Early Chi-town defenses against psi/magic/suoernaturals

[Axelmania]

Before Psi-Division and Psi-Net were formed by Carol Black ~88 and Lone Star discovered psi hounds (~77? Will need to recheck lone star I forget...) What exactly did the CS do?

In early days I could see chi-town's mages filling that void but I think they got booted out after the FoM invasion (~11 p.a.? Books not on me this minute) which seems to leave decades (half a century) without any organized kind of resitance.

One thing j don't know is when ChiTown got psistalkers. Did they always have them, or incorporate them later?

I'm sure they always had psychics, but they don't appear to have been organized visibly prior to Carol Black.

When they were more vulnerable could things like secondary vampires have been a larger problem? Harder to track down, detect mind control, etc.

[Nekira Sudacne]

The Chi-town mages stuck around after being formally kicked out by forming the Vanguard, with tacit help form elements in the military who recognised how dangerous it was.

[eliakon]

Plot armor goes along way
Seriously though, the Psi-Bat thing seems to be more of a formalization of previous informal policy.
And the vast majority prejudice against mutants and psi-stalkers and the like dates from Prosek and his rise to power anyway, so they could have used a lot more mutants before. Who just got disavowed (and likely shot) once they were politically undesirable.

[Axelmania]

Eh, I think it would have made more sense to give them the option of leaving peacefully with a stipend like they did with the vanguard. CS mutant hate can't be that bad when they allow major powered intangible psi ghosts, psi stalkers. Mutoids are for sure 2nd class but I don't think they get treated as extreme as mages and Algor Giants.

[boring7]

Psi-stalkers were around foreverty ago if memory serves, and probably actively recruited from the 'wild' stalkers by anyone with the cash back when the CS was still becoming the CS. Other options were good old-fashioned witch-hunts, the kind assistance of adventurers or local but cautious/hidden psychics (I'm sure there were plenty of Xavier vs. Magneto reenactments in those days behind the scenes) and the like. As things got more organized various secret police and factions formed up people started drawing lines on who was allowed to have power.

The thing to remember is that power is power. The Book of Magic waxes eloquent on how a 4-die fire bolt isn't more powerful than a 4-die plasma rifle, indeed the rifle has better range and more attacks per round. Magic is simply different, with different strengths and weaknesses, and while a mage or a monster can hide among the normals in ways they can't ferret out with magic, sometimes all you have to do to kill the serial-killing shapeshifter is set a pretty girl out as bait and hand her a concealable flash grenade and cover her with a couple of patient snipers.

There are actually very few paranormals immune to good old-fashioned technological firepower, there are very few paranormals that can hide their nature from everyone while taking advantage of their nature (ever play the werewolf party game? https://www.playwerewolf.co/rules/) and very few paranormals powerful enough to just beat-down/mind-control a well-armed and sizable militia.

That said, it's sure as heck easier to sniff out a Mind-Melter who has been preying on folks with a psychic than by trying to do detective work and hoping you manage to finger/execute the right guy, probably while several of your fellow townsfolk try to jump in the way of the bullet.

[Axelmania]

Without special detection methods, each mage could basically be akin to Death Note with normals trying to puzzle things out. Less concerned about serial killing shapeshifters and more about the mind controlling vamps, mindolar, goqua, etc.

Before mass psi hounds and probably with fewer less civilized psi stalkers it must have been truly nightmarish trying to regulate that.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Without special detection methods, each mage could basically be akin to Death Note with normals trying to puzzle things out. Less concerned about serial killing shapeshifters and more about the mind controlling vamps, mindolar, goqua, etc.

Before mass psi hounds and probably with fewer less civilized psi stalkers it must have been truly nightmarish trying to regulate that.

It's not like the presence of Dog boys and psi-stalkers have completely eliminated them. Every now and then shape shifting mind controling demons get in and eat people, just more fuel for the CS propaganda.

