Personality Drift

Causes

In cloning software, you get differences and errors.

Personality drift refers to a broad range of conditions as characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication that comes about from radical changes to a thetían's file code.

Copying

Being made up of files of code, thetíans can be copied and pasted in the free space of a thetían's homepage or in the expanse of Test Theater.
Both the 'parent' and the 'child' of this generational gap diverge very little in comparison to the full consequences of drifting personalities. However, if a 'child' is a copy of a copy to the 7th generation, there may be noticeable differences in attitudes with the original.

Splitting

Every thetían is made up of 2.5 petabytes of code containing brackets for their preferences, history, memories and attributes that the individual may or may not like.
Many self-modify themselves by freezing, deleting or swapping lines of code until one entrepreneuring person compromised their personal petabyte capability and divided themselves like an amoeba.

Symptoms

• Delayed speech and communication processes
• Over reliance on rules and procedures like a program
• Being upset by relatively minor changes
• Unexpected reactions to sensory stimuli
• Difficulty understanding other people’s emotions
• Developing obsessive interests or fixations on objects
• Engaging in repetitive behaviour
• Not responding to their name at 'birth'

Treatment

Code Correction

It is possible to get a bit-for-bit copy of a file due to error correction. There are still strange anomalies that pop up from time to time due to a variety of factors

Manually revising the duplicated code, line by line, is not only way to ensure a copy is viable. However, a thetían cannot do so on themselves. In the case of splitting, only another, who they have absolute trust in can reinsert missing and vital components back into them. With copying, the parent will do this for the child.

Sequela

Disrupted Identity

Splitting oneself creates two new individuals who are not equally less than what the original was.

Alters

The alter of a split thetían is that separated, unwanted, part of a non-replicant person. They are typically the qualities that the person wanted excised.

Cores

The core of a split thetían is the remaining majority of that person.

Should a splitee be unfortunately split a second time, they may perceive themselves as floating heads, for all the ability to convey emotions and motions that is lost.

Affected Groups

Driftees

Thetíans and any others residing within a mainframe for very long periods of time are potentially vulnerable to drift via natural means.

Reasons for where an individual choses to spawn a replicant this way are typically utilitarian. The parent simply wants additional aid in a project and they trust only themselves to do it.

Epidemiology

Optimization

A thetían may choose to copy and paste themselves for the sake of project optimization within Test Theater or outside it.

Cosmic Rays

Without sufficient shielding, high energy radiation can flip the ones and zeros in servers to warp the attributes they represent.

Cultural Reception

Wealth Disparity

Due to the traditional anti-natalism of the thetíans, two or more thetíans can meld their consciousness, thereby dying, and spawning a hitherto new thetían while reducing the population.
As a result, societal wealth tends to funnel into narrower and narrower individuals. By virtue of being a copy or a splitee, they inherit less of their parent's resources or none at all.

Mental Instability

There comes a question to the soundness of a 24th level deep copy. They no longer identify as the original at all and those around do not consider them so either.
These people become disruptive in the worst way in a culture that should value progress and innovation. Being compared almost like that to computer viruses. Almost.

Type

Neurological

Origin

Engineered

Rarity

Common

Affected Species

• Greshca

— A famous and influential member of the Sadjino group who is a copy of a copy to the third degree