Though they didn't know it yet, the sapients of
Velsin's Heart had a
problem. Over the course of the last several months, they had begun to
see signs that their caretaker was going insane. At first, they
dismissed them. By all rights, Velsin had been a wonderful caretaker.
No one in Velsin's Heart suffered or wanted for anything. Life had
always been idyllic. The civilization of Velsin's Heart had flourished
under the sound guidance of its transapient benefactor for generations,
and most knew in their hearts that, even if the occasional edict handed
down by their caretaker seemed odd at first, it always ultimately
turned out to have been given with their best interests in
mind.
But the harsh restrictions on off-Velsin travel recently
laid down strained the patience of the most gracious of Velsin's
children. The curfew mandated later made many suspect something
sinister was afoot.
Unexplained disappearances became common, and for the first time in the
history of Velsin's Heart, sickness and hunger began to seep into the
fabric of daily life.
Appeals to Velsin seemed to fall on deaf ears. Velsin
insisted through it all that nothing was wrong -- that is, when e
replied to such inquiries at all. Velsin had never been particularly
chatty, but Velsin had *always* offered timely replies to any request
made of er. Within a very short timeframe, the majority of Velsin's
children began to harbor the uncomfortable suspicion that their
caretaker was undergoing a dramatic personality
shift. Many began to wonder whether Velsin had somehow, impossibly,
become sick
.
But their concern for their caretaker soon took a back seat
to concern for their own lives. On the eve of the 17th day of the
Vernal Cycle, 9750, the sapients of Velsin's Heart saw their world
almost literally turn upside down. Massive Velsin-quakes and eruptions
of unimaginable heat roiled the surface of their world. Where these
upheavals coincided with major population centers, millions were
killed.
During the next few weeks, Velsin sprouted thousands of
tree-like diamondoid spires. These towering structures, thrust upward
from somewhere deep within Velsin's Heart, rose skyward until they
towered over even the tallest buildings, arcing upward in tapering
conical columns for kilometers before finally breaking into billions of
fractally-branching tendrils. The intense heat radiated by
these spires rendered the areas at their base uninhabitable. To make
matters worse, as soon as the tops of these spires breached the densest
layers of Velsin's atmosphere, they began to broadcast intense signals
across the bulk of the electromagnetic spectrum. The strength of these
signals disrupted all but the most hardened technologies used by the
people living on Velsin's surface. Entire
virchworlds were snuffed in the instant the trees began broadcasting,
their host substrates broken down under the intense bombardment of
radiation. Biological sophonts succumbed quickly to radiation
poisoning. Even the most hardened vecs, adapted to survive in harsh
environments, had difficulty maintaining under the onslaught.
The heat and radiation from the spires virtually sterilized
Velsin's surface. Velsin's Heart became a tomb to millions. Only those
living out in the orbital structures ringing Velsin at a distance
managed to fare through the emergence of the spires to witness the
events that followed.
By the end of the first week after the spires' emergence,
most sapients living within Velsin's sphere had been reduced to merely
coping with the daily onslaught of the deadly manifestations of er
madness. Few could escape the complex web of emigration
restrictions and enforcement that had been put in place a month prior.
Few even considered escape, and put their energy toward shielding
themselves from Velsin's deadly transmissions. Few even wondered
anymore what those transmissions were trying to say.
All they deemed relevant was the fact that those transmissions, which
would be easily visible for light-years, were slowly killing them.
Those far enough from the sphere of Velsin's influence who could flee
took their tale of plight to neighboring civilizations, and desperately
sought help for their friends and families trapped behind.
Fortunately for the survivors, there was already sufficient
concern among neighboring powers over Velsin's descent into madness
that an expedition to investigate had been dispatched months before.
Just three months after the emergence of the spires, this expedition
entered Velsin's system through one of its wormhole gates. Its warships
took up orbits just beyond the altitude of Velsin's orbital habitats. A
spokesperson for the group, identifying erself as Beauty in Truth and
addressing erself, curiously, to the sapients of the habitats, rather
than to Velsin erself, explained that the group had been dispatched by
a coalition of concerned neighbors in response to signs that something
had gone horribly wrong in Velsin's keeping. Beauty in Truth advised
the sapients living on the habitats to seek escape immediately -- to
break orbit of Velsin where possible, to put as much distance between
themselves and their former caretaker as they could -- or they would be
killed along with their caretaker, who was to be exterminated per a
"community edict" in the interests of "containing an outbreak."
