Sixth Sense Question

[Library Ogre]

Sam the Psychic gets onto a plane, onto which a bomb has been planted. The bomb will explode 4 hours into the 10 hour flight.

When does Sam's Sixth Sense trigger? If he had other psychic sensitive powers, which of them would give him enough warning to avoid getting on the plane?

[drewkitty ~..~]

I think it would be story related.
-if it was sorta like final Destination it would be when they were boarding or when the bomb was planted so the char(s) could get off before the plane departed.
-If it was Mission Impossible type then just in time for them to get off the plane, jumping mid air to get off the plane.

[filo_clarke]

I would probably give Sam a flash of Clairvoyance before boarding the plane, and a flash of Sixth Sense 3:59 mins into the flight.

[Glistam]

Sam the Psychic gets onto a plane, onto which a bomb has been planted. The bomb will explode 4 hours into the 10 hour flight.

When does Sam's Sixth Sense trigger? If he had other psychic sensitive powers, which of them would give him enough warning to avoid getting on the plane?

I believe Sixth Sense only gives you about a minute's warning, and no specifics. So he would have enough time to grab a parachute and jump, but that's only if he assumed the danger was that catastrophic and not something more mundane, like hijackers.

The power of Clairvoyance however could activate and give him a vague warning - that would be appropriate, but totally up tot he GM. I believe there's also a power somewhere called Precognition, which is like a combination of Danger Sense and Clairvoyance, but has to be activated.

That's about all I can think of.

[Library Ogre]

I think it would be story related.
-if it was sorta like final Destination it would be when they were boarding or when the bomb was planted so the char(s) could get off before the plane departed.

This would be a sixth sense trigger?

[drewkitty ~..~]

I think it would be story related.
-if it was sorta like final Destination it would be when they were boarding or when the bomb was planted so the char(s) could get off before the plane departed.

This would be a sixth sense trigger?

sixth sense....when I think of this as a concept I go back to the Robert Heinlein's book "The Number of the Beast" where one of the main chars has a "6th sense" that 'trigers' in time escape the danger. With a bomb planted in a room he dives out a window just a few seconds before the bomb goes off....then there is getting the family out of the 'safe-house' they were in and flying away to be just out of range of the nuke that goes off at the safe-house.

As you can see in the examples the timing of it triggering is story dependent. Which is why I said things as I said them.
---
If you just want to go on absolute terms of the text then it is from when the lethal event occurs.

[Damian Magecraft]

RAW: upto 60 seconds before the bomb explodes.

Clairvoyance/precognition could warn of the "possible" danger minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or even years in advance.

[Alrik Vas]

Would sixth sense warn you of something you recognize as danger already?

Like, you see a sign, but your not literate, you walk into a mine field, sixth sense triggers. Though if you were literate, would it warn you before you step into the area or only when you are about to more immediately step on a mine?

[drewkitty ~..~]

Would sixth sense warn you of something you recognize as danger already?

Like, you see a sign, but your not literate, you walk into a mine field, sixth sense triggers. Though if you were literate, would it warn you before you step into the area or only when you are about to more immediately step on a mine?

In that instance the person that was ignorant that the field has mines in it and does not know what the sign means would have their 6th sense work.

However, if the char is lost/turned about in a sensory deprived environment (night time/foggy/dusty/low visibility environmental events) and knows about the mine field but does not know he is about to wander into it, the 6th sense would activate if needed.

EDIT: The way I answered this hinges on the one word in the text, "unexpected". Thus if it is a expected danger 6th sense will not go off.

[Damian Magecraft]

Would sixth sense warn you of something you recognize as danger already?

Like, you see a sign, but your not literate, you walk into a mine field, sixth sense triggers. Though if you were literate, would it warn you before you step into the area or only when you are about to more immediately step on a mine?

By RAW: the power does not discriminate.

[Alrik Vas]

Between the two of you, if I combine your answers, I get: "the power doesn't discriminate, it'll figure out how to bleed your precious, precious ISP no matter what."



But seriously, that's curious. So how sudden does danger have to be? Say you set the bomb on the plane, but you had to board it for some reason and you control the detonator. If your sixth sense triggers...would that be an indication that someone was onto you? Or an indication that there are just no parachutes on the plane and sometime in the next minute you were going to flick the switch, even though you didn't know you were going to yet?

