Astral Projection / Remote Viewing ... civilian awareness?

[Axelmania]

I am wondering how much CS society or burbites or farming communities... just the common people and so forth, are aware of there being a portion of sensitive psionics (both are lesser so minor could get them) who can just spy on you in private situations, like taking a shower?

How can a sense of modesty or privacy even exist in a society aware there might be significant numbers able to do this?

Heck even object read used on a bar of soap or a loofa could violate privacy as we tend to take it for granted.

This makes me wonder if there's some kind of countermeasures that might be used.

Like for example, maybe the CS could designate a Psi-Nullifier to stand in the middle of a shower room so that all stalls are within 10ft of them so that they automatically nullify any Remove Viewing done on any of the people in teh adjacent stalls?

Or maybe have Psi-Hounds who can astrally project patrolling shower rooms (less people care if a mere animal sees them naked) to bite people spying via AP.

Or to stop Object Read (since it happens after the fact) you would probably lock up your soap/loofa/brush so that nobody could easily get access to it to see how you were using it.

[kaid]

The mutant is always trying to spy on you trust the dog boys to protect your privacy report any mutant activity to authorities immediately.

[Axelmania]

only psychics can tell they're being Remote Viewed...
only someone using See the Invisible / Presence Sense / Sense Psionics would know an Astral Projector is watching them
no way to tell your object got viewed...

So there's actually nothing to report at all in many cases, you'd just never know specifics. If you had Lore: Psychic you'd hopefully know it's at least possible.

Maybe most people lack the skill and CS doesn't encourage learning it, so people don't actually know how exposed they are, to avoid panics?

[Nekira Sudacne]

Or more likely people accept it as a fact of life and don't even think about it most of the time.

[Wise_Owl]

I would imagine largely like people today react to internet surveillance. People are abstractly aware that 'hackers' can gain access to their Data, so they engage in low level activities to 'protect themselves' some of which are useful, others of which are as useful as wearing magic charms. Unless it actually impacts you though(unless you have direct evidence that impacts your life) most people don't take even simple protections.

I imagine most Coalition citizens think "Well that's why we have Dog Boys and Psi-Stalkers and thank goodness for that and the rest of the Psi-Core". And leads, along with telepathy, to the thought that imposed controls on Psychic citizenry is justified.

[carriath]

I am wondering how much CS society or burbites or farming communities... just the common people and so forth, are aware of there being a portion of sensitive psionics (both are lesser so minor could get them) who can just spy on you in private situations, like taking a shower?

How can a sense of modesty or privacy even exist in a society aware there might be significant numbers able to do this?

Heck even object read used on a bar of soap or a loofa could violate privacy as we tend to take it for granted.

This makes me wonder if there's some kind of countermeasures that might be used.

Like for example, maybe the CS could designate a Psi-Nullifier to stand in the middle of a shower room so that all stalls are within 10ft of them so that they automatically nullify any Remove Viewing done on any of the people in teh adjacent stalls?

Or maybe have Psi-Hounds who can astrally project patrolling shower rooms (less people care if a mere animal sees them naked) to bite people spying via AP.

Or to stop Object Read (since it happens after the fact) you would probably lock up your soap/loofa/brush so that nobody could easily get access to it to see how you were using it.

Interesting thought, I think at least at some level everyone is aware that there are mysterious freaks with "mind powers" out there, with all sorts of fantastic rumored powers most of which are not true! Only those with Lore: Psionics would really know. It would certainly feed into the CS propaganda of anti-magic and anti-psionics for non-registered psychics.

It would also make sense as to why the CS have a Psionic Registration program.

As far as counter-measures go... apart from what was stated above I'm not sure there are any. But there are certain to be all sorts of superstitious solutions... A Silver cross above the shower, silver lined (tin-foil) hats. The foot from a rabbit born on the third cycle of the moon... that sort of stuff.

[Axelmania]

Or more likely people accept it as a fact of life and don't even think about it most of the time.

Accepting that as a fact of life would have a lot of cultural/psychological consequences though.

Like for example, if you just figure there are APers/RVers/ORers peeping on shower time, then people would probably be more prone to just do mixed group showers (ala Starship Troopers film) since "those damn psychics probably saw it all anyway"

Saying "group" does remind me though: I don't know if Mind Block would stop Remote Viewing, if it did then maybe Group Mind Block would be a solution to help non-psis?

Another option (where psi-hounds aren't available) might be to take advantage of the psi of parrots (RUE 367) since they can see invisible and receive empathic impressions, which should make them aware of Astral Projectors at least.

