The thoughtsin is essentially a parasite of thought and flesh who latch onto and infect the living, though they prefer sapient hosts. In most stages the thoughtsin cannot infect mechanical, elemental, energon, or incorporeal undead beings, but they can evolve ways to affect them through other means and outsiders such as Demons and Angels are not safe from it. The thoughtsin typically begins as small cellular infections, tiny psychic cells that attack potential hosts and attempt to reproduce like wild from within, infecting them.
Once infected, the Thoughtsin parasites either kill and duplicate the host in a fiercer form with some genetics from other species, or drastically mutate the host into a direct attack form, often adding tentacles, feathery feelers, and snapping aside the now useless head, and then duplicating them. As the thoughtsin infestation picks up speed, macroscopic infection forms roughly the size of a football start to develop allowing for much faster infection that occurs within seconds of the parasite latching onto the host. While fragile, infection forms are extremely numerous.
Once they begin attaining enough biomass, the thoughtsin develops pure forms created from raw biomass to supplement the infected. Pure forms can take all sorts of hideous shapes and sizes, but are typically evolved for singular purposes. The thoughtsin seems to take cues from other biological swarms like the Tyranids in creating their pure forms, and pure forms are capable of division, reproduction, and mutation to overwhelm a foe through numbers and variety.
As the thoughtsin begins to spread, it takes over starships, it creates it's own starships, and it develops ways to affect those typically immune. It creates logic plagues that hack into technological A.Is to make them join with the Thoughtsin's hivemind, it begins to warp magic to turn and twist the unliving and the elementals to it's side, it starts to alter the structure of energy to convert energy based beings, and begins tearing open portals from which Iconoclasms, Time reapers, and Life warps can emerge, allowing the daemons of Mehrudagoth, Sangcinenal, and Alderymora to start pouring forth en masse.
As thoughtsin infestations reach critical masses, they start to bend and warp reality, altering their cellular structure to attack even beings with radically different biologies and super immune systems, breaking time and space with their simple presence, to block out time travelers and stop teleportation, whipping planets and solar systems apart with cosmic strings summoned by thought, countering forces such as magic and the power cosmic with their own power called "neural physics", and creating more of themselves by just warping more of them into being.
At the end stage, just looking at a Thoughtsin, reading sensor reports, or hearing them is enough to infect one. At the end stage, simply thinking about the Thoughtsin infects you immediately, turning you into a Thoughtsin yourself. At the end-stage, it can infect inorganic matter as readily as organic matter and can morph the flesh to look like anything. By the end-game, it can pass through energy barriers and physical obstacles like armor or walls as if they weren't there.
A Malpsyche
The Primalborn and Primordials seem to be totally and utterly immune to the Thoughtsin, though they can attempt to kill them and consume their biomass. Unfortunately for the thoughtsin, no primalborn has ever fallen to the Thoughtsin, much less a Primordial. As Yuri is part of the Thoughtsin, it's soldiers seem to be passed over if not outright immunized to the Thoughtsin. Something the rest of the Icon's servants appear to be as well. Addittionally, sufficient armor and/or shielding can repel them in any form, though once again they can try to batter it down.
Addittionally, there are ways to immunize A.Is to the the logic plague and protect one's unliving, energy based, and elemental servants. The Masari developed such methods with their promethean war machines which cut a swathe through the Thoughtsin. Additionally life forms lacking in central nervous systems or skeletons cannot be directly infected and must be killed and converted into biomass first. Life forms can also be created to attack thoughtsin cells directly, immunizing them to the plague and having drasitcally lethal effects on the parasite.
To defend against inorganic infection, one simply flushes the afflicted area with something powerful enough to burn the Thoughtsin supercells or creates an inorganic and computerized version of the Me'traid vaccine. The Masari had managed to pass out enough of the Me'traidvaccine to armor up their last remaining holdouts as the Thoughtsin overran the universe, but by then it was too little, too late unless the Prime Cryptus successfully pulled his abomidable plan to render down the Masari's child races into robotic, digitized warriors.
