Gestalts

Gestalts are complex amalgamations of a society or organization's thoughts, opinions, and personalities. They are directly influenced by the people they represent, but also have some independence of thought and can function in leadership roles for those people. Gestalts normally exist in a public chatroom where they can interact in a style reminiscent of IRC or IM chatrooms, but can also move to private chatrooms for serious discussions. Gestalts are also shown making memes for people to enjoy and to raise morale. Gestalts represent organizations, not races; for example, the commonly seen Mantid Gestalt is the MANTID FREE WORLDS gestalt.

The origin and formation of a Gestalt is described by the MANTID FREE WORLDS to the TELKAN as follows:

TELKAN GESTALT

How does it work?

Does that mean they'll be a hive mind now?

-----??MAYBE SOMETHING FOLLOWS??----

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh, no, sweetie. You are the amalgamation of the opinions, concerns, and well-being of your entire race. They provide you with raw data, which you collate and use to help you to make decisions. You can't affect them and they just provide you with information. You are their voice, their representative to the Terran Confederacy.

It just takes a bit for you to fully form, dear one.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

## History and Structure

Gestalts are built off the remnants of SOLNET and SOULNET, which were early Terran interfaces that linked people emotionally. It is unknown when the first gestalts were created, and how or why, but it appears that all major Terran organizations were able to access it, as legacy codes have been referenced as far back as pre-diaspora. There are multiple known inactive or dead gestalts, including gestalts for the Combine and the Imperium of Rage. All major Confed races have gestalts, and the gestalt chat room frequently features the Gestalts for governments like the Mantid Free Worlds or the Cyborg Consortium, Organizations like Military Intelligence organizations and (very occasionally) powerful individuals like Legion or Daxin Freeborn/Osiris. New gestalts form when enough people of a race gain citizenship in the confederation, such as after the Telkan wars. These gestalts are often unable to speak properly in the chat room and are mentored by the others. The Mantid Free World Gestalt often is seen nurturing them and teaching them how the system works.

Secure gestalts occasionally discuss matters away from the public eye, implying some level of sentience beyond simple personality averaging. These gestalts occasionally discuss classified data or activate protocols that are not public knowledge. Almost all citizens of confed space are joined to a gestalt, but can be disconnected, such as when they enter the Black Box.

During the Second Battle of Telkan, the Telkan Gestalt summoned the Terran militaries to assist it by declaring CASE OMAHA, and also showed memes and edited videos to the Telkan civilians in shelters to increase morale. While these memes were quite popular, they distressed Director Brentili'ik, as the memes showed her Husband, Vuxten, in danger.

Following the repairs Herod, Sam-UL and Dee Taynee are making to the SUDS hardware, the Gestalts were moved from the emergency channel they had been using since The Glassing to the main Gestalt channels. Along with other repairs that have re-enabled the SUDS system's ability to add new races, these changes seem to have made it easier for new Gestalts to join the chat, though the distance to their homeworlds seems to require the deployment of signal boosters:

### Conversation Style

Gestalts refer to each other in a particular style, shown below:

MANTID FREE WORLDS - the Gestalt's name, in all caps.

[various text or discussion, occasionally a described action with a ">"]

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------ - this line signifies the end of that gestalt's statement.

Gestalts are known to interfere with or interrupt each other on occasion and can even be directly influenced by the people they represent. The Treana'ad once famously arranged on Treana'ad twitter to all think the exact same thing at the same time, causing the Gestalt to involuntarily state a similar phrase. This form can also be corrupted by psychic events, be done incorrectly by new gestalts, or edited by other gestalts.

When Daxin Freeborn reclaimed the Black Throne of Murdered Camelot, the psychic backlash across the Mantid race created a feedback loop between the Mantid Free Worlds Gestalt and its citizens that could have driven the Mantid People insane, until the Terrasol Gestalt issued and override command and disabled it.

Gestalts maintain a personality that appears to be related to the collective of their race. Known gestalts are listed below.

## Racial / Societal Gestalts

These Gestalts are gestalts of entire societies or races, and are the main Gestalts seen.

### TERRASOL

Terrasol is the old man of the gestalt group, and appears to be the leader. He is normally quiet in chats but is also very expressive when it does speak. In chat rooms it has administrative privileges and can issue override codes, using the NATO phonetic Alphabet, or create secure chat rooms for Top Secret purposes. While the Terrasol gestalt puts on a stern face, it has a gentler side and likes to go watch a maternity ward when it needs to relax. In dataspace, it appears as a human made of pure code. He has stated that he has "more emotional filters" than the other Gestalts and is implied to feel emotions separate of his people's emotions.

### MANTID FREE WORLDS

The Mantid free worlds gestalt acts kind and nurturing and seems to identify as female. Often acting as a moderator between the other groups, urging caution and reason, Mantid is professional and calm. However, Mantid does have a sense of humor and jokes about Terrasol with the rest.

### TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

The Treana'ad Hive worlds gestalt is often goofy and friendly. It loves ice cream and is less professional than the Mantid Gestalt, using informal tones and joking around in the chat logs. However, it can also be serious when needed. Treana'ad refers to Mantid as Sis and considers itself to be silly and nervous.

### BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

BASS represents the uplifted species of Terrasol. BASS and Clone Worlds Consortium deal with genetic information. BASS is one of the older gestalts, and often refers to Mantid as sis. DASS occasionally refers to it as Bubba Bass.

### DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

DASS represents the digital sapiences of confed space. It seems to take on administrative and archival roles and has been seen producing data for different situations. Along with the Cyborg gestalt, It seems to know the most about how the gestalt system works, possibly aside from Terrasol. It has been seen to refer to the Terrasol gestalt as Father.

