Brain Transplants, or Supermages Away! Options

[Angelone]

My SR group had a discussion last night and I'd like the opinion of my fellow Dumpshocker's. This is a two-part deal so bear with me.

Say Mage_01 gets creamed by a bus, a group of trolls, or any of the other dangers of the sixth world. Mage_01's body is wrecked no way to help it with current tech.. However, his doctor tells him "Hey, Mage_01 we can just clone you and place your brain into the clone, cause we rock." Granted a doctor won't say it like that but you get my drift. What do ya'll think of that?

Second scenerio say same thing happens, but this time they chrome/bio up the body before hand, with none of the magical side-effects. Thoughts?

I'm fine with the first, but the second is in my mind to much. Sure his essense isn't in the body when they're doing the operations, but still your basically making a cyberzombie with none of the drawbacks which can cast spells.

If needed I'll clear this up later. I'm still trying to think through it.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Head in a jar retains full essence because you do not get penalized essence for loss of a body part.

Head in a perfect clone retains full essence because the body is properly clonal.

Head in a cybered body needs all that cyber integrated into the nervous system, which is one of the potential causes of essence loss.

Head in a bioware body must deal with the constant battling between the immune system and the variant DNA organs, so that definitely faces full bio-index penalties. That and the general tendency of magic to struggle when dealing with a person that has multiple genetic templates.

[Ancient History]

No dice. SR still doesn't have full-woking clones, much less brain transfer techniques that work yet.

[Velocity]

[Trax]

Arms and legs could be cloned, although the torso most likely cannot, so he'd have to get a cyber one.

[mmu1]

[Herald of Verjig...]

Shadowtech has some fluff text about the rest of the body being useless in the bioware creation system. That tends to indicate that whole bodies are usually cloned, but with varrying amounts of usable parts. However, later text may override that.

[CirclMastr]

Didn't they say in the Geneware section of SOTA '63 that they could make full-body clones but just couldn't develop the brain of said clone?

[Angelone]

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Angelone]

Okay, misunderstood you for the essense loss thing. Was wondering about how could someone maybe lose essense when they get cyber.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Well, there are those interesting surgery rules that can change the amount of essence lost with an implant... but they have some serious potential drawbacks depending on how you interpret the ambiguities.

[Guest_Overwatch_*]

[Angelone]

/shudder
Man, shedim are bad enough already. Cybermonster shedim are probably the most terrifing things there could be in SR. Kind of like Night of the Living Dead, but no chance for survival.

[fistandantilus4....]

wow, whole new idea for a run right there.

Shedim posseses a cyberzombie's shell somehow ( say the 'host body' just died of cancer, or gets lost in the details and forgets to live while on a mission) before it can get back to the 'shop'. The corp needs runners to recover it, as it's causing a bit of a stir (pushing the envelope:Master Shedim) in the underworld. They can't jsut go after it (say Azt, has major PR issues with that) so they need some deniable assets to take ago at recovering their tech for them. Only problem is that the cyberzombie's hazing makes it incredibly difficult to effect with magic, and the spirit bindings make it impossible to banish. How do they take it down w/o destorying it?

Possible holes though - would the hazing continue if the original 'occupant ' finally died? Would his soul still be bound by the spells, even though it expired?

[toturi]

[Cain]

As far as a brain transplant into a 100% cloned-match body: remember, transplant surgery carries with it the possibility of Deadly wounds, which in turn can lead to Magic loss. So, such a transfer isn't without risk of Magic loss, even though Essence is left alone.

[fistandantilus4....]

[Crusher Bob]

The commentary in Shadowtech about full body clones is about the difficulty of creating 'multiple enhancements' in the same clone body. I.e. why they can make a better heart and a better liver, but they can't necessarily make a single body with both at the same time. The altered conditions that lead to the grown of the bioware 'usually' make the rest of the body really crappy. There are no comments made about 'regular clones' just the ones used to grow bioware.

A 'brain transplant' would be excessively difficult, since the entire spinal column would need to be re-connected to the new body, and so on. If I was the doctor, I'd want to just jack in a relative of wired reflexes or move-by-wire. You connect the 'body control computer' to the brain and to the new body. As a bonus effect, if you ever need a new body, you just take the old brain and the 'body control computer' and attach it to a new body. If fact, it would be cheaper and simpler to implant said brain with a vehicle control rig, stick it into a life support system, and stick it onto a drone.

The process of completely re-attaching and integrating a body would be long a tedious, why not just use mostly off the shelf technology (VCR, drone, life support) to get the same effect?

Of course, then you run into some problems with the essence system in SR, getting a full borg body (arms, legs, skull torso, eyes, ears, and so on) would cost a huge pile of money and essence. Having your body 'cut off' and jacking into a drone with basically all the same stuff would probably be cheaper and cost less essence.

I hate looking out of your eyes, Batou. Your POV's too lecherous...

[Shanshu Freeman]

[Crusher Bob]

That was from the manga, where Batou is much more of a gimp. The major has just staged her death, and her and Batou are talking about the fate of her body.

[Shanshu Freeman]

[Angelone]

AFAIK, that's all that's been released in the US, hopefully more are coming soon.

The connect to a super drone was one thing that came up but we decided it be basicall like making a full cyberbody and putting the brain in their. Thinking about it though, putting your body in something like an Ares Guardian would be damn interesting.

[weblife]

Just implant a VCR lvl 3 set. Then have the body contain lifesupport etc. for the brain, and hardwire it to the brain so it can't be scrambled.

It'll function like an ordinary Drone. Technically the VCR replaces all need for further direct hookups to the brain. The drone capabilities are simply hooked up to the VCR through the subscriber list.

The body will not be influenced by mindaffecting spells, as its eyes and sensors are not paid for with essence. It'll count as a vehicle, so discount one DL and halve Power of attacks.

This closely resembles the idea of a Dwarf rigger riding a Troll Antroform drone.

[nezumi]

I recollect reading something about subtley changing the DNA of a person before birth so certain effects occur 'naturally' with decreased essence loss. I would probably allow that if you're cloning a body. And for a *TON* of cash, I would let someone do a 'brain transplant'. But I would put in a few things:

1) It's tremendously expensive. We're talking a base cost of a few million nuyen at MINIMUM at a Beta level clinic or better (you could make the offer to your local street doc for less, but would you really want to?)

2) There would be certain cyber required to reconnect your brain to stuff. Probably .5 essence for a neural shunt, effectively. Something like that.

3) I would probably roll randomly for some new flaws. A full brain transplant is a dangerous thing indeed, and even when successful, problems will occur.

4) I would have the chances of the character dying much higher (maybe 3 or 4 successes required on a body test? Well, don't know if a body test is really appropriate any more...) Healing time also will take some serious time, to regrow nervous tissue.

5) And the final killer, there would be significant essence loss beforehand for 'brain in a jar' mode. That's effectively a full body replacement with a cyber version. For a mage, that would suck royally. For the street sam maybe not so much, since when the brain is transplanted he'd just have an essence hole. Being a nice GM, I do let essence 'regrow' over time, but the mage won't be happy for some time.