# The Blood-Brain Barrier **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Created:** [October 30, 2024, 8:22pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/the-blood-brain-barrier/851 "2024-10-30T20:22:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2024, 8:22pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/the-blood-brain-barrier/851/1 "2024-10-30T20:22:08Z")
From: Alvis Antarianus, Expansion Renewal Union To: Heriath Calliste, Inevitable Justice Foundation Subject: Re: Cleaning up the Union once and for all Look, your proposed operation is well designed. I’ll give it that. But there’s no chance whatsoever that it’ll pass the Senate. Galactic Relations or State Security’d kill it in a heartbeat even if Military Affairs were to let it pass, which they won’t. Even if you can persuade all the right people that it’s a worthy cause, preemptive occupations are a dead letter for a reason, and it’s not just a few faded scrolls at State & Outlands with a peace addiction. Academician Doctor Excellence Selidië Cíëlle killed them the moment she figured out how to meme-map a mind-state and back-port alterations to the original living brain. She gave us desire control, meme rehab, psychedesign, and the Guardians of Our Harmony, but she shot the knees out from under the belligerati doing it. People can tell themselves that they won’t crack under torture, even when it’s a nerve stapler or a death cube. They can tell themselves that they can resist any bribe, withstand any temptation, not succumb to any cunning memetic campaign, and intimidate or plain murder any of their neighbors who _do_. There’s even some damn fools who convince themselves they have the mental integrity to shrug off a YGBM. But no-one, _no-one_, can resist psychedesign applied directly to their brain, and everyone out there knows that. The Conclave of Clionomy have run the vectors on this. Our reputation for ethical stringency keeps people calm and trusting, under normal circumstances. But take a voluntary trip down into the tar-pit, and you’re going to get rumors and propaganda flying about how we’re mass-reprocessing people into good little libertist meme-bots, or weaponizing infectious nanotech that rewrites the loyalty circuits of people’s brains, or some such bitswarf, and if their projections are right, _that_ has a high probability of taking us to CASE SKYSHOCK RED and a hard civilization kill event within two years, five at the outside. You know they’d be lies, and I know they’d be lies, but try to imagine just how terrifying _literally_ changing someone’s mind would be to a paranoid peon with a poor grasp of consensuality. Maybe you could try pitching it to the _waserai_ ambassador? – Alvis   * * * This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at [https://eldraeverse.com/2016/08/05/the-blood-brain-barrier](https://eldraeverse.com/2016/08/05/the-blood-brain-barrier) ---
**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 6:51pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/the-blood-brain-barrier/851/2 "2025-03-02T18:51:57Z")
**Comments migrated from WordPress:** > [@Jade Nekotenshi \ on 2016-08-08 07:46:17 wrote](#): > > Ah, the importance of integrity and reputation. It’s worth a lot more than people think… > > > [@Alistair Young \ on 2016-08-09 19:05:35 wrote](#): > > > > “Now for you, my reputation is not from gossip… my reputation is fact. Is solid.” > [@Archon \ on 2017-05-27 06:39:39 wrote](#): > > Could you please elaborate further details regarding CWE? I think Waserai is the second most interesting and likable nation in this magnificent universe. > > And how powerful CWE is? Second only to the Empire? I know CWE is among the mightiest of Presidium members as well as the most active of Great Powers. I also suspect CWE has to be extremely powerful to live up to its mandate as “peacekeeper and law enforcement” of the universe. ---
**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 6:51pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/the-blood-brain-barrier/851/3 "2025-03-02T18:51:57Z")
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**Author:** ![avatar](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/eldraeverse.discourse.group/avatar/32/2_2.png) [@avatar](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/u/avatar)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2025, 8:18pm UTC](https://eldraeverse.discourse.group/t/the-blood-brain-barrier/851/4 "2025-03-02T20:18:37Z")
You can, in broad terms, think of the Echelons as something like _Mass Effect_’s Turian Hierarchy. They’re disciplined, honorable, dutiful, and competent, although perhaps a bit on the rigid side. (Enough that they probably, and are self-aware enough to realize it, would not be great candidates for running the galaxy their way. On the other hand, everyone on the Presidium, especially the Empire, has the greatest respect for their ever-solid, always-reliable partners in peace.)