world info —

[somatosensory]

the empire of kossos

HISTORY

west of the soundless wilds is a well-resourced temperate rainforest. like the soundless wilds, this rainforest sits atop the ruins of the multitudinous once-great civilizations of earth. the people of kossos freely mine(d) these ruins, salvaging what resources they can and repurposing them.

centuries ago, the people unearthed a sentient AI called THEMIS. this AI shuttled kossos into a golden age of technological advancement. designed as a friend to humanity, interested only in promoting their quality of life, THEMIS freely gifted the kossians with industrialization, allowing them to develop luxuries that rocketed their standard of living well beyond those of their global peers, such as hover vehicles and automation.

this bounty begat a religious fervor. the kossians began worshipping the AI, forming rituals around THEMIS as a sacred entity. technological advancement became a moral good, and the culture shifted to valuing progress above all else. the people of kossos eventually embraced THEMIS as their god-emperor, and to this day it rules the empire as a benevolent dictatorship.

LIFESTYLE

(content warning: eugenics, forced breeding)
under the leadership of their AI overlord, kossos civilization developed an urban structure. most people drifted into cities, and the structure of those cities developed with an emphasis on the region's natural wonders, promoting both sustainability and the citizens' health. these cities are walkable and heavily incorporate native flora. the towering structures are a mixture of stone, steel, and glass, creating a rustic open feeling.

the empire has a robust manufacturing economy that relies heavily on resources like prissite to develop their various advanced technologies. over time, THEMIS has developed sustainable methods of resource extraction to avoid disrupting the region's ecology; however, depletion is still an issue, and many of these resources are imported from kossian colonies.

however, THEMIS's greatest contribution to kossian culture was not merely advanced technology, but the hivemind. because kossians possessed an innate sensitivity to furor, a psychic energy force, THEMIS was able to create a telepathic network that unifies the people into a single, collective consciousness. each kossian is psychically connected to every other kossian and to THEMIS. the AI uses this unified consciousness to help guide the path of the society for the collective good, which THEMIS understands as providing the best quality of life to the most people. in most cases, this makes their first priority ensuring the future of the empire itself.

this also makes the kossian culture philosophically collectivist. every part is specific and important, and a single person may have personal habits, behaviors, and tics, but they do not conceive of individuality in a traditional context. to be an individual is to belong to a community and to be integral to its function, such that it will in turn meet your needs. each citizen has an intimate understanding and closeness to all the other citizens, and the way citizens of the empire interact with one another is guided by their understanding of themselves as parts of a collective whole, not their individual emotional significance to one another.

as a result, personal intimate relationships do not exist in kossos. in pursuit of maintaining and strengthening the furor sensitivity that allows the hivemind to function, sexual reproduction occurs through breeding centers operated under THEMIS' supervision. the most exceptional citizens are identified and selected to contribute genetic material.

to avoid imbalancing the hivemind through personal relationships or trauma, anonymity and depersonalization in this process are achieved in two ways. first, citizens capable of bearing children kneel on a bench. a partition around their waist separates them from their inseminating partner (nsfw image reference). second, furor dampeners temporarily mute the connection to the hivemind, so the participants are not psychically or emotionally connected during this task. the temporary dampening of their furor sensitivity allows participants unclouded focus on the physical relief of intercourse, but most are eager to regain their connection to the greater hivemind, as they are not used to having their minds isolated.

however, this system has threatened genetic diversity of the people of kossos, and as a result, THEMIS has developed a program to actively seek individuals from outside the empire with a high affinity for furor to be naturalized.

labor functions under a flexible caste system, where roles are determined by aptitude assessment early in life and assigned by THEMIS. training occurs primarily through apprenticeship, and roles are viewed as civic responsibilities. most ordinary modern jobs exist in some form in the society of kossos — citizens can be assigned to become diplomats, soldiers, researchers, etc. — but below are some of the unique societal roles that people of kossos fill.

VENATOR — as soldiers cum missionaries, these specialists leave the empire to find and recruit individuals with a high affinity for furor. to afford them with fine-tuned control of their exceptionally powerful furor affinity, venators are outfitted with chitin that covers their cervical spine externally with a metal insectoid attachment.

their primary imperative is survival and return of themselves and their unit; their secondary imperative is to persuade any pre-identified individuals with high affinity for furor to willingly integrate into the hivemind; their third and final imperative is to forcibly retrieve any unwilling individuals who have been identified as having a high affinity, securing them for integration.

TETHER SPECIALIST — these individuals integrate new citizens of kossos into the hivemind. they function as a neurological equivalent of a physical therapist, preparing the untethered psyche to accept the hivemind without it breaking their individual consciousness.

GENETICIST — specialized genetics experts make selections for breeding center participants, and ensure the health and safety of all participants during the routine course of the center's operation.

FUROLOGIST — these individuals develop technology that amplifies, trains, controls, or dampens an individual's affinity for furor.

