Reality Overlays - Full body cyborg armies - cloned human brains

[Space Cadet]

Seems that with the lack of true Artificial Intelligence in 2320, there is a way to create creatures in a reality overlay involving genetics.

For example a stem cell might be engineered to grow only brain tissue the brain tissue or "Borged" to some electronic components feeding the brain sensory data either from actual sensors or generated in a reality overlay, similar to that in the movies the Matrix. To get all the lower animals either use primitive sub-human level AI programs or actually grown organic brains of these animals. The brains are fed nutrients and given sensory inputs and a sensation of having a body which their brains can control. For the more intelligent characters, what is required are intelligent actors to play the various roles of supporting characters or opponents for the players who pay for this whole system.

One interesting possibility is some disreputable company might elect to grow human brains from stem cells and give them virtual bodies. Some evil people might even grow organic brains to fit into full body cyborgs on purpose and make an army of cyborg soldiers this way, Lets say some independent colony gets a little ambitious, has no scruples and decides to grow human brains to power the cyborgs of his army, they might even be cloned human brains in full cyborg suits all with weapons appropriately attached. Can you imagine some billionaire who establishes himself on a distant planet, and in his secret laboratory with the help of some employed scientists and engineers, he clones himself to grow brains for his cyborg army of soldiers, he raises them and trains them in a virtual reality overlay, a process which takes about 20 years, and when their ready, he implants them into full body cyborg soldiers and mounts an invasion of neighboring colonial worlds.

What do you think, feasible for 2320AD?

 

[Nearside]

I don't think it's really part of the flavor of the canon-2320 setting.

This probably belongs in the "In My Traveller Universe" part of the forum.

 

[Border Reiver]

This belongs right here in the 2300 forum.

This could easily form a nice Chinese Arm/Provolution campaign. Why make the brain tissue human though when a matrix of simpler neural tissues may well be adequate for the task; mice, squid, gibbon, shark?

And if we're using a virual training environment, well it could easily be accelerated, 20 years of training achieved in minutes in the tank. Endless possibilities in a sadly neglected aspect of 2300 canon.

 

[Nearside]

I think the line "cyborg army of soldiers" is what prompted me to think that this might not really fit into the canon background, but go wild.

 

[TWILIGHT]

Not in my 2300 universe!
Provolution...yes.ok.to a point. but judging by your other posts I'm not sure 2320Ad is the game for you space cadet. Alternity or trinity. Or there is a non-canon 2300AD forum out there if you'd like to try them. I only say this because the posts in 2320 so far I've seen you make are seriously non-canon.
If there we're cyborg armies what would be the point (from a fictional plot viewpoint) of walkers and kafers? Kafers would be reduced to fodder and walkers would be slow, cumbersome death traps. IMHO.

 

[Border Reiver]

I have to say there are still ideas here that can be worked upon; dismissing them on the basis of previous posts is quite unfair. A place for discussion, neh?

And the threat will be at the other side of known space, away from the Kafers, the Pentapods, the Septics etc. I see the "army" as not a massed assault on humanity but as a disposable tool of terror that will be used to surgically eliminate targets where the Provolutionary Superhuman will not risk the their gene pool.

Without conjuring up the imagery I see Doctor Who Cyberman-like automatons, ruthless killing machines programmed in fighting. Could they be captured and used on the Kafer front? Would the Manchurians decide that the could utilise them to dominate Terran politics? Yes, the walkers may become cumbersome deathtraps but could they be the force to stimulate the development of real powersuits?

 

[Nearside]

Yeah, I have to agree with Twilight. I'm all for interesting ideas, but 2320AD really doesn't seem like the right place. The non-canon 2300 forum is the best place for tangents such as this, and I'm glad it's there, so people can share ideas.

There's already more than enough (too much!) to explore inside the canon background, and I believe, with all due respect, that this is the place for that kind of discussion.

Having said that, who knows what the crazy Penty scientists are up to. With some tweaking, there's a couple of decent ideas here.

