Psi-pets
Those cute little monsters, how, and why
By miri
-Introduction-
Psi-pets, are a fine thing to spend time on. Whether you want a guardian, a companion, or an aide, psi-pets are quite useful. Psi-pets range from simple spheres to mythical beasts of an intricate nature. My first complete psi-pet was a guinea pig for my experiments, it was named Steve and was modeled after an elk; by the end of a few months it was so deviated from its original composition I scrapped the construct entirely. The experiments I conducted on it provided a number of breakthroughs in shielding and construct-based psychokinetics, for me, before it finally had too many conflicting programs and I “put it down”. So, clearly, psi-pets are useful things (beings, if you will...). I’ll include some differently purposed psi-pets, how to power them and a bit on synthesizing a mind.
-Guardians-
The first time I ever made what might be called a “psi-pet” I was sparring, and needed something with some intelligence to help-out (the opponent seemed to be in more than one place at once, and I was still pretty new to psionics). So I made a good old psi-ball gave it all of my ability, half of my brain power, and told it to watch my back. I lost that spar anyway, but it lasted much longer than expected thanks to the little bugger. Since then I’ve made many combative psi-pets. Here are a few of my more successful designs.
Sphere-mind array- One of the less complicated, and less time-consuming critter designs I’ve made for combat is spheres with an ability, a thick shell, and a mirror coating on the outside. The upside to this simplicity is the inherent ease in creation. These puppies can be made quickly and are sufficient when used in large enough quantities. To make one, start with a psi-ball, shell it, program in one or two abilities (i.e. shielding and scanning), program in some intelligence, and then mirror-coat the shell. It’s pretty simplistic, but very effective. Now, if you have some time but have to pay attention to something else (like dodging an opponent’s attacks), make several, let’s say just three to start, but hundreds are better for practical use. So, you’ve made three with unique ability sets, change one into a brain, and then link it to the other two and you suddenly have an array of spheres under a single mind. With hundreds you have hundreds of abilities and parts to a single mind Thus they’re highly coordinated, and it works as a single thing, rather than a hundred individuals. Later, including things like safe fails, that cancel links if corrupted, or if viruses start traveling through them, will improve functionality and longevity of the array as a whole.
Animals- Animals have long been the most common bases used for psi-pets, most of them have natural weapons or defenses like horns and claws. In combat these natural weapons and defenses can be used as in nature, or imaginary, unnatural abilities can be used to confuse opponents, like fire-breathing oxen. Also, mythical and imaginary beasts are good in combat because they almost always have such natural and imaginary weapons. Start by knowing the shape and size of the animal you want to model. Then gather all the energy you’ll need to create its frame, you may, depending on the animal, you may want to include areas of high density in that estimation, like hooves, claws, horns, or antlers. Once you have a body matching the animal’s start programming in effects. The claws, hooves, horns, or antlers are programmed to be hard, or to have impact on other energy by ripping or some other means, like blunt force impact. The body should probably be given a mirror coat, and the outer edge softened. Once the effects are in, program in any abilities you may want, and a mind with which to use them, this mind should revolve solely around your protection. With the above accomplished you have an animal psi-pet, designed as a guardian.
-Companions-
Companion pets aren’t uncommon, though they aren’t as readily found as combative pets. Companion pets are essentially the same as combative pets, they just aren’t built for combat, and are rarely mirror coated. Sometimes psions make companion psi-pets that also can hold their own in combat. There’s little else to say.
-Guinea pigs-
I’ve made a couple of these, and am not about to claim they’re essential to most. It’s really only theorists like me who need them and even then it’s rare to use them often. I’ll not even have sub topics on this because they’re so simple. All these pets are is an emulation of a living energy system. When I made Steve it took a couple of days to get him just right to emulate an energy system. Just scan an energy system and copy everything there is (subconsciously, or consciously) to a blank construct, and start up the system (generally with a jolt of energy) and it’ll self-maintain because it works just like an energy system does. From there you just test programs; you might put in people as “mods” and make sure it messes nothing up. Unfortunately for Steve after putting in and taking out nearly fifty programs the stress just broke his system down, and so, with what was left counteracting itself I put it down... Poor old elk.
-Powering-
An issue that people are silly about is not powering their pets. You feed your cat (hopefully) so why do you not feed your psi-pets? After a while the reserves run out, and they eat their own shell until they are exposed and quickly are destroyed by the environment and self-consumption. There are plenty of ways to feed your psi-pet, I’ll cover three.
Munches- Feeding your psi-pet bundles of energy programmed to be “fuel” or “food” is a really simple, really effective (especially in animal-mimicking pets) method for pet maintenance. The programming to be food or fuel is just to let the pet know what the hell to do with the energy.
Ley-lines- Covered in a number of “magic” guides. Ley-lines are excellent sources of energy for pets. They are constant, and potent enough for most pets.
Scavenging- By programming in an instinct to find and use energy around them, you can make a potentially immortal pet, but many don’t want that, and so munches or removable ley-lines are often more desired.
-Minds-
Minds can be fabricated in a few ways. The first way is to (as is written in “Understanding Constructs” by XP3Warrior) program in a response to every foreseeable situation, this REALLY time consuming, and when time is of the essence this is totally out of the question, but if you want to avoid a potentially “rouge” construct it’s the way to go. Another, much faster, method is to just copy parts of your mind into the construct. This may sound really advanced, but it isn’t. It can be easily accomplished by linking head to construct, selecting via sub-c a portion of your mind and pumping into the construct. This is a bit scary for those who fear “rouge” constructs though, so you may prefer the slow and proven method, based on that.
Personality- The personality of your pet is essential to their being a good or lousy pet, and can be formed in more than one way. The first I’ll explain is the contrived personality. You may program it such that it’s always peppy, or loyal, even make it witty or sarcastic, any number of things, with empathic input. I, personally, have little skill in empathy, but I’ve seen some use empathic links to set up default emotions and reactions to emotions, either to their preferences or their own emotional action/reactions are programmed in, in this way. There is a method that I’m apt to use which is a bit more “natural” and creates a less plastic and deeper personality. That is, to program in a brain and tell it to learn, form opinions and become an independently formed personality. A lot of people who fear “rouge” constructs might be appalled, but I frankly fear this phenomena not. It’s not only so rare it virtually doesn’t exist, but one should always be able to overpower one’s own constructs, it’s essential to remain in control, always.
Bells and Whistles- I’ve seen everything from morning alarm clocks to field cleaners to ability amps added into pets for convenience or for the heck of it. All I have to say on this is that if you over do it on these bells and whistles the pet will consume more and more energy, and become less and less efficient, the key to efficiency is simplicity.