Cyberon (drug)

Cyberon was a "praxis-range nootropic" with a mind of its own. Although generally referred to as an "it", a patient injected with Cyberon, Denise, communicated with the substance's mind, which she believed to be female, referring to her fondly as "Cy"; Denise interpreted the presence as an angel.

Cyberon had many psychoactive properties and constituted a hive mind controlling all organic beings into whose veins it came to flow in large quantities. As such, it could be considered "the species' true form", with the humanoid cyborgs merely puppets or drones. In small doses, however, the Cyberon drug could have beneficial health effects on humans as well as inducing a desirable "high", without inducing full conversion.

History
Cyberon in its purest form was generated by a nootropic volcano on the Cyberon home planet Aurichall, in the Amazolian system. The substance was produced by "the tectonic grinding of rival noospheres". (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)

Tom Mordley attempted to introduce the Cyberon substance as a medical drug through PKD in the 20th century, (PROSE: Cyberon) having acquired it from a Cyberon who had crashed down on Earth and been found by the researcher Albert Foster (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons, The Last Dose) after being thrown back to the 21st century from the far future, near the end of the Cyberon War, by the Merrapine Scar. (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) When asked by Lauren Anderson if Cyberon was an acetylcholine booster or a cholinesterase inhibitor, Tom instead claimed that it was a silicon-based protein.

He discovered that, when injected in humans, Cyberon enhanced their strength, even allowing Denise to walk again after becoming paralysed in an injury. According to Tom, it created artificial cells to replace lost ones. If used in Alzheimer's patients, Tom thought it could "weed out the plaques and tangles" formed by the disease and, in CJD patients, it would "restructure the spongiform areas". He also became addicted to the substance himself, craving the better cognition, improved memory and superhuman senses that it granted him.

After realising that Cyberon had a mind of its own and was slowly turning patients, and Tom himself, into Cyberon humanoids with no free will, Lauren cleared out all the Cyberon doses she could find in St John's Hospital. Tom, under the Cyberon's control, knocked her out and took her back to his home, hoping to fully transform her into a Cyberon creature, but she managed to stab him, seemingly breaking the bond between him and the drug and causing the Cyberon creatures who had begun to materialise in his vicinity to dissolve. (PROSE: Cyberon)

In 2008 PROBE detected an activation of Cyberon in Philadelphia and Patricia Haggard hopped on a plane to stop others from reaching it first. She traced the Cyberon to Brittany Mordley, Tom's niece. Patsy managed to talk Brittany down so she could get a hold over the Cyberon in her system. (PROSE: Silver-Tongued Liars)

In the far future, after the near-extinction of the Cyberons, the substance became highly sought-after. One wealthy C.E.O. obtained a deactivated Cyberon at great cost and drained it alive of Cyberon fluid as part of a private "Creature Feature" party, so that he and his guests could micro-dose on the substance. Unexpectedly, this resulted in the Cyberon itself regaining emotions and individuality and no longer being constrained by the Cyberons' weakness to gold, allowing it to free itself and destroy its captors. (PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death)