Psi-cola

[Soldier of Od]

Hi everyone,
In which books (and on what pages) can I find information on Psi-Cola?
Thanks,
Soldier of Od.

[ShadowLogan]

Psi-Cola can be found in Rifts "Psyscape" WB12, pg84-90.

[Soldier of Od]

Brilliant, thanks!

[Tor]

If you're interested, the D-bee depicted guzzling cans of it from a vending machine is the Larmac, who I think is covered in Siege on Tolkeen 3.

[BookWyrm]

Psi-Cola. For what ails you.
Psi-Cola. Now in Classic, New Formula, Chi-Town Cherry, Atlantean Apple, Splynncrth Sour Lemon-Lime and Bordertowns Berry. Try them all!
Psi-Cola. How Many Bottles Does It take To Make a Quick-Flex See Into Other Dimensions? The World May Never Know....

[Tor]

Sneak Psi-Cola into water supply of Soul Harvesters.

Can't do the Harvesting ritual anymore.

Victory?

[Blue_Lion]

Sneak Psi-Cola into water supply of Soul Harvesters.

Can't do the Harvesting ritual anymore.

Victory?

Sounds like meta gaming.

[Tor]

Nope, you'd obviously have to investigate thoroughly and pass many a lore: magic to know that psionics prevent the ritual before attempting it.

[Shark_Force]

i would expect that if you could sneak something into their water supply, you could do worse things than remove their ability to perform the ritual anyways.

[ShadowLogan]

Brilliant, thanks!

Your welcome.

If you are interested in similar concoctions, I know South America 1 and Triax 1 also have examples of Psionic enhancing concoctions.

Sneak Psi-Cola into water supply of Soul Harvesters.

Can't do the Harvesting ritual anymore.

Victory?

It would take a lot of Psi-Cola though (equal to 6cans a day per person intake), and only stays in effect while they are under the influence of that much. Given its taste for non-psychics it likely wouldn't remain their water supply of choice for very long. And that assumes the Soul Harvesters don't have purification magic/technology to remove the Psi-cola from their spiked water.

[Rimmerdal]

i would expect that if you could sneak something into their water supply, you could do worse things than remove their ability to perform the ritual anyways.

Laxative. and plenty of it.

[taalismn]

i would expect that if you could sneak something into their water supply, you could do worse things than remove their ability to perform the ritual anyways.

Laxative. and plenty of it.

"I may not be able to beat you in open combat, but I've already humiliated you in ways that will not be soon forgotten by either you or the world at large. Enjoy your new status as the popular examples of the definition of 'uncontrollable bowel movement'. "

[abe]

is there a similar version usable by mages?

[Tor]

i would expect that if you could sneak something into their water supply, you could do worse things than remove their ability to perform the ritual anyways.

If you merely poison them they could always just Resurrect each other, inevitably one Harvester out there has stolen that spell.

But if you give them a permanent minor psionic power, they're screwed no matter how many times they respawn.

It would take a lot of Psi-Cola though (equal to 6cans a day per person intake), and only stays in effect while they are under the influence of that much.

Prolonged use has a small chance of permanently imparting the power even after you stop drinking it.

Given its taste for non-psychics it likely wouldn't remain their water supply of choice for very long.

Some means of masking the taste would need to be found.

is there a similar version usable by mages?

Perhaps Talismans/Scrolls?

[eliakon]

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that any plan that involves getting someone to drink massive quantitates of something that is expensive and tastes horrible, daily, for months, for a low percentile result that only has value if a person has some obscure meta-gamed information is pretty much the definition of a Unicorn Plan.

[Shark_Force]

prolonged use seems unlikely. whether or not they notice the test, they're going to notice that they've lost their abilities.

also, if you can kill, say, 75% of them with poison, you can probably just mount a frontal assault if you've got the resources to poison them all in the first place (and the remaining 25% are probably in rough shape, as well).

so you go in, and make sure there isn't anything to resurrect.

that is, if you have the resources to successfully poison a large portion of them in the first place.

[Tor]

any plan that involves getting someone to drink massive quantitates of something that is expensive and tastes horrible, daily, for months

Already mentioned that the bitter taste could be masked through additives. As for expense, 6 a day can cost as little as 90 credits. No more than 900 a day even in the worst of places. As for 'months', it only says 'prolonged+regular use'. I think regular refers to the hexa-daily, but unclear how long 'prolonged' is, could be days rather than months.

for a low percentile result

That's just for permanent results, allowing you to discontinue use. The percentage who get a temporary minor power isn't explicitly stated but it's clearly higher, and it's advantageous to stop them from using that ritual, since they'd have to detox to be able to do it again if they were freed.

only has value if a person has some obscure meta-gamed information is pretty much the definition of a Unicorn Plan.

