Sci Fi Paladin

[EmperorGricer]

So, I am working on starting up a 5e D&D campaign. However, rather than the usual fantasy settings, this campaign will take place in a sci-fi setting, replacing elves and orcs with aliens, and magic with advanced technology. With this in mind, I have been converting most of the classes to be more appropriate to the setting. But the block I continue to stumble over is the paladin class.

I am not sure on how to convert the paladin into something that would suit the setting without making it basically the same thing as what I made the cleric (someone who serves a being with such technological prowess that some might think of them as gods). I still want to preserve the core of the class, where the power of the paladin is still bound to their oath, and the breaking of their oath results either in a change, or a complete loss of their abilities. But I am not sure how to fit that in.

So I turned to here for assistance in figuring out their spot in the universe, to see if anyone might be able to help me.

[Balyano]

Maybe Paladins are military grade cyborgs? Their powers are due to implants. They have computers integrated into their brains that contain some programming, maybe with some mental conditioning/brainwashing to prime them for a certain way of acting. If you violate the programming the neural-comp shuts stuff down.

[EmperorGricer]

Maybe Paladins are military grade cyborgs? Their powers are due to implants. They have computers integrated into their brains that contain some programming, maybe with some mental conditioning/brainwashing to prime them for a certain way of acting. If you violate the programming the neural-comp shuts stuff down.

That's actually a pretty good idea. Not 100% suitable for the setting I had in mind, but I think I can turn it into something that will fit in. Thanks for the idea!

[Andrian]

To tie into your cleric idea, what if Paladins are given the implants by the technologically-advanced race when they take their oaths? And the implants come with a way to monitor the Paladin's behavior and disable the power-ups remotely if the Paladin breaks their oath? And Oathbreakers would be Paladins who have had their implants hacked.

[QuintonBeck]

I like the ideas here of sci-fi paladins basically being Robocops programmed by competing organizations to defend/uphold the values deemed most important to said organizations. An oath is no longer just a word commitment to a higher power/ideal but a list of directives programmed into a paladin's cyborg psyche by [Insert megacorp/galactic empire/rebel group here].

[Balyano]

I like the ideas here of sci-fi paladins basically being Robocops programmed by competing organizations to defend/uphold the values deemed most important to said organizations. An oath is no longer just a word commitment to a higher power/ideal but a list of directives programmed into a paladin's cyborg psyche by [Insert megacorp/galactic empire/rebel group here].

Imagine the part where you go after the evil CEO and your hidden 4th directive kicks in and wont let you take him down....got to retreat, enlist the aid of a hacker, or find a logical loophole that lets you fight him anyway.

[EmperorGricer]

I think I have settled on an idea. The "paladins" (here called enforcers) are high ranking elites of powerful, often extremist, organisations . Their purpose is to spread the group's ideals wherever they go, through whatever means possible (As long as it does not violate the ideals themselves). They are closely monitored by their organisation at all times through the use of implants, and do, on occasion, receive missions from their superiors. Becoming an enforcer requires extensive loyalty, and they are often brainwashed to some extent, but the organisation doesn't posses any way to directly control their actions.

This way, the breaking of their oath still allows their superiors to take away their "powers" (Or in this case, turn off their toys), while also preserving the "paladin's" free will to break it in the first place.

[jqavins]

Wow. Suit yourself, but... Well, that doesn't sound much like a paladin to me. When I read the subject line I immediately thought "Sci-fi paladin? Isn't that called a Jedi?" Replace The Force with "sufficiently advanced technology" that's given to the paladins by the god-like beings, and that requires concentration along with the proper attitude or it just doesn't work.

[Xuc Xac]

Wow. Suit yourself, but... Well, that doesn't sound much like a paladin to me. When I read the subject line I immediately thought "Sci-fi paladin? Isn't that called a Jedi?" Replace The Force with "sufficiently advanced technology" that's given to the paladins by the god-like beings, and that requires concentration along with the proper attitude or it just doesn't work.

Jedi or Lensman or Green Lantern...

[Bohandas]

Jedi or Lensman or Green Lantern...

or Batman Beyond

[lt_murgen]

So, I am working on starting up a 5e D&D campaign. However, rather than the usual fantasy settings, this campaign will take place in a sci-fi setting, replacing elves and orcs with aliens, and magic with advanced technology. With this in mind, I have been converting most of the classes to be more appropriate to the setting. But the block I continue to stumble over is the paladin class.

I am not sure on how to convert the paladin into something that would suit the setting without making it basically the same thing as what I made the cleric (someone who serves a being with such technological prowess that some might think of them as gods). I still want to preserve the core of the class, where the power of the paladin is still bound to their oath, and the breaking of their oath results either in a change, or a complete loss of their abilities. But I am not sure how to fit that in.

