by Max Barry

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Region: Empire of Andrew

The Orson Empire wrote:Orsonian Telepathy:

Non-restricted Orsonians are know for their extremely powerful telepathic powers, or the ability to exchange information on a psychic level (without physical communication). Due to their origins as soldiers for the Cybusian Empire, telepathy proved to be a useful ability on the battlefield, as they could coordinate movements and strategies with one another without alerting the enemy or accidentally leaking the battle plans. Orsonians were capable of conveying emotions, having entire conversations, or even displaying entire experiences (such as showing their comrades what happened during an especially eventful combat mission) without speaking or moving a muscle. Individuals could then replicate and spread these entire conversations to others using the same methods; this would ultimately lead to the most popular conversations or events being "seen" by trillions of Orsonians, creating a sort of psychic social media.

As a result of this, the most signature move of the species was battle telepathy- using the information sharing ability to vastly improve the skills of each individual soldier. This allowed armies of Orsonians to pull off nigh-impossible maneuvers and operate at maximum efficiency, steamrolling over their opponents and pulling through precarious situations (such as being heavily outnumbered). In this state, Orsonians exibit a strong hivemind mentality, behaving more like a giant superorganism than an individual. Additionally, the collective intelligences of every Orsonian operating in this manner could theoretically cause a "superintelligence" to emerge, potentially god-like in its capabilities. However, this has never occured in history; there is possibly a "critical point", or the percentage of all Orsonians that are engaged in battle telepathy at any single time for the superintelligence to be possible, and this numbee has probably not been reached. The Evolved also frequently used the universal command codes to bring Orsonians out of battle telepathy- this was often the only way to stop them once in this state.

For restricted Orsonians (particularly those from Earth), telepathy is heavily limited, and has little practical uses. Cybusian generic and memetic "locks" render battle telepathy impossible, as well as extremely easy psychic communication. Only the most mundane and powerless aspects are left; for example, restricted Orsonians can sometimes sense emotional states, such as fear, anger, sadness, etc. Additionally, they can sense powerful "experiences" a specific location has had in the past, such as a tragic incident inside of an old home. In certain areas, such as battlefields (where the carnage is heavy and prolonged), the feeling can be overwhelming, inducing nausea or pain; soldiers typically go through training in order to handle this. The most intense incidents occur when a restricted Orsonian enters a rage state, regaining some or all of their ancient abilities. If sensing an emotion is like a ripple in a pond, then sensing a rage state is like a massive tsunami flooding an entire city. All Orsonians in the initial zone, within 20-50 kilometers of the occurrence, will be instantly hit with a wave of extreme pain, causing many to vomit, suffer a panic attack, or simply collapse and go unconscious for a time; some may spontaneously begin raging themselves. All Orsonians within 1,000 kilometers of a rage state (but outside the initial zone) will suffer similar symptoms to the battlefield example described earlier. Even if a rage state happened on the opposite side of the Earth, Orsonians have still sensed it and knew something crazy just happened. This is what makes those incidents so dangerous; a single Orsonian going mad could completely paralyze an entire city, and thus enormous efforts are put into monitoring and isolating at-risk individuals.

Excellent work Orson! I am particularly interested in the fact that rage states effectively temporarily cripple surrounding Orsonians because of the telepathic link; it’s a viscous circle because one can trigger more, and so on.

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