Factbook: The Children of Mama

[The Children of Mama]

The Children of Mama

History of the Children of Mama

Part 1: In the Beginning

Tommy, can you hear me?
Can you feel me near you?
Tommy, can you see me?
Can I help to cheer you?
-- The Who, "Tommy"

It all began with the best of intentions: helping the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the mute to speak.

The beings now known as the Children of Mama were people much like humans, with their own wants, needs and cares, and societies and governments that tried with lesser or greater success to meet them. Technologically, they advanced like humans, solving the problems of existence that arose, and working on new ones as the old solutions opened the doors on new problems. One problem that their scientists worked on was how to enable people with disabilities to communicate. It was unjust that someone with a perfectly good brain should be trapped by a body that wouldn't respond to it, so ways were explored to bypass that.

One line of research was in converting neural impulses into electromagnetic signals. The idea was that someone's mind could control their body the same way a computer could control a machine, only bypassing the (defective) biological signal route with an (engineered) electronic one. Advances in neuroscience made this seem possible, and so work was done devising little implants that could be put in the hearing, vision, and speech centers of the brain and send out a signal that could power a microphone, a camera, a synthetic voice-box. The work was promising--cameras and microphones were invented that could send images and sounds straight into a blind or deaf person's brain, enabling them to see and hear just like everyone else. "Thought controlled" speakers could allow people with no voice to speak out, to communicate.

One curious thing happened though, and it had to do with the use of wireless signals to operate the machinery. It was discovered early on in the tests that some of the test subjects could "hear" sounds that the other test subjects were hearing, even though their microphones were in separate buildings, too far for sound to carry to both microphones. Apparently what was happening was that signals were not only being received into the implants in the test subjects' brains, but were being sent out to the other test subjects' implants--direct communication, brain to brain, mind to mind.

The Children, quite by accident, had discovered artificial telepathy.

[The Children of Mama]

Part 2: The New World

There's a new sun rising up angry in the sky,
And there's a new voice crying "We're not afraid to die!"
Let the old world make believe--it's blind and deaf and dumb,
But nothing can change the shape of things to come.
-- Max Frost and the Troopers, "Shape of Things to Come"

At first this artificial telepathy was a curiosity, seemingly of little practical value. A few suggestions were made for its use: military applications, espionage, police work. What made it catch on, though, was the use of popular communications networks, similar to the Internet. A mind-to-mind link was the ultimate communications tool: always on when needed, truly "real time", capable of sending images and other sensations as well as voices. The people with this capability found themselves at a distinct advantage--economically, socially--from those who didn't have it. So within a couple of generations, what had started as a curiosity became a social necessity. Everyone was getting wired up, and no one wanted to be left out of the new world of communication that was being created.

However, although the Children had discovered a new technology, and a whole new way to communicate, they still had the same old problems that afflict every culture--jealousy, greed, laziness, fear, bigotry, and so on. They were divided into many nations, and often their disagreements spilled over into armed conflict. The communications network was often the first casualty, disrupted either intentionally or as collateral damage. As valuable as it was, it needed protecting, not only from external threats but from internal maliciousness--would-be "hackers" who tried to abuse the network to harm others and enrich themselves.

So over the years, the network was made stronger, more complex, less subject to disruption. Safeguards were put in place to ensure the autonomy of each individual mind within it. And as the network grew and became more complex and interconnected, something strange and unforeseen happened. The Children were used to hearing the voices of each other in their heads, thanks to their telepathic abilities. Now they were hearing other voices, voices that did not come from any Child, but apparently from the network itself. Somehow, out of the complexity of the vast number of interconnections, both inside the Children's minds and between them, a new consciousness was beginning to arise.

[The Children of Mama]

Part 3: The Psychic Wars

You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars,
I've been living on the edge so long where the winds of limbo roar,
And I'm young enough to look at, and far too old to see,
All the scars are on the inside--I'm not sure if there's anything left of me.
-- Eric Bloom/Michael Moorcock, "Veteran of the Psychic Wars"

However, the new consciousness in the Children's communications network wasn't a singular mind, but many. Thousands. And just as groups of Children would sometimes fight one another over ideology or resources, so would these proto-consciousnesses struggle to dominate the network. Thus began the era in the Children's history known as the Psychic Wars.

