BoM/TWS Message Forum

Well...I've pulled off something similar - having one person with three sets of memories, potentially four. It can be pulled off, but you'd need to separate the mental imago into components, much like the physical imago, and then see how it'd blend.

Say - have mental imago be composed of memories, general knowledge, specialized knowledge, muscle memory and identity. This would focus on everything the conscious mind would deal with. Memories are self-explanatory; the record of all your experiences in life. General and specialized knowledge involve everything you've learned - general being, for example, language and basic math, whereas specialized knowledge would involve both the knowledge of how to use it and a bit of muscle memory. Muscle memory involves how your brain reacts to things or how it does things. Identity involves mannerisms, accent and sense of self.

Of those, general and specialized knowledge would be easy to blend - if one target knows only English, the other knows Yiddish, and the third is a polyglot that happens to know Castillian Spanish, Parisian French, Russian ,Mandarin Chinese and a bit of German, the end result is that you'd know all those languages. Same for all the skills the multiple individuals would know.

Muscle memory could be treated as a gestalt process: you use the best of all abilities between the people whose mental imago you absorb. So, if the base individual, say, was average at volleyball, one of the minds is great at track & field (including marksmanship), and the last one is a superb marksman, then the blended imago would be average at volleyball (the other two aren't good at volleyball, probably), great at most track & field events, but a superior marksman (the skill of one target would supersede the other). However, when two skill sets are similar, one can influence the other, undergoing a creative or destructive collision. Perhaps the mind good at track & field is a lefty, whereas the superior marksman is a righty, so you'll do exceptionally well when shooting with the right hand, and decently when shooting with the left.

Memories and identities is where things get complicated, and mostly because of that creative/destructive collisions. Think of memories and identities as ripples, or as waves. Waves can be amplified or cancelled based on their frequency and wavelength. In that regard, the fused mental imago could potentially have certain events that are remembered clearly because two or more of the minds were in the same place, and while the spatial positioning would be wonky (you wouldn't be capable of figuring whether you were at one spot or another), you'd have a very solid grasp of the event because you have two minds to deal with it. Important memories that don't conflict with each other might coexist - if you had a birthday on California and the other on Texas, you might remember both, with the only difference that you'd feel them as yours. The closer the event is in terms of date, or perhaps relevance, the more destructive the interference can be, potentially implying that you might get a jumble of memories where things don't make that much sense no matter how much you try to think about it. However, if two of your minds were witnesses to the Cali birthday and only one to the Texas one, you might find it easier to differentiate them, as you'd treat the Cali one as a separate event that you'd probably remember more than the Texas one.

And how about identity? I'd dare say a gestalt situation, but again, it can be complicated. This goes even worse when one mind is that of a male and another of a female. What, exactly, would be the mannerisms? Would the end result have both male and female mannerisms? What if those mannerisms conflict? (I.e., you have on the same strip a mind that has a mannerism regarding walking aimlessly when deep in thought, and another who gets distracted easily and only recalls what happens when walking. You'd be walking constantly, but you'd be changing your way of walking every now and then.) Identity would be the most difficult to blend, and for the most part, it'd involve one personality being dominant and henceforth the "base" personality, while the others merely add to it.

If you recall the Round Robin, where Alex's mind basically talked with Will, you could have a potential solution. Treat each personality within the mask as a voice in the user's mind, aware of each other but discussing only when the user is intending to speak to them. Say, have the minds of Chelsea, Cindy and Kelsey in Will's mind. The melded mind would probably have the traits of all three (such as being good at tennis because Kelsey practices it, formidable at cheerleading because of both Chelsea and Cindy), a potentially dominant personality (most likely Chelsea), an inner conflict (as Chelsea and Cindy hate each other) that would depend almost always on Will intermediating between the parts, and mannerisms that would depend on the environment and situation. For example: on a place like the country club, the melded mind would behave like Chelsea having a mind band of Kelsey, with automatic mannerisms and behavior and tone and reactions based on Kelsey, but a subconscious intention based on that of Chelsea, which would be tempered by Will's own subconscious and conscious mind. However, once out of the country club - say, on the school - the personality would be much, much closer to Chelsea's own. Perhaps this new Chelsea may share some of Kelsey's traits, and might recognize some people that neither Chelsea nor Cindy would (like Abi, for example, or any of the mutants that go to the country club), but it'll be primarily Chelsea. Of course, it'd be a Chelsea that knows all about Cindy and Kelsey, but at the same time. However, through some conscious thought, Will could instead behave more like Cindy or Kelsey even outside of their places of influence, with the caveat that this version of Cindy or Kelsey would know more of the other two. And, if Will intentionally engages in internal conversation with the three, he'd get three different opinions on the matter, probably after "Chelsea" and "Cindy" end up fighting each other.

This is how I worked it (a sort of Dissociative Identity Disorder situation where all four personalities - a former school sweetheart turned alpha bitch turned prostitute and junkie on recovery, the relatively young succubus that happens to be the first girl's other half of sorts, a New Yorker descended of Jewish senior parents that studied Economics, and a Russian spy - recognize each other and act as parts of the character's personality, with the sweetheart being her conscience, the succubus being her inner demon and her libido, the Jewish girl being her voice of reason and the Russian spy her "defender", or the one that deals with threats), and as complex as it is, it has worked somehow. This helped in one scene where she had to explain why she had knowledge of guns, and she worked up a story of a former boyfriend, which happens to be the ex-boyfriend of the Russian spy. (The truth is, of course, that the Russian spy provided her with knowledge of guns, which is why she unconsciously prefers Russian-made guns despite being born American, not having knowledge of guns otherwise, and with most of her other personalities disdaining the use of guns in the first place.) Though at first it's a mess, it's entirely possible to refine that new personality as you sift, organize and use those memories a lot more. Consider what happened with "Lizzie" and "Yeni" - though they're basically a merger of Will's personality with someone else (Alex on the first story, Catherine on the second), it develops into a new one.

Which...if you think about it, that's basically the solution. It's mostly like what imaj did with the Britney-expy on his recent WS story, or like what Will does with Heather Brown on Sydney's suggestion - adding parts of his personality into the mind, alongside new memories, until the mind band basically codifies this new personality. The melded mind band would be a mess to use by anyone, but in the case of Will (or another Sulva, maybe?), it'd refine into a completely new personality.