Within Settlements: Social Tensions

Class and Resource Access

Inequalities within settlements create genuine tension. Access to resources like water and energy creates a divide between those with secure allocations and those with minimal access. Guild leaders and families with control over critical infrastructure hold disproportionate influence; laborers and non-psychic specialists sometimes feel undervalued and undertreated.

These tensions occasionally manifest in formal grievance processes. Workers petition councils demanding fair resource distribution or better labor conditions. Councils, constrained by the need for communal survival, must genuinely consider these demands—but they also must enforce resource limits. The result is ongoing negotiation, compromise, and occasional decisions that satisfy no one completely but preserve community cohesion. In extreme cases—when a settlement's councils become genuinely abusive—families have emigrated to other settlements, a pressure that forces councils to remain somewhat responsive to laborer concerns.

Psychic vs. Non-Psychic Dynamics

The psychic-non-psychic divide creates cross-cutting tensions. A wealthy merchant without abilities may resent a weatherworker from a laboring family who holds greater influence over settlement decisions. Non-psychic data specialists sometimes watch as council decisions favor a psychic's intuitive assessment over verifiable data, creating frustration about the privilege of psychic power.

This tension is particularly acute during crises, when decision-making speed matters and councils may defer to psychic specialists rather than slow deliberation. Over time, resentment can accumulate. Formal movements have emerged in some settlements advocating for restrictions on psychic involvement in resource allocation or governance. These movements rarely achieve major structural change, but they force councils to be more transparent about when and why psychic input influences decisions.

In settlements where psychic dominance becomes excessive, consequences follow: councils lose legitimacy with non-psychic populations, cooperation becomes half-hearted, and the settlement's overall resilience weakens. This pressure has forced most settlements to maintain explicit checks on psychic authority and ensure non-psychic expertise is valued.

Geothermal Access in Cave Settlements

In cave communities, geography creates stark disparities. Those living near optimal geothermal zones enjoy warmth, reliable energy, and stable living conditions; those in colder, peripheral caverns struggle with harsher environments. This creates persistent tension between resource-rich and resource-poor communities within the same settlement.

Councils in cave settlements must constantly balance fair heating distribution against the practical reality that heat sources are immobile and some zones are simply better positioned. Solutions include:

• Rotating residency assignments so families experience both favorable and marginal zones over time
• Community heating programs that share warmth from rich zones to poor ones through thermal channels
• Extra resource allocations to those in harsh zones to compensate for environmental difficulty
• Ongoing negotiation and adjustment as people advocate for fairness

These solutions never fully satisfy everyone, but they maintain the principle that no community is permanently relegated to suffering.