Psionics in the 3rd Imperium
It has been more than 300 years since a failed experiment in guiding the Imperium by media manipulation caused a wave of anti-psionic hatred to sweep through the Imperium. The experiment was immediately terminated, but still the fear and hatred persist, despite the lack of further encouragement.
The reason for this is that the present situation is self-sustaining. There have always been those who feared and distrusted psionics, and since the suppressions there are no counterbalancing voices to be heard. Even in the days when psionic powers were legal, there was always a temptation to misuse them and people ready to seize on and decry such misuse. Nowadays, with the forces of order unable to use psionic powers to guard against abuse and adepts unable to use their powers for legitimate purposes, the temptation is much, much stronger. If you criminalize psionic powers, only criminals will use psionic powers. Thus all that the public hears about psionics is when yet another criminal has been caught abusing his powers.
Recruitment
Psionic organizations and anyone who wish to exploit psionic adepts face one great problem: how to locate potential recruits.
At the onset of puberty, individuals with latent psionic power will often manifest spontaneous flashes of psionic activity. Sudden insights into other peoples’ thoughts, small items moving themselves, temperature shifts, etc. Most manifestations are minor and usually dismissed by both the psionic himself and his surroundings. But someone who knows what to look out for and who is on the lookout for them may spot these symptoms and realize that the subject in question is a latent psionic. Unless encouraged, the symptoms tend to disappear after a few months. A few latent psionics realize that something odd is going on and start to experiment. (This will count as training for the purposes of preventing deterioration of latent power and will begin to develop effective power.) Mostly they are found out along the way and dealt with by the discoverer (either turned over to the authorities, exploited, or protected), but a very small percentage manages to remain undetected and to develop their powers on their own. Such self-training is the only way a latent psionic can develop without outside help.
A full test of psionic powers takes two weeks at a fully-equipped psionic laboratory, but there is a quick test that can be camouflaged as a physical scan of some kind. It is not completely reliable, but it does catch about 80% of all people with latent powers above five and effective powers of any magnitude. In addition about 5% of those who don’t have any powers at all will give a false positive result.
The Teachers
While psionic potential is a matter of genes, the realization of such potential requires training. In CT the only source of training was a Psionic Institute, but there are other sources available. A GM could regard the term ‘Psionic Institute’ as a catch-all for a wide variety of different organizations and individuals.
To determine the nature of a trained psionic’s teacher, select from the table below or roll 1d twice and take the lowest result:
1 Non-psionic criminal
2 Psionic criminal
3 Agency
4 Patron
5 Support network
6 Mentor
Non-psionic criminal: Criminal gang leaders are always on the look-out for psionic henchmen because psionics are useful in many criminal endeavors. Unfortunately, most gang leaders fear and distrust psionics almost as much as they desire the unique assistance they can get from them. Consequently they try to exercise tight control over their psionic helpers, leading them a miserable life. A psionic who has a past with a criminal gang will often have either a criminal record (necessitating a false identity) or an enemy (the former gang) hunting him, or both.
Psionic criminal: Because of the fear and distrust with which psionics are regarded by most criminals, they rarely rise to lead their own gang. The rare exceptions make excellent bosses for other psionics, because they can read their henchmen’s thoughts and know that they are trustworthy. A well-led psionic criminal gang is a fearsome thing, but its very success tends to attract attention, leading to eventual exposure and destruction and the dispersion of those gang members lucky enough to escape the dragnet.
Agency: Military organizations don’t publicize it, but practically all of them run the quick psionics test when examining prospective recruits. Psionics are barred by Imperial edict from serving in any military in the Imperium, be it planetary, subsector, or regular. Those who register on the psionics test are usually refused for some reason other than the true one. But their names are secretly passed on to one intelligence service or another (usually one affiliated with the recruiting military service). And a few months later they are approached discreetly with a recruitment offer they had better not refuse. In some cases they are recruited and allowed to complete their military training, then transferred to a unit that isn’t what it appears to be.
Most psionic agents are not detected until after their 18th birthday. Their latent psionic powers will therefore have gone down by one.
Psionic agents are treated relatively well by their patron agencies, but are subject to extra surveillance because they are vulnerable to blackmail and, well, because non-psionics tend to distrust them. They seldom rise to high rank, remaining field agents throughout their careers. After serving 20 years without messing up, they are allowed to retire. They get a fake service record and are left to their own devices – though always subject to being pressured into taking on another mission, if someone in the agency feels a pressing need for help.
Their veteran status serves ex-agents as a mantle of protection. If the local authorities begin to suspect that they may be psionics, the fact that they are former “team players” will often make the authorities overlook it – as long as they keep their heads down, their noses clean, and don’t make waves. [Rewrite]
Former agents sometimes move elsewhere and assume new identities, especially if they decide to have children, since children of ex-agents are routinely tested by their former agency and forced to join if they turn out to have useful psionic abilities.
Patron: Many members of the upper class, from Imperial and local nobles to millionaire commoners, want psionic minions and they’re not about to let a silly law stand in the way of their wishes. A rich patron can afford to pay “talent scouts” to track down and hire psionics and to pay for their training, and can protect them against official scrutiny – as long as the psionics serve their patrons faithfully.
Support network: In many cases neither the psionic strength nor the talents of a psionic show any correlation to those of his parents. The offspring of two strong telepaths could have any strength between 2 and 12 and any talents. There’s just no telling (Ordinary CT characters all fall into this category). But there are some families where psionic talents run strong. Children in such psionic families consistently have high power scores (CT referees who wish to introduce such families into their campaigns can simulate this by having special die rolls for psionic powers, such as “1d+6” or “2d, reroll all 1s and 2s” or “2d+3, capped at 12” associated with each family; different families may have different die rolls). There are even rumors of families where scores above 12 occur on rare occasions. In these psionic families the grandparents often taught the parents who, in turn, will teach their children. In time, if they remain undetected, such families grow large and may come into contact with other psionic families, forming a secret community, referred to obliquely as ‘The Family’, ‘The Clan’, ‘The Kindred’, ‘The Community’, etc.
Psionics from such a background will tend to have Ally and/or Dependents (spouse and children), Patron or Ally Group (the family), Duty and Sense of Duty (to the family), and Secret.
Mentor: A mentor is a lonely trained psionic who discovers a youngster with a latent talent and attempts to alleviate his loneliness by mentoring this youth. Someone who was trained by a mentor may have him as patron or ally, or he may have lost all contact with the mentor.
