Buffy s4e11

Okay, so you probably already know that Spike has been, for want of a better term, psychically neutered. After he was captured by the Initiative, they installed what they refer to as an implant, and what Spike has referred to (I believe) as a spell. Masquerade has a discussion on the purpose of this, and the gang brings it up in The I in Team.

There are several options, and I'll leave up to you to decide which one fits with your knowledge of the Initiative best.

(1) The Initiative may be doing this as the first step towards returning vampires to society. A quick note on the likelihood of this: Vampires and other demons are called Hostile Sub-Humans (or HST's) and Forrest explicitly tells Riley that they're only animals.

(2) The Initiative may be planning on using these modified Vampires as pawns or foot-soldiers against other demons. There are to ways this could work. (a) they could just release the neutered Vampires once they are confident in the implant. When the Vamps realize that they cannot harm humans but can harm demons, they will, theoretically turn their aggression towards what they can hurt, namely demons. We saw sings of this in Spike when Giles was transformed into a demon. Spike was measuring a crypt while looking for a new place and demon Giles lumbers by, Spike becomes macho and aggressive, saying something to the effect of "Well, well what have we here, a demon...as in the one thing I can hurt" and prepares to attack. the other option is that (b) the Initiative will keep them on a short leash and attempt to use them directly. They can be used to subdue the more powerful demon species that are more dangerous for humans. The advantage of this idea is that it limits possible human casualties, which even secret organisations need to watch. After all, Vampires are expendable.

(3) This may have simply been a procedure to keep Spike controllable for experimentation.

(4) Finally, this may have just been a scientific experiment, to see if such a thing is possible. This is implied when the Initiative people ask Riley if it worked. Okay, now the how. I assume this is a spell. The Initiative refers to it as an implant, but they have a history of trying to give scientific terms to magical things. It would be theoretically feasible to make an implant that stimulates something (happiness, fear, pain, etc.) when aggression occurs (as in Michael Crichton's book "The Terminal Man"), but making a machine to distinguish between hurting humans and demons would be near impossible. I see two ways this could work. First, the spell kicks in when Spike thinks he is hurting a living human. If he doesn't think he is hurting someone (i.e. throwing them) then, no pain. This would be dangerous, because a psychotic Vampire would conceivably be unaffected. The other possibility is that the implant may magically sense when a human is caused pain by Spike directly. Thus, Spike could throw people, even over bridges or into dangerous objects, because the human would leave his hands unharmed.

A final note on this: The pain only kicks in during or just after the action. Spike can hit people, but a blinding flash of pain accompanies the attack. Spike could, theoretically, given his strength, kill someone in one attack. He would then suffer the pain, but it would stop after a brief while. A dead human, he would be able to feed on, and a freshly killed human would still have good blood.


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Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series are the property of the WB Network or perhaps Fox, maybe both. I'll leave them to work it out and contact me with the result. This web site, its operators and any content on this site relating to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are not authorized by Fox. No copyright infringement intended. This site is for entertainment purposes only and does not profit in any way.

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The Above the Law banner is an altered form of a screen-cap taken from the The Slayer Show, the original screen-cap is © the WB. align="justify"> Ribbon the cat 25/8/00
I have a suggestion of a third choice, if spell or machine doesn't seem right. The effect of the implant is like hypnosis. Spike suffers when he harms or attempts harm to something with a soul. The implant doesn't distinguish between demons and humans, but Spike does. Hence sometimes he can manage a reflex punch and suffers as he realises, but he can never manage a quick but premeditated kill, like the article suggests. He tries to kill Willow and can't get near.

Also the Initiative denies the existance of magic, and Spike never showed signs of surgery. (I know he regenerates but even he can't regenerate his hair gel!)

Spike meets the Clockwork Orange?.......

ikkleste 10/9/00
Chip or Magic?

Would a combination of both be out of the question? Despite it`s denials the inititive does seem to use magic with out admitting it. It seems to me that a lot of the inititives work is on the combination of magic and technology. (Adam?!)

just an idea.

Heather 17/9/00
Well if any of you have done Psychology then you know that it is posibble for them to attach elctrod things into the brains of rats and other lab animals. and in doing so they are able to effect the animals eating habbits. Humans are the food of vampires so the insersion of a chip is a possibility. But also there is also the point that most vampires without souls do not get blood from blood banks but from the source- a HUMAN. Due to the fact that Spike and other vampires are already dead then there is a greater scop for this technolgy being affective as the chip does not have to be that small but this does bring up the question of "Can A Vampire have Brain Damage" in the event of falling or being in a battle where their skull is smashed or does the demon inhabiting the body prevent this.

We have seen the way that vampires heal quickly (which if any of you read comics is the only reason Wolverine survied then grafting of adimantiumn to his skeleton). Or it could just be a plot device and should be taken as such. Because Spike was and is one of the most faviorite characters and just as when the writters wrote Evil Willow into the series for an extra episode maybe this was the reason for bring Spike back, and in the usual American way turning an evil character into a good guy. (See Star trek NTG and the character of Q being a very real Protagonist and then in Voyager being turned into a family man)and (See Ares in Xena From the very mightly God of War to become Xenas Lapdog and comedy aspect)

JBluphin 19/9/00
I think that the implant has to be at least partly mental. When he got a gun and pointed it at Xander, he felt pain because he thought that he was capable of hurting or killing something with a soul. Later it turned out the gun was just a toy. He never tried pointing it again after he discovered that, so we do not know for sure he would have felt the same pain.

phoenixnova 5/10/00
It is a chip! I say this with certainty because in the episode with Riley and Adam it is revealed that Riley too has a chip. Spike even says something like "Chips all around". Riley removes the chip from his chest, an actual chip, not a spell or hypnosis. It is very clear.

Vox 9/10/00
The two implants have very different effects, Riley's allowed Adam (almost) complete control over his physical actions whereas Spike's hurt him when he attacked humans. While they both seem to have an effect on the nervous system I don't think, given the very different physiology and results, that we can assume that just because Riley's implant was a chip, Spike's was as well. As for Spike's comment on 'Chips all round' and other similar exclamations, he has no better idea than any of us how the implant works. He just assumes that it is a chip.


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Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series are the property of the WB Network or perhaps Fox, maybe both. I'll leave them to work it out and contact me with the result. This web site, its operators and any content on this site relating to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are not authorized by Fox. No copyright infringement intended. This site is for entertainment purposes only and does not profit in any way.

The picture was taken from The Official Buffy site and is © the WB.

The Above the Law banner is an altered form of a screen-cap taken from the The Slayer Show, the original screen-cap is © the WB.