[glitterboy2098]

given that magic has clear power progression (due to how it is limited by level in the game rules), i don't think that magic has ever been all that huge of a threat to the city as people often assume. yes magic could make a CSI or criminal minds type case rather more complex, but it takes quite awhile to advance your magical knowledge to the point you can pull off those really impressive and dangerous spells.. and it seems unlikely that a magic guild would be teaching such spells to everyone and sundry that asks or can scrape up the credits. and with technowizardry the creators still have to know the spell they are adding, so that is still a bottleneck.
and most of the really dangerous critters either can't bypass the physical defenses.. or if they can, are not the sort to gang together. and going in alone is a sure way to get killed. (one dragon attacking Chi-town is suicide.. a thousand might be able to do it, but when you can barely get them to even live in the same city without a ton of problems, good luck organizing a Legion of them for a coordinated attack)

[Nekira Sudacne]

People like to assume all magic-using nations and organizations would naturally want to work togeather to overthrow the Anti-Magic Nazi's and murder the proseks. Nevermind that in real life much of the world couldn't be arsed to fight the actual-real-world Nazi's until clearly given no way to avoid it, and even then many nations refused to actively participate. the magic using nations of North America are very much seperate and fractured, even the Federation of Magic is a laughably disorganized bunch of feifdoms that makes the Holy Roman Empire look united.

the Coalitions greatest strength is their political unity--even with Free Qubecs recent split nonwithstanding to the underlying point. If mages could all agree to expend whatever level of resources and share whatever level of secrets is necessary, they could certainly topple the CS. Why do you think Tolkeen was begging for help from everyone around them. If one tiny nation--smaller than the FoM, CoB or Lazlo, could stall such a behemoth for so long or inflict such massive casulties, if all of those plus many more smaller magic using communities and guilds chipped in, they likely could overthrow the CS. Remember, the origional FoM almost won, and they were acting solo, they were just better organized than the current one.

it's not even a case of the CS dividing and conquering, however. the Magic Community, jealously guarding it's secrets from other mages for their personal benefit, have neatly divided themselves. and so the CS Conquers due more to the flaws of it's enemies than it's own strengths.

Selflessly helping your fellow man against a larger opressor is actually a historical abberition. We live in prehaps the first age of humanity where that kind of thinking has been accepted as normal. After the apocalypse, it appears that this ideal is largely lost. This is the real reason Erin Tarn is public enemy number one, because she preeches the antidote to the disease the CS is exploiting. Philosphy, not Blight of Ages and summoned monsters, is the real threat to the CS, because if it's scattered, disuinted and shunted enemies ever unite, the CS would fall from without--to say nothing of the greater threat to the Proseks from within if such ideaologies catch on from within.

[boring7]

Also, the flip side to "magic can ruin CSI/criminal investigation" is that in the wild and heady days of no psi-stalker corps things were also wild enough to just have lynch mobs and not bother with "innocent until proven guilty."

[eliakon]

Also remember back in 12-13 PA or so when the CS purged itself of magic?
Yeah, back then it was not violently anti-magic. They didn't run the mages out of town ahead of lynch mobs, they relocated them. Yes it was a forced relocation... but it was, more or less, humane (as humane as a forced relocation gets). And, of particular note is that those who did not relocate were not killed...
...they were reconditioned by psychics.
Which pretty clearly establishes that the CS military had psychics in service as far back as 12 PA.
It may not have been a formal, separate command structure like Psi-Bat but they were there.

So asking what they did before Psi-bat? The answer is "they used their psychics"

[Axelmania]

Right but they probably knew who the mages were (since they probably had something like mag-bat) so they knew how to target.

Carol's Bat/Net initiatives are major recruitment and training tools. Without those, while ChiTown had psychics, it was probably far fewer, less organized, less trained, less knowledge if their abilities and how to apply them. Which probably made it a nightmare to try and keep any possible psi-stalkers fed during peacetime.

