Thought about this a week or 2 ago and curious what others reactions would be.

Was thinking what would happen if let a pilot/agent program have access to your biomoniter, eyes, and move-by-wire system. You could have it set where if you are knocked unconscious or at a certain pain threshold the agent would take over and try to make an escape or do any number of things.

It sees a mage casting, mage stunballs you, you pilot decides to put a few holes in the mage.... Don't want to pay attention to driving to work, and want to read the paper? Sure just have it take over....

Possiblities and problems that could arise are endless.

Even better thought:

What if you didn't know that agent was there?

Move by wire plus cybereyes != stirup interface. Think of the stirup interface as MBW plus a nice applications (hardware) interface package. Without the API, you've just got a big mess of raw data and no control interface.
If you did go for the stirup implant, then maybe it would work, as you'd have all the interfaces needed to be run like a drone. Assuming an agent can control a drone, that is.
Then again, is the agent gonna do any better with a body that has taken lots of stun / physical damage than the person whose body it is? Its not like a stirup interface lets an animal keep going once unconscious just because a rigger has jumped in. A better use for this might be controlling your own body as a drone, while also controlling other drones, so you can be jumped into some other drone while issuing orders to your body to keep moving or some such.

I would think the operation of a full human body would be too complex a task for even a rating 6 pilot/agent. Now an AI or cyborg could likely manage it, but anything less sophisticated would have trouble.

There are ways you could do some of those things though. A pilot program for a car is ubiquitous, so that isn't a problem. You could get a drone with a chair and some arms to move you into the chair to take you away if you ever go down, and you could get a smartgun platform for geeking the mage.

Edit: Also, would you really want a program to completely run your body? I think there would be major issues with something like that.

They have humanoid drones. How would a move-by-wired human be that much different? You aren't asking the pilot to control any biological functions at all, just a set of motors (muscles) with set inputs for locomotion (the wired nerves). He's not going to be doing any gymnastics, but it could probably aim and shoot a gun.

Well, I guess if you had a move-by-wire person it might be possible if you got the right pilot, but I'd imagine that the right type of pilot doesn't currently exist, largely because of public fear, so it'd have to be a custom programed thing, which would take months or years to obtain.

It's different because there is a piece of cyberware specifically designed to turn a biological body into a drone, and that is NOT Move By Wire; its the Stirup interface. The right type of pilot almost certainly DOES exist (or could easily be programmed) for a metahuman body implanted with a stirup interface.

If you did install that, I can see a fair number of advantages of running your own body as a drone, although there would be the disadvantage of taking both normal damage and simsense feedback damage.

I completely agree that this should not be easy nor common, but just imagining it as a possibility as a GM makes me just giggle uncontrollably.

...letting the agent walk around might be too complex, but maybe he could have access to your cyberarm and smartlink. Again, potentially scary, but you wouldn't necessarily need any additional cyberware to do it.

As a stirrup interface is "based on an advanced
move-by-wire system (p. 40) and provides all of the same bonuses
and benefits, including the embedded skillwire system.
Additionally, it adds a remote control rig adaptation that
allows a rigger to both monitor the exact movements of the
animal as well as to “jump in” and control it directly through
full-immersion VR." (p.153, Augmentation)

The difference between this and what you are suggesting
is the lack of an intergrated control rig adaptation.

Also worth noting that "Pilot programs are designed to encompass
the range of motionsand actions a particular vehicle is capable of,
as well as any sensor operations and situations that vehicle is likely
to encounter. This means, however, that a particular Pilot program
only functions for a particular type of vehicle." (p.103, Arsenal)

I think a pilot program designed for an Otomo would have a hard time
translating its operations to flesh.

However, with a stirrup installed and a custom "skinjob" pilot you would be go!

Not too sure why a human would be that much harder to control for a pilot than say a steel lynx or doverman or any of the walker type drones. Ofcourse this could ONLY work with move-by-wire and not wired reflexes or skillwires.

Now I'm not saying this is a good idea, considering I fall in the giggling fits any time I think about it.

From what you guys have said adding on a stirrup could work, though it has extra functions that you seriously would not want. The chances of being hacked I think would go up dramaticly once you add in a remote controll rig. However, in the right circulstances this may not be a bad thing either. Also thinking this would be a freaking awsome thing that all BBEGs would love to do to thier mooks.

Just turn off the wireless and your fine.

Have cyberdoc remove the wireless, a cyberdoc you can trust, you mean.

Now I have a scary thought, cloned bodies with a stirrup interface jumped in by who knows who, one moment could be a Mr. Johnson, a moment later the control is given to a combat veteran (talking about failed negotiations); or the Aztechnology enforcing mandatory implantation of the thing in certain facilities, anyone could be taken over anytime, what better way of reminding to the employs that the Corp owns them and is watching them? Or some rich bastard having a "wardrobe" of bodies to wear. Or .......
Yes the potential for disturbing applications and post-human excesses is indeed high.

Tymire you scare me!!

