Post by TiJiL on Jan 8, 2006 17:35:20 GMT -5
Ure Psychic Abilities
Ure are intelligent marsupial apes with amazing brains. Since nervous systems send signals through electrical pathways, a precise electrical charge moving through the air can affect or even overpower a creature’s brain signals. Ure are capable of concentrating signals around them, using them to deceive and defeat their opponents. The clear plate that makes up a ure’s forehead acts as an amplifier, increasing the power of the brain’s relatively weak signals and helping them project to a given target. Without technological assistance, even very talented ure can only affect foes within a few yards.
Though ure broadcast most of their signals through powerful nerves in their foreheads and eyes, the signals they produce travel through their entire bodies and thus are emitted uncontrollably in all directions by all of the ure’s neurons. At any time, a ure’s nervous system not only controls the normal signals of the ure’s body, but also the signals the ure wishes to broadcast. Novice psychics find it difficult to keep these signal sets separated, however, and thus must either meditate (reducing natural signals so that broadcasted signals can be stably transmitted) or their broadcasted signals will disrupt their natural signals and vice versa. If this issue is ignored, consequences can be as minor as ineffective broadcasting or as major as fatal injury to the ure itself.
Another issue facing ure psychics is interference from other signals. It takes a well-trained psychic to operate at full efficiency in the presence of other working psychics, and thus ure often work alone as saboteurs or assassins, as opposed to psychic legionnaires.
Psychic Resistance
Several aspects of a target creature determine its ability to resist the signals broadcast by a ure. First of all, the target must have an ordinary nervous system. Norkids and vimp are extremely difficult to affect with psychic powers, as their nervous systems inherently rout and defeat foreign signals. This isn’t to say they are impossible to affect, but that it often takes considerably more effort or multiple ure to do so. Similarly, it is difficult for a ure to affect another ure, simply because of the complexity and duality of a ure’s nervous system.
Second, ees are very difficult to affect mentally because of their amazing ability to detect incoming signals, as well as their great intelligence. Mind control relies heavily on surprise and ignorance, and since ees are instantly aware of when they are in danger of being affected, they have time to escape and are difficult to trick.
A creature’s intelligence is an important factor in psychic resistance. Intelligent creatures are more capable of realizing that they are being affected and recognizing inconsistencies in what they are experiencing. However, though twasseccs and snodeck are both highly intelligent races, they are still reasonably easy to affect because of their passionate natures. Even a smart twassecc can be driven into an emotional fury and thus be easily affected.
Finally, since mind control signals are comparable to instinctual behaviors, creatures with very strong instincts are sometimes difficult to override, though this is usually only a minor barrier.
The thirteen races listed from most to least difficult to mind control:
1. Norkid
2. Vimp
3. Ees
4. Ure
5. Sigwar
6. Snodeck
7. Twassecc
8. Flispian
9. Thelsic
10. Nogan
11. Choeroed
12. Hurk
13. Greadean
Psychic skill
A great deal of psychic ability comes from pure genetics. By the time a ure has reached adolescence, his brain has reached its full potential in signal strength. Some ure are inherently capable of broadcasting very coherent, powerful signals, while some are psychically challenged, even so far as being incapable of broadcasting even the weakest of commands. Furthermore, some ure are inherently more skilled at other aspects of psychic ability, including more powerful body signals, greater ability to differentiate between natural and broadcasted signals, greater resistance to foreign signals, and greater ability at affecting alien minds.
Despite this, however, a great deal of psychic ability comes from practice. Through simple experience, ure become more adept at eliminating interference from other ure and from their own natural signals. Similarly, practice at mind controlling twasseccs will yield greater skill at it, since the precise manner in which a twassecc mind is controlled is different from the precise manner in which a different species’ mind is controlled.
