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Why is it that when The Kiss is performed and the Insect consciousness moves from one human to another that the previous host does not revert to his human nature.
The brains of previous hosts still seem to have Insect consciousness. I assume that some of the Insect consciousness remains behind in the brain, although in Gigashadow when the brain is divided the human personality (the poet) comes through again.
It seems that not all of the Insect consciousness can be contained within human hosts because in I Worship His Shadow HDS goes into a room and encounters a cloud/swarm which is part of the Insect consciousness. Perhaps it is quantized and exists in particles; HDS’s cloak could be made from it as it can move from old to new hosts at the time of The Kiss.
Rockham.
It becomes stranger when the entire essence remains in his head when the brain is removed, and then the whole essence returns to the brain when HDS body dies. whats more, the cape remains.
I gues this is just one of those things that makes the story interesting but has problems and being such sad geezers, in an attemps to explain it we end up changing it completely
Well thats not entirely true.
First off Daleks the expert on the Insect essence so hopefully he’ll jump in here. But remember that the final HDS was not HDS. It was a human with the insect conciousness and his own conciousness.
Previously ALL HDS were brain dead before the Insect Essence was allowed into them. Even the very first HDS in Mantrid was electricuted to braindeath before the Insect Essence infused it.
If they werent braindead like the final HDS they still had their own moral imperitives. Thats why the other ex-HDS are so afraid and negative to the new one. Dalek once argued(I think) that the previous HDS were orderly and in many ways good guys. They brought Order to a Universe that had none. When the final HDS explains he will destroy all humanity the other HDS exclaim that was never their plan.
As for the Protoblood, that carries with it the moral imperitives of the GigaShadow, which originally was to serve His Divine Shadow utterly. I can only assume that with the final HDS it also became a moral imperitive to destroy all humanity, period now that insects could once again rule under the Divine Order of Insects.
As for the Cloak, Ill give you the same answer the Beans gave when asked what was the deal with the 2 Brunnis Suns in Supernova.
Because they thought it looked cool.
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Originally posted by LexxLurker:
First off Daleks the expert on the Insect essence so hopefully he’ll jump in here. But remember that the final HDS was not HDS. It was a human with the insect conciousness and his own conciousness.
I’m flattered you consider me the authority on the subject. I was waiting for Valdron to say something.
Well, I think, in order for a host to become His Divine Shadow, the essence has to be bonded to them. Then bonding is more than what happened to Rock Hound or Yottskry or Kai, so they were never really Divine Shadows. The Insect essence is unable to completely extract itself from the brain of host it has been bonded to, so there is a remanent essence. That is why the Divine Predecessors still think like Divine Shadows, and why Kai doesn’t.The Divine Predecessors may have small vestiges of their human origins left (cleansing may be a selective destruction of brain centers; eliminate memories, personality, and free will without damaging the parts necessary to operate the body; so maybe it’s impossible to completely destroy the humanity). That may be part of the reason why they have different personalities. Alternately, that may be because they have been shaped by different experiences, and memories are not all carried over to the next host brain.
Insects, and thus His Divine Shadow, seem to have emotions, but not in the same way typical humans do. They are highly intellectualized and not as strong. They may have been something like Kai in mentality, but with motivations and probably stronger feelings. At any rate, they were logical, if not entirely fair in their judgements.
This changed when the Insect essence was bonded to an uncleansed human host. The new Divine Shadow acted human in ways. He was more emotional, and thus more erratic and impulsive. He had passions. The host may very well have been an unstable individual. He was described as “a truly viscious human being” and looked like a crazy Nazi skinhead, so I think it’s safe to assume he was a sociopath of some sort. He decided to act swiftly and severely, destroying 20,000 planets rather than investigating them for Heresy. The cleansing of human flesh was probably part of the Insect’s original plan, but the new Divine Shadow carried it out ahead of schedule, so it was over six months after he had become Divine Shadow, and probably wasn’t carried out properly (if he had intended to destroy all human life int he League of 20,000 Planets, he failed; look at all the people and societies left in the second season). His Divine Shadow said himself that the Giga Shadow was prematurely reborn.
