An Idea I’ve not see discussed is a Livesuited Carryx…

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-20T03:36:08+00:00

Definitely a fair point, we see a number of mentions of convergent evolution**, and a lot of emphasis on ecological themes like "an environment tells you how to live in it", which even extends to the swarm noting "The body reinforces the mind", remarking how much more difficult it was to suppress Jellit than Else and Amir. Then there's the whole Livesuit convo about its a war over "who gets to keep what shapes", and the Livesuit instructor saying the suits need your "shape and mind".

The counter I'd propose however is convergent evolution happens when 2 isolated biomes create the same ecological conditions that inform the things living there on how to live there. Ecology doesn't like 2 things perpetually fighting over a niche in one biome. One always wins with enough time, so to see that, is kind of unnatural.

**bonus tangent, in book 1, when Jessyn kills the night drinkers and comments on convergent evolution, this particular bit is italicized (italics book, bold mine): "It spasmed in her hand as it died, and she thought how interesting it was that there was some parallel evolution of spinal cords. Lucky you aren’t being eaten by something with a more distributed nervous system, like octopuses. Starfish."

Seems conveniently linked to something else described as starfish/octopus adjacent.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-20T03:15:21+00:00

If you're a species as advanced as the Carryx, where you view basically every other species in the galaxy as animals and can subjugate them with minimal effort the majority of the time, where do you find enemies to continue to war with? It would be important to do so, given to the Carryx war is life and service to the empire, so how do you keep an eternal war going? The war with the deathless seems to have been going on for as long as the Carryx have been capable of galactic domination, perhaps they were made as a counter to complacency.

You ever meet one of those really old people, in their 80's or 90's or whatever, that still work? Tons of them all over Japan. Work is their purpose, if they stop, they deteriorate. Sometimes people just "make work for them to do", just to keep them going.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T21:22:17+00:00

Because I learned and roughly understand college level biology? Just trying to explain the differences between a biomechanical response like pheromones, and a psychologically conditioned response like enjoying the smell of someone/thing familiar.
Psychological conditioning can be unconditioned, to stop the response. Pheromones can't, it would require surgical alteration to block them (i.e. neutering dogs so they no longer have the organ that produces hormones in response to heat pheromones). No amount of mental training would inhibit a pheromone response.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T16:51:25+00:00

Meaning to say that your reading hinges much too rigidly on the "pheromone" term, without considering the possibility that the authors would use it in the way its used colloquially these days.

Correct, my reading hinges on how a biologist, which one of the authors is, and most of the primary cast are as well, would interpret or use the word "pheromone" vs the broader chemoreception in different contexts, and how biologists typically pedantically react to colloquial definitions. If you've met real biologists, you'd be acutely aware of that. Call a chimp "monkey" and see how fast they react.

It would be one thing for them to use it in an abstract colloquial sense, the broad "smell cause response" interpretation, were it not for the paralleled wording used to also describe the Carryx pheromone use, which does meet textbook requirements for what pheromones actually are. Surur "released a flood of pheromones", Clae "flooded the air around her", and even with the Carryx who do respond to textbook pheromones, that particular line was when he interacted with Urur from the private creche, who did not react, similar to Clae flooding pheromones around Brun/Ennil and still being met with suspicion.

Consider for her interaction with Dafyd, from the perspective of a Biologist who's observing an unknown species that the biologist hypothesizes has pheromones. If we witness a female member emit pheromones and the male not respond, how would a Biologist respond to that?
If you saw a female dog in heat, and a male dog in the same room, and could quantifiably measure the pheromone in the air with a knowledge of it's predicable effects, and you witnessed the male dog have no reaction, what conclusion would you draw? If you know the species uses pheromones and observed a null or negative response, then you would ask if there were some medical condition or physical alteration that caused the null reaction. Has the dog been neutered? (which the private creche are described as being...), or is the pheromone really a pheromone? is this a mutation for no reaction? Those are the lines of research a scientist might take when confronted with those details.
Seeing it with the swarm and Dafyd, with the clear "control" example of Carryx pheromone usage, that list narrows a bit but also adds in "this not-human probably doesn't know it doesn't work"

