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

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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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[Wash, of course, has no idea what he's about to do just by opting for the video feed]

Whoah, whoah, lot of information there, but some of us need to go back a step or two. What's a Borg and a Strela?

[Crickets chirping in the distance.]

[OH WAIT. Maybe he should... not be staring.]

Can, uh... Sorry. What was the question?

[HE'S GONNA DIE. HE'S GONNA DIE SO HARD...]

Edited 2013-10-25 02:17 (UTC)

[Okay, that was... weird.]

Uh... what's this about Strela and Borg? For those of us just joining.

[Topher makes a face that may or may not be a frysquint. Now... Alpha's a genius. He could whip up an encryption and cut the crap pretty heavily when faced with someone who knows him. Alpha's hodgepodge of personalities allowed him to pick a persona depending solely on mood, so a mismatched personality wasn't enough to go on, but now...

And really if it was Alpha, then how hadn't anything happened before now?

Still. He's wary.]

Uh... The Borg's a reference. Don't worry about it. Strela, on the other hand, was a space station we visited over a year ago where we were all almost assimilated into their creepy cultish hivemind.

Did you say Strela?

Topher, you are my very best friend and I value that a lot, but it also gives me the right, as your best friend, to step in when I deem it--when I deem it necessary.

Can you not?

Were you here for that? 'Cause we have lost and gained a ton of people since then, dude.

I didn't want to say it, but someone had to. I don't wanna be that guy, but... brain science. It's my thing. I didn't really come to the decision to be Data over this without a lot of trepidation.

[HE HAS NEVER FORGIVEN DATA FOR THE CLONE THING.]

Generally, I try not to induce panic.

Sounds like a delightful place to visit. And you think that might have something to do with everyone's memories going for a wander?

No, no one had to say it, because nobody wants to think about this sort of thing! Having someone in your head is bad enough without you giving a play-by-play of the worst case scenarios.

[He flicks on the communicator and just launches right into the rambling.]

Initially I theorized this was the result of some sort of focused medical tampering -- if a ship can take people from a myriad of varied environments and even varied realities, it seems possible to insert another's memories via some sort of...tissue transfer, perhaps? The actual reproduction of neurons or brain matter? Or perhaps it's based electrically, with a reproduction of the actual synapses firing, which seems possible as well.

But now that there's a physical and even an emotional link, I'm starting to suspect there's been an agent introduced in the food or atmosphere that's causing shared hallucinations, because short of actually connecting nerve endings, this seems absolutely impossible.

[Pause.]

I'm Armin, by the way.

[GOD, HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO REACT TO YOU, WASH. Your face, man.]

It's the best theory I've come up with so far.

Technically, it's one scenario. Singular. [...Because that... makes it better.] And if anyone's got a reason to be tweaking out about this... this flies in the face of everything I've based my entire career off of. This doesn't just happen.

I like to call it "spreading awareness." And maybe investing in good psychic shielding. We've got guys who can do that here, right?

[THAT IS A LOT OF WORDS, DUDE.]

That is... really impressive. [Topher steeples his fingers.] But doesn't quite win you the giant stuffed panda, my friend. Imprinting memories, emotions, and... sensations into another person's brain is a very real possibility, but the problem is you can't do that to a functioning brain. You gotta wipe the slate clean first. Putting even one memory into someone else's head would set off a neurological event that could shut the whole system down or... make your head implode.

But linking a bunch of minds into one singular mind is... a little less tricky if you have the right equipment. The hard part is the whole individual consciousness thing. If that's what this is, then maybe they're linking gradually- a little of this guy, a little of that chick, and then slowly they remove everything that's us and we're left with a bunch of mindless drones thinking together as one. It'd be cool if it weren't happening to us. [Or had never happened to anyone he knew.]

I'm Topher. I'm the... ship neurologist.

No. This is the kind of theory you discuss with Medbay first.

Well of course it--of course this kind of thing doesn't just happen, none of the things on this rubbish boat just happen.

Do you want to scan my brain? Would that--would that help?

There is an award in the form of a stuffed...thing? [Armin possesses neither an idea of what a panda is, or a sense of humor, apparently. But Topher's explanation makes him nod slowly, propping his chin in his hand and setting the communicator down on something, so he can reach into his pocket.

Once he's retrieved a rather battered-looking little book, he starts flipping the pages rapidly.] Like tributaries joining a river. They don't seem to have too pressing a deadline, though, considering how slow it's happening.

[He finally reaches the proper page, frowning for a moment, then asking tentatively:] You're a...brain doctor?

Oh, so now we're in trouble. Because we weren't before. Thanks, for the warning.

[Except your disjointed warning seriously sucks, pal, and this is so not the day for that shit.]

Just what exactly are you suggesting we're going t' be dealing with in a few weeks?

It might. I mean I'd need the other person's brain too, for me to figure out if it goes any deeper than its little nest in the temporal lobe. That might be why the synapses are firing off in unison- everyone's memories are confused, so their wires are all crossed and that effects physical sensation. It could be that the TQ has just figured out how to... do certain things without other things happening.

If you... catch my drift. [Which is not ANY BETTER. Imprinting over a fully functional brain is terrifying, even if it's just a couple memories at a time. That's not eradicating your entire self. That's just making you're entire self... not whole.]

Did you put that in a memo?

[Topher just waves it off- he is used to that kind of reaction, given he's a Stark bannerman.]

They just need to keep flowing. [He bites his knuckle.] So it doesn't matter where all the little rivers and streams came from and their little individual rivers-and-streams stories, they're all part of a collective whole now. And he human brain is really strong, but if it puts up a fight against something, you're gonna either have someone resisting the process or shorting out their motherboard. Doing it slowly when people have time to start adapting to the process... There's no resistance.

[He ruffles his own hair.] Yeah, if the... brain real talk didn't clue you in.

[Yeah, well.

So's your face, Mitchell.]

A... total loss of our individual selves. It's like... like cake, okay. You start with a bunch of different ingredients, all of them separate and individual, and then you put them all in a mixer, and suddenly you don't know what's what anymore. Right now, we're all still eggs and milk and whatever, but the more the ship starts mixing other things into our brains, the more we start to lose what we were and become one big cake collective.

[A beat.] And now I'm hungry.

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