Trinity RPG - Quantakinetics (might not be new for some)

[Psionycx]

Actually, cross-infection is quite possible as long as the proteins line up, whether artificial or natural.

I guess I simply don't care for the idea because it just doesn't fit. The Doyen don't seem to think in terms of booby traps. For that matter they didn't even appear to consider that their pawns might not stick to the game plan. Despite their vast intelligence and clairsentience, they appear to be unable to see the trees because they're so busy taking in the whole forest.

The creation of the proxies and the psions, while mysterious to human observers who didn't know what was going on, is not an especially deep strategem. As intriguers I would actually place the Doyen a notch or two behind Aeon, and several notches below del Fuego or Cassel.

While a doomsday noetic "virus" certainly makes for an interesting concept, it almost seems too creative for the rather conservative Doyen. They feared aberrants, so they engineered the psions to go fight them. They feared the Chibs, so they manipulated the other orders into wiping them out. They feared humanity, so they recruited the Chromatics to annihilate them. Their tactics are quite repetitive, even on a multi-factional level.

Given their enormous noetic abilities, and broad knowledge of biotech, I can't imagine it would be that hard to "hack" into an installed failsafe. Just like a Tek doesn't have to worry about troublesome passwords in the same fashion as a mundane hacker, someone with vast psionic abilities and deep understanding of biotech could probably crack a genetic "enigma code" with less trouble than having to go outfit an entire primative race for interstellar war.

But of course we're all being speculative here so the possible scenarios are endless.

[Tamoline]

I'll agree with you for most of your points: you do seem to have a grasp on how the Doyen work. One wonders what their fallback position is now. As far as we know, the hostiles are now out of pawns, more or less, and the friednlies are are now reconsidering. Unless they can find *another* primitive race, and uplift them (boring!), what will they do now? They may well be feeling backed into a corner and slightly panicked. Assuming humanity survives the Coalition, the Doyen may have been snapped out of their stasis (by Process 418, if nothing else), so to speak, and start thinking in different ways. What do you think they will try to do?

One thought is that a faction (small or not) decides that it needs to study humans (of all things) to try and get a fesh perspective. After all, they have done quite well for themselves, even outwitted and outfought the Doyen! It might well be worth their time studying humans instead of just regarding them as tools.

The one thing I will maintain is that I would not be surprised about is if the Doyen put failsafes in the Prometheus Chambers. We have already seen that the Doyen do have a healthy fear of betrayal by their tools (hence only granting them 1 aptitude). Given that attitude, I really really would make some way of taking the tools away. Of course, that could be simple as waiting for the Chambers to wear out, and not replace them (as seen with the Psychokinetic one). Wait for the existing psions to die out (not hard for a practically immortal being), and back to square one. I suppose the Doyen might well just retreat for the moment and wait for a generation.

[Psionycx]

One thing I wonder about is the one-Aptitude limit and human evolution. Presumably (although Trinity hasn't explored this in any detail) the children of psions will themselves have a better chance of exhibiting latency. Within the context of the orders, I would expect that such children will be in prime line for getting dunked.

Now, is the one-Aptitude limit sufficiently hard-coded that the descendents of psions, who might potentially manifest psi powers without getting dunked, be themselves psions or will they be psychomorphs? In other words, will they have the freedom of power development that the psiads have, or will they have the slightly greater power but narrower focus of the psions?

I agree, Tamoline, that the Doyen could simply be working from the assumption that the Prometheus Chambers have a lifespan and that eventually they will all die, leaving humanity without the ability to artifically induce psi manifestation.

Or so the Doyen think.

In the aftermath of Process 418 psychomorphs are a growing segment of the psi-active population. Actually, one reason they may have remained so rare until 2122 is that many potential psiads were identified by the orders as strong latents and got dunked.

Were del Fuego and his pet Chibs involved in 418's manifestation? Regardless, might they devise another means of creating psions/psiads without the need for the tanks?

The only clear thing here is that the Doyen have greatly underestimated humanity.

[knave]

My idea is basically that Doyen cannot posses non-psions at all... Please point out an example from canon where they have if you like.

I think the prometheus chambers are essentially 'terraforming' vessels for them to possess when they will. Furthermore, because the whole Psion thing is seen as a 'good thing' and latents are encouraged to do it - especially the best and the brightest - It would be interesting to assume that the children of these people might perhaps beome 'naturally evolved' psions at some point in the future. Possibly these naturally evolved psions might posses some insight into how to grab the doyen by the short and curlies... unless... their 'evolution' is subtly altered in such a way as to make their abilities slightly stunted - or even just another generation of doyen cars? I think that that was the secret that the Quantakinetics were in danger of discovering.

