Feel free to ignore this if you feel I'm beating a dead horse, or if you'll be easily offended by being quoted in my rant, but I'm sufficiently annoyed that I feel the need to soapbox a little.
"It was pointed out to me on page three of Men of Psience that, firstly, P4@ telekinesis only effects whole objects, and secondly, that it exerts no force on its targets."
-- If it exerts no force, then it cannot cause movement, period. Unless this is in utter ignorance of the laws of physics to the point where you're basically moving the entire universe along with it. After all, in one sense electrostatic forces make it so nothing is actually touching, and on the other hand, gravitational forces make it so everything in all the infinite multiverse is basically "touching" in the same way. Force imparts movement, movement begets momentum.
"The thread would not prevent someone from lifting or moving the car within the limits of the length of the thread, but you could not pull the stake from the ground or break the thread."
"The first is because of the delicacy factor. "
--That's ridiculous. I can "delicately" lift a ten-ton shipping truck, but I can't use the same amount of TK (it is an amount of energy whether you call it a force or not) to destroy a quarter-ton Geo Metro? I call shenanigans, sir...
"The second is because it makes force generatives necessary for any skill that would break one object into two"
--Well, yeah. You move something, you're generating a force. Sir Isaac Newton would spontaneously combust in his grave if you honestly argued that you could cause motion without generating a force.
"and thus gives a solid and clear bias distinction between worlds in which you can move independent objects and worlds in which you can break objects. "
--Why? I cause a force. If the thing I'm handling can survive that force, it moves. If it can't, it crumples like a beer can. My telekinetic third limb is the same either way.
"The TK pulse that can shift the pebble a few feet can shift the sun a few feet just as easily."
--Obi-Wan Kenobi can force-push half a dozen battledroids. Why does that imply he can move a star? Even Yoda would swallow himself in astonishment.
"On the other hand, I tend to think that simple TK does not, and that suggests that heavy TK does not, either. If you move an object "as fast as your hand can move it" to a particular point, and then release it, you are deemed to have brought it to rest by releasing it. It would fall straight down from there, barring any other interference. So it depends on the skill."
--So you're saying releasing it is automatically akin to forcing it to stop? (Force, again...) You can't use Light or Heavy TK to pick something heavy up and fling it, even though they're more complex skills? I'm envisioning this as using TK to pick up a giant rock, swing it like a meteor-hammer, and let it go... and instead of flying off like the fist of an angry god, it drops... well... like a rock. If I saw that happen I think I would just blink my eyes in abject shock and then stand there till whatever I was throwing it at came over and smushed me into the next Verse.
You're arguing from a technological perspective. This is an understandable failing, hailing as you do from a tech-biased universe, but it's a failing nonetheless. Psionics, by definition and by necessity, ignore physical laws in order to achieve their effects. If it relied on physics, it would be tech.
So I can use TK to pull like a plough-horse - indeed, to /pull/ a plough horse - but I can't use it to blow things up with my mind? And this somehow makes sense? Physics is what makes the universe work. It's not technology. It's nature. Just because I use a vaccuum tube to measure the force of gravity and not a psy-crystal doesn't change the nature of the gravitational force.
Note that I'm not saying that a character cannot do the things you describe. I'm only saying that he can't do the things you describe and call it a level four Psi telekinesis. Probably he can do them and call it a level ten Psi force generative.
So I can use TK to pull like a plough-horse - indeed, to /pull/ a plough horse - but I can't use it to blow things up with my mind?
Yes. TK is the skill of causing things to move. Causing things to blow up can be achieved a variety of ways - P9@ alter chemistry, for one, or a P10@10 Rending - but it isn't P4@ TK.
And this somehow makes sense?
Yes.
Physics is what makes the universe work. It's not technology. It's nature.
Would you object to a magical spell that caused food to appear out of thin air - that is, magical creation ex nihlio? It's a clear violation of the law of conservation of matter. Yet, it's heavily represented in the literature and in several game systems; in some universes, it is obviously quite possible. Why, then, do you object to psionics doing what amounts to the same thing?
Skills that rely on manipulation of natural laws are technological. Psionics and magic are possible even in universes where friction does not exist, or where combustion is not possible, or where moving faster than light makes you go back in time. They are by necessity independent of natural laws. They have their own laws.
Just because I use a vaccuum tube to measure the force of gravity and not a psy-crystal doesn't change the nature of the gravitational force.
Of course not. But just because a forklift raises a box into the air by applying upward force to its underside doesn't mean that telekinesis must use the same method. By lifting that box using a 4@ TK skill, you're causing the box to ignore gravity for the time being and to instead move to where you want it to go.
Interesting idea.
Am I right that P4@ Telekinetic skills like these have the somewhat dubious advantage of being more likely to work in world unfriendly to psionics than the P10@ Psi Rend or P9@ Alter Chemistry you mentioned above?
Oh, it's far from dubious. It's a tremendous advantage. Graham could have accomplished none of the telekinetic feats he pulled off in Really Bad Eggs had his skills been limited to Force Generatives; the 10@ skills required for those tasks simply weren't possible.
