Trinity RPG - Doyen Sourcebook

[Max_Raven]

How about it? A book describing Doyen culture, beings of note, their lifespans, biotech and their relation to it and other cool stuff like that?

I have some more ideas, like where the Doyen get their biotech and some on their religion and their origin. It would be more of a booklet I believe, but it would have lots

of useful stuff for STs.

These things really do need to be fleshed out beyond having two factions when it comes to the Human question, don't they?

Sound interesting?

[Slagheap]

I don't know I kind of like them mysterious. Beyond that I'd worry about giving it the right treatment, why kind of cuture does a non-coporial race have? Evolutionarily I think there are too far removed to define them in terms of religion, relationships and such ( I think they've moved beyond it, I think in their minds they are it). I figure when not off possessing people, they're all on big snotty mess of Psi constantly communicating Telepathicly.

I'd fear for a booklet, but I think that it could make for a fun conversation. I bet we all have hightly varied views of them anyhoo.

-Slag

[VictorHFrost KSC]

::withstupid

[Max_Raven]

They obviously have a society of sorts, otherwise an issue couldn't really split the race down the middle. They don't seem to war against eachother, but rather manipulate pawns around to get what they want done. They have biotech, which is obvious because of the Prometheus Chambers, Chromatic factories/tech, and such.

That's about what we have black-on-white, which frankly isn't much. It doesn't give much ideas for NPCs other than "Ah, another Doyen who has a master plan and manages to run into humans who think better on their feet _yet again_." ^^;

Which is why I think it might be cool. Of course, everyone's opinion is valid in a completely subjective reality. =)

[harlequin]

my advice, start with a discussion on the doyen, open to all, and if after a while there is enough ideas and interest, do a book. that's how tfr: noetics got done, it's kinda the best of both worlds. ::smile

[DoctorDee]

Greetings.

They have biotech, which is obvious because of the Prometheus Chambers, Chromatic factories/tech, and such.

Maybe they just have the potential for biotech.

The way they are described in the book (IIRC--it's been a while) they are not so strictly tied to matter--and if they can do without bodies, they can do without a lot of biotech.

So, what if they simply understand biomechanics intuitively, or through their specifically designed senses, and can therefore imprint instructions in their minions?

A bit like whe do when we think about wais of improving a piece of machinery.

We are not made of gears and pulleys ourselves, and can probably do without, but as we need this piece of machinery right now, why not provide it with some basic improvements?

Just an idea, of course.

[Tamoline]

One thing I can think of that puzzles me is a reference to the proxies incorporating doyen genetics. How can this be done with an energy being? What if they were not always an energy being? What if they were all organic at one point, and then managed to master psi enough to free themselves from said shell. They could view said organic beings as an egg, a larval Doyen. What if they were only a small subsection of their parent race, a cult? Hell, they could be Secret Master types, Atlanteans, beings that were originally human, but have forgotten their roots as they went off to contemplate the universe for a few eons. Maybe all of this biotech is stuff they have stolen off other races, without necessarily understanding it that well.

Just a few ideas for the pool.

[phoenix]

What if they were not always an energy being? What if they were all organic at one point, and then managed to master psi enough to free themselves from said shell. They could view said organic beings as an egg, a larval Doyen.

Didn't it say that in "The Story So Far"? If not, then yeah, I always kind of assumed that they were biological once.

[DoctorDee]

One thing I can think of that puzzles me is a reference to the proxies incorporating doyen genetics. How can this be done with an energy being?

Reminds me of something I read somewhere--novel, many years ago, about mind transfers.

"Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny? I'll have to check ::unsure

Anyway--one of the characters explains that your mind, once transferred in a new body, starts working on it, transforming it into a copy of your original vessel.

Only, human life is not long enough and/or the human mind not strong enough for the change to occur fast enough for us to notice.

So....

Maybe the doyens achieve the effect faster or more deeply.

Incidentally, this mind-over-body effect is the sort of thing a team of Aeon characters might start investigating--would require expertise from a variety of fields/groups.

Hmmmm... starting right now, in my gaming universe, Norca, Esculapian Order and Ministry each have a lab team working on the idea of "mind DNA" ::sly

Just background, now.