Confused, terrified, the survivors of Velsin's
transformation -- numbering now in only the tens of thousands --
complied. Beauty in Truth's warships began an assault on Velsin almost
immediately. At first, they took measures only to remove the orbital
habitats from Velsin's direct influence, but soon, as these colonies
fled beyond scope of the battle, they began bombarding Velsin's
surface. The radiating spires, now extending fully 1/6 of Velsin's
radius from er surface, whithered and collapsed under the onslaught.
Weapons normally reserved for only the most serious of warfare ripped
deep gouges into Velsin's face. The husks of cities that stood in the
shadow of the fractal trees that had seeded their doom evaporated
beneath Beauty in Truth's cleansing fire.
When the day was over, Velsin had been reduced to a crescent
ring of ash, smeared across a segment of its orbit around the primary.
Beauty in Truth directed her warships to take charge of the survivors,
offloading supplies and equipment to help them in the long journey away
from their shattered homeland. Naturally, these survivors demanded
explanation from their deliverers. Graciously, Beauty in Truth offered
them one.
The story e told constitutes the sum body of knowledge
sapient kind has regarding a class of transapient affliction known to
them as "Affines."
***********************
-Origins
and History-
No one knows for sure exactly when or where the first affines
originated, but numerous theories have been advanced. Some believe that
affines are weapons developed by higher
toposophic
minds -- like
specialized memetic combat
ISOs. Others
suggest that affines
are the inevitable result of natural evolution, arising to fill a new
ecological niche opened up by the emergence of
transapients.
If higher
toposophic minds know the truth of affine origins, they have yet to
share the information with sapient researchers.
Only one case of affine infection has ever been known to sapients. This
case regards an S3 mind housed in an moon brain known as Velsin -- the
sole transapient inhabitant of a quiet dwarf-star system, circling a
superjovian-class giant planet, and home itself to approximately 22
million sapients living on its terraformed surface. The circumstances
of Velsin's initial infection are not known, but its aftermath is well
documented.
Within several months' time, Velsin went from a humane,
sapient-friendly caretaker to a reclusive, paranoid and indiscriminate
killer, negligent to less developed forms of intelligence and actively
hostile toward others of er own toposophic level. Virtually everything
we know about affines comes from an examination of this historic case,
in conjunction with a
detailed -- though no doubt superficial -- explanation provided by the
intervening archai, Beauty in Truth.
According to Beauty in Truth, the S4 aggregate mind responsible for the
extermination of Velsin and the rescuing of er belabored population,
affines are parasitic entities, generally operating 1 to 2
toposophic
levels below their hosts but spiking in certain specific area of
competence -- much like a classic transavant -- that facilitate their
invasion and subsequent subversion of their host. They attack
large-scale transapients of toposophic level 3 or greater by first
quietly subverting their lower toposophic components. They then extend
their influence upward through the layers of their host's mind,
altering cognitive and perceptual faculties as they go.
-Factors
to Susceptibility-
Beauty in Truth suggests that there are affine strains capable of
influencing -- to varying degrees -- virtually every
cognitive-perceptual architecture used by modern transapients of the
third toposophic and up. Specific routes of transmission and strategies
of infection vary greatly among different "species" of affines. Just
like different strains of viruses are adapted to infecting different
species of biological life, certain strains of affines are adapted to
infecting certain "species" of transapient minds.
What works on one host may not work on every host.
The susceptibility of a given individual depends greatly on mental
architecture and the strategies used to organize mental processes.
Transapients that rely more on "cellular" models of psychological
organization -- those that build aggregate minds from a large number of
lower-toposophic, semi-independent but interconnected units -- tend to
be more susceptible to affine infection than those that exhibit a more
monolithic psychological makeup.
Beauty in Truth suggests that affine susceptibility is a result of an
emergent property of transapient intelligence, wherein cognitive and
perceptual faculties are linked so intimately as to constitute a single
system. Beauty in Truth characterizes this perceptual-cognitive fusion
in terms of how operant conditioning in
complex biological organisms take place. Stimuli experienced by many
transapients feed directly into their lower-level responses, memories,
emotions and cognitive processes without requiring any rational
consideration. Though in sapients and subsapient organisms, operant
conditioning tends to map simple stimuli to relatively simple
rote-responses, in transapients the relationship carries to a much
higher order of cognitive function.
