The Tao of Psi Wars

• The Force as Chi
• The Kung Fu Space Knight
• The Five Sides of Chi

Now that we've finished looking through Chi Powers, how do I feel about them as the power-set of choice for Psi-Wars?

Largely, I find that the Cinematic Skills go a long way to representing the Jedi, as a Jedi is mostly just a cinematic swordsman with a few mystical powers added on (such as seeing the future and moving things with his mind).  In that sense, Chi is probably the most conservative take on the Jedi.

Likewise, Daoist philosophy definitely hits all the right notes for the metaphysics of Star Wars.  Here, we can again discuss "balance" and we can talk about the complexity of the force, and we can start to see why a Jedi would need to spend years studying this rather nuanced topic.

The problem is that it's too Daoist. The Force acts more like psionics and good/evil duality wrapped in the trappings of 80's "oriental mysticism," as opposed to genuine Daoist philosophy.

Specifically, the characters that come out of this system, especially with the Elemental Chi Powers, look nothing like Jedi, though they look more like Jedi than they would with generic Chi Powers.  For example, Anakin is clearly a Void-Aspected Jedi, hence his affinity for flying through space and force choking and dark garb, in contrast with the Emperor's affinity for lightning, and Yoda is clearly Life-aspected (hence his ability to adapt to hostile environments and his ability to absorb Dooku's lightning), and so on.  However, the expanded universe, and fan-expectations, have demanded that all Sith/Jedi more or less look the same and exhibit the same powers (With the exception of a few, high-level "signature" powers).  The Chi Powers here tend to encourage diversity and gives a structure to that diversity, while the Force tends to be rather unified: You have the light side (healing, absorption, blah blah) and the dark side (lightning, force choke, force drain, blah blah) and with the exception of one or two characters with a unique trick ("That one guy can do retrocognition!"), most characters can do the same sort of stuff.

Elemental Chi Powers also lack a moral dimension to its Dark Side.  In this model, the Dark Side exists, but is unfairly vilified.  It's not evil, it's just misunderstood.  I happen to like that, but it's debatable how "true to Star Wars" that is.

It also lacks quite a few of the signature moves of Star Wars.  I fussed to make Push sort of a telekinetic attack, but what about a telekinetic pull?  And what about the deep mind reading that Kylo Ren does?

Finally, these powers really require (and reward) substantial investment.  50 points of powers didn't get you much, though it looked a touch better than what Psionics gave you for the same point totals.

• Too much complexity compared to Star Wars
• No "Evil" side
• Lacks signature tricks of Star Wars
• Expensive

The Five Sides of Space Chi

The Five Chi Elements

Bill Stoddard gave us an entire supplement dealing with Elemental Chi Powers, which tracks pretty closely to my understanding of Daoist elements from my time running/playing Weapons of the Gods and Legends of the Wulin. Having discussed yin and yang in our first post, let us instead focus on the five elements of Daoism.

Unlike Western Elements which stand in contrast to one another (“Fire is the opposite of Water”), Daoist elements flow into one another. Wood promotes Fire (Fire burns wood), Fire promotes Earth (fire burns down to ashes), Earth promotes Metal (Metal can be extracted from Earth), Metal promotes Water (Metal melts down into water) and Water promotes Wood (Water nourishes Wood).

We also have counter-positions, where elements defeat or control other elements. Wood consumes Earth, Fire melts Metal, Earth dams Water, Water extinguishes flame, and Metal cuts Wood. The elements also have Yin and Yang associations: Wood is lesser Yang, Fire greater Yang, Metal lesser Yin, Water greater Yin, and Earth is balanced.

This means that all elements interact with other elements in more than one way. This principle of fives and trying to create balance still exists in China (for example, five spice powder, and how Chinese cuisine tries to balance “Yang” flavors like heat and sour with “Yin” flavors like sweet and savory).

The Kung Fu Space Knight

A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, NEVER for attack. 

-Yoda, the Empire Strikes Back 

In our Huashan Sword School style Kung Fu, the key lies in the words ‘Inner Energy.’ Once your inner energy is developed with Qi-Gong practices, then regardless of what you use as your weapon, let be your fists and legs, or knives and swords, you will succeed whenever you go. That is the righteous way for training in our school. But among the senior grandmasters of our school, there were a group of people who believed that the key of our school’s Kung Fu lied in the word ‘Sword,’ and that once someone developed his sword skills, even with ordinary level of inner energy, he could still defeat the enemy. The main divergence between the righteous branch and the evil branch lies right here. 

