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Storyline suggestion
TrashMan:
Blasted forum ate my reply...gggrrr...short verison then:
--- Quote from: geisthund on May 04, 2012, 08:42:31 pm ---Heh... I'd have put it a century later. It would give more leeway for introducing cool stuff. In terms of storyline, and gadgetry.
--- End quote ---
I'd rather have it closer to today than in the far future. Makes it appear more real. Besides future is awfully hard to predict.
--- Quote ---... the power would come from normal body functions!
Put it this way, the virus wants to replicate. It does this. How? It has no power source stored within itself - it uses the bodys own power source to achieve its aims, by subjugating the cellular machinery. The whole DNA as the central code for the processor thing.
Likewise... the power for whatever... new function we observe, be it moving an apple with your brain or transmitting faxes from your left eye... could come from the same idea. Some enzyme cascade happens. ATP gets used up. The power isn't the issue. The issue is ---- how the heck is the action realized? How do you send a fax out your eye when your eye can't send signals. That is the true crux of what you're grappling with -- how, if there's no mechanism for effecting telepathy anywhere on the viral particle, can it communicate with... (err what was your issue with it again? communicating with the host, or with other viral particles?)
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Power is always an issue. After all, to lift that rock telekineticly, you have to generate lift and apply it at a distance.
And transmitting signals wouldn't be easy. As it stands, your average cellphone emmits more/stronger EM field/radiation than your brain.
--- Quote ---I guess it really depends on how well the code within the virus is written, right? If its an incredibly complex code, that needs a capsid, say 10 times the size of a normal virus -- then it's vaguely plausible that the virus (once it is transcribed into the host cell) becomes sentient, once its in your cells.
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The virus is just too small and choatic for that to work. Ther's no way a virus can be sentiant. There's no way it can act like a brain.
Viruses move around the body. The neurons stay where they are. Neurons and big and struictured. Viruses are small and simple.
--- Quote ---So perhaps rather than a sentient virus, a virus that codes for receptivity in the host to external control via a certain signal. Sort of like a backdoor entry (no pun intended) into the host...
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That's what I've been advocating. A virus that makes you succeptable to PSI suggestion.
geisthund:
--- Quote ---Power is always an issue. After all, to lift that rock telekineticly, you have to generate lift and apply it at a distance.
And transmitting signals wouldn't be easy. As it stands, your average cellphone emits more/stronger EM field/radiation than your brain.
--- End quote ---
With the former - for sure. But if you also think about it, you are a walking battery. Should there be a way to effect "telepathy" (telekenesis is just ridiculous, since there's no effector) through some obtuse pheremonal signal / however hive insects do it - but that made you burn 2000 cal and left you spent due to inefficiency of the process... that would be somewhat understandable, no? After all I have enough energy in me to run 12 miles...
--- Quote ---The virus is just too small and choatic for that to work. Ther's no way a virus can be sentiant. There's no way it can act like a brain.
Viruses move around the body. The neurons stay where they are. Neurons and big and struictured. Viruses are small and simple.
--- End quote ---
Yes, the virus in itself acting as a neuronal network is not logical.
However if the virus were to infect cells adjacent to each other, if could potentially perform rudimentary cell-cell interactions. This is, loosely, potential for a network of communication, although it would not be efficient enough to produce thought.
If it were to infect your brain... then it is entirely possible for it to acquire sentience. Some worms wind up in the brain predictably as part of their life cycle, so this isn't inconceivable
But the virus particles being sentient in themselves is kinda silly, unless they have some radical wireless transmitter feature which lets them network with each other (silly) or else encode for some bizarre new organelle which IS a brain. A brain at that size probably wouldn't be too useful though. Alternatively they could encode for a change in cell type (by gene switching) or recruitment of stem cells to result in you effectively growing a new brain somewhere else, and taking over control that way. Perhaps in your spinal cord?
TrashMan:
--- Quote from: geisthund on May 05, 2012, 03:02:24 pm ---If it were to infect your brain... then it is entirely possible for it to acquire sentience. Some worms wind up in the brain predictably as part of their life cycle, so this isn't inconceivable
--- End quote ---
But the virus isn't the one to aquire sentiencve. The brain does all the thinking.
Adn those parasitic worms operate on antoher principle. In the example of the one that infects snails, they infect the brain to make the snail unafraid and drop all caution, so it will be eaten by a bird, and thus get the parasite into the bird.
geisthund:
devious... turning snails into daredevils. :D
well the virus could encode for a.... err... well while I'm busy stretching reality... how about it encodes for a protein that disinhibits a pathway in your brain that evolution has shut down, that turns your brain back into its default, "preprogrammed" state -- which is completely foreign to normal human thought - ie alien. This messes the whole backstory up though -- it would mean that we are the aliens, except that we've diverged evolutionarily.
you're right. it's actually a lot more convenient to say the virus makes you grow an organ which renders you vulnerable to psionic control and assimilation. it's also a lot friendlier on the audience.
TrashMan:
I don't think ti's necessary for it to grow a new organ. Alterin the brain chemistry/structure should be a sufficient explanation, especially if psi/telepathy mechanics remain unexplained (and it's best they don't).
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