I don't know why, but I've been really obsessed with these guys lately! Anyway, in the movie, we see Blair being using his ability to calculate trajectories in order to make the jump. Well I was playing a little Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and saw the "battle meditation" and began to think... Can the Pilgrims do other things? Like is quick calculations and the ability to "feel" thier way through space the only ability they have? Perhaps they have some ability to hide thier ships or enhance thier weapons or somthing??
Pilgrims, Pilgrims, Pilgrims...
Their powers are ostensibly (pseudo)scientific rather than mystical, so it isn't so much a matter of the martial arts-style discipline seen with Star Wars' Jedi. Which is a fancy fancy way of saying that it's not faith, it's...
Anyway! Pilgrims (in the genetic sense) are the result of generations who grew up on Earth's first space stations. They suffered something called Space Syndrome Mutation, which lead to certain abilities being 'selected for' in babies born in zero-g environments.
This eventually bred several types of people with abilities suited for various tasks: 'zappers' (electrical systems), 'chipheads' (hardware designs), 'toolkits' (mechanical repairs), 'crunchers' (complex math) and 'rabbitfoots' (luck). All of these abilities apparently grew out of a greater feel for electromagnetic fields, which is what the SMS allowed.
Generations with those genes passed them along, which created further unique abilities. The important one to our story were 'compasses', who had a perfect sense of direction. Compasses plus outward galactic expansion plus a little bit of good old socioreligious fanatacism created Pilgrims.
Genetic Pilgrims are divided into three groups depending on ability: Visionaries, Explorers and Navigators. Their abilities work in tandem: visionaries locate valuable star systems, explorers chart the jump routes to then and navigators can perfectly follow the established paths. Paladin was a visionary and Blair was a navigator. There are some Pilgrims who are multiple types.
All of these abilities, again, comes from feeling electromagnetic fields - whether they're the natural gravity fields created by stars to chart them in the first place or the scripts left by previous Pilgrims to follow them.
... and I would be (and have been) remiss without mentioning the special Pilgrims in Pilgrim Stars. There existed a limited, limited, limited (one in twenty million) number of Pilgrims who could use their ability to read and manipulate fields on a small scale rather than a galactic one. Meaning, they could manipulate the gravity fields around individual objects instead of superstellar objects. These special 'extrakinetic' Pilgrims could move objects around, crush organs, etc. It was said to be extremely unpleasant (a cold sensation lasted for weeks after using the power) and the church banned them from using the powers to cause harm (and the Confederation hunted them down with a vengeance.)
Anyway, Space Point
