" No one knows what the Net will be like with emotion -'
'We know,' the Ghost said. 'Before Silence, our race was on the verge of extinction.' Violence and insanity had run rampant, savaging the PsyNet from within.
'Yes, exactly - *before* Silence. The Protocol's changed us, changed the Net. I'm alive today because of what I learned from the conditioning process. We won't go back to what we were. "

― Nalini Singh , Branded by Fire (Psy-Changeling, #6)