Companion Powers

POSTED BY: TheRealMe
UPDATED: Sunday, August 8, 2004 07:39
VIEWED: 5623
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What's wrong with the idea that Companions have some form of psi ability? After all, Joss has said that psi powers are extant in the 'Verse - just look at River.

Also...
I've touched on this in other threads, but I suspect strongly that Companions are effectively a *religious* order - the noble tradition of sacred prostitution/sexual healers goes back thousands of years. There is no doubt that those who have experienced anything of tantra training or other forms of sexual alchemy have a certain 'aura' of sensuality to them. And a few very neat tricks too... such as the ability to share their orgasmic state with other people, to sustain such orgasms for *hours*, to induce them in others with no more than a touch or a word...

Others in this thread have mentioned the study of body language etc - all vital in such practices. But I really think there is more to it than that.

For one thing, the 'Verse is a culture heavily influenced with Chinese elements - and Chinese sexual alchemy is a tradition going back to at least 4000BC and still practiced today. As in Chinese medicine/acupuncture, the basic concept is 'Ch'i' or 'Qi' as it is sometimes spelled. Basically, we're talking The Force - a light side (Yang) and a dark side (Yin) flowing through all things, especially living things, holding the universe together - but balanced, flowing into one another, not in opposition. Yin does not equal evil - just dark. The same energy is key in martial arts - the application of qi by a light touch to the same part of the body, given with different intentions, may cause pleasure, healing - or pain and even death. It can be shown to work at a distance, to affect those who do not know they are being affected or even disbelieve in its existance...
...that's a pretty good basis for psi powers!

Or perhaps it's simply this - Companions are no less Priestesses than Shepherds are Priests. They just have less truck with the whole celibacy thing.
And if your sexuality is the basis of how you worship your god - then the odd sexy miracle isn't that much of a stretch.

"You are what you do."
Andrew Vacchs

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Originally posted by LupinAddams:
What's wrong with the idea that Companions have some form of psi ability? After all, Joss has said that psi powers are extant in the 'Verse - just look at River.

---

You mean the blue hands did all that to River to maybe get a psi when all they had to do was hire/co-opt a companion? ick.

No, if River is psi, (and I will require a lot more convincing on that score; maybe when Simon believes it), then she is the first.

Thank You Kindly.

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You still cannot accept River's psi abilities?

Wow.

Come on, Corwyn!

Near the beginning of Objects in Space, when River is lying there hearing the thoughts of others, (or the past/future words that were/will be spoken) the one that startles her is "We're all just floating."

It is Early's voice.

Now, perhaps a non-psychic River could reason that the Alliance would send a bounty hunter. Perhaps she could guess his approximate height and build.

But could she really calculate what his voice sounds like, as she imagines it in her head?

River can, at the very least read thoughts. Possibly, she can get flashes of the future and the past.

If you want to keep to the non-psychic River idea, this must be explained.

The Real Me

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Originally posted by TheRealMe:
You still cannot accept River's psi abilities?

Near the beginning of Objects in Space, when River is lying there hearing the thoughts of others, (or the past/future words that were/will be spoken) the one that startles her is "We're all just floating."

It is Early's voice.

If you want to keep to the non-psychic River idea, this must be explained.

---

I don't need to, as I have no idea what River is hearing in her head, and neither do you. I hear Richard Brook's, but then in OOG, I hear the voice of a used spaceship salesman when he isn't on screen either. The voice is a TV idiom, what it means inside the story space is unclear (if it even is in the story space).

You need to convince me inside the story space (i.e. with what other characters see and hear). Convince Simon (who is the only scientific mind on the ship) and I will be too. Mal and Book think it is true, but I don't know why, we don't see anything on screen which should give them that impression.

I haven't seen River do anything your average 250 IQ intuitive genius couldn't do. People often seem willing to ascribe psychic powers to those who are merely vastly smarter.

Thank You Kindly.

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Well, I take everything that I see on the show as canon. So I have to believe that River heard Early's voice. To me whether or not she is crazy doesn't matter. If she had knowledge of what he sounded like before she could have encountered him, then that is psychic in my book. Also, Joss indicated that she was psychic in the commentary for OIS.

But, I suppose if we ignore all evidence that River is psychic, then I would have to agree that there is no evidence that she is psychic.

VERY BIG

Oh, what about the little girl's life story in Safe?


The Real Me

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Quote:

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Originally posted by LupinAddams:
What's wrong with the idea that Companions have some form of psi ability? After all, Joss has said that psi powers are extant in the 'Verse - just look at River.

--You mean the blue hands did all that to River to maybe get a psi when all they had to do was hire/co-opt a companion? ick.

---

Ick? I have to wonder why the idea produces such a visceral response...

Also, I did not say anything like that which you just implied.
There is a qualititive and quantitive difference between the proposed healer/sexual energy use I suggested for Companions and a telepathic weapon as River is appearing to be. It may of course turn out that the Blue Sun/Blue Hands might have tried to experiment on Companions before... we just don't know. Possibly their flavour of compassionate healing using sexual energy just wasn't able to be weaponised...

[quote' No, if River is psi, (and I will require a lot more convincing on that score; maybe when Simon believes it), then she is the first.

---

Why? For one thing, River herself said she was not the only experimental subject ("they're hurting *us*" is the message she sent Simon, remember?)

Plus if there are elements of psi to Companion training, then the high levels of secrecy they maintain would keep such from general consideration. Besides, they probably *would not call such activities psi anyway* - as I noted in my previous post, the Qi model is more than sufficient to cover anything that could be called psi without calling attention to it - and has been the backbone of Chinese culture for millennia.

And, as a final thought... maybe the Companions have a deeper agenda. Maybe they're the 'Verse version of the Bene Gesseret in Dune - playing a long game to increase the level of illumination and wisdom of the human population, not by selective breeding, but by selective loving, picking influencial people with the potential to grow 'spiritually'. They are so widespread and respectable in that society that it would make sense for them to have at least enough political and sociological nous to create and maintain that position - it seems to me to be wasteful of them to just maintain that status quo without trying to improve humanity's lot.

As ever - all just speculation.


"You are what you do."
Andrew Vacchs

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--You mean the blue hands did all that to River to maybe get a psi when all they had to do was hire/co-opt a companion? ick.

Ick? I have to wonder why the idea produces such a visceral response...

---

Mostly as I have a strong aversion to torture, the thought that a young girl was kidnapped. lobotomized, tortured to acheive something (psi) which had already been acheived (by companions), makes me sick to my stomach. As to the difference to state, if it is psi, then making a weapon out of a healer is simple compared to making a weapon from scratch.

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No, if River is psi, (and I will require a lot more convincing on that score; maybe when Simon believes it), then she is the first.

Why? For one thing, River herself said she was not the only experimental subject ("they're hurting *us*" is the message she sent Simon, remember?)

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Yup. I meant the first on out in the world. we don't know about the others.

Thank You Kindly.

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Originally posted by corwyn:

Quote:

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--You mean the blue hands did all that to River to maybe get a psi when all they had to do was hire/co-opt a companion? ick.

Ick? I have to wonder why the idea produces such a visceral response...
---Mostly as I have a strong aversion to torture

---

Fair enough - I thought the aversion was to psi itself...

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As to the difference to state, if it is psi, then making a weapon out of a healer is simple compared to making a weapon from scratch.

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True, there is a fine line between healing and killing - but I would contend that whatever Companion training consists of, it'd be harder to crack than an untrained teenaged girl's mind.

I'm curios to hear what you - and others - think about the other aspects of my earlier post, regarding Qi and sexual energies...

"You are what you do."
Andrew Vacchs

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