Avishraa Reloaded

A mentalist's physical abilities revolve around the ability to project a volume of force with one's mind. It can be projected away from the mentalist's body without existing in the intervening space, and while it is not exceptionally strong, it can be used with considerable precision. The volume can also be of a wide variety of shapes, and may also be of variable strength; that is to say, it may be made more or less difficult for something to pass through it. Even at its strongest, a person experiencing direct contact with such projected force feels it as being yielding rather than hard, something like a memory-foam mattress.

When reduced to minimal strength, it can hardly be felt at all. The mentalist cannot manipulate objects in this way, but can “feel” them, and can use this as a form of extrasensory perception to map their surroundings in a fashion vaguely like sonar. They will receive an idea of an object's location, its texture, and whether it is moving.

Given more strength, it can be used to move, lift, and otherwise handle physical matter - the equivalent of the power that humans might call telekinesis. A mentalist could probably levitate something as heavy as a bowling ball into the air slowly and hold it there; objects smaller and lighter than this could be “thrown” with increasing force. Mentalists are capable of using it with a certain amount of precision, and some can use it to pick locks or perform work too delicate for use of the forepaws. This ability can also be used to stop or interfere with other objects' movement, either by manually altering their course (which may be more feasible for larger, faster-moving objects such as javelins) or by erecting barriers (more suited to small or slow-moving objects).

Force projection is most commonly directed at solids - which it can circumvent, but not penetrate - but can also be used on liquids and gases. It is well-known in the Citadel that a mentalist surrounding themselves in a bubble of sufficient force, such as to avoid attack from all directions, is capable of suffocating by depleting their air.

While all takmar have an empathic sense - the ability to sense feelings and subjective physiological states - mentalists also have the ability to sense thought processes. Unlike empathy, which is purely a directional sense with no “depth perception”, mindsense can determine distance, location, and relative strength of minds.

The way mindsense works can be likened to a flashlight beam; it can illuminate a given area, which is not necessarily near the user. The further away it is aimed, the less light it can provide, and there is a distance beyond which it ceases to be useful. The closer it is to the spot it is aimed at, the more light it provides but the less area it illuminates.

The subjective experience of mindsense is something like moving through a summer's night surrounded by fireflies. The darkness around the user is that of areas where no thought is taking place, or at least is too diffuse or slow to be detected (there is a certain amount of philosophical debate among mentalists whether plants don't think at all, or just think very big, slow thoughts). Floating in the darkness are the lights of thinking creatures; their size corresponds roughly with the physical size of the brain, their brightness with the actual level and complexity of activity taking place, and their colors and patterns with what is being thought about. Minds like those of worms and other such creatures might be hardly visible at all; those of insects tiny, faint pinpoints of light; fish brighter, but simple and unadorned. The higher animals are brighter and more colorful, and sophonts are oscillating kaleidoscopes of brilliant light.

This is all, of course, entirely metaphorical. It is also a very general picture of the truth, because most creatures are not engaged in the same levels of mental activity at all times. A sleeping sophont will have a dimmer signal than one that is awake. One concentrating only on a single thought will be a stronger and more constant color than one that is not. One that's doing a lot of thinking will be brighter than one who isn't. A sleeping sophont isn't all that hard to read, but there are other states - such as intense meditation - that present more difficulty.

While mental activity is not exactly equal to emotional intensity, the fact that most beings find it difficult to entirely separate their thoughts from their feelings means that a mentalist can often tell how a target is feeling even if the latter is empathically shielding. The mentalist will also be able to read thoughts, sensory input, and memories; the subjectivity involved means that the mentalist will know what the target thinks is happening or has happened, but this does not necessarily reflect reality.

Once a mentalist has located a mind and been able to read it, they have the option of changing it. Generally, the kinds of changes that are easy to detect are difficult to resist, and vice versa.

The alteration of sensory perceptions - the editing of the sights, sounds, smells and so on that are presented to the brain, is generally the most difficult to resist but potentially the easiest to detect. A good imagination is required to create convincing sensory hallucinations, and while if done well they can surpass even the ability of an illusionist with images, because they exist only in the mind it will become obvious when no one else is able to detect them. Lapses in concentration can also cause the impressions to be inconsistent or to “flicker” on and off. While a simultaneous nudging of suspension of disbelief can help cover some gaps, the fact remains that the target's attention can be drawn to an imperfect performance. This ability can also be used to communicate psionically with a target, planting words in their head with the intention that they should be heard and understood as coming from an external source.

More difficult to detect, but (very slightly) easier to resist, are alterations to memories. While memory is, as has already been mentioned, extremely malleable, simply cutting out a memory and replacing it with something else usually means that the memory fails to be connected to anything else from the same time and place. A sudden discontinuity without a known context can be the cause of introspection enough to raise a target's suspicions, and a mind suspicious of alteration is far more difficult to alter.

