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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 12:16 am Post subject: The Implications of Doppleganger |
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The official description of Doppleganger includes the following text: | Quote: | | The doppleganger is an illusion, but to those who interact with it, it will seem real. The user can sense all normal senses through the doppleganger, and the duplicate seems to have form and substance: the doppleganger registers as normal on all droid audio and video sensors. Those who are with the doppleganger believe it to be a real person. The doppleganger acts with half the skill dice of the person using the power. |
While I'm not a huge fan of the Dark Horse Comics' contribution to the EU, the description of Doppleganger offers some interesting possibilities. If this is accurate, a Force user is capable of creating near-perfect illusions. It goes beyond mind manipulation; these illusions fool non-living senses, including remote sensors and droids. It sounds real, it looks real. Does that mean it feels real and smells real, too?
This bears a lot of similarity to D&D shadow illusions, where the illusion is not a mental trick, but is actually physically present, even if it is not fully as capable as whatever it is mimicking.
Does this mean that a Force user is actually capable of evoking what are essentially physical objects out of nothing?
One of WEG / Dark Horse's contributions to the EU was the varied Sith disciplines is the Illusion discipline, which directly affect the target's senses, rather than directly implanting an illusion in the target's thought. But would that work on droids and remote sensors?
What would be the greater difficulty for a Force user? Using an illusion power to fool every possible detection device within sensing range? Or the ability to manipulate the underlying fabric of reality to temporarily make something out of nothing?
Thoughts?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Zarn
Force Spirit
Joined: 17 Jun 2014
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| Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:18 am Post subject: |
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The description of the Tulpa jives very well with the Doppelgänger power.
Personally, I'm going for the manipulating the underlying fabric of reality part - it is real, basically, for a given value of "real".
But what if a Sith or Jedi master is mentally ill? That they've had a psychotic break, and have made a tulpa as their 'nemesis'? |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:35 am Post subject: |
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| Zarn wrote: | | The description of the Tulpa jives very well with the Doppelgänger power. |
It does, indeed. Considering how much George drew from various real-world mystical traditions to create the Force, something like Tulpa is not too much of a stretch to envision in the SWU.
| Quote: | | But what if a Sith or Jedi master is mentally ill? That they've had a psychotic break, and have made a tulpa as their 'nemesis'? |
That depends on whether the object created (or tulpa) is permanent or requires continual effort by the Force user to maintain. Doppleganger (yes, WEG misspelled it) requires a re-roll to maintain every five minutes.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2016 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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If anything i could see a re-roll to maintain it /renew it each and every time a NEW mind comes into play that sees the Doppleganger..
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RyanDarkstar
Commander
Joined: 04 Dec 2014
Posts: 351
Location: Chambersburg, PA, USA, Earth
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| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2016 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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This sounds like the first edition adventure, Domain of Evil, where insane fallen Minor Jedi, Halagad Ventor, manifests Dark Side constructs and a doppelganger of himself to challenge the PCs stranded on the swamp world of Trinta. His power is augmented by a Dark Side Nexus, and I think the powers he used were Affect Mind and Telekinesis.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:38 am Post subject: |
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| RyanDarkstar wrote: | | I think the powers he used were Affect Mind and Telekinesis. |
Both are prerequisites for Doppleganger. It's likely WEG just formalized the power to dovetail with Luke's use of it in Dark Empire...
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:39 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | If anything i could see a re-roll to maintain it /renew it each and every time a NEW mind comes into play that sees the Doppleganger.. |
That would get out of hand very quickly. And it still doesn't explain how it would affect non-living sensors.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:38 am Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | RyanDarkstar wrote: | | I think the powers he used were Affect Mind and Telekinesis. |
Both are prerequisites for Doppleganger. It's likely WEG just formalized the power to dovetail with Luke's use of it in Dark Empire... |
When did luke use it in Dark Empire??
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | When did luke use it in Dark Empire?? |
When Han and Leia escaped from Byss. Luke was supposedly with them, but once they were on the Falcon and flying away, he informed Leia that he was still on Byss, and promptly faded away.
IIRC, Threepio was present as well, so it had to be an illusion that could fool droid sensors, not just human perceptions.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm. I completely forgot that bit.. Guess i need to go back and re-read my DE comics..
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Hmm. I completely forgot that bit.. Guess i need to go back and re-read my DE comics.. |
There are simpler ways to punish yourself...
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: | | CRMcNeill wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | Hmm. I completely forgot that bit.. Guess i need to go back and re-read my DE comics.. |
There are simpler ways to punish yourself... |
 It's funny because it's true. |
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2016 1:23 am Post subject: |
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Of the Starwars comics, the DE saga (well DE1 more so than DE2) was imo one of their best works.. It was also the ONLY one that made it into the novels angle, with the whole 'world devestator destruction of Mon cal, all the shick on Coruscant, and other things..
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Tinman
Lieutenant Commander
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| Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 10:08 pm Post subject: |
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I've wondered about this myself, though it's a Force power which hasn't ever been used in any game I've been involved in. My impression, in regards to the duplicate created, is that there's something there, because it can be objectively recorded and disrupted by physical attacks. How that happens is something I haven't cared to speculate on, except that it seems to be a gross violation of the laws of nature (one does receive a Dark Side point merely for making use of it.)
If I had to hazard a guess, maybe it involves manifesting a sort of "shadow" formed out of some type of ephemeral exotic matter. There are some highly trained uses of Telekinesis which involve manipulating matter at the atomic level (the oxygen bottle exercise,) but playing with energy and matter at the level involved here would be far more bizarre than that.
I've always assumed it was one of those strange uses of the Force normally classified as "sorcery," which Palpatine likely picked up in his highly extensive studies of different Force practices and traditions, and Luke learned it from him during his brief apprenticeship.
Looking at it in another sense, it seems to be the exact opposite of becoming one with the Force and maintaining one's identity after death. Instead of allowing your body to marge with the Living Force, and maintaining a consciousness as part of the Cosmic Force which can manifest as fleeting images to highly aware people, this involves temporarily imposing a second physical form on the universe. The secret of consciousness after death is selflessness, but this would involve a very extreme "declaration" of "I AM," to the point of manifesting a second physical form out of the Force in some manner. |
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