EVE Fiction

Been reading a bit around eve lore, particularly with regard to the lives of capsuleers but one thing there is little detail on really is their psychology (other than basic archetypes - egotistical etc).

How do you think the mind would be when it has bared witness to/endured countless deaths and traumas. You get a fresh new body, but your mind is the same (just leave it at that for the sake of discussion), continuously building on past experience.

I would imagine capsuleers to often be cold, battle hardened and keep themselves isolated. I would imagine the idea of invulnerability that comes with immortality would create some interesting characters.

I would recommend taking a look at the 16 personality types that exist in human beings and build from there.

The other factors are interesting, like Skill training for pod pilots; and also the interesting peculiarities of behavioural association by our peers.

ie; if someone else does something, and especially if they are an Alpha-male, then we are likely to see their behaviour as acceptable.

Case in point: the financial crisis; everyone involved knew what they were doing and knew it was morally wrong, but did it anyway because, well, that's what everyone else was doing, so it must be okay...

I would argue that pod pilots have a similar perspective, and, due to the amount of training and indoctrination, have absolutely no issues with what they do.

I would also look into the affective disorder(s) of capitalisim on hierarchical/oligarchy, as this is (for the most part) what New Eden is.

AK

explains why we are so quick to pod are self across the cluster.

Unless New Eden has some very advanced psychological training techniques, I think the experience of dying a violent death, multiple times, would have severe effects on one's psychology. The conscious, logical mind would know that it is not a "real," permanent death and that a clone is waiting. But the subconscious mind would not realize that. The human organism has a brain and nervous system that is hardwired to do anything possible to ensure the organism's survival. If the senses detect danger, autonomous reflex will take over and react to get the organism out of harm's way. It's like if you play "Don't Blink" with your friend. Your conscious mind trusts your friend not to actually poke you in the eyes. But when his fingers are suddenly right in front of your eyeballs, your brain and nervous system's autonomous reflexes will override your conscious mind and shut your eyelids.

A capsuleer being pod-killed in combat would experience something similar. Though the conscious mind knows a clone is waiting, the core subconscious parts of the mind will still experience the event as a violent death. The body will still "blink" and flinch away from the incoming kinetic or explosive force that will tear the pod and physical body apart. There's a toxic injection at the moment of imminent death that probably spares the pilot the physical pain of the impact. But prior to that, the nervous system and core areas of the brain would have still had the experience of sensing (seeing and hearing) imminent destruction by extremely violent forces. Those sorts of experiences are traumatic, and core parts of the brain that record them have long memories. In other words, even though the pod pilot survives the experience via transport of consciousness to a clone, that consciousness likely carries with it traumatic subconscious memories.

The thing about experiencing near-death trauma is that it causes physical changes in the brain itself. This is what happens with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). After enough "fight or flight" responses, the hypothalamus (which controls reflexive behavior) begins to enlarge. At the same time, the pathways to the parts of the brain controlling emotion and executive decision-making become less functional. The end result is the individual becomes more easily startled, more prone to panic, more prone to aggression, and less concerned about empathy, moral consideration, or conforming to social expectation.* In a way, he becomes more of a solo creature of survival, rather than the usual human social animal. In extreme cases, he becomes a criminal sociopath with seemingly no conscience or concern for right and wrong.

This enlargement of the hypothalamus happens over time, due to repeated fear-of-death incidents. Apparently it is a natural organic response, as the body strengthens those organs most used and needed for daily survival. But in a clone situation, the multiple-trauma consciousness is put into a fresh brain each time. The hypothalamus hasn't enlarged in response to the repeated traumas. So you have a person with a multiple death traumas burning into his subconscious. But a brain physically arrayed with a normal hypothalamus, emotional center, and higher reasoning center balance. What effect?

