Can you gain any benefits from looking through binoculars while astrally perceiving? I don't see how. The astral isn't amplified through the optics like light are. So here is what I am asking, not opinions, but canon. Is there any canon reference to this?

Not exactly. However, according to a response from info@ about opacity of glass on the astral which paraphrased says "the genral rule is if you can see it on the physical, you can see it on the astral."

And my opinion is: yes, it works.

No, you cant. Astral perception is a purely psychic sense. Optical enhancements have no impact on it whatsoever. If anything, the binoculars would restrict what lies in your field of vision, hindering your ability to astrally percieve.

Note that, while the Official Shadowrun FAQ does indicate otherwise, there are no in-book canon references to the fact that you can see through glass on the astral (glass is a physical barrier, afterall, and such things are generally astrally opaque). Since the official FAQ consists of optional rules clarifications, you are free to ignore them (in which case the binoculars would block astral perception altogether)

I also say it works.

If you really wanted to get nitpicky you could always point out that glass should be clear if water is clear since they're both transparent fluids. And I'm halfway sure it says somewhere that water is clear.

I have no problem with someone looking through the binoculars with Astral Perception. Whether or not the binoculars actually improve their vision by amplifying what they see is anoter matter entirely.

The astral plane is seeing life energy. binoculars work by focusing light, but since that doesn't exist on the astral plane, there is nothing to focus.

If optics can be used for los for spells, then why not for astral perception? Related enough that I'd say technically, it would, but it just doesn't sound right... (thats the best arguement I could come up with against it)

I'm certainly not ignoring canon rules, and I, personally, do allow people to astrally percieve through glass. As Zazen points out, there is a specific canon reference to your ability to astrally percieve through water without problem (except for stuff living in the water or background count from pollution), and glass is technically a clear liquid, so it does make sense. Clear plastic, not being a liquid, is another issue altogether... but I'll even ignore that for the sake of simplicity.

However.

There are problems with the blanket statements made in the FAQ, which is why I treat them as helpful suggestions rather than canon rules. For example, should you be able to astrally percieve through a piece of colored glass? Do different levels of tinted glass affect astral perception? Some darkened glass is impossible to see through physically... but why should physical alterations to glass that do not significantly affect its chemical makeup have any effect on astral perception?

Furthermore, optics and light bending have nothing to do whatsoever with astral perception. Blindness has no effect on astral perception. Should a blind person be able to look through binoculars and more clearly astrally percieve? If a person with 20/20 vision looks through binoculars in a large room with no light whatsoever, will they amplify what the astral aura of a person on the other end?

Having binoculars amplify astral perception is just silly, because astral perception is in no way based on physical vision. Since you can see through the binoculars, you can astrally percieve things on the other side, sure. But I'll say it again... astral perception has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the way light behaves, so the fact that the glass in binoculars is curved rather than straight should have no effect on your ability to astrally percieve something. Furthermore, the sides of the binoculars are not glass, and are neither physically nor astrally transparent, so sticking binoculars up to your eyes will restrict what you can see astrally in your immediate vicinity, just as they do when you arent astrally percieving.

Edit: woah... lots of posts in the interim there....

Interesting... I guess I just *learned* that somewhere along the line from someone I percieved to be an authority on the subject, and I never had any real personal reason to question it. Heres an excerpt taken from the Wikipedia article on glass that is somewhat less technical in its explanation.

You'll note that I said fluid, not liquid, because there are a lot of different names for what glass is. Whether it flows or not is a different question.


Your link tries hard to dispel the notion of flowing glass, but is unable to do so with certainty. It admits that the phenomena is observed but claims that it is more easily explained with other theories. That is an opinion.

I'm certainly not saying that I'm definitely right, but that link isn't enough for me to consider myself definitely wrong.

I know that you can use those fiberoptic security system thingies (I forget the name) for spell targetting... can you astrally perceive through them as well?

What I meant was that there's a limit to which you can make out details physically. That was what I meant by range limit.

No so for astral perception. There is no limit as long as you have astral LOS.

So a guy doing discrete surveillance can look at his target in a crowded stadium with a bino and tell his moods, feelings, etc by using astral perception.

If you accept the FAQ ruling then you can see through binoculars on the astral. Why?

Howdy y'all, I'm here to save the day.

Fundamentally, all physical objects in the astral plane appear the way they do in the real world except that they are rendered in 'uniform grey' (Pg.82 MitS) which makes them difficult to pick out.

It is also stated (Pg.82 MitS) that 'semi-opaque things like water, fog, smoke, or fire can limit visibility' whilst on the astral.

I think it's fair to say that physical objects on the astral have the same 'transparency' settings as their real world counterparts... so if that glass is totally transparent then it will be so on the astral, if it's slightly tinted, then it will be so on the astral.