[Library Ogre]

You're going to flick it in the next minute because your sixth sense going off made you act paranoid, so they suspected you of being a terrorist.

[Alrik Vas]

that's the rub...sixth sense makes you paranoid haha

[Damian Magecraft]

Between the two of you, if I combine your answers, I get: "the power doesn't discriminate, it'll figure out how to bleed your precious, precious ISP no matter what."



But seriously, that's curious. So how sudden does danger have to be? Say you set the bomb on the plane, but you had to board it for some reason and you control the detonator. If your sixth sense triggers...would that be an indication that someone was onto you? Or an indication that there are just no parachutes on the plane and sometime in the next minute you were going to flick the switch, even though you didn't know you were going to yet?

According to RAW? Any danger within the next 60 seconds...

[Jefffar]

It's kind of tricky.

I tend to view the 1D4 melee warning as representative of the warning the character gets to do something to protect themselves or another important person within 90 ft before the danger becomes inescapable.

So, does that warn them just before they get on the plane? I'm not sure. There are tales of folks who got a bad feeling and didn't board planes later destined fo Calamity. Is this 6th Sense or another precognitive ability in operation?

[flatline]

My opinion is 6th sense is tactical in nature and only triggers for immediate danger. In this scenario, you'd get no warning until the bomb was about to explode (15 to 60 seconds, as I recall). Plenty of time to look alert before dying. 6th sense makes no promise about alerting you in time to save yourself from whatever danger is immanent, just that you're less likely to be caught flat footed.

If you want a more strategically useful warning that might let you decide not to board the plane, then you need Clairvoyance or something similar.

If there was no bomb, but the plane was going to be hit by a random meteor 4 hours into the flight or suck a bird into the engine or suffer any sort of catastrophic bad luck 4 hours into the flight, my answers would be exactly the same.

[flatline]

Actually, there are so many conceptual problems with 6th sense that we mostly gave up on using it back in the day.

If the immediate danger needs to be life threatening, then if your ambusher's intent is to capture you alive to be questioned/executed/eaten later, then 6th sense won't fire.

If the danger doesn't really need to be life threatening, just inconvenient, then you'll never have any ISP left.

Similarly, if you know there's a sniper somewhere out there, will 6th sense trigger?

[drewkitty ~..~]

Between the two of you, if I combine your answers, I get: "the power doesn't discriminate, it'll figure out how to bleed your precious, precious ISP no matter what."



But seriously, that's curious. So how sudden does danger have to be? Say you set the bomb on the plane, but you had to board it for some reason and you control the detonator. If your sixth sense triggers...would that be an indication that someone was onto you? Or an indication that there are just no parachutes on the plane and sometime in the next minute you were going to flick the switch, even though you didn't know you were going to yet?

According to RAW? Any danger within the next 60 seconds...

RAW says any unexpected lethal danger to herself or someone cared for or within the same group within 90 feet of the psion, that will happen within the next 60 sec (4 melee rounds).

[Alrik Vas]

Well, from the description of the ability, as much as I myself have been egging on about how it works, it is pretty clear how it works.

As in the OP, Sixth Sense wouldn't tell you not to get on the plane. That's more long-term precognition. Sixth Sense is intended to protect you from a surprise attack. As a matter of fact, it says you cannot be caught unawares by a surprise attack (it says "from behind", but dear lord if we take that literally it can be defeated by sniping you in the face from the front and let's just not...). So it's intent is pretty clear. It doesn't tell you not to get on that plane, but it will warn you when the kill team hiding inside the plane is about to jump you as you board.

It gives you a chance when someone tries to knife you in the street from behind. It would warn you when you're about to start your car and it's rigged to explode. It would warn you when a bomb or missile is coming at you from high altitude. That sort of thing.

What it won't help you with is the slow knife, basically. The long con. Only when the enemy is about to actually spring the trap does it go off...but by then, if you're enemy is well-prepared, not being hit by the surprise shot might not even matter.

[Ice Dragon]

Depending on the story and the GM, it will trigger aroudn 1' to 5' before the bomb explode so that the characters can do something.

IMHO, the sixth sense power is just a just in time power.

[Zer0 Kay]

So then do we all agree that a trap that a person wouldn't be warned by sixth sense that a safe door is being closed on him IF there is more than a minute of air in the safe? Either because he knows the danger of walking into a safe with no one holding the door open or because there is more than a minute of air?