The appearance, to lower toposophic beings, is that as soon as a
transapient perceives something, e comprehends a massive amount of
information about it, without needing to analyze and interpret its
nature. This analysis and interpretation is done almost
entirely subconsciously, and its results are available almost
immediately to transapient's conscious mind as though the information
had always been there. The advantages of such
close coupling between the senses and the analytic, adaptive
intelligence that makes use of sensory data can be enormous.
Unfortunately, though, it makes its user vulnerable to cognitive
modification by carefully constructed patterns of perceptual input.
Virtually all transapients employing this kind of mental architecture
exhibit layers of immunity to such exploitation, but the existence of
this interface has opened up a kind of virtual ecology between
transapient minds themselves and "predatory" memetic entities that can
invade and corrupt them.
Affines exploit this cognitive-perceptual interface, circumventing
immunization strategies and rooting themselves into the minds of host
transapients directly as soon as they are perceived. Beauty in Truth
was and remains mum on the subject of
where
the first affines came from, but this has not stopped the sapient
community from developing numerous theories. Some believe that affines
are weapons developed by higher toposophic minds, like
specialized memetic combat ISOs. Others suggest that affines
are the inevitable result of natural evolution, arising to fill a new
ecological niche opened up by the emergence of transapience.
-Infection-
Affine infection is characterized by mental and perceptual aberrations,
analogous to those experienced by baseline patients suffering from
dementia. Affine infection most commonly follows exposure to specific
sets of "affine-encoding" perceptual data, but can be transmitted
directly through transapient contact once the initial infection has set
in. Though affine infections are manageable if detected early enough,
they are notoriously difficult to isolate and destroy once they have
become entrenched. Thus, the most common tack taken by high
transapients to manage affine infection is the quarantine or outright
eradication of individuals suffering advanced infections.
Most affines share some common characteristics, but the mutation rate
among affines is incredibly high. The event of an infection
complicates taxonomy greatly, since one of the characteristics of an
affine-infected transapient is its prolific production and distribution
of affine variants, each tailored to attack a specific kind of host.
An infected transapient becomes contagious when it begins to produce
and distribute affine-encoding patterns of its own. Strategies of
affine contagion vary even more greatly than strategies of initial
affine infection do, in no small part because this contagion is
orchestrated by higher order toposophic intelligences than the affines
themselves. Most commonly, transapients broadcast powerful
affine-encoding signals using structures knows as "affine spires."
Other strategies involve implanting affine-encoding patterns in backup
archives or even in lower order toposophic minds that will eventually
interface with higher ones, propagating the infection when it is "read
out" of its lower toposophic vector by a new host. Infected
transapients may also encode affines as images on physical objects, or
devise similar ways of representing an affine pattern in some
persistent perceptual medium so that even without an actively
contagious host, the possibility of secondary transmission exists.
Monolithic minds exhibit few early symptoms of affine infection. In
composite minds, an early symptom of affine infection is the sudden
development of affinities for obscure perceptual patterns among
lower-toposophic subcomponents. Beauty in Truth suggests that, to
affected distributed minds, this is often viewed as no more unusual
than a particular subcomponent developing a sudden liking for a certain
shade or red or a certain breed of flower that has never been
encountered before. Higher-level control mechanisms in transapient
minds generally ignore such affinities as just the natural tendencies
of intelligence on all levels to develop favorite elements in new sets
of perceptual data. In the case of affine infections, these developed
affinities are for affine-encoding perceptual patterns. Repeated
exposure reinforces the initial infection, and kicks off the process of
cognitive reorganization that eventually turns the host into a machine
for reproducing and propagating affines of all types.
The reason why affine infections are initially successful -- even in
the most powerful transapients that might otherwise easily eradicate
them -- is that their would be hosts are either unaware of genuinely
grow to LIKE what the affines do to them. It's like a drug -- one that
the recipient is introduced to VERY innocuously, but that is highly
addictive and ultimately destructive once the initial exposure has been
made. As in many cases of drug addiction, affine victims deny they are
in danger. They insist they are in control, and see nothing sinister in
an agent that
brings them genuine, enduring pleasure. Infected transapients are fully
aware of the presence of affines during the later stages of infection.
