Cyberpsychosis, Essence, and Approaching Transhumanism

[DSMatticus]

For better or worse, I don't think many people are at the table to experiment with existential crises. They're there to experiment with being a cyborg badass, and they will interact with your existential crises subsystem to the extent that it lets them be a cyborg badass. That's not to say that you shouldn't have such a system, but I'm pretty sure that "you put too many of the things you wanted on your character sheet so now I have to take it away" probably shouldn't be a part of it.

So how about this: every cybernetic augmentation or magical ability (or category of cybernetic augmentations/magical abilities, more likely) has a bunch of quirky roleplaying prompts (occasionally with minor fluff penalties, usually social) written next to it. The more 'inhuman' your character is, the more of these 'inhumanities' you are expected to write on your character sheet. As you jack yourself up on cybernetics, you get to go through the entries for all your cybernetic shit and choose quirks that make you think about the way to play a character who is jacked up on cybernetics.

This way, someone with cybereyes is reading about how maybe their eyes handle stimuli tracking and focusing computationally instead of mechanically, and as such their character has lost the habit of physically tracking whatever they're looking at with their eyes and they only turn their heads when they need to change their field of view, and it's become so ingrained to their nature that they're having difficulty recognizing the behavior in other people. They've got a perpetual thousand-yard stare, and they're never really sure when someone's talking to them unless they're addressed by name. All the little social queues people give and get from eye and head movements just don't apply anymore.

For people who want to explore transhumanism, you're giving them a system to play around in. For people who want to make a cyborg badass, you've written a bunch of interesting shit that might inspire them to make their cyborg badass a little more interesting. For people who absolutely just want to make a cyborg badass and nothing else, they'll just pick quirks they don't care about and be a cyborg badass. Everyone's happy!

[Stahlseele]

Now that is quite nice for an approach i'd say . .

Even if i do not think that behaviour would change fast but rather over years.

[angelfromanotherpin]

One of the old comics had a black carapace depiction that was at least minimally inhuman.

I also remember reading a short fic piece about a planetary governor who met his first Space Marines and was so terrified by their uncanny valley-ness that he preferred to risk death by dealing with aliens, though I can't find that one.

I agree that it's almost always wasted conceptual space, though.

[Stahlseele]

That depiction of the black carapace clashes somewhat with the usual fluff descriptions of it doesn't it?

As for changes in behaviour . .
Imagine somebody who has replaced both legs and one arm with cybernetics.
Technically, he does not need any furniture anymore, aside, maybe, from a higher workbench and table to eat from . .
Because his legs do not get tired anymore. Standing for hours on end is not uncomfortable to him either.
And if he wants to sleep, he just grips a conviniently placed handle in a little closet, locks both legs and the arm in position to keep from falling over and goes to sleep basically standing upright.
Similarly, depending on wether or not your system makes robotic parts get tired like shadowrun does, he does not need another mode of transportation for himself anymore either.
Just walk/run everywhere, because the machines will take care of it for you. Jump over obstacles like people, motorcycles, cars, vans, trucks, streets like the ultimate parcours champion.

And then there is the weight issue. 800 pounds of metal is still a pretty big difference to 200 pounds of flesh and bones.
Unstable ground like ice and construction sites and ruined buildings will become far more problematic for somebody like that in comparision to non heavy people.
If you do not forgoe furniture as mentioned above, you will need to completely rethink and refurbish your home with stuff that can hold your massive machine (m)ass.

Depending on what you do to your internals, you could stop breathing entirely. Eating and drinking. Artificial eyes that never blink are really really unnerving i noticed <.<

[maglag]

That depiction of the black carapace clashes somewhat with the usual fluff descriptions of it doesn't it?

Nah, that's indeed how spech merines out of power armor look like.

And then there is the weight issue. 800 pounds of metal is still a pretty big difference to 200 pounds of flesh and bones.
...
Depending on what you do to your internals, you could stop breathing entirely. Eating and drinking. Artificial eyes that never blink are really really unnerving i noticed <.<

Hey, if you're going full delusional with a machine that never wears down and is powered only by the power of your self-confidence or something to never need any fuel nor maintenance, you may as well claim it has zero mass too. If you're laughing at entropy, may as well laugh at the other laws of physics since you're at it.

