Ah'hei

Ah'hei is the mental conditioning programmed into the Sazashi by the Verin Haimarchy back when they first created them. Ah'hei serves as a Sazashi's overriding psychological drive, sometimes superseding even sexual or survival urges in extreme cases.

Ah'hei has several mental states which it triggers. These states overlay their normal mental states, affecting them rather than replacing them.

As a Sazashi, there's a constant internal battle we all face. We were built for servitude, physically designed for certain tasks and neurologically conditioned to excell at those tasks and take pleasure in them.

Is it submission to do these things because we enjoy them? Should we deny ourselves these things, just to spite the tyrannical natures of the Verin Haimarchy? Should every Kajh be an artist because she was built for manual labor, and should every Helyk avoid the arts for the same reason?

Or do we each stake our own paths as induviduals, and decide for ourselves who we are—whether that coincides with our 'purpose' or not.

If we live blindly by it, we allow it to control us. If we do the opposite of it to spite it, then we have again allowed it to control us.

All we can do is live as ourselves, and decide day by day what that means.

Navigate

Summary

Other Spellings

Akjhe

Type

Genetic

Origin

Engineered

Cycle

Chronic, Congenital

Rarity

Common

Affected Species

• Sazashi

Summary

States of Akjhe

Yearning

In peaks and valleys, the Sazashi experience the urge to fulfill their ah'hei. It comes and goes in waves, akin to hunger or sexual impulse and equally as distracting at its worst. Most try to sate their ah'hei daily, to prevent the Yearning from worsening.

Catharsis

Whenever a Sazashi fulfills their ah'hei they feel a rush of satisfaction ranging from content to energizing. For many Sazashi fulfilling their ah'hei can be as stimulating as a good meal or sex.

Agitation

If a Sazashi cannot fulfill their ah'hei for a prolonged period of time their yearning may evolve into agitation. They may begin to demonstrate odd behaviors depending on the species of Sazashi. For example: Aen may pace and become fidgety, and will compulsively organize and clean; Ral-Mi may become defensive and cling to people around them; a Parisan may hole up somewhere or develop agoraphobic behaviors; etc.

Agonists & Antagonists

For as long as the Sazashi have lived independant of the tyranny of the Ancient Haimarchy, they have debated the effect of their ah'hei on their agency. Some decide their their life is their choice, regardless of the presence of ah'hei, while others seek to suppress their ah'hei to discover the person who is left behind.

Antagonists

Suppressants

Sazashi who seek to suppress their ah'hei turn to Fal-IdAkjhe, a class of Ah'hei-Antagonist drugs. Some aim to curb the Yearning, so that they may make decisions without it, while others believe that even the Catharsis of fulfulling their ah'hei poses a risk to their free will, and so suppress it.

When you strip away everything the Ancient Haimarchy used to exploit us—the clumsy shackles they used to hold us down—you're left with something unstoppable.

— Debuk'kwah

Agonists

Intensifiers

Some Sazashi see their ah'hei as things which give them a powerful edge, or which have their dark history but are not to just be erased. Instead, they take drugs, such as Purpose Flower, to intensify the urges of their ah'hei, and so to become, by their standards, "more Sazashi" than ever before.

In trying to create servants, the Verin made the next step of evolution. We were made to excel in labor, in the arts, in history... why throw that way and regress to anything less?

— Akotan Khalur Tor Khandea