So if a person is implanted with a bomb while unconscious and later are told "You ARE the bomb" but misunderstand it as "Your da bomb!". Does the sixth sense go off within a minute of the detonation?

If someone has a magic item placed on them that will teleport them into... I don't know, some form of instant death, but it doesn't activate for two minutes do they know it was planted from sixth sense?

If someone is going to snipe Prosek, but they use a pneumatic gun with a poison nano dart that takes more than a hour to kill... Does the sixth sense of the psychics "close" to him go off?

In the reverse can precognition, clairvoyance ever be trusted by dignitaries who have to show a presence? It would show them in danger at every event because someone has thought of it and the quantum paths have been initiated.

[Zer0 Kay]

They need to also add danger "spidey" sense. That keys off of danger not death. And maybe a joke owey sense to avoid those boo-boos too.

[Library Ogre]

I think, in the case of Prosek (and a lot of the Coalition), they do something like the Very Large Array... individually, any given psychic isn't that impressively accurate with Clairvoyance. However, if you have 5 Clairvoyants, you start getting some good accuracy. If you have a nation with a substantial number of clairvoyants, then vetted clairvoyants might be given incentives to provide accurate pre-intel, and you might start seeing statistical patterns in predictions.

A bit about CS Psychics, and how they might be used.

[Zer0 Kay]

I think, in the case of Prosek (and a lot of the Coalition), they do something like the Very Large Array... individually, any given psychic isn't that impressively accurate with Clairvoyance. However, if you have 5 Clairvoyants, you start getting some good accuracy. If you have a nation with a substantial number of clairvoyants, then vetted clairvoyants might be given incentives to provide accurate pre-intel, and you might start seeing statistical patterns in predictions.

A bit about CS Psychics, and how they might be used.

Now that sir makes TOTAL sense. One psychic with a vision is an opinion, two with the same vision is a coincidence, three is a trend and four is enemy action. Slightly modified from Ian Fleming.

[flatline]

I think, in the case of Prosek (and a lot of the Coalition), they do something like the Very Large Array... individually, any given psychic isn't that impressively accurate with Clairvoyance. However, if you have 5 Clairvoyants, you start getting some good accuracy. If you have a nation with a substantial number of clairvoyants, then vetted clairvoyants might be given incentives to provide accurate pre-intel, and you might start seeing statistical patterns in predictions.

A bit about CS Psychics, and how they might be used.

Now that sir makes TOTAL sense. One psychic with a vision is an opinion, two with the same vision is a coincidence, three is a trend and four is enemy action. Slightly modified from Ian Fleming.

I'm pretty sure we devoted a thread to exactly this some time ago (search for "clairvoyance net" or something like that). Some thought that it would work. Others disagreed. I think the thread was eventually locked.

I do not allow it to work in my own setting.

[Library Ogre]

I'm pretty sure we devoted a thread to exactly this some time ago (search for "clairvoyance net" or something like that). Some thought that it would work. Others disagreed. I think the thread was eventually locked.

I do not allow it to work in my own setting.

This one isn't locked, yet. Can you explain why?

[flatline]

I'm pretty sure we devoted a thread to exactly this some time ago (search for "clairvoyance net" or something like that). Some thought that it would work. Others disagreed. I think the thread was eventually locked.

I do not allow it to work in my own setting.

This one isn't locked, yet. Can you explain why?

When I read the description of Clairvoyance, each "report" is light on details, very non-specific, and can happen a variable amount of time ahead of the threat that it's foretelling.

Imagine having tens of thousands of these come in every day, some foretelling threats that are personal to the psychic or someone near to them, some foretelling threats of regional significance, and some foretelling threats that may be of significance to the well being of the CS as a whole (one of many threats to Prosek, for instance). You may have reports describing the same event, but one may be a year old and the other came in yesterday and they look almost identical to reports that came in months ago for an event that has already happened, so you probably threw away the year-old report so now you have nothing to cluster yesterday's report with.

In data mining terms, this a low quality data set with low information density and with almost no potential to cluster or partition the individual reports into groups of reports that we can say are describing the same threat with any real confidence. In other words, the only kind of set that is harder to pull useful patterns from is random noise. In my opinion, the best the CS could hope to get is "Look sharp! In the last week ClairvoyanceNet saw a 14% up-tick in threats believed to be relevant to Prosek. They believe that to be significant!"