[Stahlseele]

No, i usually do the physical bruiser built and that kinda sorta depends on the whole physics working as intended bit <.<

[erik]

I think your behavior expectations are way off Stahlseele. Vehicles can still be superior to running. Sitting can still be more comfortable than standing. I don’t sit down because my legs are tired. I sit because the table or desk is st that height. Posture changes might be that crossing legs and stretching isn’t something borgs do.

Non blinking isn’t that creepy unless the eyes are bugeyed and human looking. Otherwise you probably don’t notice or don’t care respectively. Blinks are fast and you don’t typically notice a lack of blinks unless you watch for it.

Behavior change is likely more about maintenance and fashion. If waist down is pure robot w.o genitalia then pants may be ignored. Borgs may preen and check themselves more to check for damage and discoloration that they cannot sense.

Depending upon haptic feedback, tapping or touching a borgs artificial limb may be a bit rude or unhelpful since it might not get their attention.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Actual prosthetics, even powered ones, tend to be pretty light because industrial metals and plastics are actually strong for their weight. Combat cyborgs would probably need ballast to move like normal people, which they would presumably jettison before going into action, like Dragon Ball weighted clothes.

[Stahlseele]

@erik
If i could stand all day and night, i would get rid of all of my furniture aside from maybe one or two chairs for visitors . .
Just because of how much more living space i would get out of my rooms!

Have you ever watched silence of the lambs and somehow, anthony hopkins/lecter seemed really really damn creepy? It's because he never ever once blinks in the entire movie! As long as he was on camera, he did not blink! And i noticed that. And i know somebody who has glass eyes and cannot blink . . i am abit ashamey but also i am so very glad he can't see how uncomfortable that makes me <.<

Clothes . . right . . i had not actually thought about it . . But i don't think most people would get rid of the fun bits if there are working replacements anyway . .


@angelfromanotherpin
REALISTIC modern ones right now, sure . . don't think the bionics in WH40K or the Metal Limbs in Shadowrun and the such adhere to that.

but you have reminded me of the scene with data as the improvised floatation device in the star trek movie with the eternal youth people ^^

[Trill]

40k I give you, but SR? Absolutely not.
We have enough advances in material science to create buildings hundreds of floors high, weapons that can fire a dozen rounds without going off course and cybernetics that are not only rejection free and fitted with full normal motion without requiring batteries, but also potentially capable for being FAR stronger and agile than a normal limb could ever be. I at least if would not be surprised if a full cyberlimb razorboy/-girl weights FAR less than normal while being FAR stronger

[angelfromanotherpin]

Have you ever watched silence of the lambs and somehow, anthony hopkins/lecter seemed really really damn creepy? It's because he never ever once blinks in the entire movie! As long as he was on camera, he did not blink! And i noticed that.

Untrue.


He blinks several times on camera, anyone telling you otherwise is perpetuating an urban myth.

Hopkins' performance is very creepy, but for a more nuanced reason. He emotes very little with his eyes. e.g. In the opposite of smize, he'll smile with his mouth, but the expression doesn't reach his eyes, which remain emotionally dead. That's disturbing to an audience because it signals that he's lying, or worse, pretending badly.

It's also relevant to someone with a prosthetic face that doesn't have great ability to emote. You run smile.exe and your mouth responds, but the eyes are fixed and can't coordinate with it and it pushes the same buttons as Hopkins' performance.

You could also get a thing where people with bionic faces show less emotion the more emotional they get, because they're too distracted to trigger the appropriate cues.

[erik]

I work in an eye clinic and see plenty of people who legit blink <4 times a min instead of every 3-4 sec. Not that creepy or noticeable. Mostly they just make good eye contact. The lack of emotion is what made Hopkins creepy af.

p.s. A glass eye does not keep you from blinking. Interestingly most fake eyes these days are just a shell that cover the remains of the eye. And most aren't made of glass either.

p.p.s. I suppose you would probably blink less often since you aren't getting the biofeedback of your eye's nerves telling the body that it is sensing surface dryness. But unless the lid muscles were damaged, then blinking is still the norm.

[maglag]

Actual prosthetics, even powered ones, tend to be pretty light because industrial metals and plastics are actually strong for their weight. Combat cyborgs would probably need ballast to move like normal people, which they would presumably jettison before going into action, like Dragon Ball weighted clothes.