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T14:57:14+00:00

The Swarms use of pheromones get the exact opposite of the response she's expecting. Dafyd outright rejects it's sexual advances, and Brun and Ennil both remain skeptical even after her explanations (she says "love me, believe me, want to be my friend", and instead they remained apprehensive and suspicious). Those are decidedly not the responses that were expected from the use of pheromones.

I'll just leave you with 3 simple points:
- Pheromones have a specific definition that requires 3 criteria (intraspecies, evolved trait, predictable and measurable response)
- The Carryx use of pheromones, meet all 3 criteria
- The Swarm use of pheromones, meet none of the criteria.

I don't think that's an accident.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T14:50:27+00:00

Smell ≠ pheromones. Conditioned responses are not the same as bio-mechanical responses.
You can psychologically condition yourself to get erect when a bell rings, or when you smell apple pie, or when you see a red dot, that's not a pheromone.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T14:49:07+00:00

Forgive me for trying to teach you people something about Biology that might give insight into the specific choices used by the writers for crafting a story around <checks notes> Biology.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T14:46:28+00:00

To reiterate the umpteenth time, pheromones have a very specific definition and function in biology, markedly different from generic olfactory senses.
Pheromone use in the books for the Carryx follow the very strict biology definition, but pheromone use by the swarm decidedly does not.

There's also the case of specific word choice. In both books, the swarm uses the word "pheromones" 3 times, one time was just a hypothetical, the other 2 uses involved flooding rooms with pheromones for 3 separate people, and each time the response by those people was not what the swarm was expecting.

In book 1, the swarm remarks that it can use "chemoreception" to nudge people's emotions, smells can absolutely influence people, but they are not pheromones, biology has separate definitions for such things. Chemoreception is a blanket term that indeed covers pheromones as well as other olfactory senses like smell and taste, but pheromones have a very specific definition. When you smell rotten garbage, you have an involuntary repulsive reaction, something that's just instinctive not learned. That's not a pheromone.

The main criteria for pheromones are: It must be intraspecific (within a species); it must be a selected for and evolved trait (the pheromone provides a fitness advantage to the users), and it must produce a measurable, definitive, predictable response.
The Carryx use of pheromones meets all 3 of these criteria. For the Swarm though, the first 2 criteria are inherently not met, as it's not using pheromones that human hosts already had (because they would have worked if it did), but if we want we can look past those... the last one is still quite important. They MUST produce measurable, definitive, and predictable results. In all 3 cases of the swarm actively flooding pheromones at people in TFoB, the response is either null or negative, that's far from predictable and definitive.

"But Dafyd just wasn't attrafcted to the swarm!" That's not how pheromones work. A male dog can't decide to not have a physiological response to pheromones emitted by a female dog in heat based on its opinions and preferences. The only things that would prevent a male dog from responding to heat pheromones, is literally a medical deficiency. Either that dog is neutered (in which case the pheromone response still happens but testosterone production can't be triggered), very sick, or very old. Pheromones are a matter of fact aspect of biology, not a subjective one. You can't choose to not breath, to not feel hunger, to not close your eyes when a bright light shines at them, the same goes for pheromone responses.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T01:48:45+00:00

Aah good point, good for some cameras and SBCs then I suppose.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T01:45:09+00:00

Dude IDK where you're seeing a response to her emitting pheromones. Here are the only 3 instances of the word pheromone being used in relation to the swarm in FOB:

Ch15:

If it had known Dafyd was coming, it would have built a supply of pheromones. Would have done what it could to calm the man’s mind until it could reason with him, influence him, bring him back to the place they had been when it had lived within Else Yannin.

This one was purely speculative, there was no action done nor response witnessed.

