The Brain Control Bug from Starship Troopers 2 Explained | Parasitic Consumption of Neural Tissue

humans are by no means perfect between our constant infighting with one another our egos our almost complete domination of other animals on this planet it all really comes down to just how perfect we think we are and the organ that thinks it's perfect that's roughly around 1336 grams in total for males and 1 198 grams for females that pushes our species to act and conduct ourselves in a way that might not be conducive in the long run with this in mind the humans of the starship troopers universe are no different in respect to their ego coming across a species of bug almost an entire galaxy away from us humanity would start a war with these beasts under the assumption that they were just that beasts the ego the federation and its seemingly believing that it could not lose would kind of cause them to destroy their own city buenos aires under a false flag policy and then subsequently blame the arachnids for the attack despite any attack originating from the clendathu system requiring millions if not billions of years for an asteroid to reach earth knocked out of orbit around the planet just as much as humanity was studying the bugs and their attacks looking for weaknesses so too were the bugs studying humanity in this they were attempting to understand these invaders and what made them tick with the brain bugs all over the planet taking control of the ground forces humans then we brought back and had their brains sucked out it was assumed that this was really just to learn human movements and where to aim the plasma bugs but in reality they were diving deeper into the human psyche an idea began to form within the clindathu race with the humans seemingly showing up in droves with no end in sight the bugs would need to attack the source of their enemy to do this they would need to somehow get to the upper echelons of the federation which would take a considerable amount of subterfuge which no other bug would really be capable of considering they didn't have technology you know it's not like they could just go to earth and outright attack the homo sapiens with this consideration a new bug would be bread which would be smaller and would infest a human host upon doing so the body was robbed of its nervous system and then was taken out and replaced by the bug until the human became nothing but a puppet so in today's episode we will discuss this bug how it is able to do what it does and ultimately what were its plans for humanity and why the federation should be taking this bug problem very seriously almost to the point of probably needing to call a truce alright let's get to it so we all know what we're doing by now up on the screen you'll see a timestamp as well as you can just jump below to the description and you can go ahead if you've seen the movie and want to bypass a summary of this then i wouldn't blame you but it's not a bad movie but i suppose it could use some work for everyone else let's just talk about why you shouldn't ignore that scratching inside of your skull for too long we open up our story wanting to know more as a federation apparently has been emboldened by the success that they had on planet p capturing a brain bug and due to this they are looking for more heroes to send into the meat grinder the flag quickly shifts from a heroic saturated flag to one and tatters probably just saturated in blood a small group of soldiers has been stranded and surrounded by arachnids on a planet that may be clindathu but it's never actually explicitly stated armed with the newest technology of lasers rather than lead they're putting everything they have downrange on the arachnids but they outnumber them vastly as the attacks keep coming and the soldiers are being picked off a plan is devised to save at least some of them the general yells for the soldiers to make a run for an abandoned outpost half a kilometer away he and three soldiers will stay behind and keep the bugs occupied long enough for everyone to make their escape he puts lieutenant dil the psychic in charge of the soldiers and then sends them off the rest of soldiers then line up and push through the arachnids towards the base to which they find every step of the way they run into more and more of their enemy eventually however they're able to make it from the outside of the base as the storm rolls in the storm appears to be strong enough to actually pick soldiers up and fling them which to a few this would likely be their end as they are flung into the bug lines but this may have also helped them and kept the bugs slightly at bay due to the strong winds outside of the compound there is no electricity or evidence of human life except for maybe a skeleton located outside that's stuck in a crawling position which uh not really sure how it maintained that position it's sort of like that uh that part in doom where the mother was shielding her baby from something but it's like okay but why is the skeleton still stuck in that position it needs like muscles and ligaments and anyways we're kind of getting off topic arriving at the base they immediately take positions with the lieutenant spreading the forces too thin and then he takes three of the soldiers to protect himself while the attack commences he's not able to give orders as he's assaulted with visions of humanity crumbling being overwhelmed by some form of bug this incapacitates him through the fight as soldiers are then picked up and torn apart all in all he would lose about 5 of his soldiers in his command while the attack was just the beginning moving into the compound they find the power is out as mentioned previously but also the radio equipment has been completely wrecked because of this even with the power turned on they can't really call for help despite