 

[Border Reiver]

Speaking of penty scientists, an idea from Peter F. Hamilton's Fallen dragon worth exploring is the living armoured suit, a biological alternative to combat walkers/powered armour.

Oh and can someone link me to the non-canon 2300 forum as it's not listed on my screen, only this and the 2320 playtest.

Time to work on a provolutionary idea, I'll continue this on the moot.

 

[Nearside]

Gahhhahhhhhh - I always get the shivers when I think about the way the penty stuff could go. The living 'encounter suit' or powered battlesuit is a great example.

 

[Colin]

Let's see... Full-body cyborgs, check, but there are only 81 of them in human space, and they are tied to critical support requirements for power, maintenance, and strained apricots. Hardly super-soldier material, though they could be very dangerous in a rapid-assualt scenario.

Pentapod bio-suits... check. Even a reference to how they give Pentapod conspiracy theorists the heebie-jeebies.

Cloning brains... Possible. Illegal, yes, but possible. As for quick training, though, not so much. Even with reality overlays and Cortescan xv technology (oops, there's a secret...), training still takes time, not just for the skills to be poured in, but for the body to learn how to use those skills.
Most cybernetics in 2320AD actually have an XP "cost" associated with them, to represent the training time required to use them. Quick training, in this case, could simply be more of the same, requiring an outlay of XP (for PCs), or perhaps alien levels. This would be more appropriate for Pentapod tech in 2320, rather than Human tech, buit is does hold some interesting possibilities.

 

[johndavidanderson]

Hi all, I've just got 2320AD and am very impressed. I've been planning a campaign which has definite similarities to the posters above.

I'm looking at having the players as the crew of a British 80-man, converted Leander class, frigate, acting as HM Government's gunboat in the French Arm and ensuring British lines of trade are unimpeded. I'm taking the slow-travel-therefore-long-lines-of-communication theory and equating the crew's mission as similar to those during our colonial era. Delivering Govt parcels, troubleshooting, 'showing the flag' etc.

The players would take the lead roles with: Captain, Engineer, Marine Lieutenant, Merchant Corporation Rep (a la East India Company), Doctor, and scientist. Their mission..."to do all that is necessary and prudent to facilitate His Majesty's and Great Britain's economic, scientific, and military, endeavors". This could involve side-treks with players playing different members of the crew in different types of scenarios, from marine boarding actions (the asteroid station), diplomatic missions between colonies, anti-piracy etc.

I'm looking at throwing at them an asteroid-based ex-Kafir facility, guarded by a mysterious, decommissioned French frigate that jumps them, a booby-trapped asteroid base and possibly 'malfunctioning' super-soldiers left behind to be obliterated with the station. Within the asteroid is a top secret scientific facility working towards breeding genetic 'ubermensch' with which to begin colonizing new worlds and spreading. The 'big bad' would be a very powerful 'splinter cell' of a large Foundation (I was thinking Life)who aim to rule the new utopia independent of the 'interference' of contemporary human society.. Spreading is seen as the best way to ensure their survival - but will more probably bring the transhumans into conflict with Earth's powers.

While not strictly cyber-super-humans, it's definitely in the same vein. Any ideas?

John

Edit: Forgot to put my name.

 

[Colin]

A Life Foundation secret group with ties to Pro-Volution, perhaps. Some magazine article in Challenge an overly-long time ago had super-soldiers in it, so the idea isn't entirely outside canon (assuming that everything in Challenge was canonical). Throw in Pentapods to make everything really weird.

 

[johndavidanderson]

Thanks for the response Colin. Rather than hijack this thread, I've started another about the Voyages of the HMSS Beagle.

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re:this thread
The main problem with this, is in the Cyberpunk 2020 universe, only one company has delevoped Ceretronic (Their word for cloned neural tissue) technology, Adrek Robotics & their attempt in delevoping a Humanoid combat cyberform went badly wrong.....
(Michael LaBossiere did a adventure in one of the later Challenge magazines, involving the fate of said cyberform....).
As for combat cyborgs, look up the Dragoon cyborg in Chromebook 3, or if you're really a glutton for punishment, the Dai-Oni powersuit from the 4th Corporate War - Shockwave sourcebook....
(The Dai-Oni powersuit can only be operated by a cyborg, (in this case a heavily modified/enhanced Alpha class body), as there's no life support inside the suit...)

