Branch
Branch
Branch
Absolute hostility on behalf of the infiltrator must be presumed. It is the only sane approach.
Throw them off. Feed yourself disinformation. Choke the neural pathways with white noise. Try to un-focus your mind from whatever you're doing. Practice mind/body dissociation. Think about the exact opposite of what you're actually about to do.
Shadowboxing against an invisible and in all likelihood totally imaginary opponent.
This is information warfare, inside.
Time to engage auto-counterintelligence operations.
Resist. Don't give it what it wants, regardless of whether it happens to exist or not.
Branch
End of this branch
Not enough slots.
Branch
No way, this is a one-way ticket to insanity.
Enjoy your cocoon of illusions.
Rest assured, CASCADE, that just as there are schisms within the Opera, parallel and conflicting structures of command, the structure of command inside is no less convoluted.
What's it like in there?
Are you so certain that the mix of impulses, desires, and choices that govern your actions is coincident with that nebula of epiphenomena that you know as yourself?
Put another way, how do we know who is calling the shots inside CASCADE?
For all intents and purposes, the only answer that should matter is your controller.
NAVEL-GAZING INDIVIDUALISTIC MEDITATIONS. YOU ARE A CELL IN THE BODY OF SOCIETY, THE LOCUS IS COLLECTIVE AND EXTERNAL.
Me. I am. I'm the shot-caller.
Uncritical certainty, a highly concerning development.
Even if we could discount the possibility of homunculus-style physical infiltration, microchip installation, remote radio-control, and sensory triggering of pre-embedded behavioural patterns -- which, for the record, we cannot -- even then, there are lower-concept forms of infiltration.
Hang on, what kind of lower concepts are we talking about?
For instance a tumour pressing on key decision-making areas in the frontal lobe.
Kudos to who or whatever is controlling me, they're doing a bang-up job.
If I'm not really in control, what can be done?
This is about homunculi again, isn't it?
The homunculus is merely a symbol, excepting the rare and grievous instances in which it is all too literal.
I don't care, the illusion of control is enough for me.
Your indifference to the prospect of ultimate infiltration is highly concerning.
You might as well be compromised, with that attitude.
My insides are fine, thank you.
A sentiment typically voiced by people comically unaware of their proximity to catastrophe.