[Nissan]

Playing through Tenebra again, something from Laporte's first conversation with Thorn stuck with me.

T: The dreamscape is hosted on CASSANDRA, the Masyaf's special computational asset. The transmission methodology is called Nagari. GTI discovered it during the Great War, and a certain rebel Tev admiral perfected an artificial version. We developed our own method, but it's based on the human Nagari capacity, and his...wasn't.
L: Wait. Human capacity? I'm sorry, but I don't buy that for one second.
T: It's not a natural ability. It's artificially induced by an external source. There's a case on Earth right now who was exposed from birth...the things done to his brain look almost like abuse. He's a remarkable person, but he frightens me.
L: Oh my god.
T: You want to share, Laporte? I'm getting some emotional bleed.
L: Not yet. I think I might understand something, but...I need to be sure.

Do we ever learn what Noemi is talking about when she says that? Might be something really obvious that just went over my head, but I can't figure it out.

Sorry if this has come up before--searched but couldn't find anything on the topic.

[Phantom Hoover]

She's talking about Ken.

[Celendil]

She's talking about Ken.

Yeah, I think the "It's artificially induced by an external source" triggers her to realize that maybe Ken isn't just a hallucinogenic break from reality that she suffered as a child, that she in fact was being triggered into having those experiences by an external contact from a Nagari-capable network.


Also:

case on Earth right now who was exposed from birth...the things done to his brain look almost like abuse. He's a remarkable person, but he frightens me.

Thats clearly a reference to Samuel Bei, right? What specifically would frighten Thorn? The damage done to his brain by the Vishnans, or the overall concept of fiddling with a brain for such a long period of time by a much more advanced alien species? Or something more specific, about him?

[AdmiralRalwood]

Or all of the above.

[leoben]

I think it's fair to assume that Thorn has the entire transcript of Bei's debrief on his Vishnan encounter, plus his entire physical/psych profile. I think what frightens Thorn, Al-Dawa and probably most Elders is the way a far superior entity/race is engineering some sort of enlightenment/ascension through a method which may come about like what happened to Bei, and is happening to Laporte (I know the two cases are different, but similar as well). Really creepy if you think about it.

I can't help but think back to The Matrix, from the Oracle:

Every time you've heard someone say they saw a ghost, or an angel. Every story you've ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens, is the system assimilating some program that's doing something they're not supposed to be doing.

Imagine the same being true in the BP universe, where the explanation is actually a vishnan/shivan like invasion of the individual, engineering something on a massive scale. Only you're not in the matrix, it's actually real. Or is it? 

Yes, that would frighten me too 

[qwadtep]

Thorn's fear is obvious from the dancing around the subject. Bei's case isn't "almost like" abuse, it is abuse: brainwashing so severe that he's mentally, and perhaps even neurologically, incapable of seeing the Vishnans as anything but benefactors and carrying out their will, even if the Vishnans murder a wing of his fellow pilots minutes earlier. The idea that an unknown third party can hold that kind of malevolent influence over somebody is terrifying, to the point that Thorn doesn't even want to admit it's reality.

It's like 1984, but on a cosmic scale, and filed in the nonfiction aisle.

[-Sara-]

I see Thorn's fear in a perspective of having admiration for someone's tenacity to achieve their goals, where that tenacity is so strong that it may lead to a path where the ends begin to justify the means. Great people are often followed and may change the direction of where a people are heading.

In example, a young man may have great ambitions to create a peaceful world where everyone has equal rights and where people are not suppressed. But with too much tenacity, this person can be labeled extreme left, and may resort to killing the opposition so that the opposition can no longer thwart such a future. That young man may be so fanatical in his cause, that he'll condone horrible actions to achieve his goals. If enough people follow him, they might even create this world where no opposition to peace remains, but those people will no longer be peaceful themselves through their fanatism.

Bei may sell out whole civilizations to the Vishnans, believing it is right, while remaining blind to the greater picture of what will happen as a result.