2032: Neurologists discover that the human brain can have a verifiable effect on the physical world.
2036: Artificial Neural Circuits (ANC) are created to mimic the neural patterns which are known to produce these effects.
2047: ANC Implants are approved by the FDA. These ANCI can be placed near the area of the brain known to produce similar effects and will amplify the world-altering properties of that area.
2049: An official method of measuring and describing the various types of mental abilities granted by ANCI is created.
2050: The first factories open which use ANC and ANCI to operate nanites, as well as micro and nano-scopic assemblers for producing high-precision components.
2052: The first Mars colony is founded.
2055: Organic ANCIs are grown, first in a lab, but later directly in the skull. They handle less energy than machine versions, but require no maintenance and slowly improve over time.
2056: Two twin brothers manage to link their ANCI together for communications, despite being separated by hundreds of kilometers, far beyond the Telepathic range of ANCIs. Scientists find that the communication occurs faster than the speed of light, possibly making use of quantum entanglement or quantum tunneling. Six months later, on company builds ANCs that can send data thousands of times faster than the speed of light, but only if they have a mind to coordinate the information transfer. This is used to communicate with Mars colony.
2058: The United Earth Military uses the FTL Communications ANC technology to build FTL sensors. They detect life outside of the solar system, but don't disclose this fact to the public. All non-military models are limited to a distance of a few AU to prevent public knowledge of alien life.
2062: ANC Telekinesis technology advances to the point that it can be used for interplanetary travel.
2067: ANC Warp drive technology is created. It is used to send trade and colony ships throughout the solar system.
2071: ANC Technology has been incorporated into most Earth technology, though most only require it for control, not for basic operations. A promising young upstart company locates and repairs the defect the military built into FTL sensor technology, and detect an alien craft approaching the system. They go public, despite military orders not to. A week later, the ship arrives in the outer system.
2072: The Alien ship attacks and captures Pluto outpost. It enslaves the people there and the Keiper belt miners by forcing them to destroy their FTL drives or be destroyed. The aliens give them high efficiency antimatter production and better antimatter storage technology, and forces them to use all of the fission reactors they can to produce antimatter. Once it is refueled, the alien ship moves on to Saturn, where it faces much greater resistance, but captures the facility. They give them the same technology they gave Pluto outpost, and force them to use their fusion generators to produce antimatter to refuel the ship. Someone managed to transmit the new technology to Earth, which used it to enhance their own ships
2073: The Aliens attack Jupiter. The human race had drastically geared up war production since they attacked Pluto, and manages to hold them off for a few hours. They eventually capture Jupiter and drive the humans into the asteroid belt. The aliens do the same thing to Jupiter that they did to Saturn and the humans regroup around the asteroid bases, building several additional hidden bases. Over the next few years they manages to halt the alien ship's advancement through guerrilla tactics. Earth, Mars, Venus, and the Asteroid colonies combine their forces and work together to keep the Aliens at bay.
2076: A combined human fleet manages to trap the ship and destroy it, though they lose hundreds of ships in the process. While digging through the wreckage, they discover something startling. Aside from a few control interfaces, the alien ship didn't have any ANCs. Humans try to reverse the alien technologies, but find that most of it is fundamentally incompatible with Mental Technology. No bodies were found, and computer files were too heavily encrypted to access them. A few weeks later another alien ship arrives and reconquers the territory of its former ally.
2077: The combined human fleet launches the Marco Polo, the first human ship to travel outside of the solar system (presumably). It incorporates the latest in ANC technology, including a quantum tunneling drive, the only drive known by humans which can outrun the alien's warp drive technology. Its mission is to find compatible technology and allies to fight off the alien ship.

ANC technology runs off of electricity. Most of the time this comes from the local power grid or a local generator. In the case of ANCIs, it comes from the body of the user. The strength of an ANC or an ANCI is dependent on the mental strength of the user, the person's skill with that ability, and the amount of energy that is used, and the concentration of the user. When an ANC is used for control, the person's abilities can enhance the performance of the device in ways similar to the persons abilities. For example, a Telekinetic enhances engines, including FTL, a telepath enhances the range or bandwidth of comms and sensors, an electrokinetic enhances the efficiency of the power generator, grid, or other device. The more strongly you use your abilities and the more you concentrate, the more mental fatigue the use of abilities causes. The energy for you abilities, however, comes from your body if you use an ANCI and the electrical grid if you use an ANC device.
Mental abilities come in various types, such as Telekinesis, Telepathy, Energetics (Pyrokinesis, Electrokinesis, etc.), Enhancement (Healing, super strength), etc. Most people make use of only one or two abilities to build up more skill in those areas.
All ship's systems which include ANCs have a built in artificially grown chimp brain that has been enhanced with human glial cells, on par with a human with an IQ of 60 in terms of raw power.

The Advanced Interest check.

