The notion has arisen a few times throughout history.
If souls are kites, the Process is winding the string around the person to draw it closer, allowing it to do more than create thought…then what about children?
They think less clearly, perhaps their soul is further away. If so, then the Process should ‘loop more string’ around them, ie, give them more power, at the cost of an enhanced risk of dying in the Process.
The Union came up with this a while back, their researchers unable to countenance actually going through with anything so vile, but their peril dire enough to investigate. They found, to their relief, that the Company Men would not Process anyone below the legal limit defined by their bylaws.
A half hearted attempt was made to get around this, but soon abandoned. In truth, the Union could never afford to waste its limited Processes on people who were less likely to survive. This, combined with the moral dimension, caused them to bury the research, hoping that their less scrupulous enemies would never hear of it.
The idea flared to life again, a few years later, in the Regime. Subtracter got it from one of the smart people that she threatened in order to generate ideas. It landed on barren ground, as the Regime has no particular desire to make stronger Ultras than its Fists, or Her.
It was only a few years ago that the notion and the men who would implement it collided. An ambitious Demigod in the Pantheon’s service, desperate to supplant Death as the Ruling Council member in charge of reinforcements, gave this idea a try.
It took a good bit of wrangling to get the Company Men to comply, but their bylaws turned out to have a loophole, where someone in a terminal condition could have the Process despite any other individual factors. This Ultra used, unknowingly, the same loophole that Peggy Martin had used so many years ago in order to create the Ultra Crime Wave.
It was a resounding failure. The attrition rate put 30/1 to shame, and even in the Pantheon one could not commit such atrocity without retribution. Zeus and the Council put an end to the deplorable Deity, and announced the immediate shutdown of the project.
They did, in fact, shut it down. Only to reopen it elsewhere, covertly.
The details are too ghoulish and tragic to go into. The first facility was destroyed with all hands when someone survived the Process with Ultra Blasts 3 and stubbed her toe. The second facility, with much better security, managed to produce a success and deliver it to Zeus. The six year old Psyche, child of God.
The Company Men hadn’t been able to determine the nature of her power. Understandably, as their instruments had already revolted against them. None of the local Ultras could do so either, and she had been slated for termination.
The Union spies had been surprised when their orders had come through the combands, to break their deep cover, kidnap Psyche and give her ice cream. They were obedient, however, and only failed because their implants betrayed them to her keepers, giving the Pantheon its first clue as to her power.
The report that Zeus received was analog, so we can’t blame her gift for its misleading nature. The author was simply a fool. It said that technology acted to defend Psyche, that she was master of man’s inventions. True enough, but a lot like saying Peggy Martin was ‘very strong’.
It is hard to blame Zeus for eagerly embracing her power. He was a child of the New World, he had never heard of the Singularity.