-Yue Buqun, Smiling Proud Wanderer, the Lanny Lang Translation

Martial Arts mostly treats passive chi abilities as advantages (e.g., Resistant to Chi Abilities) while modeling active ones as cinematic skills – Lizard Climb, Power Blow, etc. – in order to make them easier to tie into the styles in Chapter 5. Comic books and video games, however, often depict all such capabilities as something akin to psi powers or super-powers. 

-Chi Powers for Martial Artists, Martial Arts, page 46

Cinematic Skills

For today's post, I'm going to limit myself to a discussion of Cinematic Skills as the basis for Chi Powers, not because there are no suggestions or thoughts on how I might handle Advantage-based Chi Powers, but because no existing framework of Chi Powers exists in Martial Arts. We'd have to build one, using the suggestions in the book, and if we were to build an advantage-based system from scratch, then that would defeat the point of trying to use as much generic GURPS resources as possible, and also, such a system would probably look rather similar to Psionic Powers, which we already have. I do actually have a Chi Powers system derived from the suggestions in GURPS Martial Arts, which I devised for Cherry Blossom Rain, but I don't think now is the time to introduce that.

Martial Arts breaks the cinematic skills into two categories, each associated with one talent (Both found on MA47): Forceful Chi (for the “External” powers), and Inner Balance (for the “Internal” powers). Now, we don't have an explicit “Light/Dark” split in these, but in keeping with the themes of Chi, this does have a “Yin/Yang” split, with Forceful Chi as Yang and Inner Balance as Yin. As Jedi tend to be more balanced and Sith tend to be more Forceful, I suggest we make our split thus: The “Light Side” is associated with Inner Balance and the “Dark Side” with Forceful Chi. Of course, I'm sure you already see a problem with assigning morality thus. There's nothing inherently evil about Forceful Chi, or righteous about Inner Balance, but that's also in keeping with the themes of Chi: Evil is found in disbalance and corruption, while righteousness is found in balance.

The Force as Chi

Galactic Yin Yang

The force is an energy field created by all living things, it surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together 

-Obi-Wan, A New Hope

A more immaterial understanding of chi might treat it as a web linking together all planets with life, somewhat like the Force in Star Wars. 

-Bill Stoddard, GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers 

The Force is best represented with Chi powers.  This is because the Force is chi.  The quote above ties in nicely with the Odic Force or other vital forces I mentioned in the Force as Psi, but those concepts themselves derive from the ideas of chi or prana: an all-pervasive life-force.  Like the force, chi comes from the living (it is literally the breath of life).  It binds people together, and it connects us to each thing in the world.  More importantly, chi is dynamic, and it has two sides: a light side and a dark side.

In this iteration, I have discussed the Force at length, but I haven't discussed the Jedi themselves.  In each model, we might connect nicely to the way the force seems to work, but we don't connect well with what the Jedi are: They are not psychic sideshows or magicians, but samurai.  George Lucas was deeply inspired by the works of Akira Kurosawa, especially the Hidden Fortress and other jidai-geki, or "period pieces."  In fact, the name "Jedi" derives from "jidai."  It makes sense, then, to use the very powers we associate with cinematic martial artists to model how the force works, because then our space knights will feel like jedi. And that means chi powers.

You refer to the prophecy of The One who will bring balance to the Force. 

-Mace Windu, The Phantom Menace

Moreover, the Force is deeply daoist.  Yoda speaks in the sorts of riddles that would make any  daoist master happy, and the philosophy of the jedi, one that demands trust in the Force and expecting the universe to provide, fits perfectly with the daoist way.  I enjoy wuxia fiction and my time running Weapons of the Gods/Legends of the Wulin has surely biased my view, but I cannot help seeing daoism all over the place in Star Wars.  The Force has a "light side" and a "dark side," but despite how the movie treats the dark side as inherently evil, the movie also suggests that both sides need to be in balance.  In the original trilogy, it might be that "bringing balance to the force" is about removing the cancer of the dark side, but in the prequel trilogy, the Light side already dominates, and Anakin's contribution to the "balance" of the Force is to reduce both the Light and the Dark side to two practitioners each: Balance. This suggests that the "Dark Side" isn't inherently evil, but as necessary to the universe as yin and yang.

In daoist thought, "yang" is heat, light, joy, anger, passion, life, the masculine principle, substance, and "yin" is cold, darkness, sadness, peace, death, the feminine principle, void.  A teacup needs its porcelain substance to work: without it, you could not hold the cup, and the cup could not hold the tea: Yang. But a solid block of porcelain isn't useful either.  You need an emptiness in the bowl and in the handle to allow you tea a place to reside and a place for your finger to rest: Yin.  Neither principle is evil, neither principle is good, and both must exist in harmony with one another: balance.  Too much of one or the other leads to sickness and trouble... hence the need, in Star Wars, for a chosen one who would bring "balance."