You're right, modern tech puts a big enphasis on making things as light as possible since it really saves up energy.

And we actually already have leg prosthetics that are better at running than the real deal. Really light at only 2.2 pounds whereas the meat and bone equivalent would be 13-17 pounds more.

However as far as I know nobody's in a rush to chopping off their legs to get some of the above.

No, i usually do the physical bruiser built and that kinda sorta depends on the whole physics working as intended bit <.<

Speed matters more than weight when it comes to hitting things. It's better to have something light that can move really fast (aka bullet) than something heavy that moves sluggishly. And again, really saves in energy consumption too.

Hopkins' performance is very creepy, but for a more nuanced reason. He emotes very little with his eyes. e.g. In the opposite of smize, he'll smile with his mouth, but the expression doesn't reach his eyes, which remain emotionally dead. That's disturbing to an audience because it signals that he's lying, or worse, pretending badly.

Indeed, you can blink and still be pretty creepy.

You could also get a thing where people with bionic faces show less emotion the more emotional they get, because they're too distracted to trigger the appropriate cues.

Now that's just silly. If you have the tech for a bionic face, you have the tech to add some form of automatization that runs the "correct" behaviour for most situations with no need of manual triggers.

[Almaz]

Just because a leg is optimized on one parameter doesn't mean it's better on all others, and that matters a lot to what kind of choices people will make.

[maglag]

Or you know, people can just buy a car that is even faster while also drastically increasing your carrying capacity and offering enviromental protection.

Which I guess is why I consider the whole cyborguization fetish really silly.

Why gouge out your eyes for cameras when you could just get some high-tech glasses to do the same thing? Could even have extra cameras in the side for extra field of vision. Or heck a floating personal drone that can cover a lot more angles.

No need to throw away big chunks of your body to enjoy high tech.

[DSMatticus]

Now that's just silly. If you have the tech for a bionic face, you have the tech to add some form of automatization that runs the "correct" behaviour for most situations with no need of manual triggers.

The most advanced prosthetic limbs we have right now are made by hooking up sensors to residual muscle tissue and mapping the activation of that tissue to predefined mechanical behaviors. This could potentially scale up to rather sophisticated control interfaces (particularly in a sci-fi universe where realism can suck a dick), but it never scales up to magical mind reading cyberlimbs that display your emotions for you.

Obviously, the holy grail of prosthetics is to tie the limb into the remaining peripheral nervous system and then map everything such that it behaves exactly like the limb you lost.

That's not going to be the first cyberlimb we make. The first cyberlimb we make is going to be a bunch of sensor ports drilled into your muscles and tendons and maybe a handful of nerves if we think we can isolate them, and then we plug the cyberlimb into those sensor ports and you learn to control it the way you learn to operate a car that happens to be driven by twitches in your stump. It will take continuous, conscious effort to make it do things and it will not express your emotions for you.

That's not going to be the second cyberlimb we make. The second cyberlimb we make is going to be the exact same thing I described above, except it's going to be smart and it's going to run a bunch of heuristics to figure out what it thinks you want to do and then help you do that thing. It still won't express your emotions for you, but it will develop all kinds of weird tics because it's a heuristic AI constantly looking for patterns in your actions and when it guesses the wrong pattern you will have to consciously stop it from completing the pattern - sort of like how you occasionally have to fight your phone's autocorrect.

As the technology progresses we'll get gradually better and better at finding things to hook sensors into and both the versatility and intuitiveness of the control interface will improve and improve until finally we're just hooking the limb into your nervous system and it's like you never lost the limb at all.

And all of these cyberlimbs will probably exist on the marketplace at the same time at different price points because they require varying degrees of access to skilled medical labor.

[CapnTthePirateG]

You have the entire internet at your disposal. Feel free to find me a picture of a Spartan without armor or a Space Marine without armor that isn't exactly what I'm saying. They all just make them 8 foot tall Ryan Gosling's despite the logical conclusion of every element of their canon being that they would all be mutated monstrosities who might function as super-soldiers but would be hard to recognize as human. It sucks that they do that because exploring the transhuman elements of the story would also be more interesting, particularly in these narratives where humans need to beat the alien "other" and have to do so by becoming "other" themselves.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Jonah_Orion

Salamanders are dark skinned, but it is a lot harder to find space marines without armor than you'd think. Also I literally found this guy through "black space marines 40k" and he's like the only one, so I'm gonna concede that argument to you.

