Odd question but what would you do if

[StargateMillennium]

So I need to tell this in order to give full context. Let's say you're part of the SG program and you're dating someone who goes off-world for missions.

One mission they come back and you find there is an alien parasite attached to their spine.

Ok, bad but this is the SG program.

Then you find out that their brain is 95% gone. Like the parasite has been eating the brain ever since it got attached and has full control of the body, mimicking that person you were dating.

But the parasite swears up and down that it has no idea what you're talking about. It is that person. The person you were dating. Not a parasite impersonating them.

Then after going back to the planet and investigating you find out that this is the truth. After a period of time after entering the body, the parasite will make a near perfect copy of the person's brain to the point they believe they are the person. And after that, they begin to devour the original brain to make itself a more suitable home.


Since the original brain is still there you are even able to speak to the original person you dated by having the parasite meditate in a way that they can relinquish control. Though since 95% of the brain is gone, the result is not pretty.


That leads us back to the question. What do you do about them? Not in terms of the SGC. But is this parasite that person you dated? Or is it just another person who has the same mind as them? Stay the course? Break up? Or is the person you dated basically dead anyways?

[Rohan]

Isn't that basically the Tok'ra plus the brain eating?

It's a bit of a hard call, but what you're addressing is the metaphysics of the concept of life, death, and identity in this matter. I could go into a long text wall addressing al the pros and cons of it all, but that would take too long and too many things to discuss at once. Short and simple, if the parasite is on the level of what it is then it depends on the resolve of the individual if this is a deal breaker or not.

I can even throw in a twist how this parasite can be a net positive. For example, coma patients with no hope of ever gaining consciousness who are effectively brain dead. Said parasite would simply take over all essential functions reviving them from their comatose state being able to continue their lives as if nothing happened. It would be a little screwed up. But ultimately save a lot of families heart ache.

[StargateMillennium]

The debate of what constitutes life and identity was the point. You have things like teleporters and stargtes which theoretically operate on a similar level.

So in the story, the parasite is a native wildlife and the act of implanting someone with this parasite is done to grant them immortality in a sense. But they need to also take a poison so that the original them dies just after the parasite makes the copy. Therefore there's only one them. Also, otherwise they live as a prisoner in their own body and feel the parasite slowly eat their brains. The SG team was oblivious to this ritual and the guy got implanted by pure accident so he didn't take the poison. Even if everyone else wasn't aware of it, for a time there were two hims. And now there is only one since the parasite has pretty much munched the brain away.

Now I need to figure out whether she continues a romance with the guy or not. It's supposed to be an open ended question yet I feel her decision is effectively making the decision for the audience. And both answers seem weird from a social standpoint.

[Rohan]

There are actually no pain receptors in your brain. So one can't actually feel something like that happening.

But anyways according to your description, the parasite actually substitutes itself as your brain which can even relinquish control back to the original owner if it wanted too. But you weren't clear if the parasite is malevolent in nature or not. Does it do what it does because it wants too or it doesn't have a choice? Additionally is it already self-aware or a blank slate till it copies it's host?

If the original consciousness is still there, it's not really a deal breaker. Like in the episode 'Pretense' (3x15), the Tollan developed technology to differentiate and maintain who is in control of the body with Skarra. I can imagine the SGC being able to develop someway to do the same. Thus the parasite would be treated as an unusual organic prosthetic at that point.

But if the question is the relationship between these two people, then I can point out the episode of 'Fallout' (7x14). Jonas was infatuated with Kianna only to realize he was in love with the Goa'uld inside of her to which the Goa'uld counters he wouldn't have noticed Kianna in the first place if not for it. However their relationship in the end was left ambiguous. But this episode could serve as a template depending on the timeline making the person question if they were in love with the original person or the parasite.

[StargateMillennium]

Ok, so gonna have to note he's not going to feel his brain being eaten.

So the parasite is purely animalistic at first, no smarter than a tapeworm. It lives in the wild. It only gains any form of intelligence when it implants itself into a host. Normally the host is a wild animal so it becomes only as smart as the animal. But if it implants itself into an intelligent species like a human, it effective becomes that person.

So the timeline is this. Another team goes to a planet (pretty standard). What they didn't know is that this parasite lives in the swamplands. The people they are talking to also have a ritual where they willingly implant themselves with the parasite then take a poison to kill their brain to facilitate what they consider a mind transfer in exchange for the immortality the parasite can grant. SGC is unaware of both of this and a team member gets infected through a paper cut while walking through the swamp. Too small to show up on scans at the time.

It's only a few days later they go to the infirmary to check out some pain in their neck. And doing a scan, they see the growing parasite.

SGC panics, considers that this was all an intentional ploy by the aliens they were working with. The MC's go check it out. They learn of this parasite and the ritual and come back with the knowledge.

It's only after the parasite is finally convinced of what it is they try using meditation to have it relinquish control. Similar to how McKay was able to let Cadman take control the first time. Not exact though since he was the original owner of the body.

Though the parasite's been feasting on the brain this whole time starting with the parts in charge of memory and personality, what they witness is effectively a vegetative husk.

Cue the argument on what constitutes as self especially since the host was not ended the moment the parasite copied his mind and instead was trapped in there for several days. And technically he's not even fully dead yet.

Is it cheating if I have the parasite end the relation? Hey this is all confusing for both of us so I'll do us both a favor. We can come back when we figure it out.

[Rohan]

Then it kind of like asking how do you feel about the Asgard? This parasite basically emulates what the Asgard were able to achieve technologically by copying and transferring their minds to another body.

Similar cases can be made in the episode 'Tin Man' (1X19) with android SG-1 and 'Fragile Balance' (7x3) with clone O'Neill. The answer in both cases, they accepted what they were and didn't over complicate it as they were self-assured of who they were irregardless of what anyone else thought as that's all that mattered to them.

But if relation to your description, is the original conscious still there or not after the parasite had it's fill?

[StargateMillennium]

It is effectively the same. The Asgard. The Stargate. Transporters. You can't move a mind like a physical object. You have to recreate the person with that specific brain pattern.
But in the past, stargate always went for the most convenient answer. For the Asgart, gate travel, or transporters, that is you walking out of the teleporter. In Tin Man, the androids were treated as different people with identical personalities. Fragile Balance, the clone was also treated as a different person with an identical personality. Another one is Beckett's clone. They just accepted him as the return of the old Beckett when the real Beckett is still dead.

As for your question...sort of. The person isn't dead completely but so much of his brain is now gone he borders on vegetative.

[Rohan]

A vegetative state is basically someone just reacting to external stimuli. There is no thought or cognitive processing anymore. Just instinctual reaction. Essentially just a walking corpse waiting to die or for someone to put it out it's misery.

The parasite is him now without distinction. In most cases, once he understands this fact, he might have a slight mental breakdown trying to come to terms if he really is still himself. However this all hinges on what kind of person he was before this and the kind of people around him.

I can think of a few scifi shows/movies that asked similar questions with clones and artificial intelligence. The results were generally broken in two probabilities based off the above mentioned variables. They either come to terms with their situation and learn to move on or have a breakdown and do something very drastic to reaffirm who they/still are.