The Me'traid, energy vampiric super predators with their own fascinating life cycle created by the Jinkoro, were one such anti-thoughtsin predator used during the war against the Thoughtsin. They proved to be immensely effective and made Jinkoro territory impregnable bastions against the Parasite, especially when combined with immunized A.Is and soldiers with Me'traid genes that also gave them similar immunity. So much as simple contact with the Me'traid or those with their genetics burns the thoughtsin.
So far the Thoughtsin appears to be mostly subdued by the Masari's final desperate gambit to preserve the universe as the Neural blast from the rings obliterated any potential hosts and the thoughtsin forms themselves in any infected areas across the universe.
Malpsyches
Large concentrations of biomass formed out of sapient beings, Malpsyches are like nodes in the hive mind of the Thoughtsin, destroying them cripples a thoughtsin infestation. But each possesses great power, with potent psionics and physical might that grows as they are fed more flesh and grow ever stronger. Should they absorb biomass from a being with powers, they shall have them too. And once a thoughtsin form assimilates one being, it's knowledge, it's skills, it's abilities are all downloaded into a "reserve" throughout the gestalt intelligence.
Malpsyches are infamous for speaking in rhymes, as the Thoughtsin is quite fond of poetry, and demonstrates it's intelligence by speaking in rhymes and poems that lesser beings agonize over with all the grace and fluidity of natural speech. Malpsyches despite what one may think, are not immobile, and can surge forward, or even teleport to where they need to go, but their powers are very variable as the rest of the Parasite's are.
They do however, retain the base weaknesses of all Thoughtsin creatures.
----Begin Tombstone's Log----
I've seen alot of horrible things in my lifetime...but nothing measures up to this...Parasite for lack of a better word. The dead made thinking, the flesh made warped, laughing in sick, horrible voices of a mocking legion that tore down a civilization built by gods. And it knows where our planet is.
The parasite from beyond the stars
"Oh it's just gonna be like one of those zombie movies" I know you're saying, but stop it, the Thought sin is far more dangerous and subversive than any zombie virus. For one, they are a hive minded live form. Every individual cell of them is linked. They get smarter with each bit of intelligent life they absorb. They absorb knowledge, use the powers of the bodies they absorb, can use our tech, these aren't just zombies, they're an infestation.
When I snuck aboard the MARATHON bound Peacekeeper fleet with my fellow members of Tombstone incorporated, I expected to primarily encounter the aliens they mentioned in the reports I managed to steal. For a time, I did. Then I encountered them. Devils, Monsters. A flood of infestation with a mind to bring everyone aboard into a grave of servitude.
But many of those lost to them were not only aliens, but humans with full knowledge of where our planet's location is. I don't think Carol's destruction of the ring ended the threat, only forestalled it until someone else bumps into one of those damned things.
As such I have gathered all resources I have on this infestation in hopes of educating you all on their weaknesses and how to beat them.
What the thought sin does
The thought sin is essentially a parasite at the cellular level, assimilating all organic tissue that is compatible with it and assimilating it into more of itself. There are some living things the thoughtsin cannot infect, such as life without a central nervous system, those with a compromised or highly nonstandard nervous system or those lacking calcium, but anything organic can be killed and used as biomass later on.
There are two major vectors of Thoughtsin infestation, spores and infection forms. The spores work more slowly but eventually get the job done, while the infection forms work in seconds or minutes. Due to my undead and spectral nature, I am immune to infection but still it disquiets me.
The thoughtsin seems to seek out sapient life forms to the preference of all else. Only going after life incapable of abstract thought as a last resort. And once they assimilate knowledge from an infected life form, they all know, and they seem to gather the smartest, or at least the life forms with the most useful knowledge into one place to form into a massive sort of brain. Admiral Guido met his end this way after being infected.
Thoughtsin super cells.
They seem to especially target things that can get them off planet en masse, space ships primarily. Which is part of why I went out of my way to destroy both Peacekeeper and hierarchy ships during the battle on MARATHON. And I can't help but feel we've only scratched the surface of their capabilities.