So I turned to here for assistance in figuring out their spot in the universe, to see if anyone might be able to help me.

To tie into your cleric idea, what if Paladins are given the implants by the technologically-advanced race when they take their oaths? And the implants come with a way to monitor the Paladin's behavior and disable the power-ups remotely if the Paladin breaks their oath? And Oathbreakers would be Paladins who have had their implants hacked.

I think I have settled on an idea. The "paladins" (here called enforcers) are high ranking elites of powerful, often extremist, organisations . Their purpose is to spread the group's ideals wherever they go, through whatever means possible (As long as it does not violate the ideals themselves). They are closely monitored by their organisation at all times through the use of implants, and do, on occasion, receive missions from their superiors. Becoming an enforcer requires extensive loyalty, and they are often brainwashed to some extent, but the organisation doesn't posses any way to directly control their actions.

This way, the breaking of their oath still allows their superiors to take away their "powers" (Or in this case, turn off their toys), while also preserving the "paladin's" free will to break it in the first place.

Wow. Suit yourself, but... Well, that doesn't sound much like a paladin to me. When I read the subject line I immediately thought "Sci-fi paladin? Isn't that called a Jedi?" Replace The Force with "sufficiently advanced technology" that's given to the paladins by the god-like beings, and that requires concentration along with the proper attitude or it just doesn't work.

Part of the struggle you have is that you are treating magic and clerical miracles as the same thing. Many people make that assumption, and as far as the D&D system works, they work the same. So who cares? But when converting them to another setting, you open up a huge can of worms.

Techno-mages are a good replacement for magic users. But it eliminates sorcerers and warlocks because of their backstory.
But Clerics are built around their connection to their deity. It is the ONLY reason they exist and have power. But in a homebrew sci-fi setting, a common conceit is "people have given up the superstition of gods" and fall back on science-is-magic. So why need clerics and paladins at all? Just drop them entirely.

If you want Clerics and Paladins as discrete classes, then you need to keep divine entities somehow. It isn't that hard:
Fundamental entities that are the embodiement of order and/or chaos, life and/or death.
Extra-dimensional entitites (old ones, cthulhu, etc)

Or, my personal favorite (which you are welcome to use):
In the far distant future, near the end of the universe, the entire universe acheives a collective sentience. All creatures, all living things, are united into one vast collective mind. For all intents and purposes, the universe becomes a god, able to change itself and the laws of the universe at will.
Recognizing this, it uses its power to cast echoes backwards in time, to various sentient races that lived and died in the aeons past. These echoes gave rise to the various mythologies across the universe. But the primitive minds could only understand them imperfectly.
Set in your time-period is a Temple of Universal Thought. Beings who are able to hear the will of the Living Universe and act accordingly. Of course, still being 'primitive' they do not perfectly understand or hear the will- but their powers flow backwards through time to them.

[jqavins]

Part of the struggle you have is that you are treating magic and clerical miracles as the same thing. Many people make that assumption, and as far as the D&D system works, they work the same. So who cares? But when converting them to another setting, you open up a huge can of worms...

Yes, that makes sense, but there's another, equally viable method. As a corollary to Clark's Law, any sufficiently advance beings are indistinguishable from gods. Or at least, they can be if they care to. A great collective example is the Vorlons, Shadows, and First One from Babylon 5. Since divine miracles are just another form of magic in D&D, "sufficiently advanced beings" seems like a really good analog for D&D-in-the-future.

[lt_murgen]

Yes, that makes sense, but there's another, equally viable method. As a corollary to Clark's Law, any sufficiently advance beings are indistinguishable from gods. Or at least, they can be if they care to. A great collective example is the Vorlons, Shadows, and First One from Babylon 5. Since divine miracles are just another form of magic in D&D, "sufficiently advanced beings" seems like a really good analog for D&D-in-the-future.

Fair point. You could create a system where techno-mages use intimate and advanced knowledge of technology to do the same thing magic users do in fantasy D&D. But that it is a connection with some "sufficiently advanced beings" that grant clerics and paladins their unique powers. You could do some kind of Yog-sothoth / Trill joined species thing where the clerics and paladins have some organism bonded to them that puts them in communication with some vast cosmic entity. From that organism they get access to special powers. Paladins then become warriors in service to their bonded-species hivemind.

[Knaight]

Yes, that makes sense, but there's another, equally viable method. As a corollary to Clark's Law, any sufficiently advance beings are indistinguishable from gods. Or at least, they can be if they care to. A great collective example is the Vorlons, Shadows, and First One from Babylon 5. Since divine miracles are just another form of magic in D&D, "sufficiently advanced beings" seems like a really good analog for D&D-in-the-future.

