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etherealvoidechoes · 2 years

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XCOM Worldbuilding: Psionics, Psions, and Cybernetics - Cybernetic Rejection and Workarounds

Some world building for my fics/world, brain let me quickly slap this together.

Partially brought it up in a recent sketch I posted recently. Believe I partially had Enemy Within’s Second Wave option “Mind Hates Matter” where “Psionic soldiers can’t become gene modded or vice-versa,” when I was thinking about this. And then some various cyberpunk/future set franchises where some people can never have cybernetic/cyberware implants and prosthetics because their body rejects them and even anti-rejection medication can’t help them. And/or too many cybernetics can make you disconnect from the world, humanity, and your “original” self.

For my fics, I’ve been treating/working up to psionics affecting and using the psion’s whole body and mind per my observations of how the Templars and Warlock have those glowing purple veins. And with the Elders body degeneration partially being their bodies just can’t handle their vast psionic power. And then I’m kind of toying with an idea that psionics can be an extension of oneself and almost like a second “body”. An extra “nervous system” of sorts.

So losing a limb can affect a psion pretty badly, as it’s like they’re losing the limb twice over; again the whole “extra nervous system”. So their powers are diminished and then when they can call on it, it takes more concentration and effort to perform tasks. It’s all like this for a while until they relearn and rework how they can currently use it. If a psion is able to get a cybernetic replacement for the limb, then they have to rework how psionic “weave of nerves” interacts with the old and new nerves connecting to the new limb. For most, it goes well. For others, their psionics, and (sometimes) their bodies, just reject the cybernetics.

There’s no one answer or reason for rejection of cybernetics. It’s different for everybody. It can be one thing or a combination of things that leads to rejection.

Sometimes the area where the new limb is being attached has far too much residual nerve damage that can not be fixed, even with Meld (and anything else the Elders use). Sometimes it’s just the body rejecting the new limb because of the materials the limb/cyberware is made of, and the psionics begin to treat any future attempts at cybernetic augmentation as a threat no matter what is used. And then for another reason, which is playing on the idea I had that Earth’s natural psionic energy is different from what the Elders use (and have force/inflicted on other races thus corrupting their natural psionics), is that the psion’s power can somehow feel the “taint” of the Elders’ touch/psionics on the cybernetics and rejects them to protect their user. This last one happens most to psions that have been experimented on by the Elders and have been in semi to close contact with them.

Huh, just realizing the last one may partially play into Lynette’s issues with her spine and her psionics. Though most of her issues with her spine are caused by trauma from one failed escape attempt. Her psionics are fine with her arms unless her back is really disagree with her psionics. Fun nearly “broken” limbs times for her.

Back on topic, for the psion I sketched, his is a combination of nerve damage from something severely caustic and then material rejection.

Though they may have suffered rejection, a psion can still use prothetic cybernetics, but it just can never be grafted onto their bodies. They may be able to get away(for those not having material issues) with a few non-major neural/motor communication/feedback/etc. implants to help one become “in sync” with the new limb faster, but anything more than that would make rejection kick in. The new limb has to be crafted from materials that resonate with psionic energies. Which looking at those psi amps being made with alien alloys and Elerium crystals makes me think that would make for the best prosthetics. But who knows, there may be some Earth materials that would work just as well. Construction would go like any other cybernetic limb, with extra care being taken with building the nervous and synaptic systems to properly support the psionic pathways. Have to double if not triple up on that to make sure it can handle psionic energies being channeled through it at various levels. And have to make sure it can handle a spontaneous “evolution” in the psion’s psionics, which will stress the prosthetic with the fluctuation power levels.

If all is done correctly, a psion should be able to bind their power to the new prosthetic. There’s not an instantaneous they will have full control over the new limb. It’s going to be like learning how to walk again. Having to relearn finesse, lots of fumbling while trying to grab things, how much strength to express how to pick up an item without breaking it, working through the disconnect of the new limb not being flesh and blood, loose of feelings if they don’t have those sorts of receptors in the limb, and many other things. And the occasional bouts of dysphoria with the foreign limb and phantom pains. But overtime they’ll master their new limb and it’ll be second nature to them. The dysphoria and phantom pains will nearly disappear once all the psionic nerve pathways have been remade.

Though this can still be a hit and miss with those whose rejection is on the “Great, the Elders touched this. Get it away from me.” But that can possibly be worked around by bathing the cybernetics with Earth’s natural energies to purge the Elders’ touch from the materials used. It would probably be a long process to do that, but can probably be quickened by strong psions and being in an area with naturally high psionic background radiation.

So these are my somewhat rough thoughts. May continue to build on this later.

#XCOM worldbuilding #XCOM 2 #xcom 2 wotc #XCOM psionics #XCOM cybernetics #writings #gotta refine this more in the future

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official-alan-dabiri · 4 years

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The new Nexus Anomaly is fantastic and everybody loves it and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Definitely not a single person hates it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns and believes it destroys everything good about the game. However, there are still some minor tweaks that we could possibly make to make it even better! We’re reducing structure damage slightly, and adjusting some of the extremely rare edge cases that might have caused minor frustration. Edge cases like periodic damage from DoTs forcing a hero to stand outside of tower range doing nothing for several seconds. Extremely rare. I’m sure no one even noticed. The anomaly is great and just needed this minor tweak I don’t know what you’re talking about.