this lieutenant dill still calls for power to be turned back on first and foremost eventually they are able to get the power back on just after finding a captain stuck in a furnace with the words murderer written across the entrance to it he had apparently taken out his colonel with his bare hands after the orders were given that led to demise of many of his soldiers to which he didn't take too kindly to that as the battle continues out front it's clear the soldiers are about to be overwhelmed sahara quickly runs back inside and grabs the captain's hand oh and if you didn't know about this series psychics are actually a huge thing in it just so you know i know i mentioned the lieutenant earlier anyways having once upon a time been a psychic herself but then lost control of that ability after puberty she can sometimes regain control of it after determining that the captain is not a bad guy she releases him to which he picks up his gear and then activates the base's defenses this defense sends out what appears to possibly be either phosphorus or magnesium countermeasures that are capable of burning anything near it and searing it alive the base's defenses obliterate the arachnids in the immediate area and then drive them back looking at the carcasses the captain ends up taking control and then heading out to check the perimeter fences installed around the entire base are lines of electrical countermeasures that are capable of completely electrifying and frying the bugs talk about a shocking experience as they fix the fence the general and the three others come running up with the arachnids on their tail as they do this they get the fence working just in time to fry an arachnid and then show the other ones what will happen everyone was kind of hoping that the three soldiers with the general were from the original group but it is a completely new set of soldiers that just happened to find the general yes very strange moving into the base the general talks about losing the soldiers but introduces the new soldiers as joe griff airy peck and the knocked out chick is private soda they talk about how she hasn't really slept so that's basically why she's borderline unconscious right now because that's what people do the general then puts peck in charge of fixing the radio to call home but things appear to be a little nefarious with peck the journal then turns to dill and tells him to fill out a report on why he lost so many troopers today dill is a little upset by this and then takes his frustration out on sahara and then belittles her psychic ability saying that this happens at puberty to women the captain then chews out dill for being a poor leader to which dill says that he will see him hanged for treason in the kitchen the sergeant finds beef sticks whereas griff starts eating sugar cubes showing that something might be mildly off with these new soldiers that have joined their ranks after a few hours private soda then finally wakes back up ready to rock back at the door they get to working but inadvertently run over the cables on the door track kind of spot welding them to the frame but this also knocks out the power the soldiers quickly grab their gear and immediately the captain begins directing them on where to go luckily they are able to get the power back on thanks to peck which means the fences are then activated however the captain showed his skill in commanding so the general restores dax's rank for the time being but still knows that he will be hanged while dax is off duty private soda then attempts to seduce him but fails miserably and instead she ends up doing 200 push-ups that said she doesn't stop she goes and wakes up sahara buck-ass nude as two other soldiers begin walking in and ask if they can play too i definitely felt that my guys regardless one soldier ends up actually getting seduced by soda this would prove to be a bad thing who would have guessed she slides something into his mouth that we can't see but we know what it is sandy then arrives to find her boyfriend making out with soda so she's a little upsetting spaghetti about it and griff makes his move he heads out and seduces sandy and presumably infects her after a kiss as well however just prior his fingertips are blackened by what we can see and he says it was a muzzle burn but really i'm gonna go ahead and tell you that looks a lot like necrosis the next morning everyone seems a lot better than the night before with sandy and griff kind of being a couple and horton and soda being a couple and like i said they seem completely fine with one another despite sandy and horton split yes this is what humans do we get over really complicated relationships really fast sahara then questions the captain about what happened and why he was out there after a short exchange of words that weren't really too helpful except for dax saying that he would probably have to end up wearing sahara's tags if he keeps talking her we cut to later that night griff approaches a soldier and then relieves him of duty and as he walks by peck asks if he could have some help in the comms room as he does he slides back into an isolated area and then peck attacks him his eyes have turned completely red but he also seems to be falling apart his fingers fall off and he's able to rip off an arm completely peck then puts a bug into him and knocks him out after they start up comms they let everyone know that they can now call for help they do eventually make contact with the fly boys and the general has to request a pickup of wounded first and then them second they are now able to shut the door as well and outside of the compound five of the soldiers draw a star on the ground and they appear to be plotting sahara sees this in her dream and then wakes up and pukes griffin enters the food line and sahara accidentally touches his