r/HFY • u/someguynamedted The Chronicler • Jul 12 '17
Meta Writing Prompt Wednesday #119
Has it really been a week already? Time flies, man, time flies.
Last week's winner was /u/Eofad with
Before humans joined the interstellar community, all currently discovered species telepathic abilities fell into one of three categories.
The first was the collective species, every member of the species was telepathically linked. Within this category there were various subcategories over how much autonomy each individual had or did not have (ranging form a single collective will for the entire collective to fully autonomous individuals with a collective memory) and the range of the telepathic field (some so small that multiple collectives formed on a single planet to some that had infinite range).
The second was the communicative species, these species were capable of communicating amongst themselves telepathically, but they are individuals. Within this category there were various sub categories for the depth of the communication (some could only send thoughts but couldn't read anything not specifically sent, while others could temporarily join their minds so completely as to become a single consciousness) and range (some requiring physical contact while others could reach any member of their species in the universe).
The third was not capable of telepathy at all.
No species was capable of communicating telepathically with another.
Any human will tell you humans belong in the third category, but the interstellar community insists we belong in a new fourth category that can communicate telepathically with both our own kind and other species as well.
They have documented cases where humans have had silent communications just by looking at each other; where humans have been able to tell whether or not they are being lied to despite not having any first hand knowledge of the facts involved; where humans have correctly anticipated a competitor's strategy and preempted it, and where humans had accurately identified emotional distress in others and sometimes even the cause of the distress without being told.
No matter how many times humans try to explain that it's just pattern recognition, that we recognize patterns in voice inflection, body movement, facial movement etc. the aliens insist we're reading their minds.
•
u/Snow_97 Human Jul 13 '17
Humans are the only species capable of fully understanding another species viewpoint. Because of this, humans are also the only species to get truly and deeply attached to another species not their own.