Aeon Student Guide: On Telepathy

Note: Please let me know if anything doesn't make sense in this write up, or if it gets too wordy (it's meant to be textbooky but not painful). The Aeon Student Guide portions shouldn't be necessary to understand Mind Blind, but reading them should add more to the story.

Telepaths make up 60% of all Ments, or 6% of the general population. While the scope of their abilities varies depending on Z-wave strength, all Telepaths are capable of reading the surface thoughts of non-Ment individuals whom deliberately lower their mental guard.

A Telepath’s Pollard Score is determined by three factors: the distance at which they can sense thoughts, their ability to interpret visual and subconscious thought in addition to verbal thinking, and their ability to get past natural resistance—this last being a measure of a Telepath’s ability to read and control a non-Ment whose mental guard has been lowered. Most Telepaths are limited to a three-foot brainrange within which they can glean the surface thoughts of those whom permit it, but some Level 10’s have been known to take full-bodied possession of relative strangers (although these controlled “strangers” are still suspected to have been forced to drop their guards in via non-psychic coercions such as the threat of physical violence, and it should be noted that Level 10 Telepaths are exceedingly rare). In addition, all Telepaths possess the ability to detect the presence of any person within their brainrange, although they remain unable to hear the subject’s actual thoughts without the subject’s cooperation.

Prior to the nineteenth century, most humans didn’t possess the ability to block Z-waves. Telepaths were thus among the most feared of Ments, second only to Telekinetics. With their ability to read minds unchecked by evolutionary barrier, Telepaths of the past were misrepresented as invaders of mental privacy, manipulative and cruel. Their persecution resulted in the infamous witch trials of early modern history, and legal punishments for “malevolent magic users” date as far back as The Code of Hammurabi. Most Telepaths therefore learned to conceal their powers from a young age provided they survived, with many members of the world’s most prominent ruling dynasties being secretly telepathic. The most prominent example of such a dynasty is the German-Austrian Hapsburgs, whom intermarried both to secure alliances and to increase the chances of a telepathic heir.

Today, many Telepaths pursue careers in the medical and social service fields, where their innate ability to connect to the minds of willing others is an immeasurable boon. Telepaths at Unity often work in front-line ops teams due to their ability to sense enemy presence, or as medics able to diagnose and treat injuries in patients who are disoriented or otherwise nonverbal.