As for the idea of Doyen thinking slowly. I disagree completely. Consider the possibility that the doyen evolved from a material form that thought quickly but could only move slowly... like some sort of silicoid life form or something... They can plan every eventuality in general - but if you follow any sorts of military history - you'll know that as soon as the fighting starts the plans fail - everything falls apart. Taking the long view is not the same as being stupid. Neither does it mean they can't kick ass if they're planning to kick ass. It just means they might sacrifice a few individuals now rather than coming to save them if that seems 'economical' to do so.

Heh

How'd ya like them apples

Knave

[phoenix]

Makes sense to me that the Doyen can possess any being with no quanta - they are beings of pure psi, after all.

[Ayre el KaBeer]

I'm just waiting for the classic "Foolish Earthling!" line to come up from a Doyen only to get 'rogered' from behind from our hero psions!

[Psionycx]

It's a moot point. Even if the Doyen were incapable of "possessing" a non-psion, they could still easily use Telepathy to get most of the same results. With their particularly strong powers they could get past most defenses against Telepathy fairly easily.

It's not that the Doyen think slowly. It's that they, as a race, are almost obsessively "big picture" thinkers, possibly a consequence of native Clairsentience. Rather than simply "decide and act" as humans often do, they instead favor "look at all the angles, contemplate, debate, reconsider and then maybe act". As anyone who pays attention to politics can tell you, sometimes it is possible to overnanalyze things to the point at which a crisis develops because everyone was trying to devise a perfect plan and convince others to go along with it.

The Doyen, as long-lived beings, have trouble keeping pace with mortals like humans because humans have a need to make quicker decisions simply because they can't always afford what the Doyen would consider a "long-term" (possibly centuries) plan. As was shown in Alien Encounter: Invasion, Doyen don't react well to unanticipated situations. They also don't have much respect for less evolved life forms.

It's also likely that they're not accustomed to dealing with such races. To all appearances the Doyen like to keep to themselves normally. Hence the "proxies". The Doyen don't like to get down-and dirty.

Think about it. If the Doyen were a brave species, they could easily construct super-advanced bio-vargs that would protect their ectoplasmic forms from taint and battle aberrants directly. With their enormous psionic powers they'd be able to kick some serious tail. But that would mean being direct and decisive, as well as taking on risk, all alien concepts to the Doyen.

(Just thinking about a Doyen in a biotech battlesuit with psi-amplifying capabilities give me the shivers)

So they use mortal pawns whom they expect will obey them. That humanity (and the Chormatics) aren't following the script is probably huging perplexing to them.

[Ayre el KaBeer]

Hehe I like these newer apples! ::jedi

[Tamoline]

Just a vague thought here: I wonder if both the Doyen and the Abberants (as such) are dead ends, evolutionary wise? The Huang Marr project showed that psi use and taint are not mutually exclusive. Indeed taint, properly channeled, can actually greatly enhance psi use. I wonder if the reverse is true?

Along these lnes of thought, I wonder if the psi enhancers are actually Doyen tech. I mean, in the brief glimpses of them we've seen, they've not demonstrated it's usage, which might be considered unusual for beings where psi is life (yes, I can construct half a dozen reasons why they would not have had it at those points, but that is not the point). Further, the Chromatics displayed no such tech, which is odd. Surely their 'guides' would have wanted them to be as powerful as possible. I wonder if these things are uniquely human tech, engineered initially with the aid of the chibs. That is not to say, of course, that the 'friendlies' have not punced upon it and started making their own enhancer tech. This may have meant that their faction has become stronger due to this.

[Adam]

Main Entry: doy·en

Pronunciation: 'doi-&n, -"(y)en; 'dwä-"yan(n)

Function: noun

Etymology: French, from Late Latin decanus dean -- more at DEAN

Date: 1670

1 a : the senior member of a body or group b : a person considered to be knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as a result of long experience in some field of endeavor

2 : the oldest example of a category

From Meriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Those tricksy game developers.

[knave]

Liking your evolutionary thoughts Tam. Esp in regard to the Doyen. I don't see how the abbies are evolutionary dead ends since that would require their evolution to stop. This only happens because proteus or whoever (possibly doyen influence! Now there's a thought) sterilized them. But then again - if they master Planck scaling or universe creation they can fix that. If not for the sterile bit, their being aberrants would be a massive evolutionary advantage.

Fixing a dying race does smack a bit of the truly horrible Earth Final Conflict (well the later episodes were anyway) but it could work. Alternatively consider the possibility that their major motivation is jealousy. The failed their ascention attempt (being still somewhat matter) and plan on keeping their place as top dog by not letting anyone pass them on the psionic evolutionary ladder.