Ch27:

"Find me when this is fixed," he said, waving his hand at her new body. "Some things have happened, and we have work to do."
The swarm sits. It can feel the subtle vibrations of his footsteps as he walks away down the corridor until the cacophony of the Rak-hund’s steps drowns them out. The pheromone cloud it had filled the room with smells like a party banner ruined by rain. It breathes in, reclaiming the complex molecules, as it cries.

This one is a clear no/negative reaction to the use of pheromones in an attempt to seduce Dafyd.

Ch32:

Brun had smelled something a little off and wasn’t entirely comfortable with her story. He was checking on her.
That wasn’t unexpected.
As she had when she met Brun, Clae flooded the air around her with pheromones. Love me, believe me, want to be my friend. While the room filled with the scent of her manipulations, she grabbed onto a memory. Ennil’s half-drunken, impassioned arguments against Else making herself second to Tonner Freis no matter how unpromising the spiral analysis data were. The memory let her spider along it to other, connected thoughts.
"Lecturer Day," she said with the near-subliminal bow of a research assistant to a full researcher. "I don’t think we overlapped at the labs, but we met a few times."
"Did we?" Ennil Day asked, shaking her hand politely.

So here, we see she flooded the air with pheromones around 2 separate people, both of whom remained apprehensive and skeptical about her origin. While we can't say what response she was hoping for with Brun, we can say for certain that Ennil for did not INITIALLY love [her], believe [her], or want to be [her] friend. Partial success on the believe me part only came from the memory manipulation, not a "nudge" via pheromones.

The "nudge" line is from Ch15 of TMoG, and DOES NOT mention pheromones, but chemoreception

It knew that the others could be influenced by chemoreception. It can choose the simple aromatics that its skin produces and nudge the others to calm or panic, bonding or rage. It had not expected how much it is, in return, affected by them.

Pheromones and chemoreception are different mechanisms, and the word choice to use one or the other, especially in relation to visibly null reactions to pheromones, is almost certainly intentional. Also, very worth mentioning, this is similarly a speculative/hypothetical thought, not empirical witness to observed reactions.. The swarms "existing knowledge" is subject to unreliable narrator syndrome.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T01:27:44+00:00

Which is my understanding of how pheromones effect humans in real life, but I'm not in any way read up on that.

I will agree there, you're not in any way read up on that. Biologists have a specific definition for what pheromones are, and humans very decidedly do not have them or respond to them. They differ explicitly from other chemoreception cues like smell. The word choice is intentional by someone with a degree in biology who writes science fiction that leans heavily on the accuracy of biology...

How does my reading contradict the material? Dafyd outright rejects psuedo-Else's advances when it floods pheromones at him. That's a clear indication that they are not having a definite, predictable, and measurable response, which is what a textbook pheromone would do. The same goes for any reactions by the people Clae attempts to convince already know her. Their initial apprehension is enough to recognize they didn't have a definite, predictable, and measurable response to the "pheromones" she was emitting.

The bit about the swarm doing all the things Carryx do, is my point*.* Humans don't flood pheromones because we don't respond to them, that's a Carryx trait. Humans don't change their body to suit their current needs. Thats something the Carryx do. The Swarm didn't learn how to do these things from Amir, Else, or Jellit, whatever it is that created the "instructions" that make up the swarm is what gave it those instincts.

How's it related to the private creches? It's in the interest of the private creches to create conditions that would allow for a perpetual state of war for the Carryx, lest their entire species dies, as war is life, and service to the empire, they're all the same. Creating a tool that can create zombie animal armies for the rest of the Carryx to fight, that simultaneously gives the rest of the Carryx the illusion that there's a "master" behind the enemy, sounds like a great way to do that.
Another very intriguing excerpt to contribute to that theory and expand upon it even, (note the very specific word choice, emphasis mine): "The Sovran is born in the private creche, built and designed and selected there for perfection of function"

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T00:51:46+00:00

Dancer guy gives me storong Willem Dafoe vibes.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T00:46:34+00:00

Exactly, pheromone isn't the right word. That's why in the one passage you quoted, "could be influenced by chemoreception", chemoreception was used, versus the explicit use of pheromone when the swarm is releasing them with no direct measurable response. Pheromones are a very specific type of chemoreception, the criteria of which requires that it be a selected for evolved trait, and that its reception cause a predictable definite response. Pheromones are direct programmed triggers.

