I have been very politely chastized for something I said in this thread. The rebuke came by e-mail, but I am posting it here, and then explaining exactly what mistake I made and why I made it. Since the writer wrote to me instead of posting here, I am assuming he wishes to remain anonymous, and am respecting that as well as I am able.
Earlier this week, you wrote:
Perhaps I'm not entirely clear what kulturfog does; or perhaps the problem is that it fails to make a distinction that I make. Logic and language are classed as psionic in Multiverser terms, but creativity and imagination are classed as magical. If you're trying to deaden the ability to think clearly, describe and discuss thoughts, reason to conclusions, then you're looking at a psionic suppression of some sort; if you're talking about stifling creativity or imagination, that's got to be magical.
It appears that what the skill does is deaden creativity. That makes it some sort of magic skill, as mentioned above.
I’m a bit confused about what you mean here, and the issue seems relevant to Multiverser skill design in general.
Hitherto, I’ve understood skill bias area to be entirely a function of how the skill operates, without reference to what it accomplishes. If someone heals another person’s wounds by cleaning and bandaging them, that’s technology; if he does so by concentrating his will on his patient’s body and mentally telling it to heal, that’s psionics; if he does so by praying for God to heal his patient, that’s holy magic; if he does so by reciting words which he believes will connect his patient to the timeless ideal human form, that’s arcane magic; if he does so by merging his own body with the patient’s in order to apply his own natural regenerative powers to what are now his own wounds, that’s body. (Okay, I can’t think of a clear arcane magic example; assume he believes the ideal human form to be a supernatural basis or template for mortal humans, but not a person.) In that case, there’s just no way to argue from the skill’s object to its method; some bias areas are more suited than others, but none are mandatory or forbidden.
However, you seem to be saying here that, because creativity and imagination are magical, a skill which stifles them must also be magical. Thus, if Eric’s imagined race instead created a fire-suppressing field without realizing it, then that skill would have to be technological, as it deals with elements and processes of the natural world (and indeed mimics one of the effects of a negative tech bias, just as the kulturfog mimics one of the effects of a negative mag bias).
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, and you simply mean that magic is the most effective or most intuitive way to implement this. I’d be surprised by this; the description just sounds psionic (it’s all about thoughts influencing other thoughts, and there’s no apparent ritual other than being near the target), and making it magical would have an odd side-effect: atheists would never produce kulturfog and would be somewhat resistant to its effects. (Though perhaps one could argue that it’s very hard for these people to be atheists, at least in the sense of believing in no supernature at all, as they keep subconsciously expecting supernatural power to dull the imagination of people around them. That could also explain how an “unusually self-aware and honest” person might discover the truth; he’s being honest with himself about his own beliefs.)
Or perhaps I’m misunderstanding in a different way. I’ve been envisioning kulturfog as a direct mental influence: something like a psionic suggestion (“Think like everyone else does. New ideas are worthless, so give up on them.”) coupled with broadcast or remote telepathy to affect unknown targets, or maybe an interrupt concentration variant which only affects original thought, or even a read minds skill followed by interrupt thought on non-accepted ideas. (Note Eric’s description: “You're thinking normally about various stuff, and then you decide to focus deeply and clearly on something the Kulturfog producers don't like, and suddenly you're having a hard time keeping your train of thought going, even keeping on thinking on that issue.” Italics are mine.) If I’m reading you correctly, though, you first imagined a world which is always doing this just by being the world it is, and then you designed a skill which would make the surrounding area resemble that world. In that case, it does make sense to ask whether it is something magical or something psionic that is being removed from the background of people’s lives, although I still don’t see why that affects the sort of skill used to achieve this effect. (In this case, it’s easier to work in reverse. You say that a manipulate magic skill could suppress imagination. Suppose we instead wanted to suppress intellect; why couldn’t a magical manipulate psionics skill do this?)
Thanks for your time and attention.
My critic is right, and if indeed this is something that comes from within the person it ought to be a psionic skill.
My failure to see this stems from the fact that the field itself is attacking imagination, which is fundamentally part of the mag bias area. Thus a field which stifles imagination must in some way connect to magic. The simplest way to do that is also the most direct: magic is affected by magic. However, it is also true that you can accomplish similar (not always identical) effects using skills from any bias area, and in this case I overlooked the possibility that there might be a psionic way of achieving an essentially magical effect, or at least of simulating a similar effect.
I'm particularly embarrassed because at one point in reviewing the question I recalled the planet of the Vogons, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In at least one iteration of the story, any time anyone has an original idea on the planet Vogsphere, something (a lifeform?) springs from the ground and bats him in the head, to prevent him from having that idea and discouraging him from having another. This then, according to author Douglas Adams, leads to the development of the most bureaucratic society in the universe, since if you have no imagination you are perfectly suited to be a bureaucrat.
It is an example of a means of stifling creative thought, albeit a rather dymanically Pavlovian one. It demonstrates that creative thought can be stifled by means other than magic.
It could be achieved in a bod skill by means of some form of 3@ parasitism that consumes the creative aspect of the life energy of the host; this, though, would not extend beyond the infected individual.
It could be achieved in a tech bias area but some type of 13@ scanning mind/machine interface, but this, too, would be localized to the area within range of the machine. The machine would function by detecting creative thought and countering it with distraction or negative stimulation.
The problem with creating a psionic skill that accomplishes this lies exactly where my correspondent spots it: we have to manipulate what is inherently a magical field by means of psionics.
This is because the problem of kulturfog, as described, lies in the realm of magic, in the creativity of the spirit world. It's right on the end. Notice that the tech and bod simulations of the effect do not work by creating a field that stifles creative thought, but by attacking creative thought within individuals directly. That can easily be done psionically--link a 1@1 mind reading with an 8@1 interrupt thought, give it the status of "always on", and then whenever anyone has a creative thought everyone near him rolls his skill check. Each success means that someone has detected the presence of the creative thought and fired an interruption. Even if the target gets a defensive check against each such attack, the sheer accumulation of people would mean he would almost never overcome all the attacks--unless he withdrew to some isolated location where he need only deal with his own resistance to creative thought (built up over the years from having his thoughts interrupted). This skill would even work in a flatlined world, although it would have to be an 8@1 world for the indigs to have such a skill.
The point is that this simulates kulturfog; it does not create kulturfog. The power described, a dampening of creativity by a pervasive field, is inherently connected to magic, and that field itself must be magical. For a psionic skill to create magic, it would probably have to be a 15@2 Create Energy.
Now, it might be feasible to combine a bod with a psi ability, creating a B3@ parasite that consumes creative energies and uses these to generate by means of its P15@2 Create Energy skill a magical kulturfog. The parasite would be contagious by some means; the world area bias would be 15@2 at least; but the intelligent indigs infected would not have to have the high psi biases that such a skill grants.
I apologize for not giving this a more thorough treatment earlier. I was rather focused on the problem of the field itself, and my feeling that (like psionic static) it ought to be either a purposeful attack/defense used by someone or a natural state in a universe. Eric's notion of a field that surrounds individuals and affects other individuals was giving me some trouble.
I hope this helps.
--M. J. Young