While this is true, it's also a way to really kill the science fiction aesthetic in a hurry.

[jqavins]

While this is true, it's also a way to really kill the science fiction aesthetic in a hurry.

That depends, as I see it, on which "science fiction aesthetic" you're going for. For hard SF I wouldn't use a D&D framework at all. D20 maybe, but not D&D-in-the-future. If you're going for a fantasy with spaceships vibe, for which D&D as a framework would work reasonably well, pseudo-gods who provide miraculous powers but require certain patterns of behavior, i.e. a certain ethos, for them to work is, in my opinion, less bothersome than subcellular microorganisms which form a vague universal intelligence that sort of does the same thing, but also allows the opposite ethos to work instead. In other words, I'd rather have the Vorlons and Shadows granting abilities to their chosen few than midichlorians and the Force. My opinion, not the "right" way, by any means. (Which is ironic for me to say, in light of my first contribution to this thread being to say that "sci-fi paladin" = "jedi.")

[AMFV]

While this is true, it's also a way to really kill the science fiction aesthetic in a hurry.

I don't know, Babylon 5 and Green Lantern didn't really have that problem and they both contain that as a setting element.

[Zorku]

While this is true, it's also a way to really kill the science fiction aesthetic in a hurry.

Depends on what kind you're talking about. If your distinction is that "fantasy" setting stuff glorifies the past while "scifi" setting stuff dwells on collective fears and anxiety of modern culture (which is probably the best distillation of the genres, but you do still have to kick a lot of soft scifi over into the fantasy category to make it work,) then yeah, having technomagic is probably not gonna suit your needs. That's not the only way to look at the genres though, and other frameworks hold up in different ways. Warhammer 40K manages to be pretty heavy on the tech elements but the warp steps in as this psuedo psionic force that put a heavy enough boot into the face of humanity such that society turned well away from enlightenment ideals in order to go heavy paladin and sexy nun aesthetic, and all sorts of other weird setbacks that are actually kind of the sort of thing you expect from any new tech in hindsight, but that people never do a good job of predicting. You still have to actively want to suspend your disbelief to get into the gothic style supertechnology, but it has its own kind of internal consistency.

So... I guess a good way to establish what kind of scifi we're talking about is to inquire about FTL tech, and what kinds of limitations it has, and what kinds of limitations it really doesn't have.

[Knaight]

I don't know, Babylon 5 and Green Lantern didn't really have that problem and they both contain that as a setting element.

Babylon 5 has a few very high tech species, but they're portrayed as people with very advanced technology more than gods, and that they're fundamentally people with god complexes is a key part of the narrative. As for Green Lantern that's well within the superhero genre and outside of science fiction anyways.

[jqavins]

Babylon 5 has a few very high tech species, but they're portrayed as people with very advanced technology more than gods, and that they're fundamentally people with god complexes is a key part of the narrative.

They fill the role of gods. And really, what's the (relevant) difference between a person with a god complex and the ability to back it up on the one hand, and a god on the other?

[AMFV]

Babylon 5 has a few very high tech species, but they're portrayed as people with very advanced technology more than gods, and that they're fundamentally people with god complexes is a key part of the narrative. As for Green Lantern that's well within the superhero genre and outside of science fiction anyways.

But you're talking about the aesthetic, and in terms of the aesthetic... Green Lantern is very much a science fiction thing in pretty much all of it's adaptations. Yes, it doesn't fit genre conventions, but aesthetics it does.

Also of note your interpretation is less effective once you move away from science fiction that's themed around the elimination of religion being part of human advancement. It's reasonable to note that many science fiction adaptations are not anti-religious, and it might be quite possible to do one that's pro-religious.

For example, maybe technology has advanced that allows for a greater communion with God. Space Paladins are directly linked into the being of God which both gives them their power and their behavioral modifications. The tech they use is directly linking them to God (or Gods). See that's a very science fiction aesthetic, technology linking you to something that winds up being a spiritual being.

The only case you have to argue against that is if you are assuming that the religions in question are false or will be nullified by science.

[jqavins]

Babylon 5 has a few very high tech species, but they're portrayed as people with very advanced technology more than gods, and that they're fundamentally people with god complexes is a key part of the narrative.

For example, maybe technology has advanced that allows for a greater communion with God. Space Paladins are directly linked into the being of God which both gives them their power and their behavioral modifications. The tech they use is directly linking them to God (or Gods). See that's a very science fiction aesthetic, technology linking you to something that winds up being a spiritual being.