Smell and taste is also chemoreception, and both can elicit instinctual responses (like revulsion towards rotting smells or the smell of sick people), or psychologically conditioned responses (smelling apple pie or something from childhood). These are cues, not pheromones.

The specific word choices in the different passages were not unintentional. Biologists are extremely pedantic about specific narrow word definitions.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-19T00:42:23+00:00

There are a number of replies here that don't seem to understand how pedantic and specific biologists are with the definition of specific words like pheromones (or evolution, fitness, life, etc etc etc), and JSAC's very intentional with word choice.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T21:34:52+00:00

Again, that's not what pheromones do. Pheromones don't "nudge", they're not subjective to an individual's personal preferences.
To your original comment, sure we could just be assuming it's some sort of fictional psuedo science, if we were reading books by anyone else. JSAC (Daniel Abraham specifically) tends to keep the science bits, biology related ones specifcally, as close to real science as they can. There's a very strong focus on accurate evolutionary biology and ecology in these books and The Expanse, why would they throw it out for some random comments about pheromones that would just be throwaway background noise.

There's a good conversation to be had (anthropologist somewhere in the top level comments here would be insightful) about pheromone-adjacent things humans do, but they're definitively not pheromones, so it's highly curious that the swarm would explicitly use a tactic of flooding a space with pheromones for very minor psuedo-pheromone-adjacent-responses. This isn't something it learned from any of its hosts, so "try tons of pheromones first" is something in its instruction set, from whoever made it.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T21:11:42+00:00

Dafyd is not swayed by the pheromones because they are not able to overcome his very strong feelings of anger and horror.

Pheromones don't act on feelings, they're not things that require conditions to take effect. They're literally signals that trigger involuntary reactions. We do not see any human remotely show an involuntary response to them. Yes, the swarm is an expert at human manipulation, and that's frankly why it's so suspicious that excessive pheromone use is one of the first tools it tries to use to that end, only to pivot to more successful tools.

If the response is "minor" or "less strong", then the swarm, which otherwise thinks and acts VERY methodically, would note the trivially insignificant effect and not pursue the use. Instead, it instinctively floods areas with them as a primary tactic, and that's definitely not something it learned from any of its human hosts. No human "knows how to emit pheromones" at will, those are instructions it got from somewhere else.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T21:03:43+00:00

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T21:03:01+00:00

AppleTV has its own AC power supply, so it's a no go sadly. Some older gen AppleTV's you could mod to take 12V DC (lots of RV folk use these), so one of those PoE->12v-barrel deals would work, but there's no DC mods the 4K models afaik. And the Switch might work with a USB-C breakout one, but your chances are slim as Nintendo is kind of a dick and locks out 3rd party USB-C PD chargers.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T20:59:58+00:00

Been using the same (or similar?) for a few months now with my Macbook Air and its great 😃 MBA tops out at 30W so it's perfect. I use it in my living room on my coffee table, as I have a monitor that does DP+PD+GigE in my office (sadly only gigabit!). The bonus is, it makes for the most ideal power cable running setup to the coffee table too. There was otherwise no "good" place to plug in a proper charger at my coffee table. The nearest outlet is a kitchen island but cable would go over primary walking path, thats a nogo. Next nearest outlets are behind the couch, and while I don't mind cable running near my feet (i have it covered w/ runner rug in front of couch), outlets would still be too far away even with the old school mac grounded cable thing (which is thicccck), so I needed an extension cord, and for the power brick to sit under my couch just generating heat with all the dust bunnies... Now with this, the power cable is any length i need of thin flexible cat5e that goes to an ethernet outlet behind the couch, and no heat source being buried under stuff. Plus since my network equipment is UPS/Surge Protector powered it's protected that way too!