Passive detection like that (no ISP cost) is a good "canary" system to entice Psi-Net (who often need to spend ISP unless they're psi-stalkers/hounds) to activate their powers and get on-scene.

[Orin J.]

honestly the coalition answer is you can't have psychics spying on your if you lock up all the psychics. civilians don't need to have protections of psychic powers, they just need to trust the coalition's army to get rid of the evil psychics (and trust that coalition psychics only spy to catch those evil d-bees and mages of course)

[Axelmania]

honestly the coalition answer is you can't have psychics spying on your if you lock up all the psychics. civilians don't need to have protections of psychic powers, they just need to trust the coalition's army to get rid of the evil psychics (and trust that coalition psychics only spy to catch those evil d-bees and mages of course)

except that obviously is not the Coalition's answer because they don't lock up all the psychics
they don't even bother to implant chips in the minor ones

[Shark_Force]

for astral projection at least, it isn't that hard to detect. according to RUE, the following can detect an astral form coexisting in the material plane: other psychics, children under 13, animals (all animals, not just parrots), and most supernatural beings.

now, there aren't a lot of helpful supernatural beings in the CS. but there are a lot of psychics (simply due to having a lot of people), probably lots of animals (especially dogs), and probably plenty of children (due to lots of people and also the CS probably encourages it so that they have more future soldiers and workers).

so I would imagine that one largely takes care of itself. there is probably some of it going on, but not much.

remote viewing is capped at once per day per target, lasts only a few seconds, and explicitly gives you a brief glimpse where you may not even get many details. and also risks getting paid a visit by any dog boy or psi-stalker that happens to be even *remotely* close to you. I'm not going to say it never happens, but it probably also is not a major issue.

[Axelmania]

for astral projection at least, it isn't that hard to detect. according to RUE, the following can detect an astral form coexisting in the material plane: other psychics, children under 13, animals (all animals, not just parrots), and most supernatural beings.

My stance on "other psychics" meaning "some other psychics" rather than "all other psychics" would be this:

RUE176 the "See the Invisible" sensitive power's final senstence has a note saying "this includes .. Astral Beings".

If you could already see Astral Beings by merit of being a psychic then there would be no need to use this power to see them, no purpose in noting that.

So I see "other psychics" as meaning "other psychics: using See the Invisible or Astrally Projecting themselves" (using AP lets you see invisible too)

As for children: that's because children have a random chance of seeing invisible creatures (a % chance) which is described in the 1st edition of Beyond the Supernatural. Rifts/RUE obviously didn't have room to include that note (much like it doesn't include notes about Chi, even though Mercs confirms it exists) but we should assume that is still the case, and that only those children can see Astral Beings.

Same thing with animals: it does not say "all" animals, so we could assume it's just the ones with STI as a power.

As for why "most" prefixes supernatural and not the others: it's because most psychics/children/animals do not have STI while most supernatural beings do.

[Orin J.]

As for children: that's because children have a random chance of seeing invisible creatures (a % chance) which is described in the 1st edition of Beyond the Supernatural. Rifts/RUE obviously didn't have room to include that note (much like it doesn't include notes about Chi, even though Mercs confirms it exists) but we should assume that is still the case, and that only those children can see Astral Beings.

heck of a stretch, but you're free to do whatever house rules you like in your games.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Or more likely people accept it as a fact of life and don't even think about it most of the time.

Accepting that as a fact of life would have a lot of cultural/psychological consequences though.

Like for example, if you just figure there are APers/RVers/ORers peeping on shower time, then people would probably be more prone to just do mixed group showers (ala Starship Troopers film) since "those damn psychics probably saw it all anyway"

Saying "group" does remind me though: I don't know if Mind Block would stop Remote Viewing, if it did then maybe Group Mind Block would be a solution to help non-psis?

Another option (where psi-hounds aren't available) might be to take advantage of the psi of parrots (RUE 367) since they can see invisible and receive empathic impressions, which should make them aware of Astral Projectors at least.

Passive detection like that (no ISP cost) is a good "canary" system to entice Psi-Net (who often need to spend ISP unless they're psi-stalkers/hounds) to activate their powers and get on-scene.

No, that's only if they're afraid of it happening constantly.

Far more likely is that people native to Rifts Earth treat the risk of being remote viewed the way we treat the risk of being struck by lightning: Possible, but unlikely enough we don't worry about it most of the time--though someone in government has the job of making sure some safeguards that are available are employed.

But all in all the most likely answer is: It's just not considered a big deal unless you've got something really big to hide: and if you do, Sanctum will stop it, so just go for that

[Axelmania]

Far more likely is that people native to Rifts Earth treat the risk of being remote viewed the way we treat the risk of being struck by lightning: Possible, but unlikely enough we don't worry about it most of the time

Do so few minor psis w/ sensitive have one of these powers that it's equivalent to lightning though?

though someone in government has the job of making sure some safeguards that are available are employed.