Reports of the Thoughtsin being able to copy and then perfectly replicate the shapes of anything they infect for infiltration while also taking their powers and reproducing and mixing them as they will endlessly, using the power of neural physics to create indestructible bridges between the stars that allow instant teleportation or flensing entire galaxies apart and shutting down magic, psionics, and technology not proofed against their manipulation of reality on a whim, persuading machines to join them with precious little effort, damaging space and time in large numbers, turning their cells into a form of techno-organic virus that can ride on charged particles to go with infection beams and infect whole space ships and worlds in a matter of seconds are all present in Masari records.
List of Thoughtsin forms.
Note that they see through feathery appendages rather than eyes.Infection forms: Roughly the size of a football, deceptively fast, and coming in large swarms. The primary defense against them is armor or skin too thick for them to penetrate, and it better damn be good protection because they can go through three inches of industrial steel without trying, an immune system that can somehow fight the supercell, or best of all shielding, which makes them burst, though it can damage most shielding. If it gets ahold of you and you aren't protected against it, it will rapidly mutate you into a hideous combat form and immediately turn you against your allies. If you are unable to kill an infection form within five seconds of it coming into contact with a team mate or friend, give them the final mercy, it'll be better than what comes next.
Tombstone's notes: When you destroy one, the burst is powerful enough to kill other nearby infection forms, setting off a chain reaction that can neutralize a swarm of them. Just don't breathe in the spores, then you've killed them for nothing because you're going to become one of them anyway.
Note how the human head, deemed superfluous, is pushed aside.Combat form: Once an infection form has gained command over a host, it begins a process, liquefying organs and drawing anything it deems unnecessary out of the body to provide biomass to create the growths evidenced here. It then either consumes or snaps aside the head as the infection form takes it's rough place on the organism to command the body. Alien, human, mutant, living or dead, it doesn't matter, it can infect them and create what you see here. The new combat form still has access to the memories of the original host, which it shares with rest of the hive mind. It is immediately able to use any technology or weaponry the host was able to, but the infection process appears to damage the systems responsible for hand eye coordination, resulting in less accuracy and finesse. Combat forms do not seem to register pain very well and keep on going regardless of injury.
Tombstone's notes: The infection process draws out moisture and the new symbiotic organism is made of much more flammable compounds. I've found that a lit match against a swarm of these can work wonders. Tearing off the head from which the sensory organs sprout also instantly kills the new organism, but it is best to burn the body so another infection form can't use it again. They also retain the powers and abilities of the host organism, though obviously the radical alteration of the body makes knowledge of fighting skills nearly useless. They are significantly stronger than their host organism as muscle tissue is used to it's fullest limit and augmented with undifferentiated biomass.
There's nothing to say here, just looking at this thing makes me uneasy.Carrier forms: When a combat form has been in use for a while, the parasite converts all tissue into Thought sin super cells, radically altering the body into something that can no longer even be recognized as having once been a person or alien. It is now bulging with infection forms carried within, arms withered into tentacles, legs turned into flexible caricatures of stumps, and it moves with the intent of exploding and dying to release their progeny by the dozens. Just the explosion alone can potentially kill a man, but even worse is the cargo it carries.
Tombstone's notes: Once again, fire is your friend. Lighting these suckers up kills their cargo and prevents them from detonating. Failing that, kill them at a healthy distance so that you can deal with their god forsaken brood safely.
Who in their right mind locks these things away for a hundred thousand years instead of burning their asses to kingdom come? Does this look like it has any scientific potential to you!?Stalker forms: Now we're getting into creatures made solely from Thought sin biomass, no host organism involved. Of course once again it still acts parasitically, needing to draw in biomass from other forms of life to form into these abominations. Designated a "pure" form for not being part of a life cycle borne directly out of a host organism. Stalkers are capable of bio camouflage, changing their color and texture across all spectra of light to hide, and make disturbingly little noise. They are capable of jumping great distances to rip into something with claws that can shear metal or even punch through metahuman skin if they're made of a dense enough concentration of biomass.