hand and as she does this she has a vision of what he is and how he's not human she confronts her sergeant about it to which the sarge says it's probably because she's pregnant and that's why she thinks she knows everything about everything now we actually start to get into like the good stuff after peck's arm removal he was hidden in a locker billy and another soldier are in the barracks when griff shows up with peck griff then removes what's left of his skull and pulls out a bug and throws it in shutting the door the bug is smashed but then it releases a ton of smaller bugs and this infects both soldiers and changes them saharan dax go to the lieutenant to talk about what sahara saw she mentions that she's pregnant which spooks the lieutenant because apparently pregnancy heightens the ability of psychics and can actually restore those abilities if you had it previously dil mentions how he has been seeing the bugs are coming to wipe them all out in a different way dax and dill then put aside their differences and dill heads off to talk to the general when he gets in there though he finds that soda has already seduced the general and infected him and as a result the general is now under their control the rest of the infected then show up in corner dill but he's somehow able to just move around them which i found kind of strange and then he just begins talking like mad smack about how he knows what they are and how they will cut them up and while he's monologuing he doesn't watch his back billy comes in and then slices open his neck leaving the knife that actually belonged to dax so dax is arrested by the sergeant as he was framed the moral of that story is uh don't monologue if your back is not against the wall so in a kangaroo court hearing the captain is then locked up and then sahara just happens to be alone with all the infected billy takes sahara into a room but interestingly he is still somewhat in control the sergeant comes in and finds billy acting very strangely trying to make babies with the door and he mentions how he can feel himself drifting away she says that you're not making any sense and then the group attacks the sergeant and she puts up a fight all right matt uh go ahead and just show the windmilling in slow motion what kind of fighting style is this i have never seen anything more hilarious in my life i remember i watched this and i busted out laughing because it was just like what are you doing anyways they're able to infect her and sahara is basically now cornered however the sergeant isn't going down without a fight sahara goes on the attack with billy while the sergeant grabs the adrenaline and injects herself with probably a borderline lethal dose to keep herself from being knocked out by the bug she takes out sandy with a frying pan to the head and then completely butchers horton with a few knives as the bug tries to escape his head she puts it in the microwave then blows the bug up meanwhile sahara continues to fight billy and eventually is able to pull his handheld and finish him off with the bug jumping out the sergeant then goes to free the captain who is currently being cornered by one of the bugs trying to enter his mouth sergeant then takes herself out saying that the bug is inside her and the new hole in her head frees the bug as it slithers out sahara then grabs it and uses her psychic abilities to figure out what it's doing and what it wants the bugs infected the general to get the new brain bug into the upper powers of the federation as they try to get to the general they end up running into the remaining infected they lock soda in a room with a phosphorus grenade and she actually lives a long time despite being completely burned in fact she is still screaming way longer than what humans would possibly be capable of surviving then again she's being puppeted so it's not like the body really cares they then run into sandy who's holding some grenades and she detonates them taking herself out they enter the main room and find the rest of the infected the general begins talking about the insanity of humanity which honestly i'm not gonna disagree humans are pretty insane we're like a bunch of hyper-intelligent anxiety-ridden apes but he starts talking about how we think we are special and great and by bug standards we are born absolutely insane and that such misery cannot be allowed to spread a firefight then breaks out and the captain is able to subdue two of the infected griff then opens the door letting in an arachnid which backfires as it stabs him through the head taking him out and destroying the brain bug he had sahara then chases the general up to the roof and discovers that they are absolutely surrounded by the arachnids and that they are climbing up the base sahara fights the general but as he is pitting her down a bewildered crew shows up to save them before the general can get on the captain then takes him out and stays behind to go out guns blazing saying murders don't go home he says that she needs to warn the federation and that her safety is paramount so now that we know more the propaganda begins coming out dax is misquoted as saying don't shed a tear for me my glory lives forever sahara then leaves the recruiting office quickly after the recruiter makes a mention of how they need more meat for the grinder so raise your son fast presumably at this point humanity has become aware of these new type of brain bugs and will likely be able to counter them in the future based on the information gained from that outpost alright so first things first what is this bug and what does it do exactly well this miniature brain bug simply takes the host body and then pilots it for its own means judging by the necrosis that we see on the fingers and of the people already taken over the body itself is actually slowly succumbing to the bug