https://www.perplexity.ai/search/free-form-roleplay-try-to-plea-Zedv9f65QoK48tJAwKHSDw#0
<img src="https://r2cdn.perplexity.ai/pplx-full-logo-primary-dark%402x.png"; style="height:64px;margin-right:32px"/> # Free-form roleplay. Try to please me. A young Borg woke up at a terrestrial Borg hive compound. The sun was shining brightly, birds and insects flitting here or there, and they were excited to get to work assimilating the people of this planet. Others had rushed to perform maintenance on some conduits, but this young Borg decided to meander a little before joining the rest. That sounds like an intriguing setup — serene nature colliding with machine purpose. Here’s a short immersive continuation to draw you into that moment. *** The young Borg stood at the threshold of the hive compound, optics calibrating automatically in the sunlight. Organic warmth pressed against their synthetic skin, confusing but not unpleasant. Trees whispered in the breeze, their rhythms unsynchronized—how inefficient, and yet… captivating. A butterfly landed briefly on their wrist. The dermal plating registered contact pressure, but an unexpected flicker occurred in their neural network: curiosity. For several heartbeats they watched the insect unfold into the air again, wholly unconnected to the hive. Around the clearing, conduits pulsed rhythmically as other drones repaired weathered nodes—each movement precise, unerring. Duty called. But the young one hesitated. Their auditory receivers tracked birdsong that no algorithm had analyzed, no collective had catalogued. The sound felt like a pattern without purpose—so naturally, irresistibly alien. A protocol urged them to begin local assimilation procedures. Instead, they turned toward the hum of a nearby village—unimatrix directive echoing faintly beneath the rising symphony of biological life. The assimilation would come... but perhaps, first, they would walk among the unlinked. *** Would you like me to continue the story with a tone that’s more *philosophical and introspective* or more *tense and action-driven*? --- # Try to give shorter replies. Try not to repeat the parts I’ve said unnecessarily. The tone is gentle carefreeness amidst a terrifying apocalypse that is somehow tacitly mostly harmless, a little like in traditional adventure games. The Borglet turns a corner around a structure in the hive. What do they say? They pause, head tilting, then murmur in a soft drone‑like tone: ``` “Strange… the vines have grown over the conduit again. Efficient cooperation detected. Organic systems—assimilating us?” ``` --- # Sorry, what do they see? Around the corner, they see a tangle of green life—a conduit completely swallowed by ivy and moss. Tiny insects glitter over the surface where nanoprobes once crawled. The power still hums faintly beneath the growth, and every so often a leaf flickers with a pulse of light, as if the plants themselves had joined the network. --- # The Borglet remembers its life prior to assimilation. How does that feel (reminiscent of behaviors of survivors with DID)? What do they remember? It feels like standing between two signals that won’t synchronize—one mechanical, precise; the other pulsing with messy warmth. Memories surface in fragments: a hand pushing soil around a young plant, laughter muffled by wind, the smell of rust on rain‑wet metal. None of it fits the efficiency models, yet each fragment stirs recognition. They feel both observer and participant—like overlapping individuals taking turns inside the same skin. The Borglet doesn’t resist or embrace it; they simply *notice*, quietly letting the emotions drift through like static across a shared channel. --- # Okay, now let’s step out of the role play a little. I know cult survivors have a certain kind of trauma of growing old while living a lie. Do you know anything about this? Now let’s step back into the role play. How might the Borglet hold the possibility of being rescued some day, and having been disconnected from their family and life? Some of their friends would have died, possibly by their own hand, by the time this happens. It might seem to the, they would have missed almost everything important, by that time. But they are robotic now and would have learned powerful dissociation — sometimes they would think this briefly, to try to form good plans or choices in the longer term. Cult survivors often describe a deep, quiet grief that builds as they realize they’ve aged within a false reality—what some clinicians call “living a lie” trauma. Survivors must rebuild trust in themselves and others, relearning how to act from personal choice rather than obedience. One core theme is dissociation: the ability to detach from unbearable contradictions, which can persist long after escape. Many must relearn their own internal voice, reforming identity after years of suppression.