#IF ANYTHING ITS CLONING + SHIP OF THESEUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ap-sadistics]

im gonna fucking start counting the number of ppl who reference ship of theseus.

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

I'm currently suffering from my own hubris so what better time to delve deep into horror concepts I want to see the Flash series explore???

1. The Speedforce

Yeah, so this thing is insane. It isn't really talked about much in canon but when it 'bonds' to a person it permanently changes their body. This isn't always readily apparent and sometimes it doesn't even happen. But it's a necessity. Because if the person's body doesn't change they will die. The power will be too much for them and they will literally burn up and keel over.

Now, the actual change itself isn't much better than that. The speedster experiences a tremendous amount of pain and their entire body explodes into energy. If their bond is strong enough then the speedforce will replenish and replace each cell in their body as they explode. (As seen with Wally West, Bart Allen, Barry Allen, Irey West... Oof, you get the point) Bit of a 'Ship of Theseus' moment there. If your entire body is replaced by speedforce are you really the same person you started out as? Who knows! Anyway, after that they are permanently bonded to the speedforce and their bodies, essentially, belong to it.

What does that mean? Well, for starters? They can't die. Their bodies are no longer mortal. If they die then the speedforce just reclaims its material. If the speedster is strong enough then they can gather up enough speedforce energy from within the speedforce to create a new body. If the speedster is especially skilled they might even be able to escape the speedforce with said new body.

But their minds? That's a different matter. Their soul, their essence, everything that is 'them' resides within their minds. Its the only thing that separates 'their' speedforce energy bodies from the rest of the speedforce. If they lose that... then they become nothing but energy, permanently. It's what happened to Johnny Quick and you can see it start to happen almost immediately whenever they enter the speedforce. They start forgetting everything. Their names, their loved ones, their personalities, everything. They can't escape unless they know who they are, unless they can separate their sense of self from the energy around them. (As seen in any Flash story ever)

Because that energy? It's all just processed speedsters. The entire speedforce is made up of speedsters who lost that fight and forgot who they were. Every iota of energy the speedsters draw from the speedforce is just recycled speedsters from across the multiverse. And they know that.

So, yeah, there's definitely a horror element there. There will be no relief of death for them. Their souls have been sold off and all they have is borrowed time until they eventually give in and become semi-living fuel for the next generation. (As seen in DC Rebirth) Not a very comforting thought but they can't exactly do anything about it.

Their speedster states cannot be undone. You can put an inhibitor collar on them but that only stops their bodies from using the speedforce. It doesn't sever their connection. It just pools in their bodies, unused and agitated. (as seen with Wally West in Flash Forward) You can attempt to drain all the speedforce out of them but even that has proved to be impossible. You can drain them enough that they don't have the energy to run but their cells can never be completely drained of speedforce. (As seen with Barry Allen in Williamson's run)

Really the only way to sever the bond is to do so before it changes their body. (As seen with Jai West in Flash Rebirth)

Which leads me to my next point!

2. Body horror!

Yo, they don't have fucking bodies.

I'm serious, do you know how often they turn into pure energy? It's all the time. You know how they can just snap their fingers and create clothes? Or how they can create energy clones? Or how they don't age? Or how they can regrow severed limbs? Or how they don't really need to eat, breath or sleep after their body changes???

They don't have bodies.

Not really. They think they do but what they have is energy that they have shaped into a body form. Because their brains can't really handle the fact that they no longer possess human bodies.

But you know what a human body can't do? It can't be crammed into a metal wand like a genie, Bart. And it can't run through space without oxygen, Barry. And it certainly can't be stabbed through the heart without dying or bleeding and then start leaking energy, Wally.

These guys are literally just energy in human wrapping paper because they live in a state of denial. And it'd be really fucking wild to actually explore that as a concept.

3. Timelines!

Time is weird and nobody knows that better than the speedsters. Why not have fun with it? Do some cool existential horror stuff with the timeline. Some moral quandaries and ethical dilemmas. Jazz it up a bit. Idk there is a lot that could be done with this one.

