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Fullminders
 Image from Bernd Helfert |
In the first century A.T. it was discovered that the average human brain had a number of gender-related abilities. However, there was wide variation amongst humans with many females being skilled in 'male' areas and vice versa, apparently dependent upon testosterone levels in different parts of the brain during its development. This is not the same as sexual preference, but instead is entirely based on the degree of possession of certain brain functions.
As it became possible to modify the human brain to have new abilities, it was soon proposed that a modification to give its recipient all of the advantages to be gained by the possession of both masculine and feminine brain structures.
Although first proposed in the first century A.T., this modification was not successfully implemented until some centuries later. As it was introduced it became known as the Fullminder modification, because those promoting or possessing it considered it to give its recipients a full set of mental abilities rather than the subset possessed by baseline humans. From the feminine side the Fullminder gains abilities such as empathy, multi-tasking and acute and wide-ranging sensory abilities, while from the masculine they gain such things as visio-spatial skills, competitiveness and systemising skills.
Since it was first introduced the Fullminder modification (so named because its proponents insist that only those with it have a fully functioning mind) has spread widely, particularly into entities at the Su level and above, although it is also widely spread across the nearbaseline human population.
As a side effect of the Fullminder modification, although they have physical genders, Fullminders do not have the small average innate differences, mostly in terms of preferred activities, that exist between baseline human girls and boys. The cultures they exist in sometimes have biases towards these differences, but most Fullminders have a culture that works to counteract these influences in themselves.
Non-biont entities such as Vecs and AIs are often the equivalent of Fullminders. Although in their cases the mental functions are not gender-linked as such, they are still useful abilities to have.
SWITCHMINDERS
A group of variants of the Fullminder modification where, rather than possessing both masculine and feminine brain functions all of the time, the Switchminder can consciously control where on the masculine-feminine axis different areas of their brain functionality lie at a given time.Some Switchminders can control not just their current location on these axes, but also the extent of their current mental functionality along them. This allows them to have brain functionality all the way from that of a Fullminder (covering the entire range of functionality all at once) to that of a baseline human (with functionality only at a specific point along the masculine-feminine axis).
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Development Notes
Text by Tony Jones
Graphic by Bernd Helfert, modified by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 06 February 2006.
Design notes - The Fullminders and Switchminders were inspired by the BBC programme 'Secrets of the Sexes', at http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/sexsecrets/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/articles/brain_sex.shtml
Graphic by Bernd Helfert, modified by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 06 February 2006.
Design notes - The Fullminders and Switchminders were inspired by the BBC programme 'Secrets of the Sexes', at http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/sexsecrets/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/articles/brain_sex.shtml
