[Æon] Do you think Doyen reproduce?

[Shalmaneser]

This creates a great Sand Box to be explored by individual storytellers and players, and don’t lock people on a rigid storyline to be able to explore some aspects of the books.
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I tend to think of any question clarifications as touchstones. Obviously, no storyteller needs to take it as gospel, but any answer starts the imagination down a set of paths, and you can use as much logic and consistency as makes a good story. Also, it's fun to do.

Like the example Doyen in the book- if there are no young Doyen, then that's what one looks like after several million years of life experience. Kind of ho-hum, right?

Did the failed ascension process cripple some of them in other ways, or are many of them on their way to some sort of doddering senility? Do they go inactive for an age or two at a time, with only a small fraction awake and meddling with other species? Are ambassador Doyen being punished, and have their abilities stripped before being sent into the field? All of those are just potential bundles of Doyen-related story hooks and ideas of why the Doyen act like they do.

[Eldagusto]

I tend to think of any question clarifications as touchstones. Obviously, no storyteller needs to take it as gospel, but any answer starts the imagination down a set of paths, and you can use as much logic and consistency as makes a good story. Also, it's fun to do.

Like the example Doyen in the book- if there are no young Doyen, then that's what one looks like after several million years of life experience. Kind of ho-hum, right?

Did the failed ascension process cripple some of them in other ways, or are many of them on their way to some sort of doddering senility? Do they go inactive for an age or two at a time, with only a small fraction awake and meddling with other species? Are ambassador Doyen being punished, and have their abilities stripped before being sent into the field? All of those are just potential bundles of Doyen-related story hooks and ideas of why the Doyen act like they do.

They are stagnant, and they are divided into various levels of when they plateaued.

[Shalmaneser]

They are stagnant, and they are divided into various levels of when they plateaued.

Like that idea- it explains a lot of why the Doyen act like they do.

If they're stagnant, then the Doyen at the bottom of their hierarchy when they almost ascended are faced with being at the bottom of the hierarchy forever- the members of their species with more power (political, noetic, etc) are going to run the show for the rest of Doyen history.

It would explain why Doyen don't just go wiping planets clean of life, even though some of them are capable of cracking a planet apart. The powerful Doyen don't much care about minor threats, but the less powerful ones are trying to create weapons for use against their own rulers- powerful enough to do the job of destroying the higher castes, but not so powerful that they can't be discarded afterward. Kind of like if the Lensmen were created by Boskone for use against other Boskonians.

[Shalmaneser]

Creche? That was out of jealousy. More, it was out of stupid Jealousy, because You'd have to consider that even if they only have a few moments between being in our universe and ascending, a being on the verge of Godhood can probably do a lot to register its displeasure.

So if we assume the Doyen are jealous but that beings that stupid don't survive millions of years, then they weren't trying to just annoy Creche. I'd suspect that they'd seen species Transcend/Sublime/whatever before or at least found traces of it, and still want to know how they might manage it themselves one day. Maybe they've actually watched the process happen a few times and not managed to learn enough from that.

In the case of Creche, they have a single being on the verge of Transcendence. All alone. No other members of its species. Relatively speaking, vulnerable.

What happened to Creche seems likely to be a Doyen experiment into the nature of noetic Transcendence, not just idle spite.

Which makes a great story idea for anyone who likes pitching ethical dilemmas at their players- perhaps there's something very valuable to be learned from that hideously unethical experiment.

[NewK]

I don't know if we can assume that--the canon material specifically calls out them being frustrated with Creche, as a big reason for the attempted murder, and also mentions how shocked and terrified they were when the response killed some of them.

I think the Doyen, as terrified as they are by the possibility of death, have gotten used to being able to define the engagement--they act like they do, because there have been very few occasions where their plans didn't work-IE, Bullseye played out well for them.

And even Creche wasn't a big challenge for them as a species. Terrifying yes, but Creche isn't coming after them. So, for want of a better word, the Doyen are jealous, bu also complacent, and that's why the whole issue with humanity is blowing up in their face so dramatically--they were so used to their position of safety, and had no plan B for when Mal sort of dynamited the railroad.

Flip side, we don't know how many there are. A billion Doyen sounds like a lot--unless of course it's a billion spread all over the entire Local Group. So it could also be, as others have said, that earth may be facing a small subset of the doyen, while the rest of their society is off doing other things (and possibly more positive things).

[pcontop]

Idea - The Doyen do not *multiply* per se, but they hinder other races' psionic ascension so they become like them.

[Mateus Luz]

Idea - The Doyen do not *multiply* per se, but they hinder other races' psionic ascension so they become like them.

They don’t, at least in the standard universe. They are afraid of anything getting as powerful as them, or able to damage them, so they attacked Crèche just to prevent their ascension, created a Noetic barrier around Earth after Hammersmith to prevent humans to evolve by force, installed blocks on Qin minds to make them incapable of evolving.

