Science fiction idea: there's these floating cities powered by Iuml, who are kind of a cross between a composite of Earth-monks, Neo from The Matrix, and Guild Navigators from Dune. And perhaps a pinch of Ted Brautigan's wisdom and Breaker powers from Stephen King's universe.

Iuml amplify the cities they live in the core in. They're sort of like janitors, altho they don't clean so much as fly — with the powers of their mind. These floating cities would be akin to Roger Dean meets Darwinia, hurtling through space and docking at various planets for resource pickup.

Clearly, this is risky, which is why Iuml are needed. They're born different but why isn't well-understood. Standing in close proximity to them tends to result in serendipitous factors multiplying as if it was magic. For example, say we were to take a lousy basketball player, and have a Iuml on court, sipping Mountain Dew. Even if that Iuml wasn't a good hoop-shooter himself or herself, the chances of this "everything but net" player sinking baskets would be boosted to such a degree that one might be tempted to say they're on fire. This could, of course, be scientifically measured.

Iuml tend to not have much of a life unto their own. This is sad, because what energy they have, they usually end up sharing with the whole world (floating city) at large, making it difficult for them to have extended personal relationships of any cognizant value. So they tend to be lonely, yet friendly, happy to help others, yet missing something substantial for themselves.

That's why I thought to myself, "What if there was an Iuml who wanted to settle down and have a rewarding personal life and continue steering the great city-ship into unexplored territories?" This would not be an overdramatic, violent plot arc but rather, an unfolding of story that'd prove to be generally soothing and domestic, but wrought with the conflict that makes such stories worth remembering.

This Iuml would meet a woman, get to know each other, and fortified with love, learn to balance family with work life. In the process, he'd enact a "gentle revolution" that would change the concept of how other spacefarers viewed the requirements and duties of an Iuml; eventually, it'd be found that having such a rich existence would make the Iuml function even better overall, with the tides of society shifting so that Iuml would be encouraged to be with a mate.

I know some of this is thinly autobiographical (while most of it is clearly fictional!), but we write what we know, right?