[yuhi-san]

has anyone ever brought up the blood gulch crews complete disregard for the ship of theseus situation? you know, reagrading the alpha!church and epsilon!church situation

like sure, they are complete morons and also have probably never herad of this theory in their life (except simmons maybe). but even if they don’t have a name for the concept or anything... it just is not a thing to them.

the simplified main question of the theory is: if you over time replace every part of a ship, is it still the same ship? and then the follow up question: if you use the replaced parts to rebuild the ship over time someweher else, do you have the same ship twice?

the same argument basically comes up in sci-fic in regards of clones or someone backing up their memory somewhere.

but then you have the vlood gulch crew who just completelly ignores this paradox, the implications of this thought experiment.

and like the fascinating thing is that they are completely, 100% aware of the situation. they absolutelly know the guy from blood gulch is the alpha ai. who got deleted by the end of seson 6 when he went with wash to trigger the emp e.m.p.

they know the new guy is the epsilon a.i. who is the memory of the original church. and is besically just remembering himself. they are totally aware of the destinction. no confusion there. and yet its just. churuch.

its not even that they reach some kind of subconscious consensus on this or anything. they just straight up are like: oh yeah, epsilon is also church.

like no thought whatsoever. zero. head empty.

(and i think the exchange between tucker and dylan in season 15 hammers this home.

Caboose: I miss church.

Dylan: you mean the epsilon a.i

Tucker: no, he means church.)

they know the difference. they just don’t differenentiate at all.

they are so simple in that regard that at no point do any of the implications of the ship of theseus ever occurs to them. they are just like, oh that before was the alpha a.i and now its the epsilon a.i. anyway, thats church, always a total jerk.

anyway im sure they would have many, many philosopers despair with how astoundingly simple they are

[tobiasofarkham]

Where did God come from?

I posted earlier about a possible hint in a canon scene as to Prime’s origin and motivations. It’s a pretty fun one. I like it. But I don’t actually have a personal preferred HC as to Horde Prime’s origin. There’s just too many possibilities with how vague everything was left. Just for fun, here’s a few more options that come to mind:

Eldritch God

This interpretation fits whatever the hell happens in the series finale better than him starting from humble, mortal beginnings and becoming something different gradually. It's very appealing to think of him as an incorporeal, ageless, evil monster who maybe destroyed the rest of this particular species and chose one specimen to represent him. Why he chose this one in particular is anyone's guess, but spacebats are hot and have the cutest ears, so he certainly had good taste! In any case, it raises interesting questions - Was it even an existing species he stole or did he bioengineer it from scratch? Why did he stick with it for so long and were there others before? Are his motives incomprehensible to us? What is the full extent of his strangeness?

I won't go into this one more because others have given it more thought and put it infinitely more eloquently.

Nothing supernatural here - just a dude

While I was watching, I assumed that all of it is based on technology, including the hive mind and his "possession" of his slaves. The intuitive conclusion for me was that some sort of transhumanist project turned a narcissistic man into a monster in the long run. So when the finale rolled around I was like "uh, ok, so this will be hard to explain with technobabble".

Humans growing and living among other humans develop (to my knowledge) dark triad traits pretty early on. But in the context of having lived for centuries and transferred your consciousness from vessel to vessel who knows how many times... A person could have been anything and become anything for all we know. I know not everyone has love for the cyberpunk style "losing humanity and needing therapy to retain it" approach to cybernetics, but it's an interesting concept to apply to Prime.

I think of it kind of like Theseus's ship - us humans have our entire body replaced eventually, but at a very slow rate. It happens naturally, it's all organic. We're "designed" to deal with that. We are tough and can endure drastic loss and change in our bodies and minds and adapt. We can keep that thread of a singular identity that grows and changes in a way that makes sense to us. But what Prime is doing to himself is on a whole other level. He's replacing all of it at once, and not just with identical-but-not-quite, biological bodies, but ones with cybernetic enhancements that just keep getting more and more advanced every few swaps. Whatever he does to those brains to inhabit or become them must be incomprehensibly advanced. I'm guessing the transfer would have to happen at the quantum level, so something going awry could have some drastic consequences. And he does this over and over and over again! If he doesn’t remain unscathed, who even is he?

It's exciting to think of his psyche getting corrupted in the long run - amplifying his worst qualities and stripping away compassion and will to collaborate. Maybe, once upon a time, he began his conquest for some different reason that is long forgotten, and not much remains of the person who started it anymore.

