#amperi

One thing that I tend to do when considering amperi biology is that they need to be a little moist (apologies for the word) in order to breathe, but to take more inspiration from jellyfish - surprisingly the actual inspiration for amperi (probably because you couldn’t exactly design constantly transparent characters in animated tv) - and say that physically a lot of their main body is made from this moisture. Unlike jellyfish it’s not quite water, rather it’s a conductive fluid that actually contains a lot of electrochemical signals akin to a nervous system. This in particular is a biological reason why emotion reading is part of amperi languages - communication is done through the excretion and dispersal of this nervous system in water - and why the now ‘surrounded by emotion chemicals’ Ra’ad due to his undiscovered psychometry mutation was constantly overwhelmed, overstimulated, and overcome with anxiety.

And it’s this excretion that actually plays a language role too, essentially being practically REQUIRED in communication especially with how in water it spreads out. A reason why in the air amperi are a little damp is because excretion is a constant (but consistent) autonomic function, like conductive sweat that contains so many messages, though in surface environments it does make communication difficult. Partly the reason why Ra’ad finds himself preferring land, even if either way he’d still need to wear some damp robes when a dry season hits; it beats having to wear one everytime in the ocean with the cultural equivalent connotation of constantly wearing a balaclava though-

And all this ‘filled with goo’ stuff doesn’t mean that amperi have a true main body under their skin (that’s for @ohyeahben10 ‘s Ultimate Ampfibian) but it DOES mean that if an amperi were to perhaps compress themselves to a smaller ‘fit through the neck of a bottle’ size, they build up a charge and in fact begin to conduct electricity. It’s an adaptation for both offence and defence, either being used in constricting tentacles to electrocute prey and victims through excretion and consequent conduction of their electrochemical gel or - a way we will explore in depth next - electrifying predators and assailants using complete compression and slipping between teeth, gills, blowholes, and/or grasp, leaving a trail of ‘lightning’ in escape.

That’s right baby I’ve finally figured out how to logic my way around wire walking!

I’ve mentioned a few times that I think amperi have a bone in them, often referring to he more literal bone like structure in cuttlefish rather than the flexible structure inside of a squid called a gladius or pen, the squid of course being the basis of my ‘this exists in real biology’ inspiration. In fact, perhaps this gladius will serve to fit much better with the amperi, as it’s role in Earth squids is to serve as protection of visceral organs and an attachment for very important muscle groups; I say, grinning into the camera as if I were a villain thinking of something dastardly.

With this gladius, not only does it serve as a base for the important muscle groups of compression - a complicated dynamic of contracting muscles to reduce size and expanding pores to excrete the mucus they adapted for - but in amongst the visceral organs (from a list of few includes the very important heart) there is a very valued organ that in fact produces its conductive gel, sitting nice and comfortable against the brain where these electrochemical signals translate into commands ether somatic or autonomic. As the muscles contract using the gladius as it’s base it in fact squeezes the perfectly placed organ that disperses this electrochemical as if along a highly distributed nervous system and in fact carries with it charge, charge that conducts to whatever purpose the amperi compresses with.

It is that same conductivity that amperi naturally are that allows them wire and cable transportation, since it is a high energy mode of travel for a significantly reduced body size. In a great grand ocean of vast expanses it’s less effective than the semi-compression of weaponry and desperate compression of ‘please don’t eat me’, or the less desperate semi-compression of electric inking; too much energy for too little time, it’s like trying to sprint across the country.

But in areas with a denser population with specific infrastructure built as the amperi equivalent for public transportation or perhaps at a more basic level a bike lane, literal cable travel is developed around the idea of being high energy fast travelling short distance trips. In ocean cities or towns in close proximity to them, think like if internet cables along the ocean floor were filled with people going to work or school or just going out for lunch. On the land where a lot of the metalworking is literally landlocked to be in as dry of air as it can in order to smith, there are powerlines that provide local traffic for any surface towns or workplaces, but you also get a few more uh trespassers along the lines because a not insignificant number of people live on the surface as hermits away from the ocean and many lines are mainly for transit companies.

From personal experience of accidentally walking through my local transit worksite (fuck you google maps) finding that I’m on the wrong side of a tollgate, sometimes where you need or want to go, the fastest route just so happens to be through the company lines.

On Earth, because the only reason we have internet cables and powerlines is because we use them as - well - powerlines and internet cables, it’s not as if an amperi runaway who’s lost and afraid far from whatever he might’ve called familiar if not quite the home he wanted it to be has any real societal understanding that Earth is the American transportation system of Tesslos, Ra’ad just takes the lines and is internally horrified that they lead directly into houses on occasion.