[Almaz]

Now that's just silly. If you have the tech for a bionic face, you have the tech to add some form of automatization that runs the "correct" behaviour for most situations with no need of manual triggers.

The most advanced prosthetic limbs we have right now are made by hooking up sensors to residual muscle tissue and mapping the activation of that tissue to predefined mechanical behaviors. This could potentially scale up to rather sophisticated control interfaces (particularly in a sci-fi universe where realism can suck a dick), but it never scales up to magical mind reading cyberlimbs that display your emotions for you.

Obviously, the holy grail of prosthetics is to tie the limb into the remaining peripheral nervous system and then map everything such that it behaves exactly like the limb you lost.

Actually, the first step of prosthetic innervation has been accomplished, allowing them to provide detectable feedback to the nerves. Patients with prosthetics can now feel what their arms and legs touch if this technique is used, and we are no longer limited to myoelectric prosthetics. Also osseointegration is a thing now.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... h-and-feel

[maglag]

Actually, the first step of prosthetic innervation has been accomplished, allowing them to provide detectable feedback to the nerves. Patients with prosthetics can now feel what their arms and legs touch if this technique is used, and we are no longer limited to myoelectric prosthetics. Also osseointegration is a thing now.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... h-and-feel

Or you can just hook a robotic limb directly to your brain.

And that's already six years old tech.

[Stahlseele]

Now we just need to make the 1000x str artificial muscles cheaper and find a way to use energy harvesting from the users body efficiently enough to not need external energy sources or heavy built in batteries anymore.

[PrometheanVigil]

Next random, and likely stupid idea: echo-chamber interaction penalties

You've described the Alignment system from Black Crusade pretty much to a tee.

'Cept with more interactions across the board with other sub-systems in the game and a removal of a alignment "limit" which is bad because gamers like apex limits -- they're objective measurements of power for characters.

For better or worse, I don't think many people are at the table to experiment with existential crises.

Nah, they totally are. That's what the guys who sign up with us at LDRC are here to do. They totally want to do the badass thing but so long as it actually feels "authentic": there has to be an existential/narrative cost to it otherwise its boring. These guys are here to roleplay and do it right.

And since my club represents a significant proportion of the more regular/serious WOD gamers (i.e. who put time aside each week/month for it) and a non-trivial amount of them being from overseas (increasingly further from Western European/Anglo culture every year), I have inadvertantly cultivated a cross-section of gamers who's opinions actually represent the proverbial "man on the street" to a large degree.

Unlike a significant number of online commentators who

-- Buy the books just to read them
-- Are wishy-washy about actually running/playing games even online but have no problem talking shit
-- Who argue relentlessly/wax lyrically online about fluff and "theorycraft"
-- Just watch stuff like Critical Role, Saving Throw, Node etc... but still feel entitled to put their two cents in
-- Are "ideas people" who put out awkward, specific scenarios/fantasies and are very *particular* about them but actually stop short of implementing them or, christ, run them at an actual table with people
-- Are general shitheads

the guys who show up to our seshes actually play these games and actually put their money where their mouth is. And they want gaming badassery but they *do* want it packaged inside of existential questions.

The 40k universe has the exact same phenomenon in it. Where somehow people imagine that this guy....

...is somehow normal looking without that armor. Just a guy who's unusually big. Definitely not a completely gross mutant who's every physical proportion would be freakishly bizarre after he was injected with drugs to make him grow a foot taller than Andre the Giant, having his ribs cracked open, being on a lifetime of steroids, and having hundreds of major surgeries. No. Again the entire canon is that they're just big tall handsome white dudes with some cool cybernetics that don't bother anyone in any way.

This is why the WHFN and WH40K (esp. latter) will always be problematic. While there are some fantastic novels, RPGs and computer games that the IPs have produced, you can't help but find racialism parallels, bonkers levels of whitewashing and a general undertone of nazi/eugenics worship in the art and parts of the lore.

And it's not deliberate -- no care or seeming awareness on part of the editors/designers/writers. That's the most frustrating/worrying part, especially seeing as a big market for the wargame just itself is kids...

