Psionic and Genetic (and storms): seriously, when?

[Thiend]

I believe they were referring to the "you must make a Faustian bargain with the Shroud entities and also simultaneously worship your powerfully-psionic, but otherwise fallible, ruler as a god-emperor, or else be weak" aspect as being specifically dystopian and from WH40k.

Whether or not psionics is often a bit dystopian in other franchises (since mind powers have lots of nasty implications) is sorta irrelevant compared to the stuff directly cribbed from the franchise so over-the-top that a short quote from its intro ("grimdark") has become shorthand "needlessly bleak, edgy, and dystopian".

That said: I've read plenty of books where psionics and mind magic were powerful tools that were capable of being used for either good or evil.

I think it's partially a matter of what it lends itself to naturally, and as a baseline being able to manipulate or detect thoughts is pretty dystopian if you don't go out of your way to do something else.

It's also narratively difficult to make the POV characters capable of reading thoughts and still have any interesting mystery, intrigue or conflict. I'm reminded actually of Star Wars, which goes out of its way to make sure every single important character is immune so the story doesn't fall apart.

Basically it's just way easier to make a genuine psychic evil, because if they're capable of doing almost anything along those lines it's really hard to make them the good side and not also make a completely boring story. Stellaris doesn't have that problem, but its also a lore made of 90% references so it inherits the result.

 

[HFY]

I think it's partially a matter of what it lends itself to naturally, and as a baseline being able to manipulate or detect thoughts is pretty dystopian if you don't go out of your way to do something else.

Psychics & Psionics in various media and games could mean a lot of different things. Telepathy and telepathic manipulation aren't the only meaning.

It's easy to build a Jedi who has precognition & telekinesis -- two very "psychic" powers -- but never learns the Jedi Mind Trick™ ability (which is a suggestion effect but not mind-reading).

Precognitive Interface hints (through flavor) that Stellaris psionics might be more about precognition than mental manipulation.

Though I guess with sufficient precognition, you could learn what to say to someone to change their mind ... but that's not quite as sinister as just changing their mind directly.

 

[Abdulijubjub]

I think it's partially a matter of what it lends itself to naturally, and as a baseline being able to manipulate or detect thoughts is pretty dystopian if you don't go out of your way to do something else.

It's also narratively difficult to make the POV characters capable of reading thoughts and still have any interesting mystery, intrigue or conflict. I'm reminded actually of Star Wars, which goes out of its way to make sure every single important character is immune so the story doesn't fall apart.

Basically it's just way easier to make a genuine psychic evil, because if they're capable of doing almost anything along those lines it's really hard to make them the good side and not also make a completely boring story. Stellaris doesn't have that problem, but its also a lore made of 90% references so it inherits the result.

That's the case when they're extremely powerful and there are no passive barriers to psychic powers (no mental walls, no way to resist a psychic or detect subtle influences). But the same is true of pretty much anyone with absolute power of any kind (fictional or not): absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Lots of franchises have restrictions like "nothing but surface thoughts can be read without great concentration and very obvious intrusion", "actually influencing someone's mind without being noticed (so they can e.g. retaliate if not restrained) requires extreme subtlety and misdirection, like secretly manipulating someone for weeks under the guise of nightmares", "minimal training or even just strong willpower can give someone mental resistance, possibly ironclad against anything but brute force", "minds are resilient and bounce back to their natural state fairly quickly, unless the influence is reinforced for months", etc.

The result is that villains can use mind magic to directly coerce people they could have coerced anyway (legions of troops that feel no fear replacing forced conscripts, mind controlled heroes after being abducted/tortured), incapacitate (or briefly dominate) people, etc. and good/neutral characters can use it for things like determining if someone is telling the truth (or demonstrate their own truthfulness), ulta-mega-therapy, communicating ideas/memories or sharing senses, far/future sight, etc.

Ex. James Cameron's Avatar effectively has psionics... it just requires that you literally plug one mind into another through the nerve-tentacle-thingy, so it's hard to use unless consensual (except when taming animals). And it's not even remotely evil, or at least not portrayed that way.

Or Valdemar series (YA fantasy novels, by Mercedes Lackey), where 90% of the mind magic is done by the good guys, and it actually manages to not be secretly sinister, because (essentially) everywhere that mind magic training is available also has anti-mind magic training (and actual domination is apparently only possible with the addition of conventional magic and physical torture).

