InCryptid Q&A, Part II: Cuckoo to you too.: seanan

InCryptid Q&A, Part II: Cuckoo to you too.

So remember when I said that I would answer ten questions about the InCryptid universe? Well, I'm still taking questions, but here's your second answer!

ashnistrike says...

"I'm going to deviate from all the Aeslin obsession above and admit to a cuckoo obsession (much less healthy). When I see something like this—a species that has almost all gone mad around their basic biological set-up—my assumption is that at one point they were more sane and adaptive, and something changed in their environment so that once-adaptive characteristics led to problems. And yes, I realize that they are still adaptive in the purely biological sense in spite of being sociopaths. But it still seems likely that they haven't always been that way. So, question—what's the original environment in which their parasitic telepathy evolved? What changed? Were they ever less completely destructive to their hosts? Symbiotic? Have they ended up, as parasites often do, in biological/telepathic arms races with other cryptid species?"

YAY I GET TO TALK ABOUT JOHRLAR YOU'RE ALL GOING TO BE SORRY!!!!

...ahem.

So the cuckoos are more properly called "Johrlac" (species name Johrlac psychidolos), and they are not from around here. I would call this a spoiler, since it hasn't come out in the series proper yet, but it's something that I talk about on panels, and it's something that anyone who's performed any sort of physiological examination of a cuckoo has probably guessed. Still, your personal perspective on spoilers may make this sensitive information, so I'm going to cut-tag.

The big thing to remember about cuckoos is that they are utterly alien. They're mammals, because they fit the basic standards for the current definition of "mammal": they have hair, they have three bones in their inner ears, and they're capable of lactation, although very few cuckoo mothers raise their own children. They do not have hearts. They do not have red blood cells, or actually, blood at all; instead, they have something very close to the hemolymph found in the circulatory systems of insects. Their evolutionary path began not with monkeys, but with parasitic wasps. Basically, the biological term for cuckoos is "fucked up." They make perfect sense, but not for this planet. Not for this evolutionary model.

They are also telepaths, and that's where the trouble really starts. See, for cuckoos, thoughts—and modes of thought—are contagious in a way that they aren't for humans. They're actually born with a certain level of language and historical perspective, because their mothers are literally telepathically conditioning them for the duration of the pregnancy (cuckoos have a gestation period of approximately forty-four weeks). Imagine being bombarded by your mother's thoughts for the entire time that you were in her womb. Does she smoke? You'll be craving cigarettes before you know what they are. Does she hate onions? So will you. Likes, dislikes, irrational hatreds, they're all contagious to infant cuckoos, and they have no defenses unless they, like Angela, are non-receptive telepaths (she can project, but she can't receive under normal circumstances). Which brings us to the next point:

All cuckoos currently residing in this dimension are, with the exception of the non-receptive telepaths like Angela, or those who have undergone psychic conditioning like Sarah, dangerously amoral sociopaths. They do not have a sense of empathy. They do not view humans, other species of sapient cryptid, or other cuckoos as "people," and they have no qualms about breaking their toys. But how did they get this way? They can't work together under normal circumstances. They abandon their babies as soon as they're born. They have no interest in building, just destruction. How can they function as a species?

Short answer: they can't.

Long answer: the cuckoos originally evolved in a dimension called Johrlar, where they were one of a multitude of large, insect-like species that we're going to call "wasps," for the ease of dealing with an alien biology. The proto-cuckoos looked a lot like Earth paper wasps, and they practiced herd parasitism on a species of small, non-intelligent mammals. They had already started to develop the seeds of telepathy, and used it to communicate within the hive, although it was difficult, and was mostly reserved for emergencies. If they had lived in a relatively friendly environment, like say, Earth, this is probably where they would have stopped. They had a stable form, a good niche in the ecosystem, and a steady food supply. They were happy.

Unfortunately, evolution doesn't select for happiness, and the ecology of Johrlar is sort of Murderland. Virtually everything parasitizes something; there are no pure carnivores, and the very few "true" mammals or reptiles which managed to evolve either entered into an immediate symbiosis with something else (like the small mammals and the proto-cuckoos) or became quickly extinct. The proto-cuckoos found themselves in the awkward position of becoming the preferred food source of another species of parasitic wasp, one which was larger, faster, and more dangerous than they were. Stronger telepaths had a tendency to live longer, and started breeding more. Larger individuals were preferred as hosts for the larvae of the second wasp species, which could have resulted in selection toward smaller individuals, but bigger bugs = bigger heads = bigger brains = stronger telepathy, so the smaller individuals began sacrificing themselves to help the larger ones escape. Eventually, they got so big they couldn't fly. Their wings atrophied. They got so big they couldn't safely and reliably gestate their young in their preferred prey species. The longer they could keep their eggs inside themselves without actually ovipositing, the safer the process became. Somehow, the jump was made to bearing live young. Evolution marched on, and on, and on, and down some really weird roads, until you had two species of what had previously been parasitic wasps:

1. The Johrlac. Humanoid, pseudo-mammalian bipeds with strong telepathic powers.
2. The Apraxis. Insectoid, hive-mind parasitic wasps whose "telepathy" is limited to mining the memories of the creatures in which they gestate their young.

