EVE Fiction

Prior to the introduction of capsules to the Caldari by the Jovians, our ships had crews and our captains were mortal as everyone else. However, capsuleers are only immortal because of our links to cloning technology. Remove that link, and you lose your immortality.

Hmmm, does a device that can store consciousness and memories even exist? I might have missed that, but I can't remember to have read about such a storage device.

My understanding is that the neural transfer from the pod to the cloning facility via FTL is more like a streaming process. The Transneural Burning Scanner in the pilot's pod reads the brain and transfers immediately to the clone station. There is no intermediate step that stores the complete brain content (maybe the transfer is "buffered" for smaller chunks of memories). There is also only one try since the brain gets destroyed during the scan process. If the process fails or the Burning Scanner is damaged and doesn't work properly, you are dead forever, at least to my understanding.

In the Cloning Scientific Article are two other interesting concepts:

- The Burning Scanner is coupled to the Clone in the facility which means there is only one working scanner for the clone. If you go to a pub and return to your pod but it is stolen or destroyed or whatever, you're in trouble. You can't use another pod because it won't have the right Scanner that fits to your clone. But, I think, one could go to the clone station, let them create a new clone and get a new Scanner that is correctly coupled with the new clone.

- Clone Quality means that if you don't buy a clone of high quality the rebuilt brain might be flawed and you lose a part of your memories (i.e. skillpoints) even though the scanning process in the pod might have been perfect. If you don't buy your personal clone at all you get some kind of cheap standard clone model which has poor quality of course and the memory loss might be heavy. (Having no clone is not possible because capsuleers are obliged to have one in order to get a piloting license from CONCORD.) In the past when Clone Grades existed this was the background explanation why you could lose skillpoints when your clone wasn't up-to-date (meaning: of too poor quality for the amount of skillpoints you had). I don't know if the Clone Quality concept is still relevant today where no Clone Grades exist anymore.

The Jita 4-4 chronicle discusses this question if a capsuleer can die in Part II. It's interesting to read. It basically says Yes and explains that the other critical variable in the process - aside from the Burning Scanner and the highly controlled environment in your pod - are the people in the white suits who work at the cloning facility that holds your clone. They are the true overlords of us capsuleers who can decide about life or death and "because these people in white suits could make things go horribly wrong for you and me". If the receiving end of the neural data transfer fails it leads to the same ultimate death as a failing sending end.

So, be always kind and nice to the people there when you visit your clone station.

Thanks, this really gave me some insight into what happens.

Also thanks for the clarification on the clone differences. I played DUST before it was shut down, and that's how I came across EVE.

(Plasma Cannon Spam was fun af)

It's also worth noting that the Sleepers uploaded themselves to what is essentially the Matrix, which requires digitization of the consciousness. Interestingly, when we were trying to figure out criteria for cryostasis, the constant issue we ran into is that any non-hard-freeze method would eventually result in decomposition of the body through biotic processes-- so it's not that they're even necessarily in a networked dream, but fully uploaded.

According to the EvE artbook, pirate factions actually use this method to fudge their own Capsuleer forces. An imprint of the mind is stored electronically and then uploaded onto a clone when the pilot dies.

The method has a relatively high rate of error. Missing memories or crossed wires during the replication process means a lot of pirate clones have mental issues or personality defects they didn't have prior to cloning.

Well. The EVE comic True Stories runs on the conceit that alts are simply that, differently appearing bodies to contain the persona of the capsuleer. This was mainly so that it could tell the story of how the Goons took down BoB without breaking the fourth wall though (most of it was due to the interactions of the Goons & a BoB director's alt).

I play my alts as separate people but that means there is precedent in the canon to thinking of them as different meat suits for a single infomorph. It's a very Cyberpunk/Transhuman concept so would be a good fit for the setting in my opinion.