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fandomhigh2011-01-12 12:46 pm
on-her-korhal.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2011-01-12 12:46 pm
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The Science of Psionics, Wednesday
"Today, we're getting the less flashy topic out of the way first," Kerrigan began, as soon as everyone was seated. "Back on the first rungs of the psi scale, though we're obviously not adhering to that slavishly. Last week, a lot of you brought up powers that didn't classify easily on the scale: you all have a dash of this, a dash of that, a variation of this..."
She almost smiled. But not quite. "We're going to be talking about the up-to-fives. Wranglers, clairvoyants, precogs. People who have enough power to get a little bit of a feel for something, but who usually aren't powerful enough to start rooting around in brains, or throwing stuff around." Beat. "Those are technical terms. You can quote me on that."
(She was joking around, this time. This wasn't Tactics class.) "Or, as we call them back home, 'sense psionics'. Now, for most of you, like it is for me, having psionics is a case of genetic inclination. You all have a gene or two that has been 'toggled' - barring those of you who have no powers - to let you use your senses in a different way. Sense psionics are kind of the halfway point in that. Everyone's best guess back home is that using psionics produces what we call 'alpha waves'. Anyone with a psionic ability can pick up on those, as long as they're sensitive enough. The best Ghosts can identify a fellow telepath with a glance."
"At the very lowest rungs, at least back home, they manifest as simple headaches. The part of their brain that has a sensitivity to power notes its kin, but doesn't manage to do more than agitate some pain receptors higher up in your skull. This is a by-effect that sometimes even carries on to more powerful psionics, who can get massive headaches if they use their power."
She glanced around the room. "Which gets us to clairvoyance," she said, "Sensing things that are contemporary to us, but not available to the human senses, so to speak. It's another type of sensitivity to the psionics around us, to the alpha waves. A clairvoyant can briefly sense 'imprints' on the world. Ghosts, for example. Most people who exhibit clairvoyant behaviour tend to have powers so limited they can't access them until they go into trance - their mind can't handle the info when they are awake."
"Finally, precogs are a little trickier, and if you ask me, at the most powerful end of the spectrum. Maybe even spiking above our under-five designation. To see the future, you have to be pretty damn receptive to it, if it is even really possible. Many events of the future are still unwritten, after all. It's probably something to do with space-time, the idea that space and time are wrapped up into each other: powerful psionic imprints from further over in the timeline get 'folded' across ours, leaving those capable of catching the vision with both a headache and a brief feel for the way things are. I can't say a lot of research has gone into this, though, because visions are unpredictable, and easily mixed-up in dreams."
A beat. Then she added, wryly, "Plus, they have limited military application."
Which kind of explained everything, back home, though Kerrigan was... interested in it, herself. She had been bothered by omens and visions herself for quite a while, now; her zerg devouring the galaxy, then standing idle, screaming in their own minds as the Dark Voice's whisper became over-powering and the zerg-protoss hybrids destroyed them all, and then darkness, vacuum-- thinking maybe even uncomfortably of Zeratul's words, 'Yours is not the hand, but your very existence provides necessary instruction.'
But that was her own cross to bear - although she hoped this class might stumble upon something she could use. "That's what I know," she said. "Since this class is not about the flashy stuff, I suggest we go for a non-flashy, boring activity. You guys all pull up a chair in a circle, and inform the group of what experience you might have had with sense psionics, or what you might have read about it. Talk to each other. See if you can't figure out what scientists haven't just yet."
She almost smiled. But not quite. "We're going to be talking about the up-to-fives. Wranglers, clairvoyants, precogs. People who have enough power to get a little bit of a feel for something, but who usually aren't powerful enough to start rooting around in brains, or throwing stuff around." Beat. "Those are technical terms. You can quote me on that."
(She was joking around, this time. This wasn't Tactics class.) "Or, as we call them back home, 'sense psionics'. Now, for most of you, like it is for me, having psionics is a case of genetic inclination. You all have a gene or two that has been 'toggled' - barring those of you who have no powers - to let you use your senses in a different way. Sense psionics are kind of the halfway point in that. Everyone's best guess back home is that using psionics produces what we call 'alpha waves'. Anyone with a psionic ability can pick up on those, as long as they're sensitive enough. The best Ghosts can identify a fellow telepath with a glance."
"At the very lowest rungs, at least back home, they manifest as simple headaches. The part of their brain that has a sensitivity to power notes its kin, but doesn't manage to do more than agitate some pain receptors higher up in your skull. This is a by-effect that sometimes even carries on to more powerful psionics, who can get massive headaches if they use their power."
She glanced around the room. "Which gets us to clairvoyance," she said, "Sensing things that are contemporary to us, but not available to the human senses, so to speak. It's another type of sensitivity to the psionics around us, to the alpha waves. A clairvoyant can briefly sense 'imprints' on the world. Ghosts, for example. Most people who exhibit clairvoyant behaviour tend to have powers so limited they can't access them until they go into trance - their mind can't handle the info when they are awake."
"Finally, precogs are a little trickier, and if you ask me, at the most powerful end of the spectrum. Maybe even spiking above our under-five designation. To see the future, you have to be pretty damn receptive to it, if it is even really possible. Many events of the future are still unwritten, after all. It's probably something to do with space-time, the idea that space and time are wrapped up into each other: powerful psionic imprints from further over in the timeline get 'folded' across ours, leaving those capable of catching the vision with both a headache and a brief feel for the way things are. I can't say a lot of research has gone into this, though, because visions are unpredictable, and easily mixed-up in dreams."
A beat. Then she added, wryly, "Plus, they have limited military application."
Which kind of explained everything, back home, though Kerrigan was... interested in it, herself. She had been bothered by omens and visions herself for quite a while, now; her zerg devouring the galaxy, then standing idle, screaming in their own minds as the Dark Voice's whisper became over-powering and the zerg-protoss hybrids destroyed them all, and then darkness, vacuum-- thinking maybe even uncomfortably of Zeratul's words, 'Yours is not the hand, but your very existence provides necessary instruction.'
But that was her own cross to bear - although she hoped this class might stumble upon something she could use. "That's what I know," she said. "Since this class is not about the flashy stuff, I suggest we go for a non-flashy, boring activity. You guys all pull up a chair in a circle, and inform the group of what experience you might have had with sense psionics, or what you might have read about it. Talk to each other. See if you can't figure out what scientists haven't just yet."
Re: Talk to the TA