Also, I've read the Ravenor omnibus end-to-end and that is one of the better novel series across both IPs I've read in general but it did annoy me to no end that the singular major black/dark-skinned character (Zeph) in that series died and other than him, that was it. That's just... terrible. You have no problem keeping a gay/sexually ambiguous guy 'til the end but a black dude, uh-uh.

Based on the proposition of the WH40K just by itself, most of the denizens of the universe should have caramel skin and hazel/green eyes. But not even a third of the Space Marines chapters alone have Meghan Markle's skin complexion.

You know what's really crazy? Apparently, back in the day according to a friend of mine who's really into the lore, the God-Emperor is supposed to be from "roughly Byzantine Empire territory, like in Medieval 2". There is no fucking way none of those Space Marines would not have bronze skin or Phonecian features as a *minimum* since they're supposed to be his fucking spawn...

Cool shit by the way on the Halo stuff, didn't know that. Still seems quite light if we made Halo universe more "authentic". Need it to have that Alpha Centuri feel, like the Spartan Federation.

I thought 40k was pretty damn clear that as a space marine you got 2 hearts and other fucked up shit and there was a chance that you got messed up mutations.

That is not a setting that embraces transhumanism, the Necrons uploaded their consciousness' and basically are stuck in eternal torment to the point they'd rather be biological again.

The Chaos Marines in the Night Lords omnibus (currently reading) definitely don't show it (you'd think they'd defo would!) and all the organs do is beneficial the way its been written so far. Same with the Blood Angels in that graphical novel they did. Its conceits layered over conceits over yet more conceits...

and I imagined them having existential crises as to who they really were,

Just read past the bit in Night Lords where

Talos ignores his mother even when she cries out to him and even Xarl states emphatically to him that was her when she's shot in the head by one of the procession guards during the Nostramo ceremony.

Nah, Bowden focuses on hummanity here (though I suspect he may be the only one, we'll see how Word Bearers omnibus goes...).

You have the entire internet at your disposal. Feel free to find me a picture of a Spartan without armor or a Space Marine without armor that isn't exactly what I'm saying. They all just make them 8 foot tall Ryan Gosling's despite the logical conclusion of every element of their canon being that they would all be mutated monstrosities who might function as super-soldiers but would be hard to recognize as human. It sucks that they do that because exploring the transhuman elements of the story would also be more interesting, particularly in these narratives where humans need to beat the alien "other" and have to do so by becoming "other" themselves.

They sell the game to preteen boys. Can't really make money off that demographic if they don't look like badass macho sci-fi superheroes. Core rev stream. Let's not even get into the dark eldar etc... fan service stuff for teenagers.

Counterpoint:



but I'm just messing with you.

I've got a soft spot for Ogryn. Probably because being that I'm 6'6" and tank-built in real-life, I get the "Ogryn treatment" here and there. 'Tis nice to be able to lift things that would break other peoples wrists and reach the top shelves, though...

[Stahlseele]

Nightlords.
Aah, the biggest irony in the entire 40K universe!
The most horribly scary motherfucking bastard legion, made up entirely by criminals . . and they are still the most human of the bunch.

[Whipstitch]

And since my club represents a significant proportion of the more regular/serious WOD gamers (i.e. who put time aside each week/month for it) and a non-trivial amount of them being from overseas (increasingly further from Western European/Anglo culture every year), I have inadvertantly cultivated a cross-section of gamers who's opinions actually represent the proverbial "man on the street" to a large degree.

This is hilarious just because I have a hard time imagining something less representative of the average man on the street than an international cabal of randos who still unironically play WW games in 2018.

[Mask_De_H]

And since my club represents a significant proportion of the more regular/serious WOD gamers (i.e. who put time aside each week/month for it) and a non-trivial amount of them being from overseas (increasingly further from Western European/Anglo culture every year), I have inadvertantly cultivated a cross-section of gamers who's opinions actually represent the proverbial "man on the street" to a large degree.

This is hilarious just because I have a hard time imagining something less representative of the average man on the street than an international cabal of randos who still unironically play WW games in 2018.

Would PV's post be a example of an echo-chamber interaction penalty? Because I made my Awareness check on that backhanded "my crew plays real games instead of theory op bullshit like you guys" line.

[Username17]

-Username17