blahblah THOUGHTSSSS // Voice.

[stopthat_destro]

If you're on the Barge for long enough, you'll almost certainly have your identity altered so completely that you become a different person-- temporarily, of course. Complete histories and personalities, memories, experiences, relationships that aren't really yours.  And yet, despite their artificial nature, they certainly feel real.  They feel,

Comments

missing word!

[timesbureaucrat]

I put the extraneous memories behind a semi-permeable mental partition, so I can access them when necessary and don't put myself at an information disadvantage, but they nevertheless remain cordoned off from my primary memories. Strong memories sometimes leak through, but they're usually put back in their place easily enough.

It's a bit like living through multiple iterations of the same time frame and keeping track of what events actually happened and which happened in an altered timeline.

[He doesn't mention that it's this sort of thing, combined with centuries of memories across multiple different personalities--one for each regeneration--that tends to drive Time Lords completely mad.]

PRIVATE

[stopthat_destro]

[Pause. Pause. Pauuuuse...

THIS SOUNDS FANTASTIC.]

Is this something that only a Time Lord mind can withstand? Or is it possible to... assist others with similar mental partitions?

PRIVATE

[timesbureaucrat]

It's possible for human memories to be manipulated. That sort of complex work tends to be unstable, however. Human brains aren't really designed for long-term partitioning.

PRIVATE

[stopthat_destro]

What tends to happen in cases of long-term partitioning?

Private - timely post is timely

[sirius_is_a_dog]

So far, I've been a cosmic drug monger, and...

[He is still having all kinds of issues with his mirror self. He's constantly thinking about the few seconds that may be all that separate him from that.]

I know who I am. I feel it. I guess that's bollocks, really, because I felt what it was to be those other people, too. That other me. That wanker in the space station port.

Maybe the true answer is I don't cope at all.

Private

[stopthat_destro]

If it helps, I was once the self-proclaimed leader of a... probably imaginary army of mutants, living in an abandoned amusement park and eating dogs. And yet, I think I'd take those memories over... the man I was a few weeks ago.

[Pause.]

I don't cope, either. I thought this place was supposed to make us better.

Private

[sirius_is_a_dog]

I don't even know why I'm here. I'm still trying to figure it out. My Warden thinks maybe because I wanted to kill someone. Well, this other me? He did kill that someone. He got there sooner than I did. I was too late. He tortured him for days and days. I wonder...would I have done the same, if I had gotten there in time?

[Pause.]

I bloody find out this great news, and then this. Sometimes I wonder if the Barge means to break us all. The Admiral dangles chocolate frogs on strings, then when we jump he throws us into our worst nightmares.

Private

[stopthat_destro]

You can't be sent here for wanting to do something... [Although there's an unspoken "Can you?"] By those criteria, I'd think most of the wardens would be inmates, too.

That's exactly how it goes. For anything good that happens, another trauma is just around the corner.

[t_x_unit]

Transdimensional flooding equates to testing. Product trials.

Treating them this way will make them easier to process.

[stopthat_destro]

I prefer it when I'm not the test subject.

[t_x_unit]

It is an unfortunate necessity.

[stopthat_destro]

It isn't a necessity. As an experiment, it's too haphazard.

[shortsghtedlove]

I find separation quite is. Having the memories of what happened when I was that person may be a bit troublesome depending on what happened to them during that time [Especially if it's torture :|] but they are not me and I shall become them. I know that and thinking anything else would be foolish.

But I suppose it's easier for us Time Lords to reconcile different personalities, considering regeneration. And the severity of the change -- and how you feel about the other person -- may be a factor.

[stopthat_destro]

But even as a Time Lord, memories of your past regenerations, their personalities and quirks, those are still you. They weren't some twisted re-imagining of your very being that's just... implanted in your mind.

[OH. CRAP. He just described his mind control nanomites. Awkward pause, then he clears his throat.]

Or do the memories of your old selves feel that way once you've regenerated? Like... a foreign concept of you that you can hardly relate to.

*quite easy. idk how I didn't see that :|

[shortsghtedlove]

The Doctor would probably be in a better position to answer that, considering that his regenerations are always quite different.

In any case, I wouldn't call alternate universes "twisted re-imaginations" of myself. They are simply a version of me in an alternate universe, if they can even be called "me" in any context.

Considering the nature of the ship... There might be a universe out there with this James Bond who looking like me. But he is not me, and even if a flood should bring us there, gaining his memories does not make him me in any way. I know that, therefore, I separate myself from him -- or any of the other ones. I don't feel affection for most of the inmates here because my alternate self did, just like I don't hate the Doctor like he- [Pause. Oh, damn, he just admitted he doesn't publicly.]

...In any case, as I said, separating them as a whole is not difficult. Separating what happened while I "was them", if you can say it like that, would be another matter, but that depends more on what happened during that time.

I do that ALLLLL the time

[stopthat_destro]

Hm.

That's the greatest problem I come across after these particular floods. What happened during. But, as those were typically fueled by whatever it was that drove my other self to become the man he was in the first place, I find it becoming increasingly difficult to separate the two. Everything's connected.

[hourglass_twin]

Sadly, that's nothing new to me.

[stopthat_destro]

So how do you stay true to yourself? Or do you?

[hourglass_twin]

I am true to myself as far as I'm aware of myself being. I can't guarantee anything, of course, and some memories that aren't my own are sometimes too useful to ignore, but I like to think my sheer power and ambition is enough to crush anything that is not me in my mind.

[stopthat_destro]

Taming the mind is certainly helpful. I'm beginning to find that it has its limits, however.