Do Emotions Make It Easier For Techno-Organic Viruses To Control You?

I've been trying to sort out why the Phalanx would actually fear Wraith, and what significance that might have for Conquest as a whole.

First off, I'm trying to figure how the Phalanx can feel fear to begin with. I understand that probably at least some of them are biological organisms that are controlled by the Phalanx, and living things can feel fear, but are the Phalanx a developed enough artificial intelligence that they understand and feel emotions as well?

The Wraith says what scares the Phalanx is the sight of an exposed soul, which sounds like a fancy term for "ghost". It reminds me of something I read about spirits in GrimJack, that they're composed of pure emotion. The difference there was that ghosts were actually vulnerable to strong emotions from others, rather than the spirit's emotions being so strong that it overwhelmed others. Of course, I never saw how a spirit interacted with a cybernetic lifeform in the series, so if it's something that doesn't comprehend emotions like us, it might have gone the same way. What it leads me to think is that it's the being itself that's affected, and the person is so terrified that the Phalanx can't control them. That would suggest a certain level of independent action in the controlled. That's assuming there's anything biological in those soldiers Wraith terrified into submission. If there isn't, then I don't know what the heck happened. Maybe a machine trying to classify an emotion is like your calculator trying to divide by zero?

Then I think about what Super Skrull said, how the moment when you become one of their "Select", it's because you choose to. That until that point, even if your body is infected with the Phalanx, your choices are still your own. I'm not sure how much autonomy you have, but your thoughts and feelings are your own. Which would mean that Ronan willingly chooses to torture Wraith to extract information, since the Phalanx Chief Subjugator said Ronan was close to becoming a Select, meaning he isn't fully one of them yet.

What's interesting is that in the moment when Ronan gives in to the frustration of his situation - that the Subjugator can see into his head, that no matter what he says, the Phalanx are so totally certain that he's going to become one of them eventually - that's when he does their bidding with the greatest gusto. He loses control of himself and starts battering the Wraith, throwing him through walls, impaling him on a spire of some sort, in a concerted attempt to get information out of him. His strong emotions seem to have made him easier to control. Meanwhile, Super-Skrull is in the same boat, but he's already accepted that he will bend to their will someday, but he's focused on what he'll do to them after he gets free. He's farther from becoming "Select", perhaps because he was captured later, or perhaps because he's approaching the situation differently from Ronan.

That gives somewhat of an impression that emotion causes one to lose their sense of themselves, which in turn makes it easier for the Phalanx to assert control. For some reason that makes me think of one of Asimov's books, I can't remember which one (I know it's from his Robots series), when someone put forth the idea that humans in large groups can be overtaken by a mob mentality, which makes them easy to predict (which went on to become the idea of psychohistory that ran throughout the Foundation series). In this case, the "mob" is the Phalanx hive mind, and losing yourself to frustration can make it easier for you to get drawn into their group (I'm resisting the urge to use the word "Collective". Nope, no mention of Borgs here. . . Damnit!).

It all seems contradictory somehow. Phalanx feel massive fear and shut down, but Ronan feels massive frustration and the Phalanx take advantage. I guess it's meant to show that the side with the advantage is the one that can make the opposition lose control of themselves. Maybe if you can make a Select feel enough fear, it burns out the virus, and they regain control of themselves.