Psionics involve the use of the mind to alter or command reality, typically through some understanding of a deeper truth about the universe or command over a fundamental law of reality.
It’s pretty cool, but I have trouble thinking of media where it takes a prominent role. The few examples that come to mind are:
Star Wars - The Force Mass Effect - Biotics/Element Zero technology Stellaris - Spiritualist Ethos Warhammer 40k - Psykers/Orks
What are some other examples of psionics in Sci-Fi?
Check out Babylon 5, telepaths are a major part of the story for so many reasons.
Lots of psychics in Star Trek. Vulcans, Betazoids, and Ocampa for instance.
I feel like there are some in The Culture series but its been a minute since I read them and I only got a few books in.Dune has a lot of kinda-psychics. Paul and pretty much all the Atreides after him would count i think.
There are some in the Foundation series I believe
Starship Troopers had Neal Patrick Harris read a bug’s mind
Just about anything that’s not especially “hard” sci-fi tends to have psychics of one sort or another. I dont remember any psychics in The Expanse or BattleTech but my knowledge of both is rather limited edit BattleTech no, The Expanse yes from a cursory search
Also how was OP’s 40k xeno example orks and not Eldar ;D orks are way cooler and more fun i agree tho
I feel like there are some in The Culture series
The ship Grey Area uses technology to read flesh minds while investigating war crimes. The other Minds consider that an abuse of power and call it the ‘Meatfucker’ behind its back. I don’t recall any other (pseudo-) psychic phemonema.
There is one human character that has accurate “hunches” about the future in the first book. That’s dropped in the next books though.
Thanks! Yeah the more i think about it the more i doubt reading about psychics, which i imagine had to be deliberate seeing as humans had developed absolutely insane levels of control over their bodies (sex changes, producing drugs, etc just by deciding to)
ocampas seems to have the more advanced one, especially with thier telekinesis(advanced telekinesis), and her telepathy was used to battle another telepathic alien early in the series(Kes). the sleeping telepaths(likely extended range using technology) that invades peoples minds.
Not sure why you’re asking for the most popular…
But Stranger in a Strange Land eventually gets around to that.
It’s about a human raised by Martians, and he learned a Martian telepathic language that can alter reality. But when returned to Earth, he has no idea how humans act, and is basically an infant.
But it’s one of those books that changes a lot,bthe begining isn’t what you’re looking for, but just stick with it.
WandaVision: She creates a new reality around herself.
Fringe: One of the main plot points are psychics controlling reality.
Push: A movie about a psychic people that can push thoughts into other people’s heads.
Legion: Mind bendy reality show where the main character can control reality.
i dont think wanda, counts she using reality warping with chaos magic, she does use telepathy with her magic is different.
Might not be relatively popular, but the psionics of the novel/anime Shin Sekai Yori are central to the plot and are portrayed in a pretty interesting fashion.
Foundation is another (more traditional sci-fi) work which also focuses on psychic people as a central plot point. The book series and TV series are very different, but I’d say each explores the idea well.
For video games, Control is another one I haven’t seen mentioned yet. It’s based on the SCP collaborative fiction project. Exposure to objects of power awaken the protagonist’s (and other characters’) latent psychic abilities.
The Foundation book series doesn’t really start into psychic stuff until the second book, Foundation and Empire, with the Mule. Big turning point of the overall plot because of him. I wouldn’t classify the Second Foundation as psychics as much as having the ability to predict patterns mathematically and socially influence populations. The fourth book gets into some other psychic influencers.
I’m okay with the TV show parts I’ve seen, but it is vastly different in its approach (and so more psychic type things going on). I knew a visual version would have to take a lot of liberties as the books just don’t translate well in the way they’re written.
Akira is an all time classic
Judge Anderson in Dredd had the ability to read thoughts and create illusions of the mind.
Psi-Division
Psionics was more popular in older sci fi, a few that come to mind are:
- The Lensman series - one of the classics in sci fi, mental powers are very prominent.
- The Tower and Hive series (also Dragonriders of Pern by the same author to a lesser extent as it’s largely just telepathy in that series).
- The Saga of Pliocene Exile series.
Read stuff written before the turn of the millennium if you’re into this, I feel like it’s become less and less common in sci fi as time progresses. I guess it’s because mental powers - being effectively magic rather than technology - slot better into fantasy than sci fi in modern readers expectations.
The Protoss from StarCraft.
Uh, also the Terrans to a limited degree.
oh forgot babylon5. its a major part of the world.
dune, foundation, starship troopers, stranger in a strange land, martian chronicles, its fairly common in a lot of classic scifi as some sort of evolution things that happens. even 2001. Sometimes its hard to identify if there are psychic abilities or technology that is allowing for the abilities.
Starcraft had the Ghosts.
That may be based on something in Warhammer 40k, which you already mentioned, as I understand that some elements of the game were based on Warhammer 40k. I’m not really super-familiar with the lore of the two enough to know, myself.
How about something like the movie Dark City ?
The sci-fi book series “Perry Rhodan” features a lot of humans and other beings with all kind psionic powers.
Telepathy, telekinesis, invisibility, teleportation, fire, ice, atomic restructuring, the list is really really long.
Perry Rhodan
Just be prepared to catch up. They have been publishing weekly novellas since 1961, so they are well over 3,000 issues.
Oh, and if you want to go past the first 140 or so, you will need to learn German!
If you speak/read Portuguese, French, Japanese, Dutch or Czech, you can read a lot further than in English. But yeah, original language is German.
I prefer to read the Silberbände over the novellas tho.
The Scanners movies. Just watch the first one though.
