Mnemosurgery
From Transformers Wiki
Mnemosurgery is a technique by which one Transformer can enter the mind of another, viewing the subject's memories and giving the mnemosurgeon the ability to "edit" said memories, even to the point where the subject's personality is completely rewritten. The procedure is accomplished via spikes extending from the mnemosurgeon's fingers, which are typically inserted into the subject's neck. The surgical scars fortunately only show up under ultraviolet light. Mnemosurgery can sometimes lead to surgeons experiencing flashbacks—reliving inherited memories from the minds they've worked on.
Contents |
Fiction
2005 IDW continuity
Mnemosurgery was an inherently dangerous profession with a high mortality rate—most mnemosurgeons died young. Remembrance Day Entering traumatic memories could be traumatic in turn for the surgeon, and those who performed too many operations ran the risk of inheriting memories from their subjects and suffering painful flashbacks. The Chaos of Warm Things You, Me, and Other Revelations In particular, doing a "deep reading" on a living subject could kill an incautious mnemosurgeon. Remembrance Day
Trainee mnemosurgeons practiced with finger-drills before they got the signature finger-needles. Remembrance Day
Mnemosurgery was used by the Institute as a component of Shadowplay—altering the minds of enemies of the corrupt Senate. An Intimate Beheading When Zeta Prime later set up the "New Institute", Tumbler was recruited to study under the mnemosurgeon Trepan and eventually adopted the name Chromedome. Overlord attacked the New Institute, abducting Trepan so he could learn the basics of mnemosurgery. Remembrance Day Chromedome would go on to use the technique on himself, to erase the memories of those he had lost during the war. The Gloaming
Megatron's early anti-Functionist writings concerned the Senate enough to order his Shadowplay, dispatching Trepan to carry it out. Rung's interruption halted the operation only moments after it began, but the experience left Megatron with a lasting fear of mnemosurgery. Births, Deaths, and Interventions
Chromedome would continue to use mnemosurgery, despite his Conjunx Endura Rewind not approving. He utilized it during the autopsy of Skyfall, reliving Skyfall's suicide by Gideon's Glue. You, Me, and Other Revelations When Prowl attempted to blackmail Chromedome, the latter simply used mnemosurgery to wipe the unwanted knowledge from Prowl's mind as well as any memory of the blackmail attempt. Remembrance Day
While on the Lost Light, Chromedome interfaced with Shock to extract the deceased Autobot's last memories of the Sparkeater. The Chaos of Warm Things Though he was increasingly experiencing false memory recall, he would go on to interface with a Titan beneath Crystal City, You, Me, and Other Revelations and at Skids's request, Chromedome unsuccessfully attempted to use mnemosurgery to unlock Skids's lost memories. Who's Afraid of the DJD?
Chromedome used his mnemosurgery skills on Overlord, whom had been smuggled on board the Lost Light for precisely that purpose. Chromedome succeeded in learning the secret of creating Phase Sixers, however Overlord's own mnemosurgery knowledge allowed the Decepticon to turn the tables, taking control of the procedure so he could learn the code to open the slow cell in which he'd been imprisoned. Remembrance Day Chromedome had, however, left a present in Overlord's mind, embedding a mnemonic through a process known as "Trepan's Trigger", that caused Overlord to panic when he heard the phrase "'Til all are one". The trigger allowed the Autobots to defeat Overlord. Under Cold Blue Stars
Chromedome subsequently intended to erase his own memories of Rewind, who had been one of the casualties of Overlord's rampage, however a final message from Rewind caused him to change his mind (or not change his mind, technically). The Gloaming In keeping with his love's last request, Chromedome vowed to never use his mnemosurgery skills again. The Becoming His vow lasted all of a few weeks, until Optimus suggested Chromedome use his skills on a restrained Megatron to corroborate his trial testimony. Megatron adamantly refused. World, Shut Your Mouth Part 1: Towards Peace
