The Psionics idea: Or, how I tried to not make them overpowered.
Psionics is defined in-universe as mental interaction with other minds. On a scale not meant to sum up sections of science, it's more complicated than that.
To begin, there is a "psi scale", or a rough estimate of psionic presence, uncorrelated with IQ or willpower. It runs on a brief scale between two extremes, 0.0 and 2.0. Most humans end up at 0.9 at the start of adulthood (the teenage mind going through one hell of a psi rollercoaster until then), with almost every other species (including non-sapient species, yes) following a similar pattern of 0.8s or 0.9s, except for the Novakids, who get to be special and have 0.5, and kineptics, who get to be more special and have 1.0. (side note: Kineptics will deny that their race is psionicly above average. This isn't a matter of disbelief, because they're hiding the existence of their glove-tech crystals too.) This number can either be raised through years of training and/or psi use, or by invasive cybernetics and the complimentary chemical cocktails. Unsurprisingly, one raises your lifespan and the other drastically cuts it short.
1.0 psi is considered a beginner's number, where the skill difficultly drops off quickly and opens up to the first psionic skills. It is also considered the most vulnerable level of psi, due to an odd scale of difficulty: towards one end of the scale, the heavy psionic presence allows the vicitm to subconsciously "fight back", towards the other end, the low psi makes it difficult for Psionics to make a presence in their mind. Note that one does not necessarily need to be 1.0 to begin psi training, only that it easier by a good magnitude otherwise.
Side note: High-End skills
cannot be reached in a week/month/year of training and either require turning your body into a zombie of artificial compounds, or spend half your life constantly increasing one's Psi presence to have the mental output to use them.
Psionic skills, in order from easiest to hardest (work in progress, feel free to suggest more skills):
- Psi radar
- Thought reading
- Mind throttling
- Mind control
- Mind reading
Psi Radar:
This one is simply "feeling" the area around you for psi presence. This causes some disorientation on the first few tries, due to the three-dimensional result of the skill. High-level Psionics can do this on the fly (or even without closing their eyes, which is something easily-nauseated people really should not attempt) without the meditative "clear your mind"/"let's inject the first round of Mercarium-I6" setup needed by beginners. As they get more skilled, the mapping of psi becomes more precise and clear.
Thought Reading:
This skill requires focusing on a single mind in the area, and "listening" to the presence for words, images, and sounds from their thoughts. Note that thought means that the subject must be actively thinking about something, and that the Psionic only ever gets whatever's passing through the subject's head at that moment. This skill requires a brief jump in psi power from Psi Radar due to the sensitivity required to get thoughts from the "noise".
Mind Throttling:
This is a heavy jump from the previous skill, and peaceful trainers never teach from this point onward. The first invasive skill, with no ability to direct working thoughts at the subject yet, this means simply blasting the victim's mind with random noise, preventing coherent thoughts and causing them to writhe and scream from a pain they do not physically feel. Being subject to constant throttling can actually lower one's psi presence, along with mental damage. However, only one subject can be the target of this, and throttling requires hefty focus on the subject until the sadistic Psionic ends the duration.
Mind Control:
The subtle version of the above, it is not the classic idea of mind control as we know it. The Psionic implants thoughts into the head of the victim, which can lead to them preforming actions that would usually be out of character, or or more emotionally unstable subjects, only needed the push to get going. However, if the thoughts are too suspiciously out of place or downright out of character, the victim can react by simply rejecting the fake thoughts, and make decisions without it. This means a good Psionic must study the mind of their victim to use the skill to it's fullest, and play off of established biases to lead them to a specific outcome. Note that more than once a poorly-made thought has lead to a subject making a conclusion that the Psionic did not intend...
Mind Reading:
The rich man's thought reading. By using the recall triggers of their subject, they can copy information from the victim's long term memory. The recall-trigger method, however, means that the Psionic cannot find information that the subject has forgotten, or has obscure triggers to, but can otherwise work with whatever trigger the Psionic inputs, whether that input be "government secrets" or [CENSORED]. The skill does not go completely unnoticed, though: the subject feels a constant "pulling" at the back of their mind, and may randomly and suddenly think of a trigger or memory that the Psionic is inputting or copying, most often when the Psionic is an amateur to this skill.
Side note: Psychokinesis is considered a different branch from Psionics by most scientists, even though they share the Psi Scale, because of how Psychokinesis works. I'll get to that later, anyways.