Obviously, this evolutionary process was a lot more involved than this, but I'm skipping over lots of things to get to having Johrlac, because they're where the fun starts. Now, this is a very tight-knit culture, the culture of the Johlac. They're all telepathic, which not only means a certain element of Stepford fun-times, since any purely telepathic culture that doesn't encourage individuality is going to trend toward hive-mind, but leads to a certain amount of "what you will be is pre-determined." If the hive needs more workers and your mother is a seamstress, she'll be encouraged to read worker literature and think only about worker activities during the later months of her pregnancy. If the hive needs scientists and your mother is deemed not intelligent enough, she's likely to find herself telepathically muffled while smart people sit and think science thoughts at her stomach. And this is just how things are.

It's very stressful, in Johrlar. It's very dangerous to have independent thoughts, or to dream non-standard dreams. In the early eras of their civilization, they killed the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped, and the inconveniently independent, because they were too disruptive (and while it's very easy to condemn them for that, they were in a precarious position at the time; I don't condone what their culture did, but I understand them well enough to see why they did it). As they became more "civilized," they decided to be "kinder" to the people who were disruptive to the hive-mind, and exiled them to a nearby dimension that had no indigenous lifeforms they felt were worth worrying about. They sort of forgot that this was also the dimension they'd exiled the Apraxis to. Oopsie.

So now you have a colony consisting of people the Johrlac found disruptive to the hive-mind. And, out of fear and habit and loneliness, they form a new hive-mind. One where the kind, reasonable, gentle people are out-numbered by the ones who were exiled because they liked to break things just to watch the smashing. Ideas are contagious; they infected each other with the traits that are now the hallmarks of the cuckoo race.

Eventually, through a mechanism that I won't explain right now because it's going to be important later, the cuckoos—and they were cuckoos now; the brood parasitism had already started between individuals within the hive—found a way out of that dimension and into ours, and started their ongoing murder-party.

At this point, "cuckoos are sociopaths" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Non-receptive telepaths avoid being conditioned in the womb, and so do the children of female non-projecting telepaths, assuming they're able to stand the company of another cuckoo long enough to have children. Their social issues and lack of empathy have nothing to do with human mental illness or brain chemistry; most of them would probably have been perfectly nice people if not for circumstances beyond their control. The same is true of their parents, and their grandparents, right back to the point where the Johrlac said "Wow, this hunter who got attacked by the giant millipedes that live by the shore is really depressed and unstable and needs help, LET'S PITCH HIM THROUGH THE DIMENSIONAL WALL AND FORGET ABOUT HIM."

...wow, this got rambly. TL;DR. So:

1. The original environment in which the cuckoos evolved sort of sucked. MURDERWORLD.
2. What changed: they left (not of their own free will).
3. They used to be reasonable people, and can be again, if deprogrammed early.
4. They were never symbiotic, but used to be pretty good caretakers for their little mammals.
5. Ooooooh, yeah, Arms race, thy name is Johrlar.

I love the cuckoos.

They're going to break everything.

amazonmink

February 13 2013, 18:57:34 UTC 4 years ago

New comment

Your brain is an awesomely scary place.

seanan_mcguire

February 13 2013, 19:02:16 UTC 4 years ago

I live here!

brightlotusmoon

4 years ago

beccastareyes

February 13 2013, 19:00:32 UTC 4 years ago

So, if you can answer this, how common are non-receptive (or non-projecting) cuckoo telepaths? I'd imagine the ones who can't project would be pretty screwed for 'normal' cuckoo parasitism if they can't influence human minds. The ones who can't receive would be better off* -- well, unless they met another cuckoo, who could take advantage of their relative ignorance of what they are. Also, is the cuckoo ability to camouflage when in danger (the way Sarah sort of fades out when she's stressed so potentially-dangerous people don't notice her) instinct or imprinted by the mother?

The original Johrlar culture sounds really interesting, albeit a place that I most certainly wouldn't want to live.

* In having both sanity/empathy and abilities that can be used for protection, while the non-projecting cuckoos seem to lack either (though increased ability to pick up on human emotions probably could be used as some form of defense/hiding.)