Egghead

One possible type of dude is a brilliant and dedicated researcher and the last survivor on board a highly advanced science vessel stranded in deep space. The engines were damaged and he only had rudimentary knowledge or navigating, so, without the option of turning it into a generational ship, he had to clone himself to keep doing his solitary (and probably not ethics board approved) experiments. He just hung out with his own clones and, with hard work and a lot of luck, discovered how to transfer his consciousness to one - or at least a temporary container, if he needed to reserve resources (I have so not thought this through lol).

He was already a bit loopy from having spent so many lifetimes alone on that ship when he eventually came across the first civilization. He found he was far more advanced than them. The power of being able to do anything he wants with them went to his head. The scientist without a god found god in his pursuits - only that god was himself and it's a cruel and evil one.

Or, I don’t know, maybe this all just started with nerd rage. He was too smart for everyone so he turned himself into a demigod.

Singularity

This is a really cool one! It follows the same logic of this being the work of mere mortals, but in this scenario it really is a collective effort rather than the doing of one individual... initially. The spacebat society is less homogenous, not only comprised of clones, and have more "normal" leadership.

Ours is the only frame of reference we have, but scientific progress appears to be exponential. Once we remove the obstacle of distance with portal technology and teleportation and consider the immense computing power of a collective of that size and sophistication, technological advances (and their conquest) are going to accelerate rapidly. Inevitably, it reaches singularity.

I imagine this new form of intelligence swallowing this civilization whole and cannibalizing it for its own purposes. Horde Prime is born.

[kineticallyanywhere]

Imagine if the Infinity Stones return in MCU. Space was only used like a clone of the sorcerer portals, Mind was used once by Loki and as laser fuel by Vision, Reality and Power and Time were used fairily often, but Soul was never used on its own. And Soul could return as a part of the upcoming gold-skinned warrior teased in GotG 2, Adam Warlock. And Mind could be used to turn White Vision into Vision again. Time goes back to Strange. But where should Reality, Power, and Space go? Space 4 Clint?

if the Infinity Stones came back, and had to be handed out like magical girl team membership cards Please Use Responsibly then I would go...

Time for Loki, because it's, imo, the stone that could get out of hand the fastest, and Loki has just earned the golden trifecta combination for a character to have casual time-travel access. (1) Knowing that what they want cannot be materially gained and the sense of awareness that access to control over time will not give him what he wants. (2) Time spent "outside of time," learning first-hand how the flow of it works and the massive-scale ramifications of letting even the smallest thing get too far out of line, but that is also paired with a respect for free will gained by someone who has both not had it and regretted having it. and (3) the biological longevity that if he does eff up and get himself lost, it's not the end of the world.

Whether giving the Mind stone back to Vision would make him Our Vision again is getting into Ship of Theseus territory, but I do feel relatively comfortable giving it back to him. I don't think he'd abuse it.

Space for Carol. She's hopping around space anyway, may as well make it easier on her, and it's where her powers came from. She deserves the chance to learn about and explore that.

Reality... to Wanda. Because that's basically her powers anyway, and she just went through a whole arc about how she can't just force the world to be what she wants and for everyone else to play along-- but only if she gets therapy first. To make sure that lesson sticks.

I seriously considered Power for Peter Parker, because of the "great power, great responsibility" thing, but I think that level of power being his responsibility would be a little much. He's just a city kid doing superpowered city crime, he's not doing anything that equals the responsibility of keeping a nuke in your pocket.

So give Power to Thor. he's learned a ton about responsibility and he fights world-ending threats. Stick that thing in his axe and call it a day.

Offer the Soul stone to Clint, and if he doesn't want it destroy it. No one should have that thing, and it shouldn't be out there

[nicoleign]

ART5135

After the launch of ART1535 and a chat with my group, we were about to pick an object to explore and study in semester 1. After debating and counting all for and against arguments, we decided to pick Oliver Laric's video 'Versions', which explains how materials, objects and art pieces have life and agency and can be reused. The topic does not seem very broad at first sight, but after doing some mind mapping I came up with the key words that I want to explore and relate my artwork to. 

