One thing that's been bugging me is the fingerprint removal geneware. Why would anyone get this? The modification is illegal, it is expensive, and it takes two weeks work, and you'll have to go through a great deal of trouble if you ever need fingerprints for anything. On the other hand, in real life you can accomplish the same thing with a couple of hours with and fine grit sand paper or mild acid, and they'll grow back if you need them. Since they won't grow back the same, you can even just burn or scrub off your fingerprints and wait for new ones to grow in their place without much worry.

You ever tried it?

No kidding.

"Yeah, lemme just spend 8 hours a day for a week rubbing sandpaper on my fingers!"

Good luck with that.

1. That hurts like heck.
2. They grow back exactly the same.
3. They can still be detected after a treatment like that if a good enough scanner is used.

It's about as reasonable as having tubes shoves into various orifices which are not designed to accept tubes and immersing oneself in a vat of liquid for two weeks.

Couldn´t you use acid instead of the sandpaper? I think it would hurt less.

couldn't you just get, you know, cyber-hands that are interchangeable and use one of them as your civilian hands with prints on them and the other with smiley face prints?
as for the hurting: in the world of shadowrun, where you can take drugs to get pain resistance and regeneration, it it probably even viable to just cut off your fingertips completely, if needed be . .

Good point. Cyber-hands are likely the easiest solution, though they require a bigger cut in essence then the gene therapy would have. Thus outlying the difference between cyberware and other wares. Cyberware is cheap in cash, but expensive in essence.

wouldn'T it be easy to get single fingers replaced, or just the fingertip, for about 0,01 essence?

Not really. You'd need so much extra machinery in the hand to make it work properly that you'd basically end up with a cyberhand anyway. Look at how much essence a penile implant costs, and it doesn't even have fine motor functions.

Another simple option is to simply wear gloves. Sure they can be taken off, but be honest. If the cops find you with acid burned fingertips, they're going to just hold you till the ridges grow back enough to get an accurate read.

No.

Erasing your fingerprints is a minor cosmetic modification and even by RAW costs no essence at all.
Of course, the Dynamic Handprints implant only costs 0.2 essence.

So if it is a minor cosmetic modification that costs 0 essence and a handful of nuyen, why did they include the geneware option?

Edit: Of course the dynamic handprint does bring up a good point, though it is nanocyberware if I recall correctly, not that it matters much.

Why would it even matter if you have fingerprints? Even if they were on file, just pay someone to erase the SIN, and pick up a new one. Easy as pie.

Given how much fake SINs cost? I'd think it would be about as expensive to do that once or twice as it would to erase your fingerprints.

Wouldn't it be easier to just wear gloves?

DEAR GOD NO.

I mean, if you're stupid enough to leave your prints around a crime scene willy-nilly already, you're beyond help to begin with.

I think Hyzmarca's original point stands, though. Removing your prints completely makes your character extremely conspicuous, considering how print readers are so ubiquitous in the setting, and considering that any law enforcement person will find someone with absolutely no fingerprints a suspicious character. And it is spending 25,000 (!), and losing Essense, over what could easily fall under cheap, no-Essense-loss cosmetic bioware.

Maybe it's like the magical knack qualities, something that only NPCs take. Stupid NPCs, in this case.

If I were going to go that route, I'd just get Alt Skin or any of the other alternatives that lets you change your prints whenever you want to. Erasing them is just stupid no matter how you slice it, as previously mentioned.

I suppose it's one of those 'looks good on paper' sort of things. I mean sure, a way to not get identified by your fingerprints is great, but the execution and trouble of not having any fingerprints is almost worse then having them link you to something bad in the first place.

Now, maybe if it permanently changed them to a different kind, didn't cost essence, and was alot cheaper it would be useful. I can totally see runners going and doing this after every mission or two if it cost like 500 nuyen and didn't have essence. Maybe a quick shot that messed with the genes in your fingers ever so slightly and took like three days to fully change them. Yeah, that would be sweet.

^ Glance through the Nanoware chapter of Augmentation. Namely the Dynamic Handprints nanites.

Actually, it's not as hard as all that - people have one hell of a hard time getting decent prints off me. I have a form of OCD and end up washing my hands alot (and I mean alot) more than the normal schmuck. The constant friction etc has in effect blurred my prints to some degree.

In SR of course this would only be effective against low rating systems (just as nowadays I'm sure a decent forensics team could get prints where a run of the mill background check has trouble).