Further along the scale are alterations to emotional states and attitudes. So long as the mentalist does not make the mistake of inducing too sudden or strong a shift in the target's mood, the target may feel it natural enough that they fail to suspect its origin; mood changes are common enough that most people pay little attention to them. But, should the attempt be discovered, it is very tiring to try to force a mood when the target is trying to feel something else.

Most difficult of all to detect, and easiest to resist, is the control of thoughts. Nudging thoughts from one track to another is, under most circumstances, a task approaching the trivial; it happens naturally all the time, especially when there is no pressing concern to focus on. Even a fairly radical thought can be explained away as, and is usually subjectively experienced as, a sudden insight or epiphany. Once the alteration is understood as such, however, it's almost impossible to force it on the target, and further attempts are best made from a different angle of thought or simply after waiting for the target's vigilance to wear down.

As one might suppose, the successful alteration of a mind is best accomplished with patience, subtlety, and attention to detail. But sometimes a mentalist, for whatever reason - usually through some sense of urgency or lack of success otherwise - discards the subtlety to attempt to seize control of their victim's very mind. It is rarely done, and even more rarely done with unqualified success; such brazen control is easily noticed by even the slowest sophont mind, and the target, unless already prepared and willing, will instinctively panic and resist with all their might.

But if control is established, then for however long the mentalist is able to maintain it before tiring, the target's mind is effectively subject to the mentalist's will.

It is also possible, instead of attempting to alter or control the victim's mind, to attempt the same feat directly over their motor control. If successful, the mentalist can induce the target to move, or not move, their body as directed. The technique is extremely noticeable to the target, and like outright mental control will cause a panicked attempt to resist, but even a brief moment in which a target is unable to talk, or a fall caused by a sudden relaxing of the leg muscles, can give a mentalist the advantage needed to take other action against a foe.

One of a mentalist's most valued abilities is the one that allows them to block what another mentalist is doing. A mentalist can not only keep another mentalist from altering or controlling a mind, whether one's own or another's, but can hide very effectively from mindsense, becoming wispy and insubstantial in psionic presentation. One mentalist seeking to psionically attack a shielded target must either take the shielding mentalist by surprise or prepare for a struggle of attrition.

While mentalists, like illusionists, are sometimes viewed less than favorably by Citadel society, the overtones are those of unease or fear rather than suspicion or derision. Mentalists, after all, can affect the world much more directly and practically than illusionists can, for good or for ill; an illusionist might be exploiting their powers for crude advantage, but mentalists' powers give them all the advantage they could want. It's generally held that the fact that they don't already control everyone and everything means that most of them are trustworthy. (Inevitably, there are conspiracy theorists who would argue that mentalists already control everything and no one knows it, but they are rarely taken seriously.)

It helps that it is possible, and in the Citadel relatively common, for a non-mentalist to provide themselves with some protection from a mentalist's powers; a meditative mindset makes a mind harder to read, intense self-awareness will alert a mind to attempts at alteration or control, and the ability to think “surface” thoughts and “deep” thoughts can hide the latter behind the former. (Zadireth, Dlyss' husband and henchman, is notoriously hard to read accurately despite being a non-mentalist… though, to be fair, his is an unusual sort of mind in the first place.)

Mentalists form the backbone of the Restitutors, the Citadel's watch, who are called upon to capture criminals against life and property, and to enforce the relatively few laws that are imposed on the population; their powers make it relatively easy for them to track down and interrogate suspects. They are also, like illusionists, often employed as spies and bodyguards (and mind-guards, protecting their employers' minds from other mentalists).

Among the more savory occupations, mentalists can often be seen employing their powers in communication (an association of mentalists in the Citadel capital, Oldstone, psionically broadcasts news in a fashion somewhere between town criers and Earthly news networks), and in artisan roles where their telekinetic abilities allow them to undertake detailed and intricate work not possible with the fingers.

They also fulfill the role of mental health professionals, in the same way that lifegivers serve as doctors. The treatment of the Chosen by ordinary takmar has, over the cycles, left many wounds on individual and collective psyches, and mental disorders are fairly common; mentalists are able to recognize them for what they are and, through understanding and consensual mental alteration, to try to take a direct hand in repairing them.

Their insights into the mind tend to make the jaded mentalists callous, manipulative, and pessimistic, but to make others sympathetic and friendly. The latter also tend to have a much higher probability of emotionally bonding with animals and keeping them for companionship; most takmar, even if they are not deliberately cruel to animals, tend for sociobiological reasons not to assign them any measure of personhood and consider them in a utilitarian light.