It's a moot point. Even if the Doyen were incapable of \"possessing\" a non-psion, they could still easily use Telepathy to get most of the same results. With their particularly strong powers they could get past most defenses against Telepathy fairly easily.

It's a point but not a moot point Psionyx. A easy to control car is way nicer than a car that you have to fight with.

-knave

[Psionycx]

Knave,

True. But I suspect the Doyen have to fight with the car regardless of whether or not they're in the driver's seat or running it by remote control.

[Alistaire]

From Meriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Those tricksy game developers.

Nice catch! Yeah, WW tends to do stuff like that. They do good research I find. ::smile

[Psionycx]

A great question about evolution. And it brings several thoughts to my mind.

Firstly, evolution is NOT an inexorable process. Lifeforms don't HAVE to evolve, they simply tend to do so when there is a need. Consider that sharks, amongst the most perfect predators on Earth, have changed surprisingly little over the last several million years. If all things evolved at a constant rate then we would not be alone at the top of the food chain. There are many species older than our's that should, by rights, be the dominant species on Earth if evolution worked consistently.

Secondly, consider that in the real world many people, even some scientists, believe that humanity has reached a peak of evolution, and that any further development must be social and technological. To some extent evolution is both voluntary and environmental. The Doyen, possessing vast psionic powers, enormous lifespans and advanced technology may not be subject to many environmental pressures and thus have little impetus to evolve.

Culturally, they may see themselves (as some humans do) as being "perfect" lifeforms and don't see any need to push their evolution ahead forcibly. Even though the possibility of Quantakinesis intrigued them, they nonetheless feared its ramifications enough to decide to try and wipe it out rather than explore it further.

Technological evolution is driven by need. The 20th Century, in that regard, was powered almost entirely by wars, and the need to match competitive, threatening, technological innovations. Since the technology they have ammassed may meet all their present needs the Doyen may not see the need to advance it. Humanity, in contrast, is faced with annihilation in Aberrant and Trinity and its survival hinges on developing ever-better tools.

That psi can control quantum forces is not a big surprise when you consider that psi is the basis of the universe. Hypothetically, psi should be able to accomplish anything, assuming one could reach deep enough into the Totality to alter the blueprint.

[Tamoline]

Abbies change, they do not necessarily get better. To use the hackneyed old comparison, where the Doyen are Order and the Abbies Chaos. Chaos is constantly changing, any improvement tends to be lost in the mad rush of taint.

In any case, it wasn't quite what I meant. The Doyen focus exclusively on psi, the abbies on taint. What they may both be missing is that there is a middle path, combining the two, which may be stronger than either alone.

Psionycx - I think you may have missed my point. Psi can manipulate taint, true, but the Huang Marr project shows that the reverse is also true. Taint can manipulate psi, even enhance it. In fact the additive effect is orders of magnitude better than with psi based bioware alone. Now imagine if you could make taint based enhancer tech (actually, some might say quantum gadgeteering can already do that). Now imagine if adding psi based effects into this has the same effect.

Of course, the problem with this is that it makes the Eden Novas potentially far too powerful. So instead let us hypothesise that the addition of psi to taint enhancers doesn't allow for more powerful effects, but rather more controlled effects. Possibly even the control of Taint (being in this case the mutagenic effect of the release of uncontrolled taint energies).

Addendum - Could taint based effects be the way to short circuit the one aptitude lock on psions? Again, the H-M project appears to indicate that this could be an option.

[Psionycx]

I don't see any indication that taint can actually control psi, or even really directly enhance it.

What seemed to me to be the case with Huang-Marr bioapps was that the implanted taint caused the noetic bioapps to react the same way the human body does to an infection - they ran a fever.

The amount of taint in the bioapps was very small, so small in fact that it wasn't enough to register a taint trace to psionic scans. It was, however, carefully integrated into the genetic coding of the bioapps. Presumably, a larger amount of taint would have had the same effect that the Colony's (Kali's, etc.) taint injection has on psions, it would have killed them.

But the bioapps reacted to the taint seemingly in a manner not unlike the human body raising it's temperature in an effort ot purge a contagion. The bioapps channeled large amounts of psi to try and purge the taint. But since the taint was integrated directly into the bioapp's genetic code it couldn't really purge it without destroying itself.

Between that and the strain of channeling such large amounts of psi, that is what caused the biorgs to "burn out", not any kind of taint radiation per se.

It's also key to remember here that "taint" is NOT the actual source of nova/aberrant powers. It's merely an after-effect. Some novas, like many Edenites have very little actual "taint". Vitakinetic Brian Ruiz was stunned to discover that Apollo Milliken has lower taint levels many D victims, despite his considerable power!

