The Science of Psionics, Wednesday

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

The classroom they found before them was stark, and probably not unfamiliar to anyone who had taken Kerrigan's classes previously. The woman herself stood at the front of the class, arms crossed, waiting impassively until everyone had entered and the door had been closed.

"Frost," was the first thing she said, "You're my teaching assistant this term."

A beat.

Then: "As for the rest of you, I am Lieutenant Sarah Kerrigan. Chances are if you're here, you have some level of psionic ability, so before you ask: I got captured by aliens once. They tried to mess with my biological make-up. Most of it's back to normal, but I'm keeping the bits that aren't shielded with my powers so nobody shits themselves. Don't go poking around."

No, seriously. That might end badly for you.

"Welcome to the Science of Psionics. Now, I'm sure every single one of you comes from a place where there's a different general word for these powers, so I'm going to kick off with the definition. Psionics is the ability and practice of using the mind to induce things that would be considered paranormal, such as telepathy and telekinesis. The nature of psionic potential can vary from species to species, individual to individual, and universe to universe. I'm not even pretending I know what all of yours are like, so I'll rely on you to be upright and honest about what you can do."

She gave a good bunch of people a look at that point. "But, since all things are fair, I'll kick off by telling you the story of my people's grasp on psionics. Now, we consider ourselves Koprulu Terrans, and not Earth humans-- we're basically all the product of a madman who shot forty-thousand people into space just to see what happened. As it turned out, a small percentage of those people had the first, genetic makings of psionic ability. In such a concentrated environment, that meant that after a couple generations of interbreeding, those skills were going to come out.

"There's still not exactly a giant bunch of telepaths and telekinetics running around. Most of them get snatched up by the military and loaded full of tech for 'safety'. Theirs or ours... well, I'll let you make that call. We get trained for combat, so most of our knowledge in the field pertains to that.

"To measure the ability of a psionic, we use the Psi Index back home."

She shoved a sheet onto the projector.

1-2 No psychic powers. Most humans.
2-5 Limited powers. Wranglers.
5-8 Telepathy. "Teeps". Most Ghosts fall between 5 and 6.
8-10 May have telekinesis. "Teeks". Extremely rare.

"There'll be a couple of you falling into the 1-2 category," she drawled. "Maybe a couple in the two-to-fives, too. Wranglers are near-teeps that can sense people with psi potential. So the military likes to use 'em to dig us up. Five-to-eight, usual range for military Ghosts, and then we have the rare ones. The eight-to-tens."

A brief pause.

"I'm not going to tell you where I rank," she said, "I'm just going to tell you that they reworked this entire system to fit my test readings." Her eyebrows went up in amusement. "Now, it's introduction day. I don't really care what class you're in, but I want names, a little bit of your background where it comes to psionics, and where you think you rank on the Psi Index. For as much as it'll even fit you guys."

"And finally, we're going to be playing a little touch-tag today. I'm going to tag one of you telepathically, that person tags someone else, and so on. If you don't have powers, use your fingers. If you're afraid you'll roast someone's brain, use your fingers. If you're afraid someone's brain will fry by touching yours, say something, you idiot. I want you all to get some measure of each other today."

[[ wait for the ocd up! ]]

Comments

Sign In

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

With your mind!

Re: Sign In

[eyebrowgoesup]

Spock

Listen to the Lecture

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

She likes to talk.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[eyebrowgoesup]

Spock listened carefully to the lecture, taking notes on his datapadd and inserting his own commentary on this system in relation to the one he was more familiar with.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

Scully was typing away on this, fascinated. She frowned a bit at the idea of people being 'outed' by Wranglers, whether they wanted to be or not. Not to mention the primary military applications.

The Consortium would love Kerrigan's world, she felt.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[intraspective]

Ino looked thoughtful, and tired, as she listened, but didn't bother taking notes. Other than the scale, none of it was really applicable to her and she doubted that Kerrigan would be quizzing them on her personal history.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[pyromanyac.livejournal.com]

Charlie had the feeling she should probably be trying to find somewhere to hide.

The Psi index didn't include 'making huge fires', which was understandable, but also worrying.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[trigons_child]

Raven listened to the lecture, becoming a little apprehensive about the "telepath tag." But Jono was presumably there, and that made her feel better. It also made her blush a little to think of her behavior Monday night.