With Haunted Mines out of the rotation forever probably, Hanamura is almost the worst map in the game. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s definitely not bad. There were just a series of active decision that we made in design on purpose that are totally fine and not bad that we are now choosing to alter for no specific reason. The map should be much better now. Not that it was bad before. Blizzard doesn’t make mistakes.

This patch includes two major reworks for heroes who we feel have been left behind by power creep:

Cassia has been extremely good within an extremely narrow niche for a very long time; her power against AA-dependent teams has been considerable, but outside of that, she struggled to find any sort of relevance. As such, we’re promoting her from that specific specialty to a new category that I like to call “Budget Raynor” where she becomes a more generally useful hero that you can pick when Raynor is not available, joining the ranks alongside Fenix and Zul’jin of being just barely good enough to be second choice.

Tracer was a hero who lived and died on mobility and burst damage, making her extremely precarious to balance. Being on the knife’s edge like that was made even more tricky with the existence of the old iteration of Tassadar, who amplified her power to an unhealthy degree. Now that Tass is gone, we’re making minor adjustments to make her more self-reliant and less obnoxious to play against. We’ve done this by trading some of her burst damage for more sustain damage, given her a bunch of mobility-focused talents, and rebalancing Recall to give more counterplay and make the hero feel much less gated behind her safety cooldown. Increasing her mobility is definitely not going to be any sort of problem. Don’t worry about it.

As far as normal balance changes go, definitely a very small list of very minor changes. I’ll put them under a cut just so that those of you who aren’t that invested can get on with your day.

Artanis has been in an interesting spot for a long time now. He’s very strong in certain situations, except for when he isn’t. But he’s very good. But also not very good. So we’re making some minor adjustments that we hope will make him stop being bad so that he can start being good.

Deathwing remains absolutely fine and not overpowered at all, just like at launch. But we’re making some very minor adjustments (VERY MINOR) to try and entice the very small minority of incorrect people who think he needs to be banned every game to maybe let him through so that they can see how absolutely overpowered he isn’t and never was.

Dehaka is a hero who was maybe left behind by power creep a long time ago, but nobody noticed because he belongs to the exclusive club of global heroes so he keeps getting picked reliably. Is he still good? Does he need help? Let’s put him on the patch notes and see what happens.

Imperius is definitely fine and had zero bugs from this last patch. You can tell because he’s not in the bug fixes section. He’s in the hero changes section, where we buffed one of his underpicked talents. Definitely no bugs to fix.

Loath though I am to admit it, Tim may have been right all along that Lava Wave was the good Ragnaros heroic. In order to bring the world back to rights where Tim is wrong and everyone else is right, we’re buffing Sulfuras Smash considerably.

Xul is also just fine- wait, was that bit just for Deathwing? I don’t even remember. When more than one hero is dramatically overperforming I forget which gag I’m running with for each one. Regardless, Xul is getting nerfed. Whatever the fuck running gag I’ve been going with, insert it here. Patches are too infrequent now for me to keep track of my own bits.

The following healers are now meta: Anduin, Brightwing, Deckard. Please start playing them and stop playing Rehgar, Stukov and Auriel. Yes, Brightwing. No this is not a joke.

For a long time, Alarak has had a partial AA build using Hindered Motion, Blade of the Highlord and Lethal onslaught. Unfortunately, this build requires a playstyle that would be entirely foreign for his usual kit, and only coming online in the lategame meant that there was no incentive to learn. So we’re adding a level 1 talent to mesh with this build. It’s definitely neither overtuned nor an absurd departure for the hero. Don’t think about it too much. We sure didn’t.

While we’re overall happy with the distribution of ranged AA heroes into Raynor tier and budget Raynor tier, we’re still feeling out how to arrange the mages. Semi-random adjustments to Chromie and Orphea should help us uncover what design space actually need the most work.

Blizzard build Jaina will be a thing. We won’t stop buffing Snowstorm until it is.

Oops! Li-Ming’s good heroic had the short cooldown, while her bad heroic had the longer one! This longtime oversight has been remedied.

Probius buffs Probius buffs Probius buffs Probius buffs. I’m too excited to possibly articulate an adequate joke. Something something Keymaster.

The brand new hero Tassadar has made a big splash in the Nexus! Unfortunately, most of that splash has been made by his ragdolling corpse because he’s squishy as fuuuuuuuuuuuck. We clearly overestimated everyone’s ability to protect their high templar. As such, some minor buffs might help him survive long enough to convert his mana bar into dead hydras and mutas in service to his proper hero fantasy.

#Heroes of the Storm #Patch notes #We also fixed AI #No we didn't make AI good #We just fixed all the edge cases for disconnected player replacement AI #That's probably fine

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