Now, moving on... 'astral perception does not rely on physical vision in any way; it is a psychic sense.' (Pg.171 SRIII) To me this makes it patently obvious that whilst you 'see' the astral plane, as it is entirely psychic there is no light or optical effects involved.

So, moving onto our binocular question, the only logical answer that can be supplied using canon material is that they WOULD NOT affect astral sight.

You would be able to see through the lenses in astral space as they are transparent, but those lenses would have no effect on how you percieved what lay beyond them as you are not 'seeing' via the optical medium that they would improve.

But the binos would enable you to pin point where someone is, so if you are assensing for someone is a crowd, it would be easier since you already found his physical position.

toturi:

Before I discuss this issue any further with you, I would like to make sure that I understand your stance correctly. Please, correct me if I am wrong on anything I say regarding your stance on how astral perception works, and fill in any detail that I have left out. (note: I am certainly not summarizing my own view, rather, I am attempting to summarize toturi's)

-When you use astral perception to look at someone someone, you are simultaneously viewing that person with your natural vision and your astal sense.

-Astral perception overlays a person's aura over their physical appearance

-While astrally percieving, distance has no effect on your ability to notice detail

-If you were looking through binoculars at someone and thn decided to astrally percieve, you would still be physically viewing the person through the binoculars.

-The fact that you are still using physical vision to view the person, combined with the fact that physical distance in the astral has no impact on your ability to detect detail, means that you would thus be able to see a magnified version of the person's aura in the binoculars (because the vision enhancement isnt actually enhancing your astral perception, which is already perfect, its just helping to single out a target)

One point of contention I *can* make now, though, concerns this statement:

The only way I could see binoculars helping on the astral plane would be if the bincoulars themselves were an astral construct, as was covered in Target: Awakend Lands.

Of course, the chance of finding an astral construct that happend to be shaped like a pair of binoculars would be abou the same as a snow ball surviving in hell.

I once tried to do a glass flowing experiment, and in the end I had no evidence that glass flows at room temperature.

What I did is took a very thin (0.1mm) 2cm long glass microscope slide coverslip and anchored it in some clay. Then with another piece of clay I attatched a fairly heavy chunk of lead (any heavier and the coverslip would break) to the end of it causing the coverslip to deflect by about 1mm. I reasoned that if glass can flow down a pane just under gravity enough to be noticable in a hundered years that this very thin coverslip should surely bend under 1000x the force within a few weeks. I put this thing on the shelf for three months or so. At the end of these months I removed the weight and the coverslip sprang right back becoming, to my ability to observe, perfectly flat again. This left me thinking that the whole glass flowing thing is a myth.


Hmm I should try this again for a few years.


PS: I think optics should not work in astral space except at the base level that what is transparent stays transparent.

Well folks, it may be time to go back to 1st Ed. for this one.
While I don't have the book in front of me, it stated something along the lines of that vision enhancements such as goggles with thermo, night vision or vision magnification would not allow you to gain LOS on a target in the dark, HOWEVER if you had those same enhancements through cyberware, which is bonded to your very being through the payment of essence, these can be used to gain LOS. I also refer you to the fibre-optic system in 3rd ed (I forget the book) that allows you, as a mage, to cast spells to different parts of the building. This works because there is a cybernetic implant in the mage that allows them to use the fibre-optic cable.

This tells me that binocs do nothing for magic.

The question isn't whether you can cast a spell through these apparati, but whether you can astrally perceive through them. You can't cast a spell through electronic binoculars, as you don't have LOS through anything electronic you haven't paid essence for.

Apparently my game flies in the face of everything anyone else does, but I'll put it down anyways...

Astral sense is a psychic sense, not visual. But there's nothing to indicate the user cannot see the physical when he is perceiving as well. So I'd say that astral space is projected on top of what he'd see normally (barring binoculars and the like). I'd also say that he could NOT see through glass, or anything solid. This is probably not canon, but it doesn't make a lot of sense that how visible light interacts with something has any bearing whatsoever on how psychic emanations interact with it. So if it's solid, it's opaque. Which means, in my game, if you put binoculars up to your eyes, you're simply getting the "black" of 'there is a wall here in the astral' overlaid over whatever you'd see through the binoculars with normal vision. I'd also argue that you'd effectively have 20/a billion vision (hope I got those in the right order, you can see anything at any range) in regards to noticing astral details on anything without binoculars. It's psychic, so you can "focus" on anything you have LOS on for the purpose of magic/psychic stuff (spell casting and aura reading). Physical actions still rely on the physical vision, unfortunately for you, both because of what was said earlier. So having a scope on your gun doesn't help the blind mage, but for astral reconn, he doesn't need it anyway. As I said though, this is just in my game.

Ok here is what I decided. No.

You cannot use binocs to enhance your astral perception. It's crazy talk!

Astral perception is not overlayed your normal vision. If this were true you could read a book or a sign, which you can't do. Switching to Astral turns of your normal (light based) vision and turns on you astral vision.

