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Rambles of a 'verse and a fungus.
Oct. 22nd, 2012 01:26 amWhen Dr. Joe Irwin was hired to come aboard the Amelia Earhart in a commercial, scientific venture out into the unexplored reaches of the known universe, most of his biggest worries had been how he was supposed to study plants out in space. What he had never dreamed of was the attack that vessel suffered during a moment of respite, the enemy forces having slipped past the defensive front line of the fleet. It was in those last moments that Joe came to an end.
Someone else woke within the body of Joseph Irwin. It—he—knew the name and the body and understood the work that Joe had been doing. His sense of identity did not line up with a lifetime's worth of memories. During the attack that had taken Joe's life, the containment unit for a curious type of fungus had been breached and infected the botanist only in time to save the man's body and not his mind. Every scientist aboard the ship wanted a piece of this new lifeform, a sentient plantlife that had taken the place of their colleague — Joseph Irwin II, as he took to calling himself. It was with much negotiation and two months basically stuck in the brig that Irwin was eventually allowed back into the labs, stripped of his predecessor's doctorate and reduced to lab tech. After a second attack from the mysterious assailants, the Amelia Earhart was running low on people to help with the gruntwork. Besides, the psychologists were chomping at the bit to see how the parasite would interact with "regular" people aside from all of the medical and psychological doctors he had been relegated to visiting.
Although Irwin could recall knowledge, facts and education that Joe had known, Joseph himself was a very different type of man. He was more calculating and coy than Joe's previous cavalier and outgoing personality. This difference naturally became a draw to the incredibly curious bunch of scientists on the ship, while at the same time drawing an uneasy eye from those who would feel Irwin didn't belong in the body of a dead man. Their opinions mattered little, because for all of the difference between Joe and Joseph, they had one major trait in common: curiosity. Irwin, though barred from handling any of the sensitive equipment or being allowed to see his own progenitor fungal sample, was intensely curious to see what would happen if he were to expose a living subject to the progenitor sample; as time passed, it became increasingly clear that his own, fungal nervous system is growing and spreading throughout Joe's body, creating a musculature support system and beginning to enhance nutrient absorption and organ efficiency. However the unprecedented melding of human and plant species may be, it seemed to be incredibly beneficial to the organism left in the body. He currently lays in wait, attempting to live as humanly as possible (for all that he truly does not understand the idea of coexistence with other beings and cooperation), for the opportunity to further his own personal studies. After all, he would certainly like to be reunited with "family" instead of having to fend for himself among such an alien race.
His social group only really consists of an impatient and exasperated geochemist and a bedraggled IT kid/liason with nothing better to do, as well of a few other scientists and security guards orbiting around him when interest strikes their fancy. Not that he cares much; he's not the most outgoing of fungi.
Someone else woke within the body of Joseph Irwin. It—he—knew the name and the body and understood the work that Joe had been doing. His sense of identity did not line up with a lifetime's worth of memories. During the attack that had taken Joe's life, the containment unit for a curious type of fungus had been breached and infected the botanist only in time to save the man's body and not his mind. Every scientist aboard the ship wanted a piece of this new lifeform, a sentient plantlife that had taken the place of their colleague — Joseph Irwin II, as he took to calling himself. It was with much negotiation and two months basically stuck in the brig that Irwin was eventually allowed back into the labs, stripped of his predecessor's doctorate and reduced to lab tech. After a second attack from the mysterious assailants, the Amelia Earhart was running low on people to help with the gruntwork. Besides, the psychologists were chomping at the bit to see how the parasite would interact with "regular" people aside from all of the medical and psychological doctors he had been relegated to visiting.
Although Irwin could recall knowledge, facts and education that Joe had known, Joseph himself was a very different type of man. He was more calculating and coy than Joe's previous cavalier and outgoing personality. This difference naturally became a draw to the incredibly curious bunch of scientists on the ship, while at the same time drawing an uneasy eye from those who would feel Irwin didn't belong in the body of a dead man. Their opinions mattered little, because for all of the difference between Joe and Joseph, they had one major trait in common: curiosity. Irwin, though barred from handling any of the sensitive equipment or being allowed to see his own progenitor fungal sample, was intensely curious to see what would happen if he were to expose a living subject to the progenitor sample; as time passed, it became increasingly clear that his own, fungal nervous system is growing and spreading throughout Joe's body, creating a musculature support system and beginning to enhance nutrient absorption and organ efficiency. However the unprecedented melding of human and plant species may be, it seemed to be incredibly beneficial to the organism left in the body. He currently lays in wait, attempting to live as humanly as possible (for all that he truly does not understand the idea of coexistence with other beings and cooperation), for the opportunity to further his own personal studies. After all, he would certainly like to be reunited with "family" instead of having to fend for himself among such an alien race.
His social group only really consists of an impatient and exasperated geochemist and a bedraggled IT kid/liason with nothing better to do, as well of a few other scientists and security guards orbiting around him when interest strikes their fancy. Not that he cares much; he's not the most outgoing of fungi.