Especially if you are dead...just pull the skin off your hands, and wear it like gloves, and get the prints....yes, they do do that...(It is why my professor for Foresic Anthropology said she hated that she had very delicate hands..first, would make identification of her body that way more difficult, and second, it meant that she always got tapped to do that part of body identification if it was needed)

And, believe it or not, those methods everyone listed? Not very effective. First, the elimation of prints makes the person a stronger suspect on the "If they were innocent, what are they trying to hide?" principle. Additionally is the simple fact that there are STILL subtle traces that can be lifted with the right techniques(No, my professor did not mention those techniques).

If you're dead it don't matter if they print you

Regardless of scientific basis, my explanation is that 2070-era fingerprint scanners can read the blood vessel patterns in the fingers. The gene therapy breaks down the capillary structure and "scrambles" it.

That's alot of nerve endings and tubing being rewired.

I think a good strong base would hurt even less.

Have you ever touched a good strong base? I'm a chemist, I would rather get acid dumped on me then base. Both would suck but the acid would be way better.

No way. Bases are the opposite of acids. Acids hurt. So, quite obviously, bases wouldn't. It's simple logic, really. Get with the program.

Might be. I tried it with battery acid from my car*. But I´m willing to believe Karaden that yours isn´t any good either.



(*UNINTENTIONALLY! A glitch on a car mechanic test.)

Just a note, the reason it isn't a cosmetic bioware mod, is because they say it isn't possible. Aug, 85, "Phenotypic alterations, often referred to as cosmetic geneware, are usually performed for metahuman cosmetic alterations that cannot be performed by biosculpting. Minor alterations include a sixth finger, remodeling of fingerprints, and alignment of facial features."

remodeling of fingerprints is different than removal

I've read up a bit on this. There are several real-life criminals who have attempted this stuff too. From what I can tell, firstly, as was pointed out, they grow back exactly the same. Secondly, as AH pointed out, it's not as easy as popping by for a pedicure. You are literally taking off your finger-tips, which is either extremely dangerous (acid) or extremely time-consuming (sand-paper) and almost always painful regardless. Thirdly, it leaves you with tender wounds where your finger tips used to be. Try putting your finger tips on a hot pan once, even just long enough to only get them pink, then come back here and post your reply. I imagine doing anything, muchless climbing ropes and firing guns, would be extremely difficult if my fingers had just been sanded off.

I'll take the surgery, thank you.

A drop or two of superglue on the fingertips wouldn't work as well?

Let em dry before you try touching anything with the fingers in question, of course.



-karma

I'll go with gloves thanks.

Cellular Glove Molder. Like wearing gloves only a thousand times better.

For a start you obtain some random persons finger prints and then leave them all over the crime scene.

Your prints are safe and you've gone and left false clues behind and all without the trouble of losing any essence for the low cost of 600 nuyen for the top grade option.

Or just get frostbite on your fingers. That should fix your fingerprints nicely, and they might not even have to amputate!

Sorry, you're wrong on that. Bases and acids both will hurt and dissolve body tissue once they get strong enough. Acutally, the human skin (as well as the eyes) is specifically made to withstand acids to a certain degree (the pH level of the skin is 5.5, which is slightly acidic). In day to day life as well as in nature (relatively) strong acids are more common than strong bases, so that makes sense. E.g. a strong sodium hydroxide solution will dissolve body tissue just like an acid.

Umm, Camouflage, even I could tell that IT WAS A FRAGGING JOKE!

You expect me to get Doc's humor, after 4 years of abstinence, at 9:41am after more than 24 hours without sleep?

Should the the failure to detect a joke be considered a failed etiquette check by the listener or a glitched Con/Etiquette attempt by the joke teller?

Discuss.

Yep.

Although I'm currently discovering exactly how much abstinence sucks myself so I feel for you chummer.

In this case it's the result of answering to a post without reading the context, so, yeah, probably failed ettiquette by me. Should have answered to the post Doc answered to to make it more appropriate...

But OTOH... Doc and ettiquette??? (Ok, ok, my collection of personal dossiers on the people here is about 4 years out of date... )

That one goes to the listener. (Pretty transparent why I would say that, my humour could be described as "odd" by some.)

Of course the fact that fingerprint removal is a potential 5BP negative quality under mystery mod kind of shows that this isn't the sort of thing you do idly, and needs to be kept secret as much as possible (Just like all other non-legal 'ware)

I do like the celular gloves idea though. Grab Joe Wageslave's prints and leave them at the scene of your next break-in to some AAA facility. If only you could see the look on his face the next morning.

Personally I quite like leaving an enemies finger prints somewhere I'm out causing trouble. Okay so that's generally not the easiest thing to set up without major hassle. But if a certian Mafia group dislike you and you can leave prints from that group behind it can cause all kinds of fun.

I would want the glove to leave messages intead of fingerprints. "I boinked yer mom!" instead of prints seems ever so much more pink mohawk to me.