Orogeny

Orogeny is the ability to manipulate thermal and kinetic energy to impact seismic events within the Earth. Humans who possessed this ability are known as orogenes, and practice orogeny through the use of their sessipinae. Orogenes would derogatorily refer to humans who could not practice orogeny as stills.

## Origins

The ability of humans to practice orogeny appeared to originate with the Shattering. Prior to this, humans were aware of and harnessed Father Earth's magic to power their civilization. They attempted to further this goal by the creation of genetically engineered humans called tuners, whose purpose was to use the obelisks to further harness Father Earth's magic. These tuners possessed the first sessipinae, and independently developed orogeny as a means of rebellion once it became clear to them that their creators intended to murder and dispose of them once their task was complete. Hoa and Antimony were two of the original tuners. Following the shattering, their orogenic abilities passed to the surviving human populations, albeit in a less potent form.

By the time of the Rifting, orogenic ability was a recessive genetic trait that could be passed down from either parent, meaning orogenic children could be born to non-orogenic parents (as Damaya was), although a pairing of orogenes would be far more likely to do so. The Fulcrum ran a selective breeding program to produce orogenes of phenomenal power, ostensibly to maintain a population quota, serve the Empire, and provide node maintainers. Alabaster and his children were such products of that program. He further speculated that one of the Fulcrum's covert goals was the use of this breeding program to gain control of the Empire, though this was not achieved before the Rifting.

## Use and Effects

Orogeny allowed orogenes to manipulate thermodynamic forces at a quantum level at will. Essentially, they could control and redirect kinetic energy within the earth's crust using only instinct, thought, and effort. However, in keeping with the laws of thermodynamics, this manipulation caused the redistribution of any displaced energy. For example, if an orogene sessed and stopped an earthquake, the energy used to do that would need to come from another source; namely, the heat and pressure from the surrounding substrata deep within the crust, or even living things. As all energy eventually degrades into heat, the use of orogeny usually produced a torus, an area of extreme cold surrounding the practitioner. This cold spot leeched heat energy so completely that contact with it was enough to flash freeze nearly anything, making toruses extremely dangerous, even lethal. Depending on the orogene's skill and control, a torus could expand far beyond the immediate vicinity. This danger--especially of untrained orogenes accidentally or maliciously "icing" people or property--led both to stills' prejudice & hatred towards orogenes, and the Empire banning all non-Fulcrum orogeny on pain of comm expulsion. This, however, did nothing to stop mobs of stills from reflexively murdering any orogenes discovered in their midst. Torus formation was instinctive, although accomplished/trained orogenes could (and often did, when threatened) resort to the use of a torus as a defensive and offensive weapon.

Magic played a fundamental role in orogeny. As an orogene's skill and control grew, they were more likely to be able to sess and manipulate magic.