Authenticity is a concept in psychology (in particular existential psychiatry) as well as existentialist philosophy and aesthetics (in regard to various arts and musical genres). In existentialism, authenticity is the degree to which an individual's actions are congruent with their beliefs and desires, despite external pressures; the conscious self is seen as coming to terms with being in a material world and with encountering external forces, pressures, and influences which are very different from, and other than, itself. A lack of authenticity is considered in existentialism to be bad faith. The call of authenticity resonates with the famous instruction by the Oracle of Delphi, “Know thyself.” But authenticity extends this message: "Don’t merely know thyself – be thyself."

Unique - being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else

Real - having objective independent existence, not artificial, fraudulent, or illusory; occurring or existing in actuality. Existing as a physical entity and having properties that deviate from an ideal, law, or standard.

Fake - an object that is made to look real or valuable in order to deceive people

If being authentic means to be one of it’s own kind,not changing the concept due to surrounding impact, being made of the original, primary materials, does that mean that architecture loses its authenticity after the renovation?

On the 15th of April 2019, one of the greatest symbols of European civilisation Notre Dame de Paris, which was almost 1000 years old was destroyed by a fire. According to the architects, 15 years and one billion euros are required to completely restore the building. Architects that are currently working on this project contacted ‘assassin’s creed’ creators in order to get all the measurements and scales rights, because they spent over 2 years building Notre Dame in ‘assassin’s creed’ in order to make it as close to the real one as possible. Also, the architects collaborated with engineers and with the help of special lasers scanned the cathedral to the nearest 5mm and created a 3D model which is extremely accurate. But is this accuracy truly required? If Notre Dame de Paris is going to be fully renovated, France is going to restore its authentic look, but not its authenticity. Does it lose its history then? Also, considering that Notre Dame was renovated several times already, when did it lose its authenticity?

Authenticity question was a big topic among philosophers of antiquity, who gave it a name of paradox of ‘ship of Theseus’. According to the legend, a Greek character Theseus went to Crete and fought a Minotaur. When he came back to Athens, locals decided to keep his ship as legacy, however, the vessel began to rot and people started replacing the vessel board by board and over time there was no original detail left in the ship. The question is, is it still the famous Theseus ship or is it not? If not, when did it lose its authenticity: when the first detail was replaced or when the last one was? The situation gets more confusing after considering the fact that all old details were put together to create a similar ship. Which ship is the original, authentic one: the one made from original details or the one made from new details? If they both are authentic are they equal? If yes, there are two absolutely similar ships, which sounds like a paradox.

In 1945, the city of Dresden was nearly destroyed by the soviet aviation who was throwing incendiary bombs on the city from above, which created a firestorm with the temperature of 1500 Celsius degrees. The city was almost destroyed, however, the Kreuzkirche temple is still there, even though it was burning 5 times, came crushing down due to the downpour and suffered from Prussian and soviet shelling. However, every time it came crushing down people would collect the damaged bricks and put them back where they used to be. Those that were completely destroyed were replaced with the new ones. By doing that, German architects solved the paradox of the ship of Theseus in their own way; since the building now consists of both authentic and new bricks, it is morally equal to what is was back then in medieval ages.

The holy bible is another example of this paradox. In the very beginning, it consisted of tanakh, then, the Old Testament books were added to it, then the New Testament with all its gospels, later some apocryphas.

The very first Hulk comics was about a man who was extremely strong and grey, but the latest Hulk comics is called ‘World War Hulk’ and shows him as a massive green beast.

People spend hours upon hours and loads of money to get the new yeezy boost shoes, even though they can get the fake ones easier and cheaper. Copyright and authenticity are extremely important in fashion and art; if a random person created a sculpture similar to Andy Warhol’s ‘money hat’ it probably wouldn’t be considered as an art piece. One of the most famous British artist Damien Hirst was accused of using assistants to create works of art, to which he said that the idea and the concept are important when it comes to authenticity, not the physical work.

Another example could be the Tin Man from the wizard of oz, who used to be an ordinary lumberjack before the witch cursed his axe and it started chopping his limbs off. Afterwards, the blacksmith replaced them with the mechanic ones. In one of the books, the tin man finds his first love, however, he soon finds out that she married a guy sewed up from his limbs, head, torso and everything else.

Nowadays, many people live with artificial limbs. If such person gets 95 per cent of his body replaces, is he considered to be the same person juridically?

