on Normal antags.

EDIT: I mentioned Wizards and Ninjas because some of those abilities would make for some pretty dank moves on their part. Perhaps Vampires as well

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I originally took the ball of psionics and attempted to roll with it, and within nanoseconds it had been kicked away from me as an angry horde mauled me on the spot. This suggestion by Lordfowl is very similar to my original push, which would have ideally been the concept for a new Persistent Event similar to the antag contests' of the past.

In my original pitch all of the crew would be rank 0, but over the course of time random crew would be given the prompt on if they want to unlock their pisonic potential and move up to be an initiatiate. We would have a Psi Officer who's sole job would be to find these people and suppress their psionic talents, because we definately don't want randos to have these abilities. I also wanted the psychologist to be a low level psion who could use his abilities to diagnose all sorts of brain shenanigans as well as act as a remote source of methyl, or even end seizures and brain trauma.

But regardless of the final forms, the biggest hurdle I faced was the fact that people do not like it when their characters are told how to feel. Mind control is a complete non-starter for canon rounds. These abilities would be great for traitors, but there is a lot of resistance to that primary aspect. There is also the argument that psykers and psions are not suitable to our setting, to which I sort of disagree with but i can see the merit of that argument.

[Kaed]

Suggestion and mind control abilities should remain firmly in the realm of antagonists. Non antagonist psionics should only be able to do low-level things, like make someone have a case of the giggles, or some other emotional manipulation that is very small scale and only valuable for role-playing purposes.

[Asheram]

To be frank, I wouldn't mind seeing an antagonist "Rogue Psyker". It sounds like it'd be the more subtle and stealthier version of a Wizard round. And the Antag in question could be starting on station.

[Zundy]

- Make it so psionics require an implant to function or some tech gismo a la system shock 2. That way it can be tied to a job.

- Antags could buy a hacked version which is more powerful with their Tele crystals.

- You could summon a spooky version as cult for spooky mind shenanigans.

- Skrell could have some intrinsic powers like reading if some one is in pain and communicating with each other mentally with clarity and perhaps with other species vaguely perhaps jumbled like a whisper or just literally "feelings" (you sense X is scared/angry/ready to get wet).

Don't make this a persistent "I am a psionics person" thing as it either suddenly makes it super common and therefore bizzare or rare and "my special character" tier. Also no god damn grimdark black vanning of psionics, I can see the usual suspects who actually decry the idea of making the Aurora "grimdark" pushing for warhammer 40k levels of "suppressing muh psykers who can destroy world's" which is a key part of the setting which birthed the term "grimdark". Keep it low-key to players and go loud only for the antags. No permanence, it's either to rare for it or "low-key everyone can have it" imo.

[EngineersDream]

I have doubts that giving these abilities to the average crewmember makes sense. There are, of course, OOC issues, but my main issue is an IC one. Mainly I believe that it would make little sense that NT would deploy a person with psionic abilities to be a janitor or even an engineer when their talents make much more sense in a more specialized field. So even if a crewmember's powers awoke during a shift, the likelyhood of them returning to the station would be very small, in my opinion. I'd find it more likely that NT would scoop them up at the Odin and train them for something psy-related.

For Antags it makes sense, could be great fun, but for the average Crew I have a bad feeling about it.

As for implementation: I don't know, but I though I'd give my feedback regardless. Can't complain afterwards if you say nothing early on.

[Fairness and Honor]

My general concept of this would be different, a player would be allowed to have one character with psionic sensivity, which allows them to sense other psions, their abilities can increase to small levels when distressed, so a injured psion could do something like slam a person to a wall at the cost of feeling great pain and being weakened, people who have "awakened" their psionic powers by being on a situation of distress are tracked by research and catalogued, they can also be part of research that lets them use their psionic powers without side effects, BUT ONLY FOR THE ROUND, all sensitive characters can only sense across rounds, awakening it is round only and doesn't transfer.

Skrell would be able to sense the emotions of other people (their intent) without awakening their psionic powers.

There could also be a command role that needs a whitelist that can use psionic powers without awakening them and without bad effects, their psionic abilities would be mostly things like getting a message when someone dies or when the cult uses runes, or inducing feelings on other characters.

[DiscountDan]

Well, I'm certainly late to the party. I think, personally, I would like to see Psionics on Aurora. Now of course, I read through the powers presented. While I love the idea of them, I personally think that it'd be best to start with basic abilities as a whole. Psychokinesis, i.e. lifting objects, a sort of Empathy (to detect people), and various other smaller abilities, and allow someone to progressively expand upon the strength of the smaller abilities. The problem I present, however, is that these sorts of things might lead to people becoming rather powerful. However, I've noted that someone in R&D for example, can get things such as energy glaives, force gloves, and other things to bolster their powers. In that case, R&D naturally has Security to constrict the average researcher from becoming a powerful warrior who validhunts antags. So, being a HRP server, it would likely be in our best interests to:

One: Add in a job that works to monitor the Psionics on a station (has been mentioned)

Two: Create rules in IC and OOC on Psionics in the workplace (has been mentioned)

Three: Make it in such a way that if it does get used in a bad way, admins can see it and take action to stop it (hopefully has been mentioned)

Four: Be lore friendly (has been mentioned?)

Five: Be limited to simple abilities for players, and anything such as mind control, or stronger forms of psionics that are obviously pretty hefty be left to antags. So I'd say that telekinesis, telepathy, empathy (perhaps a name for being able to detect lifeforms, and psionic healing be the main focal points of normal players. Perhaps they have ways to make their abilities stronger, but not through easy means, and overall it's something that is kept an eye on.

I trust Aurora's community to be able to RP psionics correctly. I've been on SS13, particularly /tg/station and Goon for a long time, which I've seen act unruly at times. Despite that, I see the good in people, especially Aurora. I trust the admin team to be able to enforce rules for it efficiently, and I trust the lore team to, well, lore it up. I don't particularly see an issue with this, other than perhaps the occasional summertider or greytider attempting to take advantage of it, and then promptly getting into trouble for it.

Now, if I had any feedback of my own? I think Psionics should be monitored IC by some new job in Medbay. I think it shouldn't be based on a tier system either, and perhaps based on certain people being limited to certain Psionic abilities. For example, if one person is capable of Psychokinesis, they shouldn't also be a telepath. Now, perhaps the job in Medbay could have an ability to suppress this power with medical procedures, or technology of the sorts. However, suppression would not be necessary unless the user uses their psionics to break Corporate Policy, and maybe the Medbay job has the ability to, much like a forensic technician, check for psionic residue of sorts to see if it was used in the area, thus allowing them to put two and two together. Overall, I think this can work if people simply keep a close eye on it, and roleplay properly. In addition, I think it'd be nice to see a test run of it, at the very least. We can't know for certain unless it's attempted. We can postulate, and postulate, but the best form of testing is to jump right in. I know not if I can +1 this, so I'll just throw my thoughts out there and see if anyone bites. I'd hate to see an idea die out like this.