Introduction to the Talent Universe

Under construction!!

This section describes my understanding of the Talent Universe. My gratitude goes to Dyani Tower PBeM for the Talents in the Tower section, as well as more specific information on Talent Types and Talent Ratings. For Talent Types, I've also used the prologue of Pegasus in Flight. If you disagree with any comments, please get in touch! Any errors are my responsibility.

The Beginning

In the beginning there was Henry Darrow, a precog whose clairvoyant episode was recorded on the Goosegg, a particularly sensitive electroencephalograph. Once recovered, Darrow went on to found the first Center for Parapsychics on Jerhattan.

Talents -as people with parapsychic powers were called- came or were brought to the Centers where they could discover more about and develop their powers. Facing a sometimes hostile environment, they found solace in the company of others with similar abilities. Peter Reidinger was the first Talent to amplify his telekinetic Talent by gestalting with an electric generator. He became the first Tower Prime.

Talent Types

Telepathy and empathy are often grouped together, while telempathy is often seen as a combination of the two. They are distinct Talents, although most telepaths are also empaths to some extent and vice versa.

Telepathy: The ability to communicate thoughts. The range can vary from extreme short range (possibly requiring physical contact) to the other side of the inhabited galaxy. Telepathic Talent may be limited to sending or receiving, but those limitations are rarer in the higher ratings (T-4+). No matter what their primary Talent is, most T-4+ are also telepathic to some extent.
Empathy: The ability to sense emotions. Skilled empaths easily, sometimes quite unconsciously, adjust to the mood of those around them, helping to prevent conflict.
Telempathy: The ablity to sense and react to emotions across distance. Some telempaths are able to neutralize negative emotions by broadcasting positive ones, a valuable skill in crowd control.
Telekinesis: The ability to move physical objects. Macrokinetics can move large objects, such as cargo pods. Microkinetics can influence objects as small as DNA. Macrokinetics rated T-4 or higher can move objects as heavy as themselves and they are also often able to gestalt with Tower generators independently.
Precognition or Clairvoyance: The ability to see future events, either near or distant. Sometimes the visions allow the future to be altered. Often, however, they come too late to do any good. This is perhaps the hardest Talent to deal with on a personal level. Precogs often have affinities; some see only events related to their own lives, others may be more apt to perceive children, fire, criminal intentions or great disasters in urban areas, for example.
Finding: The ablity to find objects and people. Finders also have affinities; some can locate people and/or animals while others are better at finding inanimate objects.
Healing: The ability to turn a range of Talents to healing purposes. Often a combination of telepathic, empathic and microkinetic Talent.

Talent Ratings

Talent is measured on a scale from T-1, the strongest possible Talent, to T-12, a barely measurable amount of Talent. The scale is relative, rather than absolute. [For instance, although Peter Reidinger in the Pegasus books was the first confirmed Prime, he would probably only rate a T-2 by the time the Rowan appeared on the scene.] In addition, a Prime is much stronger than two T-2s.

T-1 or Prime: May be any Talent type but the rarest combination is the telepathic and kinetic Talent mix which produces a Tower Prime. Medical Talents are the most obvious example of non-Tower T-1 Talents.
T-2 to T-5: With the right Talent mix these Talents can telepath and teleport. T-4 and higher may also be able to gestalt unaided with the Tower generators. Unlike the Primes their Talent mix may be 'uneven'; some may have more kinetic strength, others may be able to receive telepathically better than they can send, or vice versa. There are naturally T-5 Medical Talents, finders, precogs, empaths, etc.
T-6 to T-8: These ratings usually have only one Talent type. Although their strength can be drawn upon by Primes (and other high Talents in the absence of a Prime) in a Tower situation, they are unable to gestalt unaided. Their Talent is usually only used in immediate applications, often their work.
T-9 to T-12: Minor Talents. Many of the lower ratings seem to be finders or precogs. They don't usually work for FT & T but their Talent can certainly be an asset in addition to other skills in a Tower situation or on a spaceship.

Talents in the Tower

The Prime: A Prime does the heavy teleportation, moving animate and inanimate cargo from the "cradles" around the Tower to "destination placements". These placements might be another Tower's cradles (very rarely), or a midway point where another Prime will meet the cargo and complete the teleportation to his or her Tower on another planet or on a spaceship.
The Second-in-Command or "Twic": The Prime's main assistant, a T-4 or greater Talent who can teleport lighter, inanimate cargo alone (sometimes even animate if he's strong enough), or provide mental strength in support of the Prime's efforts. The twic is also responsible for the smooth running of the Prime's working day, teleporting cargo from its holding positions to the Tower cradles, and supplying the Prime with the destination placements (co-ordinates), weights and special instructions for handling.
The Stationmaster: Runs the Tower as a whole. The administrator. Responsible for the smooth flow of information to the twic.
The Expeditor: Responsible for the movement of cargo within the confines of the Tower and the immediate boss of the cargo handlers. T-6+ kinetic.
The Senior Engineer: In charge of the smooth running and maintenance of the generators Primes and other high Talents gestalt with for their telekinetic and telepathic efforts. Some engineers are microkinetics, others have special aptitude for mechanics and electronics. One of the few positions open to non-Talents in the Tower.
Tower and Support Staff: T-5s and T-6s sort cargo destination placements and priorities, T-7 and T-8 kinetics take documentation from cargo and personnel pods and lift it into the Tower. T-10s (and 'Dinis on Clarf) check on the condition of cargo.

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