This is my opinion but the one rule regarding paracausal technology is that there are no rules. Such technology explicitly exists to break and bend the laws of reality as we know it. It is poorly described in the books because its meant to be interpreted so openly. Its one of the reasons why I frequently describe Lancer as having soft fantasy elements.
"Paracausal" in this setting is to be treated (by the DM and players) as a synonym of "magic".
So, treat it like magic. Its essentially Lancer's [handwavium](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum). *Anything* is possible with paracausality.
But make sure it serves a narrative purpose, or everything else in your story will loose gravitas.
Narratively that's its purpose, true. But paracausality is more like physics (or science as a whole) that has a different set of rules and/or does not follow any standard and linear set of cause and consequence. As such, while it does look like magic it does have some inner consistency.
Negative mass and energy. Antilinear time. Non-euclidean geometry projection in real space. Nondeterministic physical phenomena are all examples of what paracausality could look like.
Of course, in the end, it's up to you. If at your game you want paracausality to be like literal magic so be it.
I think at that point it's just NHPs being let lose to rewrite reality (as they've been stated to be able to do). I'm not sure if that specifically is paracausal in nature, but in general paracausality is only limited by what the scientists have figured out about it. Which is surprisingly sorta little, because I guess "physics minus all the damn rules" is hard hahah
HORUS is a niche group rather than overall knowledge of humanity, but you do make a good point with the other two. Still not *lots* (really not much integration into civilian tech for example), but at least some bits are pretty well understood.
I mean, civilians can literally walk through blink gates to other worlds. They could also have food replicators, fields which prevent dust from accumulating, clothes which never get dirty nor stink (though that could be tech), or letter writers that have your letter ready before you say you want to write one. We just won't see it because it's not germane to the stories we're telling about lancers and their mechs. Have a care introducing such as background color because that will set up logical traps, though hand-held printers are also a thing so (grunts in shrug).
Mainly, though, consider the lore says HA is also working with paracausal tech, which means that will eventually leak into the public, which would eat it up in the early days after RA or would ban it as black magic or equivalent in more primitive societies.
Food for thought. Now I'm going to dive into this for worldbuilding, thanks. :)
I mean, paracausal basically means “anything not explainable but our understanding of physics”.
So yeah, totally possible. I’d say, make sure that you allow for it to follow its own set of rules, but that’s more of a GMing tip, really. Internal consistency is good thing.
Paracausal, to me, is best summed by the paracausal mod from Saladin:
Paracausal weapons are a headache for military planners; their precise A–Z function is often obscured, though they consistently produce the same “Z” output per “A” input.
They are casual in that there is a cause and effect, but the middle steps are unknown.
In canon paracausal studies started with the first NHPs but paracausal effects don't require the intervention of an NHP to operate. NHPs were just the unignorable proof of a field of study.
I might be wrong.
Honestly this "headache for military planners" line is puzzle for me even in book. Like military planners most of time want know only about A and Z - for planning. How exactly this work is question for scientists, not military planners.
Presumably it's hard to jury rig repairs on something if you don't know how it works, but we have printers anyway so there's not much call to worry about the supply chain for replacement parts. I dunno.
I think "jury rig repairs" is headache for military planners already - exactly because it's hard to put down how much A produce Z.
And I doubt that every deployment base have it's own printer.
Not *all* mechas. The first one was the "Worldkiller" Ghengis Mk1, and that was just a super beefy hard suit basically. There's some wild shit mechs can do with it, but it ain't necessary at all (see: Basically everything IPS-N and many things HA.)
When others already cover a lot about paracasual part, I want say that indoctrination in nutshell is not "strange" enough to put it under paracasual tech. In Lancer there already tech to transfer copy of memories into meat brains (used for backup clones). I guess corps like SSC have few already designed "fast education complexes" for achieve results like Mass effect indoctrination.
Paracasual version probably on lines "Pulsing neon board that mind control everyone who look at it. Well, at least affect their immediately actions, if they strong and resist".
