How would several spacefaring nations of humans react to the presence of a sentient species capable of taking over...

How would several spacefaring nations of humans react to the presence of a sentient species capable of taking over other sentients' minds Veeky Forums?

For clarity the mind control capable species works like brain slugs in that they need to directly attach but they aren't seeking expansion and are themselves fully sentient with morals and ethics only slightly different from humans. Mind control is viewed as murder and only used for war/espionage.

I ask because I'm fleshing out a space setting for a game I DM and brain slug like creatures were added initially as a joke but now the concept has gotten interesting.

And are themselves fully sentient with morals and ethics only slightly different from humans. Mind control is viewed as murder and only used for war/espionage.

How they fuck does a species of mind controlling brain slugs manege to become squeamish about doing mind control?

What the actual literal fuck?

Xenocide.

"Ted, have you ever noticed how our Walkers act a bit like us before we take control of them?"

"You know, Nes you're right. I was like halfway through eating this thing's brain and it turns out it has something called a Master's Degree."

"Ted?"

"Ya, Nes?"

"I think we might be assholes."

Not OP, but here's a possibility: they evolved on a planet with another sapient race. Over time, the sapient race was completely subsumed by the brain slugs. The brain slugs hate having sex while controlling, so their puppets slowly died out. The brain slugs engineered a new race of puppets, and because it was easier, their brains are very simple and animalistic. The brain slugs then developed a code of ethics justifying all of their actions (like how religions work), which implicitly makes only animal-level intelligences moral to take over.

This. Can't fuck em, so murder is the best solution.

Rocks fall, all the brain slugs die.
Other aliens officially protest, but not much, they're glad somebody finally did it.

OP here, sorry for the slow response. As I have it now they are the only sentients on their original planet and don't have qualms about taking over non-sentients (kinda like we eat meat because we evolved to, so it's fine.) But after first contact they found other sentients and felt it was wrong to take them over.

Widely publicized crusade against them to motivate populaces and step up war production while trying to keep some of them for various covert operations.

Do the humans know they're sentient, or do they fall prey to the if it's not humanoid, it must be dumb mentality that our evolutionary history has given us?

Just give them monkey bodies.
Or dolphin. Or horses.
Or litteral retards that volunteer to be slaves while knowing full well the consequences.
Fuck give them, high level autists, aspergers and down syndrome fuck nuggets.
We dont have to take care of them. They get free bodies.
Everyone wins.

Educated humans know they are sentient, big populaces don't really. I'm unsure of what the human governments would do though, which motivated me to start this thread.

The slugs aren't actively seeking expansion and just want to be treated as another species in space-diplomacy.

another equal* species

They're going to need to collectively agree to undergo some intensive genetic alteration before they're allowed to live.

Depends entirely on said nations/setting. By default there'd be no reaction because there's nothing to react to, in the same way that "How would several spacefaring nations react to a spacefaring species with large teeth?" is a nonquestion. If you're going for a specific tone there could be a specific reaction, eg "How would several spacefaring races react to a spacefaring race that keeps slaves?" can produce objections over principle, hysterical fear, weirdly specific cultural concerns, interest in replicating certain aspects in your own culture, and so on.

But with just the information you've give us, there's no particular way to answer the question.

Do they get two votes, one for the brain and one for the body they're piloting? Because that could shape things politically.

Okay, fair point. For reference there are three human nation and one non-human nation.
Main human nation is functionally Tang dynasty in space from the Veeky Forums worldbuilding thread awhile back.

Second nation is functionally hyper advanced cyberpunk dystopian hong kong.

Third nation is a migratory fleet of people with hyper advanced biomancy who are allowed to trade peacefully with all other nations as well as use their territory as any war they entered would be devastating to their ship-borne population.

My problem is identifying any nuanced reactions to the slugs other than abject horror? What would happen decades after first contact?

The slugs have there own systems and are not co-mingled with any other empire's population. But brief skirmishes that broke out on first contact (human instigated)revealed they can control people as well as non sapients.

Exterminatus.

Now this is the delightfully stupid kind of argument I could get behind.

"Two bodies, two votes!"
"After voting against one limb one vote?! Hypocrisy!"
"Shut up you millipede ballot stuffer! You vote against one vote per neural cluster and then call HIM a hypocrite!"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, I think we can all agree votes should be based on the number of semi-autonomous offspring one-"
"Eats, yes! I've been saying this all along!"
"No-"
"I see you corporeal fucks are being racist against pure energy beings again. One vote per plane of existence visited!"

Needless to say the council gets very little done.

I have 3 questions

>Are they only capable of taking over sentiments minds or can they take over the brain of a non sentient being.

>Do they need to brain control other species, as in they will die out if they don't?

>Can they co-occupy their host's brain, similar to the Venom symbiote from Spiderman.

1. Can take over non sentient's

2. do not need control to live but basically need it for their space age society to function, they do have beasts in home systems that they take over. But these species are inferior hosts compared to sentients (in terms of dexterity etc)

3. Cannot co-occupy. Host functionally dies unless brought back with advanced biomancy(this also kills mind control slug.)

They can however detach from hosts if they've been bonded less than a month, anytime after that is permanent. and more than a week leads to host mental death without biomancy.

>Main human nation is functionally Tang dynasty in space from the Veeky Forums worldbuilding thread awhile back.
Didn't catch it, but a prominent Chinese court sounds liable to embrace them as an esteemed culture to learn from and/or revile them as a convenient other to bash in order to toady about in court.

>Second nation is functionally hyper advanced cyberpunk dystopian hong kong.
Probably a lot of weird rumors about them, but also a healthy "black market" in weird things related to them. Notably drugs and sources of corporate evil, if I recall my cyberpunk right. I might not.

>Third nation is a migratory fleet of people with hyper advanced biomancy who are allowed to trade peacefully with all other nations as well as use their territory as any war they entered would be devastating to their ship-borne population.
I imagine they're pretty devoted to peaceful relations with all cultures and genetic samples. To be blunt if they've got advanced biomancy the slugs might be the ones feeling uncomfortable after a while, as these weird merchant humans keep trying to probe them for insight into their interface abilities.

>What would happen decades after first contact?
Probably the usual low-level trade and showboating, unless there's a specific need for something else (eg Tang needs a unifying enemy, NotKong keeps trying to replicate their ability to control peasants much to the slugs' horror, Biomancers make a whole industry out o selling them quality shells).

>and more than a week leads to host mental death without biomancy.
Buddy cop mode activated.

That's a good point I hadn't considered, biomancers would likely be very curious and trying to copy them.

>Can't fuck em

However they wanted us to react if they're doing it right

>They take control of your dick

There was an episode of babylon 5 that had the same idea. The brain slugs only used volunteers and didn't abuse their hosts. They also had giant memories so they acted as a kind of galactic repository of information.

>nobody mentions the goa'uld

Read this book, it might answer all your questions

some nutjobs would create a religion over it