February 13 2013, 19:05:08 UTC 4 years ago

Non-receptive and non-projecting are both considered "deformed." Non-projecting are discovered almost immediately, and are killed by their birth mothers as aberrations. Non-receptive can generally escape detection until adulthood, because their birth mothers aren't trying to communicate with them in infancy. Both types of telepathic "deformity" occur in approximately one out of every three thousand live births. So out of six thousand babies, you'd statistically have one of each.

The "cuckoo fade" is instinctive. Sarah would have more control if she hadn't been de-conditioned by Angela. She'd also be killing everyone for funsies.

aliciaaudrey

February 13 2013, 19:01:26 UTC 4 years ago

So basically their race used earth as a gigantic mental asylum/place to contain their arch-nemesis. I'd go WHAT KIND OF INSANE RACE DOES THAT? And then I recall that we tend to dump the mentally ill in with the criminally insane, and realize the answer is "also us."

Wooo, very excited for next book!

February 13 2013, 19:05:44 UTC 4 years ago

Not Earth; another, emptier dimension. How they got from there to here is classified until it comes up in the series itself.

bzarcher

_dante_sparda_

February 13 2013, 19:21:25 UTC 4 years ago

This is fucking brilliant. Can't wait to see what else you do with them.

February 13 2013, 19:24:06 UTC 4 years ago

Bad things.

Bad, bad things.

shanejayell

February 13 2013, 19:32:33 UTC 4 years ago

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this.

(Wonder what it says about me?)

February 13 2013, 19:37:54 UTC 4 years ago

Bad things, again.

citharistria

February 13 2013, 19:39:21 UTC 4 years ago

Your work consistently amazes, and your brain sometimes scares. I am so glad to have found your books and your Livejournal!

Rest assured that I'm doing all I can to boost book sales by means of cornering my friends and babbling incessantly about this awesome book called [whichever series I think they'll like].

Deleted comment

sleightedge

colliemommie

resolute

February 13 2013, 19:57:47 UTC 4 years ago

\o/

I love Sarah. Did I mention I love Sarah?

Say, do the cuckoos here on Earth still know that they are alien to this dimension, or has that been lost?

February 13 2013, 20:12:19 UTC 4 years ago

They know.

It would be better if they didn't.

spectralbovine

February 13 2013, 20:01:01 UTC 4 years ago

Holy fucking cocking monkey brains, I want the Sarah books NOW.

February 13 2013, 20:12:57 UTC 4 years ago

We'll get there!

herewiss13

February 13 2013, 20:48:23 UTC 4 years ago Edited: February 13 2013, 20:49:49 UTC

Just to confirm: the Apraxis wasp was the _former_ predator of the Jorhlac? Or are they some sort of sister-species of the original non-humanoid Jorhlac that went a different way?

If it's the first, I can see why the Jorhlac can drive them away...talk about having the tables turned on you!

edited to clarify: by sister species, I mean: some proto-jorhlac went humanoid, some stayed waspy.

February 13 2013, 22:20:09 UTC 4 years ago

The Apraxis wasp was the former predator; they're no more related than hawks and pigeons.

hasufin

umadoshi

February 13 2013, 20:48:59 UTC 4 years ago

...this is going to be SO GREAT.

February 13 2013, 22:20:19 UTC 4 years ago

YES ZOMG.

February 13 2013, 22:20:27 UTC 4 years ago

Good call.

groblek

February 13 2013, 21:02:17 UTC 4 years ago

Thanks! I am yet again reminded of why I love your writing so very much. I think it's great that you think through your background material in so much detail, and I love the bits you can share with us without spoiling things. Also, I am reminded of why I have no desire to go visit the InCryptid universe - not even the mice are worth risking running into the Jhorlac, or even worse letting them come here... I'll be under the bed now, thanks.

(And a side note as I typed this; my iPad autocorrects the spelling of InCryptid properly. I am amused and wonder if you have fans at Apple or if it just knows me that well.)

February 13 2013, 22:20:42 UTC 4 years ago

I love cuckoos so.

ravenclawed

February 13 2013, 21:21:23 UTC 4 years ago

I love that you put so much thought into not only the cuckoos' current state but also their history, it makes them so much more real.

February 13 2013, 22:20:51 UTC 4 years ago

Yay!

February 13 2013, 22:21:02 UTC 4 years ago

Woo alternate history!

weds

February 13 2013, 21:46:34 UTC 4 years ago

*eyes Bee Girl CAM*
*eyes custom supplies*
*eyes cuckoos*
*thinks*

February 13 2013, 22:21:41 UTC 4 years ago

Oooooooooooooooooooooo.

ohari

February 13 2013, 22:04:03 UTC 4 years ago

I love your Brain.

