The Lianjiede
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The Lianjiede (連接的), or “The Connected,” are a telepathic people who are the result of one of the most successful symbiotic pairings in galactic history.
When a community of Chinese immigrants settled on what appeared to be a lifeless planet, they were unaware that a vast subterranean civilization teemed under their feet. While digging infrastructural channels, the immigrants came across a network of tunnels populated by small, sightless beings that looked like slow-moving root vegetables. Unable to see signs of advanced civilization (language, technology, art), they dubbed the creatures Yanshu (鼴鼠), meaning “mole.”
But, like the planet itself, the barren surface of Yanshu culture obscured a deeper and more complex interiority.
The Yanshu are naturally telepathic, but only over short distances, so they rely on their tunnel system to amplify and channel their thoughts to one another. The network itself functions like a giant, dreaming brain, generating a virtual environment that the Yanshu inhabit as telepathic avatars. What appears to be nothing but a gnarled potato on the outside may actually be the most popular musician in virtual Yanshu society.
When the immigrants disturbed the tunnels, they suffered a spate of migraines and aneurysms as the Yanshu instinctively defended themselves. But eventually the violence gave way to conversation, and conversation gave way to trade and symbiosis.
The Yanshu welcomed the humans into their mental environment: a lush paradise after generations of interstellar travel. And the humans allowed Yanshu to ride atop their heads and merge with their minds, so they could experience the splendor of raw physicality. The exchange worked, and it stuck.
Domed helmets were designed to amplify the Yanshu’s telepathy, allowing them to exist outside the tunnels while remaining connected to their people. Gradually, and with consent, many Yanshu paired completely with their hosts, roots burrowing into brains, genes merging with genes.
Thus, the two species became one: a people who live with one foot in the physical world and the other in a collective dream, navigating two worlds at once, as the children of immigrants have always done.
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