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

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

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"Probably in the bottom ranks of the Teep end," Kerrigan observed. "A five, maybe a six, though the applications of touch telepathy are probably a little different from what we're used to." She tilted her head. "So it's a part of your basic genetic make-up?"

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

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"Ah, our first civilian expert." It was hard to tell from Kerrigan's tone whether she approved or not. "Ever run into anything interesting?"

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

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

She didn't sound too sure, no, but it did pique Kerrigan's interest that she even went that high; she didn't sound overconfident. "Do your abilities grey into telekinesis in some form or another?"

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

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

She might have sensed a brief flutter going past her mind, though Kerrigan didn't push. Yet. "Don't lie to my face, miss McGee," she said, "Not even by ommission. Why don't you think you qualify?"

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

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"In a roundabout way, probably somewhere in the Teep range," Kerrigan said, with interest. If very detached interest. "Probably high up, if it's not just passive. Emotions can say as much as stray thoughts..."

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

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"And you still can't talk," Kerrigan summarised, though she didn't sound like she was trying to mock him. "You have any skills that make your placement on the scale... problematic?"

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

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"You're young," Kerrigan pointed out, evenly. "And given proper training, a good Teep can bash down a bad Teek any day, Frost."

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

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"Active, but not passive?" Kerrigan said, sounding... curious. "I don't think I've ever encountered anything like that before. Is it a recent development? You said 'almost'."

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.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"So that would be a PI of 7 or 8 for animals," Kerrigan said, "But not for human beings. Interesting. Is it something about their genetics?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[furnaceface]

Jono gave his toe a scuff against the floor. Right, then.

//Jonothon Starsmore. Mutancy runs in my family, but I'm a bit off, even for a Starsmore. This is my only way of speaking, just so that nobody here thinks that I'm showing off or some such garbage.//

He shrugged a little.

//Where I do place, and where I... could, I suppose... are a little different. I only really use my powers to rank me about an eight.//

But considering the fact that the fire in his chest was pure, raw psionic energy...

He shrugged.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"But you have the potential to go much higher than that?"

Oh, sure. Get the zerg's attention, Jonothon.

"You practically look like a protoss," she added, thoughtfully. "Maybe given a certain amount of psionic power..."

She trailed off. Her brain had been shot full of inhibitors from a young age, so she was more than well-versed in all the reasons why people had their powers clipped, or even chose not to use them. That was not the interesting question.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[glacial_queen]

"I'm Karla and my people, the Blood, have had access to Craft for hundreds of millions of years. I'm an eight, though, like Charlie, I have abilities that might push me beyond it?" Karla didn't sound entirely certain. "I don't know if we're counting Craft in with psionics. But I can communicate telepathically, I can call and vanish objects, I can float items, I can create fire, I can create energy whips or attack via bolts of energy..." she faltered, realizing she was getting perilously close to babbling. "And some other things, too," she finished lamely. Because that was informative. "I belong to the Black Widow caste back home and we're mind-Healers, which is the closest way I can think to describe some of what we do."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"And does all of it tie in with your Craft?" she asked. "Are they interconnected, or are they different disciplines?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[momslilassassin]

"I'm Ben Skywalker," Ben said, "and the term we use at home is Force-sensitive. Most of us have abilities in telekinesis," except for poor Master Horn, but he can sure make you think he moved the hell out of that rock, "but telepathy--at least the ability to get across very specific thoughts and ideas--is generally beyond our abilities. We can judge by emotions, and if you know someone well enough, it can almost seem like you're reading their mind depending on who's writing us, but we can't relay directions or anything like that. I guess I'd rate at about a six or seven on the chart, if I reverse telekinesis for telepathy?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[aliceseesthings.livejournal.com]

"My name's Alice Cullen," she began. "My background in psionics... well. I see the future, my brother reads minds, and my boyfriend's an empath."

Well, close enough.

"As for where I rank... solid 4, maybe 5."