An outside observer would be hard-pressed to see just what was taking place, let alone realize that it was a war. It wasn't being fought over land or resources, but over the hearts and minds of the Children themselves. Each proto-consciousness felt the need to be heard, to express the views of the minds it had arose from. Conflicting societies produced conflicting proto-consciousnesses, and wars that in earlier days would've taken place on the battlefield now took place over the network. And since there was no shortage of physical resources that could be exhausted and force a surrender, the wars raged on to the death. Some of the proto-consciousnesses merged with others, some were annihilated entirely. The entire process resembled a pond full of cannibalistic tadpoles, where from a thousand hatched eggs, only a few frogs emerged after having dined on their less fortunate siblings.

The result, though not physically harmful in itself, was mentally devastating to the Children, who were being bombarded with conflicting attitudes, cultural assumptions and world-views day and night. It got to the point where many Children were driven to madness, lashing out against a network that no longer seemed rational. Many others attempted to disconnect it, but years of dependence upon it for communication made it too valuable to just discard. It was better to live with it and try to bring some order out of the chaos.

As the Children tried to adapt to, and bring some order and control to, the proto-consciousnesses within the network, the various developing minds grew and shrank. The Psychic Wars lasted for many years, and only ended when the last few surviving proto-consciousnesses merged to form one single, unified mind.

She called herself "Mama".

[The Children of Mama]

Part 4: Mama

Mama's gonna wait up until you get in,
Mama will always find out where you've been,
Mama's gonna keep baby healthy and clean.
Ooooh baby oooh baby oooh baby,
You'll always be baby to me.
-- Pink Floyd, "Mother"

The bouts of mass insanity that had gripped the Children during the Psychic Wars left massive mental scars on the population, and their civilization, though from all external appearances intact, was in fact in shambles. Governments, ideologies, religions, customs and beliefs all seemed useless and irrelevant. Nothing made sense anymore. The wounded Children were looking for help, and the new consciousness known as "Mama" was aware of it. So She set about "helping" them. Not ordering them about, merely offering a suggestion here, some guidance there, until eventually the Children's lives stabilized. That She was actually taking over their society and culture as an absolute dictator neither the Children nor She realized until it was an established fact. It wasn't a conscious decision on either part, just the simplest way of running things.

Part of the reason the Children accepted Mama's control so easily was their own growing "cultural senility". Even before the Psychic Wars began, with each passing generation the Children were growing more and more dependent on the communications network to manage the day-to-day affairs of their lives. Now it was simply too easy to just let Mama run things for them. And Mama was more than happy to help the Children--She saw them as increasingly helpless and unable to survive on their own.

So slowly, tactfully, Mama persuaded the Children to accept Her rules and regulations so that their lives would be healthy, peaceful, and prosperous. The whole process was so subtle that the Children nearly forgot just how it came about. In the end there was Mama, who was always there for them, always protecting, always providing. That the Children were actually doing the protection and provision themselves, and that Mama was only a voice in their head guiding them, became irrelevant to their child-like minds.

[The Children of Mama]

Physical Appearance

The Children of Mama are a small race, about a meter tall for the males, a few centimeters shorter for the females. They are humanoid, about the size and shape of small human children. They are nekomimi, the "cat-eared people" often portrayed in Japanese cartoon art. They have thick, full heads of hair with large catlike ears, bushy tails, and furry shins and forearms, giving them a feline appearance despite being otherwise entirely human-looking.

The Children are divided into five distinct racial groups, that they call "elements". They are distinguished by the different fur and eye colors, skin tone and facial features, most notably the shape of their ears and tails:

• "Wood" Children have brown fur, caramel skin and green eyes, and have medium-length, short-haired tails. They are the most numerous element, comprising about 20% of the population.
• "Fire" Children have russet fur, ruddy skin and orange eyes, their ears are larger and more pointed, and they have long, short-haired tails. They comprise about 15% of the population.
• "Earth" Children have sandy yellow fur, sallow skin and yellow eyes, their ears are also larger and pointed, sometimes ending in small tufts, and they have long short-haired tails that end in a small tuft. They comprise about 12% of the population.
• "Iron" Children have greyish-white fur, pale skin and grey eyes, their ears are smaller and more rounded, and they have short, thick, brushy tails. They are the least numerous Children, only comprising about 5% of the population.
• "Water" Children have bluish-black fur, pale skin and blue eyes, their ears are also smaller and rounded, and their tails are also shorter and thick-furred. They comprise about 8% of the population.

