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fandomhigh2011-01-05 10:33 am
on-her-korhal.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2011-01-05 10:33 am
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The Science of Psionics, Wednesday
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! ]]
"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."
[[
Re: Introduce Yourselves
"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
Re: Introduce Yourselves
Which, after all, were two very different things even if her mind was involved in both ways.
"I was unsure of how that would--rank."
Re: Introduce Yourselves
Re: Introduce Yourselves
The fact that her superior and the rest of her family's superiors were different didn't take away from that.
"I hope to be," she said, a bit muted. After all, she hadn't done anything yet for her new boss. "There's little point in being a useless tool."
Re: Introduce Yourselves
But she was also fairly sure they had already had this conversation before... and she really didn't care enough to have it again.
Re: Introduce Yourselves
Obviously this teacher didn't give a fuck.
"Yeah," she said, "whatever."