Dionae Mindtypes

Dionae Minds

It is erroneously believed that the only format that Dionae can gain sentience- and therefore knowledge- is through the blood of sentient creatures. However this is quite false, and often the shortsighted view of those who are unfortunately subject to ‘anklebiters'. Sapience is instead something that is achieved due to the instinctive behaviour of nymphs to gather together. What they cannot achieve alone or through external DNA, they manage to achieve as a collective, becoming fully sapient and sentient. What is however debated is if they are actually individually sentient or only the greater being, although such collectives will argue it doesn't matter.

The memories of any individual Diona are linked specifically to their neural strata, and due to how it is imprinted cannot be imparted across neural links to the others in their gestalt. This leads to an unfortunate eventuality in that if a nymph leaves a gestalt, the information it held is gone forever. When one wishes to leave formally, there is a known process known simply as ‘departing'. Where the collective will go to a safe place that they can be assured they will not need to move or be at risk of starvation. During this time the nymph will sing vocally a song of their experiences, of their knowledge and training. In this way they can imprint their knowledge in an abstract way across their collective or even much larger ones. It is not uncommon to go on pilgrimages when the departing is in process, and those who are at witness to it note how varied the emotion in such songs are depending on the histories of such nymphs. There is also a darker method of obtaining the memories of other nymphs, to devour their neural strata allows the physical repurposing and absorbing of fragments of their memories. This is of course never done to another living nymph, as it would be incredibly traumatic to internalize being eaten alive. The strangest part of forceful integration is that their memories are an absolute void of emotion, when thinking about them or recalling them in any fashion there is never any emotional connotation. This can be incredibly strange and uncomfortable, and can never be reversed once absorbed. There are experimental unbinding surgeries to remove absorbed neural strata to get those experiences out, however the success rate is very minute as the exacts of nymph neurology are largely unexplored.

Mind Types

Dionae do not choose how their internal mind structures work, such things will happen due to circumstances, personalities and environments around them that will cause various structures to develop. The below encompasses some of the myriad of potential structures that exist, and is by no means a conclusive list. Think of these as inspiration and feel free to make your own, although be logical with if your gestalt's unique mind would be fitting for the job NT has hired them for.

Ship characters still need to be reasonable, The SCC wouldn't hire someone who can't work or acts insane. Keep in mind that some of the mind types are restricted to certain roles/may not be allowed to be a ship character at all

Singular Sound

The gestalt has very little individuality within each nymph, with each being akin to a large cluster of neurons working symbiotically.There is little in the terms of an internal dialog within these collectives, usually all acting as relays for their unified consciousness. These are usually from nymphs that have merged without ever consuming blood. The loss of a singular nymph is catastrophically damaging to this kind of network, akin to suffering major brain damage. - They may speak all at once or only use one to preserve neural load, depending on their opinion. These are suggested for those new to Dionae or those who aren't as interested in roleplaying the more complicated mind types.

Competence Choir

All skilled nymphs within the collective are in charge of their respective areas, the social nymph does not need to confer with the others and thus speaks with completely normal inflection without any large gaps. However may end up pausing if the collective has pressing issues they want the social nymph to present. This is most often with specialized collectives with utilitarian views. No individual nymph is more important than the others if they are all the same level of skill.

Tyrannical Tune

This kind of collective is unusual, stemming from a nymph with extreme ideologies or absolute indoctrination with a dogmatic view point. Usually the social nymph will take an authoritarian role over the other nymphs within the collective, and they all act together out of the unity of the singular personality than anything else. The loss of the Overseer nymph itself will utterly cripple this collective, causing a power struggle and internal conflict for quite some time afterwards. Such collectives will not usually have difficulty with speech unless the Overseer is not the social nymph.

Harmonious Hymn

Within this often complicated and socially conflicted Gestalt is a pure democratic rule, every action it takes will be voted upon internally. This results in gaps in speech either with long silences or a short pause between every word as they decide exactly what the majority of them wish to do. They might mention ‘majority' frequently when referencing if they voted on something, or ‘minority' when mentioning freedom of speech. Something frequent within these gestalts is that when returning to a greater such as an Argus they may have new ones replace older ones who cannot successfully get votes to their opinion. No singular nymph is more valuable than another, and the social nymph may be distributed to multiple throughout depending on the collective.

