On 7/10/24 16:01, Jim Vassilakos - jim.vassilakos at gmail.com (via tml
list) wrote:
> Hi Alex. Sorry about messing up your last name in the previous post.
> Not sure where that "y" came from. In any case, it was your response
> to Jeff's question, "Why is the Imperium hostile to the Zhodani
> Consulate?" that got me thinking about all this. So I'd be curious as
> to your (or any else's) thoughts on this:
>
Will see what I can do.  I quite like this as an additional background
to the Psionics Suppressions, above/beyond the
psychohistorical-experiment angle.
> The Secret Truth of Psionics, Genetics, and the Imperial Nobility
>
> Although the Psionics Suppressions officially began in 800,
> anti-psionic sentiments had a long tradition, particularly within
> Vilani culture.
> <snip>
>
> Their discovery of the failed human civilization at Khula in -9309
> must have felt like vindication, as it became apparent that human
> societies could fall into chaos and that the entire population on any
> given world could even go extinct, if their society became unstable.
> (See MegaTraveller's Vilani & Vargr: The Coreward Races (1990), page 17.)

Yes, the Nekargushii would probably construe the evidence at Khula as
yet more argument for societal stability - naturally, provided by them,
of course.

> <snip>
>
> It is worth bearing in mind the Nekargushii had risen to dominance in
> an environment of anti-psionic persecution. Not only were they
> accustomed to it, but they had paradoxically allowed them to thrive.
> Indeed, if they had not been persecuted, perhaps they might never have
> formed in the first place, in which case Vilani society might have
> fought among itself and ultimately suffered the same fate as Khula.

What happened to the Nekargushii during the Interstellar Wars and early
rise of the Rule of Man?  (Smells like a lot of adventure possibilities
there)

How many disaffected Nekargushii legged it rimwards?

>
> By the time the Vilani encountered the Zhodani, around -2000 [see
> Classic Traveller Alien Module 4: Zhodani (1985), page 8], the Rule of
> Man had already begun. It was only then the Nekargushii realized that
> a psionic elite could openly rule a multiplanetary society without the
> society necessarily devolving into caste-warfare. But the Vilani were
> already on their backs, as the Terrans had effectively conquered them.

Or had they?  Yes, the Terrans did come in at the top to provide a
source of legitimacy, but (iirc), they mostly ruled through existing
power structures.

How many bureaucrats in the post-ZS would consider "Yes Minister" to be,
like its creators intended, a series of training films, but, unlike the
creators' intent, _the way to do it_ ?

>
> Some within the Nekargushii pointed their fingers inward, arguing that
> it was their own fault that the Terrans, such an unlikely adversary,
> were able to seize control so swiftly. Granted, the Terrans also had
> the sheer biological advantage of immunity to all the diseases they
> brought. But another reason they won was because the Vilani had become
> so despised by most of their subjects. Not only had they themselves
> become ossified, but so too were they inflicting the same sort of
> culture on the many alien races and human subraces of the First
> Imperium. Hence, some say the fall of the Ziru Sirka was inevitable,
> that if the Terrans/Solomani hadn’t knocked over the Vilani’s house of
> cards, the Zhodani certainly would have.
IIRC from GT:ISW, the ZS' claim to legitimacy was the Vilani being a
major _human_ race, so yes, either would have eventually upended the
applecart.
> <snip>
>
> The Zhodani continued to slowly and methodically expand during this
> time. It was more difficult for them to integrate worlds, as most
> pre-contact societies were often psi-phobic, so they often encountered
> significant resistance. They were further hampered by their inability
> to interbreed with the human subraces they encountered. Hence, they
> expanded slowly, and so by the time they finally clashed militarily
> with the Vilani and their Solomani sidekicks, the Third Imperium had
> already been established.

Um... I think you'll find Zhodani (h. sapiens zhodtlas (?)) are mutually
interfertile with the bulk of human races (h. sapiens whatever). 
Whether they _actually_ interbreed is another matter entirely.

As for pre-contact psionophobia, isn't that what (from a 3I POV) the
Tavrchedl are _for_ ?

>
> It is interesting to note that at this point these two societies were
> very much alike, at least insofar as they were both controlled by a
> psionic elite. While the Zhodani were honest about it, they were also
> rather overbearing to their subjects. Like most societies, they
> naturally thought they had found the best way to live. The
> Nekargushii, by contrast, realized by this point that every sort of
> society had virtues as well as flaws. They themselves had arguably
> been responsible for the mismanagement and fall of the Ziru Sirka, and
> they failed to prevent the Long Night. So they were adamantly against
> the central government controlling each individual world. It would
> create too much discontentment, and the lack of distributed power
> centers would result in socioeconomic fragility. These were the
> hard-learned lessons of the First and Second Imperiums, lessons the
> Zhodani had yet to learn.
One advantage, in this writeup, the Zhodani have over the 1I/2I/3I is
having domesticated the human animal to a large extent.
>
> <snip>
>
> In any case, finding itself unable to overcome the Imperium in war,
> the Zhodani tried espionage. Their spies eventually sniffed out the
> existence of the Nekargushii, and they soon realized the Third
> Imperium was much more like themselves than they’d ever imagined. They
> thought that by infiltrating the Psionic Institutes, they’d be able to
> influence or possibly even take over Imperial society more-or-less
> bloodlessly. However, the Nekargushii detected the Zhodani
> infiltration and reacted appropriately.
>
> The propaganda campaign they initiated was only intended to send
> Zhodani agents and sympathizers running for the hills while bringing
> the Psionic Institutes under direct Imperial control, but anti-psionic
> sentiment was already so ingrained that the ensuing social fallout was
> difficult to control, and the Psionic Suppressions took on a life of
> their own. Known psions who happened to be affiliated with the
> Nekargushii were able to go into hiding fairly easily, but those not
> affiliated had a much harder time, and most of this latter group fled
> to the Zhodani Consulate, which was the only place they assumed they’d
> ever be safe. When the dust finally settled, those responsible for the
> media campaign against the Psionic Institutes were shocked at what had
> happened. But it was too late to go back. Imperial society had been
> transformed.
Gone Horribly Right, iow?
>
> Bizarrely, the whole chain of events necessitated the creation of a
> myth that psionic abilities are not inheritable, that they are not
> genetic-based. In short, the science was falsified. The reason for
> this final bit of propaganda was that known psions who went into
> hiding with the assistance of the Nekargushii needed to protect their
> children from future persecution. Family names were at stake, and
> their children of the elite had to be able to say convincingly that
> they had no psionic abilities of their own. So this lie about the
> non-inheritability of psionic talents was told loudly and often, and
> the public, ever-gullible, came to believe it.
>
I like it.  Manages to pull together a lot of canon and weave it into a
coherent narrative. Great job!

Alex