Review: Telepaths
A massive solar flare hits the Earth, knocking every single human being unconscious for 29 minutes. Vehicles crash and many people die. When the survivors wake up, one tenth of them have the ability to read other people's minds.
This includes Boston police Sergeant Jack Kelly and convicted murderer Miles Terrence.
Riots erupt worldwide as millions of people become aware of each other's thoughts. Those without this new ability fear those who do, creating panic. Governments attempt to control telepaths, leading to violent backlash.
Boston PD calls in Dr Stephen Conroy, head of neuroscience at MIT as a consultant to help deal with the situation. The president of the United States - his life saved from assassination thanks to the new ability of one of his advisors - holds emergency meetings to determine how to hold together a nation that is coming apart at the seams...
Telepaths by writer J Michael Straczynski and artist Steve Epting is a sci-fi thriller in which the focus is very much on the social, political and psychological ramifications of an event in which the ability to keep secrets is dramatically compromised. Fear of the unknown 'other' triggers extreme reactions. The government discusses the possibility of identifying and containing telepaths, much as Japanese Americans were corralled during World War II... a disturbing prospect.
Terrence discovers that he can do more than just read minds, he can also project his will onto others. Very soon he and his fellow inmates walk free from their prison and join forces with his gang friends on the street. He then begins to organise his associates, discovering who else has psychic powers and delegating tasks to them. His girlfriend finds that she has the ability to control other people and see through their eyes, making them her "sock puppets". Other members of the gang can lift vehicles off the ground with their thoughts or create fire from their fingertips...
His goal is to keep his people together and get them out of the city, away from the inevitable witch hunt that he sees coming. Ironically, the criminal gang is a much better organised group than the police, who soon fall into bickering and fighting over personal matters.
The idea of people with psychic powers as a persecuted minority is not a new one (Straczynski explored this theme in his TV series Babylon 5, in which the shadowy Psicorps exploits the insecurity of telepaths by offering them refuge within its secretive fellowship), but it nevertheless remains a useful metaphor for issues surrounding minority rights.
Terrence leads his people away from danger, like a latter-day Moses. Kelly is given orders to halt the exodus by authorities who fear what a breakaway tribe may become capable of. There are no clear moral lines here, only a pervasive feeling of the rug being pulled out from under the feet of society itself.
Another topical theme here is the control of information. Everyone has secrets, and sometimes unearthing them is not conducive to harmonious relationships. This is as true on the personal level as it is on the social level. Other secrets serve to keep the powerful elite in their positions of privilege, however, often at the expense of the common man and woman. We have seen conspiracy theories create havoc in the real world as conflicted groups differ over what they believe to be truth or lies.
Would a world in which secrecy ceases to exist be any less chaotic?
Zak Webber
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