Chaotic Cacophony

A collection of nymphs who are together merely out of the benefit and added safety of numbers. They may speak all at once, interrupt one another and generally not be particularly easy to listen to. The nymphs could be prone to argue, or they may be quite content with saying what they feel. These collectives are usually quite young and have not settled into a structure that makes it easier for all of them to feel appreciated. (This mind type is restricted to Janitors, Gardeners and Cargo Technicians. Be reasonable with this one)

Tumultuous Tacet

A rare but notable mind type that belongs to Dionae who were formerly led by a single lead nymph, but as a result of any number of circumstances, have lost them and have had difficulties with recovering. From the outset, these gestalts can seem similar to Chaotic Cacophony due to their disjointed nature, however, instead of speaking all at once in a chaotic manner, Tumultuous Tacet may not speak at all as the nymphs are not sure who should be speaking or what exactly to say. Whilst some Tumultuous Tacet will eventually recover and move on to developing a new, more stable mind type, some may spend decades if not centuries being unable to decide on a new mind type.

As a result of their unreliable muteness, Tumultuous Tacet gestalts are only permitted in positions that allow for them to be mute, including Chaplain, Librarian, Janitor, Bartender, Chef, Hydroponics, Assistant, and Hanger technician

Seasoned Song

These are one of the most common with more ancient collectives that come from the void and space whales. The opinions within them matter most entirely dependent on age, the more bark that has accumulated on your body the more complicated your song must be. These are likely to have traditions, be religious or have other viewpoints that are relayed by the elder. For a cyclops on ship this could mean the head is entirely covered with bark to the point that it is immobile from age, as an example. They will often reference songs and the most traumatic loss is the destruction of the eldest among them. Such collectives will have entirely unique structures based around whatever the Elder deems best, but will always submit to the wisdom of the oldest among them. The Eldest will near universally be the social nymph to best represent them.

Bloodless Band

An extreme variant of the Singular Sound, they are nymphs who have achieved sentience quite similarly to the Singular Sound. However they have become increasingly opinionated against the idea of drinking blood, to the point that they reject anything that could shed blood. Such collectives are considered radicals due to their intense pacifistic approach, rejecting the utilitarian views on conflict entirely. Such collectives usually believe that drinking blood could fundamentally change who they are, and will often not join into an Argus for fear one of them may have drunk blood and could expose them. Their outright refusal to imbibe blood also means that they lose a critical quantity of information that will take potentially decades to relearn because they cannot fast track it. (This mind type is restricted from security roles due to the fact that lethality is something they have to be prepared to do.)

Learning Lyrics

Uniquely these never are formed from fresh cyclops but split from Argus and upwards. Specifically it is a trained gestalt that alternates one or two young nymphs on a regular basis, the others exist to let the young nymphs safely experience the outside world, working to provide funds for the greater gestalt, social norms, and get blood samples to help them experience the world around them. Such gestalts are usually run by the older nymphs but following on the whims of the younger ones to let them experience things with the safety net of those with more wisdom. The loss of the younger nymphs is more tragic to such a collective than the older ones, to a usual collective they will mourn the fact they failed to protect the very ones they were supposed to protect. (This mind type is restricted from Security roles due to the potential risk of killing the young nymphs.)

Emphatic Echo

These are a unique gestalt that have formed more in the modern era of Dionae xenos relations. What makes them particularly interesting to the observer is near to all of the nymphs are social nymphs, with expertly trained skills in specific areas of social nuance. This gives them an almost eerie essence when they pick up even your most subtle facial movements and deduce your emotional state. They are renowned for their social skills and patience, however due to the quantity of social nymphs are quite incapable of complex physical tasks. (This mind type is restricted to, Liaison/Rep, Psychologist(includes alt titles), Investigator, Chaplain, Librarian and visitor.)

Scholarly Song

One of the more uncommon mind types out there, Scholarly Song gestalts are known to be fixated on only one thing: the acquisition of knowledge and experience - whether it be through blood or through learning it themselves. Unlike Voided Vocals, however, Scholarly Song gestalts do show restraint, and will generally avoid consuming the dead for knowledge. Notably, the composition and leadership style of the gestalt is not uniform amongst Scholarly Song gestalts. While the specifics of why they wish to acquire the knowledge vary from gestalt to gestalt, it tends to be of a slightly religious nature, whether it be more in line with the doctrines of the eternal’s beliefs or something completely separate. Scholarly Chrous gestalts tend to be somewhat divided on if the acquisition of knowledge should only be obtained through first-hand experiences, or if it can be done through the consumption of blood and their own experiences, those that believe the former are referred to as the Bloodless Scholarly Song.

