Read a few research papers about surgical implants, and try to tell me that.

Not with the nerves directly no. They have calcium either removed from them or added to them as needed, but the nerves don't realize it. If they did people would KNOW they have osteoporosis before they break a hip. That people often learn they suffer from bone weakening diseases only after the bones have given out tells me that your nerves generally don't care about the state of your bones so long as they aren't broken or breaking something else.

You're really changing the goalpost here. Your original statement said nothing about nerves specifically, only that bones have no interaction with the body - of which the nervous system is only a part.

As far as I know medecine (not a lot), bone lacing is likely to mess up with the periosteum, which has nerves, among other things.

Yes, and no . . .
In the description it says that there's a net-weave made into/onto the bone structure on nano scale.
so technically, it would simply go between the cells and leave them alone i guess . .

Yes a titanium implant coated in calcium phosphate implanted in a bone will be invisible to the bones, the nerves and the immune system. Unless you are implanting it IN a never they won't notices its presence once the trauma of the surgery wears off.

I don't see it, to lace the bones the titanium would have to be implanted by nanites a few molecules at a time, and as a result would be built inside the bone as the materials are carried to the work site by the blood stream. I don't see any need to interact with the periosteum at all.

Well as far as I know SR is concerned with the holistic integrity of the body. The biological/medical reasons don't seem to factor as much as a loss of the spirit. While medically the augmentation of bones with titanium on a cellular level, or the replacement of a limb with a prosthesis might not damage the bosy per se, the spirit-body connection will suffer. One of the axioms in SR is that magic and tech do not get along. The spirit-body connection is a magical one, even for mundanes. Though for mundanes damage to the spirit-body connection, or aura, is not as serious as it is for the awakened, it is still important. The more amount of "unnatural" material the body contains, the more damage the aura sustains. If the body is filled with enough unnatural material the aura/spirit will be unable to maintain a presence in the body. Thus, death.

I guess what I am saying is that the farther the body is from being whole, the harder it is for the spirit to hold in to it.

I know that is the official explanation, my problem with it is it should make the cloning of organs and tissues impossible, as the cloned tissue by itself should be so far from the "idealized" self that the life force of the tissue should abate and leave a dead clump of carbon based matter behind. The essence system of SR does not make a great deal of sense because it doesn't have any internal consistency.

I suppose an argument could be made for Platonian idealized 'humans', idealized 'cyberarms', etc., but at a certain point I'd say you'll just have to accept that some things need to be handwaved in the interest of preserving game balance, roll with it, and suspend your disbelief.

Though of course, shrugging and going 'well, whatever' is pretty much anathema to this place, ain't it? :V

[img]http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd131/ecforumpics/catgirls.gif[/img]
physics science
comic cyberpunk role-playing game
edit: WTF, image function disabled. Make with the copypasta, already.

I just like things which make sense, handwaving and saying "because" has never really sat well with me.

Hrm. That is a good point. However I offer this as counterpoint. In SR essence costs are greatly higher for cyber than bio. When bioware is installed the 'ware is basically living tissue that has been made genetically compatible with the hosts body. Thus the body is supporting a living piece of alien tissue, which is less difficult for the spirit to acclimate to than metal.

In the case of cloned organs costing no essence I put forth that like bioware, clonal organs are alive and thus less inherently stressful. Unlike bioware however, clonal tissue is 100% the same genetically as the original. There was no "tampering" or enhancement. The body was simply made whole. I would further posit that there is essence loss involved initially with the introduction of clonal tissue, but by the time the healing is complete the body has been regularly replacing dead cells and the very minor foriegn-ness has worn off, thus the body and spirit are in harmony again.

To support this theory I offer that essence loss is not permanent and refer to the revitalization treatment on p. 88 of Augmentation.

Yep... so when a heart is originally cloned, and attached to a machine to 'train' it so that is grows physically strong enough to pump blood, what % of the bodies essence does it have in it? It is only a heart. The whole brain only has a small decimal worth, as a heart I'd guess even less, as its possible to have someone who is mostly their own body but with virtually no essence, having just a heart with the probes in it needed to monitor function and blood flow should have no essence and be dead.
Hence my problem with the essence system.

Essence is only for Balance, deal with it.
Cloned Replacements don't take up any essence, if you leave them like the original, as far as i know.

My take:

Essence is a measure of the natural flow of astral energy through a body's attached aura - think of it as magical respiration if it helps. The aura changes to adjust to foreign objects in the body, but not necessarily to loss of natural tissue (such as blood or even an organ). These changes in the aura's natural pattern reduce the flow of Essence, and if reduced significantly, can eventually destroy the aura and kill the attached body. Even if such foreign objects are removed from the body, their damage has been done and the aura is very difficult to heal. Things like cloned tissue have no effect on Essence since they match the aura's natural pattern (allowing the astral energy to flow normally), while Essence is not present in seperated fleshy components of the body, but only in the aura produced by a whole living body. Essence Drain forms a sort of 'scar tissue' on the victims aura that causes a lasting reduction in the flow of Essence.

There. That seems pretty complete to me. Now shoot some holes in it.

Note that 'aura' should probably be replaced with 'astral shadow' since it's not an active astral presence most of the time.

Back on topic, ignoring the essence debate:

I don't think the CZ would be the logical end-point for any sam, because of it's inherent 'wrongness'. Just as being a lich isn't the logical end for being an adventurer in That Other Game.

According to the Arcane Power preview, Lich is now a 'logical end' for arcane characters.

...
I blame 4th edition. There is something inherently evil and blasphemous about mutilating your soul like that. I suspect becoming a cyberzombie is much the same. I think most people wouldn't even fathom doing that to themselves.

