Money in old tropes - Cyborgs

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.

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The utility fog of war

I've brought up the subject of utility fog before, here, but not in the context of use in games.

A while back I was lucky enough to see some possible stats for an old school roleplaying game. But why is it not more widely used?

Have a read up on the potential - look at what it could do. Surely it would be come the default form of conflict and exploration? And general utility of course. Even in fantasy or a low-tech future, it could pop up as the tool of a higher power. Maybe it's what makes fantasy possible?

Players of Warhammer 40,000 might think immediately of chameleoline, a material allowing an assassin some degree of shapeshifting ability. There's a starting point. But AI would need to be high. And how would the material respond to weaponry? Could it defend itself in melee? The T1000 from Terminator 2 is another source of thinking. 

Would it even need to do a thing as primitive as fight?

What set me off was the idea of a nano-cloud disguised as a bucket seat, just one of the weird flashes of inspiration the four of us have had working on C'nor's spaceport table. Utility fog could really go to ground, and could even be the entire landscape.

Conflict as we know it could vanish; maybe it already has?

How would you represent it? Deeper: how would it represent you?
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Deep thought Friday

A step down from last week, I've been brushing up on utility fog for the less-than-secret project, using this seminal article. I recommend reading it, from the first image to the second at least.

How can we know we're not already in that world?

If you don't want to read it, here's the alternative:

How can we know that what we - collectively or singly - perceive to be reality is not a simluation?

Need input

What if that ?siD really does exist? How could it be proven? Here are a few of the latest posts from our part of the blogopshere on getting data, the uses of it and its value.

A Soviet sample return mission that never got off the ground at Beyond Apollo. Such a lot of work for such little quantities. It's all we have.

One day the data in this world-building spreadsheet at The Orb might be matched against that for other systems. Until then we dream. Nanotech helps with that of course, as this post at Science In My Fiction reminds us. Even fantasy fans might like the idea that the long-lost Damascus steel could have had nanotubes.

For a cool take on the world-building that is terraforming, try the Garteil at Riskail.

Interesting thoughts on trusting instruments at Ghost Hunting Theories. Esoteric the field may seem, but I'd say the point is a wider one. I'm no Luddite, but I stand by my comment: "Industry might be the point. There's money in those devices, but also the impression of science in carrying one."

More on the mind and body in the latest post, if you're happy with horror and can accept strong language. Never hurts to read the criticism either.

Ravelling yarns (1) - Plasma streaming

Something to start the whole thing off then. A near-future sci-fi snapshot complete with baffling but still largely comprehensible terminology, and a possible fantasy twist. It's a kind of pan-solar propaganda. Just for fun and hopefully inspiring in its reasonable wackiness. Questions, exclamations and criticism all more than welcome...

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