Weird Science
Weird science is the scientific discipline most often associated with the cinematic mad scientist. The GURPS skilled defines it as “astonishing new crackpot scientific theories.” These theories are usually ahead of their time, and often involve re-thinking accepted notions or traditional practices in what is known as “out of the box thinking.”
Weird science today is commonly referred to as pseudoscience or fringe science, and of course enjoys no respect among professional scientists. In the 1920s of Dark Jazz, Nikola Tesla has given weird science a respectable reputation. As the leading technologist and weird scientist of his generation, the dominance of Tesla’s weird thinking has led to less rigid hierarchies in the scientific and engineering communities. He has inspired thousands to pursue their own ingenuity and inventiveness.
Most weird scientists are honest and reputable citizens whose transgressions are merely mental and limited to their intellectual pursuits. They can be found throughout American industry and educational institutions, as well as in garages and backyard tool sheds. However, behind the respectable public demeanor are a number of Frankensteins and Jekylls, classic mad scientists who will allow nothing to stand between them and the pursuit of knowledge and experiment. Headlines often trumpet the capture of such dangerous villains, who are thankfully rarely dangerous to anyone but themselves.
Some Notable Weird Scientists
Ignatius Donnelly. Beginning with the presumption that Plato’s account of the legendary island is factual, Atlantis: The Antideluvian World (1882) is a classic text of weird archaeology. Donnelly was a politician and no scientist, but his theory suggesting Western culture derived from Atlantis proved quite popular.
Charles Fort. In his gathering of anomalies which he considered inadequately explained by science, Forte is the archetype of the weird natural scientist. Book of the Damned (1919) was the first book to consider scientifically such phenomena as UFOs, mythical creatures and atmospheric anomalies (the infamous “rain of frogs”). The book was a bestseller, as would be later collections of Fort’s esoterica, which would later be given the name “Forteana.” Fort also bore a great deal of contempt for mainstream scientists, a quirk common to many weird scientists.
Nikola Tesla. An extremely ingenious and competent engineer, Tesla also held notions which may be fairly characterized as weird. He stands as the exemplar of a weird scientist who used scientific method and engineering practice to push the boundaries of science and technology. He is arguably the most well-known individual in 1920s America and the most popular scientist in history. Even the strangest ponderings from Tesla’s mouth are greeted as near-gospel by the curious media.
Immanuel Velikovsky. A widely-published psychoanalyst and physician residing in 1920s Palestine, Velikovsky became known in later years for his controversial theory of Earth’s origin. His Worlds in Collision, published in 1950, formulated catastrophist cosmology and established Velikovsky as the pre-eminent weird astronomer.
Weird Science in Media
Books
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley
Film
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Comics
Weird Science, anthology comic series published by EC Comics in the early 1950s.
Tomorrow Stories. The character Jack B. Quick, created by Alan Moore, is an adolescent weird scientist and wildly cinematic gadgeteer, who constructs robots from farm implements and crates a black hole using a vacuum cleaner.
Information for Players
Related Skills
Weird Science
IQ/Very Hard
Defaults: None.
This skill allows you to formulate astonishing new crackpot scientific theories that are far ahead of their time . . . or at least utterly different from the usual assumptions of your tech level. You may attempt a Weird Science roll whenever you work on a new invention (see Chapter 17) or investigate an existing item of weird technology (e.g., a UFO). On a success, you get +5 on an invention attempt (but only +1 if using the Gadgeteer advantage, since Gadgeteer already gives you favorable die rolls for thinking “outside the box”). If investigating weird technology, success gives +2 to any skill roll you make for this purpose – and the GM might even allow a default skill roll to operate the device! On a critical success, you get these bonuses and some incredible insight into a totally different problem! Critical failures are always spectacular, although not necessarily fatal or even dangerous.
Weird Science and Invention
An inventor may choose to roll against Weird Science skill (p. 228) to get a bonus to his Concept and Prototype rolls. This bonus is +5 if he is using the New Inventions rules (p. 473). It is only +1 if he is using Gadgeteering (p. 475), as those rules already give large bonuses for the borderline-weird concepts used by gadgeteers. The drawback is that the invention will have weird side effects. Roll 1d-3 for the number of side effects (minimum one), and then roll that many times on the Random Side Effects Table, p. 479.
See also
- GURPS 4th edition Psi-Tech
- Pyramid #3/46: Weird Science