 

[mbrinkhues]

The scenarios are "Beast of Boston" and it's follow up "Full Metal Rain". Ardek is a Cyberpunk company that has Drones in the Chromebook and the "Firestorm" books. There is also a non-ceretronic "all computer" AI in "This is only a test" and a tank-sized one in "Gorgon Hunt" but neither is by Ardek.

More Cyber-Equipment could be found in a number of Challenge Articles in the 40s and 50s issues, some of it (IIRC Challenge 43) dual-statet for CP and 2300AD. And the Super-Soldiers are in Challenge 54 (Horror Issue) and have both an interesting scenario and a nice background.

Spoiler:

They are Pentapod-constructed. The Pods have captured and used Humans, changed their bodies and perception (They see themselfs as normal). The PC are those characters and wake up in a dying Pentapod craft not knowing where they are.

 

[Anders]

One of the truly cool things about the cerebral cortex is that it seems to be an general computational matrix: what a piece does depends on what signals it gets and how it adapts to those (and connected cortex pieces). A classic experiment in ferret embryos involves re-routing the auditory or visual nerve to the opposite cortex, and the ferrets develop vision or hearing where the input goes.

Now, this suggests that if you can culture cortex and add neural interfaces to it you can likely train it at the very least to act as a pattern-recognition system. In one of my campaigns this was the basis for most "AI", including shrew-derived controllers for missiles and huge neural co-processors for data mining. At the end of the second campaign in that setting (set 20 years later) some people where having extra cortex connected to their brains using wireless links, literally devoting square meters of tissue to economics or math. It was not very good for their mental stability

In 2320AD I would guess such tissue can be cultured with no problem, but actually getting it to *work* is another matter. Which of course will enable lots of fun adventures involving corporate naughtiness, very buggy cyborgs, Philip K. Dick reality confusion and headhunting for the right kind of volunteers. As well as a lot of senior military people shaking their heads at the latest fad, reminiscing about the days when they wasted billions on AI tanks and super-stutterwarps that never got anywhere. Even technology that doesn't work well or as intended makes for good games.

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re: Last post
This sounds a lot like the Wiseman Borg conversion from Chromebook 3, in they attached the equivalent of a extra 6.5 Lbs (3Kg ?) of cloned brain tissue throughout the Borg body...
(The Wiseman was a borg body configured for Netrunners, & cost approxmately some €95,000, excluding the Intensive Care Psychotherapy treatment cost, which was effectively mandatory due to the Humanity Cost of the Conversion...)

 

[Anders]

Colin's mention of pentapods of course suggests a solution: ask them to grow suitable brains for the battlebots. Assuming they would understand the goal they would probably find the exercise intriguing and construct what would essentially be expendable cut-down pentapod pilots. Of course, pentapods would normally make entirely biological battlebots but could probably be convinced that human weapons technology is a bit better.

"So you mean our entire bioinfantery army is run by little starfish?!"
"Don't worry, we got a certificate of loyalty. Once they hatch they will immediately bond to the nearest officer they see. You know, like ducklings?"

 

[Colin]

"So you mean our entire bioinfantery army is run by little starfish?!"
"Don't worry, we got a certificate of loyalty. Once they hatch they will immediately bond to the nearest officer they see. You know, like ducklings?"

I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that. I would have killed my keyboard.

 

[G. Fieendish]

"So you mean our entire bioinfantery army is run by little starfish?!"
"Don't worry, we got a certificate of loyalty. Once they hatch they will immediately bond to the nearest officer they see. You know, like ducklings?"

"Does anyone have any solvent....?":rofl:
After all, there's more than one way for someone/thing to bond with another.....