The equivalent to a lightning rod might be assigning psi-hounds for shower guards =/

But all in all the most likely answer is: It's just not considered a big deal unless you've got something really big to hide: and if you do, Sanctum will stop it, so just go for that

Muggles can't do Sanctum and even if it's not "big to hide" one's nudity it would be considered a big deal to some now.

Which is what makes me think that people caring less about modesty in Rifts Earth could be the result of spreading awareness of these powers.

[drewkitty ~..~]

I would say the the populous is generally unaware of psionic and magic remote viewing situations and are more worried about the CCTV cameras meant for survaling them by the government or other "Big Brother" people.

[HarleeKnight]

People today are aware of hackers. They know that their cloud accounts can be violated. They have all seen and heard of it happening to other people. Yet, they still continue to take illicit pictures of themselves and use the cloud for storage. These people are also always surprised when they get hacked and violated.
My point is, even if everyone was aware of psionic peeping, they wouldn't care unless they knew for sure that it happened to them.

[Killer Cyborg]

People today are aware of hackers. They know that their cloud accounts can be violated. They have all seen and heard of it happening to other people. Yet, they still continue to take illicit pictures of themselves and use the cloud for storage. These people are also always surprised when they get hacked and violated.
My point is, even if everyone was aware of psionic peeping, they wouldn't care unless they knew for sure that it happened to them.

Good comparison.

For that matter, many people don't even bother to close their drapes when doing something private.
They KNOW people walking by can see in the windows; they just don't seem to really grok all the implications.

[Axelmania]

many people don't even bother to close their drapes when doing something private.
They KNOW people walking by can see in the windows; they just don't seem to really grok all the implications.

This accurately describes a segment, but I know I always close the curtains which comforts me. Those curtain-closers who knew of Astral Projection would have no curtain to close

I guess that could lead to changing/bathing with lights off since Astral Projection does not mean having Nightvision.

I'm not even sure if you can use Nightvision while in Astral Form since that's a physical psi.

[Killer Cyborg]

many people don't even bother to close their drapes when doing something private.
They KNOW people walking by can see in the windows; they just don't seem to really grok all the implications.

This accurately describes a segment, but I know I always close the curtains which comforts me. Those curtain-closers who knew of Astral Projection would have no curtain to close

Well, I'm sure they'd be told very thoroughly in very many way that the CS keeps out all evil pervert psychics, and that CS psychics are loyal, brave, and entirely trustworthy, and WOULD NEVER peek in on anybody inappropriately.

Heck, it could be more complex than that. The CS could have laws about entering an apartment psychically just as they would about doing it physically.
They may have a whole host of laws about astral travel. Speed limits, certain paths that are legal, and so on, and so forth.

[Kraynic]

You know, I think this whole thing is blown all out of proportion. If we step back and look at the Astral Projection skill, there is a chance (small though it may be) that you won't survive the experience, simply because your mind can't find it's way back to the body again. I once had a player leave 5 melees (15 rolls) for his character to make it back to his body. It took 14 rolls to succeed.

Either the person in the shower is of godlike beauty, or the astral traveler is being borderline suicidal by taking a chance at death just to do some peeping in the shower. The odds are very good for getting back to the body, but they are odds, and the odds will catch up eventually.

[Killer Cyborg]

You know, I think this whole thing is blown all out of proportion. If we step back and look at the Astral Projection skill, there is a chance (small though it may be) that you won't survive the experience, simply because your mind can't find it's way back to the body again. I once had a player leave 5 melees (15 rolls) for his character to make it back to his body. It took 14 rolls to succeed.

Either the person in the shower is of godlike beauty, or the astral traveler is being borderline suicidal by taking a chance at death just to do some peeping in the shower. The odds are very good for getting back to the body, but they are odds, and the odds will catch up eventually.

Good point!

[Axelmania]

there is a chance (small though it may be) that you won't survive the experience, simply because your mind can't find it's way back to the body again.

Isn't that only if you leave coexisting w/ earth behind and go on the planes where you're lost in the clouds?

When you're on earth I thought it was guaranteed because you could just easily follow your cord back, long as you didn't dawdle too far away from your form.

[Orin J.]

there is a chance (small though it may be) that you won't survive the experience, simply because your mind can't find it's way back to the body again.

Isn't that only if you leave coexisting w/ earth behind and go on the planes where you're lost in the clouds?