I think it's only easier to make the psychics evil if the psychics are absurdly powerful compared to the average person. Because it's really hard to not make someone with absolute power vaguely villainous, in general.

 

[Arduunos]

I dunno, as a Star Trek fan, saying that "psionics in scifi is always evil/eldritch/malevolent" is pretty wild. Vulcans don't worship malevolent entities or use their psionic abilities for dystopian purposes. In the books, they even expand on this to make explicit that the fact Vulcans feel each other's emotions is a huge motivation for why they've embraced peace and logic. The books also make logic into more of a nondual, compassion-based, Buddhist-esque religion. The Talosians are powerful psions, and a little bit alien morality, but ultimately their powers ends up used for "good" to help their Human charges. Psions going evil is a morality tale about absolute power, not evil gods. And any time a species turns out to be psionic, it's a function of their own biology, not the work of an eldritch horror. Trek's "godlike aliens" are more akin to the energy species that the devs are considering making than they are the Shroud entities. Since it's obvious that Stellaris is drawing some inspiration from Star Trek (UNE and CM, the Klingon and Vulcan portraits, etc.), this fantasy being missing is a little bit strange. Stargate, Star Wars, Escape to Witch Mountain, most superhero stories... all examples of scifi with psionics that has nothing to do with eldritch horror.

 

[Jay Sherman]

(Psionic robots are one of SF fantasies).

Commenting so I get notifications but I'm very interested in good and diverse examples of this specifically, and of psionics in general, in any kind of media.

I think no one has mentioned yet the Foundation saga, in which

Spoiler

we have an autoritharian, most powerful psychic, ruler in the Mule, but the second Foundation seems less concerned with total power, and more so the third faction from Foundation's Edge.

 

[Geodynamis]

I believe they were referring to the "you must make a Faustian bargain with the Shroud entities and also simultaneously worship your powerfully-psionic, but otherwise fallible, ruler as a god-emperor, or else be weak" aspect as being specifically dystopian and from WH40k.

Whether or not psionics is often a bit dystopian in other franchises (since mind powers have lots of nasty implications) is sorta irrelevant compared to the stuff directly cribbed from the franchise so over-the-top that a short quote from its intro ("grimdark") has become shorthand "needlessly bleak, edgy, and dystopian".

That said: I've read plenty of books where psionics and mind magic were powerful tools that were capable of being used for either good or evil.

Like Star Wars. They weren't shy about drawing from it in other elements, but The Force is not with psionics currently.

 

[cryptkeeper]

Your statement probably says more about your taste in science fiction than about psychics in science fiction.

Like, there are a bunch of well-known film, television, and video game interstellar-space-traversing science fiction works that feature non-horror, non-malevolent, not-primarily-empathic psychics (and psychic-adjacent folks).

I have wide taste of sci fi, I didn't say there was no series where psionics were not used in a non dystopian way. Just that in general there is more dystopian stories or at the very least stories where people misuse their power for domination ,then with using psionics to make a utopia or ones that only use them to help others, please don't twist my words.

I believe they were referring to the "you must make a Faustian bargain with the Shroud entities and also simultaneously worship your powerfully-psionic, but otherwise fallible, ruler as a god-emperor, or else be weak" aspect as being specifically dystopian and from WH40k.

Whether or not psionics is often a bit dystopian in other franchises (since mind powers have lots of nasty implications) is sorta irrelevant compared to the stuff directly cribbed from the franchise so over-the-top that a short quote from its intro ("grimdark") has become shorthand "needlessly bleak, edgy, and dystopian".

That said: I've read plenty of books where psionics and mind magic were powerful tools that were capable of being used for either good or evil.

It is obvious they were more inspired by warhammer , then say insert other psionic scifi , starwars, startrek, akira,foundation,earthbound. But can we at least acknowledge psionics is more often then not, is used as a device to show the flaws of human character. which in general leads to things like Faustian bargains, or authoritarian actions. So I understand how the stellaris developers came to make the current system, I agree however in the next iteration they should expand it to include other visions and fantasies with in sci fi that concern psionic powers.