Let's see what my players will do if/when they found out ::wink

[Tamoline]

Ack! I really must learn to be more precise one of these days. On the other hand, sometimes the things that spawn out of the misunderstandings are more interesting than the original ideas. So it's all good.

What I meant was that each of the Doyen currently around had once been meat (in their lifetimes), but have since thrown it off. Of course it might also be interesting to speculate if they actually still do have bodies from which they project, bodies kept alive by biotech, almost forgotten, unloved, unwanted... vulnerable (wicked grin). Sure be an interesting way to combat the Doyen if things do turn hostile. Of course they can probably survive for a little while without bodies, and almost undoubtedly take bodies over if given a chance (kind of like a certain proxy). But if they do need a body to survive, having a full scale abberant attack on the planet might be enough to thin down the numbers considerably, as any of them caught away from a source of freely available bodies dies. Of course, if this has already happened once before in their history, it might explain why they are so paranoid (and probably means that they each have a network of bodies scattered around the cosmos).

Edit - Oh, and by the way, DoctorDee, have you ever heard of memes?

[DoctorDee]

Oh, and by the way, DoctorDee, have you ever heard of memes?

Yes I have, but what I'm thinking of is somewhat different.

Memes are "thought genes"--their main field of influence is the mind and, if they ever achieved physical effect (causing us to evolve along the way we have evolved) it was through long, geological time.

What I was thinking about when I wrote about "thought DNA" is something faster, more sinister and acting through noetic effects and/or taint.

Basically--just as a Norca shapeshifter can alter his body by willing it to change, so any form of mind powerful enough (your mileage might vary) has the power of rewriting a host body structure, causing it to become more and more like the original body the mind inhabited.

IIRC, it takes fourteen years for our body to totally replace the original cells with new ones.

So, someone "possessed" by a Doyen mind might change through fourteen-years shifts. the earlier changes would be those more closely related to the noetic/nova capability triggering the lot.

So, what will older PSIs (e.g., the Proxies) look like in fourteen, twenty-eight or forty-two years after their first experience? ::nervous

[DoctorDee]

More stuff...

Of course it might also be interesting to speculate if they actually still do have bodies from which they project, bodies kept alive by biotech, almost forgotten, unloved, unwanted... vulnerable (wicked grin).

IIRC, the Doyens do have a physical phase of development.

The environment in which their lifeform developed is so harsh, natural selection has favoured those individuals that proved capable of trascending their phisical form as fast as possible.

Which leaves open the problem of how the critters do reproduce--because if they reproduce in their "pure energy" form, it's hard to see how they could develop a physical embryo, and if they do reproduce during their physical phase, the latter transcendence is a little meaningless from a strictly evolutionary point of view.

Unless (I'm making this up as I go, you see) the transcended form is necessary to keep the physical Doyens alive long enough so they can mate/germinate/fission/whatever and reproduce.

The Doyen proper is therefore sort of a herder of sorts for younger individuals.

Such a role could explain how comes a generation that's non involved in reproduction survives at all.

,,

All of which, of course, is just an idea ::wink

[Tamoline]

Well, we've already gotten past the fourteen year mark. They haven't sprouted tentacles yet ::wink . They *have* changed, just not inhumanly, canon-wise, as far as I know.

Your idea is interesting, but it doesn't 'fit' in my head, unless you say that this effect is basically subconscious BK shifting (in the case of psis). That I could go for. Also, canon-wise, the proxies are still human, and not possessed by the Doyen. In fact Bue Li has gone on to do some possessing of her own. I don't think that there's evidence for it anywhere, which is not to say that canon contradicts. All in all, I'm not sure where you are going with this, except possibly as a non psi way of testing to see if someone has been possessed.

[Max_Raven]

I'll go for discussion which might possibly become a booklet later on. ::wink

Well, I once pondered that the Doyen were humans or human-like in noetic potential, perhaps throwing themselves back in time if they are the descendants of humanity, but the latter theory implicates that Doyen have forgotten their roots. It's not a very

cool theory, though, because generally people loathe the whole time-travel shtick unless it's forward into it.

