EVE Fiction

Though distant from the first few comments of the thread, I thought to add this.

In the Matrix, Morpheus has a nice fireside chat with Neo in a simulation within the computer equipment of the ship, Nebuchadnezzar. The scene: Nice RCA old-style TV, quality chairs, white background and Morpheus describing the human brain. Remember? I found it delicious. In an intellectual way.

I work with electronics and distributed control systems. And so I found it extremely interesting Morpheus's description of the human brain and mind.

Input and output. Orderly or otherwise.

If we conceptualize the human brain, we merely reduce its complexity to an organic computer. It has sensors attached to it: sight, sound, smell, tactile, etc.

From a certain point of view, then, all sensory input to a human brain is therefore prosthetic already.

From a Rene Descartes point of view, all sensory input and the human brain, itself, is prosthetic.

If we accept my comments as relevant, remarkable is it indeed that we then discern what is essentially human, by the mere prosthetic.

Prosthetics are prosthetics. Whether you are in a neo-lithic age forest or Eve post human craft.

At the end of the day, the only thing left is the mind (maybe dreaming away our holographic universe from a 2-dimensional plane somewhere, somewhen).

There are already machines which can create or interpret smells, so that would be possible. About feeling, I read in a science journal back in 2003 about new hand prosthetics being tested in an Italian university. These new artificial limbs used diods to interpret the information of touching a surface (heat, cold, texture and all that stuff) and send electrical impulses into the nervous system of the human they were attached to.

The test persons described their experiences with their artificial hands as completely normal. They could feel with their robot hands as if they were normal, living hands made of flesh and blood.That said, back in 2003 those prosthetics had the serious problem of burning out the diods pretty fast. Not a problem if you are rich as ****, of course. Then you can just replace them easily.

I guess my question isn't 'can a capsuleer have an artificial body' and more 'how much of that body need be 'organic'' (in the terms described by Stitcher - aka Synthetic Organic Prosthesis for the Mind - the clone body as in PF)?

The Phanca cyber-arm has been put forwards as a collector's edition item (with widely available variants explicitly stated as being available at a later date), indicating that one or both of the arms can be replaced. It is known that the capsule requires a neural interface (into the spine looking at our implants) and so I assume pretty much the only thing you require is the nervous system, and whatever biological support systems (major organs) that cannot currently be produced to do their function at acceptable levels (for an acceptable price - even if gloriously space rich, efficiency of function might be more pleasing than synthesis).

Our ocular organs have been able to be replaced (albeit one at a time) for a good long while, again indicating that sensory, ambulatory and manipulator functions are non-factors when considering the pod. The skills neurotoxin recovery and nanite control also indicate at least a facility to symbiotically control any pod functions that aid in counteracting the effects of combat stimulants on the pilot's biological elements (or maybe even synthetic components, if synthetic biology OR if a 'booster' also includes participating software or even nanoscale embedded systems that augment what the drug is doing to the nervous system).

Stitcher is correct that this is a high Sci-Fi setting. Technology, even with handwavium bordering on the prescient, seems like magic to our standards. We are synthetically grown templates given features of our choosing (who says my avatar looks like I did prior to becoming a capsuleer? The resculpt option throws that baby out with the bath water!) and really the entire process is likely for psychological reasons (waking up as a howling, truncated nervous system is probably quite bad for sanity) and the efficiency of 'grow the whole thing, make the customer pay for modifications afterwards'.

As the carbon creator is developed further, I hope that the full range of modifications we can make to ourselves comes to the fore - whether inspired by aesthetic, some role-play functionality or just a personal whim. A key element of transhuman sci-fi is self-modification in the face of sanity, ethics or societal standards. It shouldn't be grim dark (it is hardly has to be the Faustian bargain that is the bane of the standard 'grim transhumanity' trope), but I'd really like to see how far the people behind the characters will push their avatars in this regard. We have a pretty pleasing diversity even with the limitations of any character creator - seeing the differences ranging from the full 'synth organic' across to 'everything bar the essentials scooped out and replaced' would be really interesting.

Also non-stealth 'bring back racial flavours' whine. Please give more culturally inspired (in game culture) clothes AND implants designed with the existing game world in mind. You have amazing artistic talent, as evidenced in the eve-source teaser and previous artworks. This GAP, bland clothing range is beneath such obvious talent, though I understand that the pressures of more integral development demands probably draw attention away from this aspect of the game at present. Clothing and cybernetics tied at least to the big four would really help immersion, though. Maybe even just a 'National Accents' range with a few key iconic elements.

All we erm "they" need is one central processor that can access all of the clones in new eden at the same time and we have the first gen Borg. That central processor would be the "queen Borg".

Then would begin the adaptation of adding other races uniqueness to there own.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ23DPhymHU