Six months later Rodimus "persuaded" Chromedome to perform surgery again on what appeared to be a duplicate of the Lost Light captain's body, unconcerned for Chromedome's worries that performing the surgery on a corpse would potentially kill him. World, Shut Your Mouth Part 3: Predestination: A Beginner's Guide
As a precaution to avoid changing the timeline after traveling into the past, Chromedome modified his mnemosurgery equipment to work through a simple handshake. The handshake would carry out a simple operation to wipe the other person's short-term memories. All Our Parlous Yesterdays
Getaway got his hands on a set of clip-on mnemosurgery needles and gifted them to Tailgate as part of their Conjunx Ritus. These needles were fakes, intended only to trigger violence from the mnemophobic Megatron. The Lopsided Triangle After the incident that resulted, Rodimus had Chromedome inject again to determine just what the heck had happened. Speak, Memory: Part 1
When "Team Rodimus" was stranded on Necroworld and laid siege to by the D.J.D., they wound up taking "the Pet", the killing crew's supposed domesticated turbofox, captive. Chromedome volunteered to probe the creature's memories so they could find the D.J.D.'s spaceship and escape. As he did, he found a horrific truth: The Pet was no such thing, but rather a lobotomized Dominus Ambus, Rewind's former lover. He began using his skills to reverse what had been done to Dominus, despite the risk to his own life and Rewind's horrified objections, feeling he was worth less to the archivist than Dominus. Rewind, feeling the call wasn't Chromedome's to make, then sliced off his lover's arm with one of Drift's swords, severing the connection and saving Chromedome at the cost of Dominus' life. The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day
The art of mnemosurgery survived on the colony world of Eukaris, with the Fateweaver Airachnid using it to attack members of the other tribes in her scientific attempts to expand her group's power. As a result of her deeds, she was banished from her homeworld. The Price of You When Eukaris made contact with Cybertron, Airachnid fell into Starscream's employ, using her talents to try and glean the location of Swindle's body. 07:00:00
When Swindle turned up as part of Bruticus, Airachnid seized on the opportunity to alter the memories of all five Combaticons to make them loyal to Starscream. The Price of You She later used her talents to bridge the minds of Starscream and Windblade so that the two jets could defeat Vigilem. Your First Mistake Starscream later confessed to the deeds he'd had Airachnid perform, resulting in her imprisonment. The Chosen One
Remote mnemosurgery
Remote mnemosurgery is the ability to perform mnemosurgery telepathically, without the spikes or indeed any kind of physical contact whatsoever. Sunder is the only mnemosurgeon known to possess this particular skill, having developed it somehow after his arrest. It may, in fact, be unique to him. Though he was convinced that performing remote mnemosurgery required him to make visual contact with his victims, this was evidently a ruse on Froid's part, who encouraged Sunder's delusion in order to keep him under control. Speak, Memory: Part 1
When his reign over the Lost Light began to falter, Getaway hired Sunder to remotely alter the crew's memories of the mutiny against Team Rodimus and more readily bring them under his control. Filling in the Blanks Journey's End Following Froid and Sunder's recruitment by the Grand Architect, Scorponok ordered the latter to use his powers to discover their master's identity. The attempt backfired, with the Architect managing to not only force Sunder out but strip him of all his mnemosurgeonic powers. Farsickness
Beast Wars: Uprising
A creepy mnemosurgeon called Vampire worked for the Predacon Secret Police. After Stiletto was left traumatized from killing her partner, the MCSF packed her off to the Mandala to have her memories altered by him. Burning Bridges
After "recruiting" Cryotek and his Minions of Unicron into the Darksyders, Megatron had Psychobat perform a little mnemosurgery on him to make sure he didn't get any "ideas". A short while later, Packrat noted Cryotek was acting a little off, but wasn't overly concerned. Not All Megatrons
Titans Return marketing material
The Titan Master Stylor granted whomever he partnered with the ability of mnemosurgery. Titans Return Stylor/Chromedome toy bio