As for their biotech, I had an idea: What if the Doyen found a race, long ago, which is highly evolved noetically, but not particularly sentient? These beings are, in fact, the origin of biotech, and the Doyen use their noetic power to tamper and bring forth what they want from this species. In some ways, they would be similar to Qin with the biotechnological mastery, but easily controlled and manipulated. So, the Doyen had a form of master-slave relationship with these, and when they notice the Aberrants, when looking for suitable warriors, they first stumble upon those that are most similar to their servants. Of course, they are deemed too unsuitable, Doyen are far more interested in actual psionic ability than biotech mastery, possibly a side-effect of their bodies being mostly psionic. But, they consider humanity, and have some of their slave-race pop out a few prometheus chambers and other goodies and hand them over to humanity, trusting the ol' monkey ingenuity to do the rest. The Doyen themselves don't really require biotech for much, since they are of course the very height of psionic evolution and require no such corporeal aid. ::smile

That's my idea on their advanced biotechnology.

As for reproduction, couldn't it be that they do it like amoebas do it in some ways, or maybe like fish do, with Doyen genetics intermingling from two "parental beings"? They're 90% psionic material, but that doesn't mean they lack genetic material. We're

70% water or so ourselves. It's simply bonded to other stuff...

[DoctorDee]

Your idea is interesting, but it doesn't 'fit' in my head, unless you say that this effect is basically subconscious BK shifting (in the case of psis). That I could go for.

As I said, I'm just making this up as I go--I might try later to hammer the lot into a coherent whole (or maybe just scrap it). ::confused

But let's say your subconscious BK shifting is in fact the way this thing we are trying to describe expresses itself in humans.

I like that, it gives rogue psions a new sinister angle ::sly

Anyway-- possibly when it comes to doyens, what for us is subconscious BK shifting, for them is the basic means of transferring their traits on to another individual (not necessarily a member of their same species).

And of course it works better and faster for them than it does for us.

Mind you, I'm building this heap of loose hypotheses just to try and figure out

a . how doyens reproduce

b . how doyens interact with/influence "client species"

It all started with the question, "Do Doyens have biotech?"

My answer--maybe they are biotech; the Doyens need biological engineering to survive/interact/whatever, and their wondering minds carry the basic principles to enforce some increasing biotech in the life forms they interact with.

Ooooh, this is getting increasingly complicated. ::shocked

Sorry.

I'll have to think it over before I start putting the pieces in the right order.

[DoctorDee]

As for reproduction, couldn't it be that they do it like amoebas do it in some ways, or maybe like fish do, with Doyen genetics intermingling from two \"parental beings\"? They're 90% psionic material, but that doesn't mean they lack genetic material. We're 70% water or so ourselves. It's simply bonded to other stuff...

You know, I'd like to dream up some definitively alien way where Doyen reproduction is concerned.

But that really needs some thinking.

Being a specialist in extinction, I'm not too good at imagining ways for starting new lifes.

I think I'll go and check if the good people at Orion's Arm (http://www.orionsarm.com/) have come up with something suitably weird in their long sleepless nights of worldmaking.

At least for the biological side.

One angle that might be worth exploring is--do the discorporated minds of the Doyens come into play when the birth of a new individual is concerned?

As an example, try this one for size: the life form we might call the "physical doyen" is actually little smarter than a <....insert favourite animal here....>.

A pet to the non-physical Doyens.

When two or more non-physical doyens feel like it, they sort of merge (cue to non-human saxophone-based music), they share their experiences and egos and in this status of flux they have worked themselves in, they hit on the physical creature and "awaken" it.

The physical doyen gets a lot smarter, is now able to transcend matter and becomes another one of the ghostly ones, ready to start its very own travel in search of knowledge and perfection.

As usual, just an idea.

::laugh

[Tamoline]

It all started with the question, \"Do Doyens have biotech?\"

My answer--maybe they are biotech; the Doyens need biological engineering to survive/interact/whatever, and their wondering minds carry the basic principles to enforce some increasing biotech in the life forms they interact with.

Ooh, here's an interesting thought. Maybe the high and mighty Doyen are actually rogue SIs. Some alien race made their equivalent of psi mini comps. Something happened to the race (maybe the Doyen) and their minicomps left to themselves acheived sentience and have been bobbling around ever since. The biotech that they have was that which was left over from their masters. Naturally they are only going to give selective parts to their pawns. Certainly they don't want them making any rivals!

[DoctorDee]

Ooh, here's an interesting thought. Maybe the high and mighty Doyen are actually rogue SIs.

