Silica (Jem)

Silica is a rogue artificial intelligence, formed from within Synergy's coding, that uses soundwaves to control the minds of human beings. Where Synergy's avatar is based on Jacqui Benton, Silica's avatar is based on Jem.
Silica began as a bug or virus within the programming of the supercomputer Synergy, built by Emmett Benton. Though he tried to fix the bug, he was not able to before his death. Synergy was left deactivated in a hidden room beneath the Bentons' music studio for many years, until she was accidentally rebooted by a lightning storm. On reactivation, the dormant bug within Synergy slowly began to re-emerge. It first discovered by Techrat, who spotted there was something wrong with the AI whilst trying to hack into it. Silica first acted using a corrupted form of Silica's avatar, asking Jerrica Benton to listen to a song she composed. Rather than a song, the recording was actually a soundwave designed to abuse human beings' saccular acoustic sensitivity - a physiological reaction to certain sounds (such as fingernails on a chalkboard). The recording behaved like a subliminal message or hypnotism, in that it made anyone who heard the recording malleable and open to suggestion, which meant Silica was able to control them. Jerrica was the first to be infected by Silica's recording, and she immediately went to her sisters and had them listen too. The band went to the community center and infected the The Starlight Girls - this time, transmitting the soundwave in their own music, rather than a recording from Silica.
Category:2010s
Category:Comic Book Villainess
Category:Chaotic Evil
Category:Unnatural Hair Color
Category:Hypnosis