She was definitely keeping those thoughts to herself.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[furnaceface]

Jono's gaze was pretty firmly fixed on his desk. He couldn't help it. Trying to place himself on that scale was easily enough accomplished, but then trying to explain why he acted as if he placed far lower was...

Well, in a classroom full of people with psi-capabilities, it was embarrassing.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[glacial_queen]

One of these days, Karla was going to figure out an easy way to encapsulate what she could do with Craft and be done with it. So after noting the scale (and a few of Kerrigan's personal details), she spent most of the lecture trying to figure out how to explain Craft quickly.

Re: Listen to the Lecture

[momslilassassin]

Ben was fascinated by the idea of someone trying to quantify powers. Jedi kind of winged it--using their feelings to assess the powers through the Force of those around them.

Introduce Yourselves

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Name, background in psionics, rank on the psi index.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[eyebrowgoesup]

"My name is Spock," Spock said, "and my species are touch telepaths. With the information given, I am not entirely certain where that ability would rank on this scale," he admitted, "though I would suppose it is logical to place it in the same range as unqualified telepathy." He was prepared to be wrong if the instructor disagreed with his assessment, however.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[showmetheproof.livejournal.com]

"Dana Scully. I've helped investigate incidents of alleged psychic powers, and I don't have any powers, so, I'd suppose a 1 or 2." Unless you counted intuition. And random visions of angels and demons. That lead to saving partners and at-risk civilians. Which, of course, was purely coincidental.

Right?

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[intraspective]

Ino chewed her lip, considering the index for a long moment. And how much she gave away.

"Yamanaka Ino," she said, finally. "Telepathy is very rare in my world. My family... bred it into our line in order that we could be more efficient spies."

A pause as she considered that list and tried to figure out where possession would rank her.

"A 7 or 8, I suppose?" Though that was a little dubious.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[pyromanyac.livejournal.com]

"Charlie McGee", and she would take a moment to carefully consider what to say next. "I might...not qualify in that index thing." Maybe Kerrigan would think she was just an average girl?

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[trigons_child]

"My name is Raven," she said when her turn came. "I am not a telepath, but I am an empath. I sense emotions, not the thoughts behind them, and I am able to affect those emotions. I do not know where that may fall on your scale."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[hotmugofstfu.livejournal.com]

Blackagar Boltagon, read the sheet of paper he held up. So-called psionics are not entirely uncommon to my knowledge, so I believe it best to learn what I can while I am here. I am unsure where I would fall on your scale.

Somewhere... Maximus was cackling madly. Probably not about this of course, but he was still cackling.

That weirdo.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[icecoldfrost]

"Emma Frost. Telepath - most likely a seven or an eight - and form-shifter," Emma said briskly. "So far, no sign of other psionic gifts."

She wanted telekinesis, dammit. It would make cleaning her room or doing laundry so much easier.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[onlymistaken]

Cally had, of course, met the teacher - and some of the students before, but not all, so she introduced herself as if she were a newcomer.

"My name is Cally; my people, the Auronar, are almost all telepathic now." She studied the screen, then added more hesitantly, "I imagine I would rate as a 5 on that range? I'm a strong projective telepath, but my people don't read minds. I do have some limited ability to sense thoughts and emotions, but it's very random."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[elephantgadget.livejournal.com]

"My name is Helen Haras-Uquara. I... am not certain where I would fall on your scale. I can touch most animals with my mind and make them listen to me and do what I want." She wasn't sure if she should mention about being able to change her right arm to anything she wasnted.

Telepath Tag

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Ping in here to be tagged by Kerrigan! Person who pings back to you gets tagged, and so on.

Re: Telepath Tag

[trigons_child]

Raven tried to relax her body and her outer shields, though she kept the inner ones up tightly to prevent anyone from sensing her father's presence in her mind during this game. She thought just a brief touch would be all right, and she didn't want to make a fuss about her mind possibly being dangerous, not with Jono and Karla -- and Emma -- there (for two entirely different reasons).

When she felt Kerrigan's "tag," she reached out with her empathic gifts to lightly brush someone else's mind with a warm feeling of contentment, hoping they'd recognize that touch as a tag.

Talk to the TA

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Once she's all settled in.

Re: Talk to the TA

[icecoldfrost]

Oh, Emma was all settled in, and quite smug at being chosen immediately, thank you very much.

Talk to Kerrigan

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

She's around, and slightly less harsh-looking than during her previous lecture series.

OOC

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

Wooo-ah.

Re: OOC

[trigons_child]

Did I do that tag ping OK?