deadly empathy

Hi.  This article is about a mass extinction triggered by infants in lethal pain.  It was hard to write, so I understand if it might be too hard to read.

Most mobile animals in the world exhibit hydrotropic sense to some degree. Social animals in particular tend to mirror the auras around them. Aura resonance is strongest in infancy--a baby has no more control of its aura than it does any other part of its body, and cannot dampen the sensations it emits or receives. Such strong aura resonance results in immediate bonding to its parents, and encourages swift attention to its needs.
The risk of such intense aura interaction is that an infant suffering extreme pain might incapacitate nearby adults, preventing them from providing help. This rarely occurs for two reasons: first, the size difference between them results in a smaller response in the adult; second, mature auras have damping mechanisms that reduce the intensity of echoed pain. However, that does not mean that a deadly empathy reaction is impossible. Until they learn to control their auras, infants pose the greatest danger to each other.

Ocean Extinction

Runaway aura resonance was responsible for the most precipitous extinction event in the planet's history, 25 million years ago. It was triggered by two cetacean calves, born almost at the same time, who both had a mutation that caused a deadly hypersensitivity to water (a condition similar to neonatal collapse). The trauma resonance from their deaths cascaded fatally through the other newborn calves in the pod, increasing in intensity with each victim. The multiplied pain overwhelmed the adult auras and triggered the same sympathetic reaction in the nearest mothers, amplifying it further. The sudden destruction of an entire birthing pod resulted in a shock wave radiating through the whole ocean basin, causing the same fatal reaction in every susceptible organism in its path.

The Aftermath

When the empathy shock wave had run its course, almost all sentient ocean-based life was destroyed. Plants, single-celled organisms, and sessile animals were unaffected in the short term, but the sudden disruption of ecosystems ocean-wide caused further species extinction.

The shock wave did not penetrate into rivers, and over time some freshwater species have migrated into coastal ocean waters.

Because aura sensations are transmitted poorly through air, land-based animals were not directly affected. However, some species that depended on the ocean as a food source died out.

View from the future

Three notable species exist in the world's modern timeframe whose ocean-based ancestors escaped the extinction:

1. Before their symbiosis with armor organisms, the chok were cephalopods with a mild distaste for water, ambushing prey from hiding places in rock crevices. Their lack of water affinity made them invulnerable to the empathy shockwave.


2. The deeps-dweller is a shallow-water descendant of sessile chemotrophs living around deep-ocean vents. Because they obtained their nutrition from the vent seeps, they had not developed water sensitivity to detect prey, and escaped harm.


3. The ancestors of the tkevsas lived in the water most of their lives, but spent time on land seasonally. They had a slight precognition ability that gave them just enough warning of danger to swarm onto the nearest land in time to save their lives. To this day, tkevsas are convinced the ocean wants to kill them.