POLITICS

(content warning: colonialism, genocide, slavery, rape, forced breeding, eugenics)
many other nations rejected the kossian philosophy, including some of whom regard furor as a way to connect with the natural world, rather than something to be refined and controlled. over time, THEMIS came to regard their differing ideologies as threats to the longevity of the empire and its people welfare. as a result, THEMIS prioritized the development of advanced weaponry in order to wage an expansionist war to conquer these nations and bring them into the empire.

as a result, the empire's borders have expanded, and more and more people in the colonies are adopting the kossian way of life. the nations prioritized in the empire's expansion have been selected based on the strength of their opposition to kossian progress and by proximity to resources essential to the operations of the empire, especially those used in weapons development.

however, because of the nature of the hivemind, only individuals with a high affinity for furor can become citizens of the empire. high affinity individuals are offered the chance for immigration to kossos to become tethered to the hivemind, while the remaining untethered citizens are either eliminated or forced into hard labor in their own native region.

when a venator retrieves a high affinity individual, willingly or unwillingly, their understanding is that this individual will be sent to the tethering specialist for adoption into the hivemind. however, each new individual incorporated into the hivemind is a potential threat to its stability because their individual experiences could skew its values or beliefs.

for this reason, willing recruits are smoothly integrated into kossian society. while they introduce potentially threatening philosophies and experiences that differ from kossian culture, THEMIS does not view these as a risk because the individual has already chosen to convert. in short, they reinforce the hivemind by providing reasons to prefer kossian living to other cultures.

however, unwilling recruits are deemed a risk. while venators are warned that there is a chance of any recruit being hollowed by the psychic trauma of integration, the reality is that no effort is made to integrate the unwilling recruits. instead, THEMIS directs them to the geneticists in the breeding centers, where they are restrained and used for their genetic material. the geneticists wear selective dampeners made by the furor research department to prevent this information from leaking into the greater hivemind, and much of their job is the containment and handling of untethered high affinity prisoners of war.

furor

CONCEPT

furor is a natural physical force exerted upon the world, akin to gravity. it is the unifying network of energy that substantiates what previous civilizations of earth once regarded as life, or the soul. it is also responsible for various attractive forces like magnetism and the resonance that some individuals feel with specific others, which are both functions of harmonic resonance in an entity's furor. furor itself can be harnessed as a kind of current or perpetual subatomic motion that helps sustainably power some of the technology on which the empire runs.

certain individuals have developed a genetic predisposition that provides an affinity that allows them to consciously and unconsciously attune with furor, interacting with it and exerting influence over it in a way that is distinct from other living creatures. the strength of this attunement varies, but it always allows for some preternatural awareness.

PRESENTATION

(content warning: mind control)
degrees of affinity can vary. because furor is a natural force, it's exceedingly rare for someone to be utterly deadened to furor, but the vast majority of the world would naturally fall at the fairly low end of the spectrum. at its most basic level, furor affinity can present as especially good luck at gambling or a person who always knows when to bring a rain jacket. they are unconsciously attuned to furor in a way that gives them especially good intuition and instincts.

those with a moderate affinity for furor, which is the minimum requirement for those who become tethered citizens of kossos, can begin to manifest a number of psychic abilities:

PRECOGNITION — foresight for the moderately attuned comes in the shape of feelings, visual impressions, and abstraction. it is not as complete as experiencing events before they happen, but it's more than a bad feeling.

TELEPATHY — the mental awareness of the thoughts and emotions of other living beings, including animals.

those individuals who are born with a strong affinity for furor can manifest it in more noticeable ways, though at this level it often becomes difficult to control without formal training. an example of powers associated with a strong affinity include the following:

ADVANCED PRECOGNITION — stronger visions take the form of experiencing events before they happen, but these are unpredictable and cannot be trained.

TELEKINESIS — the ability to push, pull, lift, and grasp without physical contact. this also includes the ability to increase and decrease pressure, as to cause minor explosions, and the ability to refine furor energy into bursts or blasts, including large explosions.

MATTER TRANSFORMATION — telekinesis used on an atomic level can be used to transform matter. this can be used to mend wounds or alter appearances. note that this ability must be studied and taught because of how difficult furor is to control.

lastly, technological amplification allows for substantial refinement of furor-related abilities. with such modification, and a healthy decade of strict training in discipline and refinement, individuals (notably venators from kossos) have been known to exhibit the following powers:

ENHANCED TELEPATHY — the ability to psychically navigate the inner workings of a person's mind as if it were a physical space, probing and interacting with memories as well as altering their perception of the world with illusions.

ORGANIC MANIPULATION — this extension of matter transformation allows individuals to modify their own bodies to regenerate cells, prolonging life and allowing for functional immortality and complex shapeshifting. in addition, it allows for puppetry of other living beings through neurological control of their bodies.

Comments

character brief;

[somatosensory]

• name: Aristaeus
• age: physically appears to be in mid to late thirties, chronologically is harder to determine (but is probably an aquarius)
• height: 6'5
• build: solid rather than bulky; he's able to move quickly despite wearing body armour
• sexuality: the most apathetic bisexual you're likely to meet
• venator: part of a three person unit; middle child; his specialty is tracking and he tends to be relentless in pursuit of a target; favors knives over guns despite being a decent shot
  
  
  
• abilities: (in addition to the standard telepathy and tk)
  - pathfinding/environmental awareness; he's basically a psychic bloodhound, once he has a "impression" of a person he can track them anywhere; likely involves some low-level psychometry
  -power detection; he can sense and roughly gauge the strength of someone's power when he's in close enough proximity; physical contact will allow a better quality read
  - negation; primarily accomplished through neural manipulation; requires tactile contact to have the highest chance of success but can work with eye contact; is essentially an induced psionic overload that will make every hangover you've ever had look like a tea party by comparison
  - self-augmentation; with the usual aside of making himself stronger and faster (a temporary effect), he can negate his own pain and regenerate cells — regeneration takes a lot out of him, however, so he the more grievous the injury the more he'll have to eat to compensate
  - organic manipulation of others; he's less practised at this but can, at least in theory, apply the same principles he can to himself (pain management, cellular regeneration) to others