but interestingly the fingertips are the first to go so what exactly biologically is happening within this meat suit well to understand that first we must understand the bug itself it's clear that there are very different stages in the life cycle of these bugs as we have seen with peck after his severe degradation the bug that was growing inside of him was large enough to completely encompass the interior of his skull and likely ran all the way down to the lumbar where the spine was previously and i say previously because likely the entire vertebral column is gone as we will discuss later so the early stages of a smaller bug this is able to basically crawl into the mouth of humans and then quickly knock them out as a result so how exactly does it accomplish this to me there's nothing more than just a shock to the system as the bug enters the mouth of a person it has easy access as only a small amount of tissue in the back of the throat separates the spinal cord from the opening of the esophagus when the bug enters this area this is why we can see them bleeding almost immediately as it works its way through the spine and presumably would be slicing and assimilating the body's networking cells when private soda was already unconscious it uses this downtime in humans to completely take over the body of the person quickly but what's more interesting is that it's still bridging the gap between brain and body however it's not long that the brain is really in control but instead the bug is in control so signals can be sent from the brain but they aren't really to control the body so to speak it's really more just to supply information to the bug eventually as the bug grows the brainstem will be devoured along with the spine in general as this creature advances in size it would move its way down into the spinal cord all the way to the lumbar area where things will start to change specific to this location we know the bug itself will serve as the new spinal cord actually being roughly about the size of our spines from brain stem to lower lumbar which will hold the body upright and keep the person looking somewhat human down at the base young will be created for further infections and presumably they would start to either use the intestines as a food source or much like that of a tapeworm and allow it to remain in its normal operation form this is why we see soldiers eating sugar cubes they aren't just putting sugar cubes in their body for simple diffusion but the intestines are still somewhat operational all the way down to the small intestine and then likely somewhere along that line the young formed around the lumbar spine will latch onto this area and begin to grow themselves and eat this food the reason i believe this is to be the case is predicated on a few things happening within the body and context clues contained within we can assume that due to the size of the bug we can see kind of come out of peck's head that he is likely one of the first that was infected with this bug since it appears to be the furthest along but by the end of this misadventure his body is so degraded and falling apart he would have long since expired if his body was still technically alive so in fact a case could be made that really the body is already dead it's just being brute force piloted by the bug who at this point may just be pulling on specific ligaments or tendons to move it whereas say takes someone like griff he's not that far along however from what we see with his hands he is beginning to show signs that his body is reaching its maximum potential what i believe to be happening here is first the brainstem is completely destroyed with the brainstem destroyed autonomic functions such as breathing heartbeat and most importantly blood pressure and also digestion become completely stagnant the bug would likely continue to keep the heart beating and the oxygen flowing into the body to prevent necrosis from moving in but due to this neglect over a long time the body would start to die off and i do break away you can actually snap your neck and survive because the heart will still beat so it doesn't always need the brain stem but a lot of times if you do snap your neck and that connection is severed from the brain stem you will meet your end anyhow in the fingers i believe it's pretty clear to all of us the blood flow has ceased which is not all that uncommon simple things like blood pressure nutrient levels temperature all this can cause those small blood vessels of the fingers to sort of close off or not receive enough blood in general to keep the cells alive with the brain stem no longer regulating blood pressure in response to changes in chemical nature of the body the extremities concerning fingers and toes would be the first to ultimately die off even though the body is still technically alive this is sort of like why you can get frostbite and still survive but essentially the body is no longer adapting to its surroundings likely blood pressure in the body is so low that as they continue to remain in these conditions everyone would end up like peck as the infection continues another hit comes in the form of nutrient denial without the intake of proteins fats carbohydrates etc the body would have some serious issues beginning to mount and you or i who actually control our meat suits this would be extreme hunger and likely thirst and those infected however because they are no longer listening to their own indicators the body would be starving infected soldiers have been shown to eat sugar cubes but this isn't so much to nourish their bodies or anything but really just nourish the creature who replace the spine and really just put more simple sugars into the organs so it allows accessible nutrients to the growing parasites below and this would be likely the most possible scenario