I think the personality of an uncleansed brain thet the essence is bonded to becomes inextricably interwoven with the Insect essence. That is why, even in the insect body, His Shadow did unreasonable things like chase one little bug to its doom, and still spoke with the voice of its last host.
A semi-relevant note: The Divine Predecessors apparently believed that time passed in cycles (though this was not made part of Divine canon). The last Divine Shadow, however, did not hold such a belief. This may be because of the religious beliefs of the culture the human host came from. Due to preconceptions of the human half, the conclusion that time only moves in a straight line and prophecies are not possible was drawn, and he was willing to waiger his life on that faith by letting Kai loose.
His Divine Shadow’s line derived a portion of insect consciousness from a nasty insect. The Lexx also has an insect consciousness, whether ‘natural’ or man-made is the question. It will be interesting to see the fate of the insects in the carniverous plant loaded finale. Humanity and the insects have a common foe. Topsy turvy. Wonder if there is a lyekka-oid big enough to munch Lexx? Nah.
Well, I don’t see the LEXX as being a true ‘Insect’, at least in the sense of being a member of the ‘Insect Civilization.’
My own vision is that the ‘Insect Civilization’ was composed of a dominant species similar to the Gigashadow, which were ecologically the equivalent of space going whales.
They were asteroid sized creatures travelling in huge pods from one planetary system to the next, stripping it down to bedrock and moving on. Perhaps leaving surviving fragments to rebuild the ecologies in time for their next feeding, a thousand or ten thousand years later.
Apparently, their essence could be transmitted from one individual to another. It was necessary to animate them. So, I assume that essence was divisible. Otherwise, Insects who animated their children would lose their own animation.
In the case of LEXX. The Insect essence was passed into humans, into Divine Shadows and from one to another. In each, after the departure, there was always a residue of Insect Essence left behind. The Gigashadow, when it destroyed the Predecessors said it was taking back its essence from them. Also, the essence was able to divide to hide in both Kai and Yottskry. The residue of essence explains why the Divine Shadow bodies were venerated and kept on Ruma.
The Insect Essence appears to have been able to overwhelm and dominate a human personality, this occurs with Yottskry and Kai. But it was probably easier to damage or destroy the human mind with electroshock, which would keep the human mind from resisting the insect consciousness.
The insect essence probably shaped what was left of the brain patterns, so that after a while, even without the essence, the brain would have gone on thinking of in the same way.
But clearly, some trace of the Insect Essence did survive. The Predecessors exhibited powers. They could transmit memories among themselves and to humans, and they could summon and under some circumstances control humans. The fact that they were even able to function suggests that they were far more than ordinary brains, which would have obviously died.
I assume from its behaviour in humans that
Shadow essence behaved similarly in Insects and was probably an essential part of their reproductive cycle (given from what we know of Kai and the Gigashadow larvae in Mantrid), and part of their communication and social structure (not an unreasonable speculation).The essence, or fragments of essence were probably passed from adults to larvae or juveniles. It may have also been exchanged among adults, either as romance, social, kinship or for dominance. The transfer of essence may have been roughly equivalent to whale songs in some ways. It probably formed the basis of their civilization, since they were probably not technological in ways that we understand (assuming the Gigashadow was representative of the species).
Why did the new Divine Shadow say to the Predecessors “I thank you for the gift of selection”. If his consciousness was that of the Insect then he wasn’t chosen, it was the human host that was chosen.
I suppose that the new Divine Shadow was part human and therefore a more complex being in the way that women are more complex beings than men.
Rockham.
see my website at http://www.geocities.com/pyramusb
Although the essence appears to have been a continuous entity, with it’s own discrete motivations, concepts and memories, it appears that each Divine Shadow inhabited by the entity was a discrete individual. Thus, in Supernova, the predecessors could single out the 14th Divine Shadow as being especially awful. There appeared to be some trace of distinctive personalities, or voices in each of the predecessors, and certainly the one that killed Kai was voiced differently than the final one.
As such, thanking for the gift of selection was appropriate. Selecting a different host body would have resulted in a slightly different Divine Shadow.
Actually, assuming that essence transfer was an essential part of Insect reproduction, this process makes sense. Otherwise, the parent would expire on transferring all their essence to the junior, or the junior might be an absolute copy of the parent.
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