This view of the Dark Side must necessarily color our approach for this model, and it means we'll need to define it up front.  Here, the Dark Side isn't a corrupting force, a cancer that needs to be removed.  Instead, it's the other side of a coin, another way of approaching the Force, one that's equally valid to the "light" side, and unnecessarily vilified.  In this version, the "Sith" aren't necessarily evil, just perhaps heterodox (and that they are seen as heterodox is a sign that the universe has become unbalanced).

The principles of Chi can also be found in how the Jedi practice their arts.  The Jedi learn to use their lightsabers, certainly: they learn how to attack and how to defend and they harden and hone their bodies.  They practice the arts of war.  This is the external expression of their martial art, the Yang of the Way of the Jedi.  But they also cultivate a deeper relationship with the Force.  They learn to listen to it, to let it guide them, to trust it.  A Jedi master needn't move swiftly, for by listening to the Force, he is already where he needs to be.  A Jedi master need not be strong, for the Force will guide his hand and allow him to strike where what strength he has is sufficient.  This is the internal expression of their martial art, the Yin of the Way of the Jedi.

The result is a rather complex take on the art of the Jedi: An internal and external expression of both the Light and the Dark side, but this isn't far from how (for example) the Old Republic portrays the Jedi and the Sith, the Jedi Knight (External) and the Jedi Consular (Internal), and the Sith Warrior (External) and the Sith Inquisitor (Internal).

But Daoist thought goes even further.  It breaks the world down into 5 elements, with varying degrees of yin and yang association: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.  These five elements have their own Internal and External expressions, and their relationships with the other five elements.  Think of this as different expressions of the Light and the Dark, similar to how the cold ruthlessness of Darth Vader is as much the Dark Side of the Force as the berserk brutality of Savage Opress.

This rich complexity gives us the amazing dynamics of wuxia martial arts and their cousin, the chambara samurai films that inspired Star Wars, and gives us a great deal of material to work with.  It also possibly causes a problem with this model.  First, the classic chi powers include things like accupressure techniques that don't fit perfectly with our model, and the five elements don't really work out-of-the-box with Star Wars.  Finally, Star Wars is pretty simple: Light side good, Dark side bad, m'kay?  Suddenly if we have masters of the Internal Techniques of the Void Expression of the Dark Side fighting the masters of the external techniques of the Technological Expression of the Dark Side, things might get a little crazy-cool, but I'm not convinced they're precisely Star Wars.

GURPS Chi Powers and the Force

GURPS primarily expresses Chi Powers as Cinematic Martial Arts skills, which can be found in the core book.  We'll use this as the base for our Chi Powers as well, but we'll expand out. For our core Chi Powers, in addition to GURPS Powers, we'll use GURPS Martial Arts as our primary source.  If we expand into additional options and general Chi theory, we'll use GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese.Elemental Powers.

The Cinematic Martial Arts skills work well enough as a base. The ability to sense your opponent's intent becomes Sensitive.  The ability to parry a blaster bolt becomes Precognitive Parry.  The ability to leap becomes Flying Leap, the ability to knock your opponents over becomes Push, the ability to influence your opponent's mind becomes Hypnotism and the ability to resist influence becomes Mental Strength.  The internal cultivation of the Force becomes the Inner Balance talent of GURPS Martial Arts, and the external expression of the Force becomes the Forceful Chi talent.  This ties in nicely with part 2 of this Iteration, where we explore Martial Arts.

But these aren't really powers.  They tend to be subtle and specific, rather than broad and reaching like some Force Powers can be.  For that, we could turn to Chinese Elemental Powers.  The anger, electricity and rage of Yang becomes the "Dark" side (Wood and Fire), and the peace, calm and poise of Yin becomes the "Light" side (Metal and Water), or we can create an entirely new model of powers that both fits the concepts of a five elemental theory while using science fiction themes.

The result will surely be martial arts mayhem.  Our Jedi will need to train extensively, which is appropriate; they'll become excellent warriors, which is appropriate; and they'll need to balance their training between the arts of war and the power of the Force, which is appropriate, but, as noted above, we may find the resulting theory too complex, something more appropriate to a Space Wuxia full of a million martial arts rather than Psi Wars. We'll see.

 Going Forward

This week will have a slightly different structure.  Tomorrow, we'll explore Cinematic Martial Arts skills and expand them so they better fit Star Wars, and then look at what 50 points of these skills might look like.

Wednesday, we'll dig out Chinese Elemental Powers, explore some possible new themes and create the skeleton of a new power set based on those themes and then look at what 50-points of Chi Powers might look like.

Finally, we'll look at what's working, what isn't, and what a wuxia universe inspired by this particular power set might look like.