Eris on Cardamine

[Emissary]

The host attentively listened to the questions and gestured his guest to take a seat near the table. Seats were somewhat odd in design, sculpted in twisted organic shapes and seemingly made out of single material, but surprisingly very comfortable.

"Close enough, it is a study of human behavior, although it remains an unintended deviation from the purpose. Performed through combination of rearranged memories, experiences reconstructed and vision of events that may occur, gathering reactions, responses, impulses. Those you experience may not necessarily be your memories, instead coming from someone else entirely or multiple sources even. Transition processes are of certain interest to us because of how localized your memory is and how it struggled to interpret external sources." - he took the pause to observe reaction before continuing: "Most of which had to be retrieved and accumulated through the means of accessing neural structures, and direct access is most efficient too, not while the mind is in hibernation states but when it is functioning actively as it were, in a familiar environment too."

Surprisingly the host described the subject a bit further, from memory manipulation to mapping patterns between different individuals, focusing mostly at efficiency their approach had yielded and how well it allowed them to get to know humans. Not from a distance but from within, through all the senses possessed and meretriciously sorting behavior patterns. Not simply dissecting to find what's inside and observing in the wild trying to figure out how a creature thinks, but actually becoming the subject of research. Hearing all this in such direct manner stirred troubling thoughts lingering inside...

"Are you worried? Does it make you uneasy to think that perhaps in some ways we may know you more than you might know yourself?"

The man gave a brief pause letting Doc gather his thoughts. Does he know what Doc thinking? It's that piercing gaze again. The eyes surely human, but what is on the other end of neural network behind them sure wasn't and it wasn't a singular being there either. Illusions stacked upon illusions. What would it be like to see their true form? All John had seen before were either 'incubi' used for infestation or space-faring organic forms many would think of as ships. But is there something else? Other way they manifest themselves in the world?

"Exhaustion. Hunger. Here, try these." - he pointed at the glass-like bowl on the small table nearby. There were several orbs the size of an apple but completely spherical semi-transparent matte surface with several brighter smaller orbs inside. "They're edible, but what they may lack in flavor is compensated by rejuvenation capacity they will provide for you. It's a modified strain based on a combination of others that we have found at Gaia. I suppose you may find irony that we would also engineer this. But it would not be the first time - there are various others 'fruits' of our labor that are being used across the colonies. This one is for the infrastructure to sustain human life here. While some candidates are found physically well preserved, plenty were salvaged at bleak conditions. Some didn't see purpose and benefit to their own existence, melting it down quicker than what they could handle. Regardless of the reasons their physical forms had to be restored, as had been yours after that fatal experience. Think of this place similar to your own restoration facility."

Medical bed, sterile environment, the room he woke up felt somewhat familiar too.

"Only so few are worthwhile the effort and this endeavor while the rest can't help themselves to make their short lives meaningful and would be of no use to us either."

Doc heard before about some humans willingly becoming infested. Individuals coming from very different backgrounds, yet all sharing same outcome if the tales to believed are true. Were they all manipulated into submission? For all he had been told by fellow colleagues the process was irreversible and original personality is completely erased, banished from own body as the alien parasite takes over. Gruesome fate by all accounts, who'd want to do that willingly? And yet desperation, no matter how drastic, alone it cannot be the only reason. For all the details and explanations made it only caused avalanche of questions.

"Human spark burns bright yet too short to make a difference, much of the time is spent to attempt to re-learn things others may know already, doing so in a very inefficient manner and leaving so little to make use of acquired knowledge. Living merely because that's the function their physical body performs until it has used up internal resources. Still not enough for some they drive it to early expiration by breaking it apart in so many ways. What is beyond? Not much else. Constrained memory-sampling reconstruction that you call imagination may form beliefs of a life after, a hope for a better one too. A simple desire of improvement and reflection of disappointment in existing conditions, in a lack of purpose to exist. Paradises manufactured and simple wishes fulfilled, there is indulgence in illusion sense of a purpose to be revealed from an act of own demise. Faking one where there is none, submissively accepting conveniently provided substitutes."

At the same time John could notice two figures appeared at the upper floor in atrium hall, passing to the opposite side. An older man in a lab coat followed by a young woman he could recognize.

"You were asking about the attacks, but when were humans, as a whole, under attack? Insight into your past reveals that humans had no encounters beyond. No aggression from outside as all known conflicts were internal. Unless you'd like to imply that humans were at any point endangered, but could it be the reason why they had driven many terrestrial-limited forms into extinction? The answer we all know already. So accustomed humans are to the conflicts that any external-driven activity arbitrarily related or assumed to be related to you is most likely to be perceived as initiation of a conflict phase. Feeling so insecure and consumed by self-preservation doctrine screaming wildly from within, it deafens any sense and broadly defines anything as a threat. In universe where you are natively limited to very specific environments safety is an illusion. Clinging to their instincts and failing to comprehend the scope beyond the measurement of their fleeting moments right before being swept from the board. Perhaps you may see it as a game where the board stretches into horizon and figures move in varying patterns, many times it becomes necessary to keep advancements of special interests at bay."

Uneasiness struck John again. Allusion to infinite board could not be a mere coincidence, heard about it before.

"The fault of interpretation often lies in perception of our motives through the refraction reasoning of your own, which in many paths are an extension of your own fundamental instincts. The instinct doesn't make in-depth analysis to perform, it's a shortcut to trigger a reaction, to make a split second decision and always strive to make choices that would favor your own life, to protect it from any harm and possible premature expiration. To live and exist no matter the cost and... no matter the purpose. Take for instance when you cowered at seeing, hearing and feeling an explosion nearby in the flashback. It felt quite real enough, did it? All the while you already knew or at least suspected it is an illusion, a fake shroud circumventing your sensory inputs, the reflex reaction was triggered faster before any conscious produced decision could take precedence. It takes considerably less into account and overall it could be called race condition in your terms. Compared to that distant and possibly abstract purposes tend to be of increased complexity and do not enter the equation of an instinct execution. But, of course, you know much of this already."

In a brief moment John saw something, it was all around him, massive nondescript swarm of entities of light and shadows, or perhaps it was just a singular one.

"But a purpose not unlike the one you struggle to find and identify, aren't you John? For instance you had doubts about this journey, restless period thinking possible outcomes over and over again, all the same subject to intensified sense of fear to discourage you. Naturally doing so to protect from danger, or rather what seem to be dangerous for all the things you had known so far and been told. The instinct does not consider thoroughly nor validates the claims, it simply uses alignments, predicaments, established and sometimes loose associations. Recognizing that fault in some capacity you still had attempted to have a form of protection by inserting that object conveniently provided to you. In truth inserting an illusion for the sake of temporary comfort, a humble lie to feed into fake of false sense of safety. At the very same time having doubts in its usefulness and even reaching conclusion that if need be we could pull it out from your body in the same manner you had inserted it. Eventually drawing from knowledge and experience of many more sources the conclusion and decision you have made allowed you to pass the threshold and surpass the barrier within. Yet how many more barriers do you need to break if the understanding is truly your goal? Challenge them."

//update: fixed first link