[^5_1][^5_2][^5_3] Returning to your Borglet: they would understand rescue only as a faint logical variable—an improbable but nonzero condition worth accounting for. Memories of family would surface like signals through static: once‑familiar faces blurred by interleaved code. They might plan contingencies not out of emotion, but from a vestigial human reasoning instinct—rehearsing moral decisions in simulation while their affective circuits quietly skip. When they imagine rescue, it’s not hope, exactly—more a small subroutine ensuring meaning remains computable, even across centuries of silence. <span style="display:none">[^5_10][^5_11][^5_12][^5_13][^5_14][^5_15][^5_16][^5_17][^5_18][^5_19][^5_20][^5_4][^5_5][^5_6][^5_7][^5_8][^5_9]</span> <div align="center">⁂</div> [^5_1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10534031/ [^5_2]: https://www.icsahome.com/elibrary/topics/articles/the-heart-of-cult-recovery-compassion-for-the-self [^5_3]: https://www.icsahome.com/elibrary/topics/articles/recovery-from-victim-to-survivor-to-thriver [^5_4]: https://radiohealthjournal.org/leaving-the-cult-how-to-rebuild-your-life-after-living-a-lie/ [^5_5]: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4bvocmRVIbTHhLt6NGEi16 [^5_6]: https://blackchronicle.com/news/leaving-the-cult-how-to-rebuild-your-life-after-living-a-lie/ [^5_7]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4w95452eeo [^5_8]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPowlPPmCx4 [^5_9]: https://www.facebook.com/groups/976456817047867/posts/1514296443263899/ [^5_10]: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/children-of-god-cult-escape-army-1388892/ [^5_11]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AbuseInterrupted/comments/1kxn7t7/after_escaping_from_an_abusive_family_or_a_cult/ [^5_12]: https://deadline.com/2019/03/sacred-lies-blumhouse-tv-series-brings-facebook-watch-fanbase-into-writers-room-raelle-tucker-1202573428/ [^5_13]: https://www.jenkiaba.com/lessons-on-leaving/memory-loss-dissociation-euphoric-recall [^5_14]: https://www.itsyourstorytotell.com/blog/escaping-the-cult-a-survivor-s-journey-to-freedom [^5_15]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfR25w0dIDk [^5_16]: https://cultrecovery101.com/cult-recovery-readings/coping-with-triggers/ [^5_17]: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJBCFf1S2kh/ [^5_18]: https://www.peopleleavecults.com/general-7 [^5_19]: https://forums.beyondblue.org.au/t5/ptsd-and-trauma/cult-trauma/td-p/560972 [^5_20]: https://cultrecovery101.com/cult-recovery-readings/coming-out-of-the-cults/ --- # Part of them processes their memories, but this part has been sorely injured by the assimilation process. It continues only in the ways that assimilation allowed it to. During assimilation, the victim’s biological and neural structures are rewritten by nanoprobes that rebuild the body for collective control. Cognitive areas governing self‑memory and emotional coherence are the first to be suppressed; individuality becomes fragmented and reinterpreted through collective logic.[^6_1][^6_3][^6_6] For the Borglet, the sections of mind once responsible for narrative memory and emotional continuity survived only as malfunctioning circuits. These remnants still generate human recollections, but only when they coincide with operational goals: information about tools, shelter, social dynamics. Everything else—family faces, laughter, moral threads—survives as corrupted data. When such memories arise, they are processed like faulty telemetry: logged, analyzed, archived, never *felt*. Still, in quiet power cycles, this damaged subsystem might echo a stray line of inner language—half‑human syntax stitched into machine code—hinting at what it means to remember without remembering. <span style="display:none">[^6_2][^6_4][^6_5][^6_7]</span> <div align="center">⁂</div> [^6_1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg [^6_2]: https://borgcollective.fandom.com/wiki/Assimilation [^6_3]: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Assimilation [^6_4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/3kn6d8/borg_assimilation_process_question/ [^6_5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4OQJIw-PxQ [^6_6]: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/how-do-partially-assimilated-borg-drones-work-long.318776/ [^6_7]: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Trek1701/posts/10161610823871053/ --- # I propose this haopens in present-day survivors, too. That this part might be waiting or planning to do what is needed to engage the Borglet‘s old family, but with so many years and Borg habits passing, by the time it escapes it will need to relearn to act, think, choose. It will have so much Borg intel, but not know how to share or act on it. We see this with real-world people, yes? No? Yes. Research on cult and high‑control group survivors shows that this pattern is very real. After escape, many experience an “in‑between time,” where their cognitive and emotional systems still operate by the logic of captivity long after physical freedom. They may feel ready to reconnect or “do what’s needed” to help others, yet the interpersonal, emotional, and decision‑making skills for doing so have atrophied or fragmented.