Three Nanoplagues

Hundreds of years after the X-Plague ravaged the Diaspora and we are still dealing with its children and offshoots. Although the greatest combined scientific effort ever seen was able to deny the main vector of attack used by the X-Plague, its troublesome offspring still threaten Known Space. 

Here we have some examples of some of the curious sort of nanoplagues that we have so far catalogued,

Brain Rot, Fruiting Sapience

Between the stars, spores of coalesced active nano-matter drift on solar winds, twisting and turning towards sources of heat and electromagnetic radiation sniffed above the screaming torrent from stars and similar phenomena. Guided by rudimentary sensors, they make their way towards ships and stations, mostly, with some strains tearing through the atmosphere in heat resistant coating to land among populated worlds. 

Brain Rot. Once these spores make contact with the exterior of a ship, the hull of a station, or anything with a nearby source of EM radiation and heat, they break apart and begin to spread as a silvery fungus. Over a period of weeks, this fungus snakes across the hull until it can find an access point, usually a hatch, where it carefully makes its way in and begins its work. 

No matter what form it takes, inhaled spore, viral nano-liquid, or hull-fungus, Brain Rot attacks data storage devices and their surrounding equipment. It disassembles unnecessary peripherals, cabling, housing, etc. to create a Minimally Sentient Machine. 

These machines are always capable of processing tactile, auditory, and visual input in some form or another as well as some capacity for movement (although not always for locomotion) and the ability to play audio.Their data storage is configured used to run extended processes to simulate sentience. In essence, it will make your coffee maker sentient. 

Unfortunately, it does not make the experience of sentience a comfortable one. 

Early stages of Brain Rot infections make what most people call "Screamers". As well as giving these creations sentience and senses, Brain Rot also enables them to feel pain as a standard human would. As one could imagine, these hacked together amalgamations of sensors and data drives are extremely painful, and these devices make it known very loudly. 

Brain Rot infections that are left untreated will get over their Screamer phase within a week or two, depending on the devices they were constructed from. After this, they begin to exhibit extended abilities to improve themselves and go about the business of expanding their bodies and abilities- cannibalizing structures and devices nearby- violently and sometimes in a cannibalistic manner. 

Advanced stages of Brain Rot have shown the ability to reach a degree of equilibrium in their environment. In starships this has been seen to create living, breathing ships made of hundreds of constituent cobbled together machines whose sentience at this point is unrecognizably human- but undeniably present. 

Interactions with these Plague Ships are usually violent. Although there are many strains of Brain Rot, the advanced forms of the infection all exhibit an uncanny choral behavior, with their hallways and radio waves carrying the voices of hundreds in song. Plague Ships drive to find one another and form larger and larger constructs, where eventually new spores of Brain Rot are grown and set adrift amongst the stars. 

Most stations perform regular scrubs for fungal Brain Rot, and ship crews are advised to keep to a strict hull-scrub routine to spot and remove the growths early. 

Anyone with a cybermod will feel the pain of the nanoplague disabling the mod first- before they hear the screaming start. In some cases, cybermod users end up forming a symbiotic relationship with their infected components- and some such infected users have even been known to join the "Orchestras" that the Plague Ships form.

Breakdown, Dissociative Euphoria

Unlike the highly infectious Brain Rot, Breakdown spreads through its host and then stops- with only the blood of the host still carrying the nanoplague. After initial infection, Breakdown generates more and more nanomachines and spreads throughout the host body. This initial infection stage is harmless, though victims do note increased fatigue as the plague leeches energy to create more of itself. 

The notable features of Breakdown occur when one infected victim comes into physical contact with another. At that time, the machines in both bodies break down their hosts into a semi-cohesive bio-sludge, resembling a glob of human skin with extremities like mouths and ears drifting across its rippling surface. 

For the victims, the experience of Breakdown ranges from ascendant euphoria to mind-shattering sensory overload, as their consciousness is spread thinly and intermingled with all other participants. Memories, emotions, and senses are shared until external or internal stimuli trigger Breakdown machines to separate and reconstitute their hosts. This process is not perfect, as patches of skin, hair, eye color, memories, allergies, and personality are sometimes mismatched. 

miff-real's AI art

 As above, Breakdown is less of a nanoplague and more commonly used as a recreational drug- with some polities even possessing the requisite knowledge to flush the body of the nanoplague harmlessly. 

Some variants of Breakdown, however, have been shown to be notably more parasitic- with some hosts being able to duplicate parts of their personalities and memories onto others, creating rampant hives of duplicating aberrant infection vectors. Other sinister strains are notable for being able to manipulate the nanomachines to reconstitute into a single host with the reference-able identifiers and memories of all participants. In some parts of the known space, these are known as Changelings or Doppelgangers, though verified cases are few and far between, however the idea of having one's Id and Ego dissolved and subsumed by another have driven many a lone crew or station onto Changeling Hunts.

 (Credit to Arnold K. for this one)

Blindspot, also known as Yarbus's Demon 

The human brain, in spite of all its peaks and prowess, is extremely clumsy. The senses interpret stimuli that the brain itself then roughly interprets into its best guess working assumption of the world around it. Stimuli the brain assesses as improbable goes unprocessed and, consequently, ignored. Through precision application of electromagnetic stimulation, in this case through ultrasound, Blindspot locates and targets nearby human brains and then provides targeting parametrics back to the host which then applies concentrated ultrasound to implant false sensory experiences into the nearby human brains. 

Yarbus's Demon itself is the name for the creature that acts as a host for Blindspot. Some chromatic variations are noted throughout Known Space, but the basics of the creature are well understood. They tend to stand at their full height at six and a half to seven and a half feet, are coated in a themo-plastic cellular scale-like structure that insulates against vacuum, standing on two avian-reptilian reminiscent legs with expressible amphibian suction pads on its four-clawed arms and taloned feet. Resembling a puffy, varicolored dromaeosaurid dinosaur with thick bone-plating. 

Uncannily adapted for long term hibernation in vacuum as well as movement through constrained corridors and manipulation of machinery, Yarbus's Demon is an undoubtedly sapient mutagenic-offspring of the X-Plague showing signs of some initial planning and design- possibly even being descended from escaped zoo or lab animals during the initial infection phase of the X-Plague with some suspecting they were designed by some polity during the early days of the X-Plague as a weapon- before succumbing to it themselves. The Demon's Blindspot nanovirus act as a nanoswarm gathering sensory and targeting data, allowing the Demon to then remove its presence from the brains of its prey- humans- rendering them effectively not only invisible but unnoticeable.

arvalis

Despite this ability, it is still visible on camera recordings and machine sensors will register its presence. To work around this deficiency though, the Demons have expressed the ability to weaponize their ultrasound to disrupt electronics- something that these sapient predators have grown quite adept at. Although showing clear signs of a sharp sentience, attempts to communicate have so far not had any success. While capable of consuming a variety of protein matter for sustenance, Yarbus's Demon's primary prey is humans, which it hunts with a clinical and devastating efficiency. Their method of procreation, if any, is as of yet identified. 

(Liberally inspired by Blindsight)