The upside comes from being able to pick up some very useful abilities. Cog Boost is one of only two ways to get a +5 to COG in the game. Multitasking is the one of the only (the only?) way to get a forth Complex Action in each Action Phase. Instinct makes all Mental Task action skills super fast, and brings many other actions (such as brute force hacking) down far enough to almost get a -100% time frame without a negative modifier. Grok lets an async understand *any* device/object/vehicle just by looking at it. Enhanced Creativity is quite a nice way of getting a modifier to rolls such as programming or artistic stuff. Predicitive Boost makes an async that little bit faster, and harder to hit. And that is just the Psi-Chi stuff. Combine that with the ability to read peoples thoughts, melt peoples brains with a touch, and turning themselves into a social butterfly of epic proportions and you have quite a few reasons to pick up Psi. On the disadvantages- Sleights are expensive at first, but they go where you go, so no worrying about having to find a Morph with the implants you want. The mental disorder is easy as hell to get rid of, a month of Psychosurgery and it is gone. The Exsurgent virus is already virulent as hell, if you didn't pump Moxie you are almost certainly going to be infected as it is. The counter? If you are a Psi user, pump Moxie. You nulify the -20 modifier you suffer because of your Psi *and* you get more Moxie! Which also covers the whole "Critical Failure = Spasms" thing, if you roll one, pop some Moxie. Morph fever is nothing. Why? Because read its effect. "In game terms, asyncs take 1d10/2 points of mental stress damage every month they stay in a pod, synthmorph or infomorph [i]without psychological assistance by a psychiatrist, software, or muse[/i]. Well then, its a good thing any sane Psi user is going to make sure that they either 1) Take Downtime to counter mental stress or 2) Have a Muse, and thus be immune from Morph Fever. The only really annoying drawback Psi users suffer from is Morph Acclimatization. Derangements are irksome, but some are fun to roleplay (anxiety, echolalia, mute) so no worries here either! Psi is worth it as it is. I have a single qualm with it as written, and that is that Strain is physical damage. I think it would be much more flavourful is it was mental damage instead. But eh, thats easy to house-rule. Edit: On Psi users being hunted down. Yes, they would be. That is if there was anyway they could be detected other than by using other Psi-Gamma users or by reading their brains through other means. The way the virus is detected normally is via the nanomachines that are present within the infected. These nanos are not there in Watts-Macleod victims, they seemingly do their thing and then bugger off. Even then, most people have no idea that Psi abilities are real (Rumours, sure, but there are rumours that the TITANs never even left and WOO THIS IS A SIMULSPACE! Matrix is now!), and those in the know seem to want to keep it that way, or they dont know that its caused by the Exsurgent virus.

Well yeah, if you walk up to a guy, shake his hand and he suddenly falls down dead there are going to be consequences. But it doesn't immediately mean that everyone is going to be out to get you because you can melt peoples brain with your mind. They are going to be out to get you because [i]you walked up to a guy and he died[/i]. In EP there are numerous ways for a normal person to do that (nanopoisons ho!), the kinds of things investigators are going to suspect way before "He is a walking, talking brain microwave". The rest of the Psi powers are almost universally subtle enough that they wouldn’t give the user away. Grok would be mighty strange to watch, as would being able to tell people what they are thinking, but as long as the Psi user doesn’t get herp derp retarded and start throwing about the brain melt too much they should be fine. At least until Firewall/Ozma start noticing you anyway.

I envisions the Async in the light of the Bionics in Mass Effects. In the novel Mass Effect: Ascension, there is a very cool exemple of a possible Async inspiration -the habitat serving as a school for asyncs (bionics, in the story) -Dr Kahlee Chambers, a cool and cute psychosurgeon -Gillian Grayson could very well be 'altered' to be a Lost, suffering of autism, whose father, Paul Grayson, was given custody of her by his Firewall superiors (don't hate me for equaling Firewall with Cerberus, both organisations are very similar in goals and methods) -Replace the Quarian pilgrim with a young scumborn on iniatic trip another inspiration would be Morinth. Aaahh Morinth! I just love that character! Her and her mother both. "Embrace Eternity, lover." Who is Morinth's mother? that would be telling, wouldn't it? [img]http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100205212327/masseffect/images/a... the Ardat-Yakshi condition and what it causes to the women affected by it looks a lot like what the Exsurgent Virus could do. It's like a deadly Basilisk Hack

A quick once-over on the "powers" do not see a personal problem. At least not with the psi-chi set. They come out as more of a cognitive rewiring then anything else. The psi-gamma's however walk into vulcan territory. Tho if one can find a plausible explanation for the ability to interconnect two nervous systems by skin contact, they are potentially more acceptable. The ranged abilities are the most "troublesome". Still, given that a shark can supposedly detect the EM field of a living entity... All in all, it would seem that asyncs are basically humans with a titan-provided tuneup. Perhaps a mentat comparison is appropriate?

Well in the spoilers pages in the back: [**Warning Spoiler** read past here and don't come crying to me!] There might be some indications that the Factors might be able to merge into a group mind but it's up to you to decide if that counts as Psi or not. Also the synergists form a bond that could be somewhat like a collective mind, at that point what is the difference between direct neural transmission and telephathy? There's also talk of Psi-Epsilon slights that are supposed to be exsurgent only but they describe as telekinesis, cryokinesis and pyrokinesis. So if the Wotts-McLeod virus can give Psi slights these is no reason for another mutant strain could not be a tamed pyrokenetic or cryokinetic version. After all, they put the precedent down. The caveat to that idea is that if you go down that road you might as well dust off your copy of Mutants and Masterminds... It's a fine line but the door is open.