Subject: Re: Concerning neuralyzers
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Posted on: 2014-02-22 17:47:00 UTC
I remember reading an exchange in one mission to the effect that the speaking agent must be competent with a neuralyzer because she remembers her neuralyzer training. I can't tell you off-hand which mission that was, though.
Maybe that's part of what mission reports are meant for, reminding an agent who forgets which end is the flashy one what s/he's been up to for the past few years?
Accidents are kind of expected to happen on missions, but there's one that just popped into my head and I couldn't find anything on the Wiki, so...
What would happen if an agent accidentally got neuralyzed (doing other PPC work elsewhere while their partner got ready to neuralyze and coming back to get the full blast of it, for instance)? I would guess take them to Fic Psych and try to restore their memories, but I don't know how that would work...
...with the MiB continuum is a good idea just to use their de-Neuralyser. After all, any lockdown on the MiB Headquarters seems to flush those in the de-Neuralyser chamber out of Headquarters entirely.
Might I suggest finding something the Almost Human-verse? Especially if the agent has android/cyborg components. They do a lot of work with memories and stuff. There's a guy called the Recollectionist who helps restore old memories.
The only difference is that the Agent then heard the explanation of what happened and believes it… And their parter then has to hunt them down and drag them back to Fic Psych by their hair.
My spins on this sort of idea are always so much more violent than everybody else's...
I remember reading an exchange in one mission to the effect that the speaking agent must be competent with a neuralyzer because she remembers her neuralyzer training. I can't tell you off-hand which mission that was, though.
Maybe that's part of what mission reports are meant for, reminding an agent who forgets which end is the flashy one what s/he's been up to for the past few years?
Well, there's always the possibility of said agent being immune to it, buuuut given that there's a canonical machine in the MIB 'verse to deneuralyze someone (ala the whole driving force behind the 'Let's get Agent K back from retirement' arc in the second movie), they'd probably just have to be given a temporary set of memories (maybe something like 'we work together, that sparkly thing is an idiot and must die, don't freak out') and then treated, or shoved through a portal to Medical with a note saying who they were and what happened while their partner finished the mission, assuming it wasn't already done.
IIRC, neuralysers can be set to erase varying periods of time, from the past few minutes to hours, days or even several years. It can turn out however best fits the story, but there's no reason to assume it'd necessarily wipe out the agent's entire life. Maybe FicPsych or Medical has a de-neuralyser machine for exactly these kinds of incidents, or some shenanigans ensue with the past day or so being gone from the person's memory so they have no idea why they're standing in the middle of Medical.
A de-neuralyzer, that is. As I recall, the MiB's one is huge. (And in a room that looks like a toilet? Is that right?) I can't see HQ keeping something that space- and energy-demanding around just for the exceedingly rare case that an agent randomly flashy-things their life away.
FicPsych does have the Memory Implant Device based on the tech from "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"/Total Recall (but styled after the conditioning room in A Clockwork Orange, because why not), but unfortunately for the agents, they don't have a convenient source for each one's individual backstory sitting around on a shelf, like they do with the canon characters. The best they could do is a culture implant, which basically just fills in "You are X species from Y planet, where Xes like you generally have Z experiences and characteristics." This may not be desirable, though, being so generalized.
Also, what's a better story: An agent accidentally gets neuralyzed, pops into HQ for a little sit in the fix-me-up chair, and goes back to life as normal? Or, an agent accidentally gets neuralyzed and has to actually deal with it?
~Neshomeh
Admittedly, that thing was ramshackle at best, but it was much smaller than the MIB one.
I can't recall them exactly, since it's been a while since I've seen Men in Black II and that movie was not the sort of experience I store in the favored areas of my memory, but I believe it was something to the effect that a bootleg neuralyzer would fry your brain inside your head if it didn't work precisely perfectly, and even if it did, the memories would be patchy at best for an undetermined length of time before everything fit back in place. I'd say that it would be best to find some way outside of the MIB movieverse to get the memories back, and even then, there should at least be a little time before their restoration to exploit the comedic and/or character-building potential of having one's mind erased, or the whole affair would be sort of pointless.
I had an idea bouncing around in my head for something like an agent getting mind wiped... It could maybe culminate in an illegal mission into the MiB universe to try and get their memories back and of course they'd get in trouble for that.
