For the sci fi piece I am working on I've been at a bit of a block, now you remember he's having some type of PTSD or whatever, but I wasn't what to do about it. Turns out I had an idea, make him a short term precog, basically, he can see the future before it happens, which is why he is a sniper, he see's where the target is going to be before they get there. Basically, while he uses the ability he see's a ghost of where someone is going to be before they actually walk there. I'm not sure if I should cover sound/hearing or other senses as well. Any way, ramble over and back to the point, he feels he should have been able to see the ambush before it happens, or radio it in or something like that. What do you think? If you feel strongly either way could you please explain why, thanks a head.
maybe its time travel? Only... okay, call me super rational, but he could make a whole lot more money doing something else if he was a "short term precog." For instance, he could bet at vegas or whatever, knowing what would happen. Why would a person knowingly kill people if he had the power to do other things? As a reader, I would have lost the element of sympathy, because he would seem like an "evil" person who just kills because he has the power to see where the other person will be. It also eliminates a "sporting" chance for the enemy. As an everyday soldier type, I could see possibly being a "company man" but when you give him psychic abilities, I feel he should have a more evolved ethical code. Why not just make him a good shot?
How about bringing in a bit of quantum theory? He sees only short term precog because every decision (at the quantum level) spawns a new timestream, so the faster decision points multiply (i.e. the less stable the moment from a chaos theory perspective), the less he can see. What he would see is a fading blur of diverging probabilities. So far as gambling is concerned, it would be difficult to profit - the probabilities would diverge too quickly for games like roulette, and he can't see far enough ahead for sports gambling. But for a sniper, it would usually give him just that much of an edge. For example, a ghostly blur would emerge from cover just before the actual target. But it would not be infallible. For one thing, he could be distracted by flashes of probability that don't actually come to psss, and thus overlook one that does.
Oooh.. I'm intregued by that Idea! Perhaps research PTSD and the effects. Some get insomnia or turn to alcahol, so how would that affect his precognition? But Cogito's post sounded pretty good!
Well, the idea stands now at something like a ghost of what could/is going to happen before it does. You are going to move out of cover and he will see the 'shadow' of you move, so he aims for the shadow. By short term, I mean less than a minute, closer to say, five or ten seconds at the most. As for the whole 'other' future and QM/physics side of the idea, I understand it, but in his case, he has an instinct. To describe the instinct is like trying to give the wind a colour, try to describe the sum total of the ocean in a single word, if you can pick up a weapon, and feel how it should be used then you know what I mean. As far as being a good shot, this guy is the universe's equivalent of a SASR (Special Air Services Regiment), Australian or British, two of the world's best SF units, sniper, so he could, conceivable make a 1000m shot with a RW(Real World) rifle and hit a human head, right weapon, cartridge and so forth. For the morality of the situation, for him due to the nature of his 'gift' he can't use it to gamble, it's just a few seconds, might help in black jack, but that game is about odds and keeping your nerve, for example, taking a hit on nineteen when you know you need a two or an ace with a five deck shoe, not pure chance (chance plays a roll, but the math behnd what cards are left in the deck etc are far more important). Also it should be noted, since I hoped more people would remember the posts in question, he is a Special Force soldier, he has a strong sense of duty, he would not under any situation break the rules of combat that he was taught to follow. Those rules include the removal of all noncombatants as targets, you raise a rifle at him and he will consider you a combatant and so react. Also, his primary targets, pirates, are the slavery and kidnapping type, so in a way, his work is a rather brutal form of justice. A final note on the whole reason he is a soldier, that's who he is, it's what he is. He belives that because he is a naturally more capable of violence he needs to control it, and direct at those who would try to attack innocent and unarmed people. As for the whole thing of how it works, I'm still working on that, I'm thinking he can turn it on and off at will, but it takes a lot of effort to change the state of his awareness. Deep, almost monk level of meditation. Dropbear, have thought about that, although at this stage, what he is going through seems to be more, a rather extreme case of combat stress rather than PTSD, one that just happens to haunt him a lot, because he feels he should have been able to save the squad. A case of survivor's guilt could also be what he is suffering. Ps, oh, on odds, try to bet on the outcome of two die(D6), then work out the odds, heh, that was fun and believe me, even if you could tell the future, it would be pointless, there are that many possibilites it's just not worth even trying.
