Pre-Industrial Psionics

[frigidmagi]

I mentioned in a earlier thread that I thought Psionics that showed up before the industrial revolution wouldn't have to worry about how society treats them.

My thought for this is if a group of people gain the ability to read and influence minds before that, they'll pretty much end up running things. So let's throw this out and tinker. To prevent to much sputtering out and disagreements over parameters, I'll outline a situation. If you got a better one, toss it up.

Time: Ehhhh.... Let's say late Bronze Age about 1400 BC
Place: Earth
Species: Homo Sapiens Sapiens aka Humanity

For the next 50 years 1 out of 10 live births will be psionics most being (say a solid 50%) your bog standard telepath, able to read, send and influence thoughts. The rest will be various levels of telekinetic (from moving teacups to large men), fire and ice users (an ice user is like a firestarter but with ice okay) and those who can use psionics to make themselves stronger and faster. Psionics parents make psionic babies, so it is a stable (but regressive) mutation.

My own opinion is either the ruling elites cast them out as witches and have them hunted down and destroyed before they can learn the full use of their powers or they grow up and become the ruling elites and quite likely remain the ruling elite. Democracy is a hard concept to advance when Psionics can very pointedly demonstrate their superiority.

What do you think will happen?

[Cynical Cat]

Psionics is magic with specific branding. With the abilities you've described, they'll have a massive advantages over bog standard humans and any faction/belief system that accepts them will get a huge power boost. Some will be born into the elite classes, some will be born into service of the elite classes, and some will be willing to trade service for power. Someone will make that deal or some psionic will be clever enough to take power. Hell, one out of ten monarchs will get the power. From there its the new master race.

[Hotfoot]

Either a witch hunt, followed by a massive retaliation should they ever get their shit together, or, as Cat said, new master race.

Pretty much the case whenever you insert superpowers into reality, especially in an era when there's no way for the society to detect or overcome these superpowers.

[General Havoc]

There is no earthly way that it will result in a species-wide witch hunt in the Bronze Age. This is a period long before monolithic religions, when magic is accepted as factual by every society with which I am aware. The rise of "sorcerers" or "wizards" or "avatari" or whatever they wind up being called, would result, at most, in very localized witch-hunts, and not many of them. Remember, we are dealing with people who can wield fire and ice and hurl objects with their minds, and the best that you can throw against them is men with bronze spears.

Psionics would naturally become the priest-kings, tyrants, or archons of city-states or petty empires, but their dynasties would be short, as other psionics would seek to take over. Some large areas might create somewhat stable psionic oligarchies, replenishing their numbers from whatever psionics arose within the populace, but if psionics are truly a regressive mutation passed down by heredity, then the trend would be towards hereditary monarchies of one sort or another. Within nomadic and barbarian groups, psionics would likely become tribal leaders, warlords, or khans. It's a lot easier to claim divine mandate when you can point to physical miracles as proof of the favor of the Gods.

The question really is whether the initial burst of psionic births maintains itself or after fifty years restricts itself only to that initial genetic mutation. That is, do psionics continue to arise within the population as a whole at whatever rate. If they do, then things will get messy. Quite rapidly, psionics would come to be seen as symbols of rulership, divine favor, and the throne. A child born with such things would naturally be seen as a pretender to the throne, whether they had such ambitions or not. Given this, some empires and states would probably take the Herrod route, seeking out psionic children who might one day threaten their realm and killing them. This however is unlikely to work very well in all but the most insular and small-scale societies, and even then in patchwork form. The Bronze age is not a settled time, empires are relative in terms of their power and scale, and outlying areas are as likely to produce a psionic as central provinces. When they do, said outlying areas are likely to revolt against the central authority, if not stir up rebellion. The addition of psionics to the repertoire of mankind will therefore likely prevent the rise of large-scale Empires, or at least retard their arrival. The absorption of small city-states, nomadic groups, and settled lands is simply that much more difficult, not to mention that the larger your empire becomes, the more psionics will appear periodically within it, whether or not you dedicate yourself to rooting them all out.

Indeed, if 1 in 10 people are psionic, then culture and society itself would shift dramatically. Only one person, or at best a group of Oligarchs, can rule within a kingdom. The Spartans managed to drive their proportion of "non-working rulers" up dramatically, but only through matchless diligence and a culture of fear. Some such societies would arise, but most cultures would find other roles for their psionics, once witch hunting had been shown to not work terribly well. The ability to levitate objects with one's mind, or manipulate them, would be of incomparable value in construction. Pyramids, Colossi, and Great Walls all required the moving of large blocks of stone about with incredible engineering and labor, much of which would be saved through the use of psionics. Espionage (or counter-espionage, in the rudamentary forms it took back then) would welcome the use of telepaths. I can even picture Greek dramatists using psionics to enhance the catharsis or emotional content of their plays.

Ironically, I don't think psionics would change the nature of warfare terribly much. There'd be a role of course, as warlords and priest-kings would take to the field to buttress their troops' morale with psionic power, or rain fire and ice down on their enemies. But apart from giving Homer and the other Epic Poets even more awesome duels to sing about, I don't see that this would fundamentally alter the way men slew one another, at least not once civilization advanced and armies became more regularized. When the supernatural becomes mundane, it also begins to lose its surprise appeal. When every warband has men who can hurl fire or rocks, then the hurling of fire and rocks will cease to be wondrous and fearful, and become yet another weapon that can slay men on the battlefield. Overall, I think that heavy, dense formations such as the phalanx would be discouraged by the advent of what amounts to ancient field artillery accompanying most armies or raiders. It would render fortifications, and the attendant art of siege-craft, less advanced, as a psionic could simply light a fortress on fire, or wrench the defensive walls apart stone by stone. Obviously, defending psionics could attempt to prevent such a thing by their own means. Pitched battles however would still happen. A psionic in these terms is probably worth two or even three men in a standup fight, but if the gene is distributed across the world, such that all armies can reliably have psionic support, that is hardly army-breaking. A psionic can still die by the sword or spear. I imagine most would take up the study of such arms in the furtherance of their own side.

Anyway, the conclusion is that while Psionics would change many things, the overall pattern of history would probably not be terribly perturbed. Psychic men are still men after all. Individual empires would rise and fall, great men would not be permitted to rise, or others might take their place. But insofar as human society is concerned, Psionics would add to the fabric of civilization, but they would not unravel it.

Psionics would be larger than life. But history would be larger than them.

[Cynical Cat]

Actually, I don't think government would change much. Early Middle Eastern city-states were ruled by priest-kings with a supporting hierarchy of priests.

[frigidmagi]

Here's a question though, would democracy develop? Or would we remain at the level of rule by priest king? If we do does that effect technological advance? I imagine they would be less then thrilled by crossbows and rifles in the future.

[Stofsk]

Depends on how many psychics there are. If a large percentage of the population turns out to be psychic, I'd expect something like Traveller's Zhodani to develop. They're a 'democracy' where the ruling elite get a vote each, and they're all telepaths. The rest of the population are proles, and middle-managers (who can be psychic as well, and if detected quickly get elevated to the elite).

So 'Greek style' democracy.