EnigmaBrainChipInfo

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This a post I posted on the [Buffy Cross and Stake] Spoiler Board at the request of Kuz. There was a conversation about Spike's chip malfunctioning and she asked if I would provide some insight since I do make neural probes (which is basically what Spike's chip has to be).
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A little real world perspective.

Why real world? Because chips are made to be put in brains. Don't know of any that are as sophisticated as Spike's chip and don't know of any research being done in ones for behavior modification. There are ones being made to help with hearing loss, Parkinson's, and other neurological disorders. There are chips (or probes with chips on one end and stimulation sites on the other) that are implanted into research animals and used to stimulate (or just record) neurons. So far these chips protrude out of the brain to receive their power and input. Work is being done to develop small high power long-term rechargeable batteries that can keep the chip running indefinitely. Also they are working on making very small high frequency resonators so all outside communication with the chip can be done on RF (radio frequency).

The end result, a chip sort of like Spike's. Different job, but it is stuck in the brain with no outside indication that it exists. The point of all this background, there are a few ways Spike's chip could fail.

1. Run out of power.

One of the problems is developing a chip that draws a small amount of power. Then next one is finding/developing a battery that can supply power indefinitely. Currently finding one that can power a hearing implant most of the day and only needs recharging while sleeping is a challenge.

The makers of Spike's chip might be able to get around this one by having the more power consuming parts of Spikes chip such as the stimulation part that causes him to go "ouch", or the part that process good guy/bad guy (and I really want to know how that part works) to kick in when he thinks about doing violence. But since violence seems to be a regular part of Spike's thought process I would assume that the chip would be on quite often (interestingly it doesn't appear to go off in dreams so he can hit humans there. I guess this implies that he uses a different part of his brain to do harm in dreams or the chip is smart enough to tell the difference).

Point of this section, the power supply to Spike's chip is going to run out someday. Now maybe he will be conditioned by then into not being able to hit humans.

2. Shorting out.

The power supply should be constant and the chip shouldn't die from a sudden power overload. Without outside help there is no way to get more power to the chip. Now, if you stick Spike's finger in a socket or set him in a puddle of water with a live wire, you might be able to destroy the power lines on the chip. Would this damage the brain? In a normal human, yes (they would be dead in scenario number 2, duh), but since this is Joss's vampire world you would have to ask him.

3. Severe beating.

A blow to the head might be able to do some damage. If it is a solid state chip with no wire bonding this would be much harder.

4. Time (not just running out of power).

There has to be some sort of packaging on this chip (something to protect the circuitry from the stuff in the brain). The human body is not nice to foreign particles and is very corrosive. More than likely the body will eventually break down the packaging. Depending on the packaging this could take a long, long time.

In short, it is highly unlikely Spike's chip is infallible. Will Spike know right away when his chip fails? Probably not, I bet he gets trained into "ouch" (we have seen signs of this in "Doomed") before it fails.

But one-thing rules above all I have said. This is Joss's world and the chances he has considered what I have just mentioned or even has inkling about this is unlikely. When Buffy stumbles into the world of technology my suspension of belief bungie cords have to be renewed very regularly.

Note [this was a later addendum to the original piece]: I have to add the qualifier "this assumes Spike's chip is based in solid state electronics or other electrically based technologies."

Lets just say mini robots that go in your body and deliver drugs to the specific location that needs them (i.e. cancer tumors) are a lot closer than many people realize but they don't look anything like a mini sub (big surprise). If the technologies they used to do that is what Spike's chip is, I offically declare that I know nothing (or next to nothing) but in many ways that would be a good explanation for Spike's chip and how it knows when to cause pain and how it causes pain, but it would totally invalidate what Dru said about it [in "Crush"], because there would be no electronics involved.

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