And I'm terrified of it.

February 13 2013, 22:21:50 UTC 4 years ago

That's really for the best.

herefox

February 13 2013, 22:07:49 UTC 4 years ago

So given that Sarah seems to have a crush on a human...I'd assume Jorhlac are NOT cross-fertile with humans. Being a mammalian bug, as it were?

February 13 2013, 22:22:11 UTC 4 years ago

That is correct. Johrlac are not cross-fertile with anything from this dimension.

silvery_lass

deborah_c

February 13 2013, 23:08:19 UTC 4 years ago

and it's something that anyone who's performed any sort of physiological examination of a cuckoo has probably guessed

... which leaves me wondering (a) how many people who have you on their LJ friends list have performed a physiological examination of a cuckoo, (b) how they survived the experience, given, y'know, cuckoo, and (c) just who they are, because I think I want to avoid anyone of a species that comes out fine from an encounter with a cuckoo, still less one that involves examination...

February 14 2013, 06:38:49 UTC 4 years ago

At a guess... if you can identify a cuckoo, then a sniper rifle is quite sufficient. And I'm not sure anyone would really be all that pissed about a sniper shot killing that thing that you now realize is not in fact your wife, and is apparently leaking clear syrup rather than, you know, bleeding. I'm just guessing, though.

ashnistrike

February 14 2013, 00:31:42 UTC 4 years ago

Yay! Thank you for answering my question, and thank you even more for the hope of cuckoo-centric books in the future. That is some awesome biosocial back story.

acelightning

February 14 2013, 02:34:47 UTC 4 years ago

You realize this means that A. will probably start reading Seanan's books now, don't you? ;-)

(Note to Seanan:

ashnistrike and I know each other in "real life", and A. is my 33-year-old son. The cross-connections between his friends, my friends, and our friends are far too complicated to explain.)

jenfullmoon

February 14 2013, 00:38:14 UTC 4 years ago

Wooooooooooooooooow. My mind be blown. That is all.

Er...and there will be Sarah books?

February 14 2013, 18:36:32 UTC 4 years ago

Eventually, if series sales stay high enough.

reedrover

dornbeast

February 14 2013, 01:48:08 UTC 4 years ago

YAY I GET TO TALK ABOUT JOHRLAR YOU'RE ALL GOING TO BE SORRY!!!!

You appear to be using a definition of "sorry" that I am completely unfamiliar with.

But from the sounds of this, Earth has Johrlac that have been selected for predisposition to mental illness, mental handicaps (which might mean that the Earth Johrlac have a slightly higher percentage of non-receptive and non-projective cuckoos), and the independent (whatever that means. For all I know, this means we have all the Johrlac artists, which may well mean artistic sociopaths. I have no idea what that would look like, and I'm not sure I want to know.)

February 14 2013, 06:40:09 UTC 4 years ago

"I am an artist, and mindfucks are my medium."

thedragonweaver

yellowblackhaze

February 14 2013, 04:07:19 UTC 4 years ago

Thanks for answering that and answering it in the way you did, it is quite fascinating.

February 14 2013, 18:39:36 UTC 4 years ago

Thanks!

February 14 2013, 05:13:14 UTC 4 years ago

NEAT.

I love them so much. They can break me any time.

February 14 2013, 18:39:46 UTC 4 years ago

And they will.

February 14 2013, 06:44:44 UTC 4 years ago

So, why is their blood such an effective useful antibiotic?

i can wrap my head around a totally alien being having a biochemistry that is anathemic to Terran life (though typically I'd assume it would cut both ways), I'm trying to figure why it's bad for prokaryotes and not eukaryotes, and doesn't get neutralized by our own natural defenses. Just lucky, or what?

For that matter, I'm curious as to how they look at the cellular level. And in terms of life cycle, and... okay, I'll stop now, because otherwise I'm gonna want a textbook on Johrlar zoology, and why I'd enjoy that, it doesn't sound like bestseller.

February 14 2013, 18:40:02 UTC 4 years ago

Nobody knows. They just know it works.

mephron

February 14 2013, 11:27:00 UTC 4 years ago

It's telling to me that:

a) this is vastly fascinating in the worldbuilding and multiverse-building involved

and

b) on MetaFilter, talking about the Canadian Zombie Response in their legislature, the very first comment mentioned you.

February 14 2013, 18:40:13 UTC 4 years ago

AWESOME.

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InCryptid Q&A, Part II: Cuckoo to you too.

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