It is unlikely that quantum powers could be used to directly manipulate psi, simply because psion particles are too small and operate at a more basic level of reality than quantum forces. Moving large amounts of quantum energy clearly causes a reaction in the subquantum medium, but that's not the same thing as controlling it. Just because I can drop and object and let it fall to the ground doesn't mean I can control gravity.

[Tamoline]

First of all, sorry for seemingly trying to derail the evolution thread: I was just focused on something else at the time. Hmm. From somewhere I have the impression that the Doyen are more or less ageless and an old race (on the order of a million years or so, quite possibly at the least). Combining those two thoughts with their relative lack of numbers seen so far suggests that they are a stagnant race, otherwise we would have been overrun with the buggers. It also means that there is a good reason for their seeming cowardice: they can't take the losses, no matter how minimal. And they would not be minimal, fighting the abbies. Also there is the thought that they seem to be tied into the implicate order on a base level. Just one of them dying causes fluctuations severe enough to cause a backlash. There is a threat, real or not, that Doyen deaths on a large scale could cripple the use of psi. possibly for a long time. That might give them a noble purpose: they are protecting the gift of psi for every sentient. Protecting that birthright takes sacrifices, and unfortunately they cannot do this themselves, since the death of Doyen would accomplish that which they are trying to stop. These thoughts might belong on the Doyen thread, however.

Psionycx - I should have put a disclaimer. I am aware that there are some holes in my arguements. It was more a possibility than a certainty. Use it or not, as the fancy takes you.

That being said, your thoughts have more than a few assumptions that may not be accurate. Your explanation of why the H-M bioapps worked, while interesting (maybe even true), does not account for why the doctors would not have just built in an external factor to excite a similiar overcharging. There is no need for taint, per se, in your case. All that would be needed is for a bioapp that drew lots of energy from the psion. I don't believe that such bioapps would not have existed before, if only to test the limits of enhancement bioware.

The rest of your arguements seems to be the case that psions are more fundamental to reality than whatever the abberants use. While it is what what the scientists in the time of Trinity believe, it is not necessarily the case. There could be a so far undetected force particle that the abbies use in order to manipulate the four fundamental forces (at least one of which, I will add, psions can also manipulate even without chibs).

(I will admit I was using Taint (the uncontrolled release of abbie energy) and taint (the controlled release of abbie energy) somewhat interchangably. Sorry.)

Anyway, we have no real evidence that abbies cannot manipulate psi, even with the relative crudity that the chibs used to manipulate taint. Remember that at the time of Abberant psi powers were unknown to the vast majority of abbies, and so we don't know of any efforts that may have been made to use abbie powers to affect psi.

In final, for now, by ramblings will end using your example. I believe that scientists that an accelerating mass will cause a gravitic wave. So dropping a rock in the right way, at the right time, can indeed affect gravity. The trick for abberants may well be to learn the right place and the right time.

[Alistaire]

To use the hackneyed old comparison, where the Doyen are Order and the Abbies Chaos. Chaos is constantly changing, any improvement tends to be lost in the mad rush of taint. In any case, it wasn't quite what I meant.

Maybe not, but it is a fun way to look at it, esp. for B5 fans. The same analogy was used for the Vorlons (order) and the Shadows (chaos). The Vorlons were also seen to "benefactors" at one time, until it was seen that they were just manipulating humanity (like the Shadows manipulated other races) to fight their war for them.

Kinda funny when you look at it. ::hehe

[Psionycx]

Tamoline,

I know what you mean, these debates can go on forever.

Really I was just basing my arguments on canon, which covered many of these points. Novas simply don't manipulate psi, their powers don't operate on that level of reality (which is not to say that psi isn't the "entanglement" force that makes it possible to manipulate multiple quanta simultaneously). Again, just because you can exploit gravity's effects doesn't mean you therefore control it.

As for the Huang-Marr bioapps, the question is the same as to why the FSA doesn't have a hardtech FTL drive yet: just because you know you could do something if you could generate enough energy doesn't mean you actually HAVE the ability to generate that much energy. Darkness Revealed said that the conspirators TRIED to build conventional bioapps to do the job but couldn't, which is why they began experimenting with taint. It also said the apps' powers were psi, not taint based, which was why the biorgs couldn't be tracked like aberrants.

We're disputing pseudoscience of course, which is fun but unresolveable. Nice debate though!

Alistaire,

I LOVE B5, but you're right that reusing something too often makes it cliche. I don't see the Doyen and Aberrants as ideological opposites. The Doyen oppose aberrants for no reason other than that they fear taint. The aberrants don't appear to even know the Doyen exist and have goals ranging from order (Eden) to chaos (the Colony).