Step 1: Return fire as directed or required., Inspiration for your Doc Wagon campaign Options

[Method]

Oxygenated Flourocarbons/P4MO (aka "Blue Blood") has been in SR since the street sam catalog, i think.

Shadowtech, I believe.

[kzt]

Nah, just pump fake oxygenated blood through it. Should be easy enough.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Shrike30]

keeping the brain alive long enough to get it to that body will almost certainly involve some pretty significant implantation, and that does cost essence.

Depends on how you're keeping it alive. I'm thinking a monogarotte and a cryo-tank might do fine without any implantation whatsoever. Nanite-based chilling systems might work, too... inject 'em, drop the body temperature evenly while providing chemicals to prevent the formation of ice crystals, chop off the head when it's cold enough to not require any more supplies from the body, and run to the nearest hospital with it. Might keep a few people from dying while you spend a few hours trying to saw them out of a wreck if you just yank the head and go.

There's also magic to consider. "Preserve" might work wonders here...

[nezumi]

Depends on how you're keeping it alive. I'm thinking a monogarotte and a cryo-tank might do fine without any implantation whatsoever. Nanite-based chilling systems might work, too... inject 'em, drop the body temperature evenly while providing chemicals to prevent the formation of ice crystals, chop off the head when it's cold enough to not require any more supplies from the body, and run to the nearest hospital with it. Might keep a few people from dying while you spend a few hours trying to saw them out of a wreck if you just yank the head and go.

There's also magic to consider. "Preserve" might work wonders here...

I don't think 2060 technology is capable of what you've just described. Preserve might be, I'd have to consider that, but you'd basically have to cast it into a sustaining focus to keep it going for that long. But that also goes into questions of the astral, effectively of the soul. As a GM, I would rule that preserve would keep the brain fresh, but it would be like that of a clone - it would no longer work, presumably because the astral aspect of the person has already died. There's not a lot on the books either way, except that the failure of cloning would indicate such extreme measures are unlikely to be successful.

[Shrike30]

*shrug* It's an idea.

Basically, if we've got the tech (the drug Slab) or the magic (Preserve, or, i think there's another thing that flat-out lets you hibernate... might be an Adept ability, tho), I don't see why the spirit would leave. Essence isn't lost if you chop off a limb, it's lost if you replace that limb with metal. I don't see why that wouldn't extend to the entire body, if you believe that conciousness (and therefore, Essence) is rooted in the mind/brain.

Either way, watching the DocWagon crew behead your teammate and chuck the head into a cooler before they dust off might make for an entertaining run intro, since you KNOW they're gonna turn him over, possibly sans clone-grown body, once the extradition paperwork goes through...

[PBTHHHHT]

I know that if I had a sleeper sofa in a stairwell (assuming the zombies were below me on aforementioned stairwell), I'd figure out some way to let gravity do most of the work for me.

Reminds me of those old tom and jerry cartoons.

[Method]

The idea of salvaging someone's brain and implanting it in a clone kind of reminds me of the movie Vanilla Sky.

It would make in interesting back story for a character with amnesia. You remember your childhood and youth and most of your adult life, and then there is a long span of lost time (during which you happened to have pissed off the wrong people, died and had your brain implanted in a clone). Good times.

[DocTaotsu]

Another thought,

Second hand cyber, yours specifically. If you buy the farm is DocWagon expected to extract whatever's left? If you buy the farm under their care who decides what happens to all that beautiful chrome in your body? I'd personally be pretty pissed off (and not the least bit uncomfortable) with the concept that DocWagon might make mor money off me if they let me die and sell my parts. And if I did buy it I'd want those wares to be sold and the proceeds used to pay off my debts or be forwarded along to my next of kin.

[DocTaotsu]

And this is pretty damn cool too. I'm good friends with a surgical tech who got to work with an earlier model of these things.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?no...08/03/22/189205

Says surgeons have to go through a rather protracted learning cycle to qualify on them but that the speed that can attained is pretty damn impressive.

[DocTaotsu]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80325083254.htm

And here's another interesting development. It would be rather nice to be able to administer some medication that reversibly suppresses metabolism until you could get someone to a higher order of care. Serious internal bleeding is one of those things that currently can't be fixed without surgical intervention, however, if their heart is pumping at a lethargic 10 beats per minute you would be reducing the amount of bleeding that could occur.

Here's hoping it works on people.

[Method]

Thats actually a pretty cool concept. Reminds me of the plot for "The Serpent and the Rainbow" (movie and book), which could be converted into a kick ass SR adventure, now that I think about it.

Even if hydrogen sulfide doesn't work in humans I'm sure that by 206X or 2070 they would have come up with a few things. Maybe computer-controlled deep anesthesia techniques (CCDAT?) that have similar metabostatic effects. It all kinda comes back to the need to oxygenate the brain, kidneys and heart. If you slow metabolism to reduce oxygen demand a lot of the alternatives to oxygen we discussed would enhance this kind of treatment (especially oxygen exchange nanobots).

[DocTaotsu]

I certainly think that between some sort of DNI, oxygen alternative, and chemicla suppresant you'd be able to pull off some amazing results.

This gets into an interesting question of invasiveness and magic. I liked the whole "life threatening wound=possible magic loss" as fluff in SR3. It made sense to me that 2070 trauma surgery was probably a lot more complicated than healing with steel and brights lights. I'd imagine there is a whole class of temporary cyber/bioware that can be slid into place to keep various funtions going while surgeons and their drones go to work elsewhere. I mentioned earlier in the thread how it'd be neat to have a neural defibrillator, something that automatically balances neurochemistry and forces various levels of consciouness. I can even see a use for an invoked memory stimulator in certain cases.

But yeah, I think it's an awesome to think that a DocWagon team would swoop in, knock your ass out and drag you off to the hospital in an induced coma/hibernation. This tech would also be handy for runners in that classic "We really need to hide in a hole in the ground for a couple weeks until this all blows over".