That plus the lack of psi hounds, we should appreciate just his vulnerable ChiTown must have been between the dismantling of the CTMD (chi town magic division, p55 of sorcerer revenge) "soon after" FoM defeat in 12 PA and the psi hounds in 77 (wb13p24) and psinet+psibat in 85 (wb11p190 + wb12p144)

That is 55 years without psihounds to replace your mages and 63 years before whatever psychics you had got unified in their own organized stucture.

Before that it was probably just random mind melters speckled throughout random squads, who were called upon in a disorganized fashion to process resistant mages.

Keeping in mind the CTMD was only about 100 sorcerers, dealing with resistors probably wasn't a whole lot of work. A couple mind melters could have actively handled it, yet not be suitable to provide passive ongoing defense for the nation.

As it is, it is hard to imagine how much 100 sorcerers could have done to protect ChiTown considering the quantity of danger out there. I think the biggest passive defense would be if any were capable of making protection circles, amulets, en masse for non mages to do against lower level interlopers and team up against the higher level ones.

Realizing how vulnerable they were, they must have suffered a LOT. It could explain the shifting attitudes even after FoM was squashed. Karl wasn't necessarily born Diabolic, after all.

Rather than mages/suoernaturals unifying to destroy the CS I would at the time have been more worried about them trying to take over. Something like a Raksasha trying to get into a position of leadership for example.

The problem with Lynch mobs is they would probably be very easy to manipulate against innocents possibly under the command of charismatic demons or mages. Perhaps lynching the very psi stalkers who tries to point out the shapeshifters.

Pg 9 of sorcerers revenge mentions the purge of shape shifters in 2 PA but this was before ChiTown lost its 100 sorcerer magic division.

Although no later purges were mentioned, or problems, that seems like a possibility with the mages gone and disorganized psychics. It says "many a shapeshiftig demon, Dbee and dragon have been flushed out .. In the last forty years) that is probably largely due to dog boys and psinet, probably much harder to flush them out 13PA-76PA.

[Ed]

People like to assume all magic-using nations and organizations would naturally want to work togeather to overthrow the Anti-Magic Nazi's and murder the proseks. Nevermind that in real life much of the world couldn't be arsed to fight the actual-real-world Nazi's until clearly given no way to avoid it, and even then many nations refused to actively participate. the magic using nations of North America are very much seperate and fractured, even the Federation of Magic is a laughably disorganized bunch of feifdoms that makes the Holy Roman Empire look united.

the Coalitions greatest strength is their political unity--even with Free Qubecs recent split nonwithstanding to the underlying point. If mages could all agree to expend whatever level of resources and share whatever level of secrets is necessary, they could certainly topple the CS. Why do you think Tolkeen was begging for help from everyone around them. If one tiny nation--smaller than the FoM, CoB or Lazlo, could stall such a behemoth for so long or inflict such massive casulties, if all of those plus many more smaller magic using communities and guilds chipped in, they likely could overthrow the CS. Remember, the origional FoM almost won, and they were acting solo, they were just better organized than the current one.

it's not even a case of the CS dividing and conquering, however. the Magic Community, jealously guarding it's secrets from other mages for their personal benefit, have neatly divided themselves. and so the CS Conquers due more to the flaws of it's enemies than it's own strengths.

Selflessly helping your fellow man against a larger opressor is actually a historical abberition. We live in prehaps the first age of humanity where that kind of thinking has been accepted as normal. After the apocalypse, it appears that this ideal is largely lost. This is the real reason Erin Tarn is public enemy number one, because she preeches the antidote to the disease the CS is exploiting. Philosphy, not Blight of Ages and summoned monsters, is the real threat to the CS, because if it's scattered, disuinted and shunted enemies ever unite, the CS would fall from without--to say nothing of the greater threat to the Proseks from within if such ideaologies catch on from within.

This. It's the reason Tolkien held out as long as it did and why soldiers are superior to warriors. Organization, discipline, and unity will win in the end. Always.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Pretty much. a Great warrior can slay one hundred soldigers, but a great general can lead ten thousand soldigers. Warriors win battles, organization wins wars.