Mourning Mass

An entirely unique generation of mind types, who make up an extreme minority of Dionae in the Spur. There is only one known way to generate such a gestalt consciousness, and it is the absorption of the one person that the Consensus had viewed as significant.

Not all Dionae who do this will become a Mourning Mass, but only those who do can become one. Such gestalts are characterised by their complete dedication to the life of their former partner, and the memories that they cherish. They can vary from completely dejected, holding the greatest burden they could imagine to melancholic joy at being able to spend reality with them forever.

Their internal dialog is entirely variant on what their original mind type was, however typically different nymphs will have different parts of the person that they memorialise. This means such gestalts have the greatest loss of all, if their gestalt loses even a fragment of such knowledge, and thus would never allow a nymph to die at any cost. The loss of a nymph would be a loss of such magnitude that it's rare such a collective would be able to cope.

Typically they may take on a name that has or involves their now merged other, something as simple as ‘Joy of Exploring The Endless Cosmos Together' to ‘The Eternal and Unending Care for [partner name]' could be examples of such. But as every relationship is unique, as are most Mourning Mass, and their name will most likely symbolize something deeply important to them.

Mourning Masses mostly will take on an employment that they and their partner enjoyed together, or perhaps something entirely around their interests instead. They are not actively restricted from any employment but are instead required to have 5 years to process their grief before positions of stress such as medical work, command, and security. This of course also includes a psychological evaluation after the required time period, to assure they are competent.

For reading of what a Mourning Mass looks like in Federation/Skrell relations, look here.

Non Crew Mind Types

Voided Vocals

The most alien of all the gestalts even to other Dionae, are those known as the Voided, those who are unified in purpose to absorb knowledge of the dead. They speak almost purely in poetic notions and have near to no internal dialog. What is so bizarre about these collectives is their obsession with death, offering to take on even the memories of other species post mortem despite the traumatic experiences. The amount of disjointed knowledge, memories and thoughts have long since made it impossible to tell what is from original minds or what their many memories are. Such collectives experience near to no real emotion due to the expanse of emotionless memories they contain, however, when exposed to grief from losing one of their nymphs, it may be overwhelming over the lack of emotion they have had for so long. Common notions of theirs is that nobody should ever be forgotten to time, or that they can give a form of immortality in themselves to those they can “save”. (This mind type is restricted from ship roles entirely. It may be jobs not originating on the ship and is also restricted from merchant. They may additionally be antagonists.)

Scarlet Score

Something that gives cause to alarm is the plague that is known as the Scarlet Score, a plague that can overtake gestalts with no known cause. Any nymph who joins with one afflicted with his horrific disease will be irrevocably damaged. The disease causes them to become incredibly hostile, lashing out and desiring blood.

It is completely unknown how Scarlet Score thinks internally, they may be exactly like any other mind type but driven to absolute madness. Even how the madness is represented is unclear. All stellar organisations recognise that these are a complete lost cause and either must be contained for research or terminated. There is no saving them, and all Dionae are at risk if they are exposed to the plague.

There are examples of Scarlet Score who have imbibed so much blood that they have become Voided Vocals, and no longer hostile. Although they are not accepted by Dionae gestalts for fear they carry the dormant virus, they are not actively exterminated. (Antagonist and event related only).

Nocturne Notes

An usual mind type, Nocturnes Notes gestalts are known for having an extreme form of Nyctophobia- an extreme fear of the dark. This phobia results in a near-constant fear of the coming night or a possible blackout that sees the Dionae spending much of their day-to-day life focusing on ways to ensure they’ll be safe in the night or have some backup light source. This fear will generally result in an irrational and erratic mindset. This, along with their ceaseless search of ways to stave off the darkness will sometimes result in Dionae willing to turn to crime just to finance ways to combat their fear, usually as thieves and petty criminals.

This mind type is restricted from ship roles, but may be played as antags and some independent off-ship roles.