Self-delusion
The first and easiest set of psychic abilities in a ure’s repertoire are based on using broadcasted signals to affect natural signals. This can be used to eliminate pain, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. Obviously, by doing this, a ure is only fooling his body into believing it is not being damaged, and thus can continue fighting. The damage is real, however, and a starving ure will eventually starve, even if he convinces his stomach otherwise. Usually, ure toddlers will discover how to do these abilities without any instruction at all (and their speed at doing so is often considered a pre-emptive test of psychic ability). The amount of concentration required for self-delusion depends on the strength of the natural signal and the skill of the psychic. Young and inexperienced psychics will have to maintain concentration to stem away anything more severe than a stomachache or a skinned knee, but by the time a ure has left school, he’s usually mastered the technique well enough to hold back even grievous pain with only minimal concentration.
Mental influence
The second set of psychic abilities, mental influence, form the backbone of a ure’s skills, and are the primary reason they are so dangerous. These skills can cause pain (ranging from a mild headache to complete cranial apoptosis), can deceive (from creating a drunken like state to inserting given sensations into a target), can hamper (from forcing an opponent to relive his most horrible memories to convincing him that he needs to kill everything around him), and can even result in complete mind control, where a target has literally no say in what he does. All of these abilities are transmitted through the forehead and face, and thus, for an unaided ure, must be done to a target within a few meters and in the presence of air. However, with a forehead amplifier (usually transparent or metal plates that are built into helmets or simply strapped onto the head), the range is significantly improved. A ure’s maximum range for these abilities ranges from a few dozen meters to a few hundred meters, depending on their psyshic aptitude.
Generally, mental influence simply nudges a target’s brain in one way or another. A ure does not have to know exactly what command to give to a target, but can simply create impressions and sensations very easily. A ure does not need to know what your innermost fear is to force you to relive it, he can simply force your brain to conjure these images itself. These impulses are roughly equivalent to instincts and emotions, and thus are much more effective on targets that are already being led by passion. If a target realizes it is being deceived, it is often possible to sever the link, so ure try to be very subtle in their influence, easing their signals into a target’s mind so as to avoid alerting them. The best defense against mind control is logic and careful thinking, a thought process that, though contrary to normal twassecc thinking, is widely taught across their empire as a means to protect an individual during battle with the ure.
More overt commands are much more difficult to enforce. Since every sent signal needs to be adapted for the target and must be strong enough to override the target’s natural signals, it is much easier to implant a single command and let the target’s brain corrupt itself over that, with the occasional push from the ure to help it along. Only the best ure are actually capable of complete, inescapable mind control.
Ure can also use these methods to damage a foe by implanting powerful pain signals in a target’s mind. Though usually this results in only a splitting headache, skilled psychics can cause so much pain that a target is temporarily paralyzed. The best ure can kill opponents mentally through very difficult mind control. With the right amount of skill and practice, a ure can overcome an enemy’s involuntary brain signals and wreak havoc on its body, causing irregular heartbeats and other deadly maladies.
A single, very strong thought is often used to deceive opponents, as well. Talented ure can essentially make themselves invisible to the target by interrupting visual signals and convincing the target’s brain that nobody is present. This can also be used to trick opponents into dangerous actions or suicide, but as a rule of thumb, the smarter the target and the more detailed the vision, the more difficult this is for the ure.
Finally, a ure can use these abilities to read the minds of his enemies. Essentially, the ure issues a command to the target’s brain to release information signals towards the ure, which, providing the ure is close enough, he can pick up and interpret.
Energy manipulation
As mentioned above, the signals that a ure produces are projected through his entire body. These body signals are considerably weaker than the head signals, but are often used for entirely different tasks. With the attachment of special devices, these body signals can be used to manipulate energy to deadly effect.
The devices most commonly used by ure to harness the power of these body signals are weapons, shield generators, and kinetic beam projectors. Most ure weapons are fired, instead of with a trigger, by sending a psychic impulse through a wire into the gun. This prevents the physically stronger twasseccs from stealing ure weapons on the battlefield. Some of these guns fire streams of electricity to cook and destroy enemies. With signals sent through these same wires, a ure can psychically adjust the weapon, widening the stream or increasing the power as necessary for the situation.
