Delphinus Parasite

The Delphinus Parasite (デルファイナス奇症, Derufainasu Kishou)^? is a mystical ailment encountered in Sector Delphinus in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. It is caused by Formless demons (pieces of Asura) possessing humans to "polish" their spirits and provoke survival of the fittest.

Appearances

• Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey

Profile

As soon as the Joint Project's forces disembark upon Delphinus, many crewmen are affected by a surge of homicidal mania, in which they are instantly driven to hurt or kill as many people as they can.

Capturing some of the afflicted crewmembers, Arthur determines the cause is not discernible to the equipment the Red Sprite possesses and that there is no apparent way the crewmen have been infected with it even in the toxic atmosphere of Delphinus, indicating it has no physical vectors of any kind, rather, apparently afflicting the brain as a form of free-floating energy. Reasoning this may be related to the human experimentation carried out in Sector Bootes on Crewman Norris, Zelenin proposes returning to Master Mitra's labs to seek out any possible links to Delphinus.

Once they find Mitra's private rooms, they find Mastema, who points them towards a relic named the Madman's Stone, which bears a plaque indicating a form of friendship between Mitra and Asura, Delphinus' demon lord. By reverse-engineering data collected from the Stone, Arthur is able to propose a modification to the Joint Project's standard MK Guns, devices designed to force altered states of consciousness, to drive out the parasite.

Several crewmen have to be found in the first floors of Delphinus and hit with the MK Gun to drive out the parasites and send them fleeing into the upper floors. An optional EX Mission, The shadow withdraws, also deals with a parasite which has managed to either escape detection or develop partial immunity to the MK Gun.

Once the parasites have been driven out of their human hosts, they will gather in large rooms in the upper levels and form gigantic hives. When attacked, each hive will spawn two Formless enemies, which can be normally targeted. When the two are destroyed, the hive will collapse as well and the "core" parasite will flee. One of the cores of these "hives" will aggressively interact with Zelenin, suggesting she is being the target of the depraved thoughts of many of the crew of the Elve and she was looked down upon for being a woman in a male-dominated company. Her Power tries to protect her, but fails to do so.

Once three of the several hives lying in wait in the Sector are destroyed, all will simultaneously collapse as the core parasites leave to mass around their true form, Asura.