Tombstone's notes: Always be aware of all three dimensions of any confined space you're in. Stalkers love attacking from on top or from the sides, or even from beneath if there's terrain permitting such as girding. They hit hard, but aren't the most durable of opponents. The space containing their sensory organs is particularly fragile and can be exploited to instantly kill the organism. .
Annoying bastards, that's all there is to sayRanged form: Obviously, ranged forms attack you at range. Folding a nest of spines upwards to present a seemingly unlimited supply of projectiles for a combination of a squeezing action and a biological railgun to fire out it's regenerating supply of spikes. While virtually useless in melee save for a single set of claws and a mandible, the ranged fire support they provide can range from merely annoying to lethal depending on how much biomass was used to create the organism.
Tombstone's notes: Always close into melee with these things if possible. If not, fire into the sensory stalk region, they're very weak there, and such an action can kill them with astonishingly little effort.
Big, mean, and ugly as sinTank forms: As the name suggests, Tank forms are really good at soaking up hits and dealing out slow but punishing blows, they can also vomit out infection forms at a target to spread the contagion. The strength and durability of a tank form is variable, as is it's size, but the average one I've encountered is about twelve feet tall and stronger than I am. However, they don't fight with skill, just animalistic fury, and as always retain a weakness to the extremes of temperature.
Tombstone's note: Tank forms have two noticeable weaknesses, first is how spindly their midsection is, breaking the connection here can quickly lessen it's ability to fight, and once again it retains an instant death zone in it's sensory bundle.
Note that Bomber forms maintain lift through gas bagsBomber form: Carrying bio-acid spores, exploding bundles of infection forms that can explode like carrier forms, and biological fragmentation spores, Bomber forms rain terror down from the skies, making sure anything they fly directly over is going to have a very miserable day.
Tombstone's notes: If one can puncture their gas bags, they fall right out of the sky, while if one can blow up their spores, they'll make for a pretty nice detonation.
Note the long tendrilsGrappler form: Drawing in foes who try to hide from a distance to fight the Thoughtsin where they want to fight, Grappler's can extend their tentacles to up to a hundred feet for the average sized one, grabbing their opponents and yanking them into the reach of the rest of the melee obsessed swarms.
Tombstone's notes: Their joints are somewhat fragile, and as they rely only on two legs for locomotion, they can fall over easily if you shoot out their legs.
![One of the few]()
One of the few "pure forms" to have a mouth and eyepits, though there are sensory stalks on the backSwarmer forms: Air superiority organisms, these fire out spikes much like ranged forms and strike with extremely sharp and surprisingly strong leg blades. These can range from being the size of tiny bats to fighter jet sized or bigger, though variable size is a trait of all Thoughtsin pure forms.
Tombstone's notes: It's often easier to just rip the wings apart then kill the body, sending these creatures crashing into the ground to be more easily finished off.
Ugly ain't they?Juggernaut form: On average the largest of the Thought sin's pure forms, Juggernauts are tremendously strong and attack by vomiting out explosive bags of infection forms, two ranged form spiker pads, and two massive tendrils they can use to whip and crush foes, harden to slash them apart, or open up to release rivers of acid.
Tombstone's notes: Due to their large size and odd method of walking, Juggernaut forms can be tipped over more easily than you'd think when they're standing still, but when they're moving...well nothing stops the Juggernaut.
Notice the poor sap being eatenTransport form: This is actually something of a misnomer. A transport's duty is to convert biomass into Thoughtsin flesh rapidly and efficiently, more so than spores would, in essence creating Pure forms just as how infection forms create combat forms. Any organic matter they eat rapidly becomes new biomass that can be instantly turned into pure forms or biomass to spread across surfaces to turn into Thoughtsin hives.
Tombstone's notes: The tentacles on their mouths can stretch out for three hundred feet for an average sized creature, but unless the biomass they're made from is designed with superpowers in mind (and thus more "expensive" to produce) they'll have noted trouble digesting super tough or armored creatures.