[Axelmania]

I figure she is enemy number one due to her prove habit of revealing info critical to human security in her books, like revealing that Freehold is secretly undermining the Unholy in her Wormwood book which would easily make its way into the hands of evil forces on Wormwood, undermining that resource.

If she is still that reckless now, think how much more reckless she might have been in years past.

[dreicunan]

I figure she is enemy number one due to her prove habit of revealing info critical to human security in her books, like revealing that Freehold is secretly undermining the Unholy in her Wormwood book which would easily make its way into the hands of evil forces on Wormwood, undermining that resource.

If she is still that reckless now, think how much more reckless she might have been in years past.

Yeah, I've always figured that the biggest sponsors and protectors of Erin Tarn's work must be the various forces of evil, because she apparently manages to find out in days what their intelligence efforts haven't been able to find out in years, and then WRITES THE INFORMATION DOWN and sends it in LETTERS, which is of course completely secure since no letter has ever been intercepted en route to its destination during the history of the megaverse.

[eliakon]

I figure she is enemy number one due to her prove habit of revealing info critical to human security in her books, like revealing that Freehold is secretly undermining the Unholy in her Wormwood book which would easily make its way into the hands of evil forces on Wormwood, undermining that resource.

If she is still that reckless now, think how much more reckless she might have been in years past.

Yeah, I've always figured that the biggest sponsors and protectors of Erin Tarn's work must be the various forces of evil, because she apparently manages to find out in days what their intelligence efforts haven't been able to find out in years, and then WRITES THE INFORMATION DOWN and sends it in LETTERS, which is of course completely secure since no letter has ever been intercepted en route to its destination during the history of the megaverse.

Depending on how the letters are encrypted it may or may not be secure.
If she is using something as simple as a one use pad with a decently generated key it could take an improbable amount of time to break the code. And since many of those letters have not been published (I would point out that the books often cite her unpublished letters and private correspondence of her and other people) it seems that she is, indeed what she (and her write up) claim.

That said I am curious as to what she has "found out in days" that no one has found out in years?
The existence of Wormwood? That has a fixed portal at the Tree of Darkness and a dimensional market?
Oh, wait that Victor Lazlo exists? A huge shock since he doesn't make it a secret.

[Axelmania]

I am curious as to what she has "found out in days" that no one has found out in years?
The existence of Wormwood? That has a fixed portal at the Tree of Darkness and a dimensional market?
Oh, wait that Victor Lazlo exists? A huge shock since he doesn't make it a secret.

There is no fixed portal. Pg 75 of Mindwerks 1. Negro maw is an "and/or" between "the demon city of Lalibela in the mountains of Ethiopia" and to Wormwood, which could be a fluctuating rift or GM choice as to either.

Since pg 156 of DB1 says Wormwood's Lalibela has a portal to "the ancient ruins of Lalibela in the Ethiopian Mountains", linking to the Earth spot first would still give access to Wormwood while acting as an added step to make Splugorth ignorance more believable.

Tarn is first Earthling to visit in over 3000 yrs (pg 46) so the 4 perm portals seem to just be for Wormwood to raid Earth but not vice versa. Merlin and Splugorth never visited.

We know the 3 other portals come out in Calgary, Romania and Detroit but I can't recall any mention of where on Wormwood they start. World gate appears to use temporary ones. Tarn wrote of an Earth rift currently kinked to England.

DB2 pg 15 indicates Gateland has a portal to World gate where good guys come in and then stage raids through a second portal to a nexus cave somewhere in Unhly territory.

16,500 prometheans control 1,280 gateways. Could be the 2 to Wormwood are not "common portals of travel k own by all".

Or, if they do know about it... Portals can be calibrated to go different places, and since Promethean control that, they could simply calibrate them away from Wormwood in most situations except to help the forces of good who just came from WW or well vetted traders who never associate with the Splugorth.

Pg 29 tells of "Wormwood, a distant world" a book "soon to be released" in 103, meaning it is probably out by now.

