Hokay, lemme splain.
My previous post was cryptic to folks unfamiliar with 30-year-old quirky science fiction. Heee. Sorry, sorry.
Here's the wikipedi entry for the 'verse itself. Not a lot of detail. Lemme elucidate a bit.
This future setting is basically a vampire spin-off. In it, humanity has split into two types: Simes and Gens. It's all about a substance called selyn, which is the blood equivalent in this vampiric setting: selyn is a life-giving substance. Gens produce it, Simes don't. Gens look like regular humans; Simes have a set of tentacles on each arm, geared to taking selyn from Gens.
When babies are born, they're neutral, neither Sime nor Gen. They produce selyn but at a very, very low rate. When children hit puberty, called Changeover, they become either one or the other, and there's no real way to know which way they'll go.
Gens are physically larger than Simes, usually. Simes counter this by being terrifyingly fast and strong. Historically Simes have kept stables of Gens, for sustenance. The process of taking selyn was deeply traumatic for the Gen, and their terror produced a very predatory response in Simes; Gens did not survive the experience. So naturally, free Gens hid away in enclaves, terrified of all Simes. And Simes, in turn, tended to see Gens as basically cattle -- uneducated, uncivilized, etc.
The Sime-run House of Zeor began to change that with the concept of Sime channels and Gen companions. Channels were specially trained Simes who were able to give selyn to other Simes; companions were (originally) wild Gens who didn't fear Simes as much, were able to contain that fear response, and give a moderate amount of selyn to a channel Sime.
Not an easy transition, but necessary -- one novel, Zelerod's Doom, details the theory that eventually the world will run out of Gens, and then all the Simes will die, too. Sort of a Malthusian dilemma. So channels and companions are the only feasible solution to the problem.
ANYWAY. That's a very general overview of the 'verse. HTH!!
Here's the wikipedi entry for the 'verse itself. Not a lot of detail. Lemme elucidate a bit.
This future setting is basically a vampire spin-off. In it, humanity has split into two types: Simes and Gens. It's all about a substance called selyn, which is the blood equivalent in this vampiric setting: selyn is a life-giving substance. Gens produce it, Simes don't. Gens look like regular humans; Simes have a set of tentacles on each arm, geared to taking selyn from Gens.
When babies are born, they're neutral, neither Sime nor Gen. They produce selyn but at a very, very low rate. When children hit puberty, called Changeover, they become either one or the other, and there's no real way to know which way they'll go.
Gens are physically larger than Simes, usually. Simes counter this by being terrifyingly fast and strong. Historically Simes have kept stables of Gens, for sustenance. The process of taking selyn was deeply traumatic for the Gen, and their terror produced a very predatory response in Simes; Gens did not survive the experience. So naturally, free Gens hid away in enclaves, terrified of all Simes. And Simes, in turn, tended to see Gens as basically cattle -- uneducated, uncivilized, etc.
The Sime-run House of Zeor began to change that with the concept of Sime channels and Gen companions. Channels were specially trained Simes who were able to give selyn to other Simes; companions were (originally) wild Gens who didn't fear Simes as much, were able to contain that fear response, and give a moderate amount of selyn to a channel Sime.
Not an easy transition, but necessary -- one novel, Zelerod's Doom, details the theory that eventually the world will run out of Gens, and then all the Simes will die, too. Sort of a Malthusian dilemma. So channels and companions are the only feasible solution to the problem.
ANYWAY. That's a very general overview of the 'verse. HTH!!