Soul touch

Sevolite pilots believe one can sometimes experience the soul of a fellow pilot, directly, while reality skimming. This can be a beautiful or horrifying experience.

The ships concerned must be in wake lock, as a rule. Wake lock means both ships are travelling at the same velocity with the same mix of gap and shimmer, the components of reality skimming drive.

Pilots may experience soul touch during attacks, as well, but probably only when wake lock conditions occur. A standard tactic of reality skimming, for stronger pilots, is to wake lock a weaker opponent and grip-wrestle them out of existence.

Reetions are skeptical about soul touch, partly because they tend to be humanist rationalists. Prior to encountering Sevolties, the incidence of such things were rare on the Reetion side of the universe in any case since it a phenomenon of extreme "grip", rarely possessed by commoners. They interpret reported cases of soul touch as something akin to jump hallucinations and artefacts of minds disordered by experiencing timeless doses of "gap".

Soul touch is featured in some of the reality skimming sequences in Courtesan Prince (Fall 2004, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy).

see also glossary entry: jump hallucination
see article: reality skimming