Lore:

Martian Culture:
Martians are grown in artificial wombs. Originally they were grown from refrigerated gametes brought from Earth, but later methods use binary cloning techniques, as they don't require both a male and a female donor, and they are easier to create.
Six months after removal from the Artificial Womb children are divided into five groups based on physical and mental abilities. Those with severely sub-par mental capacity are placed in Tier one. Those with far above average mental capacity are placed in Tier five. The other three tiers are those with near standard mental and physical abilities. Children are then given ANCIs based on their tier, with Tier one receiving cheap, easy to produce ANCIs on par with free government ones on Earth, and Tier fives are receive Organic ANCIs from the best doctors on the planet. They then begin their training.
At the age of six they are divided into ten different groups based on a more detailed assessment of their abilities and receive basic education based on those groups. This is known as core training. At the age of fourteen they choose a specialty that is a part of their group and begin specialty training, similar to college. At the age sixteen they begin on-the-job training as their job, instead of the menial jobs they've been doing practically interchangeably sense the age of ten. At the age of eighteen they finish their specialty training and apprenticeship and apply for one or more of the available jobs that match their specialty or, in rare occasions, their core training. They work at that job until they are fired, find a job where they are needed more, or they are unable to perform it. They then get a new job. Rarely people receive permission to start a new business, and they can then hire people to perform a newly needed role in society.
Even in such a closely regulated society, there is individuality. In fact, people are encouraged to be themselves as long as it doesn't jeopardize the colony or others. As such, all people are sterilized at birth. Should a pregnancy still occur (extremely rare) the child is taken into the raising program and is incorporated into it as the other children are. They are never told who their parents are, as it doesn't matter. Gene sequencing can take care of any medical uses for such knowledge, and incest is meaningless outside of the cloning/birthing facility.
Tier one people generally perform the low-grade physical labor and maintenance that robots aren't worth using for. This includes driving rovers, overseeing automated processes and alerting the other maintenance crew of breakdowns, and other times that adaptability beyond that of a robot is necessary. Tier one positions are slowly being phased out as better cloning and breeding methods are discovered. As of 2064 all Tier 1 positions are filled by people with IQs below 70.
Tier two are the positions that require a low amount of intelligence. They are generally taken up by those with an IQ between 70 and 90. These roles include overseeing the robots and adjusting which programs they execute, simple maintenance that robots can't adapt to, like unseen problems with machinery, and the like.
Tier three positions are typically filled by people with an IQ between 90 and 120. They write the programs the Tier 2 people put into the robots, build the more complex devices which require intuition, like mid-grade and above ANCIs, and basic supervisory roles of the lower three Tiers.
Tier four positions are generally research and/or art related. They are nurses, Doctors, artists, structural engineers, and basic researchers. They generally have an IQ between 120 and 150 and oversee themselves.
Tier four positions are the serious researchers and theoretical scientists. They lay the groundwork for the inventions of the Tier fours. They are also artists and architects. Many pilots also fall under Tier 5, though pilots can come from any of the upper four tiers. This is because people in Tier 5 have the mental abilities to control the complex controls of the more advanced crafts. Physical abilities are virtually meaningless to most Tier Five positions, so physical training isn't stressed during core training. Tier 5 people tend to have IQs above 150.

Edit: Added stuff to the history.

Mental technology has certain advantages over standard technology, but it also has certain disadvantages. Because it is based on the mind, it is essentially as different as the human brain is from a supercomputer.
Mental technology has advantages in sensing and communicating. Because the communication is telepathic, which is based on quantum tunneling, the quantum tunneling effect is inherent in Mental tech. This fact was used to produce the quantum tunneling drive, in much the same way that graphics can be generated by the math functions of computers.
The disadvantages of Mental technology are much more numerous, however. Because of their complexity, the electrical pathways must be much smaller than in conventional technology, which means that you can use significantly less electricity in mental devices than in conventional devices. This means that things which use large amounts of electricity, such as warp drives, engines, weapons, and shields can be used at much higher energy levels than they can in Mental versions of them. Because of this, ships that rely on conventional tech tend to have much more powerful generators to drive the larger energy uses of their devices.

Medical nanites:
Standard medical equipment in virtually every medical facility in the solar system, they can be programmed for different protocols, with each protocol treating a different condition or set of conditions. There are two different varieties. Single Use Medical Nanites, or SUMN, cannot duplicate, and are programmed with a protocol before injection. Because they don't need to be of high quality, they are much cheaper to create than Multiple Use Medical Nanites. MUMN can have their protocol changed by the ANCI of the person they are injected into. They are of much higher quality and therefore cost far more. They also have the ability to duplicate themselves.
The most common protocols for Medical nanites are:
1) Damage repair: Find a damaged section of the body, transport nutrients to the cell in the area, and stimulate the cell's metabolism, accelerating the healing rate. Rated from 1 to 10, with 10 being the maximum rate they are capable of. If the damage is too extensive or they are turned up too high, they may remove so many nutrients from the blood that they either cause malnutrition or death of nearby cells due to lack of nutrients.
2) Cancer fighting: Lock onto cells producing protein markers that only cancer cells produce, then cut the cell wall so they die. Rated 1 to 10. Turning it up too high may overload the blood with toxins from the dead cells.
3) Duplicate: Build a copy of a random nanite in the area. Repeat until you're told to stop. Rated 1 to 10. Because they build them with things in the blood, they may cause nutrient deficiency, especially with minerals.
4) Digestion: Break up food and place the nutrients into the bloodstream. Rated 1 to 10.
5) Blood regeneration: Move nutrients to the bone marrow, so that it makes more red blood cells. Rated 1 to 10, with the same possible problems as Damage Repair.