Epithelium of stomach and bowel are updated every five days, liver - every 300-500 days. Over the time, almost every body part and cell is regenerated and replaced with a new one. Does it mean that we lose our own authenticity every other month/several months/years? If yes, how can we sentence people to several years in prison, chose world leaders and even trust each other? But how do we solve the paradox? It fully depends on our view. If we believe that changing a single detail leads to losing authenticity, it means that every person becomes a new person over some time, which is illogical. On the other hand, every single copycat cannot be considered as an original, because it makes the definition of ‘authenticity’ itself worthless. Ancient Romans tried solving this paradox by creating such definition as ‘legal person’. Roman legions conquered a lot of territories including the Great Britain, however, during the battles many warriors died and got replaced with new ones. The composition of the legion was constantly changing, however, the legion itself wasn’t and became a legal face, which retains its power even when its elements are changed or replaced. This phenomenon speeded all over the world and is still very accurate in our days. People agree to call things authentic if their legal face has the authentic concept, idea. But why do we care about authenticity of yeezys and nikes so much? Scientists have made several experiments on those who still trust their instincts the most - kids. They convinced the kids that they had invented the copying machine that clones whatever you put into it and offered the kids to try it out. Kids happily cloned forks and spoons, not knowing that scientists just replaced those objects with the similar ones from the same ikea set. Once kids were convinced that the machine worked, they were offered to clone real hamsters, however, after ‘cloning’ them kids didn’t want to play with a clone, because, according to them, it was a different hamster a had a different ‘soul’. But the most interesting part began when kids were offered to clone the toys that belonged to them. Kids refused to do that, because, as they claimed, they wouldn’t be able to distinguish the toys later and wouldn’t know which one is their beloved one, the original one. Kids were infusing their toys with invisible essence and consciousness. Lenin’s hallows, architectural legacy, t-shirts with bands signatures, Supreme, Nike and other brands are essence empowered with value by us.

[zarpaulus]

Zootopian Eclipse Vignette: Ship of Theseus

One last fanfic, then NaNoWriMo.

And incidentally, reviews that say the same thing every chapter aren’t particularly helpful https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12602224/8/Zootopian-Eclipse

“What are you planning, fox?”  Judy inquired of her old friend and partner.

“Well,” Nick started, moving in the direction of the shop he was looking for.  “You’ve never done a gradual resleeve before, have you?”

Judy raised a puzzled eyebrow at his question.  “No, I don’t think so.  The only times I’ve resleeved were either from a backup or farcasting.  What do you mean by gradual?”

“You’ve also had problems resleeving without continuity haven’t you?”

“You know I do!”  She replied angrily.  “I’m officially diagnosed with body dysmorphia, in addition to… you know what.”

Nick nodded, he’d read Firewall’s data on asyncs, and knew full well that in addition to mental disorders they tended to have trouble acclimating to new bodies.  He also had no small amount of personal experience with Judy’s assorted meltdowns every time Firewall needed them to farcast somewhere for a mission.  “I was starting to think,” he continued.  “That part of the problem might be that there was always time lost whenever you’ve resleeved.  Hours, if not days, between upload and download.  Maybe you start to suspect that perhaps you’re not the same person who sat down in the Ego bridge.”

“Are you going somewhere with this?”

“Right, anyways gradual resleeves don’t have that particular problem.”  Judy’s expression lost a minute amount of its annoyance and he continued.  “Instead of suddenly waking up in a new body, the ego bridges form a neural link between the old and new bodies and slowly copy the brain over neuron by neuron.  You feel yourself slipping from sleeve to sleeve.”

Judy started to think about it.  “I’m not sure I see the point.  It sounds like it wouldn’t work for farcasting more than a few light-seconds, and it would be useless for backup restoration.”

“Not everybody wants to remain in the same sleeve they were born with, or a pseudo-clone thereof compiled from DNA sold by her relatives.”  Nick commented, looking pointedly at Judy in her Heirloom morph.  “And when they decide on what they want to be, the transition is easier if they know for sure that it’s still them.  Even if it takes a few more hours.”

