Espers in SGII

	Recently, I began giving thought to the idea of using Espers in
my
Stargrunt games.  The way I am planning it, there will be two sorts:
those
of the (barely) human "Old Empire." and those of the Terrans (us, 150+
yeas
from now).  I am not going to deal with the Imperial Thoughtcasters
right
now, but I am going to design them as being very dangerous and effective
living weapons-with TK, pyrokenesis, teleportation, etc.-who feed off of
violent emotions and death.  In other words, sniper-bait.

	Now the Terrans, on the other hand….  My inspiration for the
Terran Espers
is a book entitled "Dream Baby", by (I think) Bruce McAllister, which
details the military use of psychics during the Vietnam War.  Yes, it's
fiction....  Anyway, McAllister's view of psychic powers is that they
are
generally very passive (clairvoyance, heightened reaction time,
precognition), and are a survival mechanism triggered by deep stress.
Combat, in other words.  An additional source of inspiration was the
very
brief use of Espers by Heinlein during "Starship Troopers", which gives
us
a picture of Espers as an intelligence gathering tool--and a fragile
tool,
at that.

	In any case, in my view Espers will not be effective soldiers,
or even
particularly effective human beings.  Espers can NOT injure another
living
being without sharing the pain and trauma of that injury.  They won't
even
swat flies, let alone shoot an enemy soldier.  Many Espers are mentally
deficient in some way or another: retarded, autistic, sometimes brain
damaged.  Even those who are not mentally handicapped to begin with are
generally confused and disoriented from the constant influx of sensory
data
that the human brain is not really equipped to handle.	Espers are
deployed
in the field only under very unusual circumstances, and always with a
specific mission.   Espers may be used to pinpoint or map underground
structures ("Bugs, Mr. Rico!  Zillions of 'em!), to interrogate or
locate
particularly important enemy officers, or perhaps to provide mental
"camouflage" against a naturally psychic race.	They are not used
casually,
and they are NOT expendable-there are far too few Espers to risk losing
any
of them without a damned good reason.

	In game terms, these are the rules that I have come up with:

Each Esper must have an assigned "Handler", with who he must be in
base-to-base contact with at all times.  The Handler is treated as
though
he is carrying a wounded comrade-this represents leading the Esper
around
trees, lifting him out of ditches, and occasionally tying his bootlaces
or
going back to look for her lost teddy bear.

Any squad that contains an attached Esper gains an extra defense die,
ranging from d6-d10, depending on the quality of the Esper.  This
represents the fact that the Esper is invariably going to hit the dirt,
screaming in terror, at least 10 seconds before the first enemy bullet
is
even fired.  An alert squad will usually notice this, and take advantage
of
the opportunity to seek cover for themselves.

Any squad with an attached Esper will have High motivation, and an
officer
of at least Veteran quality.  Inexperienced soldiers will not be
entrusted
with such a valuable resource.

Any other game effects of an attached Esper will be scenario dependant,
and
will generally relate to whatever the assigned mission may be.	"Get Mr.
Esper into base-to-base contact with the enemy commander, so he may
extract
the details of the local defense network from his gray matter", for one
(simplistic) example.  However, no Terran Esper will be able to have an
direct physical effect on the world with anything other than his own two
hands-no telekentically blowing up tanks, no teleporting the squad back
to
Alpha Centauri, nothing.  Again, the Imperial Thoughtcasters are a
different story entirely....

	Generally speaking, I am not going to make much use of Espers,
and, as
mentioned, they will have a specific scenario use whenever they are on
the
board.	For figures, I will probably use some of my Ral Partha "Vampire"
figs, as they make the best 25mm civilians that I have yet found.  Plus,
most of them are already posed in "surrender mode!"

	Any thoughts?

John Crimmins
johncrim@voicenet.com