Re: Atlantis
Siphon was silent for a long moment, imagining the entire thing in his own mind, wincing as he realized the origins of the gou'ald had probably been very similar. Deciding that was something not appropriate to bring up here and now, he went back to thinking of how to respond to her.
"And now you know why the Tokra refuse to be with an unwilling host. The draw of having that kind of ability to ... completely suppress a host's own mind and use it against those they held dear can be very tempting to those with their own agenda. My own symbiote is an artificial life form as well, although he doesn't resemble anything physically like you described. His species, the Cral'nek as they wish to be called, they started as a medical experiment to supplement technology long ago. At some stage, they developed their own intelligence, and ultimately came to be recognized as a new species of intelligent life. I can see where the similarities, and the way Nirrti was, would remind you of these Nomads."
He paused, giving her request some thought. Finally he shrugged.
"To be honest with you, outside of offering everything my people have on the Tokra, the current governing Gou'ald systems and everything regarding myself, I'm not sure there is anything that I can do to prove to you I'm not a threat to you. I would offer you to peer into my mind if that were even possible, but my guess is that these Nomads probably possessed the ability to fool even a telepathic interrogation. Even if not, my mind is probably the last place right now you want to be in. With everything happening today it's been a mess, and meeting you ..."
Again, he trailed off, the woman perhaps getting the hint that something was bothering him. It took a moment before he finally continued onward.
"When you saw that flashback, and we had our brief communication, I told you there were other reasons for it being as strong an ability. Linking to your own mind ... it brought back memories I thought I had put behind me. My former wife ... I don't know if you've ever met an Asari, but she ... she and I shared a very strong telepathic link with one another, so strong that under normal conditions we could sense when the other was injured, even if they were dying. Some time ago we were part of an experiment for a new type of FTL drive. It was supposed to be a form of wormhole drive. The drive seemed functional, all of our simulations projected it to be a success, all that was left was a live test over a short distance. I had my ship at the starting point, with another of our ships several hundred light years at the target end point. Everything powered up the way it should, all in the green. The second her ship touched the event horizon ..."
For a brief moment there was a haunted look to his eyes, the subject still being touchy for him, but a moment later it was replaced with a determined look.
"Instantly vaporized, nothing left. No blast of pain from her death, just the link was suddenly terminated. The link between us was so strong and always active, when it cut off like that ... It damn near killed me. To be honest with you, I suspect the only reason I survived was because of Talvesh, because of that second mind being able to process and absorb some of the shock. Think of it this way, imagine being telepathically linked to someones mind, sharing minds even. Now you're doing whatever, sifting through their thoughts maybe, and suddenly someone kills the person you're linked to, while you're still connected. There's no time to put up mental barriers, no time to withdraw from their mind, you just suddenly are forcibly disconnected from them. I've seen similar things where someone was ripped from a telepathic trance with another person. None of them survived it, except me. Hard as it is to admit this, it hasn't been that the ability has faded without her, but more that ... I've been too afraid to use it even to communicate without words with those capable of it. Physically, I'm normal again. Mentally, I have no idea what kind of damage it did to me, if any. When you saw that projection earlier, I was hesitant to communicate telepathically with you even in a limited form. My fear was that it would harm you somehow being connected to me even for a moment, but I couldn't let it go without explanation. I would have explained it sooner, but we did have more pressing matters at the time, I hope you can understand the need to wait on that."