Ethics Reader- cyberethics ch44

As may be guessed, the motivations for doing so are rarely benign, and the experiences of the survivor are not usually pleasant. The very rare restored survivors of such treatment have compared it to such ancient human practices as lobotomy, emasculation, or blinding, sometimes followed by various forms of torture.

Usually a subsumptionist simply causes a series of unexplained disappearances and then moves on before eir activities are noticed. However, a particularly skilled subsumptionist, who has can retained all of the victim’s traits and memories intact, may conceal the crime from outsiders for an indefinite period of time. The public “outward” aspect of the victim’s personality is retained as a kind of mask, and the subsumptionist acts from within this shell.