Force Power: Postcognition
Sense Difficulty: Easy if seeing less than two hours into the past; Moderate if seeing two hours to a week; Difficult if seeing a week to six months; Very Difficult if seeing six months to a year; Heroic if seeing a year to two years; +10 for each additional year into the past.
Required Powers: Hibernation Trance, Life Detection, Sense Force
Time to use: Five minutes, +10 to difficulty for each minute cut. Minimum one minute.
Effect: Postcognition allows a Jedi to investigate the tenuous imprints of the Force left on objects when they are handled by living beings. The character must be able to handle the target object. The Jedi must declare how far in the past is being reviewed prior to rolling postcognition. If the roll is successful, the Jedi can determine who has handled or touched the object and what events have transpired around it. The Jedi may “search” for specific incidents or simply review past events, somewhat like viewing a hologram. If the postcognition roll is equal to or higher than three times the difficulty number, the character can witness events when the object was present as if she were there herself. If the postcognition roll is greater than or equal to twice the difficulty number, the Jedi gains a good sensory impression of the event, but is limited in that the primary sense (th sense which gives the most information, usually sight) is wavery or obscured; the other sensory impressions come through clearly. If the postcognition roll is simply greater than the difficulty number, then all sensory impressions are muffled, tactile sense is dulled, smells or tastes are indistinct or mixed. The Jedi receives a vague sense of who handled the object and what events transpired around it.
Example: Ana is going to use postcognition on a blaster to see if it was used to murder an Alliance officer. She declares that she will search back a full year (a Very Difficult task) — her postcognition total is 24, which just barely beats the difficulty number. Ana gets several sensory impressions — blurry images of a woman grabbing the gun, a muffled scream as a man is shot and falls to the ground. Unfortunately, the images are so indistinct that Ana can’t tell exactly who is using the gun and who was shot. If Ana had limited her postcognition viewing to less than two hours — an Easy task — her roll of 24 would have been more than three times the difficulty. She would have seen any events with crystal clear clarity.
Background: Postcognition, also known as Psychometry or Sense Echo, Force Echo, or retrocognition, was the Force ability of acquiring information about people or events associated with an object or a place solely by touching or entering it. Whoever used the ability experienced a blinding white light, before receiving slightly distorted input from sight, sound, and emotions associated with the object. At the time of the Clone Wars, the Jedi Master Quinlan Vos was known for being proficient in psychometry, which made him an expert tracker. However, the Jedi Order did not approve of their members using psychometry to handle weapons of violence. The Order feared that, as the wielder’s emotions could be sensed, the Jedi using his psychometric skill could be exposed to the dark side of the Force. Cal Kestis’ third encounter with the Inquisitor known as Second Sister had a moment of this danger. At the end of the fight, Kestis took the Second Sister’s lightsaber and immediately had a vision that showed the pain and suffering that took her to the dark side. The sight momentarily left Kestis without action, which allowed the Inquisitor to flee. Jedi Master Rey Skywalker was able to use the ability.
Psychometry was not a power that could be achieved through careful cultivation, as only those that were born with the power could use it, such as Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis and Karr Nuq Sin. The power did not always manifest directly at birth, as in the case of Nuq Sin, who began experiencing visions caused by objects at age thirteen. Though an innate skill, it nonetheless still required some study and practice to properly control it. To an unpracticed individual touching an object that induced a vision could also cause severe headaches and seizures, consequently making these episodes appear more like symptoms of a serious illness rather than a rare and powerful Force ability.