See that was what I was hoping could happen. I could probably spend a ton of time exploring what it knows. Being able to actually see what it has experienced and seen through its travels through space would be extremely amazing.
Now I feel like a failure. See this concept is one of many concepts inside a story universe I call "The Order" I am a perfectionist and have worked out the details on how it works for a long time. I have an original story or first story but since then with all the characters and concepts it has expanded. Like a tree it has blossomed into having many branches. I recently wrote two full book first drafts in this universe taking place after the main story and being completely un related and stand alone. My point. Yeah almost forgot that for a moment. lol The concept of the Arch has only even been a small element to any of the stories. The above scene takes place in a story about a deceased villian that has been seperared from her Arch in death. She realizes she was a bad person and remembers her life. When the Arch bonded with her was a memory. The fail being that I never tried or considered writing a story that centered fully around one person and them gaining and learning to liv with an Arch. I probably should! You may have just accidently inspired a book idea! Thanks
Wait are you serious? Because the whole concept has all sorts of potential. Hell if you don't I just might have to steal it... I kid of course. Glad I could help inspire you.
LOL. Like I said the concept was there and it had uses. It was just more a spice then the main dish. I hadn't really realized how interesting as a main dish it could be. My universe never ceases to provide me possible story angles. lol. Course the core concept has been done. If you like it tweak it and make it your own .
These Arches of yours sound very similar to the Trill in Star Trek...here, a humanoid is parasitized by another being, as in the other entity actually lives within a body cavity (they're not too specific about which one, or about the obvious disadvantages of having one's lung capacity, for example, reduced) and bonds with one mentally. The parasite is very much longer-lived than the humanoid host, and needs to be removed from a dead host with some urgency. The parasitization has to be surgically performed, and removal is life-threatening to the host - I have a vague memory that it's harmful and dangerous, but not necessarily fatal. The advantage for the host is the benefit of all that experience, while the host remains autonomous - just with a second, advisory, brain on tap. I could never get my head around the weird twist of evolution that led to a life-form developing as a parasite which had to be surgically implanted.
I can't believe I didn't reply to this. lol In my case it is a magical parasite so no surgury needed. Yeah I agree a life form that needs surgury by something else sounds weird. Then again the idea of this thread was to get your vote on if you would want it?
Didn't see this before. The catches don't seem so bad at all. Reads as though I might spend a lot of time talking to myself - so what's new? What did you say? I said what's new? Ok, that's all right then. Nope - advantages seem to far outweigh the catches. And if you really got fed up you just top yourself. Put me down as a Yes.
Funny enough I phrased it that way to be simple. Technically it can be more. Like in one work of progress a woman gained an Arch. Her natural lifespan was going to be 60-70. But she reached 230 and her death didn't come naturally. As the Arch slows down the progress of aging. Her body was more like 40-50 in spite of her being over 200. It varies from person to person though. This girl was closer to the max potential an Arch could give. So you wouldn't like the longer life span?
A longer life span sounds good initially. But your family and friends would only have normal spans and would age at a normal rate. You would outlive your kids and your grandkids. Your lovers would age too fast, so you would end up avoiding getting attached to people. I like the idea of the Arch and given the choice it would be difficult to turn such an opportunity down but it would be a different life.
He gazed at you intensely and said, "I'm OT VIII. Your body thetan has no power over me." But in all seriousness, I want to live for fricken ever, so gimme body thetans, er I mean an Arch, stat! Could easily expand into a book in its own right, agreeing with above conversation.
I guess I'm the only one that doesn't care about outliving someone. Yes, it's going to hurt, but you do that in your life already, outlive those that you love. Sometimes you have to watch those you love destroy themselves. That's all just life. Avoiding others wouldn't help, it would be building those connections that would help. You could do a whole story about those too weak minded for such a life span. I, however, think I'd love a doubled life, maybe even immortality. Sign me up please. It will just add to the voices in my head anyway.
It's an interesting concept. In general, I am a private person. However, this soul that shares my mind may have all my secrets, feelings, memories etc. but it's not as if this soul can go on Facebook and expose everything, or tell someone my deepest insecurities. Sure, I might be a little uncomfortable at first but I feel like over time they would become a part of who I am and essentially just an extra part of my thought process and my consciousness. And while I am against the idea of me living forever, I would happily extend my life by another hundred or so years. I might amount to nothing, who knows, but I would always want to do as much as I can to leave the world a better place than I left it and experience as much about the world as I could. Outliving my loved ones would be especially difficult (and probably the biggest hurdle in this situation) but I think as long as I had descendants to keep close to me (grandkids etc) I would deal with it over time. Grief is probably the hardest thing to deal with but you can deal with it, people do it every day. The magic and/or extra protection to things like car accidents/being stabbed/shot/whatever would also be nice. I am not a fighter by any means, in fact I avoid confrontation as much as is possible without being a pushover, so if I ever did find myself in a difficult situation where my life is on the line, it would certainly come in handy, as well as the ability to essentially get a second opinion on anything I want, without actually "leaving" my mind and asking another physical person. So, yes, I think I would take this if it was offered to me. There are cons but I think it would do more good than harm.