Also it's been so long since I saw the MiB movies that I only remember the sphere that burned off J's fingerprints. And some other details. *shamed*
...bought all three MIB movies, I can probably find you an answer once I'm done marathoning the lot. Or you could, potentially, find something outside the MIB universe.
The first and third ones were pretty good, though. The third had some rather noticable plot holes, but it was still a fun movie, and the plot holes were mostly inconsistencies in how their version of time travel works and how it influences events rather than the usual plot hole format of people just making incredibly stupid choices for no good reason.
That's where I got the idea of Bleepolate milk fixing temporal distortions.
Milk wouldn't repair a distortion, after all. How would that even happen? The closest I can think of is that it might be able to close rifts or cracks in time if it was poured over them, but that is such a phenomenally silly idea that even the campiest of fictional worlds would discard the concept as ridiculous.
"Don't worry, Romana! We'll heal the breaks in space-time with the twin powers of calcium and Vitamin D!"
You would not want to do that. If there is any organization in the canons of the multiverse that will be fully prepared for unexpected and off-the-wall occurrences, it's going to be one that regularly fights off or contains the damages caused by aliens and monsters with such efficiency that the outside world at large hardly suspects of their existence. They might be able to sneak in, but they are probably going to get captured. Then the DIA will have to go in and clean up, which is likely going to cause an interdimensional incident since the main technology that the PPC uses to make people forget about them came from the very people that it would need to be used on, so they'll be able to tell what the signs of an altered consciousness are, deneuralyze someone, and find out everything. I suppose this could be circumvented by going outside science fiction and using a suggestion spell or Harry Potter's Memory Charm, but it will almost certainly be more complicated than that in execution, since this is still the PPC we're talking about here and the simple solutions rarely play out as intended.
Summarized: If your agents think that they will only be "in trouble" when they get back, they will be very unpleasantly surprised by what they'd really have to deal with. "In trouble" is if you accidentally leave a candy wrapper on the Black Pearl. "In trouble" is if you do a sloppy job unbolting Elrond's bed from the ceiling and he notices the hastily-covered holes. "In trouble" wouldn't touch this.
The SO would probably compost the agents and eat them for breakfast. And then send the resulting fertilizer to be mixed with glitter.
The agents would probably have thought that they could get away with it. Whoo boy.
Like I said, it was just an idea bouncing around, and since there are apparently smaller memory restorers that aren't always exactly... functional, there's quite a bit of potential for some funneh times.
...HAS somebody left a candy wrapper on the Pearl before?
Yeah, is making for good story material. I'll admit I do agree that the nature of the stuff at Medical's hands can make a lot of spinoffs seem oddly consequence-free sometimes.
I like the idea of an Agent getting Neuralysed and having to Deal With It. Brb, filing it away for future arcs...
(It would totally suck if one of the E/C duo lost all memories of them being in a relationship. Which means this is an excellent idea that I should keep on file.)
And then all of a sudden, when you least expect it, it will happen.
And I will sit there laughing amidst crying Boarders.
/bricked
Could be interesting though, whatever way you go with it.
As in, you would be going around neuralyzing people so that they would forget about the potential arc plot point, and then you would write it while everyone is dazed and convinced that your post was about llama wrestling or something.
Wait, did explaining that I got the joke that you didn't actually directly make ruin the potential fun for everyone else? Is it an Uncertainty Principle thing, so that after an undefined joke is defined it stops being funny for anyone? If that's the case, I am terribly sorry.
-FLASH-
...You never saw anything. You did not see anything about any sort of plot twist. Nope. You are now looking at the horns sprouting on Steven Moffat's head.
And how did he turn into a Zabrak? He's been messing with that James Bond-verse DNA replacement technology, hasn't he? We've got to stop him before he goes full Doctor Animo and starts creating human-alien hybrids!
(rushes off, foggy-minded and thoroughly distracted)
And yes, you're right, neuralyzers can be set to varying periods of time; I think K had several decades wiped from his memory. At least twenty-thirty, IIRC. But no, you're right, it wouldn't (or rather, shouldn't, unless something absolutely catastrophic happens) wipe out the agent's entire life.