ataraxion | 010; (VIDEO) forward-dated to late on the 25th

[What you are seeing is Topher. Topher looks a little like hell. Someone may or may not have been avoiding dealing with one of his empathy links for SCIENCE (the first one worked out fine- that's how he knows enough to figure this out, but the second one...) ... Also, it's possible he's been occupied running scans and trying to figure out if he's wrong, which... he's still not convinced he's not.]

I've been working.... [He pauses, plants a palm on his forehead, and sucks in a breath.] I've been working on a theory. It's not entirely sound yet, but I was trying to run through every logical possibility before entertaining the notion that it might actually be... that, and... no dice. None. And it was bad enough when it was just memories, but now- now. Oh, it's much worse.

Whatever this is, it's on a synaptic level- whatever one person feels, the other person feels too. Observe. [He picks up something sharp and pricks himself, which makes him hiss in pain.] Now someone out there felt that. That means that we are doing some serious groupthink weirdness without the whole "all of us are Borg" BS- SO FAR. Who knows what it'll be in a few weeks. Or days. And what was the last thing 90% of us experienced that involved groupthink? Anyone?

[YEAH, TOPHER'S HAVING A BAD DAY. HOW ARE YOU?] I think we might be in trouble.

[He rubs his face.] And is anyone who was fully assimilated on Strela even still around? 'Cause that'd be a start to maybe possibly proving me wrong. Or right. But let's err on the side of blind optimism and assume my fancy medical degrees in neurology mean nothing and I'm just talking out of my... bottom area. Whatever.

[Maybe you should deal with your link first, Topher. MAYBE. There's science to do, okay.]

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We could check out in anytime we liked, but we could never leave? [He laughs and then... decides maybe he shouldn't make reference jokes, because most people don't get them. He clears his throat.] Uh... In a nutshell, we stopped to get supplies and the locals tried to kidnap us and force us to join their freaky hivemind collective.

[As for the rest...] Working on it. So far, it's mostly just a lot of extra activity in the temporal lobe and phantom tinglies in the synapses whenever a link is active. I've only done comparison scans on myself, but... Here. [He turns the device to show where he has two brain scans- one which is pretty much exploding with color and the other a little bit more normal.] It's all just a bunch of extra activity. Nothing concrete- nothing you can really track. It's like it's a part of your brain, but... not.

[Oh, hiveminds. Well that's simple enough --still, Shepard files the information away.]

What about tissue damage? Has there been any trace of that after any of the links?

Nope. No scarring, no weird fiddly bits. Heck, there's not even damage done to the other person. That finger prick thing? If I bleed, they're not. It's all nerve endings responding to a stimulus on both ends of the link.

But everyone seems to be reasoning their way through this. I'm not saying the situation's ideal, but if you're suggesting people are eventually going to get lost in each other's heads...--

[Shepard's out of her depth, that much is true. But she can't imagine getting them all into some kind of group think hivemind is as easy as simply linking everyone's synapses; there'd have to be some kind of physically debilitating side effect for that to work, wouldn't there?]

They're resisting, which is good, but the more this happens, the more the brain is gonna adapt to it. The human brain is extremely powerful, but it's major weakness is in its adaptability- how it deals with trauma. It's like when your body builds up a tolerance to a medication.

For example- a year ago, I was convinced this entire ship was a figment of my imagination. And now? Nothing can shock me. I got used to it. Eventually, people will get used to getting slammed with new memories and that's... where we're gonna start seeing problems.

I take it there's no easy to way to-- [Get ready for grasping at straws 101, Topher.] --block the link somehow?

Not unless we can successfully put a firewall in every person's head to stop the nanites from actively transmitting things we don't want them to transmit. Like spamblocker for the brain.

[He has an answer for everything.]

[She's quick enough to go along with the idea; honestly, brain spamblocker is practically homey.] Do you have the kind of tech here to develop that kind of thing?

It's less the getting the tech part and more the... not making us all space crazy accidentally part.

[Okay, sure. That's probably fair.]

So you'd need test subjects.

[Not that she's volunteering mind you, it's just something to float out in there air - see whether it sinks or not.]

Test subjects and a whole lot of research into the nanites, but basically.

010; (VIDEO) forward-dated to late on the 25th

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