Taelon - Technology - Brain Implants

Brain Implants

Companion Protectors, and at least some of the Volunteer Service are implanted with a Cyber-Viral Implant (or CVIs). There are several different varieties of CVIs, but they are all a cross between a Taelon germ and a computer chip. The CVIs given to Companion Protectors improve reading and interpretation speed, provide total recall of memories, and improve basic abilities, as well as allowing the use of a skrill. They also provide a "motivational imperative". This more sinister capacity is used to re-align the priorities of the implanted person so that they consider the interests of the Taelons to be paramount under all circumstances. This has led to Companion Protectors behaving in a way contrary to their pre-implanted nature. For example, before his degeneration into scheming self-interest, Ronald Sandoval's CVI led him to remove his much-loved wife, Didi, from his life.

The CVI irrevocably alters the brain structure of an implanted person, meaning that they cannot survive without one. This creates a problem when it is found that the earliest generation of CVIs were fatally breaking down. The human immune system eventually rejected the CVIs, destroying the motivational imperative. As, in later seasons, CVIs can be removed, it appears that the brain can heal itself when the CVI is gradually disabled, rather than removed whole.

Surveillance CVIs do not provide any known benefits to the person implanted, but instead transmit whatever the implant sees back to an observer. Most of the Volunteers have CVIs, but of a simpler design, with varying motivational imperatives and attributes. "Drones" have all their motivations redirected, but may not have benefits to the implant.