Aurora Consurgens: hyding

On The Phenomenon of 'Hyde' among Omegas

Dr. Kim Li, special to the Fortean Times

Hyding, as it is known in the rarefied semi-academical world of Omega studies, refers to Omegas whose nature is often hidden from themselves as well as others. In some cases this is a defense mechanism to hide the Omegas nature or protect them from harm, in which case they seldom give away their nature in their 'normal' form. This tends to apply to Omegas whose humanoid 'other' appearance tends to resemble mythical monsters, so the extent to which the change is a psychic break in the mind over what said appearance seems to suggest is a large open question.

Waking up one day with a face only a drunk mother could love and tentacles for legs is, undoubtedly, hard to deal with. Waking up covered in fur and looking like a B-movie werewolf is an entirely differently class of strange and in its own way harder to deal with since the actual resemblance to myths tends to be superficial at best. (For example, no Omega whose appearance could be equated to a werewolf has been bothered by silver or the moon unless rigorously conditioned to believe they should be harmed by such things.) This also applies to Omegas who look like classical gods, demons, angels and so forth: at some level the person isn't able to cope with that and creates a new personality that is the Omega, or at least holds certain aspects of it. That this can be dangerous goes without saying.

The other side are Omegas whose nature is at odds with their personality, or at least their understanding of it. Combative abilities for a pacifist, for example, fit in with this problem. In these cases, the Omegas seem to split their abilities between their normal self and the Other, and most seem to be easily found out as Omegas regardless of appearance in their normal 'self' form. This suggests that a fear of one's own potential is impliclict in this ind of Omega, and hence abilities that are generally destructive or damaging by nature.

Whether the Omega will recall the change -- or what they do when changed -- is likely dependant on psychological factors, which can be mitgated by showing the Omega video of them changing, for example, or pictures of the changed form.

(will finish later)