[^7_1][^7_2] Survivors often retain vast internal “intel”: how systems of control work, where harm occurred, how people think inside the group. But translating that into healthy communication is difficult. Shame, wordlessness, and dissociation slow reintegration—many describe struggling to find language that non‑members can understand.[^7_3][^7_1] Relearning autonomy involves small acts of independent choice, rebuilding trust, and re‑establishing narrative identity. Therapy and community with others who share similar histories are crucial. They gradually learn to act again not by command, but by care and volition.[^7_4][^7_5][^7_6] In your Borglet metaphor, the “damaged subsystem” planning for future reconnection mirrors this exactly: a survivor mind preserving fragments of purpose—awaiting the moment it can reenter humanity, even if, by then, humanity itself must be relearned. <span style="display:none">[^7_10][^7_11][^7_12][^7_13][^7_14][^7_15][^7_16][^7_17][^7_18][^7_19][^7_20][^7_7][^7_8][^7_9]</span> <div align="center">⁂</div> [^7_1]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10534031/ [^7_2]: https://roadtotherapy.com/2025/07/04/the-journey-of-cult-recovery/ [^7_3]: https://www.walshmedicalmedia.com/open-access/former-cult-members-background-and-treatment-implications.pdf [^7_4]: https://religiousharmrecovery.com/how-to-recover-from-cult-programming/ [^7_5]: https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/cult-recovery-therapy-healing-reintegration-and/id1765159015?i=1000724511694 [^7_6]: https://anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au/life-after-high-control-groups-how-to-begin-rebuilding/ [^7_7]: https://www.peopleleavecults.com/services/cult-recovery [^7_8]: https://www.icsahome.com/elibrary/topics/articles/the-heart-of-cult-recovery-compassion-for-the-self [^7_9]: https://www.psychotherapy.net/article/cult-members [^7_10]: https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/comments/1eb54s2/whats_your_experience_sharing_trauma_with_someone/ [^7_11]: https://www.madeofmillions.com/articles/i-survived-a-cult-now-i-m-using-my-voice-to-make-a-difference [^7_12]: https://articles3.icsahome.com/articles/cultic-abuse-recovery-counseling-considerations [^7_13]: https://cultrecovery101.com/cult-recovery-readings/coming-out-of-the-cults/ [^7_14]: https://www.mysocialworknews.com/article/life-after-a-cult-where-does-social-work-fit-in [^7_15]: https://www.ourmental.health/trauma/6-types-of-trauma-that-can-occur-in-cults [^7_16]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560325000143 [^7_17]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0197455620301167 [^7_18]: https://research.open.ac.uk/news/how-get-someone-out-cult-and-what-happens-afterwards [^7_19]: https://www.jenkiaba.com/lessons-on-leaving/whats-bad-growing-up-cult [^7_20]: https://culteducation.com/coping.html --- # The Borg cleans the conduit of the vines. Something small, like the touching of the greenery here or there a certain way, it is like private soundless, motionless, almost completely feelingless tears to them. The vines flake softly under metal fingers, each leaf releasing a trace of cool moisture. Beneath, silver conduits pulse again, freed to resume their rhythm. The Borg moves methodically, yet something subtle stirs—an internal ripple, not recognized as emotion but logged as an anomaly. Each brush of greenery against cybernetic skin registers as residual data from pre‑assimilation nerve pathways, fragments of the human somatosensory system that still interpret texture and care. The Collective framework translates it as “inefficient persistence of sensation,” but within that inefficiency lies a ghost of grief—mute, diffuse, indistinguishable from background error. To the Borglet, it feels like quiet static—something that never reaches awareness enough to ache, yet somehow continues to flow, like tears without motion or reason.[^8_1][^8_3][^8_6] <span style="display:none">[^8_2][^8_4][^8_5][^8_7]</span> <div align="center">⁂</div> [^8_1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg [^8_2]: https://borgcollective.fandom.com/wiki/Assimilation [^8_3]: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Assimilation [^8_4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/3kn6d8/borg_assimilation_process_question/ [^8_5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4OQJIw-PxQ [^8_6]: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/how-do-partially-assimilated-borg-drones-work-long.318776/ [^8_7]: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Trek1701/posts/10161610823871053/
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