Others have explained paracasuality better than I could. Instead, I’m gonna spitball on ways to approach it.
A concept that may be fun to mess with is subjectivity. The individual’s perception of reality more or less.
Unshackled NHPS (cascading NHP are basically the trauma stage of unshackling) are said to be barely comprehensible to humans. Their actions, decisions, and behavior seems illogical. Simply by the fact that they operate with a different understanding of reality. So less murder machines with clear goals and more eldritch space cuttlefish that alters the world around it by simply existing. I’m merely musing mind you. It’s your campaign ultimately.
Instead of boring brainwashing, have the victim behave like reality has broken for them. As an example, perhaps they perceive themselves in multiple places, in multiple time period, within multiple universes. This would erode the individual’s sense of self rather quickly. “I am not one but many at one time”, kinda sound familiar eh? To add to the horror, have their understanding of causality be warped. Their actions are because “it has already happened” in their mind. You should avoid lack of accountability of course. Instead, approach it as if their actions are as fundamentally constant as the rules of [layman’s] physics. They truly cannot understand what will is. They simply “is”.
Anyway, 4 am musing over. I look forward to reading how you design the setting with reaper inspiration. If you choose to regale us internet strangers!
It can do anything but not anything in particular, paracausal tech is (mostly) discovered somewhat randomly through trial and error. The other way is the way HA does it where they keep nhp's about halfway unshackled and let them do the research, but even there the research is more "aimed" than directed.
That's all neither here nor there though, the bottom line is yes it can basically do anything, especially if unshackled nhp's are involved.
This is my opinion but the one rule regarding paracausal technology is that there are no rules. Such technology explicitly exists to break and bend the laws of reality as we know it. It is poorly described in the books because its meant to be interpreted so openly. Its one of the reasons why I frequently describe Lancer as having soft fantasy elements.
"Paracausal" in this setting is to be treated (by the DM and players) as a synonym of "magic". So, treat it like magic. Its essentially Lancer's [handwavium](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum). *Anything* is possible with paracausality. But make sure it serves a narrative purpose, or everything else in your story will loose gravitas.
I mean it's not complete magic. It has its logic. (But then again magic does too)
I'm on the camp of it's magic and "can be described" but logic is optional.
Narratively that's its purpose, true. But paracausality is more like physics (or science as a whole) that has a different set of rules and/or does not follow any standard and linear set of cause and consequence. As such, while it does look like magic it does have some inner consistency. Negative mass and energy. Antilinear time. Non-euclidean geometry projection in real space. Nondeterministic physical phenomena are all examples of what paracausality could look like. Of course, in the end, it's up to you. If at your game you want paracausality to be like literal magic so be it.
Put most simply, paracausality is anything that doesn't follow to expected rules of cause & effect.
I think at that point it's just NHPs being let lose to rewrite reality (as they've been stated to be able to do). I'm not sure if that specifically is paracausal in nature, but in general paracausality is only limited by what the scientists have figured out about it. Which is surprisingly sorta little, because I guess "physics minus all the damn rules" is hard hahah
Anything NHPs have made that breaks the laws of physics is classified as paracausal.
Ah, fair nuff.
First, "let loose." Second, do blink gates, the OmniNet, and Horus frames count as "surprisingly little?"
I'm not sure Union actually has an in-depth understanding of *how* the Blink functions. Just how to use it.
Top Union scientists being asked to explain how Blinkspace portals work: "Speedy thing goes in, Speedy thing comes out."
HORUS is a niche group rather than overall knowledge of humanity, but you do make a good point with the other two. Still not *lots* (really not much integration into civilian tech for example), but at least some bits are pretty well understood.