More dangerously, however, shield generators and kinetic beam projectors are built into metal gloves that most ure soldiers wear. These gloves (traditionally with the shield on the left hand and the projector on the right) allow psychic control over two deadly tools. A ure shield generator is, while not nearly as powerful as those of the ees, far more power efficient. A ure can turn it on in the blink of an eye and swiftly adjust it to meet the situation. If a single opponent is shooting a stream of bullets at a ure, the ure can concentrate all of the shield’s power to just that point, saving energy and increasing the shield’s strength tenfold. Finally, the kinetic beam projector essentially acts as a psychically controlled tractor beam, allowing the ure to lift, toss, manipulate, and injure objects at a range of a few feet.
All three of these devices are heavily dependent on their power sources, and thus ure generally wear a special battery on their right shoulder. More powerful versions are considerably heavier and harder to manipulate psychically, so they are rarely seen.
Teleportation
A rare few ure are capable of teleportation. These ure are considered to be the most dangerous of their race and are incredibly difficult to defeat in 1 versus 1 combat. Though it remains unknown to twassecc science how these ure are capable of disassembling their molecules, moving them very rapidly to a new spot, and reassembling them in a split second, but sufficeth to say they can. Aside from amazing mobility and the difficulty involved in keeping track of a ure teleporter, they are also capable of instantaneously fixing physical injuries. Molecules can be immediately rearranged to fix cuts, bruises, and broken bones. To kill a teleporter, a foe must either shoot them with an energy weapon (changing the molecules enough that the teleporter cannot restore them well) or hurt them enough that they cannot concentrate and repair themselves.
Since it seems that the teleportation ability relies entirely on body signals and these signals are notoriously weak, ure teleporters must train for their entire lives to focus head and body signals together. For this reason, they cannot spare any concentration to use other psychic abilities. Ure teleporters are incapable of all but the most meager standard psychic abilities, even though they represent the most talented psychics of all.
Ure are intelligent marsupial apes with amazing brains. Since nervous systems send signals through electrical pathways, a precise electrical charge moving through the air can affect or even overpower a creature’s brain signals. Ure are capable of concentrating signals around them, using them to deceive and defeat their opponents. The clear plate that makes up a ure’s forehead acts as an amplifier, increasing the power of the brain’s relatively weak signals and helping them project to a given target. Without technological assistance, even very talented ure can only affect foes within a few yards.
Though ure broadcast most of their signals through powerful nerves in their foreheads and eyes, the signals they produce travel through their entire bodies and thus are emitted uncontrollably in all directions by all of the ure’s neurons. At any time, a ure’s nervous system not only controls the normal signals of the ure’s body, but also the signals the ure wishes to broadcast. Novice psychics find it difficult to keep these signal sets separated, however, and thus must either meditate (reducing natural signals so that broadcasted signals can be stably transmitted) or their broadcasted signals will disrupt their natural signals and vice versa. If this issue is ignored, consequences can be as minor as ineffective broadcasting or as major as fatal injury to the ure itself.
Another issue facing ure psychics is interference from other signals. It takes a well-trained psychic to operate at full efficiency in the presence of other working psychics, and thus ure often work alone as saboteurs or assassins, as opposed to psychic legionnaires.
Psychic Resistance
Several aspects of a target creature determine its ability to resist the signals broadcast by a ure. First of all, the target must have an ordinary nervous system. Norkids and vimp are extremely difficult to affect with psychic powers, as their nervous systems inherently rout and defeat foreign signals. This isn’t to say they are impossible to affect, but that it often takes considerably more effort or multiple ure to do so. Similarly, it is difficult for a ure to affect another ure, simply because of the complexity and duality of a ure’s nervous system.
Second, ees are very difficult to affect mentally because of their amazing ability to detect incoming signals, as well as their great intelligence. Mind control relies heavily on surprise and ignorance, and since ees are instantly aware of when they are in danger of being affected, they have time to escape and are difficult to trick.