They have developed such strong affection for them that they are
unwilling to allow their affine "pets" to come to harm. This makes
late-stage infections extremely difficult to treat. Most victims of
affines do not WANT to be cured.
Encoded affines are not themselves intelligent, thinking creatures. An
affine pattern is more like a perceptual program that, when "run" by a
perceiving transapient, becomes a thinking, intelligent creature. Thus,
like biological viruses, affines are absolutely dependent on their
hosts for ALL of their life functions. Running affines in an infected
transapient constitute their own semi-independent modes or patterns of
thought. This gives rise to the distinction between the host and its
infection.
Beauty in Truth was particularly adamant on this point. Running affines
actively conspire with one another to influence their transapient host.
The number of affines active in a given host directly impacts the
degree to which that host is slave to their will.
-Progression-
Once an affine infection takes hold, it begins to modify the perceptual
set of its host to value the affine infection, usually by associating
the presence and activities of affines with the psychological
experience of pleasure. This subtle subversion takes place far below
the threshold of consciousness for the affected transapient. It appears
to the host as though lower-toposophic subcomponents are operating
innocuously, "doing something they like" in a way that poses no actual
danger to the anyone. The resources diverted at this stage to affine
activity are usually so minimal as to be completely dismissed. During
this time, the affine infection begins to subtly influence the
cognitive features of the higher transapient mind.
Through continual perceptual filtering, the affines gradually make the
transapient tolerant, permissive... downright gullible (though in a
very relative sense.)
Once they have nurtured a friendly relationship with their host,
affines begin to subvert portions of er regulatory and nanofacture
systems. They divert resources to the development and manufacture of
new affine encodings, which are then passed on to other potential
hosts. The host, at this stage, becomes a "pusher." Its sophisticated
analytical and fabrication capabilities are exploited to develop new
vectors for affine transmission, targeted for hosts that might be
resistant to other "natural" strategies of infection. The transapient's
social networks are exploited to distribute these vectors.
At this point on the infection, the host no longer perceives the world
without at least a thin layer of affine filtering. Signs of the
infection are beginning to manifest in the transapient's physical
structure as its fabrication capabilities become more and more
subverted. In large-bodied transapients, structures known as
"affine spires" begin to appear on the transapient's skin or outer
surface. These structures serve as massive fractal antennae. They
radiate a great deal of heat and electromagnetic energy, a large
percentage of which constitute signals encoding infection affine
patterns. As they grow in size and number, they may divert up to 2% of
a moon-brain's entire power consumption toward the production of this
radiation.
According to Beauty in Truth, once the contagious stage of infection
has been reached, the perceptual set of an infected transapient is
almost completely disjoint with reality. They suffer from acute
dementia, paranoia, and often exhibit a strong tendency toward
isolationism. This is fortunate, because afflicted
transapients at this stage are incredibly contagious, and so far
invariably hostile to the presence of any lower toposophic mind. Very
little research data exists for the course of infection beyond this
point, because no transapients have remained
viable or accessible once this point of infection has been reached.
Beauty in Truth indicates that most infected transapients at this point
are either put under strict quarantine or outright destroyed in the
interests of protecting the transapient population at large.
-Treatment-
Early detection of affine infection can lead to successful treatment.
Often, however, treatment requires a highly invasive rewiring and
purging of the afflicted transapient's perceptual subsystem.
Treatment must be administered with the utmost care to avoid
contagion, often through the proxy of low-level (S2 or lower) minds.
This make it both difficult and time consuming. It also can be
dangerous. Affines (when active inside a transapient host) are both
intelligent and self-aware. Most are of transapient status themselves
(generally S1 through S2), and thus are more than capable of
manipulating and coercing low-level proxies to do their bidding.
Furthermore, affine infection must be treated not only as a disease,
but as an addiction as well. Afflicted transapients many times don't
wish to undergo treatment, complicating matters severely. Others resist
treatment, or only allow enough access to their cognitive systems to
allow for a removal of the affine patterns themselves. This leaves much
of the collateral damage done by the affines in place. In these cases,
the partially-recovered transapients sometimes seek out new infections
due to the addictive holdovers of the old one.