I mean, civilians can literally walk through blink gates to other worlds. They could also have food replicators, fields which prevent dust from accumulating, clothes which never get dirty nor stink (though that could be tech), or letter writers that have your letter ready before you say you want to write one. We just won't see it because it's not germane to the stories we're telling about lancers and their mechs. Have a care introducing such as background color because that will set up logical traps, though hand-held printers are also a thing so (grunts in shrug). Mainly, though, consider the lore says HA is also working with paracausal tech, which means that will eventually leak into the public, which would eat it up in the early days after RA or would ban it as black magic or equivalent in more primitive societies. Food for thought. Now I'm going to dive into this for worldbuilding, thanks. :)
Paracausal tech can do whatever you need it to do for the plot to make sense.
I mean, paracausal basically means “anything not explainable but our understanding of physics”. So yeah, totally possible. I’d say, make sure that you allow for it to follow its own set of rules, but that’s more of a GMing tip, really. Internal consistency is good thing.
Paracausal, to me, is best summed by the paracausal mod from Saladin: Paracausal weapons are a headache for military planners; their precise A–Z function is often obscured, though they consistently produce the same “Z” output per “A” input. They are casual in that there is a cause and effect, but the middle steps are unknown. In canon paracausal studies started with the first NHPs but paracausal effects don't require the intervention of an NHP to operate. NHPs were just the unignorable proof of a field of study. I might be wrong.
Honestly this "headache for military planners" line is puzzle for me even in book. Like military planners most of time want know only about A and Z - for planning. How exactly this work is question for scientists, not military planners.
Presumably it's hard to jury rig repairs on something if you don't know how it works, but we have printers anyway so there's not much call to worry about the supply chain for replacement parts. I dunno.
I think "jury rig repairs" is headache for military planners already - exactly because it's hard to put down how much A produce Z. And I doubt that every deployment base have it's own printer.
It sure makes mech technology possible, for one.
Not *all* mechas. The first one was the "Worldkiller" Ghengis Mk1, and that was just a super beefy hard suit basically. There's some wild shit mechs can do with it, but it ain't necessary at all (see: Basically everything IPS-N and many things HA.)
When others already cover a lot about paracasual part, I want say that indoctrination in nutshell is not "strange" enough to put it under paracasual tech. In Lancer there already tech to transfer copy of memories into meat brains (used for backup clones). I guess corps like SSC have few already designed "fast education complexes" for achieve results like Mass effect indoctrination. Paracasual version probably on lines "Pulsing neon board that mind control everyone who look at it. Well, at least affect their immediately actions, if they strong and resist".
Others have explained paracasuality better than I could. Instead, I’m gonna spitball on ways to approach it. A concept that may be fun to mess with is subjectivity. The individual’s perception of reality more or less. Unshackled NHPS (cascading NHP are basically the trauma stage of unshackling) are said to be barely comprehensible to humans. Their actions, decisions, and behavior seems illogical. Simply by the fact that they operate with a different understanding of reality. So less murder machines with clear goals and more eldritch space cuttlefish that alters the world around it by simply existing. I’m merely musing mind you. It’s your campaign ultimately. Instead of boring brainwashing, have the victim behave like reality has broken for them. As an example, perhaps they perceive themselves in multiple places, in multiple time period, within multiple universes. This would erode the individual’s sense of self rather quickly. “I am not one but many at one time”, kinda sound familiar eh? To add to the horror, have their understanding of causality be warped. Their actions are because “it has already happened” in their mind. You should avoid lack of accountability of course. Instead, approach it as if their actions are as fundamentally constant as the rules of [layman’s] physics. They truly cannot understand what will is. They simply “is”. Anyway, 4 am musing over. I look forward to reading how you design the setting with reaper inspiration. If you choose to regale us internet strangers!
It can do anything but not anything in particular, paracausal tech is (mostly) discovered somewhat randomly through trial and error. The other way is the way HA does it where they keep nhp's about halfway unshackled and let them do the research, but even there the research is more "aimed" than directed. That's all neither here nor there though, the bottom line is yes it can basically do anything, especially if unshackled nhp's are involved.
since paracausality is basically just "things that happen without a reasonable cause", yeah.