"Psychic Powers on the Sci-Fi Battlefield" Topic

In a campaign involving humans or aliens with psychic powers, how would you see that impacting the battlefield?

Depends upon how powerful their psychic abilities are.

In the Space Opera rules, IIRC, they had snails that could debilitate their enemies with some sort of power. Can't recall if it was psychic abilities, or pheromones, but their opponents would be virtually defenseless, making them off-balance, dazed, and physically ill.

I think there were some defenses against that, if you had the right kind of helmets/gear, but it's been a very long time since I've looked at the rules.

Ideally, perhaps it would be best for them to have a more localized effect, rather than an operational, and/or strategic one, e.g. they can affect a squad or platoon of troops, but not larger groups.

You might want to read up on the Traveller, Zhodani as well, just for grins.

Maybe as individual attacks – the mental equivalent of a pistol being fired for example, or an personal 'thought' shield that stops one physical attack.

A lot would depend on the power too, but with only a handful of psychic powered individuals I imagine it would be down to the skirmish level rather than large masses.

Until a lot of psychics get together that is.

If the enemy psychics were powerful enough to 'blind' the minds of their opponents to any enemy presence, the enemy would merely have to walk up to them and kill them. I could see several armies or colonies being 'mysteriously' annihilated this way (before someone gets ahold of surveillance footage and figures out some of what is going on.)

Mako11 suggested the Traveller Zhodani, and I will add to that the Traveller. Having a crack commando platoon or company that can teleport behind enemy lines can cause all sorts of havoc. Even a small EMP can have devastating effects on a tech-heavy battlefield. Depending on the nature and the power of the psychic abilities involved will determine whether they belong at the skirmish or operational level.

Loss of activation for an enemy trooper or squad (call it confusion).

Trooper fires at a fellow squad member or another friendly squad. A really hard hitting version of confusion.

The psychic would use his ability instead of a weapon, but with similar results.

The psychic could generate a shield, either for himself or his squad. Ok, that's more magic than psychic.

So basically, it would be used by an individual against individuals.
In a strategic sense, I would see psychics being used to gather intelligence, conduct assassinations, conduct terror raids, etc. It's easier to do covert spy stuff if you can sense where the guards are and cloud their minds or instill fear in the enemy.

Everybody seems to be concentrating on the Psychic's ability to affect the opposition…. why? It's the effect on your own side that's the battle-winner!
You've got a one-in-a-million Battlefield 'wizard', and you want to use him as a… pistol-equivalent?

(And how are you going to make him do that? "Psi-officer Randi – mind-bullet that machine-gunner!" "No Sir, you think that's a bad idea. It would reveal my presence while accomplishing nothing which could not be done with a cone rifle. But you do admire my keenness." )

How I see it is: Enemy hoverdreadnaught crashes straight through your perimeter. Trooper Muggins calmly picks up a case of mortar shells and dives headlong towards its engine intake. In the split-second before the explosion, his mind clears and he thinks: "Why the hell am I doing this?!"

Units facing a morale check are suddenly gripped with firm resolve.

Messages are passed around the battlefield at the speed of thought, undetectable, unjammable.

Expendable Penal troops are remote-controlled around the battlefield.

Secret installations thousands of miles away can be imaged with 'remote viewing'.

Ammo and fuel caches can be detonated using pyrokinesis.

I have always liked the Psychic Powers from 2nd Edition WH40K.

I envisage things a bit like the WH40K Eldar Farseer and Warlock Psychic Powers,

Battle Fate – Examining the strands of time, the Farseer choose the course of action that will best ensure success for a friendly unit.

Doom – The Farseer finds the thread of destiny that leads to the enemies' destruction and guides events toward that end.

Eldritch Storm – This power manifests as a vast psychic storm above the target area, firing bolts of psychic energy at the ground in devastating bursts which can even destroy tanks.

Force of Asuryan – The Farseer increasing the fighting abilities of friendly Eldar.

Fortune – The Farseer looks into immediate future for an instant, allowing Eldar warriors a chance to dodge incoming fire which would have killed them.

Guide – This power allows the Farseer to reach into the future, determine where the enemy will be, and use this information to guide friendly Eldars' fire to the maximum effect.

Mind War – The Farseer battles the enemy's mind directly, typically resulting in the foe's brain exploding. It can also render them slow and dumb, or nullify any psychic powers they may have attempted.

Temporal Weave – This power allows the Farseer to target the enemy and remove them from time itself, essentially freezing them in place.

link

Also a Jinx power – use of remote micro psychokinesis on sensitve CPUs to damage them which stops a particular weapon / vehicle) from being used.

As soon as you bring in psych is powers, you are talking magic, and then it's fantasy. Not scifi.

Ask one question. How could "aliens" possibly evolve do they have "psychic" abilities that can affect humans of a totally different evolutionary history, and probably biochemistry too.

Bring in psychics, and the book joins the long list of junk thrown against the wall to be used as wood pulp insulation.

I always liked the idea of a bunch of psychics sitting in a room far away from away from the fighting, a guy in a black fedora and a radio relaying interpretations of possible future events to the front lines.

The result would mostly be based around initiative, actions and unit activations.

Perhaps if they are in line of sight and had time to concentrate, they can make people's heads explode.

Any game setting using technology that has not been created yet is fantasy.