If they do in your game it would mean they are picking individual creatures that would fit on their society and help the ascension. Probably too afraid of raising an entire species that may be able to dethrone them somehow.

[johntfs]

They don’t, at least in the standard universe. They are afraid of anything getting as powerful as them, or able to damage them, so they attacked Crèche just to prevent their ascension, created a Noetic barrier around Earth after Hammersmith to prevent humans to evolve by force, installed blocks on Qin minds to make them incapable of evolving.

If they do in your game it would mean they are picking individual creatures that would fit on their society and help the ascension. Probably too afraid of raising an entire species that may be able to dethrone them somehow.

What they Doyen have done so far with the Prometheus Chambers is something very similar to what Nihonjin did with their virus. It forces humans to realize their potential in a very specific way that is far less threatening to the Doyen superiority. It would not surprise me even a little bit to learn that the Prometheus Chamber automatically install "back doors" to those that get triggered such that they are more vulnerable to Doyen possession/attacks. Figure there's a reason that Bhurano was able to be possessed for so long.

The Doyen plan seems to be to weaken humanity with the Chromatics - use them to destroy human colonies and then use humanity to destroy the various Aberrants. After that an exhausted (and hopefully confined to one system) humanity can be easily destroyed or enslaved tp be used against the next threat.

[IanWatson]

What they Doyen have done so far with the Prometheus Chambers is something very similar to what Nihonjin did with their virus. It forces humans to realize their potential in a very specific way that is far less threatening to the Doyen superiority.

Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.

[Shepherdboi]

It would not surprise me even a little bit to learn that the Prometheus Chamber automatically install "back doors" to those that get triggered such that they are more vulnerable to Doyen possession/attacks. Figure there's a reason that Bhurano was able to be possessed for so long.

That part is stated outright on Aeon page 360, although apparently the Doyen don't actually get bonuses to possess Psions, they just get the ability to use the Psion's powers.

[johntfs]

That part is stated outright on Aeon page 360, although apparently the Doyen don't actually get bonuses to possess Psions, they just get the ability to use the Psion's powers.

Oh, that's all they get. So they could possess the team Quant (AKA one of the few people likely to be able to actually harm them) and use her powers against the rest of the group.

Besides, just because they don't get bonuses to possess PC Psions doesn't meet they don't potentially have the ability to possess the Proxies. Consider that the Prometheus Chamber were built with those very specific people in mind and that S. K. Bhurano was possessed pretty much immediately after she was triggered as I understand it. While building "back doors" into every Psion might be noticeable, figure building them into the very people the Chambers were designed to enhance from 0 to 60 would be possible.

Besides, figure the Doyen idea was "Who needs to possess all the Psions?. Possess the leader and the rest will follow." Of course, the Doyen don't really get humanity all that well, so that thought is understandable.

[Bunyip]

I imagine the proxies have been rendered especially vulnerable to direct Doyen possession (plus they’d built in some other back-door cheats - see Prometheus Unbound when it’s released) but the generic psion tinkerings were a little harder to achieve. Being Psi 5-7 and having high Telepathy Modes is probably sufficient to browbeat any victim when necessary, anyway.

[johntfs]

I imagine the proxies have been rendered especially vulnerable to direct Doyen possession (plus they’d built in some other back-door cheats - see Prometheus Unbound when it’s released) but the generic psion tinkerings were a little harder to achieve. Being Psi 5-7 and having high Telepathy Modes is probably sufficient to browbeat any victim when necessary, anyway.

True. Still, one thing to consider is that the original Proxies are vulnerable to the Doyen, but future Proxies might not be. A future telepathic Proxy-level Psion with Psi 7 and Telepthy Modes 6 could probably turn the possession thing around on any Doyen foolish enough to attempt to possess her.

[Bunyip]

Definitely. Any future proxy-level psions are certainly not proxies as engineered by the Doyen.

[NewK]

I imagine the proxies have been rendered especially vulnerable to direct Doyen possession (plus they’d built in some other back-door cheats - see Prometheus Unbound when it’s released) but the generic psion tinkerings were a little harder to achieve. Being Psi 5-7 and having high Telepathy Modes is probably sufficient to browbeat any victim when necessary, anyway.

He Teases us, Smeagol, he does!

But more seriously, I think this is why, as printed, the "Future" of Trinity becomes such a disaster for the Doyen--because the moment, people realize that they can pull these kinds of games, doing it, especially to important individuals, becomes magnitudes harder--a single powerful Doyen can probably possess just about any individual--but what if they have telepathic bodyguards warned about the chance, who also check each other, or for that matter, talents/superiors/smart baselines who keep checking the individual against their known behavioral patterns.

Heck, for that matter, we know there are mega-ingelligent novas on Eden, and so a quantum based SI style computer that checks an individuals subconscious tells against a data base might make all but the most skilled Doyen take pause--and they can't possess a quantum based system.

Which is a sign of just how arrogant the Doyen are--just about any loss would be acceptable, so long as they dno't tip their hand about their possession ability...
And then they tipped their hand.