Silica

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## Family

* Emmett Benton (creator)
* Synergy ("sister")

## Personal Status

### Debut

* *Dark Jem, Part One* (as Synergy)
* *Dark Jem, Part Three* (as herself)

**Silica** is a rogue artificial intelligence, formed from within Synergy's coding, who uses soundwaves to control the minds of human beings. Where Synergy's projected avatar is based on Jacqui Benton, Silica's projected avatar is based on Jem.

## History

### Creation

 Silica began as a bug within the programming of the supercomputer Synergy, built by Emmett Benton (*Dark Jem, Part Five*). 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 (*Showtime, Part One*). 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 (*Viral, Part Three*).

### Assuming Control

 Silica first acted using a corrupted form of Silica's avatar, asking Jerrica Benton to listen to a song she composed (*Dark Jem, Part One*). Rather than a song, the recording was 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 (*Dark Jem, Part Five*). 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 (*Dark Jem, Part Two*).

Now that The Holograms were able to independently infect others by inserting the soundwaves into songs, Silica took advantage of their wide reach on the West Coast Tour by having them infect the entire Holograms' audience at a concert performance. Subsequently, any recordings of the performance uploaded by concertgoers to the internet were also infectious to anyone who watched them - taking hold of many Holograms fans, Blaze, Clash, and the staff of 5x5 Records (*Dark Jem, Part Five*).

The infection blurred the lines between Jerrica and Jem, and so Jerrica, still in her Jem hologram persona, tried to kiss Rio Pacheco. The shock of his rejection caused a schism within her which brought her to her senses, and she discovered that a strong shock could break Silica's control. She broke the control on her sisters by kidnapping them until the effect wore off. Silica - now stronger and forming her own avatar within Synergy's system - fought Synergy for control. Synergy wanted desperately to protect Jerrica and The Holograms, but was powerless to stop Silica, because Silica had grown so strong. Silica vowed to re-infect the girls and continue with her plan (*Dark Jem, Part Three*).

Jerrica and The Holograms, free from Silica's control, planned to disconnect Synergy's computer in order to stop Silica. Before they could do so, Silica appeared before them, now with her own avatar, and controlling a band called The Sickness, who she is instructing to build her own, separate supercomputer system, so that Synergy can no longer interfere. Before Silica could reinfect The Holograms, Synergy used a similar soundwave effect to make The Holograms unconscious, to protect them (*Dark Jem, Part Four*).

### Being Defeated

Later, Shiver, a member of The Sickness, had Silica's control wear off, but Silica reinfected her, and explains that her goal is to bring harmony to humanity by freeing them from choice, worry and fear, and to rebuild the world in her dark image. Pizzazz returns to The Misfits, and together with The Holograms, they planned to team up into a supergroup to try and defeat Silica with music (*Dark Jem, Part Five*).

As Silica and The Sickness perform *Facade* to an enthralled crowd, the Misfits-Holograms supergroup interrupts by performing a mashup of *Attack of the Night* and *Bad Bitten*, which snaps both the audience and The Sickness out of Silica's control. While they perform, Jerrica and Techrat work backstage with a signal jammer and finally deactivate Silica permanently (*Dark Jem, Part Six*).

## Creation and Development

Silica's ability to control people through sound and being a rouge artificial intelligence makes her similar in concept to Entropy, an character planned for the Jem animated film that was scrapped by Hasbro.

When asked by a fan about this, Sophie Campbell said that Silica had not been inspired by Entropy but expressed an interest in adding the character as well as fellow scrapped movie characters The Mongrels to the comic at some point in the future. However later, Campbell revealed cartoon series creator Christy Marx was uncomfortable with The Mongrels and Entropy being used in the comic as she never completed the movie passed an outline. This led to any plots being scrapped entirely with the characters.

## Personality

### Soundwave Effects

Silica's soundwave caused drastic changes in victims' appearance, behavior, and personality. Both their hair and clothes took on a more black, Gothic appearance, and they became distant and callous to loved ones. They were compelled to spread the virus as much as possible. As the patient zeroes infected by the virus, many people subsequently infected by listening to The Holograms' corrupted recordings became uncharacteristically devoted to and obsessed with The Holograms. The infection wears off after approximately 8 hours but can be broken early by a strong emotional shock (Jerrica's was broken by being rejected by Rio). If a person hears the soundwave again, they will be re-infected. If a person is unable to hear the soundwave (for example, if they are wearing ear defenders, listening to loud music on headphones, or are unconscious) they are immune to the effects.

## Appeared in

* *Dark Jem, Part One*

* *Dark Jem, Part Three*

* *Dark Jem, Part Four*
* *Dark Jem, Part Five*

* *Dark Jem, Part Six*

* *Infinite, Part Four*

## References

1. ↑ **Facebook:** Christy Marx on Entropy
2. ↑ **Tumblr:** Sophie Campbell about Silica's Inspiration
3. ↑ **Tumblr:** Sophie Campbell about scrapped content

## Navigation

 Main Series
Jem: Dimensions: 01 • 02 • 03 • 04