A creature’s intelligence is an important factor in psychic resistance. Intelligent creatures are more capable of realizing that they are being affected and recognizing inconsistencies in what they are experiencing. However, though twasseccs and snodeck are both highly intelligent races, they are still reasonably easy to affect because of their passionate natures. Even a smart twassecc can be driven into an emotional fury and thus be easily affected.
Finally, since mind control signals are comparable to instinctual behaviors, creatures with very strong instincts are sometimes difficult to override, though this is usually only a minor barrier.
The thirteen races listed from most to least difficult to mind control:
1. Norkid
2. Vimp
3. Ees
4. Ure
5. Sigwar
6. Snodeck
7. Twassecc
8. Flispian
9. Thelsic
10. Nogan
11. Choeroed
12. Hurk
13. Greadean
Psychic skill
A great deal of psychic ability comes from pure genetics. By the time a ure has reached adolescence, his brain has reached its full potential in signal strength. Some ure are inherently capable of broadcasting very coherent, powerful signals, while some are psychically challenged, even so far as being incapable of broadcasting even the weakest of commands. Furthermore, some ure are inherently more skilled at other aspects of psychic ability, including more powerful body signals, greater ability to differentiate between natural and broadcasted signals, greater resistance to foreign signals, and greater ability at affecting alien minds.
Despite this, however, a great deal of psychic ability comes from practice. Through simple experience, ure become more adept at eliminating interference from other ure and from their own natural signals. Similarly, practice at mind controlling twasseccs will yield greater skill at it, since the precise manner in which a twassecc mind is controlled is different from the precise manner in which a different species’ mind is controlled.
Self-delusion
The first and easiest set of psychic abilities in a ure’s repertoire are based on using broadcasted signals to affect natural signals. This can be used to eliminate pain, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. Obviously, by doing this, a ure is only fooling his body into believing it is not being damaged, and thus can continue fighting. The damage is real, however, and a starving ure will eventually starve, even if he convinces his stomach otherwise. Usually, ure toddlers will discover how to do these abilities without any instruction at all (and their speed at doing so is often considered a pre-emptive test of psychic ability). The amount of concentration required for self-delusion depends on the strength of the natural signal and the skill of the psychic. Young and inexperienced psychics will have to maintain concentration to stem away anything more severe than a stomachache or a skinned knee, but by the time a ure has left school, he’s usually mastered the technique well enough to hold back even grievous pain with only minimal concentration.
Mental influence
The second set of psychic abilities, mental influence, form the backbone of a ure’s skills, and are the primary reason they are so dangerous. These skills can cause pain (ranging from a mild headache to complete cranial apoptosis), can deceive (from creating a drunken like state to inserting given sensations into a target), can hamper (from forcing an opponent to relive his most horrible memories to convincing him that he needs to kill everything around him), and can even result in complete mind control, where a target has literally no say in what he does. All of these abilities are transmitted through the forehead and face, and thus, for an unaided ure, must be done to a target within a few meters and in the presence of air. However, with a forehead amplifier (usually transparent or metal plates that are built into helmets or simply strapped onto the head), the range is significantly improved. A ure’s maximum range for these abilities ranges from a few dozen meters to a few hundred meters, depending on their psyshic aptitude.
Generally, mental influence simply nudges a target’s brain in one way or another. A ure does not have to know exactly what command to give to a target, but can simply create impressions and sensations very easily. A ure does not need to know what your innermost fear is to force you to relive it, he can simply force your brain to conjure these images itself. These impulses are roughly equivalent to instincts and emotions, and thus are much more effective on targets that are already being led by passion. If a target realizes it is being deceived, it is often possible to sever the link, so ure try to be very subtle in their influence, easing their signals into a target’s mind so as to avoid alerting them. The best defense against mind control is logic and careful thinking, a thought process that, though contrary to normal twassecc thinking, is widely taught across their empire as a means to protect an individual during battle with the ure.
