Common Atlan Powers

I’ve talked before about Atlans having certain Powers. I think I’ve even mentioned that Atlans knew how to train their daughters because each combination of hair color, eye color and birthmark designates a particular Power.

But, there are other Powers that all Atlans have, to some degree. I thought I’d explain those to you. But remember, these Common Powers do not occur in the same strength in all Atlans. One may have nearly unlimited ability in Deception, while her sister can barely change the color of her hair. In a related vein, the Atlan who can make herself look like a crowd might be barely able to move a blade of grass with Levitation.

Deception – This is the skill to make others see you differently than you actually are. Perhaps they see you with brown hair and different clothes, or a different age or gender. Some Atlans have so little ability at Deception, they can barely change the color of their hair or the shape of their nose. Others have so much, they can make others see a crowd, and she would be the aged old man in the middle of that crowd.

Levitation – As you might expect, this is the ability to raise and/or move objects using only the mind. This ability ranges from barely being able to make a blade of grass wave in a breeze, to being able to lift a boulder the size of a hut a foot off the ground. There are very few Atlans whose power of Levitation is at either extreme; most Atlans must experiment to find their limit.

Telepathy – You are probably familiar with the ability to talk mind to mind. While all Atlans can do it, they can only do it with other Atlans. The typical woman can speak – briefly – with one particular sister Atlan at a distance of about half a mile. If that same woman needs to sound an alarm, she can ‘broadcast’ to every Atlan within about 2 miles. The two extremes include the inability to touch minds with a particular sister, and even when she ‘broadcasts’, she must rely on the stronger abilities of another Atlan to hear the alarm and send it out again.

These Common Powers are a source of comfort to all Atlans. No matter what their specialty is, these non-specialty powers unite all of them as a tribe.

Plant Oddities

In “Origins of Atlans”, I hypothesized the ship’s botanist had discovered a ‘snowball’ planet where the temperature was so cold, the native plants accepted fertilization by any other plant, and even by more than one. Consequently, all the plants were fairly similar, and yet, no two plants were the same.

I’m not a xenobotanist. I’m lucky if I can keep my houseplants alive. I created those plants and their unusual sex practices to serve a purpose within the story. I cringed at such whole-cloth imaginations, sure somebody would call me to task for wandering so far from the known facts about plants.

But the plants we know are Earth plants. At one time, we didn’t believe there was any possibility of plants existing on other planets, unless that planet was a twin for Earth. Fairly recently, that notion has been reconsidered. All sorts of life has been found in the superheated water surrounding submerged volcanic vents, as well as in and around the stinkpots of hot water that can be found in the company of geysers.

The plants I had made up didn’t live on an over-heated planet; they lived on a frozen planet. Does Earth have plants that live at the poles? No, I haven’t found any mention of any. But there are several plants that live in the tundra area of the arctic circle, and it gets pretty bitterly cold there. They may not bloom and thrive during the long dark winter, but they do survive.

Perhaps my imaginary frozen planet plants are not quite as fanciful as I first feared. Perhaps a planet of roughly earth size but located in an orbit analogous to Mars or the asteroid belt would have enough atmosphere/ice water to make it possible for plants to have evolved. Not exactly plants like trees and shrubs and roses, but something that managed to live, even at those temperatures. I briefly pondered about sap freezing and bursting the cells, but all sorts of plants on Earth manage to survive the winter without that happening.

Perhaps these plants create their own antifreeze. Earth plants are carbohydrates, as I understand it, and alcohol can be made by fermenting the carbohydrate we all know as sugar.

I don’t know how scientific that explanation might be, but I like it. Mainly because on the Atlan planet, I’ve introduced ‘drunk-berries’. If somebody mistakenly eats unripe drunk berries, they find them overly sweet, but they are ingesting a poison that will definitely make them ill, and possibly kill them. Ripe drunk berries are routinely juiced, and the juice bottled as a ready-made wine, still sweet but also powerfully alcoholic.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.