IC Contact

[rebelarrow]

I'll call you back later.

TEXT | VOICE | VIDEO | ACTION

Comments

[rebelarrow]

Changelings are protective by nature, and predatory changelings take it to another level. [Dominant predatory changelings can sometimes be downright insufferable.] The process had to be formalized to prevent another war.

The value to protecting other species is that, again, they're protective by nature. While predatory changelings have no compunctions hunting down a wild deer, the human side has no desire to go after a Changeling Deer.

Even if they aren't altruistic, changelings can only keep the land they can protect, and that includes ensuring safety of those lands to everyone in it.

[helpdesk_hero]

Consider me truly captivated by your world. How, originally, did Psy figure into this social structure?

[rebelarrow]

The common theory is that we all started out as humans. Psy and Changelings merely evolved differently from them--Changelings physically, Psy mentally.

Pre-Silence, Psy married and lived freely among Humans and Changelings. However, we had a much higher insanity rate as a result of our abilities. Insanity would often lead to violent outbursts.

In 1979, we implemented the Silence Protocol in an attempt to curb it. Psy knew that our abilities were tied to emotion, and that through emotion we lost control, so through Silence it was conditioned away.

[helpdesk_hero]

That's inhumane. Control is important, yes. But emotional castration is vile.

[rebelarrow]

You sound like my pack.

We were desperate.

I can understand the desperation of the initial council that signed off on the Silence Protocol. I fought breaking Silence, even if it meant not being with my mate, until it almost killed me.

Because the idea of having emotions and harming someone on accident wasn't worth the payoff.

[helpdesk_hero]

Emotions will always hurt people. But a lack of them hurts people more. And makes it easier to see those with emotions as lesser, as needing controlled.

[rebelarrow]

You caught on to an issue of Silence a lot quicker than most.

It also allowed for the truly Silent, the sociopaths, to roam free unchecked. The latter Psy Council's even covered this fact up, to protect the Psy and to protect Silence.

[He knows. He helped to cover it up.]

You'll be happy to know that Silence has fallen. The Psy reputation is long in tatters among the other races, and it will take decades, if not another century, to repair.

[helpdesk_hero]

Yeah, I was going to point out that it makes it hard to pick out people who are just sociopathic and more likely to hurt others. It's a lot worse when you can silence your victims. Let them live in the horror.

You seem more... emotionally open.

[rebelarrow]

I broke Silence 3 years ago.

I've been told I still sound a little toneless.

[helpdesk_hero]

You seem quite expressive for three years. And that coming from a psychiatrist.

[rebelarrow]

Our emotions weren't excised, merely buried. Some things came more naturally than others.

And I have no doubt living among Changelings helped. They're as emotional as Psy are emotionless.

You also seem a little young to be a psychiatrist.

[helpdesk_hero]

I told you about my powers, right? Psychomimetic? I retained a portion of what I had absorbed back home. I'm just rolling in doctorates and medical degrees and so many other things.

I'm a fucking blackbelt in telepathic warfare, not that I ever had the sort of telepathy to allow me to make use of that.

[rebelarrow]

I know more than a few telepaths that would metaphorically pick your brain for that information.

Mostly to see if they already knew it.

[helpdesk_hero]

I don't want to create an arms race, so I'd rather not have my brain picked. Seriously.

But I'd let you look.

[rebelarrow]

Pretty trusting of a man you just met.

And the Psy I have in mind are only interested in two things--protecting the Empaths, and fostering the peace accord between the three races.

[helpdesk_hero]

You're a Psy, as you termed it. You could take what you wanted.

Empaths. You know Empathic people? That's a heavy weight they have.

[rebelarrow]

And a Changeling could snap my neck if they got close enough, were they so inclined.

Just because someone is capable of doing something does not mean they will.

Honorable Psy have a strict code of ethics when it comes to entering someone's mind.

Yes. [To both the question and the statement.] Under Silence, the Council attempted to suppress designation E, but over the past several years they've been re-emerging. DarkRiver and SnowDancer help protect the main Empath training ground.

[helpdesk_hero]

Honorable Telepaths do too. Except I suppose my power wasn't exactly honorable.

Empaths need protected more than any other kind of telepaths.

[rebelarrow]

From what you told me, you didn't make a conscious decision to utilize your powers. There's the difference.

They do, which is why the most dangerous men and women in the Net have sworn their loyalty to the E's. The Arrows have already proven they'll stop at nothing to keep them safe.

Then again, as a cardinal E has recently shown, they're also capable of protecting themselves--she projected her pursuers' fears onto them. Left them wrecks curled up in the fetal position.

[Sascha Duncan had already had his respect, but that just elevated it.]

[helpdesk_hero]

See, now that I can respect. Using one's powers to protect themselves or others? Good. And frankly, people should feel the terror they inflict on others at times.

[rebelarrow]

I couldn't agree more.

Neither can either pack, if pack grapevine is to be believed.

[helpdesk_hero]

Of course, there are those who would see it as an attack and just lash out even more over it.

[rebelarrow]

The mercenaries, unprovoked, attacked the mate of the DarkRiver alpha and their daughter, who was a few days shy of a year old, in a DarkRiver city.

There's a distinct lack of pity all around.

[helpdesk_hero]

What is it about the development of intelligence that makes us hate so much? Is it just an inherent state of our minds?

[rebelarrow]

From what we can tell, with this group in particular... their motivations appear to be motivated by greed.

Keeping the races separate is better business for them. Pit two groups that have no communication against each other and pick up their pieces.