I've seen this idea before, so lets see if I can jazz it up as I lay it out for people unacquainted with the idea.
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Everyone knows there are two sorts of people. One is gifted with foresight, and the ability to plan. The Othren only think of today and their belly. One is wise, genteel, kind, and noble by birthright. The Othren is foolhardy, brute, brutal, and low in all his ways. One is beautiful, sensitive, and sweet but strong in her glory. The Othren is ugly, hardened, vicious and yet filled with weakness in his infamy.
The starship Lady's Way came to Terrefiorian via the High Road. Female Sensitives cast ahead and guided the starship through the maze of OtherSpace which could have beguiled or destroyed lesser minds until the ship arrived at the planet that precognitives had seen.
There the ship landed its shuttles, and the Matriarchy began its just rule. And then without warning or provocation, the Othren struck. The Matriarchy was forced to strike back in self defense.
And since technology is great enough that those of the High Sensitives and the Great of the Othren live for a very long time, some of the traitors are still with us, fomenting rebellion, and that is why the Othren have to be kept collared.
And so it is taught in the Wisdom Schools with special emphases on the evil of the Othren to the young, medicated males among young Ladies.
But if you were to venture underneat the City Gracious, to the steam tunnels, and the power cables you might hear another story.
A story of how outcast Ladies came to male Power Lords and pled for aid on the planet Zandercoast. The dominant Matriarch of Zandercoast had spurned them, and their shame was great, and they would be willing to deal with the Power Lords. The Lords were moved by compassion, and attraction, and the chance to have a society they deemed fair where a man was allowed to speak his mind. And so they gathered up much hidden wealth, and financed the Lady's Way with the outcast's wealth.
And using their native Powers they powered the Ship giving it light and gravity and electricity and warp drive by their unyielding will even as the Ladies bestrode the bridge. Even then, the Othren of near three hundred years, with bitter eyes, sighs as he speaks to you.
"We should have seen it. We were consigned to the Engine Room. They always had good excuses. If a Matria patrol ship saw a starship with a male on the bridge, they would fire upon it as mutineers which is true, but we were going past the Rim of Space. And we hoped so hard. We fooled ourselves."
They kept asking for more speed even as we broke our minds to spare themselves the effort. So we arrived, and we were a sorry lot. By then, we were half-crazed and nearly out of food. The Ladies were better off, but even they had suffered. We all came very close to not surviving at all. Another two weeks in space would have done for us all.
So they left us on the Ship to 'get help' and 'set things up'. They sent back food and water, and proceeded to arrange things on the planet. First building they built was a jail for Power Lords. The pattern continued, and we saw that they meant to reinstitute the Matriarchy of Zandercoast with themselves as the new matriarchs, and we as their slaves. We saw, and so half-crazed, we acted. We launched attacks, and tried to take their buildings down, but they were more clever than us. They had capacitors built into the buildings to absorb our powers and use the energy on us.
And then they use the Warp on us. It nearly killed us. At one time, I didn't have three eyes. Nor did I have teeth that fall out and regenerate each day. I was regarded as 'reasonably handsome'.
When we woke up, those that survived the counter ambush, and the Warp which had been built into the spaceship so long ago, we found ourselves collared. The least whim of telepathic attack against us, which is a power of the Ladies, and we are screaming as if boiled in acid.
Now, we use our Power Generation Psi to provide the electricity, and light we funnel through pipes to the surface. To heat the steam pumps, to lift starships to orbit with anti-gravity. We use our TK, the only gift shared with the Ladies to pump water up from the river.
And I see my brethren, both Othren and domesticated suffering. Babies are born in creches, of course, but a certain percentage are exposed to the Warp until they develop Power Lord skills. It was found that the Warp, along with twisting a man's body, will boost your chance of gaining Power Generation and TK.
The other males are domesticated with medicine and with being taught to be ashamed of their own natures.
We do not have longevity treatments here so people born on this planet only live perhaps a hundred years. We do not have the greater psi powers like the precogs which found this planet.
The Ladies have telepathy and powers of attack, and clairvoyance, and of course, their most demeaned power, the one they share with us, TK. More Ladies have Power than Power Lords have Power for their powers seem easy, but I cannot grasp the nature of their powers even though my heart says I should be able too. I fear they have done something to me back when I was a child in Zandercoast in the creche. But as heartless as the Matriarch of Zandercoast was, she did not shut her Power Generators up in chains beneath the surface. One worked your day, and went home to your hovel, but it was yours. I was an idiot to come here.
A High Ladies private viewpoint:
The Power Lords were crazy aboard the Lady's Way so we had to prepare for them. Its clear in open combat they have an advantage over us. Granted we can telepathically coordinate and strike with Mindpain, but they can toss lightning bolts.
They proved how dangerous they were in their attack.
We were, despite our preparations, about to be defeated. So we had prepared, just in case, a last-ditch weapon we had promised not to use. The Warp is a horrible thing, but we had to save ourselves and our society.
I am not like some of my sister High Ladies, in fact, many of them. I admit it was a horrible thing we did to our fellow humans. And unlike the younger Ladies, I know they were our fellow humans. But after the Warp, they became most fully what was already in them, their maleness was fully expressed. They became bestial, non-human. It is our sin which we must bear, but we cannot let them free. Especially now, their vengeance would be terrible.
Universe Biases: Tech: Longetivity (five hundred years); Outer Space Rocketry; Quantum Computers
Psionics: Precognition; Warp Travel
Males (Power Lords) have TK and Power Generation. The Warp effect gives a substantial bonus to learning these two psionic skills. They also use learning machines which psionically stimulate the brain to teach young Power Lords.
Females (Ladies, Matriarchs) have Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Mind Attack, and TK. These skills are taught by a telepathic teacher showing the student patterns in the brain to activate these powers. Such a method is far gentler than the psi-machine method which is unpleasant at best.
Normal males have no psionic abilities, and developing them is cause for imprisonment, but not with the Othren because youngsters are taught the Othren are non-human, and thus human males cannot be placed with them. Typically, prisoners are sent to work farms. This is not horrid, but it is difficult for the soft clerks to suddenly learn how to weed corn in hundred degree heat on Farm Island which is several hundred miles south (and hotter) than The City. Prisoners with psi abilities have to take drugs to neutralize such talents for the rest of their lives. Prison sentences tend to be life, although minor crimes such as 'not respecting a Lady after being reminded' might only merit a couple years.
The effect of a collar is to make the wearer very easy to target with psionic energy, and to raise the damage level Mindpain attacks do by two levels.
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Yup, I think that definitely jazzed it up.