I'll have to go look up that term, but it isn't 'meta-gamed', this is a hypothetical scenario where we assume someone has knowledge of this. Psyscapers fighting these guys inevitably are going to notice that none of them have psionic powers and begin to wonder about it. All you'd need to do is capture a single Harvester and experiment on them with stuff like this to figure it out.

prolonged use seems unlikely. whether or not they notice the test, they're going to notice that they've lost their abilities.

Not necessarily for a long time. They keep all their abilities except 1, the ritual, which they don't exactly use regularly, only when they want to pick up a new soul.

[Shark_Force]

and you could still do far worse to them by simply poisoning their water supply with actual poison, or something that is otherwise exceptionally debilitating, anyways.

stuff that will kill you if you ingest it is relatively common and cheap. in fact, with the right skills (medical skills, especially holistic medicine, identify plants, various lore skills, biology, chemistry, and probably others that i haven't considered) you can probably find something incredibly debilitating at no cost other than time.

[eliakon]

AND that doesn't require a person to drink 72oz (6 12oz cans, BEFORE dilution, assuming said dilution doesn't negate the effectiveness) of something that manages to taste nasty to anything that doesn't have psionics (but tastes super to psis.....suggesting that the flavor is a supernatural component).

[Tor]

Yes, I assume there is a means of dealing with flavor. I'm not particularly familiar with the specifics of that though. Surely there's a spell out there somewhere which could do it. Or clever poison/chemistry/cooking roles.

Could always give free wine, not all wines are sweet right? Hide the bitter in liquor.

[eliakon]

Yes, I assume there is a means of dealing with flavor. I'm not particularly familiar with the specifics of that though. Surely there's a spell out there somewhere which could do it. Or clever poison/chemistry/cooking roles.

Could always give free wine, not all wines are sweet right? Hide the bitter in liquor.

but its not just bitter but brackish as well. I suppose you COULD some how hide the true taste of nearly a gallon of brown liquid, every day, for days, on the off chance that they will all get a 05% chance effect.....
or you could use the SAME effect to just poison them.......
but I guess if you have a person who is obsessed with Psi-Cola perhaps (this is starting to sound like a plan cooked up by a teams Crazy/M.O.M........)

[Shark_Force]

you'd need to use magic to hide the taste, though, if the taste is supernatural.

[Nightmask]

you'd need to use magic to hide the taste, though, if the taste is supernatural.

Well the taste is inversely proportional to how psychic you are, if you're Mind Melter level it tastes absolutely delicious if you're psi-dead on the other hand it tastes truly awful.

[Shark_Force]

you'd need to use magic to hide the taste, though, if the taste is supernatural.

Well the taste is inversely proportional to how psychic you are, if you're Mind Melter level it tastes absolutely delicious if you're psi-dead on the other hand it tastes truly awful.

right. which heavily implies it's not just a matter of covering up a natural taste, since mind melter A might like chocolate ice cream while mind melter B might be a horrible misanthrope and doesn't like chocolate (j/k about the misanthrope part... but i do actually know people who genuinely dislike chocolate), but both of them would find psi-cola to be delicious. meanwhile, a pair of regular non-psychic individuals might either like or dislike the exact same foods as our theoretical mind melters, and yet find the taste of psi-cola to be revolting.

that's not exactly what you'd expect if it was a simple question of covering up a regular flavour.

[Nightmask]

you'd need to use magic to hide the taste, though, if the taste is supernatural.

Well the taste is inversely proportional to how psychic you are, if you're Mind Melter level it tastes absolutely delicious if you're psi-dead on the other hand it tastes truly awful.

right. which heavily implies it's not just a matter of covering up a natural taste, since mind melter A might like chocolate ice cream while mind melter B might be a horrible misanthrope and doesn't like chocolate (j/k about the misanthrope part... but i do actually know people who genuinely dislike chocolate), but both of them would find psi-cola to be delicious. meanwhile, a pair of regular non-psychic individuals might either like or dislike the exact same foods as our theoretical mind melters, and yet find the taste of psi-cola to be revolting.

that's not exactly what you'd expect if it was a simple question of covering up a regular flavour.

Quite so. Given it's suggested to be some kind of alchemical mixture that's brewed and 'matured' at Ley Lines if memory serves it's clearly interacting with the drinker in a way fairly unrelated to the way food actually interacts with one. Apparently it really IS magically delicious in a way, reacting to the active psychic potential of the imbiber. So you really can't go tricking a non-psychic into drinking it because you can't really make it taste good to them since it's not mundane taste bud interaction causing its taste.

[ShadowLogan]

Prolonged use has a small chance of permanently imparting the power even after you stop drinking it.

Off hand I don't recall that last bit. But you really aren't going to take out the entire Soul Harvester population this way since it will only likely effect a small percentage of their population, unless they are by some chance more suseptible to it that the rate is increased or are even less suseptible. And as has been said, the taste of Psi-Cola really precludes this from happening.

