Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter One: The Cosmos (section)

===Obligation===

''From Up Here They Look Like Ants''

A genius' Breakthrough, once she has mastered his first Axioms and created her first wonders, is often accompanied by a godlike feeling of invincibility and of escape from the fetters of the mundane world. But a genius cannot escape humanity, at least while keeping his humanity intact.

Instead, a genius is bound to humanity by ties of Obligation. The genius can never again be part of everyday humanity, or return to his old life. He can never again walk among his former peers as equals, at least not without danger to himself and to them. But the genius cannot simply be a watcher. Instead he must become a monitor, a guardian of his world from both his own wonders and horrors and those unleashed by others. Often dispassionate, but never disinterested, the genius becomes a protector of common humanity.

That's the ideal, and few Inspired live up to it. Even peers are willing to use mortals as subjects, servants, and pawns, while Lemuria sees itself as their natural rulers. Those Paragons who retain their sense of Obligation are rare, especially as the pressure of finding test subjects, grant money, and a place to work grows more fierce as a genius grows in ability and Inspiration. Powerful geniuses often see themselves more as conduits for the raw stuff of Inspiration than as people who happen to be Inspired, and behave accordingly. Those acts 
that violate a genius' sense of Obligation are called transgressions. Too many, too often, with too little regard for their consequences, can drive a genius into true madness.