Anatomy of a Horror Setting #5: Psychics Versus Technology

Back in part #3 it was mentioned about the discovery of evil plots, and predicting events, through analysis involving traditional data gathering and spy work. The information put together, looked over, and interpreted is more and more done by technological means. At the least it involves tools that are used in the legwork of the old school kind. Whether it be listening devices or parabolic microphones, or wiretaps and keystroke loggers, technology is the spy's best friend. That is until the psychics become involved. Need to know what is happening in a room? Thread in a fibre optic camera, or hide a bug in the room. Or get the remote viewers and astral projectors to do the work. It's all a matter of options at this point.

A number of psychic powers fall into the category of fantastic replacement for a piece of technology. As loaded a word as fantastic is in that sentence it covers things nicely. Not only will that power replace that piece of electronics but also it will do everything that the device does, and likely much more. For instance, take the lie detector as an example. The lie detector shows when a subject's answer is not truthful. A psychic interrogator will not only know when the answer to the question is false or misleading, but will also likely be able to read the real answer from the subjects mind. Alternatively, the psychic might be getting the answer from other sources than a direct answer out of the mind. Such sources can include the subject's emotions leading to answers more in line with the lie detector.

In a way there might be a couple advantages that the tech route has over the psychic one. The first is in quantity of information. The information that a spy is looking for may take only a couple of minutes to be passed along, a couple of minutes out of hours to days of surveillance. It could become worse yet with multiple subjects being surveilled at once. How about if there isn't a subject to be watched, such as when they monitor Internet or phone communications for keywords? There is however the possibility of the psychic finding out the information after the fact rather than at the time it's divulged. The second advantage that technology has comes into play when it is time to take the evidence of malfeasance to a court or other governing body. More about that in the next article.

Mood: thrilled.
Music: Train of Consequences by Megadeth and Loco by Coal Chamber.

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