In general, the unhappy medium is a character that exists to showcase why having psychic abilities sucks. Think really any psyker in Warhammer 40,000, or Robin Wednesbury from The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. The idea is that, in the setting's universe, being a psychic tends to take a terrible toll on the body, mind, spirit, what have you, and you're better off not being an empath or any other special person.
I'm a fan of it, but that might just be me and my love of grit in my stories. I've always had a thing for dirt realism, maybe with a pinch of cynicism thrown in, and this trope helps bring that idea into the realm of psionics, which is something that you don't see a whole lot of, even with it being a part of Dungeons & Dragons since the old OD&D days. Not that I would model anything off D&D's instance of anything, but there you go.
This leads me into a tangent, which I think might become the main crux of this article: the use of psionics in science fiction in general. It's something I've noticed, that there are a lot of science fiction stories, novels, and overall settings that seem to presuppose the existence of psychic abilities, from the basics like mind reading to, as seen in Bester's novel, full-on teleportation. I'm not sure when this became a thing; it's existed for at least a few decades, and continues to this day. You can see it in a few of the races in Star Trek, most notably the Vulcans with their mind-melding.
Why? Maybe because it is a better excuse for strange, mysterious "powers" than simply waving a hand and calling it magic. I suspect it's because there is a sort of...science-like feel to the idea of moving things telepathically that fits in with the more rigid style of science fiction stories. Of course, this doesn't stop fantasy and other genres from using these abilities, but it says something about them that they fit well in science fiction much moreso than fireballs and lightning bolts.
I like psionics as an idea, but in most cases I feel like their use lacks some sort of oomph. Maybe it's simply the fact that they're called psionics instead of magic; after all, most of the time the only difference between executing a magical power and executing a telepathic ability is...the name. Take, for example, Bayaz from Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series. Whenever he uses magic, it's never a flashy display. One of the more memorable and early uses is when he causes a man to just...explode. He doesn't perform any physical actions, doesn't need somatic, verbal, or material components, he just...does it. If this had happened in a science fiction series, it would have been a psychic attack, but essentially the same.
And yet, I feel like it might have been disappointing.
Perhaps it's because of the association magic has with being huge and spectacular, while the only real sign of manifesting a psychic power in popular media is a nosebleed. Maybe it's because I was raised on more fantasy literature than science fiction. Maybe I'm just subconsciously biased against it because the D&D rules are wacky. Who knows? I don't.
I like psionics as an idea, but in most cases I feel like their use lacks some sort of oomph. Maybe it's simply the fact that they're called psionics instead of magic; after all, most of the time the only difference between executing a magical power and executing a telepathic ability is...the name. Take, for example, Bayaz from Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series. Whenever he uses magic, it's never a flashy display. One of the more memorable and early uses is when he causes a man to just...explode. He doesn't perform any physical actions, doesn't need somatic, verbal, or material components, he just...does it. If this had happened in a science fiction series, it would have been a psychic attack, but essentially the same.
And yet, I feel like it might have been disappointing.
Perhaps it's because of the association magic has with being huge and spectacular, while the only real sign of manifesting a psychic power in popular media is a nosebleed. Maybe it's because I was raised on more fantasy literature than science fiction. Maybe I'm just subconsciously biased against it because the D&D rules are wacky. Who knows? I don't.