More overt commands are much more difficult to enforce. Since every sent signal needs to be adapted for the target and must be strong enough to override the target’s natural signals, it is much easier to implant a single command and let the target’s brain corrupt itself over that, with the occasional push from the ure to help it along. Only the best ure are actually capable of complete, inescapable mind control.
Ure can also use these methods to damage a foe by implanting powerful pain signals in a target’s mind. Though usually this results in only a splitting headache, skilled psychics can cause so much pain that a target is temporarily paralyzed. The best ure can kill opponents mentally through very difficult mind control. With the right amount of skill and practice, a ure can overcome an enemy’s involuntary brain signals and wreak havoc on its body, causing irregular heartbeats and other deadly maladies.
A single, very strong thought is often used to deceive opponents, as well. Talented ure can essentially make themselves invisible to the target by interrupting visual signals and convincing the target’s brain that nobody is present. This can also be used to trick opponents into dangerous actions or suicide, but as a rule of thumb, the smarter the target and the more detailed the vision, the more difficult this is for the ure.
Finally, a ure can use these abilities to read the minds of his enemies. Essentially, the ure issues a command to the target’s brain to release information signals towards the ure, which, providing the ure is close enough, he can pick up and interpret.
Energy manipulation
As mentioned above, the signals that a ure produces are projected through his entire body. These body signals are considerably weaker than the head signals, but are often used for entirely different tasks. With the attachment of special devices, these body signals can be used to manipulate energy to deadly effect.
The devices most commonly used by ure to harness the power of these body signals are weapons, shield generators, and kinetic beam projectors. Most ure weapons are fired, instead of with a trigger, by sending a psychic impulse through a wire into the gun. This prevents the physically stronger twasseccs from stealing ure weapons on the battlefield. Some of these guns fire streams of electricity to cook and destroy enemies. With signals sent through these same wires, a ure can psychically adjust the weapon, widening the stream or increasing the power as necessary for the situation.
More dangerously, however, shield generators and kinetic beam projectors are built into metal gloves that most ure soldiers wear. These gloves (traditionally with the shield on the left hand and the projector on the right) allow psychic control over two deadly tools. A ure shield generator is, while not nearly as powerful as those of the ees, far more power efficient. A ure can turn it on in the blink of an eye and swiftly adjust it to meet the situation. If a single opponent is shooting a stream of bullets at a ure, the ure can concentrate all of the shield’s power to just that point, saving energy and increasing the shield’s strength tenfold. Finally, the kinetic beam projector essentially acts as a psychically controlled tractor beam, allowing the ure to lift, toss, manipulate, and injure objects at a range of a few feet.
All three of these devices are heavily dependent on their power sources, and thus ure generally wear a special battery on their right shoulder. More powerful versions are considerably heavier and harder to manipulate psychically, so they are rarely seen.
Teleportation
A rare few ure are capable of teleportation. These ure are considered to be the most dangerous of their race and are incredibly difficult to defeat in 1 versus 1 combat. Though it remains unknown to twassecc science how these ure are capable of disassembling their molecules, moving them very rapidly to a new spot, and reassembling them in a split second, but sufficeth to say they can. Aside from amazing mobility and the difficulty involved in keeping track of a ure teleporter, they are also capable of instantaneously fixing physical injuries. Molecules can be immediately rearranged to fix cuts, bruises, and broken bones. To kill a teleporter, a foe must either shoot them with an energy weapon (changing the molecules enough that the teleporter cannot restore them well) or hurt them enough that they cannot concentrate and repair themselves.
Since it seems that the teleportation ability relies entirely on body signals and these signals are notoriously weak, ure teleporters must train for their entire lives to focus head and body signals together. For this reason, they cannot spare any concentration to use other psychic abilities. Ure teleporters are incapable of all but the most meager standard psychic abilities, even though they represent the most talented psychics of all.