Overload
Transmission & Vectors
Overload is a condition that only occurs in Zanth Shifters.
Causes
Shifters are born with the ability to access their Overload condition in order to amplify their already formidable psionic abilities. It is a condition that only Shifters can access.
Symptoms
There are several stages to Overload, each harder to control that the last, but each exponentially stronger than the last, as well.
When a Shifter enters Overload, the first stage manifests as the fur of the Shifter standing on end. There is also a slight electric tingle in the air around them. At this stage the Overload is easily manageable, the Shifter is still in relatively complete control. Their psionic abilities are also minimally boosted with minor effects being done without much thought, and more complicated actions requiring only a minimal investiture of concentration. The neural load is considered to be quite low. A deep breath and a clearing of thoughts is all it usually takes to restore emotional control.
At the next stage static dischages can be seen between individual hair in the fur, and the smell of ozone is noticeable, but not overpowering. The Shifter is emotionally charged now, and Overload is in full effect. This is the furthest a Shifter needs to take it in order to secure most people's cooperation, including that of hardened enemies like Sergal. The physical manifestations alone practically guarantee their cooperation. However, should more be needed, a Shifter at this stage of Overload can crush almost anything, including traditionally unbreakable things like hardened diamonds, with a mere thought. The emotional strain isn't much different from an adrenaline rush, and can be made to pass just as fast with several deep breathes and a few recitations of their personal mantras.
When pushed into stage 3 Overload, a Shifter is now becoming wildly emotionally unstable. Static discharges become more intense, small objects around them telekineticly rise into the air unbidden, and the smell of ozone and the taste of electricity is sharp in the air. There is also a heavy, humid, oppressive quality to the atmosphere around the Shifter at this point. When they actively use their psionic powers, the effects are magnified by several orders of magnitude. With a casual thought they can collapse buildings, destroy fast moving fighter craft or crush smaller space vessels. Coming back from this is difficult, and requires the Shifter to employ active emotional containment techniques, meditative acts that separate the Shifter's mind and body so that the hormonal influences can be contained.
The typically final stage of Overload is widely considered to be unrecoverable. The Shifter has actual lightning arcing off of them, the atmosphere is positively electrified, and they are a true horror to look up for the sheer power they are casting off. Their psionic abilities are similarly off the charts, as well. Nothing seems to be beyond their abilities; not containing a drive singularity, not halting a runaway intrinsic field collapse, and not crushing moons, small planets, and large capital ships on a whim.
Their emotional state is so compromised at this point that the only way anyone has ever come back from it was to have their mind and body forcibly disconnected from one another by unavoidable death. The Shifter was revived, but the damage it wreaked on his body took its toll, and he was never able to reach that level of Overload again.
The entire reason this condition is called Overload is because once at this stage, the feedback loop of psionic power coursing through their body begins to convert the body for fuel. Eventually there isn't enough left to control the power and it releases in one massive explosion. The devastation from this kind of explosion is both physical and psychic, destroying objects, sections of planets and even small areas of space completely so that not even ash is left, and destroying anyone caught in the explosion some completely that they don't even leave a psychic imprint. The only thing that remains is a black energy scar that radiates the pain and emotional trauma that was afflicting the Shifter when they detonated.
Treatment
Shifters are trained from the moment they hatch in techniques and methods of controlling their psionic abilities. They undergo meditation, are taught mantras and simple phrases they can use to block out stimuli, and basically have to endure what would seem, on the surface, to be a very structured and "unfun" childhood.
After the initial techniques have been implanted and the conditioning is reflexive, more active techniques to handle situations as they come up are taught. All of this is on top of the martial and educational training that Shifters receive for their role as Agents of the Throne.
Prognosis
Overload is a terminal condition for most Shifters. The galaxy is riddled with Scars from where Shifters have used their abilities to save others at the expense of their own lives. Their willingness to do so is what makes a Shifter the weapon they are trained to be. While they don't seek to die by Overload, every Shifter has no choice but to accept it as a possible, and even probable, eventuality.
Cultural Reception
Shifters are feared and respected in the Empire because of their condition. When a Shifter arrives on the scene and tells the populace to evacuate, no one needs to ask why or how far. The only concern for authorities at that point is getting everyone in the immediate to a safe distance, preferably in high orbit.
Outside the Empire, Shifters are greeted with fear and alarm. Those who have encountered their Scars and lived through the immediate experience report feeling pain, anger, fear, and stress like nothing they had ever thought was possible. The weight of it was so great that none of those who experienced it survived longer than a few days after reporting their experiences; they all commited suicide.
Consequently, everyone gives wide berth to the them when they show up somewhere. As stated before, even the traditionally homicidal and psychopathic Sergal think twice about engaging a Shifter, enraged or not.
The Obsidians are not unaware of this, and so they use their Shifter offspring only in the most dire of situations. They have no desire to see them destroyed, but they realize that such may be their fate and they hope and pray that the Mother doesn't take theirs to her bosom.
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