Possessing super-senses can be super-problematic.
Many species try to get creative with their application of psikinetics to enhance their senses without first developing the mental tools to appropriately control them. They invariably end up driving themselves to abandon the effort lest they go mad and eventually die from sleep deprivation.
When properly controlled however, psikinetic enhanced senses render technological sensors almost redundant. For example, there’s no device that non-Rodinians could ever build to rival the eyes (outside of astronomy), ears, noses, mouths and skins of Rodinians and Nadrakians. It’s almost impossible to hide anything from such beings (unless you are one, capable of specific countermeasures).
Alongside the necessary mental tools however, there are social shifts required too. Environments must be designed around such beings, and people’s attitudes and actions also need to change. Below are some examples of what Rodinians refer to as ‘Good Sensory Hygiene and Etiquette’. Breaching these unspoken (and sometimes spoken) rules is viewed as being extremely rude and uncivilised, and depending on the level of disruption may also carry legal penalties.
The Second Skin
Learning to create the Second Skin is a key milestone in the early development of a Rodinian, usually taking place after their fourth year of life. The second skin is a region that’s usually two to five millimetres thick that completely envelopes the Rodinian, and which prevents the passage of unwanted entities. It’s created first as a conscious effort by the young Rodinian, and then eventually learned into their subconscious mind such that they no longer need to keep focusing on sustaining it.
The purpose of the second skin is mainly to stop the Rodinian’s own sounds and scents from escaping into their surroundings, and to prevent them from being battered by dirt and dust.
The Rodinian’s subconscious mind blocks the direct passage of almost everything moving outwards towards the barrier. Oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapour, nitrogen and argon (the contents of a standard Rodinian/Earth atmosphere) are exceptions. Beyond these, other molecules are unable to pass, and therefore the Rodinian’s scent is effectively masked. They can prune this slightly through meditative modification of how their soul subconsciously scans what tries to cross the barrier, and by doing so they can admit certain things through, such as a perfume, or even slightly weaken the second skin’s effect to allow a small percentage of additional molecules through, such as pheromones used in communication.
Sound waves with a direction across the barrier from the inside have the energy in their amplitude sapped away, which greatly diminishes the sound of the Rodinian’s own body as heard by other Rodinians.
The overall result is that Rodinians are able to prevent other Rodinians from hearing their heartbeat and bodily processes, and can mask their scent to varying degrees.
The barrier also blocks incoming material larger than a few microns, stopping a Rodinian’s skin from being pelted constantly by dust, bacteria and debris, which would severely irritate them. Air molecules, and sound waves moving across the barrier from the outside, are able to freely pass however.
The barrier doesn’t enhance their durability in any way as it’s not designed for that. It’s merely to protect their sense of touch, and protect the sense of hearing and smell in others. They can harden it a little in specific areas however if required, such as to stop rain from getting them wet, something splashing over them, or their own clothing from touching their skin. The reason why Rodinians are fairly minimalist with clothing is due to the irritation is can cause them, but the second skin helps in preventing this.
The second skin is often viewed as important to personal hygiene due to its ability to block dirt, debris and microorganisms. Given that most Rodinians seldom appear to wear much, if any, armour or clothing, it’s the second skin that keeps them from getting dirty from the environment.
Rodinians that don’t maintain their barrier are viewed as dirty, as well as inconsiderate in the way they force others to hear their heartbeats, their intestines, the blood flowing in their arteries, the movement of joints, etc. A Rodinian that allows this to happen is equivalent to a human that chews their food loudly, breathes loudly, flatulates, or makes other unpleasant noises with their body.
They also force others to pick up on their scent and pheromones when they fail to maintain the barrier. Whilst Rodinian scents are usually not too much of an issue for each other, it’s still viewed as improper to allow it to waft through the air uncontrolled. Such an act is reserved for private property, and is usually an intimate act. A Rodinian allowing their scent to be carried freely in a public place or without the acceptance of those in their presence is akin to a human walking around in their underwear in public; it’s inappropriate and verging on public indecency.
In a similar sense however, a Rodinian dropping their second skin is usually an act of intimacy reserved for being in the presence of a lover/lovers.
Communication
When it comes to communication, telepathy is the most accepted form.