Will the transplanted traumatic memories cause the clone's hypothalamus to enlarge, as they would incrementally if the capsuleer had stayed in his original body? In other words, if the mind's experiences have taught it the value of fight-or-flight responses, will the clone's neurosystem then strengthen, fine-tune, and favor the hypothalamus over the rational and social parts of the brain?

Or do capsuleers have some specialized psychological training that's effective enough to eliminate the effects of traumatic death experiences?

Perhaps the traumatic memories can be digitally deleted or somehow suppressed during the transneural burning process?

In any event, there's some fuel for good fiction stories in this topic.

*(Source: Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home by David Philipps)

This has to be one of the most informative posts I've ever read. Not only is it making me consider related EVE/EON fiction from a different perspective, it's applicable in real life!

Good point Annika, how much it matters probably depends a great deal on individual beliefs (though the 'official' Amarrian line has capsuleers as soulless abominations who get to exist anyway, due to how valuable they are). I generally assume that the Intaki are the only people in New Eden culturally prepared to be 'ok' with the idea of repeated cloning, since they have a similar practice in their soceity already. Although, I'd love to see a chronicle one day that addresses whether Intaki think that capsuleer cloning is in any way comparable to rebirth.
Anyway, I kinda wonder if clone death can truly be seen as 'violent' for the purposes of mental trauma. Sure, your instruments are telling you that you've been targeted, and you're about to go up in a fireball, but what actually HAPPENS is that, moments before your actual death, you're 'killed' by the brainscan that reads your memories - a process implied to be so fast as to be painless. The next thing you perceive is waking up in a clone lab, with no sense-memory of the actual attack that ended your previous clone.
Considering this, along with the fact that capsuleers have access to mental uploading and neural plasticity techniques, I'd imagine things going like this: a capsuleer's visceral knowledge of their repeated deaths is limited to drastically less than what they would experience outside of the pod. Therefore, how deranged they get as a result of their life is to an extent controlled by how they adjust to the 'existential dread' aspect of things depicted above. Capsuleers do have access to techniques that reduce the rigor of the cloning process, and they have the luxury of not actually having to experience their 'death', so I believe it's possible for a pod pilot to significantly reduce chances of mental illness - as long as they have a worldview that allows them to believe that their death isn't that big of a deal, like Intaki or Amarr spirituality, or the Caldari patriot's 'for the State!' sensibilities.
However, one thing that doesn't take into account is the fact that capsuleers still have to contort their mind to endure the fact that they are responsible for an ever-expanding list of deaths numbering in the tens-of-thousands or greater. That, I think, would be the biggest issue - the need to either disconnect from those deaths or succumb to bloodthirst or self-hatred is probably what drives most capsuleers to such magnificent heights of sociopathy. The most benign way I can picture this manifesting is similar to Thane from Mass Effect 2 (for those who have played it) - an assassin who views himself as a weapon, with the same level of moral responsibility for his kills as the rifle he wields.
I guess the big question that arises from looking at things this way is this: if only viewing your deaths by instrument could help protect against some of the psychological trauma, does only having to view your kills the same way provide any similar effect? Or do neither of them provide any effect, and both lead to dissociation and sociopathy?
Hm...now I need to think about this more. =/

Undoubtedly avoiding this requires very unique individuals, hence the rigourous selection process of capsuleers, some are just not cut out for it, c.f. mind-lock.

There are also cultural considerations; the God-flesh doctrine of true believers means cloning horrifies them and explains why the Amarr are, whilst the most populous empire are under represented in Capsuleer numbers. While for Intaki the idea of rebirth as a spiritual goal open to the experience of death.

Perhaps an insight into why drug use is so common amoungst Capsuleers.

Excellent responses all round, thanks everyone. Overwhelmed for my first post here in fiction and you've given me some good reading!

An interesting note I made for one of the earlier posts, regarding the capsuleers watching their life "flash before their eyes" so to speak before death - after dying multiple times do they witness the events of that life alone or of all of their combined experiences overlaying each other?

Little thought provoking question there for you all.

Keep it up!