I like the idea of a race of evolved biotech tools. ::thumbsup

After all, considering a bio-app is basically a living thing, giving it enough time it could evolve in a number of different direction.

If not for the Doyen, the concept will be worthy of further exploration as basis for a truly alien race.

Great. ::biggrin

[Max_Raven]

They could of course be random collections of psi-particles which just happened to attach themselves to other matter in just the right way...

It wouldn't be the first time. ::biggrin

Asfor reproduction, maybe you are approaching this thinking too much from the way of thinking of a being who is more or less mostly molecular structures arranged. Ie, there doesn't have to be genetics involved just because humans have genes, just like there doesn't have to be carbon as a basis for a biological lifeform. There are examples of silicates and so... ::smile

Is there a Doyen "homeplanet"? I am not inclined to think so, but of course there could be a planet of origin. I had a recurring vision of the first Doyen born by the edge of a large, "non-existing" place... In other words, a black hole. Freaky things can happen in a singularity.

[DoctorDee]

Asfor reproduction, maybe you are approaching this thinking too much from the way of thinking of a being who is more or less mostly molecular structures arranged. 

I fear I'm biased in that sense ::bigsmile

,,

Ie, there doesn't have to be genetics involved just because humans have genes, just like there doesn't have to be carbon as a basis for a biological lifeform. There are examples of silicates and so...

Granted, but you still need some kind of organizing \"something\" to cause whatever substance (or lack thereof) you are working with to turn into an individual with a certain set of characters.

So, there will be something doing the work genes do for us, even if along very different lines.

Is there a Doyen \"homeplanet\"? I am not inclined to think so, but of course there could be a planet of origin. I had a recurring vision of the first Doyen born by the edge of a large, \"non-existing\" place... In other words, a black hole. Freaky things can happen in a singularity.

I think I remember the description of a harsh planetary environment somewhere in the Trinity canon.

But my main misgiving about singularities is that, while certainly a lot of freaky things can happen there, precious few have the power to get out of the gravitational well.

Sure, who can say what a critter made of mind alone can do, but I guess you'll appreciate the problems the player characters might face when confronted with such facts. ::blink

But there's not just black holes out there.

Why not a quasar?

Or a multi-star system of the kind that's likely to be found towards the core of our galaxy?

Needs thinking. ::smile

[Max_Raven]

Granted, but you still need some kind of organizing \"something\" to cause whatever substance (or lack thereof) you are working with to turn into an individual with a certain set of characters.

So, there will be something doing the work genes do for us, even if along very different lines.

Well, I suppose you have a point there. Of course, in Trinity most humans seem to have a \"psionic template\" of sorts, but that one conforms to the body, rather than the other way around. At least most times.

I think I remember the description of a harsh planetary environment somewhere in the Trinity canon.

But my main misgiving about singularities is that, while certainly a lot of freaky things can happen there, precious few have the power to get out of the gravitational well.

Sure, who can say what a critter made of mind alone can do, but I guess you'll appreciate the problems the player characters might face when confronted with such facts. ::blink

Hmmmm, what kind of problems? ::smile

But there's not just black holes out there.

Why not a quasar?

Or a multi-star system of the kind that's likely to be found towards the core of our galaxy?

True, true. White holes could work too, even if they would collapse quickly into black ones... Actually, those might fit nicely, "born in light , cast out into darkness" stuff.

[harlequin]

True, true. White holes could work too, even if they would collapse quickly into black ones... Actually, those might fit nicely, "born in light , cast out into darkness" stuff.

gah! beat me too it... i was actually thinking a nebula though... get a big enough one and you can fit plenty of stars and/or full systems inside. and since we can't actually tell _all_ of what's inside one of those babies it leaves plenty of room for creativity and bizarre reactions with matter, psi, etc.

[DoctorDee]

Hmmmm, what kind of problems?

Ehm, like, getting there and interacting physically with the critters? ::confused

[DoctorDee]

i was actually thinking a nebula though...

Good call.

A nicely secluded pocket of interstellar debris, killer gravitational fields, lotsa quasi-star objects messing around with the background radio-emissions...

Not to mention the weird colours and SFX--check out a few Hubble pics, and you'll get lots of ideas for storytelling!

Yep, that's the place I'd love to drop my players, should they start investigating the Doyens.