Some means of masking the taste would need to be found.

Off hand I don't know of any method listed that will do this non-magically (you'd think they would mention something like that in the writeup). That leaves magic, which again I'm not sure exists (spoiling/purification I know exists, but nothing for masking comes to mind). One also has to remember that these are mages, so may have access to purification spells themselves allowing them to purify their drinking water even if it has been spiked, and that doesn't even consider them using technology to purify it. If they are purifying their water, you will need to spike it post purification on a regular basis which can increase the chance of being discovered.

is there a similar version usable by mages?

You mean potions that help mages with spell casting? Sure. SA1 pg143 sold by Cibola (The Energizer) is one example, they also have two more Psi-potions (one of which has subtypes) on the next page (Triax 1 has a few more on pg177-8 for Psychics). Others may exist, but I don't know of any off-hand.

[Tor]

heavily implies it's not just a matter of covering up a natural taste .. that's not exactly what you'd expect if it was a simple question of covering up a regular flavour.

I completely agree... but it may just be a matter of overwhelming the taste rather than masking it. If we look at it like a scent, we're just spraying perfume rather than deodourizing.

It tastes bitter... but sometimes people actually like bitter tastes. I could see some Harvesters being of that temperment.

SA1 pg143 sold by Cibola (The Energizer) is one example, they also have two more Psi-potions (one of which has subtypes) on the next page (Triax 1 has a few more on pg177-8 for Psychics). Others may exist, but I don't know of any off-hand.

Great find, I always forgot that Cibola/NGR. It's really easy to overlook the drug trade in Rifts. It's pretty important though. A lot of these would give massive combat advantages in important battles even if they suck for long-term warfare by wrecking the soldiers.

[ShadowLogan]

Great find, I always forgot that Cibola/NGR. It's really easy to overlook the drug trade in Rifts. It's pretty important though. A lot of these would give massive combat advantages in important battles even if they suck for long-term warfare by wrecking the soldiers.

Then you have the bio-wizard/symbiote options for either category for enhanced PPE/ISP and power options, though that isn't the same as Drug/Potion use.

Herbalistic Magic (England, per BoM) might have some options, I know they have the potion aspect covered in general but I don't know off hand if they have any ISP/PPE enhancers. Palladium Fantasy does have potions that grant specific magic powers to (though nothing for ISP/PPE).

[Shark_Force]

heavily implies it's not just a matter of covering up a natural taste .. that's not exactly what you'd expect if it was a simple question of covering up a regular flavour.

I completely agree... but it may just be a matter of overwhelming the taste rather than masking it. If we look at it like a scent, we're just spraying perfume rather than deodourizing.

It tastes bitter... but sometimes people actually like bitter tastes. I could see some Harvesters being of that temperment.

so now we're giving their entire water supply a super-strong non-watery taste to cover up the awful taste of the psi-cola, and expecting them to drink enough that they won't notice we've basically replaced their entire water supply with psi-cola.

i feel like that is not going to work very well.

[eliakon]

heavily implies it's not just a matter of covering up a natural taste .. that's not exactly what you'd expect if it was a simple question of covering up a regular flavour.

I completely agree... but it may just be a matter of overwhelming the taste rather than masking it. If we look at it like a scent, we're just spraying perfume rather than deodourizing.

It tastes bitter... but sometimes people actually like bitter tastes. I could see some Harvesters being of that temperment.

so now we're giving their entire water supply a super-strong non-watery taste to cover up the awful taste of the psi-cola, and expecting them to drink enough that they won't notice we've basically replaced their entire water supply with psi-cola.

i feel like that is not going to work very well.

Unicorn Plan Alert
"Alright, so what's this plan"
"First we need a unicorn..."

[taalismn]

This thread has inspired me to seek magic(spell or alchemy) to turn ordinary water into explosive liquid fuel. Ideally odorless and colorless liquid fuel. The possibilities are....well, frightening....

[Tor]

so now we're giving their entire water supply a super-strong non-watery taste to cover up the awful taste of the psi-cola, and expecting them to drink enough that they won't notice we've basically replaced their entire water supply with psi-cola. i feel like that is not going to work very well.

Upon reflection I have begun to think 'spike their wine' rather than 'spike their river' is a better approach. You can start them off with normal wine, and wait until they're too drunk to notice the bitter later.

Unicorn Plan Alert "Alright, so what's this plan" "First we need a unicorn..."

Dude, do you know how many bottles of Psi-Cola I could buy with a unicorn? Bad example bro.

[Shark_Force]

so the plan is to get them drunk, then offer them more alcohol (which they must drink like 6 cans pre-dilution), consistently, for an extended period of time.

seriously, just poison them and destroy the bodies. i don't think there's any spells for restoring life that work without a corpse.