I'm not sure we're all debating from the same glossary. Knaight, are you saying that the difference between people with god complexes and gods is an important one? I thought you were as of an hour ago, and thus my previous post. Or are you saying either one is counter to the science fiction aesthetic? I don't think I agree either way, but I'd like to make sure we're debating the right points.

[Zorku]

Maybe we can separate the wheat from the chaff with this question: Who or what is the most powerful entity that your characters can be beholden to?

[CluFa]

So, I am working on starting up a 5e D&D campaign. However, rather than the usual fantasy settings, this campaign will take place in a sci-fi setting, replacing elves and orcs with aliens, and magic with advanced technology. With this in mind, I have been converting most of the classes to be more appropriate to the setting. But the block I continue to stumble over is the paladin class.

I am not sure on how to convert the paladin into something that would suit the setting without making it basically the same thing as what I made the cleric (someone who serves a being with such technological prowess that some might think of them as gods). I still want to preserve the core of the class, where the power of the paladin is still bound to their oath, and the breaking of their oath results either in a change, or a complete loss of their abilities. But I am not sure how to fit that in.

So I turned to here for assistance in figuring out their spot in the universe, to see if anyone might be able to help me.

I'm a little surprised that no one mentioned a webcomic called "Star Powered." In essence it's the story of a type of sci fi paladin. A woman becomes attached to a piece of ancient tech designed to protect the innocent, and has to prove herself worthy to wield it. http://www.starpowercomic.com/

A quick look through might be a good place to start your paladin class.

Have a good game!

CluFa

[Mighty_Chicken]

Are you into Grant Morrison-like science fiction?

I think it makes complete sense that someone would lose connection to their psychic power (or lose ressonance with certain cyber-neurological pathways in their brains) if they stop acting in a certain manner. It makes sense because it does happen in real life. Many artists adopt a certain ethos (be it about refraining from pleasure, being disciplined, being libertine, being extremely sex-positive, being excentric and dreamy and so on) to unlock their creativity and technique. This is a little like what the ancients would call pleasing the muses. Now, I don't think that it would be virtually impossible for Giger to be Giger without being a perv or Dali to be Dali without being weird, but for all practical matters, it was part of their creative process and they wouldn't be the artists they ended up being without those ethos of them.

What to make of courage? It does way more with your body than making you reckless and non-hesitating. It boosts your muscle power and reflexes. And it can be caused by emotional speechs, which trigger in you the production of oxitocin, just like you were lactating or spooning with your sweetheart. Heard the stories of parents who suddenly become able to open an alligator's mouth to save their children? Why can't professional lifeguards be taught to access this power? Because there is a lot in our mind and body functionality that can't be directly controlled by our will.

If we are talking of having access to sublime and difficult to describe powers of mind and body, it makes complete sense paladins would need faith or discipline to access non-supernatural powers. Even the atheist and amoral yogi believe mind powers need a certain mindset, not only certain practice, to be achieved.

It is also wise to remember the secularism+skepticism combo is very specific to the West of the few last centuries. People can be both secular (non religious, atheistic, etc) and mystical. It has happened through human history. It will inevitably happen again.

[jqavins]

People can be both secular (non religious, atheistic, etc) and mystical. It has happened through human history. It will inevitably happen again.

It happens in the west today, though I^* don't understand it.

* I, who believe not only that there is no God, but also no gods, no magic, no universal intelligence, no great cosmic wahoo of any kind. I've had countless conversations with people who say "you don't have to believe in God to be spiritual," yet these have all come down to two types: the ones who say I should believe in some sort of wahoo other than the Judeo-Christian-Muslim one, and those who just can't explain it at all. I believe that the latter group is honestly feeling something, but I have no idea what.

[Mighty_Chicken]

Since I myself went from atheism to Christianity, and stayed a few moments in "mystical atheist" territory, I used to think such people were being intelectually incoherent and that they should do the full transition.

But now I understand their situation better. I don't think they're incoherent. I think this kind of religiosity, or lack of, is its own thing; and as I said, it was its own thing in the past.

If you really apply logic to this, you'll see not believing in God or an universal intelligence is not equal to not regarding life as its sacred, mysterious and unknowable. It is rational, and does not depend on tradition, to believe some absolute rules exist even if there is no cosmic ruler around, and so on.

There is a certain kind of rationality that is very specific to our society and culture. Some would call it a "bourgeois era" rationality; "I do not count on nothing outside my own mind". I imagine that in an alternative Earth, a scientific civilization could be achieved with other paradigms and beliefs.

