When Frank does her demonstration Nightmare's eyes light up like a kid at Christmas.
Yes! That will do nicely! She actually skips as she lightly claps her hands with exuberance.
She points at Roger as he asks
That is exactly the right question! So it appears that it requires at a minimum a biological vector, there may be a psychic component as well. Evidence indicates that the parasite has both the capability to mind control on its own but is not acting 'naturally'. Think the difference between a trained dog and a wolf. I have no information to be able to guess the nature of the controlling entity though... its possible its the voice of Ceto...
Also... I hate to say it but... yes Gustaf is still likely under control of this. If we can find him I may be able to pull it out... however, I don't know if he would survive the damage done to his brain. Our best bet would be to kill the primary fungus if it is somehow communicating to the other colonies and maybe his brain can restore some percentage of full capacity.
Her voice is dubious and unsure about this particular issue.
OK so first of all to scope out what we are looking at... this is a parasitic fungus. On earth there was a similar fungus called cordyceps, its life cycle involved growing in the gut of a bird, but the bird would expel it... so it was able to infect ants, and causes them to 'GO UP' and they would climb as high as they could, then the fungus would bloom, the ant gets eaten by a bird... the circle of life. There is a similar parasite for cats but it is a protozoan, not a fungus.
She sketches an image on her datapad and shows it to the group circling step 4 and indicating the tentacle laying on the table.
Based upon the behavior with Fu Chi and the others it appears there needs to be some sort of chrysalis structure needed for infection of an individual. That individual then grows a 'tumor' in their brain that begins to issue commands. This thing had the collar on it, so there is clearly outside influence somewhere. There is no need to put a collar on this organism if it was a hive mind, as you would just need access to the primary organism. Additionally, the tumors continued to grow after the dissolution of the creature in the cave, so it is unlikely that communication between colonies is assured, prerequisite or required. This explains the difference in 'personality' between the organisms that we have dealt with. Billy, does this match the conversation you had with the thing? Did it give you anything about goals or next manuevers?
She pauses a moment to let Billy interject
Roger, you are correct we need weapons and defense... I have ideas but will need time and help. For weapons, this is where Frank comes into play what we need is some kind of poison for this. Most commercial fungicides are peptidoglycan inhibitors... stops them from making the chitinous cell wall that these species has, not great for a full grown item though. Most commercial herbicides ruin a plant's ability to regulate water movement. If we can make it 'leaky' then we choke it out. If all the colonies are physically attached, which is possible. We can poke enough holes in enough areas to bleed it dry. Alternatively if you can synthesize a strong peptidase like papain we could use it to disassociate the cell wall and/or membrane. If we can turn it to mush relatively safely we may have our cure.
We fortunately have plenty of organic matter that we can use to experiment. Also in the helmet of my space suit is a modification that can act as a... fine... microscope.
Aviva!
She says brightly
Connecting with your mind was like licking a cattle prod, I have an idea that we may be able to use the wall of psychic static in your head to protect us from this creature's messaging. It won't be pleasant but its better than taking orders from a damn fungus. So there is offense and countermeasures.
She exaggerates breathing heavily for a moment then a thought hits her and her hair flashes blue as she whips around to face Roger, her voice comes in quiet rush as she speaks.
Roger.... we have samples, a portion of the main fruiting body and some new offspring. Can you check for biological activity on both the fruiting body and the offspring? Really if you can track CO2 emissions you are 80% of the way there. Also is there any way you can rig something up to measure frequencies between the two items? See if there is a connection from the main body to the offspring. Finally, if there is some way that you can visualize the 'neural network' of this creature we can chase down the main body and destroy it.
Apologies for hogging the stage on this but if you couldn't tell... this is my jam. I will now cede the floor to see if anyone has a different take or a better idea.
At roughly this point Percy comes waddling over with a plate and pushes it at her. She shoots him a dirty look and pushes it away. The doll insists, offering her the plate again. She rolls her eyes and grabs something off the plate and starts to eat... she then ravenously begins to tear up the rest of the food. She adds between bites
Sorry, apparently I haven't eaten in over 18 hours... that happens when I'm working.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:38, Wed 15 May.