It’s faster, able to convey information as quickly as the brain can create the corresponding thoughts. For Rodinian brains, this means a huge amount of information can be exchanged every moment (equivalent to a conversation of several thousand words taking place in microseconds, if required). It’s more succinct, able to bypass the approximations involved in converting a thought into vocabulary. And it’s also longer range, isn’t blocked by intervening obstacles and is very secure. Rodinians are able to have conversations among each other across interplanetary distances within a solar system (allowing for light-speed delay) whilst their enemies are none the wiser.
It’s also better in one other area: It’s quieter.
Among Rodinians, telepathy is the standard mode of communication, assisted with body language and facial expressions. Verbal communication, in addition to all its limitations contrasted above, is loud and grating to Rodinian ears that very much prefer quiet.
Rodinians that blabber vocally are viewed like a human that shouts in a public place that is calm and quiet, like a library.
If one were to visit Rodinia, it would be an eery place of near complete silence where people never seem to talk to one another vocally and instead mime facial expressions and body gestures to one another spontaneously. When emotions run high however, they can become quite verbal. Other circumstances where verbal communication is sometimes used is when socialising with friends, under the influence of recreational substances or alcohol, or during intimacy.
Mobility
Similar to how telepathy has replaced verbal communication, so too has psikinetic telekinesis replaced walking and running.
Being able to freely levitate and fly using reactionless impulse created using one’s own mind has its obvious advantages. One of the less obvious but no less treasured advantages is how quiet it can be. Rodinians generally elect to freely drift and fly through the air between destinations. This way, they don’t create thudding footsteps that could potentially upset another Rodinian trying to sleep nearby. It’s also useful when outside of Rodinia, as the places, infrastructure and constructions of non-Rodinians are fragile and can be destroyed simply by a Rodinian moving too hard or too fast without considerable restraint.
Care must be taken when travelling longer distances however. Given their telekinesis is based on reactionless psikinetics, Rodinians can accelerate extremely rapidly and reach very high speeds. This can lead to the creation of sonic booms and pressure shockwaves (even incandescent fire trails if moving fast enough in-atmosphere), which are treated as a public nuisance on Rodinia with potential legal penalties. Rodinians are required to first leave a planetary atmosphere before exceeding the speed of sound.
Touching Objects
Touching objects with their hands produces sound. The sound of someone’s fingertips brushing against something is potentially annoying to Rodinians. They therefore use their psikinetics almost exclusively to interact with the world. Lifting objects and interacting with them is done entirely mentally using their telekinesis to avoid creating unnecessary sound.
Rodinians who don’t do this, for whatever reason, are viewed as a nuisance – like a human fiddling with something noisy whilst other people are trying to concentrate or relax.
A brief note on clothing: In addition to the physical discomfort clothing can cause Rodinians in the form of skin irritation, where literally every individual fibre in the cloth can be felt, the sound of clothing rustling and fibres scraping can irritate other Rodinians (including the Rodinian wearing it). This is another reason why they are fairly light on clothing, and opt for fabrics that make the least amount of noise when the wearer moves.
Personal Hygiene
Personal hygiene is extremely important when everyone’s noses and mouths can smell and taste scents from miles away. To avoid embarrassment, Rodinians put a lot of time into making sure that they at the very least smell neutral in case their second skin ever briefly fails for whatever reason. The excessively long time spent with soaps, conditioners, moisturizers, perfumes and other beauty products isn’t just their vanity (although that is a large part of it too). They need to make sure that nothing emits an unpleasant odour whilst also making sure they don’t overdo it.
Failing to maintain good hygiene and potentially making other Rodinians smell unpleasant bodily aromas is a major faux pas, which will quickly lead to humiliation and ejection from public spaces. On the other hand, however, completely overdoing it with perfumes is also a bit of a faux pas as well, as no one wants their airways assaulted by a blast of chokingly powerful perfume.
Environmental Hygiene
The same goes for maintaining the cleanliness of public and personal spaces. If you imagine how bad food waste might smell on a hot summer day, then it’s unimaginably worse for a Rodinian who could likely be made physically ill by the smell. Rodinians therefore need to keep their homes and public spaces exceptionally clean. How clean? Imagine smelling something rotten all throughout the house, and hunting high and low only to find that it was a few crumbs of something that fell into some hard-to-reach space. That's basically the bar that has to be reached.
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