There are some that were arguing that with enough data the CS should know the type of threat, location of the threat, and specific time of the threat. I just don't see it. Lots of low quality data can't be improved by adding more low quality data to the set. It's the opposite of what you want.

But I have another reason, too. I don't want every sufficiently large organized population of psychics to be effectively omniscient in regards to serious threats against them. It's a setting-breaker for me.

[Library Ogre]

The quality of the data is not bad argument, truthfully. Arguing against it, I would point that the potential danger IS clear. So, in the case of the bomb in the Zocolo, you're going to have a bunch of people having visions of an explosion in the Zocolo, each with different details, which taken together create a clearer image. "Ok, Bob saw that it was in the evening. Stephanie saw that it was Taco Tuesday at Crazy Jose's. So, we put some Dog Boys in the area that afternoon, maybe a couple of Sniffer dogs."

To an extent, it will also come back to training and incentives. The CS will want to discourage false or superfluous reports, and may well have punishments for people who abuse the system and never give good reports (they might, for example, keep statistics on how often a given person is right and weight their information accordingly). But I would also say that there's some evidence that things like this already happen... in the Mechanoids book, where they discuss the Planetary Distress beacon.

[eliakon]

The quality of the data is not bad argument, truthfully. Arguing against it, I would point that the potential danger IS clear. So, in the case of the bomb in the Zocolo, you're going to have a bunch of people having visions of an explosion in the Zocolo, each with different details, which taken together create a clearer image. "Ok, Bob saw that it was in the evening. Stephanie saw that it was Taco Tuesday at Crazy Jose's. So, we put some Dog Boys in the area that afternoon, maybe a couple of Sniffer dogs."

To an extent, it will also come back to training and incentives. The CS will want to discourage false or superfluous reports, and may well have punishments for people who abuse the system and never give good reports (they might, for example, keep statistics on how often a given person is right and weight their information accordingly). But I would also say that there's some evidence that things like this already happen... in the Mechanoids book, where they discuss the Planetary Distress beacon.

My thoughts are that both are right....
That the system may be in place, and it probably has a decent success rate....but its not 100%. Basically it helps explain plot armor like "why has no one nuked X" but since most of the heavy visions are on stuff like that nuke (because nuking Chi-Town will personally affect EVERY psychic, where as bombing Crazy Jose's restaurant might only affect three or four) the smaller stuff slips through the cracks. Thus the smaller the incident the less psychics that could get a vision, never mind the ones that will. And thus your data drops off. Quickly becoming "Oh great there is going to be a hit and run in the next month or so. Black car.....well file that in the worthless pile." (Of course if you get ninety five visions of that hit and run, suddenly everyone sits up and pays attention since it would seem to be VERY relevant. And they would start plotting the relationship of all the psychics to see if there is something in common that they share that would make one hit and run be significant to all of them.)

Moving it firmly to the level of plot device instead of plot shackle.

[glitterboy2098]

and given the CS tracks info on EVERYBODY as a matter of course, them having a system like that would make sense. and peicing together info from different sources to create a more detailed whole is what analysts are for. even better, an intel agency in the CS would be able to take that and add stuff from their ubiquitous surveillance, and might even be able to figure out how to stop it before it happens.

[eliakon]

and given the CS tracks info on EVERYBODY as a matter of course, them having a system like that would make sense. and peicing together info from different sources to create a more detailed whole is what analysts are for. even better, an intel agency in the CS would be able to take that and add stuff from their ubiquitous surveillance, and might even be able to figure out how to stop it before it happens.

But again it only works in some place, with some set ups....
...so it works great to help shore up the CS Plot Armor with an in game explanation, but that explanation requires tens of thousands of registered psychics (don't forget all those dog boys and psi-stalkers for this), and a major police state with lots of paranoid internal surveillance.... Not exactly something available to everyone.

[Axelmania]

If you boarded with a parachute then the power would give you enough warning to open the door and jump out of the plane, but not enough to avoid getting on it in the first place. The power doesn't guarantee that it's warning will give you enough time to counteract the threat. If a long-range missile is launched at you and takes a minute to get to you, that might not be enough time to run to and suit up in your SAMAS so you can fire a mini-missile at it.