THEY CAME FROM THE STARS!
The Whisperer in Darkness by H.P. Lovecraft revealed alien beings called Mi-go from a distant world called Yuggoth. With fungal flesh and crustacean-like form, these were truly strange visitors. While seemingly sinister, these highly intelligent colonists from space tended to keep to themselves and even offered their advanced medical science to select lucky individuals.
“Lucky” might be in the eye of the beholder, however. To the Mi-go, human anatomy is simple to manipulate. So simple, in fact, that they can grant immortality to any Humanoid willing to exist only as a brain in a cold metal life support cylinder. Freed of their extraneous physiology, these disembodied brains can experience the cosmos alongside their benefactors, indefinitely.
Brain cylinders are fitted with technology that allows the brain inside to observe its surroundings and to speak and may also be fitted with equipment to provide some means of locomotion. Why the Mi-go perform this surgery on select Humanoids is unknown, but many of the people converted this way have been tempted with promises of being able to explore Wildspace more safely in this form. These brains-in-jars sometimes refer to themselves as the transcended, but sages call them cerebrokytans.
Which would you rather be? Space fungus or ex humanoid? Aberration or Construct? Alien or mobile brain cylinder?
- from the publisher's blurb