And don't get too hung up on the star thing. (Not to say that you were, in particular; it's just that people tend to be.) While it's true that for 4@3 Heavy TK size really doesn't matter, it's not terribly useful to apply the skill to stars - baseline velocity is "the speed at which you could move something by hand," and when you're talking about something that big surrounded by that much empty space, a few yards per second doesn't make that much difference unless you're really, really patient.
It just galls me to think of anything causing motion without using some kind of force.
And what's this business about not being able to move yourself with telekinesis? Why can't I target all of myself as one object as easily as I can target all of someone else as one object?
Also, with a little bit of thinking, "how fast you could move it by hand" doesn't necessarily limit you to a few yards per second. How fast I can move my hand, multiplied across an arc of intrastellar space, adds up to quite a long distance by the time it actually reaches that star way over there. (For a demonstration of how I'm envisioning this, pick up a broom by the stick-end, hold it out at arm's length, and move your hand about a foot in an arc. The fluffy end of the broom covers about six feet of distance in the same motion. If you were moving by hand a broomstick 8 light minutes long, the fluffy end will be booking it like there's no tomorrow...)
You don't get an imaginary broomstick with which to move the star. You get how fast you could move an analogous object in an analogous motion if it were in your hand. Clever attempt, but no.
And what's this business about not being able to move yourself with telekinesis? Why can't I target all of myself as one object as easily as I can target all of someone else as one object?
You can target yourself. You just can't target yourself at the same bias. Any P4@ TK skill that can move the skilled user needs to be at least P4@8, which is the bias level and intensity for Levitation. If the skill can move the user laterally as well as vertically, you're probably looking at P4@10 Telekinetic Flight. What you can't do is use that 4@3 Heavy TK technique you've been practicing for three months to lift a box you're standing on. You want a reason? Here it is:
In Really Bad Eggs, the natives can levitate, but not fly; psionic flight is above the bias curve and is impossible in this universe. (It's too complex - think of it as being like time travel in this universe. Our tech bias doesn't support it, at least not yet.) If I allow someone with P4@3 skill to stand on the crate he's lifting, I've effectively allowed him to do exactly what a P4@10 skill does at a much lower bias. The distinction is only meaningful if a P4@3 Heavy TK doesn't work like that.
It just galls me to think of anything causing motion without using some kind of force.
I'm sure that in your travels, you'll meet some people for whom basic technological principles are equally galling. Ask Graham about his attempt to describe hammers to the folk of Bear Cave Clan.
I need again to thank Scott for giving the answers I would have given before I got to them.
I'll note also in connection with the 4@ telekinetics that up through 4@7 the skills are moving objects relative to the skilled user; a skilled user cannot move himself relative to himself. Thus he needs that @8 intensity to get to the point where he can move things--himself, particularly--relative to some other frame of reference.
The distinction between 4@ telekinetics and 10@ force generatives was considered extremely carefully. The critical point was that there had to be things you could not do by telekinesis unless you created a physical force--you can't "strike" someone with telekinesis, you can only throw him off balance or hit him with a telekinetically controlled object.
It might help if you think of telekinesis as warping space, in something of the same way gravity does. I'm not certain these are exactly the same, but gravity, under Einsteinian Relativity, is not really a "force" so much as a rearrangement of space such that lines which under the definitions of physics are straight would appear to Euclidian geometry to be curved. A telekinetically moved object is in some sense in freefall in a direction that is not related to the attraction of masses.
Does that help?
--M. J. Young
Sort of...
Gravity doesn't pull you apart because it affects every part of you equally.
Gravity does pull the apple or acorn off the tree branch because it is pulling equally on all, but not on the ground.
Telekinesis pulling on the acorn pulls equally on everything to which the acorn is attached--which includes both the tree and the ground. If the gravity exerted on the acorn were not coming from the Earth but from some gravity generating device on the other side of the earth, it would be pulling the earth as much as the acorn, and so would not pull the acorn off the branch.
--M. J. Young
Even though it takes a lot less of it to pull the acorn off the branch than to move the earth? You'd bury the acorn half a mile with the amount of energy it takes to move the earth by inches.
The skill is not defined by an amount of energy. It is defined by target type (complete object that is not the user and on which the user's position does not depend) and manner of motion (all points of the object affected equally). The energy involved is as relevant to the telekinesis as the color of the paintjob is relevant to the forklift.
Another way to put it is that the telekinesis does not operate by expending energy. It simply moves the object. If you like, think of it as bending space. Since you can't target the acorn separately from the earth, you can't bend space such that the acorn is severed from the tree; you can only cause the whole acorn/tree/earth complex to shift its position.
I'll be honest, I really haven't been following this thread. I just wanted to say that instead of debating the rules of psionics, ask yourself this. "Can I do that in real life?" Answer NO. You've got powers that you do not have now. You really shouldn't argue about how they're used. This is a lesson I need to learn as well. Why argue about what a TK pulse should do? Just be glad that you have it, which you don't now. See what you can do with it. Get good at it, any way you can. Don't argue what you can do with it.