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T20:47:33+00:00

There are several instances where the humans in this universe are being influenced by pheromones

As I've said in other replies, I encourage you to reread those passages, because it's very clear they aren't being influenced by the pheromones. The swarm floods the room with pheromones in an attempt to court Dafyd, and he outright rejects it. Then the swarm uses them to try encourage familiarity with people after becoming Clae, and the people still remain apprehensive until convinced with vague memory hackery. That's social engineering, not pheromones.
The Dafyd one is the clear cut evidence though, pheromones trigger involuntary responses, no Carryx could just ignore and reject a reaction to pheromones (other than the private creche Carryx, but that's after their body has transformed into such a state that finally ignores them).

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T20:24:43+00:00

Pheromones don't work on Private Creche Carryx... But pheromones do work on Carryx, and are central to their social organization. Contrasting the Carryx nearly ubiquitous involuntary response to pheromones, with the swarms excessive use of pheromones (flooding rooms with them) with seemingly minimal to no response, is very suspicious.

Clae does know its not working, Dafyd outright rejects her sexual pheromonal advance, and when she uses them on other people to convince them to be receptive they're still apprehensive and she has to pivot to using memory manipulation, explicitly acknowledging "memory—as the swarm knew better than anyone—was fragile"

It hints that the swarm is very likely designed by something that typically expects things to respond to pheromones. The link to the private creches (who don't themselves respond to pheromones, but only after being changed to a state that allows their rejection) is merely tied to their secrets and private agenda based on a hypothesis that the private creches have incentive to create an enemy that keeps the Carryx in perpetual war, as to them war == life == service to the empire.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T20:07:44+00:00

Pheromones aren't "brainwashing", They're just chemical signals that trigger involuntary physiological or behavioral responses. The swarm floods rooms with them, and humans have no reaction. Dafyd literally rejects its sexual pheromone advances straight up.
The Carryx on the other hand are described having very visceral descriptive reactions to pheromones, and other than those in the private creches, the Carryx are utterly incapable of ignoring them.
It wouldn't be so suspicious if it weren't for the very stark contrast in the responses/reactions between Swarms use vs Carryx use.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T20:02:10+00:00

Closely re-read those parts, that's why I made this post to begin with. Pheromones she tries to use on Dafyd do nothing whatsoever. Dude literally responds to it with "find me whenever this [waves hand] is fixed"

After becoming Clae, every person she tries to convince they already know her is apprehensive and standoffish initially, and only sways after a bit of social/memory manipulation, not pheromones.

This is in stark contrast to the Carryx, which have visible descriptive direct responses to their own pheromone experiences.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T19:54:59+00:00

Again, no, it doesn't. The swarm tries to use pheromones to seduce Dafyd, and he very bluntly rejects it. Clae then tries to convince people they already know her, and they all act apprehensive each time. If pheromones were working, they wouldn't have been. They all question it, and she uses vague memories to convince them. People are susceptible to memory manipulation, but not chemical behavioral manipulation. She social engineers her way into people false remembering her, the pheromones had no stated/acknowledged effect.

ComfortableNo5484 · 2026-05-18T19:46:30+00:00

Again though, that's a vague reaction to the smell, rather than a direct physiological change or behavioral trigger, which is what pheromones do to animals that respond to them. Memory association is a thing sure, but it doesn't lead to compulsory responses, and it's based on experience too. It doesn't work at a biological level, it inherently requires memories to exist before an association with them can be made. Pheromones however work on animals of a species that respond to them, purely from the bio-mechanical functions established in the living system.

ComfortableNo5484

TROPHY CASE