When you're on earth I thought it was guaranteed because you could just easily follow your cord back, long as you didn't dawdle too far away from your form.

nope, everytime you take an astral walk you might not come back.

[Axelmania]

there is a chance (small though it may be) that you won't survive the experience, simply because your mind can't find it's way back to the body again.

Isn't that only if you leave coexisting w/ earth behind and go on the planes where you're lost in the clouds?

When you're on earth I thought it was guaranteed because you could just easily follow your cord back, long as you didn't dawdle too far away from your form.

nope, everytime you take an astral walk you might not come back.

My guess is you are referring to a lack of rolling (RUE 171) the 77-00 (24% chance) of "made it back"?

You can "keep trying .. until time elapses" but I can't remember how we evaluate the result of time elapsing. That would also be important to know in other situations that might cause premature expiration of a psionic power.

Anyway this is explicitly for "return from the Astral Plane to the physical body" so I don't think it applies to ALL the astral walking, but rather just to using the Astral Gateway to go to the plane. RUE172 I think would have the rules for rolling a different % for finding the body when you stay on Earth via coexistence, which also seems risky and also seems to be vaguely defined for what happens when the power's duration ends.

Knowing what happens if you can't return in time would be especially important regarding the Exorcism power since it can force an astral traveler to stay away for 24 hours which is way longer than most would be able to keep the power going for... if you used exorcism within 400 ft of the traveler's body, they're likely not going to be able to return to their body prior to the duration of their power ending.

The 2nd paragraph of the power might be key here. It mentions that "if the Astral Body gets lost or captured while in the Astral Plane, the body will begin to waste away and die." I expect this refers to being forced to stay away longer than the duration of the power, but can't recalls statwise if we ever got a mechanic for this. Like perhaps if the duration expires and the body+spirit are not reunited, maybe the body should begin to suffer damage? But how much?

Mindwerks 39 gives a +20% to find way back to body for Ecto-Travelers. I assume this applies to the 30% chance (best 2 out of 3) of finding the body without the cord mentioned on RUE 171 and the 60% chance (per melee) of finding your body on the material plane.

BTW does anyone ever recall a statting of the "likely to die of sudden shock", a mechanic for when the cord is severed? Is that maybe that the 30% chance refers to? I'm wondering since that seems to resemble (best 2 out of 3) how you roll to survive comas.

The 'a thousand miles a second' description for Ecto-Travelers doesn't seem to align with Mach 1 flight when coexisting, so I expect that refers to traveling via portal (hop into AP via portal, open a new portal, hop back into earth) but since it takes a minute of concentration to open those portals it's still kinda odd to say "a second".

Presumably the +20% that Ecto-Travelers enjoy applies not just to the 30% (severed cord) or 60% (coexist) but also 24% (return from Plane).

I actually am super-confused why RUE still uses that weird system of 3 different percentile ranges (1-30, 31-50, 51-76) which mechanically don't seem to have any difference in respect to each other. Something like penalty for next roll (-1% to -10%?) for 1st result, no modifier for 2nd result, bonus (+1% to +10%) for 3rd result might help match the text and give a REASON for having different descriptions, tbh.

Another important power from Nightbane (WB1 Between the Shadows) is the Astral Navigation power. As pg 38 mentions:

"Returning to Earth is more involved, and requires the psychic to "retrace his steps." Characters without the power of astral navigation can get lost with relative ease."

Pg 128's "Lore: Astral" skill gives a bonus to the power's skill and Lords/Mages basically have it always-on for free, as to Astral Entities and Millek. It also seems like it's free-use for Tarantuloids/Torturians since it's listed under natural abilities rather than psi powers.

Pg 116 is where it is statted. The hourly rolls I figure must be in terms of astral time (otherwise with a 5m/level duration you'd need to be level 12 to even benefit from Astral Navigation) meaning at "a minute is a week" rates, you'd get 24*7*5 potential attempts per level to use it, so even a beginner (49% skill) is probably going to succeed in that roll. Recharging the 4 ISP needed to do a fresh attempt each hour wouldn't be too hard, unless you were constantly spending ISP on other stuff fighting astral creatures.

You'd never want to use this on the inner plane (time passes at same rate as IRL, at best you get one attempt as a level 12 psychic... or maybe 2 if using it on a ley line nexus where durations double) so the safest way is probably to try and get to the outer plane to enjoy the week-per-minute ratio to make as many attempts as necessary to get back to your body. This is probably why standard astral projectors wanting to get back to their body would hesitate at visiting the Inner Layer since that's fewer attempts to use Astral Navigation.