Depends on how the psychic powers manifest, as well as the level of actual power.

I recall partially reading a book (before I lost it and got distracted by other things), it took place in WW2, and revolved around a cadre of Celtic Druids using their rituals and magic to assist the Allies in particular battles remotely from afar.

The power manifested itself in different ways, depending on what they concentrated their focus on. Sometimes it was increased unity, or morale, or determination, or increasing the fear & sense of hopelessness on the enemy, not as some battlefield fireball, or force-strike, or whiz-bang thing.

I had thought that subtle influences like that could actually be much more beneficial in the long haul.

Intriguing thoughts here – no pun intended.

Liking particularly Norman's take on things and how it relates more to the same side's operations – Calling on *That* book, Heinlien had limited numbers of psychics or "Hunch" people in his forces; people who could 'sense' the presence of Bug activity most of the time, though it was a rogue talent that couldn't be switched on and off at will.

( Also interesting to note that at present 'Mainstream SF' has rejected the use of ESP and it's ilk in writing, as being as ridiculous and impossible as FTL drive and the continuation of heterosexuality. )

I agree about the use of psychics as magic users just corrupts just about anything but 40k. Another take could
be the game mechanic based on 'real' (cough) psychic 'powers'. Examples being remote viewing, the ability to manipulate objects without touching them, foretelling the future etc.
Just think of all the carney favorites. You could have the psi guy hold a seance to gather intelligence or foretelling some one's personal future. " no point in the mission as you will fail"
It would work well until the futuristic version of the amazing Randi shows up.

…This mouse is shot.

If you're going to control someone with psychic abilities, it does seem best to work from the top down, instead of taking out the guy with the rifle.

Get the brilliant, opposing general to take out his service pistol. and shoot himself in the head, perhaps, after he first shoots all of the other people in his chain of command.

Redirecting strategic weapons, like nukes and such would probably be a priority as well.

Of course, perhaps they need to be in close proximity to the ones they're trying to control, so that negates the higher level chain of command personnel, further back from the front.

Or that "psychic powers" is simply a more advanced technology?

There is a quote somewhere that a sufficiently advanced technology can't be differenciated from magic.

JohnG

Yea, I suspect to many natives, jet aircraft, ships, cars, microwaves and ovens, refrigerators, electrical lighting, TVs and radio, skyscrapers, and even flush toilets seem like magic.

The Psychic rules in Epic/40K are OK. They don't overwhelm the rules. They really are a sidebar, but a bit of fun … Like with Chaos … unless I have to take Demons, I'd rather use the points on Tanks !

Secret installations thousands of miles away can be imaged with 'remote viewing'.

We have that today, with Drones, etc. …

"Today"? Modern boards are down the hall, it's tomorrow we're talking about here!
Besides: there were no drones back in 1975 – when the Pentagon began funding Stanford's 'Stargate' remote viewing programme.

I like the Zhodani take in psychic powers. One, it isn't overpowering. Their Commandos are few in number, highly trained and hard to replace, and are very much like paratroopers. If you hit their drop zone (or is it teleport zone?) hard enough (and fast enough) with some armor backed up by good infantry…they will fold like anyone else.

"Today"? Modern boards are down the hall, it's tomorrow we're talking about here!
Besides: there were no drones back in 1975

Chill the Frakk out ! That is what they would say on the SyFy Channel's BSG …
The Sci-fi battlefield can include today, yesterday and tomorrow … the original "War Of The Worlds" is one example. That includes VSF, yes ? Read the original thread title and Bill's first post …

"Psychic Powers on the Sci-Fi Battlefield"

Editor in Chief Bill The Editor of TMP

In a campaign involving humans or aliens with psychic powers, how would you see that impacting the battlefield?

No where does he specify a time frame, era, etc. …

If the game, movie or book was about an alien invasion, landing in LA today … that would be considered current … Yes ? There were at least 2 movies about ET aliens invading LA recently.
Or like the Tom Cruise version of WotW. Or the one made in the 60s … which would be considered the "past" in 2016, Yes ?

My 2 cents…

It all depends on the setting.

For 40K / Star Wars / Sci-Fantasy, have at them with teleport, telekinesis, etc.

For 'harder' sci-fi (and I'll admit, this is VERY subjective) limit abilities to things like:
- Better intel on hidden units
- Improvement of nearby troop morale
- Instilling fear in nearby opposing forces
- Possible paralysis / sabotage of enemy actions (to the point of actually causing enemy troops to take action against their own forces)

As far as the human-alien question… since there's no real basis for psionic powers, we really don't know how brain structure/perception would fit into the equation.

If all sentient/sapient beings are tuned into some kind of 'intelligence carrier wave' then there's no particular reason we couldn't extrapolate that psionic interaction couldn't jump a species barrier.

I'm more in favor of what makes a fun game these days, than worrying about how 'real' the rules feel.

Fret not, Legion, I'm cooler than a bear in a pool.
Should maybe have added a smiley to show I wasn't being snippy!

Chill the Frakk out ! That is what they would say on the SyFy Channel's BSG …

I guess I should have put a I figured the BSG reference was enough. I guess after re-reading my post I do come off like a jerk[again] ! That was not my intent, I was trying to be silly/funny, But was in a hurry. So its all good !