It was hard to keep a straight face during the funeral scene...it was done so well it was emotionally draining.

Daniel certainly did the right thing in the end, though I wonder if he's really ready for what's coming next.

And...I still say Victor needs to have a plethora of sinister things done to him, but that's just me :D

Certainly an emotional rollercoaster of an episode.

I can imagine the next one being quite entertaining. I'm growing to like the duo of Evan/Eva, some rather interesting ideas come from them :)

I'd have to agree with Outcast, Victor needs to be "punished" >:)

Actually...

I kind of had this sussed a while back.  You have to admit that we had all the clues well before this.

The only question in my mind, now, is how the Hive hadn't thought of it before?  They could nearly double their number of "fertile wombs"...  perhaps a few less if they gave the guys a choice about the matter.  :)

I can see a second generation of this story where the protagonist needs to ESCAPE the tyranny of the breeding cell rather than break into it...

> The only question in my mind, now, is how the Hive hadn't thought of it before?
I blame cultural inertia. How many perfectly logical, utterly sensible ideas have never caught on because people weren't comfortable with them, or because "that's not the way we do things"? We Americans can't even agree to adopt the metric system, and that's a much smaller change than what Eva's proposing!

Most psis see themselves as the natural progression of human evolution; they are, in essence, "more human than human", since no other race even has the potential to develop psi abilities (unless you count a few rare individuals among the mixed races that have some human blood). Most of the Psi Collective's members do not have families that originated within the boundaries of the Curse; even if they came to Metamor later, most of them don't have the family traditions that would see the Curse as a normal or desirable lifestyle choice. No doubt there ARE telepathic androgynes, but they probably came from families that had a heritage of it long before they manifested psi powers.

Daniel is not unique because he might soon become an androgyne, but because he made that choice for the express purpose of "rigging" the Collective's system. Maybe others have thought of it and haven't had the guts to go through with it, or maybe he's the first teep with the right mix of desperation and outside contacts. But somebody had to be the first one to try it, and Daniel is that guy -- which is part of why I'm telling his story. :)

> I can see a second generation of this story where the protagonist needs
> to ESCAPE the tyranny of the breeding cell rather than break into it...

Heheh. :) Well, you never know. As we've seen with Josephine, the Hive isn't above manipulating people to try to get them to do what it believes is best for them...

I was suprised by this twist. So didnt see it coming AT ALL!!!!

Say no to the Hive!

LOL :)

I must say I was blind sided as well, in a good way of course. My reaction can best be characterized as, at first, oh no you are not going there, followed by, yes he is!


What I am anticipating most is the reaction from his old school mates. I am also curious to see who gets to deflower the new Daniel. That is if he actually goes through with this.


I am pulling for Daniel to come through the rest of the aftermath unscathed. Aside from the looming sex change crises. Not sure if that is possible though. Seems to me that as he moves back into the Hive life, surrounded by telepaths, his secret is bound to come out, and, well, blow up in his face. I hope this does not happen, but I do not foresee a happy ending for our hero.

I agree.  If he joins the larger community, theywill find out at the next gestalt, and then oops, one dead Daniel.  He should look for a way to turn his telepathy of so he could date none psis. though this might begin a new trend if more of the psis were part of the cursed community and had friends who weren't normal in diffrent ways maybe they wouldn't have such a persecution complex.

plus, why do the psis call everyone who isn't asay a mundane? I thought that word was for vanilla humans.  Are psis only humans or do other races have members with versions of the same power?

> He should look for a way to turn his telepathy of so he could date none psis.

That would be an interesting, difficult choice, if it were possible. For better or worse, though, there is no way to turn off psychic ability, and the Collective has sabotaged any research program they ever found out about that sought a way to neutralize psis. That's one reason why they're so concerned about the vamps' involvement with that nanopixie research lab -- the Collective figures that an anti-psi virus would be a prime weapon the vamps would be interested in developing.

> though this might begin a new trend if more of the psis were part of
the cursed
> community and had friends who weren't normal in diffrent
ways maybe they
> wouldn't have such a persecution complex.

Definitely a possibility... :)

> plus, why do the psis call everyone who isn't a psi a mundane?
> I thought that word was for vanilla humans.

*nods* Mages and most other members of the supernatural community use "mundane" to refer to only vanilla humans. The psis, however, see themselves as an evolutionary leap above ALL non-psis, and thus use the term more broadly to refer to anyone who isn't a spooky. I intend to address the difference in terminology sometime when I have teeps and mages actually working closely enough for it to come up; for now, though, it's just a small, subtle indicator of the psis' feelings of superiority.

> Are psis only humans or do other races have members with versions of the same power?

Only humans (or half-breeds with human blood) can be psis.  The trait hasn't evolved in any of the other species, either because the right genes aren't there or because they don't have a short enough time between generations for the genes to have coalesced into the right combination. It is known that humans -- and only humans -- can spontaneously develop psi abilities if exposed to very intense levels of life-aspected mana, so there may just be some innate potential in humanity that doesn't exist in dragons, Elves, lutins, or the other intelligent races.

Of course, the other species have their own tricks: dragons have an innate talent for sorcery, Elves are very resistant to enchantments and transmutation magic, and lutins have a shamanistic power that connects them to animals and the spirits of the land. Some of these powers have found their way into human bloodlines because of cross-breeding, but humans would never have attained these abilities on their own.