Second in the series in which I give YOU a new take on an old trope and tell you to go earn big!
Last time was marines; this time it's cyborgs.
We know the concept very well. A cyborg is a cybernetic organism. But that's been done. To death. Check out just
this list. We've had all of
endoskeletons,
exoskeletons and implants.
What's left? Well, our imaginations are the limit.
For example, you've probably heard of
utility fog. It's been mentioned at the Expanse
here re gaming and
here re philosophy. The idea is that a huge number of tiny links in a 3D matrix regulate their relative positions to change shape, colour and property. The
T1000 starts to look less fantastical. The real world starts to look less solid.
But how does this tie in with cyborgs? Surely utility fog is beyond biology? Not so fast. There might be plenty a nanocloud couldn't do, or do easily. Believable mimicking might be tricky, and replication of the large array of integrated systems in a complex organic lifeform - and that integration itself - might prove harder than creating the cloud.
There's more on that kind of thing up now at the superb
Astrogator's Logs,
here.
So how about a biological base on which nanotech has gone to work, producing a transbiological form of tougher, more flexible bone, more efficient muscle, improved nervous and circulatory systems, and through all this a utility cloud has been run?
Within the body the cloud could beat the heart faster, reinforce blood vessels, hold wounds closed while they are repaired. It could project out beyond the skin to provide an invisible cushion, reacting to incoming projectiles and maybe deflecting them with concentrated electromagnetic pulses. It could provide support for the limbs or additional limbs, and allow chameleonic changes in appearance as well as a limited shapeshifting.
Impressive. How you feel about it as a possible reality likely depends on how you feel about transhumanism in general. It's a big subject. Fiction can help us explore it, assuming it's not selling it to us, whether for enthusiasm, profit or something more sinister. And there is of course a danger that fiction can make development more likely.
Am I being irresponsible? Maybe. Ideas are very powerful things.
Let me trivialise it now then, by statting it up for gaming. I'm going to use the great free skirmish game
FireZone by
Gotthammer, which would work just as well for a more classical punk approach to cybernetics, something like
Lantz's
AdMech FanDex, also great and free. I put together
a blunderbuss last week, but this time it's a protagonist.
Or rather two, one playing up the slow inexorable zombie tradition, one faster.
Nanorg (slow)
S P I D E R
3 4 3 6 8 3 Abilities: Dauntless, Shielded 4/1
Nanorg (fast)
S P I D E R
5 4 5 8 8 5 Abilities: Stealth, Free Running, Sure Footed, Dauntless, Shielded 4/1
No equipment here, but for weapons - if you need them - Gotthammer's flamethrower, thermal cutter and plasma welder would reflect the idea that lifeforms like this might get burdened with heavy, difficult work. He statted those for
Studio McVey's
Sedition Wars.
Read
FireZone to see what the notation means; to whet the appetite, those shields recharge. Again, the rules pdf is free and could become that new wargaming system.
_
