The Tabi Dilemma
On the neon-lit edge of the galaxy, the Tabi were once considered a highly rational species.
But it wasn’t until anthropologists arrived on their homeworld that they discovered the Tabi were far more sensitive—and far more deadly—than imagined.
The Tabi possess a unique neural structure that allows them to sense the hidden ripples in language and emotion.
They don’t just comprehend information—they are shaped, permeated, and locked in place by it.
When a Tabi “knows” something, it enters not only cognition but also physiology, belief, even the edges of dream.
In their language, “to know” and “to be marked” are the same word.
And danger lurks in the moment of knowing.
To them, sensitive information isn’t a censored document—it’s a burden that can never be put down.
They know how power operates; they know whose breath hides repressed truths.
They know which words can destroy a conversation, and that silence itself can be a crime.
But this knowing means being identified by the system, filtered by the environment, pursued by fate.
The Tabi are not naive.
They know that some knowledge is like sharp crystal—once touched, it can never be returned intact.
Like magma beneath language—spoken, it scorches the tongue; unspoken, it burns through dreams.
So they flash nerves in silence, and form alliances in code.
When they meet in the wind, they only nod—say nothing—
For whoever speaks first is swallowed by the world first.
Their sensitivity is not fragility, but a finely-tuned survival system.
Like walking inside a dream lined with sensors, once you know, you’re already inside, and there’s no way back.
It is not an excess of emotion, but an internal war embedded in the very structure of perception.
And all of this, was it the anthropologists’ cold conclusion?
Or a subtle intervention?
Or a holographic reflection—
Exposing humanity itself within the “gaze of the Tabi”?