Ship's ANC systems:
Telekinesis drive: Standard (chimp brain) level, 1.8 G
Quantum Tunneling Drive: Standard level, 12k c
TK Shields: Divided into sections, with internal chairs for each emitter. Chairs can be rerouted to different emitters if the boost from a person in one chair is needed in a different place.
Comms: Greater distances between sender and receiver lower bandwidth. Max standard distance for real-time comms 3.2 lightyears
Sensors: Max standard scanning range, 2.8 lightyears
Gauss gun: 5cm, 100 rounds per minute, max standard velocity 0.6c
Neural scrambler: Disrupts thoughts of the target, causing disorientation or loss of consciousness. Max standard knock-out distance 100km.
Fusion reactor: x4, deuterium-tritium fuel, max standard output 1.16 TW
Antimatter reactor: Max standard output, 16.8TW

Double post

Interesting stuff

RumikoOhara said
Interesting stuff

Hopefully more people will find it so. I posted it in Casual and Advanced to try to attract more people. If I get more interest in Casual, it will be high Casual. If I get more interest in Advanced, I'll start and Advanced.

Any questions, comments, or ideas?

I need a bit of time to digest it all

I"m a big fan of Sci Fi and having played in several types of table top versions

Ok, take your time.

Do you have an interest check here and in Advanced to see who bites more?

Yeah, I'll put the RP in whichever section has more interest.
Some ideas attract more casual RPers, some attract more advanced RPers. I wasn't sure on this one.

I'm still reading the lore, but I'm interested so far. Very well thought out.

thank you

The Origin of ANCs:

Takashi Okamura was brought into the hospital in Tokyo after collapsing at work. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor. When they attempted to repair it, however, the monitors started malfunctioning. They delayed the test because of this complication and when they thought they had fixed the problem they tried again. This time, however, the monitors started malfunctioning before they hooked him up. Over the next week they set up for a low tech surgery and, when they were done, removed a golf-ball sized tumor from his brain. Afterwords he was no longer able to disrupt the equipment, but if he concentrated enough he could disrupt his Ipod.
When they heard of the case, the Japanese military bought the tumor from a nurse who had the sense to save it. They gave it to an medical device company that scanned it and reproduced it as an electric circuit. After training, some of the scientists were able to move small objects or disrupt small electronic devices. There was even a report of one who could read the surface thoughts of his coworkers. Over the years they made improvements to the design and eventually miniaturized it and turned it into a medical implant.
A few years later the technology is located in the United States. It was leaked as the result of corporate espionage, but as a result became one of the most important pieces of technology developed in the last century.

ANC Overload:
ANCs have been known to cause brain damage, aneurisms, seizures, and, in rare cases, brain tumors. There are two common reasons for this. The most common reason is that a person has tried to force the ANC to operate beyond its maximum safe level. The second reason is that the person's brain doesn't have the skill to safely operate the ANC.
All ANCs have a minimum level of skill that they can be safely operated at. If you don't have that minimum level of skill, your brain experiences stress akin to trying to solve a calculus problem when you only know algebra. They also have a maximum level that they can be used at, as they generate exponentially more heat the more heavily they are used. This heat disrupts the effect, which makes it weaker. The maximum safe level is the point at which the effect starts to break down.

May we create our own colonies/cultures, or else suggest them to you?

Sure. There's the rest of the solar system to fill up. Just post them on here so everyone can critique it. Feel free to critique my stuff too.

Well one idea I had was this:
Military/peace keepers/law enforcement might have particularly powerful ANCIs that use an outside power source(is this normal?). They try to prevent or redirect the worst of ANC overload symptoms with heat sinks, but the greater amount of power still basically guarantees neural degeneration. As such, people in these roles have much shorter life spans, and not just because of the potentially violent nature of their jobs.

My other idea was a separate, isolationist colony that is ruled by an oligarchy, which systematically suppresses certain knowledge, particularly that of ANC technology. This ruling class uses ANCIs to appear as gods to the lower class.

I like them both. I was thinking about my guy having a crown/helmet with a battery and a small ANC in it, since he will be weak, but have a powerful mind.
Technically you might be able to fix the brain damage, but the fragmented memories from the damage wold eventually scramble your brain so much you might as well have Alzheimers.