Scrapyard Station: Statements on Scholars
Aug. 28th, 2022 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feotakahariScholars distribute their memories among their bodies, and they can actually control which memories are stored in which bodies. The important memories are typically backed up in case of accidental squishing.
Scholars can live well beyond the death of any individual body. A lot of knowledge and memories can fit in those tiny little brains, but over the years, they gradually need more bodies in order to store everything. Some choose to pare down and forget unimportant things. Others grow too large to comfortably go out in public, only sending out fractions of their full selves when they need to interact with others.
Naturally, two different Scholar swarms can share memories as well. In rare cases, they may even join together into a single swarm.
Scholars can reproduce within their own swarm to replace dead bodies, but it’s healthy for them to meet up with other Scholars sometimes and introduce outside genetic material.
Scholars can’t really “have children” in the human sense of the word. All new minds that become a Scholar swarm do so by giving up their bodies to be eaten. (Eating someone unwillingly is a horrific taboo, and a frequent rumor used to justify bigotry against Scholars.) Naturally, going from one big body to lots of tiny bodies is quite a transition. It’s even worse for Nomads, whose memories of hyperspace are scrambled and almost impossible to interpret.
Scholars need a lot of food, but they can eat a very wide variety of organic materials. In general, most things that are edible for a Tinker, a Nomad, and/or a Rider are edible for a Scholar. (Builder food is more of a mixed bag.)
Tinkers can become Scholars, but only because the hippocampus is one of the parts of the brain that can’t be easily replaced with a computer. Even Scholars can’t eat metal.
Scholar scientists are working on ways of artificially storing memories. In the future, Scholars may be able to archive important knowledge for future generations.
Scholars can live well beyond the death of any individual body. A lot of knowledge and memories can fit in those tiny little brains, but over the years, they gradually need more bodies in order to store everything. Some choose to pare down and forget unimportant things. Others grow too large to comfortably go out in public, only sending out fractions of their full selves when they need to interact with others.
Naturally, two different Scholar swarms can share memories as well. In rare cases, they may even join together into a single swarm.
Scholars can reproduce within their own swarm to replace dead bodies, but it’s healthy for them to meet up with other Scholars sometimes and introduce outside genetic material.
Scholars can’t really “have children” in the human sense of the word. All new minds that become a Scholar swarm do so by giving up their bodies to be eaten. (Eating someone unwillingly is a horrific taboo, and a frequent rumor used to justify bigotry against Scholars.) Naturally, going from one big body to lots of tiny bodies is quite a transition. It’s even worse for Nomads, whose memories of hyperspace are scrambled and almost impossible to interpret.
Scholars need a lot of food, but they can eat a very wide variety of organic materials. In general, most things that are edible for a Tinker, a Nomad, and/or a Rider are edible for a Scholar. (Builder food is more of a mixed bag.)
Tinkers can become Scholars, but only because the hippocampus is one of the parts of the brain that can’t be easily replaced with a computer. Even Scholars can’t eat metal.
Scholar scientists are working on ways of artificially storing memories. In the future, Scholars may be able to archive important knowledge for future generations.
