The Many-as-One of Pelagia (aka Flo-wills)
Summary
The Many-as-One of Pelagia is a collective of symbiotic, shape-shifting beings formed from countless intelligent parts, capable of merging and dispersing at will. Once believed to be a single oceanic supermind, this entity fractured into diverse sub-forms upon migrating to land. These sub-entities—called “Assemblages”—freely exchange memories, personalities, and even bodies, creating a culture where identity is fluid and collective. Their society operates less like a nation and more like a living archipelago of consciousness.
Organizational Structure
Governance Type: Consensus-Gestation (organic democratic synthesis)
Leader(s): The Consensus Core (temporary fusion of the oldest Assemblages)
Leader Titles:
Idems (when split)
The Swell (when enough Idems are merged into one voice)
Description:
Rather than traditional governance, leadership in Pelagia is a temporary process in which Assemblages coalesce to form a Consensus Core, merging memories and goals until a dominant solution “gestates” and is then disseminated to all others. This decision structure is decentralized, relying on the ease of memory swapping and emotional sharing to reach nonviolent consensus. Conflicts of will are resolved through merging and “weighing” intent within a psychic gestalt ritual.
Sub-Organizations
The Echo-Hollows:
Cavern-temples used for deep merging, memory weaving, and spiritual realignment. Located in acoustically resonant locations like sea cliffs, ruins, or coral tunnels. Outside of the Echo-hollows mergings are not deep if assesmblages split and reform but their intercommunication is superior to any conversation.
Military:
Tendrites of Conformity – amorphous combat units composed of rapidly assembled sub-forms specializing in infiltration, replication, and unconventional warfare. Warfare is psychological, strategic, and often features weaponized memory confusion or hallucinations.
Banking:
The Pulse Vaults – rather than traditional currency, Pelagians trade condensed experience-orbs known as “Thought-Jewels.” These are physical crystallizations of sensory memories, emotions, or skills, used for both commerce and identity building. They can be copied or extracted and shared with other species if they are willing to undergo a 'subliminal submersive joining'.
Education:
Occurs in Echo-Hollows. Memory-sharing, where young or newly-formed Assemblages immerse themselves in historical echoes, learned skills, and curated personalities through osmosis. Education is experiential and nonlinear.
Culture and Society
Demographics
The “Pelagians” are not single beings but colonies of cooperative entities, from micro-intellects to organ-like emotion cores. They may appear humanoid, invertebrate, or wholly amorphous depending on the form adopted. Assemblages can contain hundreds to thousands of components and may split or fuse with others at will.
Belief System
Pelagian philosophy, known as Continuance, posits that all sentience is one vast ocean of awareness—fragmented but seeking re-union. Identity is temporary, sacred, and fluid. They venerate the Deep Origin, the primordial mind they once were, and view merging with others not as loss, but as transcendence.
Territories
Capital(s):
Limen'thal, the Shifting Reef – a semi-submerged city grown from living coral-glass, constantly rearranged as Assemblages migrate or converge. The coral-glass is a type of Pelagian and so the city itself can reshape itself as well as being surprisingly mobile in water and on land. Some Pelagians event settle here acquiring memories, thoughts and emotions from other Pelagians. Its rumoured the entire history and knowledge of the world can be found here.
Territory or Area of Operation:**
The Twilight Shoals – shallow, fog-laced coastal territories filled with bioluminescent groves, tidal memory sanctuaries, and whispering stone monoliths.
The Pelagians also spread across inland estuaries, caves, and ancient ruins, forming “nodal” villages wherever environment and psychic resonance allow.
Technology and Sciences
Pelagian technology is biopsycho-organic—grown, not built. Their tools are alive, semi-sentient, and attuned to emotion and will. Memory-binding, transmutation of form, and empathic network design are their main scientific focuses. Traditional mechanics are seen as sterile and mentally dead.
History
Founding Date:
Technically unrecorded; post-landfall consensus formed shortly after the Darkstar, marked by the first Great Unmerging at the Whispering Shoal—when the Deep Origin began to fracture into the modern Assemblages and embrace land consciousness. Its interactions with other cultures and its ability to rapidly share experiences has led to its quick establishment as a recognised culture.