Thoughtsin Artillery form: As the name says, Artillery forms sit back at long distances and lob forth bioacid, fragmentation, or infection form spores that explode after sailing across long distances and help spread forth the plague, though some are big enough to fire other pure forms out like a cannon, which can be a very surprising and unwanted occurance when a mob of Tank forms lands in your face. They can also act as anti air by firing their spores to detonate in the air, while ranged forms act as more rapid fire systems.
Tombstone's notes: Artillery forms are pretty crappy at close ranges so try and force them into it, and they also have problems getting a bead on fast moving targets.
A monument to our sinsBrain form: I only encountered one, made from the amalglation of all the smartest creatures the parasite could find, one of them happened to be the unfortunate admiral caught by the Parasite. I had to punch into his skull to receive his brain chip so I could set his ship to overload under a special process of my design and self destruct to take out the ring and every one of these foul things with them. And all throughout it, I could have sworn it was whispering to me, taunting me.
Tombstone's notes: This thing wasn't a fighter, just a thinker, although it's possible they could have psionic powers. And it seemed to be mightily pissed at me making off with the chip when it figured out what I could do with it. If I had more incendiaries I would have burnt it alive.
Countering the Parasite
The parasite primarily relies on massive numbers, but occasionally uses clever tricks to try and get by, such as coming in by unexpected dimensions, using assimilated knowledge to poke holes in enemy plans, and filling the minds of it's soon to be victims with that god awful whispering.
So my suggestion is to bottleneck them in places where they can't flank, or at least flank in unexpected locations. Don't share your plans with everyone, lay out traps, automated sentries, and mines out ahead and set up defensive positions and be prepared to give God's mercy to anyone who becomes one of those things.
The Thought Sin attacks with weight of numbers.Bring lots of incendiaries and freeze weapons, they don't like the cold or the heat. Weapons that can blast out large chunks of them are better than precision weapons that target individual organs. Engage at range if at all possible to minimize the amount of time you risk getting infected.
If at all possible, establish a line of immunes to hold them back. Undead, Elementals, Robots, those whose physiologies make them immune (only if you are certain that they're immune) while the vulnerables hold in the back.
In melee, always go for the sensory organs, these are the achilles heel of the parasite and their ultimate weakness, don't go trying to break bones or organs, because they don't care and won't stop until one of you dies or you become one of them.
Do not hesitate to kill them no matter what your past history with them was. Any hint of humanity they had is now gone, lost to the parasite. And if they should land on earth and containment procedures fail. I can recommend no other option but burning the landing site to the ground until I can mass produce my cure.
Cure
I found that a local predator in Exemplaria, the Hunter-Stalker, an extremely violent and powerful apex predator that dwells in the old sewers, has a curious effect on Thought Sin samples. Upon contact with their genetic code, the Thought Sin super cells simply die as the Genes and cells of the Hunter Stalker seem to suck the life from them and eat them.
The reaction seems so specific to them that I can only conclude that the Hunter-stalker or it's ancestors were created with the specific intent of predating on the Thought Sin. The fact that in my tests with the terminally ill volunteers, the Hunter stalkers also violently seek out anything infected by the thought sin and kill it without mercy, utterly obliterating it.
But I've also found that their genes can be spliced into other organisms and once this is done, the organism not only becomes immune to the thoughtsin, but their touch is like acid to them, draining them, burning them, making them afraid. Making their very flesh poison to the parasite.
After testing it on all my thought sin cultures and samples with Aleksei Andreinov, I found that there was irrefutable proof that I did what the Masari couldn't, I found a cure. Even on already infected organisms, the process restores them to normal in seconds, leaving them with knowledge of the Thought sin's hive mind that's let me study them more deeply.
However, acquiring Hunter-Stalker genes is very difficult considering the violent tempermant and eerie intelligence of the brood minded creatures and the humans corrupted by them. Not to mention that the largest concentration of them, Exemplaria, is currently closed off due to a massive Nazi assault.
I need more samples of them, if I can the world, or at least enough people to form a counter strike force, I could save the world and perhaps more from a future plague of apocalyptic proportions.
----End log----
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