Blame this.
Hypercomma
When humanity finally made it out into the wider universe, it came as a mildly unpleasant shock to discover that there were any number of esoteric ways to get eaten. Bug-eyed monsters, humanity could understand. Bug-eyed monsters, humanity was prepared for*. But sentient languages that parasite people’s brains? How does that even work?
Alas, the details on how that works is at least two, three quantum levels of theoretical understanding past anyone likely to read this. Suffice it to say that at least one species exists as an organized memetic linguistic pattern (which humans call ‘Hypercommas,’ in what is widely considered to be one of the more inappropriate puns in existence) which takes over people’s heads and operates the wetware until it expires. And then the Hypercomma finds another body, and the cycle continues. Each Hypercomma also can coordinate with another through [INSERT MEANINGLESS TECHNICAL PHRASE HERE BECAUSE, AGAIN, A DISPARITY OF TWO TO THREE QUANTUM LEVELS’ WORTH OF THEORETICAL UNDERSTANDING], thus giving the species the opportunity to communicate and coordinate over interstellar distances. Continue reading Horror/Space Seed: Hypercommas.