I dunno, as a Star Trek fan, saying that "psionics in scifi is always evil/eldritch/malevolent" is pretty wild. Vulcans don't worship malevolent entities or use their psionic abilities for dystopian purposes. In the books, they even expand on this to make explicit that the fact Vulcans feel each other's emotions is a huge motivation for why they've embraced peace and logic. The books also make logic into more of a nondual, compassion-based, Buddhist-esque religion. The Talosians are powerful psions, and a little bit alien morality, but ultimately their powers ends up used for "good" to help their Human charges. Psions going evil is a morality tale about absolute power, not evil gods. And any time a species turns out to be psionic, it's a function of their own biology, not the work of an eldritch horror. Trek's "godlike aliens" are more akin to the energy species that the devs are considering making than they are the Shroud entities. Since it's obvious that Stellaris is drawing some inspiration from Star Trek (UNE and CM, the Klingon and Vulcan portraits, etc.), this fantasy being missing is a little bit strange. Stargate, Star Wars, Escape to Witch Mountain, most superhero stories... all examples of scifi with psionics that has nothing to do with eldritch horror.

Vulcan's are barely psionic and are closer the limited kind in stellaris. The books are not cannon even though they are fun, its been explictly stated in the show they a limited psionically and generally have to touch the person to use it. Better example of good psionics in star trek are the Betazoids or Ocampa. But even they have example of individuals using it for evil. In general though even in star trek more stories then not are are about people misusing psionics then using them to help people. But conflict is often what propels stories so that maybe the reason for this lopsidedness even in star trek, which in general is a more utopian then dystopian.

While I do agree psionics are at the moment too married to the whole dystopian aspects. In stellaris psionics are directly connected to the shroud which in of it's self is connected to the physical world effecting it negative ways as seen in the zroni lore. Here is a short lore video on it.

 

[Tannhäuser Cake]

I could easily see it as something (very vaguely) akin to agendas's launch mechanic, where you can delve on a regular basis for free, but can pay extra to go early. Essentially: it has a cooldown, but unity production effectively translates to cooldown reduction.

But outright removing the cooldown in favor of a big unity cost would be brutal for empires that don't excel at unity production, and make delving a "run through all the events until we have all the buffs up for the next 10 years" thing for empires with strong unity production.

I agree though, without going TOO in-depth because it's likely the rework is mostly set in stone already, shroud delving being like agendas would probably be good. I wouldn't want an empire with strong unity production to just delve at-will, because that reproduces a lot of the problems psionic currently has in making it favor certain choices so much that making different ones leaves it pathetically weak (in this case, if delving at will with unity is an option... that's necessarily going to mean not doing that is weak, or doing it is too OP. I feel like a broken record saying that all the time with stuff like this and Cordyceptic Drones but... it's true).

Entering the Shroud could be changed into a Special Project, that costs Unity rather than Research, and where the cost depends on the time passed since the last entry (and where a new entry removes any current temporary modifiers from the Shroud). The cost could then start at 0 for the current spacing, and increase for shorter intervals.

Alternatively, the Situation system could also be used. That could perhaps also allow us to choose between either shortening the delay between entries, increasing the chances of success, neither (no cost), or both at the same time (biggest cost).

Both the Special Project and Situation variants would also feel more natural than the current design, which places the Shroud in the diplomatic contacts list - where it, in my opinion, feels like clutter that is out of place.

(Death Cults could also get a new type of sacrifice that further speeds up Shroud entries and increases the chances of success.)

 

[Jay Sherman]

In stellaris psionics are directly connected to the shroud which in of it's self is connected to the physical world effecting it negative ways as seen in the zroni lore.

Everybody knows you never go full zroni

 

[Nevars]

But outright removing the cooldown in favor of a big unity cost would be brutal for empires that don't excel at unity production, and make delving a "run through all the events until we have all the buffs up for the next 10 years" thing for empires with strong unity production.

Nah I'm all support the removal of cooldown in lieu of unity cost because if the dev will still insist that the shroud is simply gacha then I should just be able to bruteforce for specific SSR or even all of them by being a Whale as all gacha game are.

The reason why shroud is so poor as a mechanic is because they don't committed to one direction enough, they aren't being gacha like mechanic enough so you can't raise your chance just by pulling more cuz cooldown exist and they are not just standard powerup like other ascension so it's not a garanteed and will likely miss thus you will get nothing.

Anyway I'm against there being non-authoritarian (specifically non-imperial) option for psionic because egalitarian already hyper buffed so there being a trade off such as being suboptimal for one of ascension paths is good enough and thematic especially when authoritarian (specifically imperial) being punished for going cybernetic or synthetic cuz their advance gov is incredibly weak.