Droids, telepathy, and the Force: another clash of phenomena?

This question and answer from the Wizards site caught my eye:

Q: One more question about the Shi'ido ability. It says it affects "any intelligent beings" -- does this mean droids, too? I have a player using a droid and want to know whether the telepathy would work on him as well. (I see the player arguing that he doesn't have a "true sentient mind" and thus getting annoyed if they learn the truth about the Shi'ido spy in their midst.)

A: Unfortunately for your Shi'ido spy, it does not work on droids. The telepathy ability should be considered Force-based in nature, and thus it does not work on droids, nor will it work if a ysalamiri's Nullify Force ability is in effect, and so on.

This begs the question: what's with telepathy and droids? In the Marvel comics, the droids are able to interact with Hoojibs, a race that communicates *only* with telepathy! It seems likely that in a galaxy with aliens like these, protocol droids like Threepio would be equipped with sensors that could read the projected thoughts of telepaths. However, we've never heard about anything like that. The fact that the extrasensory perception of Gotals can be affected by droids would seem to indicate that it is possible, but if so, then it also seems logical to assume that certain *droids* could be constructed to use telepathy as well.

And where does the Force come in? Some aliens with telepathic abilities have had their powers explained as Force based (see above), and this *shouldn't* effect droids. Just where does one draw the line?

TC

 

It's probobly something that should be taken in a case by case manner. For the Hoojibs for example, you say the communicate only by telepathy? Well than I would imagine that they would find a way to create droids that they could communicate with. Maybe their droids have special antenne that allow them to pick up the Hoojib communication. Wasn't this done with a Verpine in one of the Hand of Thrawn books?

I think the situation with Shi'do however, is similar to doppelgangers in Dungeons and Dragons. They use their telepathy to read people's minds so they know how to act when in disguise. A droid's thought paterns may be to complex. Or maybe they can read it and all they get is binary. 010110100101101100101 Obviously that would make it difficult. Unfortunetly, the answers from Wizard's site are obviously created for the RPG in mind so they have to make their explanations fall into the existing rules of the game. Calling it "the force" may be just a cop out.

 

>Calling it "the force" may be just a cop out.<

Yeah, that's definitely a possiblility. However, telepathy as a species trait *has* been attributed to the Force before...

TC

 

did you read the article about droids the force and technology in hyperspace by Abel? many interesting stuff in it that might help here.

telepathy as a force thingie does make sense.

telepathy between droid & humans/aliens, hmm..

it will come down to, what is telepathy and how does it work finally, to clear this matter, I think.

maybe it is like this: the force is in everything, combines everything. life is the force, but stones arn´t lifeless, ore istn´t either, and crystals may be force sensitive, too as we know and as the article on hyperspace shows. so the force is in every thing in the nature. now we ask: why not in droids? or is it? why didn´t we see it then earlier?

easy fix: droids are manufactured from natural ressources. ore, metal, whatever.. these natural ressources have the force, but they arn´t sentient, and so they can´t use it, but they have it and we can lift them with the force. same for droids who are manufactured from these nonsentient materials. so.. as I told, nonsentient materials have the force but can´t use it. that would imply then that droids can be touched through the force, but can´t use it themselves or send, just recieve telepathy maybe.

to use/send it they need living materials included in them, such as sythskin, bioorgans, or maybe midichlorian containing bloodlike oil within their servos. who knows.

the answer of wizards, I think has to be read that way: in general you can´t influence droids and machinere through the force. but the EU showed us examples where it worked: skippy the jedi droid, containing a living intelligent crystal shard. or the sith can use machinery through the force...Irek Ismaren could do so, he needed a brain implant, but he could use the force on some level on machienery as well. and sith were known to be able to do so, what jedi couldn´t.

so.. I believe it is possible, but only in rare cases. maybe it has to do with memory wipes. droids who develop a personality (develop, not get one programmed!) may be more receptive to this telepathy than others with regular memory wipes.

and I wouldn´t reduce the force to midichlorians. it is more than the interaction with these creatures. it has to do a lot with them maybe, but I think they arn´t the whole key point.

hope this helps a bit, will detail it further later on

 

I *have* read Abel's article, and while he makes an excellent case for droids being part of and using the Force, this was one issue he didn't touch on. What was established is that droids are usually considered apart from the Force, and we know that droids are generally immune to mind tricks and telepathy. I'm just wondering why telepathy is sometime attributed to the Force, and why droids can sometimes pick it up. Yours is an interesting theory--I hope that one day we'll get an official explanation.

TC

 

4-LOM had Findsmen abilittys and he had a vision about using the Force.

-The Scummy-