I certainly do not wish to go deeper into current politics and religious issues, just to point out our own RL diversity means the possible, potential diversity of mankind is even greater.

[jqavins]

I quite agree, I would regret if my aside were to derail this thread, and I would be happy to continue that conversation by PM if you'd like.

[Zorku]

It happens in the west today, though I^* don't understand it.

* I, who believe not only that there is no God, but also no gods, no magic, no universal intelligence, no great cosmic wahoo of any kind. I've had countless conversations with people who say "you don't have to believe in God to be spiritual," yet these have all come down to two types: the ones who say I should believe in some sort of wahoo other than the Judeo-Christian-Muslim one, and those who just can't explain it at all. I believe that the latter group is honestly feeling something, but I have no idea what.

I'd refrain from going into this, but given the topic of the thread it might actually be useful.

So, picture any person and split them into two people that share a body.
One of them is impulsive and seeks out instant gratification. Taken to an extreme, these people go from party to party doing lots of drugs and all around making the moment to moment decisions that will feel good right now.
The other person is much more stoic. They still want to feel good more than they want to feel bad, but they're willing to turn down instant gratification and wait for a good while if it's going to mean that they get something good that lasts longer. A nice polar opposite for this is somebody climbing mt Everest; this is a lot of work and maybe they won't even get up to the top, but if they do then they're going to have a view that very few people ever get, and they're going to appreciate the whole affair without any of that crude noise that comes from the kind of pleasure the other person gets.

We all sort of understand that party drugs wreck your body and make you feel awful when you step away from them to recover (financially/physically/mentally,) but your conceptual climbing mt Everest experiences are very good in some other way that most people are terrible at describing. Besides the fairly direct pleasure you get when you succeed, there's also this broad sense of accomplishment that stays with you. Finding the right breath taking view of a waterfall or looking at the first pictures of some globular cluster from a new telescope, or even just getting away from light pollution and staring up into the cosmic dynamo (possibly still while on drugs,) just... registers as a different category for most people.

To put it in the ancient framework: these things are virtuous, and people that have their lives in a good place overall pursue them. People with bad lives forgo these virtues and instead turn to tainted vices. Most people think that the cause and effect relationship flows from virtues to quality of life, and it probably does to some degree, but any sober examination shows that those arrows loop back around in a positive feedback loop.

The big thing for understanding any of this is to just ditch empirical knowledge as a way of knowing things. They're not using that system (or perhaps using it selectively,) so you're not going to get anywhere with that kind of approach. They probably still have some kind of simplified Bayes theorem heuristic in their head for when they choose what looks real or fake, but if you dig into philosophy you can find a dozen other sorts of ways of knowing that people subscribed to throughout the ages, and most people that insist that they're spiritual but not religious are operating under some unidentified combination of those methods. This all feels as accurate as anything else for people that haven't done any deep dives on an established framework for epistemology, and for the most part they intuit when one way of thinking will work or not and then just kind of ride that whimsical method until it gets them into too much trouble. Sometimes the consequences are quite severe, but even within the empirical evidence framework you get plenty of people just as blind to approaching doom.

-

So, our spiritual but not religious paladin is going to be fairly easy to pull off if we want to have a bunch of green knight hippies frolicking around the galaxy, but you can also have the hard nosed "I always do what is good" types who have some handful of virtues that they repeat like a broken record, via this kind of thing. Your call how many fuzzy thinking sorts of elements you stack on top of it.

If you want to actually have some internal comfort as you roleplay something like this, "virtue ethics" is probably the general sort of morality you would want to apply, as that is reasonably compatible with more modern styles of thinking.

[AMFV]

It happens in the west today, though I^* don't understand it.

* I, who believe not only that there is no God, but also no gods, no magic, no universal intelligence, no great cosmic wahoo of any kind. I've had countless conversations with people who say "you don't have to believe in God to be spiritual," yet these have all come down to two types: the ones who say I should believe in some sort of wahoo other than the Judeo-Christian-Muslim one, and those who just can't explain it at all. I believe that the latter group is honestly feeling something, but I have no idea what.

Well part of the problem is that explaining spiritual or religious experiences is very difficult. Especially if you haven't done extensive study on how people discuss those experiences. I think that it's important to figure out if you're including wahoo in the Space Paladin, because that shifts the dynamic pretty heavily.

If you have no wahoo, you could potentially even have something that regulates Paladin behavior based on certain philosophies, like a supercomputer that regulates their ethics based on specific precepts. And can shut off their augmentations.

[Zorku]

You could also go real anime with it and just declare that most of this divine power stuff is basically a narrow category of Iron Heart Surge against the various physical constraints that would prevent a normal person from doing these things.