Psychic Revolution

So I'm designing a new setting involving a psychic revolt against the US. The short version is that an government experiment involving a virus that grants the traditional Psychic Powers went wrong, and ended up infecting radical types prone to xenophobia and violence. Thus, psychics are now rampaging across the West Coast, killing anyone who isn't "blessed".

Some mechanics of the virus:

• It's contagious enough that it could spread quickly if the revolutionaries weren't killing everyone anyway.
• It does NOT make you insane—the world just had some really bad luck.
• Negative symptoms include being more prone to blacking out if you strain yourself too much. This gets easier to manage as you get more experienced, but it never goes away.
• It is not fatal, but it can't be 'cured'.

How can I develop this setting further? How would it work? Does it even work at all? Thanks!

Range and degree of psychic powers? We talking Charles Xavier here or what?

edited 9th Jun '16 5:57:17 PM by Eagal

I figure the powers are going to need to be fairly powerful. No one has mind control (yet), but it's at least pull-planes-out-of-the-sky, drive-people-mad levels of powers.

I think it might work better if everyone gets one psychic power. Either mind reading, telekinesis, or pyrokinesis.

The basic premise seems solid to me. My next step would be to figure out what the plot is.

edited 10th Jun '16 2:49:16 AM by war877

The obvious one is somebody outside the fanatics gets infected.

But you could also tell the part of The Resistance trying to kill psychic superhumans

You could also have a psychic have a change of heart.

Lots of story hooks.

At least half the damage to society will come from the rampaging lynchmobs of "normals" roaming around and attacking anyone they suspect of being psychic.

Can these psychics conceal themselves effectively among the general population? If so, the paranoia level is going to explode.

Are these psychics cooperating with each other? Or are they as dangerous to each other as they are to anyone else? That's going to make a huge difference to your story.

I like it when authors of these kinds of stories pay attention to the emotional and cultural fallout, rather than just writing about super-powered people beating each other up.