Mind Hive: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Legion''': [[The Bible|Christian Bible, the Gospel of Mark, chapter five, verse nine]]. We acknowledge this as an appropriate metaphor. We are Legion, a terminal of the Geth.|''[[Mass Effect 2]]''}}

 

 

 

Distinct from [[Split Personality]] because even if what's housed inside is totally separate entities that got merged, they still retain their individuality. Sometimes may speak in [[I Am Legion]] pattern. Compare [[Many Spirits Inside of One]]. See also [[Animal Eye Spies]].

 

{{examples}}

* In the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' manga, {{spoiler|Hohenheim}} is this, due to being a living Philospher's Stone. He's revealed to have reached an accord with each of the tens of thousand souls sharing his body, though he's the dominant one in control.

*** For some reason he also never gets very big otherwise. Maybe because impersonating an elephant isn't especially subtle in Fantasy Germany, and when they have artillery it doesn't give you much of a combat bonus, either. Despite the bent rail he doesn't generally have the impact on his environment that you'd expect from something the size of an elephant...

* In ''[[Hellsing]]'', vampires keep all the souls of the people they've devoured inside them. Alucard had millions of souls {{spoiler|until the finale}}.

* The Kree [[wikipedia:Supreme Intelligence|Supreme Intelligence]] in [[Marvel Comics]] is the collected brains of all the important Kree, harvested upon their deaths.

* In ''Zorn & Dirna: Les Laminoirs'', Death has been imprisoned and cannot claim any lives. Since people still age and become horrid-looking, necrotic zombie-lookalikes, they are by law forced to go (or be dragged) to facilities where they are beheaded... which won't kill them, but make the soul take residence in the axeman. Some of the axemen (who are usually prisoners) harbour several ''thousand'' souls, which can fight for control of the body.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In Glen Cook's ''Black Company'' Novels, Soulcatcher (a powerful spellslinger whose primary talent is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]), might well be the epitome of this trope.

* Frank Herbert's ''[[Dune]]'' series. Abominations are people who experience Bene Gesserit past memory sharing before birth. As a result, they are subject to being taken over by the personalities of their genetic ancestors. This can lead to some interesting situations:

** Alia was taken over by multiple personalities just before her death. Prior to this, her grandfather {{spoiler|Baron Vladimir Harkonnen}} had controlled her for a fair amount of time.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* The [[Mecha-Mooks|Geth]] from ''[[Mass Effect]]'' are a purely software-based species, and house themselves in massive space-based data hubs that contain millions of Geth programs, all of which communicate and work to build consensus. When the Geth need to fight or perform other necessary tasks, they upload themselves into "mobile platforms" - the Geth soldiers, ships, and vehicles encountered in the games themselves.

** Interestingly, "individual" Geth programs are non-sapient, being too simple to function beyond their original purpose; this was an intentional limitation placed by the Quarians to avoid creating an AI. However, when the programs are able to network together, they are able to create something greater than the sum of their parts and achieve a unique form of sapience.

** Most "mobile platforms" contain a few dozen Geth and have intelligence limited to their designated task, though they can become more intelligent if additional platforms are nearby with which to network. The platform known as Legion is designed to operate outside Geth space and so contains over a thousand programs, enough for autonomous operation and dialog with organic sapients.

** The Reapers are revealed to be this as well, by the end of Mass Effect 2. Legion points out this was already implied in the first game by comments regarding the nature of the first Reaper encountered.

{{quote|''' {{spoiler|Sovereign/Nazara}}''': We are each a nation.}}

* Ermac from the ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' series was a single being created via the combination of a legion of souls by Shao Khan and tends to speak as "we" to represent this fact.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'': Sora. {{spoiler|There are three, maybe four, other minds in his heart at this point.}}

{{quote|'''Alex:''' {{spoiler|Because everyone I've killed...}} They're in me. They ''are'' me.}}

* The Many in ''[[System Shock]] 2''. In contrast to self-centered megalomaniac Shodan, who speaks in the [[I Am Legion|voice of the legion]], The Many alternate between separate and distinct voices. Humans assimilated by it begin slipping into the voice, though.

* In ''[[Portal 2]]'', it is revealed that rogue AI {{spoiler|1=GLaDOS}} was constructed with at least one if not more [[Brain Uploading|uploaded human personalities]] in addition to the multiple contradictory directives and [[Restraining Bolt]]s that Aperture Science tried to install to keep it in check.

 

** There was also an individual that was thought to be an example of this, composed of thousands of sophonts, usually experts at something. Then it was revealed that: 1. The meta-sophont was really composed of the relevant ''sections and memories'' of the original sophont, and 2. the sophonts involved were all kidnapped over a long period of time, although the perpetrator is still at large.

* [[Red vs. Blue]] has an unusual example. The Meta has a collection of A.I.'s in his head and continues to collect more. Since the A.I.'s are all fragments of an original A.I. it's a little unclear of how much individual personalities they - or their human host - retain.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]