[Tor]

Utterly destroying a body can be pretty tough though, even in MD settings.

[Shark_Force]

why would it be all that hard? given a bit of time, you can destroy a corpse with SDC fire. i have a hard time believing it would be difficult with MDC weapons and tools. it might not be something you do in a single action (barring a special tool designed for just such a purpose), but this isn't exactly rocket science.

[taalismn]

why would it be all that hard? given a bit of time, you can destroy a corpse with SDC fire. i have a hard time believing it would be difficult with MDC weapons and tools. it might not be something you do in a single action (barring a special tool designed for just such a purpose), but this isn't exactly rocket science.

Genetically engineered decomp bacteria, alien grubs, hungry D-bees, TW-powered wood chippers...ah, yes, the possibilities are endless....

[Tor]

Ah, but all this simply breaks bodies down, it doesn't utterly remove their components. Even an anti-matter spell like annihilate is only capable of misting people into water droplets.

[eliakon]

Ah, but all this simply breaks bodies down, it doesn't utterly remove their components. Even an anti-matter spell like annihilate is only capable of misting people into water droplets.

Well Gamma Rays. But I guess the question becomes "How destroyed is good enough" most people would probably say that 'reduced to ashes that have been scattered to the winds' is probably good enough. Though really if you want to get technical, as long as you don't completely annihilate their soul they can be brought back (Nexla is an AI, AI's have Primal Deific Powers, one of the PDP's is a divine resurrection that doesn't need a body). The begged question is 'would the Reapers bother to resurrect their fallen comrades' and if they would, do they have the resources to?

[Tor]

I'm not sure I agree that all AIs have primal (prototypical?) deific powers. That option is given to D+G randoms but specific NPCs aren't random. The entire race of Zlyphan or Splugorth or Vampire Intelligences having such powers would be a huge gamechanger. As would giving it to the Pantheons crowd. I'm of the mind to leave them as-is. The deific powers are one major factor that lets the D+G crowd stand out, they're less special without the monopoly.

I think they might bother as they are fellow anchors for their master, and inevitably someone will steal a resurrect spell if they don't already have it.

[BookWyrm]

Psi-Cola. De-greases engines, polishes power armor & satisfies your thirst.

[Tor]

It satisfies Moon Warpers too.

[Shark_Force]

*sigh* ok, look, if you really think this is necessary, then the better solution is to drug them all, then, while they're unconscious, force-feed them psi-cola (or use an IV and isolate whatever it is that makes psi-cola actually work, or whatever).

force-feeding them seems a lot more probable than getting them to forgo drinking water for months of time so that they can drink something that tastes absolutely awful in mass quantities (even if you're covering up the taste with something else, what are the odds that your super strong taste combined with the super strong taste of the psi-cola is going to be good?).

but really, if their master doesn't explicitly have the power to resurrect without a corpse, why would he have it? kill them, burn the corpse, and scatter the ashes. 99.99999999% chance or better that they're never going to come back.

if that isn't enough, i think you'd be better off trying to get your hands on a soul drinker rune weapon.

[Tor]

You're right, I may be overestimatnig his abilities. Although his demon-summoning might mean he could acquire connections to a Demon Lord with the prototypical deific power to resurrect (which has no mentioned body limits, just the PPE badness). Or, there's that 'D+G implies all AIs get deific powers now' biz.

I never agreed with that biz (a bit scary applied to Vamps, Zllyphan and Splugorth).

Especially since...

The Star Hive Queens from Phase World are also alien intelligences

Actually... maybe I do like this idea.

[BookWyrm]

from the censored news archives of CD Chi-Town, PA 109;
"......and the investigations continue into the now-infamous 'cola-shower incident' in the private quarters of Emperor Karl Prosek and his family. Top CS Investigators and Inquisitors are working literally around the clock to find some evidence to how the entire filtered and sealed private water supply, used exclusively for the Imperial family and those rare few with the authorization, was completely replaced, to the very last draught, by the banned soft-drink known as Psi-Cola. Sources close to the service crews, honored to be tasked with maintaining said aqua-cache, have provided no concrete evidence....."

[glitterboy2098]

This thread has inspired me to seek magic(spell or alchemy) to turn ordinary water into explosive liquid fuel. Ideally odorless and colorless liquid fuel. The possibilities are....well, frightening....

who needs magic? a hot enough flame to start with will crack the water into H2 and O2. one reason NASA is so paranoid about fire safety is that if its rocket fuel goes up, there is pretty much nothing to stop it, since even the chemical firefighting fluids will burn at those temps.. and water hoses just literally add fuel to the fire.

this is also why it is pretty much impossible to put out thermite once it ignites, and why thermite works just fine under water.

[abe]

magi-cola MIGHT taste great to magi the same way psi-cola tastes great the psychics!