What are these Nanobots

[kim]

Before I get down to writing the next section, I think we need to sort out what exactly the Prevaders are.

Warning potential spoilers

Most modern thoughts on nanotech have it being virus size. In fact, from a biologist perspective, viruses are almost nanobots. They are made up of information (genetic material) and machine parts (protiens) that allow them to infiltrate host cells. Bacteria, in contrasts are fully living organisms, and are both larger and more complicated. So, the question is, how complicated are these nanos? If they're virus like, they could inhabit all the bacteria on a person's skin.

Once we have that straight, we need to figure out how they work. Specifially, where are they when they "read" and "broadcast" about a person. We could have them taking up residence in the human brain but, owing to the blood brain barrier, it's difficult to get things into the brain, and even more difficult to get them all out. I could see "layers" of nano's hanging out on people's skin with the closest layer monitoring various phermones, heart and breathing rates, body temperatures, eye movements. The information would be transmitted to other Prevaders by then next layer of nanobots. These Nanobots could also recieve info from other organism's nano and be transmitted to the nano's that signal to the human host, with scents, images, sounds.

It was one heck of a genius to come up with the basic system as I suspect that there has to be a great of coordination between the nanobots from the very beginning for it to even start to function. Evolution could tweak and change it, but it must have been very complicated from the start.

[rayg]

Okay, one of the complications of what's already been written is that Max has the capability to communicate to the pervaders, and that humanity in general communicates with them at a more subconscious level. The pervaders aren't self-aware per se - they're kind of a emotional/mental connectivity facilitation with medical overtones.

I think we need a limited form of blood-brain barrier penetration - enough that they can influence neurons (as already demonstrated), but not take them over.

From wikipedia :

"""
The blood-brain barrier protects the brain from the many chemicals flowing around the body. Many bodily functions are controlled by hormones, which are detected by receptors on the plasma membranes of targeted cells throughout the body. The secretion of many hormones is controlled by the brain, but these hormones generally do not penetrate the brain from the blood, so in order to control the rate of hormone secretion effectively, there are specialised sites where neurons can "sample" the composition of the circulating blood. At these sites, the blood-brain barrier is 'leaky'; these sites include three important 'circumventricular organs', the subfornical organ, the area postrema and the organum vascolosum of the lamina terminalis (OVLT).

The blood-brain barrier is an effective way to protect the brain from common infections. Thus infections of the brain are very rare; however, as antibodies are too large to cross the blood-brain barrier, infections of the brain when they do occur can be very serious and difficult to treat.
"""

Is it plausible that the "cyborg bacteria" can inject less complex "peripheral" nanos across that junction periodically, which would then allow them more complete access to the brain's activities and relay them to the bacterial forms for processing? Would this happen gradually or as a flood?

I think this would preserve the tipping point of human neurons actually getting pervaded and repurposed, while allowing some twists of "magic"
Have some species (e.g. insects) already fallen to having their cells cyborged? Does this lead to some creepy changes in species behavior?