From: Tiryns Anandonos (AIB)
To: Academician Iliys Roquentius; Academician Meris Tarisia
Subject: Incident 7922/0011867
Gentlesophs,
It is certainly the case that research into self-concealing patterns of information (so-called cryptomemes) is important, as is research into their applicability to and existence in the living world. This is only the more true since field teams from your laboratory have already discovered a hitherto-unknown genus of commonplace cryptid (Cryptomustelidae spp.).
It is also the case that it is necessary to perform experimental and evolutionary studies upon these, and as such my branch takes no issue with the experiment series in which you proposed to splice the Out-of-Mind visual textures and elements from the Citizen Nondescript bioshell design into laboratory mice to create a convenient pseudocryptid for study, and observe the development of ongoing generations.
We of the Board, further, acknowledge that neither of you can be held personally accountable for the incident of two days since, in which a laboratory technician left the habitat containing your Mus crypteia open during cleaning, in the mistaken belief that it was empty.
We must, however, insist that you devote a substantial proportion of your research time, in the immediate future, to determining exactly how we can effectively clean up an infestation of mice which can only be perceived as zero-volume mouse-shaped holes in the world.
Respectfully submitted,
Tiryns Anandonos,
Accident Investigation Board
for and on behalf of
Agathis Túkunra
the Sane Man
jeez, and kirk was worried ’bout tribbles
I love the title “the Sane Man”.
How do you splice said patterns and memes on a physical object? Is it just like a QR-code type thing on the fur of the mouse?
Some work on its gross morphology, but yeah, mostly their coat pattern.
Ah, I see. In-universe, would this effect translate across all types of minds, and would it also manifest through video cameras? I’m thinking maybe if the footage is sufficiently grainy the image would fail to render and hence lose its effect.
Or hunt them using other senses. High resolution thermographic vision or 3-D sonar.
I’d imagine the some that “work on its gross morphology” would potentially work against sonar. Possibly something like careful control of blood (or equivalent) flow through an intricate web of blood vessels alongside thermally insulative or reflective material maybe scales?) would be needed for thermographic vision. Something that manages to work against every method of detection would be very impressive. Though this seems to work by altering perception in-mind, so it would only need to work on one sense anything looking for it has. To detect it, you’d presumably need a sense it doesn’t work on, and NO sense it does.
This reminds me of the Cheshires (genetically engineered cats with colour-changing fur allowing them to blend in with the background) in Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl.
Except here instead of blending into the background the mice are actively deleting themselves from your brain, yikes
Another important question. Were they a mix of breeding genders, or cloned, sterile lab specimens?