[Open Broadcast]

[protect_and_serve]

Who: Everyone on the telepathic network (which is everyone)
When: Just after the new arrivals show up.
What: Joscelin attempting to get things organized.

[There’s a lot of chatter going on, literally making it hard to hear yourself think, between veterans gossipping and speculating what the new wave of Travelers means, and accidental broadcasts by panicked new arrivals, until one hard-edged thought cuts through it all.]

Enough.

You all need to stop this before we drive ourselves insane.

Anyone with experience on the Network, I want a few organized broadcasts offering help and information to newcomers. We don’t call them Fools.

If you’re new, stay calm. No-one can overhear you unless you’re projecting. Try to divide yourselves as evenly as you can between the people giving you answers. That much is instinctive, you won’t have trouble as long as you can imagine it.

Anyone who’s been here longer and wants to speculate? Don’t do it publicly. Find your own little corners, or keep it off the network.

New telepaths. You’ll need to find someone more experienced more than anyone else does.

And everyone be ready for a new Jaunt.

Comments

[thezerothlaw]

[Puzzled, curious, more than a little lost.]

Telepathy is to be considered common, here?

[He doesn't know why, or how, but for now he fixates on this fact.]

[protect_and_serve]

We're all connected telepathically. And we're all anchored in this space.

[thezerothlaw]

[He takes a moment to consider this, but it involves some reorganising of what he knows about telepathy -- which admittedly he mostly learned from Giskard.]

Did all those who have been brought here already possess a form of telepathic abilities, or were they given to those who did not already have them? Your words seem to imply this.

[protect_and_serve]

Some of both. Most of us weren't telepaths before. I didn't even know the word. Anyone with telepathy had it taken from them. Listening to them, what we all have now is... watered-down.

[thezerothlaw]

It is... different, certainly.

What is the purpose of this?

[protect_and_serve]

Threefold. Communication; disguise, and... programming.

[thezerothlaw]

You imply that there's an intention to control and guide our actions through this, then.

[That's not unfamiliar, nor is it particularly troubling, but it's peculiar.]

Who is controlling, then? Are their intentions to be trusted?

[protect_and_serve]

We call them the Trumps, and we've never met them. As for trust... would you trust any being who manipulated worlds with a handful of blind pawns?

[thezerothlaw]

If I knew my actions were being guided for a beneficial purpose, it would be greatly relieving.

[A perfectly robotic opinion; Giskard had tampered with minds, but always, always for the greatest good.]

[protect_and_serve]

We have no reason to believe the purpose is beneficial to anyone but whoever pulls our strings.

[thezerothlaw]

Then this situation is a worrying one. Those who wield such power should put it to responsible use.

[protect_and_serve]

So we've tried to tell them.

[thezerothlaw]

We are at an impasse, then, until greater freedom is allowed. I admit that this situation does not sit well with me, but I see little alternative at the moment.

My apologies. I am Daneel Olivaw. How should I address you, sir?

[superieure]

It's common to you?

[Anyone calm enough to ask about this first has her attention, if only to satisfy her curiosity.]

[thezerothlaw]

[There's some hesitation before he answers -- old habits, and he certainly couldn't hide that he's telepathically gifted now.]

I would not call it common, but I was familiar with telepathy, albeit in a different form.

[superieure]

[This is the equivalent of dangling a carrot in front of an excited horse; Monet's expression, however, is far more restrained, but she leans forward, sparks of excitement decorating the shared connection. For once she's more curious than dismissive.]

How so?

[thezerothlaw]

A... friend of mine obtained some mental ability. He was able to both sense and adjust the emotions of those around him. He ceased to function, but he passed the programming matrix that allowed him to do this to me shortly before I came here. What I experience here is very different.

[superieure]

[An empath.. with a programming matrix instead of a mutation?]

It would be - what you're describing is known to be a different ability, though not outside a telepath's realm of influence. The others say our power's been taken and divided up between all of us, so we can hear each other.

[Bitter. She wouldn't have shared even when asked.]

[thezerothlaw]

I don't see how that should be possible. It would seem to me that it would be simpler to grant the ability to those who don't have it rather than redistribute an intangible sensory skill.

[That's just logical.]

[superieure]

[Where she is, she nods in agreement.]

[Faintly wry:] I never said their actions made sense, or that the theory was confirmed. Either way - you no longer have full access to your gift?

[thezerothlaw]

[Gift. What a strange, but accurate, way to put it.]

That is correct. I am not aware of minds as I was. To be fair, I do not believe I was capable of this sort of communication, but I never had opportunity to try with someone also... gifted in this way.

[superieure]

All the telepaths I've met are capable of conversing with a non-telepath, and for the reverse to occur they need only think loudly in my general direction. Why is it you couldn't?

[thezerothlaw]

Perhaps the best way to describe it is to say that it was a skill of listening. Though it was possible for friend Giskard to influence others with his abilities, it was a matter of adjusting when they felt rather than sending a thought to them. Perhaps, had we time to experiment, we may have learned how to communicate in this way, but he only passed the programming matrix to me when he was commencing the cascading positronic failure that led to his permanent deactivation. There was no time.

[superieure]

[Listening, like Jono, except he hadn't been able to do more than initiate psychic contact to speak. The current network felt like talking to him, but without his low, dulcet voice.]

Akin to turning knobs on a radio, looking for the right station?

[thezerothlaw]

[He takes a moment to consider this. He's not the best with analogies.]

If a metaphor is necessary, then perhaps it is better to describe what friend Giskard and I were capable of perceiving as woven cloth. Individual threads might be adjusted to alter the overall image, but careless tampering might very well cause the entire fabric to come apart.