You’ve Got To Read This

basilisk hack: (from the mythical petrifying serpent); a class of cognoweapon capable of being introduced through normal sensory channels which attack metalogical defects in sensory input processing or cognition, causing various cognitive dysfunctions, neural storms, seizures, and in advanced cases, coma.  Most publicly known families of basilisk hack are automatically filtered by modern security metacortex extensions.

YGBM hack: (“you’ve got to believe me”); a more advanced class of cognoweapon based on basilisk hack (q.v.) principles, in which the basic hack serves as a channel to introduce a memetic payload without it passing through normal cognitive/memetic processing, thus causing instant belief and/or conversion.  This is largely a theoretical class due to the difficulty of passing a memetic payload through limited sensory bandwidth and the nature of available cognitive exploits, but certain simple examples are known to exist, including the Andreth-Calcië emotropic symphonies, the Citizen Nondescript bioshell series, the Out-Of-Mind visual textures, and the Must-Have-It Box.

YGHM hack: (“you’ve got to have me”); a specific YGBM hack (q.v.) variant focused on inducing desire, or simple lust.  While no target-specific forms are known to exist live, one subset of the Andreth-Calcië emotropic symphonies is known to induce these mental states in a generalized sense.  (Legal warning: effective-fidelity recordings of these qualify as a Class I Coercive Substance and, as such, non-consensual exposure to such is a serious crime under Imperial law.)

yaghem: (slang); a person whose sexuality presentation and/or seduction techniques possess all the subtlety of a YGHM hack (q.v.), albeit without the effectiveness.  Considered derogatory.

– excerpted from Cognitive Threats Monthly: Special Introductory Issue

Trope-a-Day: Brown Note

Brown Note: Basilisk fractals, and their audible, etc., equivalents, which is to say, various forms of sensory input that can take advantage of cognitive bugs to actually crash your mind – and, at least theoretically, can implant thought-virus programming, although that capability’s never yet been seen in the wild.  Most modern (artificial or modified) cognitive architectures include protection against known basilisk hacks, but known is, regrettably, often less than all.  And baselines are still vulnerable, as are people who don’t keep up to date with Cognitive Threats Monthly.  Apply your service packs, kids!

Doing it with a thought-virus that is implanted into the mind using regular educational axiom feeds or other mind-editing tech is too trivial to even mention.