considering that the brainstem is responsible for regulating digestion as well and it is no longer there to do so so these first symptoms apply to griff and soda but not so much peck as he's farther along what i find interesting however is just after infection what seems to happen to people i mentioned earlier that the person is still communicating with their body either through a damaged spinal cord or through the bug bridging that gap this may take some time to carry out however as we have seen with the sergeant with the sergeant she is able to overcome the knockout associated with the shock of her having her spinal cord being tapped into by injecting herself with likely a lethal dose of adrenaline this affords her control over her own meat suit while the bug takes over which gives her just enough time to do some major damage to the bug's plans but even waking back up the person isn't necessarily gone entirely when sahara was talking with billy after only a few homegrown humans were left he mentions how things are better if you just don't fight but that he could feel himself slipping away somehow this would imply that the brain is experiencing a few things first the subduing of things like anxiety considering a bug is currently snacking on your nervous system would mean that the body's neurochemicals are either being flooded by something else or not firing correctly would imagine personally the neurochemicals released by the bug would calm the host so that it is allowed to grow and continue to absorb the host's personality as well as knowledge and basically their essence because if the host is panicking it might take itself out of the game just like the sergeant did another thing is likely that the brain is being consumed from the base up judging by the bug's size the interesting part about this is all the autonomic functions will be destroyed by the bug and higher thought would still be available but the they would still be subject to these failing systems again these show sort of why the body is degrading quickly as areas are hit first that are actually keeping you alive this leaves a certain amount of time however where the person is still there and able to communicate but it is still absolutely muddled by the creatures influencing the nervous system this may explain why humans are not necessarily warning others about their infections when they first wake up the brain is still there but with only like the cerebrum and possibly upper portions left this would cause the person to basically be completely subjected to the will of the bug eventually however it is lights out as we have seen the latest and final stage is complete degradation of the body as seen with peck at first he looked relatively okay apart from his tics that he seemingly had although this was likely the original brain at work which again suggests possibly the brains are viable for a while and perhaps mannerisms are adopted by the invasive parasite but eventually as seen when he's working on the radio his fingers come off easily as well as his entire arm we can see getting a close look at his eyes at this point they are blood red so likely the brain is gone and instead the optic nerves are reporting directly to the bug his eyes may have actually been blood red though for a variety of reasons but likely with the blood pressure fluctuation issues the fine blood vessels and the eyes likely burst from either the pressure or the intrusion of the bug into the cerebrum pulling on the optic nerve but it's not quite clear that said this would cause blood to leak into the vitreous fluid of the eyes and then pass the lens staining the iris red but as the bug continues to consume the brain it would appear that everything the brain once was becomes how the bug operates this will likely denote that actually this bug is really related to the brain bug and how it's able to interpret neural impulses and understand the knowledge from it so taking some consideration for what the brain bug coming out of the sergeant head looks like when she takes herself out my best guess is this is a larval stage and while it is able to produce as it gets older it may just yield brain bugs in general further down its lifespan but with these connections understood and made the implications for the human race would be quite alarming obviously they could not only conquer the upper echelons of power but taking over entire wings of the military operating the bodies which they've really shown the ability to do would mean that essentially the human race should take a step back from this one and regroup because the bugs have much more capability of going on the offensive i would want to point out one thing however before we wrap this video up i did notice that the arachnids actually on many different occasions have been seen inadvertently attacking their own puppeted bodies such as when they were chasing down the general and the three already infected the arachnids may not be privy to these new bugs being formed and instead they just see human or they can't sense the bug inside of it but hopefully we'll get more information on that and i'm looking forward to starship troopers 3 and i'm certain this one won't be a flaming turd

Channel: Roanoke Gaming

Views: 996,205

Keywords: Starship troopers, Starship troopers 2, Star ship troopers, Star ship troopers 2, Star ship troopers brain bug scene, Star ship troopers control bugs, Starship troopers invasion, Starship troopers klendathu drop, Roanoke Gaming, Starship troopers 2 explained, Starship troopers explained, Star ship troopers 2 soda, Starship troopers 2 peck, Star ship troopers ending, starship troopers 2 ending, Starship troopers arachnids explored, Starship troopers 2 arachnids, Klendathu

Id: a82LB_cE1lY

Length: 22min 45sec (1365 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021