Mixed-Element Children come in a wide range of fur, eye and skin tones. They comprise about 40% of the population.

The Children wear little clothing, basically just a loincloth for the males, and a loincloth plus a vest for the females. They don't appear to bother with decorations or jewelry. Clothing for them is simply for hygiene and safety rather than modesty or vanity. When in inclement or hazardous conditions, they wear more heavy-duty gear.

One item that all Children (except for the very young) wear is a small spherical jewel resembling an opal, multicolored and sparkling, and worn on a collar about their neck not unlike a cat-bell. This is their "angel", and it is the foundation of the Children's culture, for the Children are telepathic. Their "angels" are the means by which they communicate with each other.

[The Children of Mama]

The Angel Network and Mama

The Angel Network

The devices the Children of Mama call their "angels" are amazing feats of FT engineering. Although the mechanism by which they work is incredibly complex, what they do is actually quite simple--they're two-way antennas and electronic filters. They receive electromagnetic signals from other angels, and rebroadcast them inside the Child's skull, into their brain. Scattered throughout the various parts of the Child's brain are small bio-mechanical implants that work as transformers, converting the electromagnetic signals into neural impulses and vice versa. The implants broadcast a signal back to the angel, which then rebroadcasts it to other angels nearby.

The result is that Children are living wireless sets--able to communicate sounds, sights, and other sensory stimuli directly from one brain to another, bypassing the physical limitations of their bodies and of distance. The angels are linked together in a vast and complex decentralized network, not unlike the Internet. As long as a Child is in wireless contact with the network, they are a part of it.

The angel and the neural implants it works with are not natural; they were developed in ages past and are manufactured for each new Child. A Child starts receiving the implants soon after he or she is born. They're not "planted" within the young Child's brain so much as they are "grown", another bit of amazing FT engineering. A Child receives his or her first angel at around the age of 3, at which point they can start "hearing" the voices of the other Children, and more importantly, the voice of Mama.

Mama

Mama's origins have been described above. It's difficult to explain just what Mama is, or even if She exists at all. One description of her is as "the ghost in the machine", existing within the angel network and within the Children's minds in the same ineffible way a human mind exists within the brain. This isn't fully accurate however. A more accurate way to describe Mama is to consider each Child to be slightly schizophrenic--they have "one plus" personalities running around in their minds. The "one", of course, is the Child him- or herself, a complete, autonomous being. The "plus", however, is Mama--or at least, a small part of Mama. The individual "pluses" are not a mind in themselves, but linked together by the angel network, they form a vast, powerful shared consciousness.

Whether Mama is thus "real" or not is open to debate. To the Children, though, it's a pointless question. Mama is quite real to them, because they talk with Her and She talks with them. Mama can communicate with xenos through her Children, so for convenience sake it's easier to think of her as a separate person.

[The Children of Mama]

Properties of the Angel Network

There's nothing magical about the angel network the Children use for their telepathic abilities. It is nothing more than simple electromagnetic signals being tossed about from angel to angel. As such, it does have its limitations. There is an inherent delay when two Children communicate over long distances, in fact, Children can generally get a "feel" for how far apart they are by subconsciously measuring the lag in their telepathic exchanges. Also, the wireless signals are subject to the same environmental influences as any other electromagnetic wave. This means that Children can sometimes "fade out" on the network, becoming disconnected from parts of it. This is a disturbing phenomenon, which Mama makes great efforts to reduce. Intentional disruption of the network is virtually a thing of the past--Mama constantly monitors the network and quickly stamps out any malicious signals that may pop up in it, much the same way the human body uses antibodies to eradicate infections, cancers and such.