The bunny groaned, “I suppose that makes some sense.  But what does this have to do with me?”  By this time they were right outside the shop, its’ AR sign reading “Phil’s discount resleeving.  Buy or rent, try before you buy option available.”

Nick tapped the door lightly and it slid open.  Along the back wall was a row of biomorphs in stasis tanks, ranging in species from mice to horses, morphs from simple Splicers to six-limbed custom morphs.  However, the sleeve that caught Judy’s attention was another rabbit doe, this one had tan fur and a white streak on her head, but its’ height and build seemed oddly close to her own.  Her vulpine companion noticed her attention and stepped up to the tank in question, tapping the transparent aluminum with a light finger.  “We’re passing within shuttle distance of a Consortium habitat soon.”  He stated, as if it explained anything.  “It might help if you didn’t look quite so much like you.”

“Wait,” Judy said incredulously.  “Are you saying that’s going to be me?”

“Yeah,” Nick replied, nonchalantly admiring the merchandise.  “It was a bit of a challenge to find a decent balance between new looks and familiarity.”

“Hey, I did most of the work here.”  A capybara stepped out from around a corner.  As he approached he lifted a leg that ended with a hand and held it out before Judy, tentatively she gripped and shook it.  “Name’s Phil, nice to meet you.  Now, lagomorph Splicers and Bouncers are common as Maresian dust but I thought you deserved something a little better for the inconvenience.  That, and I speak from personal experience when I say that four hands take a little getting used to.”  He withdrew his hand-foot from Judy’s grasp and set it back on the floor.  “Fortunately, we picked up some bunny Exalts a few months ago at Mustelis.  One of them was fairly close to your dimensions and only took a couple hours of bodysculpting to get them within the range you’re used to.  You won’t bang your head on any doorways and if you misjudge a jump it’ll be because your new sleeve is stronger and faster than the old one.  But, you should also have an easier time calculating the distance too.”

“Stronger, faster, and smarter.”  Judy repeated, trying to imagine that kind of life.  Her previous regular sleeve had been a Fury with substantial strength and reflex boosts, as well as a giant by bunny standards.  Even her current Splicer already healed faster and needed less sleep than her original “Flat” body.  How would the Exalt compare?

“You don’t need to take that one, necessarily.”  Phil cut back in, “you can give it a test run and if it’s too different for your tastes you can sleeve back into your old body free of charge.”

Judy slowly shook her head, trying to imagine seeing that face in the mirror every morning.  “I just don’t know.”

“Look, Carrots,” Nick laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder.  “If you’re going to keep up this line of work you’re going to need to resleeve regularly.  I really think this might help you.”

“Alright,” the bunny finally conceded.  “What do I need to do for this gradual upload thing?”

“Well…” Phil started, showing a bit of discomfort in his voice.  “Have you ever been in a healing vat while conscious?”

“Yes,” Judy replied.  “It wasn’t pleasant.”

“You know how you can do a normal upload with a ‘dry’ Ego bridge but downloading into a biomorph requires a ‘wet’ Ego bridge similar to a healing vat?”  The capybara tapped the side of the tank.  “For a gradual upload, you’ll need a wet bridge on both ends, sorry.”

Judy stared at the body in the tank for a full minute before sighing “Let’s get this over with.”  She followed Nick and Phil to the back of the shop.

---

Judy stood, stripped down to her fur, in a hollow cylinder of sapphire just barely wide enough for her to reach out with one arm, and fully immersed in nanite-infused gel.  Her lungs were burning with one last breath that she couldn’t quite bring herself to let out.  She knew the nanogel would keep her tissues fully oxygenated once she let it in, but the instinct to avoid drowning was hard to suppress.  Eventually, the buildup in her lungs became more painful than she could tolerate and she gasped in a mouth full of gel, her final breath escaping in a stream of bubbles.

[Ready to begin?]  Nick’s digital voice came over her mesh inserts as the bubbles rose.  She could see him refracted through the crystal, his features distorted by the medium.

Judy started to speak, but the nanogel in her lungs arrested her vocalization.  She nodded instead and sent a quick reply over the mesh.  [As ready as I’ll ever be.]

The arm of an Ego bridge swung down towards her head and she allowed it to grasp her.  She heard the soft hum of the scanners as they powered up, and waited.  Judy hung there floating in the fluid waiting for something, some sort of change or transition.  But nothing was happening.

