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?
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.
Not entirely sure how close this hits, it’s been awhile since I played through the games, but I think System Shock 1 & 2 as well as Prey lean into the psionics quite a bit. I think that’s how the powers are derived, one of the enemies in System Shock 2 are experimental monkeys with psionic powers that shoot fireballs at you. Hate those little guys, every time I hear their chatter I get a bit on edge.
I don’t know about popular, but one of my favorite examples is Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. It’s an old game (1999) but I’ll put the psionic stuff in a spoiler tag because, If you like Civilization type games and want a good story, I think it’s worth going in blind and experiencing the story as it was intended.
SMAC plot spoilers
The game takes place on a planet around Alpha Centauri, generally referred to in-game as Planet. Just before the colony ship gets to Planet, disaster strikes, communications with Earth are lost, and the crew breaks into seven factions, one for each drop pod on the ship. The planet is dominated by a fungus that hosts a number of hostile native species, and these species use psionic attacks to paralyze their victims with horror before killing them.
As the player develops their civilization and discovers new techs, they learn that the alien animals are psionically linked to the fungus, which itself forms a Planet-spanning neural network. Over the course of the game, Planet begins to develop conscious thought and communicate with the humans, first through psionic dreams, later through specially constructed interfaces between the fungus and human tech.
I distinctly remember having my mind blown as the story unfolded. It’s been many years since I’ve thought about it; gonna have to dig it up and see if it’s as good as I remember it :)
How about something like the movie Dark City ?
Firestarter with Drew Barrymore is a movie with pyrokinesis.
Also, I don’t see a lot of books in here, but Alan Deal Foster’s Flinx series is about a telepath.
You need to put \ at the end of the line
to force a new lineCheck out Babylon 5, telepaths are a major part of the story for so many reasons.
The creator of Babylon 5 has recently begun uploading every episode of the show to YouTube to watch for free, they release a new ep every 3 days
For anyone who wants to give it a try, here’s the season 1 playlist: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGTv90eS-e4I
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.
Judge Anderson in Dredd had the ability to read thoughts and create illusions of the mind.
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.
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)
IMHO the funniest one was Ghostbusters: they think about an arbitrary monster and it appears in the next second, but super sized.
Other nice movies: X-Men, Lucy, Sphere, Solaris, Matrix
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.
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.
You can find the Kronenburg movie Scanners on Archive.org
Akira is another big one.
Names of some of the stuff are Telekinesis, Pyrokinesis (and Cryokinesis), Psychokinesis, Precognition, Postcognition, Astral Projection, and that one word for finding lost objects or dead bodies I forget. And sometimes Empathy.
EDIT: Dowsing!
Damn how did i forget Akira
And shiners from The Shining / Dr Sleep
Also Stephen King’s twin novels Desperation and The Regulators. And Rose Red. And IT. And Dreamcatcher, actually the film had a few psychics who were all actually really cool, imo.
Yeah King loves psychic powers
Its hard to say what the most popular are.
Star Wars is sorta explicitly not psionics, the force is an outside thing that force users can tap into.
Mass effect has psionics, but psionics in general play a really minor role, some psionic characters play big roles, but them being psionic is meh.
Warhammer 40K might be the most popular franchise where psionics plays a major role. Every major faction except the Necrons are defined/driven by their psionics.
Star Trek has some psionics, but those are generally minor plot points, not major ones.
Dune has the Atreides be psionic, the Bene-Gesserit are arguably psionic, as are the navigators.
Akira is all about psionics, and is arguably Sci-Fi, if a grittier, closer to current reality one.
Arguably the most popular series with psionics is Star Trek.
Arguably the most popular series where psionics plays a large role is either Dune or Warhammer 40K. Warhammer 40K has probably made more money, but I think more people have read Dune.