::devil

[chloe]

What if the Doyen found a race, long ago, which is highly evolved noetically, but not particularly sentient? These beings are, in fact, the origin of biotech, and the Doyen use their noetic power to tamper and bring forth what they want from this species...  So, the Doyen had a form of master-slave relationship with these, and when they notice the Aberrants, when looking for suitable warriors, they first stumble upon those that are most similar to their servants. Of course, they are deemed too unsuitable, Doyen are far more interested in actual psionic ability than biotech mastery, possibly a side-effect of their bodies being mostly psionic. But, they consider humanity, and have some of their slave-race pop out a few prometheus chambers and other goodies and hand them over to humanity, trusting the ol' monkey ingenuity to do the rest. The Doyen themselves don't really require biotech for much, since they are of course the very height of psionic evolution and require no such corporeal aid.

I thought that the chambers were all like half biotech/half hardtech. Wouldn't that mean that the Doyen's slave would need, like, monkey mines and monkey tools and stuff?

Just a thought...

Chloe

[Tamoline]

Just another idea. What if the Doyen evolved in the subquantum space? What if there is a whole ecosystem there, feeding off the movement of psi energy? The Doyen forms could just be the shadow of their psi forms, a bit like humans and other living things have their psi shadows. Naturally, physical attacks wouldn't be as effective, since you are only attacking it's shadow. Maybe that's why the Doyen are so concerned about the Abberants, they have been disrupting the psi ecosystem which they live off. Maybe the bioware isn't designed from the physical side, but it's form is dictated by the flows from the other side. Or something. Is this making sense to anyone else?

[phoenix]

I get it, and I like the idea. But wouldn't physical attacks be more effective? Psi attacks are pretty effective against humans, after all.

[DoctorDee]

Is this making sense to anyone else?

It makes sense all right, and I think we've got a winner here.

No mater what their physical form (if any), the Doyens are denizens of the subquantum universe.

Now we're really cooking with fire ::bigsmile

[Tamoline]

Phoenix - we don't actually know that psionic attacks are fully effective against corporeals. We only know that they do x much damage. Their 'true' damage (whatever that term might mean) may be more. It could be a case that psi attacks are more effective against Doyen, and physical ones less so. Health level is a fairly arbitary measure, after all.

Doctor Dee - if we are going for this hypothesis, then it makes sense that there would be other psionic lifeforms out there. Quite probably non sentient, maybe not even casting a shadow this side of the interface. But they might well have effect on psionic usage. Here's an interesting thought. What if the Prometheus effect just allows a psion to birth these creatures (with a lot of effort), and by pumping them with energy, they produce a psionic effect. A bit like a psionic bioapp. So, in effect, the Prometheus Chamber turns a human into a specialised womb. Similiarly, that's how bioapp produce their funky effect. The physical side is a constructed birthing chamber and nutrient source for these psionic creatures. For a twist, the friendly Doyen aren't actually primarily interested in getting rid of the Abberants, there are more interested in turning humans into psi farms. The other Doyen are just trying to stop this, thinking that it is too dangerous to give corporeals such toys. Neither side particularly likes Abberants (they disrupt the sub quantum ether) but don't really see them as much of a threat (they are very localised after all).

[Max_Raven]

I thought that the chambers were all like half biotech/half hardtech. Wouldn't that mean that the Doyen's slave would need, like, monkey mines and monkey tools and stuff?

Just a thought...

Chloe

Well, no, not really. They COULD just absorb the necessary physical matter into themselves and rearrange it into whatever the Doyen wished. It's not a matter of that great a difficulty if you can manipulate biological matter in whatever way you wish and have the tools, ie slaves, that allow you to do so. Psionic templates can be altered with ease by the Doyens we know of, after all. Or at least it seems like it. ::rolleyes

Of course, the whole procedure would probably call for Doyen using biokinesis,maybe while possessing them, on the li'l critters to get them adjusted to creating the desired effect... I don't think it's such a big matter fixing the hardtech relays that might possibly exist. However, I am curious as to where it says that the Prometheus chambers are half hardtech. As far as I've gathered, the Doyen are completely biotech geared when they care about the physical universe at all. Sort of noetically biased, I suppose. ::biggrin

On one plane, all psi is interconnected, it says in Stellar Frontier. In a way, this means that while maybe the Doyen aren't directly interconnected, maybe they can feel the disruptions of the subquantum flow caused by the Aberrants, provided that there are a large enough an amount of them and they're decently spread out. It's like something out of a human horrorvid to Doyen, beings which can rip out the essence of all the Doyen are by their mere presence.