Pg 39 she speaks of being honored to be trusted with the delicate information that seeming to welcome the minions of darkness and occasionally trading with the Forces of Darkness is a ruse to plant spies within the monsters community, keep tabs on them, and secretly undermine their operations.

This is.either intentional sabotage of World gate heroes or else Worldgate is 99% scumbags and she is printing lies to create conflicts between them and the forces/minions of Darkness. I only just thought if that, in which case that would be pretty crafty.

If the Confessed really did tell her this though, her book compromises a major strategy.

[eliakon]

I am curious as to what she has "found out in days" that no one has found out in years?
The existence of Wormwood? That has a fixed portal at the Tree of Darkness and a dimensional market?
Oh, wait that Victor Lazlo exists? A huge shock since he doesn't make it a secret.

There is no fixed portal. Pg 75 of Mindwerks 1. Negro maw is an "and/or" between "the demon city of Lalibela in the mountains of Ethiopia" and to Wormwood, which could be a fluctuating rift or GM choice as to either.

Since pg 156 of DB1 says Wormwood's Lalibela has a portal to "the ancient ruins of Lalibela in the Ethiopian Mountains", linking to the Earth spot first would still give access to Wormwood while acting as an added step to make Splugorth ignorance more believable.

Tarn is first Earthling to visit in over 3000 yrs (pg 46) so the 4 perm portals seem to just be for Wormwood to raid Earth but not vice versa. Merlin and Splugorth never visited.

We know the 3 other portals come out in Calgary, Romania and Detroit but I can't recall any mention of where on Wormwood they start. World gate appears to use temporary ones. Tarn wrote of an Earth rift currently kinked to England.

DB2 pg 15 indicates Gateland has a portal to World gate where good guys come in and then stage raids through a second portal to a nexus cave somewhere in Unhly territory.

16,500 prometheans control 1,280 gateways. Could be the 2 to Wormwood are not "common portals of travel k own by all".

Or, if they do know about it... Portals can be calibrated to go different places, and since Promethean control that, they could simply calibrate them away from Wormwood in most situations except to help the forces of good who just came from WW or well vetted traders who never associate with the Splugorth.

Pg 29 tells of "Wormwood, a distant world" a book "soon to be released" in 103, meaning it is probably out by now.

Pg 39 she speaks of being honored to be trusted with the delicate information that seeming to welcome the minions of darkness and occasionally trading with the Forces of Darkness is a ruse to plant spies within the monsters community, keep tabs on them, and secretly undermine their operations.

This is.either intentional sabotage of World gate heroes or else Worldgate is 99% scumbags and she is printing lies to create conflicts between them and the forces/minions of Darkness. I only just thought if that, in which case that would be pretty crafty.

If the Confessed really did tell her this though, her book compromises a major strategy.

Or they have retconed it
Which is far, far, far more likely
Since as we know they do that a lot.
Like how certain magics are lost, then rare and exclusive, then widely known?
So in DB1 she was the first earthling in 3000 years...
...but by now that has been retconned (or you know... she got lied to/was mistaken/lied in her letter to cover for the existence of the portals)

[Axelmania]

To clarify the bit about her being first in 3000 was not in her book. It was a direct statement from the author. I see no evidence that this was retconned.

Of course "Earthling" would exclude stuff like humans born on planets besides Earth. Lazarus Vespers and Salome are offworlders and likely examples. Perhaps from the United Worlds of Warlock.

Getting back to the OP a bit I came across something helpful. FoM pg 10 says 12% of the Coalition was nonhuman, half psi-stalkers, so 6% psi stalkers is pretty decent, better than a 1:19 ratio. I'm not sure if the coalition has that big a % in present day!

The CS being 6% non stalker non humans (basically non supernatural dbees who weren't CoM, so no elves/changelings) around 1 PA is also interesting to think. I wonder what races made up the bigger portion of citizens.

It would be neat if it was dwarves and maybe that is why Karl is accepting of Cordoba?