### CLONE WORLD CONSORTIUM

The gestalt of the modern clone world consortium formed after the Legion wars. The Clone World Gestalt seems to have a particular distaste for things related to the Legion wars and seems calm under pressure compared to other Gestalts. The Gestalt has stated that it considers itself a part of Terrasol.

### CYBERNETIC ORGANISM CONSENSUS

The gestalt of the Cybernetically enhanced Terrans, Cyborg is often quiet in the Gestalt chat, but seems calm like the Clone Worlds. In one instance, the DASS gestalt "picked up Cyborg" and attempted to threaten another gestalt with it.

### RIGELLIAN COMPACT

The Rigellian compact is the quietest of the racial gestalts. Rigel is a pacifist and appears to be the oldest continuous gestalt aside from Terrasol, as during the war vote for the Terran - Lanaktallan war, only Terrasol and Rigel's access codes were still valid.

### TELKAN FORGE WORLDS

Oldest of the teenage Gestalts, Telkan formed after the Precursor battles on Telkan. It took time for the Gestalt to get comfortable in the chat, but at the end of the second Telkan war, it had been renamed the Telkan Forge Worlds.

### AKLTAK SOARING WORLDS

The Akltak gestalt is the second teenage Gestalt. It announced the deployment of V corps to the defense of Telkan during the Dwellerspawn invasion. They had difficulty deciding on a permanent Gestalt Header, recent examples include; AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT FORESTS & AKLTAK FREE FLIGHT ZONE. Lately they appear to have settled on Akltak Soaring Worlds.

### TNVARU GRIPPING HANDS

The third teenage Gestalt, Tnvaru love Daxin Freeborn.

### PUBVIAN DOMINION

Re-appeared after the restoration of the Pubvian people, they are catching up on 8000 years of history.

### LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL

Advocates of Jawnconnor, the Leebawan are eager to learn all that TerraSol can teach them.

### HAMAROOSA GESTALT

The Gestalt of the Hamaroosan people has yet to decide on a header, to date they have tried; PINCHING FESTIVAL, PINCHING TIME & PINCHING CHAIN LETTER. Obviously PINCHING is going to be significant.

### HAKANIAN GESTALT

The Hakanian Gestalt is also experimenting with headers; FLUFF TOWN, SUNNY FIELDS, FLUFF PODS, FLOOF ZONE & FUZZY TOWN being some test runs.

### HESSTLA CYBERBURROW

As with Hamaroosa and Hakanian, Hesstla are practising headers, so far they have tried; HOP HOP, BUNNY BURROW, HOPPING BUNNIES & TECHNOBURROW. Following the Third Battle of Hesstla they appear to have settled on CYBERBURROW.

### N'KAROO GESTALT

The Gestalt of the N'Karoo has only recently formed and has yet to get to grips with the chat.

### LANAKTALLAN FREE HERD

Accidentally created by CYB when they discovered that trying to add a new Gestalt Channel would automatically add the species to the SUDS network. This Gestalt does not include the majority of the Lanaktallan population. Mantid is currently helping them through the disorientation. They are listening and learning.

### HUMAN GESTALT

Created by CYB for the 5000 human worlds outside of the TerraSol Bag, there is a lot of arguing. They also feel a little schizophrenic as only two thirds of this portion of humanity have been affected by the genetic rollback of the Atrekna.

## Minor and Organizational Gestalts

These gestalts are seen very occasionally or represent organizations instead of individuals.

#### TALMONUS HARMONY

The Talmonus Harmony traditionally rejected the Confed, including the usage of implants or Digital Sapiences in an attempt to create a peaceful society. However, during the Lanaktallan attacks on the Harmony, the Talmonus Harmony entered the Gestalt Chat to request help before disappearing. The Talmonus Harmony Gestalt demanded to speak to the Terrasol gestalt.

The Talmonus Harmony Gestalt did not "nothing follows" when in Gestalt Chat, rather it forced hard system breaks in the conversation to speak, possibly due to the priority of its messages.

#### UFP (UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS)

The UFP Gestalt represents the United Federation of Planets, a nation allied to the Confederation, but separate from it.

#### CONFEDMIL

The gestalt of the Confed military, it appears to announce battles, and seems to be used only in times of war.

#### CONFEDMILINT

Terran military intelligence, quiet but always lurking in the background. It apparently makes the others nervous, and only tends to show up to discuss pertinent information or projects.

#### TERRASOLMILINT

possibly another name for Confedmilint, described as lurking all the time.

#### MANTID INTELLIGENCE

Appears to be the Mantid equivalent of the CONFEDMILINT.

#### Dark'nyss

Sends in updates using a gothic typewriter.

#### IMPERIUM COMMUNIQUE

Affiliated with Daxin Freeborn, appears rarely during Imperium of wrath activity. Loud, formal, and seemingly old.

**DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI**

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

**THE CRUSADE OF THE EYE**

SOLNET IP OUT OF RANGE

[redacted]

## Defunct or Legacy Gestalts

The Gestalt system is nearly as old as the glassing of Terrasol and as such is based upon a hodgepodge of legacy hardware tweaks and patches, specifically there are several Gestalts of long-defunct regimes left hardwired into the Gestalt system. When these appear, due to extraneous circumstances, they often scare the other active Gestalts.

**Combine Military Authority**

Appeared due to Telkan Broodcarrier songs resonating with the Sleeping Ones, its appearance startled the Mantid Free Worlds Gestalt.

**Saurian Collective Gestalt**

Following the founding of the Terran Confederacy and the Gestalt Reformation happening after, the Saurian Collective, now known as the Rigellian Compact, mothballed their former Gestalt while keeping their deep system access codes. This Gestalt is left open in the event that any Terran-aligned Generation Ship comes back online and tries to contact Terrasol proper.

## References

1. ↑ First Contact, part 67
2. ↑ First Contact - Part 364