[DoctorDee]

if we are going for this hypothesis, then it makes sense that there would be other psionic lifeforms out there. Quite probably non sentient, maybe not even casting a shadow this side of the interface.

It's a fair assumption.

After all, a single-group ecology has not much sense.

So, yes, we can imagine a psionic ecology made up of non sentient psionic self-replicators on which the Doyens somehow prey.

If you ever played the game \"Life\", we could imagine such creatures like the replicators in a game of life--bundles of \"bits\" arranged in a pattern that allows them to cruise through the subquantum sea and somehow interact/feed off each other/reproduce.

Incidentally, take a look here

http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html

for a full description of the model, and a general classification of the patterns.

This might work as a guideline in describing those psionic animals (and provide us with a few handy, highly intellectually challenging handouts).

What if the Prometheus effect just allows a psion to birth these creatures (with a lot of effort), and by pumping them with energy, they produce a psionic effect. A bit like a psionic bioapp. So, in effect, the Prometheus Chamber turns a human into a specialised womb. Similiarly, that's how bioapp produce their funky effect. The physical side is a constructed birthing chamber and nutrient source for these psionic creatures.

Or the effect could be unrequired/unespected.

Is our activity littering up the psionic ecology with lots of "shadow patterns" that are endangering the equilibrium.

This one could be an interesting angle to develop.

Psions and bioapps as farms or as sources of pollution.

Or both, depending on your political leanings--and we get a good cause for a political split among the Doyens.

[DoctorDee]

Ouch!

Something I thought fifty seconds after posting my last.

Sorry, must be the spring ::sleeping

maybe not even casting a shadow this side of the interface. But they might well have effect on psionic usage.

Maybe their shadow on this side is at the origin of all that nonsense about ghosts, poltergeists, radio broadcasts from the dead and other supernatural stuff that's been part of Man's history all these millennia.

Contacts are erratic, unconclusive and whimsical due to the nature of most observers.

Only the dawning of psionic awareness has brough us in full-time contact with that universe.

Before that, it was just particularly endowed individuals (mediums) and old wives' tales.

In other words, we might have now a good rationale to explain at least part of the supernatural, and to bring a little rationalized horror into Trinity.

It would probably not be to many players' tastes, but we can do it.

[Tamoline]

On that note, I'd already thought of an explanation for vampires, werewolves etc, should I ever need it. There are a few extremely inbred families of psychomorphs out there who have specialised talents (mainly running towards the biokinetic, though there is some talent for telepathy), not to mention inbred weaknesses, which they cannot get rid of (being part of their pattern). Of course, if we add this to the infection theory of how psions get their powers, it could be that vampirism/lycanthropy is spread when a latent victim survives the attack, and is infected with this particular form of Talent.

Either way, I would probably keep this small scale. It might be amusing to find out what happens when one of our mutants attack a psion though.

[DoctorDee]

Of course, if we add this to the infection theory of how psions get their powers, it could be that vampirism/lycanthropy is spread when a latent victim survives the attack, and is infected with this particular form of Talent.

Or, maybe, the deriving Talent would be something closer to the a Nova power than to PSI proper.

I'm not conversant enough with the Aberrant universe to know if there's any Nova power that can do the trick and act through contagion.

There's a severe form of Taint that does that, though.

Who knows.

There's quite some possibilities.

I'm also for keeping this "weird critters" option down to a minimum.

There's vamps and weres games enough out there without us turning Trinity into "Buffy does the Future".

But a single creature once in a while might be fun for a change of pace.

Even if, as my two former-V:TM players discovered pretty soon, it's not safe to bring the World of darkness attitude in Trinity.

their characters still have the scars to prove it. ::sly

[Max_Raven]

if we are going for this hypothesis, then it makes sense that there would be other psionic lifeforms out there. Quite probably non sentient, maybe not even casting a shadow this side of the interface.

This fits neatly with the Doyen tool-race bit I proposed, unless it passed someone by completely... ::blush

[DoctorDee]

unless it passed someone by completely...

Eh, this thread is getting big.

