The Anomoly?

[Cal]

after Afterkill it doesn't seem to me like Chaz and Hafidha have to spend a lot of energy controlling their anomaly.  Jamming takes energy, it takes psychic effort, but it doesn't seem like they have any evil impulse inside them trying to get free--just human impulses.  Though there may be internal conflict, they're not battling something not them, but their fears and uncertainties that they might have to.

Yes, good point.  I guess they would be a lot more aware of those impulses, fear and uncertainties, though--a lot more given to self-monitoring, because they would know, or at least guess, that it would take less to tip them over into a gamma state than it would to tip over an alpha?

Or at least, Chaz self-monitors like that.  I don't feel like I've seen enough of Hafidha's point of view to state with certainty that she does as yet.  Maybe that's because she's older, had a more stable background growing up, and was an adult, established personality before she went beta, though.

I don't really think the Anomaly is going to end up being wholly genetic, because of the sinister way it's been phrased that it "likes pain," "feeds off pain," etc.  I think the two modes of expression are more like a functional/dysfunctional manifestation of the same mechanism (although I'm not sure which one I think is functional.)  And maybe that it has something to do with how grounded you are in reality and what your original "mythology" looks like.

Interesting ideas you have there.  I like.  But we do have Reyes in 'Overkill' throwing us a pointed reminder that there's no evidence the anomaly 'feeds off'/'likes'/'tastes' pain etc, and Chaz does the same in the privacy of his own head.  The human instinct to anthropomorphise may be a misdirect here.

It may not be a conscious entity at all.

[Cal]

H'm.  Don't like following my own post directly, but I just had a thought.  We know the Anomaly maximises pain/suffering, right?  But does that mean it can't also do the low-level, Crowleyesque* layering of annoyance and stress onto the already stressed and annoyed?  Because it strikes me that that would be a really effective way to undermine the WTF.

Or, in other words, for this lot it's not just a perception that gammas manifest at times that pull them off holidays, upset plans and partners, and destroy relationships.  The Anomaly's actively out to cause them this sort of pain, because they're on its radar.  It's taking countermeasures--or just messing with their heads.

This, of course, implies that it is a conscious entity of some sort, which I'm still not convinced of.  But it's a thought.


*That's Crowley as in Good Omens, not the other one.

[dancing crow]

I think that is an interesting thought.

I had assumed that the nights and weekends were lost to TPTB making a more compelling story and pushing the characters harder. Plus, heroing is hard and thankless work, and it only makes sense that a lot of it happens outside work hours. Just like all terrifying sailing stories start "everything was fine until about 3 o'clock in the morning the wind started to pick up" -  the convention is that all the WTF stories start with a telephone and a bulging file folder.