EVE Fiction

Thanks again DZ, an amazing post that clarified a ton of stuff we've been wondering about.

Some of the folks are thinking there might be a way to remote-drive bodies or use soft clones as a means to safeguard themselves in the event of baselining or venturing outside the capsule.

I don't have enough information on either field within the lore to make a further argument here though. Will make another forum topic should I stumble across where people are pulling that stuff from.

*curls up next to Silas Vitalia*

For now, I'm more than accepting.

While CONCORD frowns upon unlicensed capsule tech and illegal cloning, it's still rife as they have no way to regulate it outside their sphere of influence. If they did, the vast majority of pirate capsuleers, pirate faction officers and other dirty scoundrels would all be dead or in custody.

I think the important thing to remember is that a little bit of artistic license is always applicable whenever you're role playing. It's not as if anyone at CCP is going to turn around and say "YOU THERE, STOP THAT IMMEDIATELY, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!".

Prime fiction is there as a guide, a framework, not as a set of bars to keep you held in a cell and force your character to behave in a given way.

Personally, I'm all for soft cloning and the ability to have at least some form of insurance policy outside your capsule, however that's just my personal opinion. It's never been stated outright in prime fiction that it is or is not a thing. When I was a player I wrote fiction based around that principle. My view is that anything you put together needs to emphasize the fact you're still a sack of meat and are just as vulnerable to pain as anyone else out there, regardless of whether you can be killed and spat out of a vat with a bit of memory loss and a bad headache if you get killed out of pod.

No one in the right mind would put 100 percent faith in a piece of technology to keep them from dying. There's always that sliver of doubt in the back of your mind, especially with the stories of mindlocking and wetgraving that circulate. Whether you suck it up and get on with life, or worry about it is entirely down to your own character's mentality.

As I said earlier in the thread, I finished putting together the tech backstory for the capsule a while ago, and while capsuleers may arrogantly regard themselves as "immortal", fundamentally they aren't. The only thing that gives them as close to an immortal existence as is possible is the technology they're hooked up to, which due to its highly sensitive nature and bulkiness is not practical to be mobile.

My personal take on it is that if you were able to replicate the technology on a smaller scale that could be used anywhere by anyone, then you kind of dilute the entire purpose of the capsule and the capsuleer.

So a capsuleer can't just remain hooked up to a hydrostatic capsule and control a cybernetic avatar/robot of themselves through a helium-4 fluid router system much like they seem to do with combat drones and thus be the ultimate puppet-master they always wanted to be?

I assume you'd need most of a ship as well. I mean, most frigates can barely handle drones, so a grounded Pod certainly can't. Even then, you're limited to relatively short ranges. A 'drone' more complex than default 'engines, guns and some sort of hull' would be really hard... and Drones even have on-board AI to manage as much as they do.



Am I wrong, or did Templar 1 imply that a Capsuleer could be killed out-of-pod and still re-awakened from a clone, but they'd lose memories between their last update and death? Or did I just hypothesise that while reading it?

That is soft clones for you, one of the technologies I'm still trying to find the article about/over.

That definitely was the case, speaking as someone who has only just recently finished reading it. The guy in question was a Federation capsuleer pilot who went awol in the midst of a battle, apparantly it had been six months of so since his last backup. So perhaps soft cloning with regular memory backupsis something only available to capsuleers employed by the military. After all they are an incredibly valuable asset to whatever faction who wants them fighting for them.

Heh. In my own little version of EVE lore, i'm going to develop third party interfaces to the capsule, looking at it as more than a ship control device but a sort of man-machine interface developed from Joves' experience in virtual universes. The pod would convey the will of the capsuleer, either by replacing a part of a ship's crew and machineries, or doing something else.

(And yes, remotely controlling a clone would be a use to the capsule. Drone clones are the best idea I've read about how could capsuleers do stupid things like exposing themselves to weapon fire).

Frankly, my dear, if I had to kill you, I would use your elite DUST cyberwarrior bodyguard to do the job...

There is no impregnable security. Defenders must succeed 100% of the time, whereas agressors just need to succeed 1 chance in any random number. You can make the number high or very high and thus the chance low or very low, but anyway that time is going to come and agressors will win.

The best defense is that nobody wants to attack you. And capsuleers are notoriously inept at that.

Shadowrun anyone? ^^
"Never make a deal with a Dragon, er capsuleer..."

EDIT: Now that I think about it it also reminds me of the Rogue Trader Pen and Paper ... nearly unbound individuals of as much pwoer as their money can buy them.
Personally I allways imagined myself walking around with a heavy armoured trenchcoat with a hood and a furlining though, concealed pistol in holster included, topped of with a mate black cane (for some non-lethal badassery ).

The simple solution, should game mechanics evolve to the point where capsuleers getting out the pod to do stuff becomes a Thing, would be something along lines of:

Genolution 'Lazarus' implant - Latest implant from Genolution, the 'Lazarus' features an advanced recording suite, that allows memories of a persons actions to be integrated into a backup clone, should the user of the 'Lazarus' be killed outside of the capsule or cloning facility. This can be a disorientating experience, and associates of a Lazarus user are politely suggested not to tell the user how they died.

One of the Jovians in the Theodicy short story was killed outside of the capsule, but returned later on, and said something like "stop! do not tell me how I died!".

So, it could be done, maybe.