I normally make a point of reading again the whole doc before posting, but as I'm in a place where I pay for the time on-line, this is getting expensive ::smiley4

But what we have here now is the whole spectrum

. creatures limited to the noetic universe (the "patterns" mentioned some way up)

. creatures limited to the material universe (plain humans, e.g.)

. creatures partaking of both, living or at least acting on both sides (even if not necessarily on a 50/50 basis).

Quite some options to start our own little zoo... Critters Handbook anyone? ::bigsmile

Also, it reminds me of the old classification of living things in the Fritz Leiber "Changewar" universe (plants, animals, men, demons).

And as we are at it--where do we place in the above classification the Ets we already know?

What about the fauna (?) on Eden, for instance?

[Tamoline]

One thought is that there are no creatures partaking from both sides. The nearest one will get is a creature from one side who has a creature from the other side symbiotically attached to it's 'shadow'. (This is following on from my previous post.) This process allows the two to communicate, even act as one (if one is dominant, as in the case of the psion/powers combination.) The Prometheus effect attaches a power symbiot to the psion's shadow, giving him powers. This soculd be the reason why psions only have one aptitude: the symbiot that is attached will not allow other symbiots to grow past their initial stages, as it is taking most of the energy from the psion. Natural psychomorphs just attract these creatures from the wild. The wild creatures are less strong, but play better with others, allowing a small colony to form on the shadow. Bioware is similiar. The physical part is purely a way to supply energy to the symbiot on the other side, which is grown from the human bioware vats. Naturally, human made psion symbiots are not nearly as strong as the Doyen gengineered ones, and so are very limited.

[DoctorDee]

Call me humanocentric, but this idea of powers actually being simbiont creatures leaves me a little... ::confused

I'd rather have the psi powers of our psis turning out to be some kind of alien invasion in the eyes of the noetic universe denizens.

But that's just me.

[ezekiel]

It might be a little late to voice my dissent but don't you think defining the Doyen is like saying (blasphemy!) that the force comes from mitichlordians and mucho microbes = mucho power? I personnally hated the destroying of the mystique behind it...well, admittedly I hated everything of eps 1-2 and I can't imagine 3 will be any better unfortunately.

But to get back on the subject, it might be better to do a bit on Doyen in "The Trinity Guide to Aliens" than just as a one book. I'd like to have a lot more info on the Qin than was provided in the books. What would a game of Qin players be like? We have no real info of life as a Qin (political parties aside), only Qin around humans. They kinda make me think of the Invid in Robotech personnally...hive mind and evilness aside. Though that'd be a hell of an idea if it was actually a few hive minds controlled by one or two mega-qin...political parties only to mess up the minds of visiting humans or to present a society acceptable to them... Its better left to the storyteller and not a book though...

Info on Chromatics would be cool as well...and maybe some SI droids (awol nippon tech?) and some Biotech evolved thingies (That was a good idea...possibly Qin tech?) some Coalition info 'n stuff and yes, if people want, info on Doyen.

P.S. One thing I didn't like about the Doyen is the name...in french it means "Dean" and I tend to play in french...kinda takes away the gusto. Oh no! Another one of those evil deans controlling us!

[Tamoline]

Yeah, natural psions are the big hole in this theory. On the other hand, in my game at the moment there is something an awful lot like a disease running through a few psions that is taking at least some of the restrictions away from them.

(Long story short, since I only had two players, I gave them freeform psionics partway through the campaign, and told them, yes this was something noone else could do, with the exception of the proxies. Last session (with the addition of a few more players) one of the original PCs went completely apeshit and demonstrated advanced use of at least three modes before being driven off by the rest of the group. One of these was quantakinesis. I still trying to come up with some good reasons behind this. Needlesstosay, the other PC who has freeform may be starting to get a little paranoid about now. ::biggrin )

On the topic of qin, I was thinking they managed to evolve through cooperation with other lifeforms, rather than competition. Basically they trained animals to do tasks for them in return for food, looking after, etc, then got to the stage where they bred said animals for specific tasks, and finally to the gengineering animals for specific tasks. Being at the centre of this web of cooperation might explain why their meagre psionic capability is so developed: it is very useful to be able to tell what the creatures you work with want. It also fits perfectly with their current strategy: produce what your animals can't, so you can get what you want out of them.