And there is a rang limit on AStral perception, the same there is for normal vision, the horizon.

Purely mundane objects may be visible on the astral but you are still driving Blind. So if you happen to be driving in an area with heavy background count, you are SOOO blind even if your physical eyes can ok?

If astral perception is a purely psychic sense and you lose the sense of sight if you turn it on, why can't you lose you sense of taste or hearing or touch? Why must it be sight? Does it mean that if someone flashbangs you physically when you are astrally perceiving you are ok? Even if your eyes are actually seeing stars?

the thing is, binocular lenses twist light. if you hold a pair of binoculars a foot away from your face, you're not going to be able to see through the lenses. those lenses are, technically speaking, transparent--they don't hinder the amount of light that passes through them; they just twist it around in funny ways.

so, the question is, could you see through the lenses of a pair of binocs held a foot away from your face, using astral perception? if the answer is no, then binoculars do enhance astral perception. if the answer is yes, then they do not. i don't see how the answer could be 'yes', since the basic rule is that if you can see through it on the physical, you can see through it on the astral. ergo, the answer--to me--must be that lenses work on astral perception the same way they do physical perception.

No-one is disputing whether the lenses can be seen through. That is pretty much a given. Whether the lenses actually enhance one's perception on the Astral is another matter entirely.

I wipe my hands of this debate. I believe everything worth saying has already been said, and, in general, people seem to largely ignore what I have to say anyway.

To everyone: its your game, do as thou wilt.

It always occured to me that when a person split percieved the world around them, it was something similar to natural thermographic vision. Suddenly the people around you expand into glowing auras and the colors and movements within their auras speak more than any tell-tales in the normal universe. But if someone ignites a flashbang in front of you, it still blinds you because you are half way between being fully astral and fully physical. Your physical senses are still able to take damage and distract you from the astral world. Likewise the astral world can easily distract you from the physical world under the right conditions.

The distractions are certainly enough to make driving a car much more hazardous than performing massage therapy on a living subject. (+2 to all target numbers for tasks in the physical world.) Which brings up an interesting point... phsyco-therapy and physical therapy related skills would suffer the least from split percieving individuals. They both concern working directly with a living subject and reacting to their pains, pleasures and relief. All things that seeing someone's aura could make even easier for a professional than a doctor without the ability. Just a fun little thought.

But the only way that driving wouldn't have such high penalties would be if you were driving across open grassy plains... and every obstacle you had to drive around was covered in mold or bacteria. Yes, you can see the world as it is... but without living things around to act as beacons of light in an otherwise dark universe, you're staring off into walls and roads that are as void of life as driving at night without headlights. Possible, but as mentioned before... hazardous.

Granted, it's all a matter of perception. But that's the way I've come to understand the astral, and I'm sure a few other people see it the same way.

Actually, I thik Jason's made some good points in this debate. Glass is typically a tough material to give traits to on the astral plane. Reflective glass seems to serve well when you want to cast off the surface of a mirror, and it also protects drivers and passengers within mirror windowed vehicles. The way my group has treated it is thus: you aren't percieving light, so lenses cannot refract, distort, or improve a person's perception. However, glass itself remains somewhat invisible, but with reflective properties.

That is a supported possible viewing method. I was basing my post on the canon ruling that mundane ojects can be seen as grayscale from the astral, so you don't typically need physical sight except to read. If you aren't using your meat eyes, they will probably be closed and you will be ignoring anything you see on your eyelids.

Indeed, if you want to read while percieving, a flashbang will be just as annoying. I've only had dual natured characters try to use both sets of senses at once.

Interesting. Typically our players rarely will close their meat eyes while astrally percieving, prefering to have senses in both planes at once to maximize their perception of reality. Of course, when someone calls “Light's out!” most eyes go shut and hands go over the face.

How I've heard it described, split percieving is the most twisted version of astral perception because of this: you see the astral plane, but still as if through your eyes and face. Even if your eyes are removed, you still see the astral as if you still had them. Likewise, when a hand covers your face... you are blinded by the presence of the aura your very own hands produce.

Whether eye lids produce the same effect as your hands, I can't say. I would venture a guess that they do not, since the perspective seems to come from there, but it still doesn't rely on whether you have eyes or not. I suppose that's more of an individual group or GM's take on the physics and realities of their Shadowrun universe.

fortune, i am debating whether or not the lenses can be seen through in certain circumstances. sure, when you hold a pair of binoculars close to your eyes, you can see through them easily--but when you hold them further away, you can't see through them, because the lenses distort your view too much. if you hold to the rule of thumb of 'what you can see through in the meat, you can see through with astral perception', then you you can't astrally percieve through the lenses of your binoculars if you're not holding them up to your eyes--because you couldn't see through those lenses with your meat eyes.

that line of reasoning supports the idea that binoculars also magnify astral perception. since the lenses distort astral perception when you're not using them correctly, it stands to reason that they'd enhance it when you do.