You can blame SR4 all you want, but here on Dumpshock, many posters make me think that the only thing that's evil and blasphemous is not cranking the min-max level to 11... and they were doing it well before 4th edition.

As for D&D, there were similar paths to power well before 4th edition. One man's mutilation is another's 'perfection of inner form'.

Which brings me to the question of... is the ambient magic level sufficiently high enough to perform a Ritual of Renaming? Thus making you as you currently are a whole person again.

I meant I blame D&D 4th ed, not SR4. I like SR4, even though it's the only edition I knew (I'm a SR newb)

No.
that will have to wait for SR5 D20

I cannot answer this as I am not familiar with the Ritual of Renaming.



To answer this argument I would refer you to HappyDaze's post as I concur.

Ritual of Naming is something from Earthdawn.
More magic than even most dragons can wave a stick at as of SR4 Time-Line/Mana-Level.
As far as i understood that one, it basically takes someone who's essence has been lowered to 0,01, then declares him a completely new being that is meant to be exactly as it is right now, and because of that it has not been changed in any way or kind that would justify having lower than the usual 6 points of essence. Presto, you have your body, you have your mind/memories, you have all your cyber still intact, but to universe says:"yes, that's right, this is the way it was meant to be, nobody fucked with my work, he has full essence, i am satisfied, get me a coke"

a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubblicious... and a Snickers.

[Karma to you if you know where that comes from]

i'll hazard a guess and say this is something american . . no clue, i don't even know what Bubblicious is supposed to be . .

It doesn't really answer the question of how the cloned tissue survives without a body long enough to grow into a functional organ however, which was the point I was making.

I can think of a reason in an RP sense for a character to the six-million nuyen hobo that tries to get cybermancy.

The negative quality Augmentation Addict could be that reason, especially if coupled with a pre-existing cyberpsychosis.

This combination could drive a depressed upgrade addict into cybermancy.

I would say that the clonal organ is alive in a biological sense but not a spiritual sense before implantation. Before implantation the clonal organ is simply a biological machine, if you will. When it has been implanted it joins the body in a gestalt state. The body in SR is obviously more than the sum of its parts. When the organ is initially installed the body is wounded from the surgery, and possibly other things. The body and aura initially don't jive with the new organ. However as the body heals it begins the process of cellular regeneration on the organ. In time, when the patient is healed, the body and spirit realize, if you will, that the clonal tissue is not foreign and accept it as part of the greater gestalt. Thus harmony is restored.

It is a type of chewing gum.

As for the main topic, I see the only people moving on to full Cyber Zombie are those with a pre-existing mental problem that drives them to it. If you have the money to go CZ, you got the money to get pure Delta grade 'Ware. If 13.3 points of cyber and 8 points of bio isn't enough for you...

As for the cloned organs/limbs, they used to be gained by force growing a 'brain dead' full body clone and harvesting.

Except you can't get dual natured and astral hazing from cyber and bio.

On a side note, since CZs can astrally percieve, can they create wards? Their background count would prevent the ward from functioning while they were in the immediate area, but once they left would it come back up?

Don't know about the dual natured, by my 800BP Sammy has Astral Hazing.

aand we are back at the discussion about CZ and MAgic-Skills ^^

I know that they can't learn sorcery, or initiate, or conjure. And I'm ok with an answer of "No, they can't learn to create wards." Just asking.

No, it's never been officially answered O.o
If he was a Mage before, he retains his Magic-Attribute of 1.
He should be able to do so. And his own background count should give him a virtual higher magic attribute O.o

Actually, he is still effected by his own background count, so he won't be using any magic even if he used to be a Spellslinger.

*shrugs*
if he was a hermetic and the blood magician was a hermetic, the background count is aspected to hermetic neh?

No, it is astral hazing, not aspected to anything.

ok, i got that mixed up.

Sup Chummers,

Random fixer/face here looking for input and advice from my fellow Dumpshock posters. Thought I'd pop my head into this thread seeing that it is on topic.

So, a few weeks ago four of my PC's finally defeated the prime runner that had been plaguing them since the dawn of our sessions. The female mage did her best Jean Grey - Dark Phoenix impression and roasted the prime runner with a overcasted fireball spell which nearly killed the her (the mage)

I was thinking about providing the team with a meaner, leaner, tougher, prime runner, one that would be able to hold their own against more then two members of the team. For some reason Cyberzombies came to mind. *Insert evil cackle here and the twirling of the villainous mustache*.

Before going down this road which leads to a point of no return for any GM, I have yet to read Augmentation or any of the other supplemental books outside of the core rule book (SR 4.0). What are the effects of magic against cyberzombies. I have been reading that the developers have been making it harder for magic and machine to interact because of the details on how each force acts.

Thus, does a cyberzombie have special enhanced rules when going against magic of any kind from combat spells, to manipulations spells, etc...or are they just as vulnerable as any other mundane ditbrain?

CZ's are nearly immune depending on their negative essence. I think they stand at the heart of a background count equal to it. I think they can also add their negative essence to their max augmented physical stats allowing them to soak nearly any level of physical damage from indirect spells.

And they get hardened armor in the level of their negative essence too.

Actually, the background count is always 4. It's radius is determined by their negative essence, their max natural (not augmented) stats go up by their negative essence, and they get hardened armor. Oh, and they are dual natured so they can rip any spirits or projecting mages that get to close apart.

Another option would be a cyborg with a warded drone body. Can be quite tough, too. And you can use the built-in skillwires to replace the lacking pilot: walker skill.

You'd need a pretty large body to ward it, really.

Can a fully astral form exert force on a dual natured object to move the object in the physical world? For example, can an astral mage pick up a shapeshifter and move it? Sources, particualrly SR4 sources, would be appreciated.

Nope, doesn't work like that.

Source?