Reactant Instability

Blanks, like the skyphoforms upon which they were largely based, can become so traumatized on a physical or psychological level that their very rootcode becomes unstable. This condition of instability is known as reactant instability because it involves the affected individual's reactant rootcode specifically.

Causes

Reactant instability is, in many respects, like an aberrant flowering contained to an individual blank. 'Normal' levels of trauma are seldom enough to cause reactant instability, leading instead to more mundane psychological syndromes that can be treated better by mundane psychosocial interventions (see Treatment). Individual traumatic events punctuated by periods of peace also will not cause the effect, as they do not have a chance to accumulate and compound with one another. Only the combination of the quasi-immortal life of a blank or skyphoform, the alien view of time and causality caused by living so long, and an extensive period of consecutive traumatizing experiences are capable of producing reactant instability.
When all of these factors collide, a blank's mind can be forced into conditions that extend far beyond those they were designed to handle, causing what those familiar with The Word would term 'arbitrary code execution.' This state is responsible for the erratic behavior observed in blanks afflicted with reactant instability and, if left unchecked, can have effects that extend beyond the reactant of the blanks into the more foundational catalysts and forma, causing corruption (see Prognosis).

Symptoms

A blank afflicted with reactant instability displays varying degrees of unpredictable cognitions and behavior. This is similar to the ways in which a biological being might react to having lesions in various portions of the brain. In rare cases, the symptoms may 'simmer' over time, the affected blank acting seemingly normal until the effects of increasingly disordered and paranoid thoughts eventually result in an explosive outburst. Even moreso than the cold, logical thought processes of arziel-class skyphoforms, reactant instability is a leading cause of sudden, apparently sociopathic behavior among blanks exposed to severe trauma.

Treatment

Repairing the corrupted portions of a sufferer's psyche requires excising or refactoring part of it, potentially causing permanent changes to the afflicted individual's behavior. Former patch-class choir blanks are particularly suited to this task, as they understand the skyphoform (and thus blank) architecture better than most. In general, the earlier the treatment and the less extensive the damage, the less significant the changes will be. However, by repairing or replacing the damaged portions of the sufferer's reactants, this treatment has the potential to arrest the spread of irregular internal behavior (see Cause) and, thus, cure the affliction.

Prognosis

The effects of reactant instability almost always become more pronounced over time. If severe enough or left untreated for long enough, reactant instability can result in forma molt or corruption. Blanks that reach this terminal stage are nearly unrecoverable and are widely considered to have slipped into true death, but researchers in The Substrate are hard at work to develop means of recovering corrupted blanks at least. In the worst cases, indefinite stasis - or even euthanasia - is considered an act of mercy. In contrast, if reactant instability is caught early enough, the afflicted individual can potentially make a recovery, albeit an incomplete one (see Treatment)

Sequela

Repairing reactant instability only has partial effect on the underlying psychological trauma, meaning that psychosocial interventions will be required to completely rehabilitate the sufferer. However, The Substrate is a close-knit community with subjectively near-infinite time to spend on such pursuits and an overweaning desire to contain the kinds of circumstances that would cause reactant instability. Thus, the chances of reactant instability recurring in an individual are very slim.

Type

Neurological

Origin

Mutated

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare

Affected Species

• Skyphoform
• Blank