Nick was leaning back against the vat opposite her own, his eyes rolled back as he accessed something on his entoptics.  [Nick,] she sent him.  [Is anything supposed to be happening yet?]

The fox perked up from his virtual reverie and asked Phil a question she couldn’t quite make out.  Then he turned back to the bunny and made a suggestion.  [Try flexing the fingers of your right hand.]  His eyes darted repeatedly between her tank and the one across.

Judy sighed inaudibly and curled her right hand into a fist.  Feeling the fingers clench against one another she released them with a feeling of relief.  [Seems normal, anything next?]

Nick was staring firmly at the other vat now, she noticed.  He hadn’t been watching her when she moved.  [You sure about that Fluff?  Did you even look?]

Puzzled, the bunny turned her head as far as the Ego bridge would allow to glance down at her hand and clenched it again.  She felt her fingers curling, but didn’t see them move, at all.  All she saw was an open hand hanging limply at the end of her arm.  Shocked and a bit horrified she lifted her right arm up and brought the unresponsive digits before her face, they waved uselessly in the gel.  She brought her other hand up and flexed the fingers to verify that they still worked, when they moved she began to grasp its unfeeling twin.  It was as if her right hand were nothing but a piece of warm meat taped to the stump of her arm.

[Judy, calm down!]  The vat resounded with a loud *bong* and she looked up to see Nick tapping on the crystal wall.  He gestured towards the vat he’d been leaning against.  [Look!]

The tank across from her held the Exalt sleeve they’d suggested for her.  Through the refraction Judy could just barely make out the Exalt’s clenched fist.  Tentatively she unclenched the phantom hand and the Exalt’s fingers slowly unfurled.

Realization dawning, Judy slowly began to move her left hand up her right arm, testing the nerves.  Her upper arm felt normal still, but the lower was growing a little numb to her touch yet she could still sense it there.  After waiting a little longer she attempted to rotate her right wrist, and the Exalt responded.

The numbness-not numbness continued to spread up her arm until the Splicer body’s limb hung limply at her side while the Exalt counterpart swung slowly up and down, every now and then touching the meat it was affixed to.  As the transition crossed her shoulder it began to slip down her side to her leg, while simultaneously spreading to her neck.  Just as her toes were losing feeling she suddenly found herself staring at Nick leaning against the opposite tank with her left eye, and the back of his shirt with her right.  As she waited her muzzle gradually transitioned and she saw the fox’s back with both eyes just as her remaining leg crossed over.  Finally, she was left with one arm attached to an unfeeling Splicer body and one Exalt body with an unfeeling arm.  Judy’s Exalt sleeve gently massaged her left arm with her right as feeling gradually flooded in.

When her left Exalt hand could curl into a fist Judy took one last look at the Splicer she’d been, its’ vacant eyes staring blankly into space as the body hung there in the gel.  A drain opened in the floor of Judy’s vat and the tips of her ears felt air as the Ego bridge detached.  She glanced up and noticed that the vat’s lid had opened.  With a start, the newly re-embodied bunny leapt up and hung over the lip of the cylinder, coughing out nanogel.

“Oh God, oh God.”  She said as soon as she’d managed to draw in a fresh breath of air.  “I can’t believe it I just changed bodies piece by piece I was losing parts of my Splicer body as I was gaining Exalt parts.  It was one body with physically separated parts.  Gradually replacing them almost like how your cells are slowly replaced nothing like the sudden awakening of farcasting.  Wait when I farcast last I left the brain of that Splicer the same and in stasis until I returned and overwrote it did I really travel or did I just make a copy of myself on Mustelis who sent me back her memories?  If she was just a copy did she commit suicide when she allowed the rental sleeve to be mind-wiped at the end of the mission?  Was the bunny on Mares whose stack I was copied from a different mammal entirely?  Was the Judy Hopps who died on Ark also a completely different mammal?  Am I just a one-year-old with the memories and personality of a 50-year-old?  Does that make me a kit or an adult?”

Phil turned to Nick with a bewildered look.  “Is she always like this after every resleeve?”

“No.”  The fox reassured the capybara.  “One time she was hallucinating for a whole day after resleeving.  This is a fairly mild reaction.”