Psi Corps
From The Babylon Project
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- "The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father."
- – Psi Corps Motto
The Psi Corps is an Earth Alliance organization ostensibly established to help human telepaths learn to control their abilities for the betterment of themselves and Humanity at large.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Early History
The beginnings of the Psi Corps were in 2152 when EA President Marion Robinson passed telepath equal opportunity laws and established the Committee on Psychic Phenomenon.[1] In 2161, the EA passed the Internal Security Act, which established the Psi Corps from the earlier organization, the Metasensory Regulation Authority.[2] Lee Crawford became the first director of the Psi Corps. Shortly after he was assassinated, Kevin Vacit, became director.
[edit] Underground Railroad
Doctor Stephen Franklin participated in an underground railroad to help rogue telepaths escape from the Corps. Eventually, the telepaths who escaped provided assistance during the closing days of the Second Shadow war, while the highest levels of the Corps allied itself with the Shadows, providing them with telepaths to alter. The Shadows, via Morden, took an active role in the assassination of Luis Santiago and allowed some of their technology to be used by Earthforce.
After the Shadow war and the Earth Alliance Civil War were over, and both the Shadows and the Clark dictatorship were defeated, ISA President John Sheridan of the Interstellar Alliance allowed rogue telepaths to form a small colony on Babylon 5. The situation ended in violence when the Psi Cops attempted to take the rogue telepaths back to Earth.
After the colony on Babylon 5 was forced to leave following the death of its leader, Byron, Lyta Alexander began a crusade against the Psi Corps. Her actions led to a war in which rogue telepaths and non telepaths fought the Psi Corps. Once the Telepath War was over, the Psionic Monitoring Commission dedicated itself to hunting down those members of the Corps who committed war crimes, such as Alfred Bester. He was eventually captured and sentenced to spending the rest of his life in prison with his abilities taken away by sleepers.
Many private schools were founded to educate telepaths; they met with mixed success. Telepaths were allowed a much wider range of options as far as their lives were concerned. This included joining the Earth Alliance military and working for private organizations.
[edit] Telepath War
Having lost the power it held during the Clark administration, the Psi Corps attempted to take over Earth, only to be defeated by the Earth Alliance forces with the aid of the Interstellar Alliance and the rogue telepaths. As a result, the Psi Corps was disbanded and those guilty of war crimes prosecuted and rendered powerless through the use of sleepers.
[edit] Philosophy & Mentality
It is the position of the Psi Corps that telepathic humans that do not learn how to control their abilities are mostly unstable or become insane. Therefore they need guidance. In addition to that, unregistered Telepaths could do severe damage to society by using their abilities for criminal reasons.
Under Earth Alliance law, all human Telepaths have to be registered by Psi Corps. After that, they have three choices: Work for the Psi Corps, lifetime imprisonment or take drugs to suppress their abilities. Most choose to work for Psi Corps because one common side effect of the drugs is severe depression which often ends in suicide.[3]
Unstable telepaths - such as schizophrenic ones - are locked away for "the good of everyone".[4]
Psi Corps calls itself the family of all human Telepaths. They see themselves as a different race than humans which they call "mundanes".
They always try to deal with incidents concerning telepaths internally, in order to avoid interference by mundanes. As long as they pretend that nothing goes wrong "behind these walls", the mundanes leave the Psi Corps alone.
Thus they call such incidents "a family matter". [4]
To strengthen the dedication of Telepaths to the Corps, there are a variety of slogans that shall remind the Telepaths, that Psi Corps is their family: -
- "The Corps is mother, the Corps is father."
- "The Psi Corps is your friend. Trust the Corps."
- "We Are Everywhere For Your Convenience."
- "Protect the Family."
- "Obey."
- "Trust the Corps."
- "Maternis, Paternis"
- "United in thought, divided in memory."
[edit] Resources
The Psi Corps headquarters has hospitals, offices and a boarding school where young "teeps" and "teeks" avoid the persecution they would face among the mundane population. Family names were matriarchal, the mother's unmarried name was carried forward to the children. This is why female telepaths, such as Lyta Alexander and Talia Winters all carry their surname down the generations.
Although Earthforce thought, Psi Corps would have limited resources and would not be capable of building warships, Psi Corps had some. They remained in Hyperspace most of the time and left it only for maintenance and repairs. By that, Psi Corps made sure, Earthforce wasn't aware of the true strength of the Corps.
[edit] Psi Cops
Psi Cops is the collective name for officers of the Metasensory Police, or MetaPol and were the police enforcement arm of Psi Corps, usually dealing with cases relating to telepaths, mostly rogues and blips. All Psi Cops are P-12s[5], the highest rating within the Psi Scale, but not every P-12 has the ability to become a Psi Cop, because it takes a certain amount of ruthlessness. Psi Cops receive a special training in blocking and scanning so that they are able to resist a deep-scan for at least an hour. [4]
Following the dissolution of the Psi Corps at the end of the Telepath War, the role of the Psi Cops was divided between the new Bureau of Telepath Integration and the new Metasensory Division of the Earth Alliance Bureau of Investigation.
[edit] Bloodhound Units
Bloodhound Units are specially trained telepaths under the authority of the Psi Cops used to hunt down fugitives, through empathic tracking and scanning of witnesses, informants and suspects.
The origins of the Bloodhound Units go back to the days of the Metasensory Regulation Authority and a group of agents lead by Desa Alexander (also known as "Blood".)[1]
Up until President Morgan Clark's increased dependence on the Psi Corp for civil intelligence gathering and black ops, the Bloodhounds were kept "within the Corps", tracking blips and occasionally, protecting their own.
One such incident occurred around 2245 when a string of commercial telepaths were murdered by a serial killer. With the "mundane" authorities seemingly uninterested in catching the perpetrator, the Psi Corps took matters into it's own hands without such encumbrances as warrants, permission or due process. The Bloodhounds illegally scanned anyone who might have a lead, leaving behind no trace save for lingering memory gaps, missing hours and headaches. Eventually they found the killer and reasoning that turning him over to the proper authorities would require an explanation as to how they found him. The Corp instead had him sent to an institution on the Beta Colony, but not before implanted visions and hallucinations in his mind so terrifying that for the rest of his life he would spend the rest of his days and nights screaming at the things only he can see. He is kept in a straitjacket 24 hours a day to prevent him from clawing his own eyes out.[6]
During the Earth Alliance Civil War the Bloodhounds Units were assigned to the military divisions occupying Mars. Anyone suspected of being in the Resistance was subjected to a very deep scan. Given the nature of such invasive scans, they are prone to causing heart attacks, seizures, strokes, even death. [6]
In 2262 the Bloodhound Units were despatched to hunt down Byron's dissident telepaths.[7][8]
[edit] Directors of Psi Corps
A lifelong position, initially filled by normals, was eventually given over to telepaths.
- People who have held the position
- Lee Crawford (April 12th - May 19th 2161)
- Kevin Vacit (2161 - 2195)
- Johnston (2195 - ????)
[edit] Terminology
Psi Corps had a number of different slang terms used by all its members.
- Blip: a general term used by security officers for fugitives from the law, though has become synonymous with rogue telepaths.[9][10]
- Mundanes: non-telepaths, meaning literally "normals". Often perjorative.[10]
- Teep: referring to any telepath.[11]
- Teek: referring to any telekinetic.[11]
