feynites:

feynites:

My mind has recently been quite taken with the concept of a Dragon Age/Sense8 crossover.

I think part of the reason why it’s so interesting is because, with DA, there’s this kind of odd phenomenon where the narrative knows that you, the player, are probably familiar with stuff from previous games. But in each game, you’re playing a new character, and that character isn’t going to, say, know who Zevran is, or feel strongly about Meredith’s actions in Kirkwall, or stuff like that.

So what ends up happening is that some stuff gets framed like you should know it, and you can even kind of nod to that, via your player character…. who has no possible way of knowing or understanding it.

But if the Warden, Hawke, and Inquisitor were all part of the same cluster, that would explain it. Because then they have all seen things from one another’s lives and adventures, but they can’t possibly explain the context on it to anyone else.

(For those less familiar with Sense8 – a cluster is a group of sensates, or basically psychic-ish people, who are all born at the same time. These sensates can share thoughts and feelings and speak with one another even when they are miles and miles apart. They can be physically separate, can possibly never meet in person, but still know what’s going on with one another, and can share skills and info and even take control of one another’s bodies to perform actions, if needed. For example, a sensate who knows how to fight could take control of someone in their cluster who didn’t, in order to defend them from an attacker. Sensates can also share feelings without being able to control it, i.e. if one gets electrocuted, the others may convulse and feel it, too.)

This could also explain some kind of funny/strange stuff like characters actually knowing things that they really should not, or not knowing things they really should (did Surana wander around the Circle tower after their Harrowing asking who people they’d known their whole life were? That wasn’t Surana, that was a confused Hawke, accidentally taking over their body). And also why player characters might be weirdly concerned with the fates and well-being of companions from other games. Hawke already knows a bit about Anders, because the Warden met him. Likewise, the Inquisitor recognizes Varric, and comments on Bianca in an awkward moment of ‘shit-I-know-you-but-you-don’t-know-me-ha-ha-nice-crossbow-I-guess?’

The Inquisitor knows Leliana and Morrigan. Hawke knows Isabela and Zevran. All of them know what’s entailed by a Joining, they know what happened in Kirkwall, Hawke wasn’t just investigating the wardens for funsies, but knew full well that the Warden was off looking for a cure and that something was up and went and investigated on the Warden’s behalf. Potentially looking after Alistair or even Loghain at their behest. The Inquisitor wasn’t just randomly selected to go spy on the Conclave. They went to do it because their cluster was already invested in the goings-on afoot. Because Hawke couldn’t get close without the likes of Cassandra trying to recruit them or potentially arrest them, and the Warden would face pretty much the same issue, but the Inquisitor was a veritable nobody at the time.

Clusters can be as small as two people, or as big as twelve, though, so now I’m wondering who else might be in theirs. And if anyone else in this setting would be a sensate, and who they’d be in a cluster with, in that case (sensates from different clusters can still communicate telepathically, or ‘visit’, as they call it, but they can’t share experiences the same way, and they need to make eye-contact at least once in order to do it).

I don’t know. Just seemed like an unexpectedly interesting mesh of concepts, so I thought I’d share.

Ok but is this poo-poo-ed by the Chantry? I feel like it would be.  Does everyone have a cluster or is it only in some people like magic? Is it a complete overlap with magic or something separate? Does everyone know about it? How was it in Arlathan and how does it tie in to Solas’ views on personhood?  I absolutely love this idea and now I have so many questions!!! ( @futurecatladies)

Okay, so obviously there are a lot of ways to go with this, but what I’m thinking is, sensates weren’t a thing before the Veil went up.

Or rather, they were, but it worked differently. Their sensitivity was more like a better attunement to the world at large than a cluster-based series of connections. But the Veil meant that not everyone had magic anymore, but some people were still being born with that sensitivity, and so non-mage sensates began developing connections that centered around compatible mage sensates. And hence, clusters became a thing.

A mage sensate can subconsciously use their magic to loop everyone together. And maybe only mage sensates can visit with other sensates outside their cluster, too. So your average cluster has one or two mages, and then a lot of non-mages (which works for the population ratios as well).

But this means it’s definitely on the chantry’s hit list, because A) sensate mages are super powerful, and B) you can effectively crippling them by finding their cluster members, saying that the whole thing is demonic, and then killing them or somehow using tranquility to sever them and horribly stuff like that.

Lots of early Dalish clans were probably built around clusters, which is where the concept of a Keeper gets some of its roots.

But by modern times, most sensates are in hiding to avoid being killed. They learn from other sensates (the ones who psychically birth/activate their cluster’s connection, most likely) and keep things really quiet, so officially, the chantry says it’s a form of dark magic that is outlawed and rarely practiced. 

Solas probably thinks it’s just more ‘misunderstanding magic’ business, until or unless he actually sees it in action. Then it probably throws even more of his presumptions up into the air.