Of course: we don't know for sure Astral Navigation is a thing in Rifts since like Astral Bolts it was never printed. It's absence compared to Nightbane might explain why people would rarely visit the astral plane, since it could not be aided to near-guarantee amplified odds of getting back.

I'd feel comfortable at least giving it to Ecto-Travelers (they have "all sensitive" after all) and letting them apply their +20% to that skill.

Lone Star I think also had a +% bonus similar to Ecto-Travelers for one brand of Psi-X alien. So they're another candidate for someone who might not get lost so easy.

"Travel with a partner" seems to work like if one guy gets "made it back" the entire group does. So perhaps people not wanting to get lost would peep in groups? That could explain how the CS might make widespread use of astral projection compared to other groups, by grouping their AP psychics (sensitives like dog boys or psi hounds) into batches who take off and return together.

The 60% "moved or hidden" isn't really a factor in most cases though, where I think returning to your body is guaranteed. Even if it did get moved/hidden I don't think you'd even need to roll the 60% unless your cord was severed, since otherwise you could just follow your cord back.

[Kraynic]

Returning is mostly automatic if you haven't ventured into the Astral Plane, unless someone discovers and moves/obscures your body. If that happens, you have a 60% chance of getting back, but can only roll once per melee. Of course, that is ignoring the issue of someone coming across your cord and deciding to attack it (severing your connection). The ability calls out dangers of astral travel repeatedly. Even ignoring the chance of not returning to your body, astral travel just to do some peeping is incredibly reckless and likely to get you killed.

Well, unless your game takes place where all those threats have been removed.

[Axelmania]

Returning is mostly automatic if you haven't ventured into the Astral Plane, unless someone discovers and moves/obscures your body. If that happens, you have a 60% chance of getting back, but can only roll once per melee.

I would apply this with a severed cord (assuming you survive, since we're given vague omens about that but nothing concrete) since there's no trail to follow.

Though maybe there are other abilities you could use (maybe Detect Psionics? your "body" is still "using" the Astral Projection power, right?) to supplement the natural 60% "detect my body for free" ability.

If you actually had your cord intact, I'm wondering why you couldn't just "follow the cord" back to your body even if it had been moved.

Some reasons that come to mind:

1) it's pitch-black and Astral Projection doesn't give you nightvision so you can't see your cord
2) AP lets you pass through walls but not see through them, so you'd actually need to peek through each wall in a series of walls to see which direction your cord was going. If your body was taken into a labyrinth it may well curve in all kinds of directions. We're never told the Astral Cord maintains a completely straight line from Pbody to Abody, after all, or you could just easily follow it like a compass back to your body

To elaborate on the 2nd point: maybe even if the body isn't moved, the astral cord just naturally diverts from a straight line, inherently winding up and curving in all kinds of weird directions. It isn't described as having an "auto-dodge" (like ectoplasm) but we do know there's a HUGE penalty to hit it (-6).

The penalty might be due to the cord being very thin (though I can't find a quote for that) but maybe it's also because the cord just naturally wiggles around a lot?

If the cord was constantly wiggling and changing length, that would make it really hard to discern the direction of it's long-distance origin/destination if all you could see was a few feet of it at a time due to limited nightvision or 6ft wide walls blocking you.

Sure, you can fly at Mach 1, but you might have to start/stop constantly to reassess where your cord is. If you were following a cord on a clear open plane you might be able to process your Perception at mach speeds by looking at the cord on the horizon, but watching constant winding at close-range? Dunno...

Of course, that is ignoring the issue of someone coming across your cord and deciding to attack it (severing your connection). The ability calls out dangers of astral travel repeatedly. Even ignoring the chance of not returning to your body, astral travel just to do some peeping is incredibly reckless and likely to get you killed.

Well, unless your game takes place where all those threats have been removed.

That's one issue I'm trying to figure out in Rifts. If powers like Astral Bolts don't exist to allow lesser psi to target them without going astral themself (they'd probably need See the Invisible power too, to avoid a -10 to hit stuff blind on top of the usual -6) then I guess they go astral and punch at 1D4+PS to try and crush your cord?

That or maybe powers like Ectoplasm would work? I assume since the cord is intangible like an astral body that corporeal attacks like Telekinesis wouldn't work.

Then we have various super psi like Pyrokinesis / Psi-Sword / Mind Bolt which I'm having similar uncertainties about. There are probably some examples outside the powers which might explain if those are usefl about attacking cords/travelers?

I vaguely remember something like the Electrokinesis of the Xiticix Super Warriors being posited as a countermeasure against casual Astral Projection surveyers getting easy lay of the land in hives, so there wasn't a need to rely purely on Queens' Psi-Swords to engage them.