Would anyone be interested in a sourcebook that focused on all things medical?

[EDIT] I will create a table of contents mock up here to organize the ideas. Please contribute ideas by posting. As more ideas come in, I will add them as best as I can. The idea is to see if we can get enough possible subject areas to make a justifyable sourcebook. Writing the actual content is of course the hard part. This is just for fun so don't expect anything to come of this.

Table of Contents

1. Medical Services
A chapter that goes deep into DocWagon, hospital corporations, more in depth hospital technology, cloning information with controversal arguments on cloning percedures via disposable lab-grown hosts, and common patient admittance procedures in the sixth world.

2. Clinics
If you are going to be SOTA, you better deny it. Get your new body here without the illegal side effects. Expanded information on Beta and Delta clinics. How the corporations keep them secure and out of the public eye. Information on Lone Star, Knight Errant, and military clinics.

3. It's O.K. to Cry
Effects of cyberware and bioware on mental health. Phycological conditions and social interaction. Drug abuse. Mental hospitals. Interrogation medicine and techniques.

4. Give me my liver back!
An in depth look into the organ side of organised crime, the organ black market. Organlegger (and cyberware-legger) rings, UCAS prisoner organ harvesting, and smuggler hosts.

5. Biological Threats
Symptoms of modern diseases and biowarfare, how biowarfare is developed and tested (and who is developing and testing them), and where and how the outbreaks and plagues are being dealt with. How biowarfare is used in Desert Wars and military operations. Military use of medics and surgeons, military hospitals, military medical equipment and vehicles. Uses and interests of biological weapons by eco-terrorists.

6. Paranormal Nuisances
Information on vampire and zombie populations, the societies that they create, and how the medical community deals with them.

-- Unassigned subjects. Suggestions are welcomed. New ideas will be added here first. --

* The use of magic in the medical world behind the scenes.
* Forensic medicine

-- Equipment list. This would be a list of items that would be appropiately introduced in this sourcebook. If you can think of an item, don't be shy and post it! --

* DNA Blood Analyzer. Simular to a biomonitor, this tool requires a drop of blood to be placed onto a small metallic plate located on the surface of the interface. A small screen displays blood type, cell count, sugar levels, and chemical contents of the blood. Along with this information, a DNA model is constructed and compiled into a 1 mp file and stored in it's local memory (50 mp). An electronics port allows the device to be connected to a computer, phone, radio, or simular device to allow for data transmissions. The analyzer is often standard equipment with DocWagon teams which send the DNA data via radio to the company databases to id persons and verify contracts. Police find this tool indispensable in aiding forensic investigations.

* Biofeedback Machine. A generic term for a device spacifically designed to deliver electronic biofeedback to a person. The military uses biofeedback machines for interrogations. All prisoners get datajacks installed with biostoppers in maximum security facilities to keep them under control. Electric chairs have long been replaced by biofeedback chairs for executions.

Sounds like a SotA chapter; Medtech or such.

Biowarfare gets a mention in SotA:63 under Genetech, IIRC.

It sounds like a pretty cool idea, but I'm not sure if it could be stretched into what most people consider a sourcebook.

Just from that blurb I can see total sourcebook potential... if you need writers, I can probably toss in a spot or two... always up for a challenge...

There may be enough to fill a sourcebook, but would it be of such value to the consumer that it would be cost-effective to release?

I agree that it would make an interesting SotA chapter though.

Or even just a large submission to something like TSS.

I love the idea, but I cannot see it being published offline.

If someone's bored, start collecting ideas and see how much material shows up.

Whiz-kids might even want to do it as a "Free release" to "show it's appreciation to its gamers and fans".

-Siege

Considering "Whiz-kids" [whoever /they/ are...] have never released anything for the Shadowrun RPG, I'd be surprised if that happened.

Can't hurt to send in a proposal to FanPro, though.

Something that was sort of touched on but not exactly hit on the nose in the suggested TOC was black clinics -- both street clinics and "deniable" corp-operated ones. They play an important role for most runners, probably more important than legit medical facilities.

Whaddabout psychiatric issues? We've seen hints, for example with PABs.

I actually did something up on that, once. Unfortunately, I lost it to a hard drive crash.

I don't think I'd mind doing a section or some write up for Black Clinics at all...


Sounds very interesting.

I may be interested in throwing my hat in the ring on this as well. If someone start organizing anything put me on the list.

I'd like to see either a rules expansion or optional set of rules for personality and mental disorders brought about by excessive cyberware. It's mentioned that people are detached, but is that the only phsycological reaction?

I'd just like to add:

So long as Adam doesn't mind me running off with his idea for a section anyways.

I got another item idea, inspired by the mental section.

Biofeedback Machines, and a new kind of Jackstopper called a Biostopper.

These things could possibly become the bread and butter of a prison system.

Include cyberware recycling under organ-legging.

A section for new: bioware, cyberware, gear, chemicals (and so on)

You might even go so far as to include a new skills section: active and knowledge

-Siege

I was such a huge fan of the pseudo-science discussions between KAM and Smiling Bandit in Shadowtech back in the day, and the medical ethics issues raised by bioware at a minimum are very interesting. Obviously it comes from a whole organism, yeah - I seem to recall that the "body" that bioware is grown in is discarded in the havesting of the bioware, and that the body may not be a viable being but is just tailored to give the right 'ware.

FOr neural ware, though, what you're growing is a body with a well-developed cognitive system. Implying that the body in question may actually be sentient; probably more for some 'wares than others...

Maybe this is just the biologist in me talking, but this stuff is why I love SR so much. I'd be all about putting my couple of yen into this sort of book, in terms of flavor and background info for biotech and bioware at least....so yeah, put me on the list.

Personally, I always hated hunting through a source book looking for specific references.

-Siege

Dude, it's your project.

I'm just tossing in another perspective.

On that note, having a toys section and referencing it throughout the book does hit the best of both worlds in my humble opinion.

-Siege

It is not my project, I am just posting this for fun. Anyone can do this, the idea is simply to come up with ideas.

If this project actually gets running in a formal way I'd be willing to provide a forum and hosting for it. Not sure how much I'd actually be able to do myself, between school and the Deus Project, but I can provide space to talk.

~J

I'd like to see something on Cloning, although that might have already been discussed in some book and I just don't know it or maybe better suited for SOTA.

For those of you who hate specific referance versus sectional styles. I would reccomend an index chart for the book or a "rules summary" for each section that gives a summary of the new systems presented. Of course, when I just posted this I hadn't read the rest of the thread. This kinda follows what other people have said.

If anyone working on this would like help with the writing med-tech is strong hobby of mine. Including trauma and field care. I am also interested in the potiental of (para)psychology and metapsychology in such a magically and technologically enhanced future world.