[Gestalt] n. A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.
We are all gestalts of cells working together, so much more so than a bag of brain cells and a bag of blood cells could accomplish independently. Furthermore, within a company or other social group, people form a gestalt. Each fills in gaps in each other's abilities, and the group effort, when done right, far exceeds what could be done by each individual.
So what makes an IC gestalt so special? Why is something like Omni or Blue so different? The intent with the rules and designs underlying them is one where the components are something between the two extremes that we are composed of, or that which we compose. The cells are independant and fully functioning, like a person in a social group. At the same time, they are so organically interconnected, where one cell could not be accussed of sentience, even if the end result is.
Western science provides two theories about how the human mind works with memories and emotions. One is that memory is localized. This is mostly with Pavlovian responses. Make a snip, and a classically-conditioned response no longer happens. The other is that memory is generalized. Less instinctual actions and relations fall into this domain. Remove a portion of brain and the maze is completed slower, but there is no one specific locale that stores the maze. Experiments with memory also explored destruction of entire regions of the brain, and found that destruction of any third of the brain would leave memory largely unimpaired, while any destruction beyond that would result in permanent loss of specific (but not predictable) memories.
Modern theories of consciousness suggest that consciousness is not located in any part of the brain, but is rather distributed over an area of the brain. A good book on theories of consciousness that also explains underlying phenomena in particle physics and molecular biology is "Evolving the Mind" by A G Cairns-Smith. It explains how a brain is a gestalt of regions, which are gestalts of cells, which are gestalts of molecules, which are gestalts of atoms, which are gestalts of protons, neutrons, and electrons. (It doesn't talk about how protons and neutrons are gestalts of quarks. Nor does it mention that the six types of quark are Up, Down, Top, Bottom, Charm and Strange. But no book is perfect.)
The basic point about a gestalt is that it has emergent properties. That is to say that when you put the parts together, you get an extra thing that doesn't exist at all when the parts are not together.
When Omni 'Buds', a (usually small) portion of it is split off from the main mass. Given time and distance, this budding develops a unique set of memories, experiences, and by extension, personality to add to collection. This is the closest Omni has to offspring, and it treats it as such, with its own sentience and individuality.
The more interesting scenario when Omni re-merges with another cellite mass. Given enough mixing, the two sentients become one. The result does remember memories from both gestalts, and the personalities also combine. This is not porportional to weight, neither is it automatically 50-50. Most of the time, the disparate masses haven't had enough time to vary much, as when Omni makes several bodies in a single scene, and remerges them by the end of said scene.
However, in larger instances, where the cellites have had a lot of time to vary, the personalities of the cellites will persist, so much so that they can willingly be sorted, to a degree, back into the origional two masses. Memories will remain crossed over, for the most part, This is a plot device akin to a vulcan mind meld. More importantly, it allows for memory transfer and touching, without the permanent loss of either character.
Blue's shapeshifting abilities have been impaired by the change from her original coposition to this ultra-hybird, and ve has lost the ability to easily reform herself at will. (Unlike Orange, who retains this ability.) Similarly, Blue's previously-displayed ability to split herself into multiple bodies appears to have disappeared. Memory management is another challenge for Blue. Different memories are held in the orange, the purple, and the cellites. When one or the other is disabled (which happens more often than ver player was expecting), large numbers of memories become unavailable.
Therefore, the entity named "Blue" is a gestalt of these sub-gestalts.
Kehari's body remains mostly natural (albeit with some cybernetic modifications) but her imilexene bodysuit furthers the gestalt theme. Initially a simple imilexene bodysuit configured for multiple "outfits", it was impregnated with some of Omni's cellites during an encounter in The Heliquary. After that the bodysuit began exhibiting an awareness of its surroundings beyond its wearer and a sense of humor at least at the pre-sentient level. It developed into the Kiki personality and ended up as the third component of Kehari, both mentally and physically.
But the experiences Twin has had since forming a body of matter, with its own mind, has changed (her) into something very different from a lonely incarnation of entropy...
Modern Volk are relatively fluid gestalts, with packs able to trade members fairly easily thanks to the development of a vocal analog to their internal neural traffic. Their language, Neural Slang, developed from the pidgins that packs who grew close to each other (one might even call them lovers) used. It was a kind of erotic poetry, and a powerful meme that spread rapidly among the packs whose neural traffic it suited while it was nothing but noise (and a perversion) among those that couldn't understand it. There was a period of instability known as the Meme Wars that led to the eventual extinction of those bloodlines that couldn't adapt to Neural languages... they couldn't compete with the new order and interbred or died off. In some cases packs voluntarily fragmented in the hope that some of their members would survive as part of Neural Slang packs.
Nevertheless, Mod seems to stay very seperate in personality from an individual when he is being worn by them, rarely influencing their mind.
Feel free to add in your own theories about gestalts, and details of your character as they pertain. Given the broad definitions of gestalts, plurals fall under this category. Given the schitzophrenic nature of some of our characters, even those with multiple personalities can offer some insight on two beings in one body. Bonus points on how these aspects are different than the normal OOC human being, as well as the finer details, the method behind the madness if you will, that exist because of the nature of that character.
Also, some theories on the Chitin Queens suggest symbiosis - the mind running a dark, chitinous dominatrix may not be wholly the one in her(?) head, it may be the one in a non-motile creature tucked away in a crevice, subsisting off her blood...
Emergent properties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_property
What if two people played one character? You can have more than one connection to a character active at once. Obviously the players have to be a little more telepathic than usual, for it to be coherent, and sometimes it would just be one player, or the other. But you'd never know!
Two minds, one body, literally.
This may or may not be easier if both players live in the same home.
And thus, Myriad was born...