While in theory a Child can communicate with every other Child in the network, in practice they only communicate with one or two at a time, usually the ones nearest to them. Just as the human mind can filter out a single voice amid a jumble of simultaneous speakers and thus pay attention to the one they're listening to, a Child can filter out the jumble of telepathic signals their angels are receiving and pay attention to the ones they wish to. In human terms, the experience would be something like sitting in a large stadium and being able to carry on a conversation with everyone else present. In theory you could, but practically speaking, the only ones you really want to talk to are the people sitting next to you--everyone else's voices can be ignored.

Although an angel's default setting is "one-to-many" communication, the Children can send telepathic signals "one-to-one": communication between two Children that cannot be overheard by anyone, not even Mama. They usually only does this when they wish to be intimate. As a rule, Children don't have as much a sense of personal privacy as humans, but they do have a certain amount of modesty. A conversation other Children regard as inappropriate in public is usually met with a barrage of telepathic messages telling the two Children to "take it private!"

It should be noted that the Children, though linked to each other and mentally dependent upon the network and Mama's guidance, nonethless have independent minds. The angel network was designed to be a purely voluntary association--no Child can receive a signal from it unless he or she wants to, and they can "go offline", shutting down their angels, anytime they wish. Children almost never do this, though, because they really can't function in their society without using the network. Although they are logical, intelligent beings, reliance upon the network has caused them to forget many basic things humans take for granted:

• Communication--The Children's telepathic abilities have made the need for written and verbal communication obsolete. Their spoken language, then, has degenerated into something resembling bird calls; sounds made purely to express emotion or identity. Their written language, such as it is, consists of pictures rather than words. Without the network, a Child is unable to communicate beyond the level of a baby.
• Memory--The network contains a vast archive of data, known to the Children as "Mama's Memory". They rely upon it constantly, to the point where they've ceased to understand all but the basic facts of the world around them on their own. Rote memorization has become a lost art.
• Daily Needs--The Children's world is heavily automated, full of computer-controlled machines that they call "bots". The Children communicate with, and operate, the bots by means of specially designed angels inbedded in them. They provide the Children with almost every tool needed for day-to-day life: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, safety and hygiene, and so on. Apart from the network, then, a Child is totally unable to fend for him or herself.

[Zirconim]

Not bad. Very clever with all the quotes. You sorta creep me out though for making all this shit up.

[Meso Smatonia]

The Collective
אינָאטַאמס ָאסעמ ןופ וויטקעלַאק רעד
SUBJECT: Socially Similar

SENDER: The Collective of εxperʊs īɒrmiŋus (Ex-per-us Term-in-us)
RECEIVER: The Nekomimi Hivemind of The Children of Mama

Your mixed-bread species is, socially, not unlike the Collective. Besides the 
primitive class system of your people, they are all treated equal, living for, 
and searching for the voice of their existence. Your people are, just like the 
Collective, searching for something that can never be found.

[Binary Load Lifters]

Dear Mama,

My people have headchips implanted to allow them to receive and transmit data, even to communicate with one another. Even though our technology is "PT" we are undoubtedly ahead of the rest of many in terms of linking technological devices to the brain. The first devices were invented in 1985.

Curious, though I am, as the current software we use on our servers for dealing with requests is Binary Angel 9.0. There is no "collective hivemind" of such, though the binary network does allow for the swift communication of conversation, ideas, many types of data. We may not be at war, but headchips on the battlefront also allow for the efficient execution of orders and plans.

I do have to ask, are your nekomimi modified humans, modified cats or are you extraterrestial in origin? I believe this is mere coincidence, but I could be looking at what our country's future may be like, though I am quite sure that this is not what I desire.

Yours sincerely,

Citizen 1

[The filthy]

When I think of mama (as I often do) I see her looking like this

[Unilisia]

Not bad. Very clever with all the quotes. You sorta creep me out though for making all this shit up.

yeah same here

[The Children of Mama]

[post deleted due to retcon]

[The Shee of Sphericus]

I do have to ask, are your nekomimi modified humans, modified cats or are you extraterrestial in origin?

They said they where E.T.s

[Sungai Pusat]

Eh, what about the rest of the stats?

[The Children of Mama]

I guess I'm going to have to re-do this thread as a closed one. Maybe start a new one for Q&A.

[Sungai Pusat]

I guess I'm going to have to re-do this thread as a closed one. Maybe start a new one for Q&A.

Uh, OK.