Precognitive

"I won't spoil the conclusion if you're eager to see this through."

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Precognitives, also known as 'precogs', are capes with the ability to see or predict the future in some way. As no two powers are the same, barring special circumstances, no two precognitives operate in exactly the same way.

Examples

Dinah Alcott
Contessa
Roulette<ref name="FAQ PRTQ ">● Roulette – Ward. A ‘shotgun precog’ – she could see multiple theoretical futures which had a low probability of coming to pass, but which nonetheless provided some information gathering ability. - FAQ Parahuman Response Team Quest</ref>
Crystalclear
The Simurgh<ref>Interlude 28</ref> (Technically is unable to perceive the present at all)
Eidolon (Depending on the powers he has at a given moment)
Teacher (Via minion-proxies)
WEDGDG - PRT subdivision that employs numerous thinkers, including precogs
- Hunch
Entity
- Scion/Eden

Non-Examples

Coil<ref name=24.4c1/> (Although he believes he is able to 'split the timeline', he actually merely models two versions of the future, and then follows whichever one he picks like an automaton)<ref name="SB1">Coil's power doesn't create universes. It's essentially precognition in the present, purely thought based. - Wildbow on spacebattles</ref><ref name="R1.2">Think of it more like when he chooses a future to follow, his thoughts/actions automatically follow that script until it's done, and then he can think freely again. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit </ref>

Details

Despite differences, mechanically precogs can be whittled down to ability to pull out information out of multiverse and analyze it with varying degrees of awareness and conditions. No "true", unassailable future-vision is available to the shards, but only limited-information simulations prognostications and predictions, although "limited" in this case still includes unsurpassable amounts of information.<ref>It's worth stating that a lot of the simulation is only possible because the shards are already there, gathering, sharing, and collating data. - WB on reddit</ref>

Precognitives are an extremely valuable resource in any situation, and this means that other capes will frequently attempt to use them to gather information, as Coil did with Dinah.<ref name=22.4>“Get it, Regent?” I asked him, “The bank robbery was a distraction for the local capes, so Coil could be sure to get away with taking the kid. We played a part in that. We made that happen.” - Excerpt from Buzz 7.11</ref>

Interference

"I'm guessing there's more that I don't know about?"

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An important point to note is that unless it is otherwise stated the use of these precognitive abilities creates "causality interference" with one another.<ref>Coil's powers get discombobulated by other causality interference, which is why he can't just have Dinah give every answer in Coil-generated universes that he discards. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref> If two precognitives make prognostications about the future and provide this information to relevant groups these groups will likely work at cross purposes to each other while trying to influence events based on information their precognitives provided. Thus it is noted the tendency for those with precognitives to interfere with each others powers.<ref name=24.4c1>hitherbydragons:
I think the interference works like this:
When a precog sees the future, it changes how they act. That change in their actions changes the future.
Each future-seeing power has a way of solving for that—a way of bringing that to a point of convergence.
For instance, the basic human power of imagining what a possible future would be like avoids interfering with itself because it’s imperfect and also because humans _tend_ to hypothesize about the future starting from a baseline of “what I might do differently than baseline.”
But when you get two different modes of prediction interacting, then there’s a feedback effect. Let’s say that Simurgh and Contessa are fighting over the Precog Prize, a marvelous blue ribbon that goes to the precog of the year. (Next year, to be precise.) Simurgh considers how to arrange things so that the prize committee delivers the prize to her. She sees a way to do this by threatening the family of Judge #1, who is from France, but that doesn’t work because Contessa is about to take a portal to France and kidnap Judge #1’s family. She sees a way to do this by threatening the family of Judge #2, who is from Russia, but that doesn’t work because Contessa is about to take a portal to Russia and kidnap Judge #2’s family. She sees a way to do this by telling Judge #3 about Contessa’s shameful kidnapping behavior, but that doesn’t work because Contessa is about to take a portal to Judge #3’s living room to hang out and play Mario Kart, bringing Judge #1 and Judge #2’s families with her. The Simurgh sees a way to do this by subverting one guy who’ll subvert his sister who’ll subvert her teacher who’ll subvert her greyhound who’ll subvert another greyhound who’ll subvert its owner who’ll subvert Judge #4, except that Contessa is about to take a portal to the two greyhounds and steal one of them. Only, Contessa isn’t actually going to do all of these things: it’s just that she’ll do those things _in the world where the Simurgh is doing that plan._ So her power becomes a shape, a shadow, over the set of futures that the Simurgh can build. And normally vice versa, except that Contessa’s power apparently wins.
Taylor’s swarm sense wouldn’t natively have that kind of effect, because while Taylor would act differently based on what Simurgh does, Taylor can’t act differently based on what the Simurgh *sees.*
I think a Thinker power only interferes with a precog if the Thinker power is able to select for a given future in some fashion. Like, if you’re Lightbulb, with the power that you can always come up with a good idea and strobe a momentary light from above your head when you do so, then you don’t have to be a precog to interfere with precogs: you’ll have different good ideas depending on which future you’re heading towards, and that’s enough to create interference. But if you’re Snap Judgment, with the power that you can instantly and simultaneously consider all the options available to you as if you’d taken an hour to think about each one individually, you don’t interfere with precogs at all.
This could be wrong, though. It could be that Thinkers interfere with precogs by complexity alone—that the precog’s ability to predict the future is slowed down or compromised by the effort of _having_ to predict the Thinker’s choice, in which case Taylor would in fact be partially immune. That doesn’t _seem_ like the Simurgh—you’d think she could trivially account for the added brainpower of however many millions of insects getting involved—but it depends on how her power works, exactly. It’s possible that she only actually manipulates a very small number of fates at once, for some smurfing reason or other, and Taylor counts as many.

Wildbow: That is pretty much exactly right.
I’d say that it’d be a relatively rare non-precog thinker power (like Coil’s) that would really trip up precogs, and even then, some precogs would handle it better than others. - comment and answer on Crushed 24.4</ref>

Blindspots