The potential for beneficial applications with consenting / non-sentient (clonal) "hosts" is also high. Why bother messing up the environment with jet fumes when you can just jack into a body halfway around the globe? (Granted, matrix meetings solve a lot of the same issues, but sometimes you need an expert physically on the spot). Why do all kinds of risky surgery on somebody who is physically disabled when they can jack into a whole suite of "rent a bodies"? I bet those folks who are soaking in gene threrapy tanks for a few months could use a rental body. Sure, a drone gets you out in the world and simsense gives you "bodily pleasures", but again- say your loved ones miss you?
And who's to say having somebody jack into your body is unpleasent? If you remain conscious, it could be a great way to gain new expereriences; hiring somebody who has skills you lack jump in and do a job you can't do may be cheaper than buying a skill soft and could let you actually learn something.

Post human != evil. Its all about what you do with it.

An Agent could not do it. It would have to be a Pilot program. I have thought of this, especially in the context of playing an AI that bought a cloned <metatype> with a Stirrup Interface.

This all assumes that the body is still fully functional after taking high levels of stun damage. As far as I recall the rules for biodrones do not make them immune to stun damage.

Pain Editor would seem to be a good investment if you intended to get that shot up. That does make you immune to stun damage (from a certain perspective, YMMV, ask your sketchy street surgeon if Pain Editor is right for you.)

No, because of the last sentence of the Stirrup Interface:


Hence, a biological organism being controlled through a Stirrup Interface by a Pilot program is immune to Stun damage, as "regular drones" are immune to stun.

Hmmm. Sounds like a soft call to me.

I didn't say that posthumanitism is evil or that there can't be plausible applications, just that there is a serious potential for realy disturbing applications and for an high dehumanizating factor.

Post human and dehumanization do run along similar tracks.
I do believe there was a recent movie that looked at this very topic...

What about running your own body as a drone? Granted, it's not totally useful, but it has interesting theoretical applications for somewhat geeky transhumanist riggers.

By the by, this solves the problem of VR while on a motorcycle; you just let an Agent protect your meatbody and drive around.

Oh god not the motorcycle topic.

For me at least I keep a decent pilot program and clearsite on one of my comlinks wired into my cybersenses (eyes, ears, and radar). I use it to have a seperate entity looking at scanner data to pick up suprise and social issues and feed them back to me through AR to make sure I don't miss anything. Not quite the same thing but a useful and rules legal (or at least logically sound) use of tech although not quite the same the OP was looking at.

Interesting concept.

Stirrup and Pain editor a must.

Though if you get up again you're a target again, and won't all additional damage start to become overflow? Brain damage and physiological problems come with that high amounts of overflow, yea?

So how would this work if you had a hacker who wanted to let the pilot operate his body while he went VR? presumably they'd share the physical track, what about stun? would one interfere with the other? (I'd assume you'd need to disable the RAS override in either case.)

I'd guess Machine Sprites could run the body too; although it would probably need to be someone else's sprite since no sane techno would implant a stirrup interface...

If I could skip out on all my weapons skills and instead just take Gunnery 6, make myself a Drone, and be jumped into my own body, that would be hilarious.

But in this case, wouldn't the weapon itself have to be something you can carry? I thought that gunnery only was for guns that were physically mounted on cars and drones, and would be too cumbersome for a human to carry and use. Maybe I'm wrong here though. Seems to me you would still need a weapon skill.

Or skillsofts. Or would that be autosofts?

Hehe, run a targeting autosoft on yourself

Wasn't thinking of taking it that far myself. Seems like you could run into serious and unexpected problems if you doing that with any type of consistency. I know if I was GMing, things would happen, from losing control of your bowls at the worse possible moment (high stress), to it working your body so hard that your body just collapses, goes into fits, or heart fails. Need to read Aug a bit more where they talk about bio drones and find out how exactly they create them and what they put in compared to what take out. Ofcourse this probably isn't RAW, but RAW has typically has some problems when compared to common sense....

However I do seriously like the idea of having a "friend" in your head that could help analyze situations, give advice, generally help out, and if worse case take over for you and get your body out of dodge. And really a pilot program wouldn't need to be that complicated, as you could just give it access to your collection of autosofts which have a running/gymnastics/mapping set or pilot (ground craft)/dodge/mapping. So the only additional program the pilot would need would be one that covers basic functions like breathing/heart rate/ect.

edit: This type of tech has been used in quite a few books, can think of a certain bounty hunter in Alternity by the name of Pete for example.

Yay, a technological, self built case of split personality disorder O.o

Bah it's only a split personality if when you tell the voices in your head to shut up, they keep talking.

WTB Eclipse Phase GM

Nah, that'd be schizophrenia.

I can see someone doing this to turn themselves into a drone, and then argue that they can start adding vehicle modifications to themselves as well. And now I have the image of a troll with LTA flailing around in mid air with a huge searchlight on top of his head.

Best. Mental Image. Ever.

PS: My vote is to add an anti-theft shock device. Seems like it would be useful.

Interior Cameras? Luxury Amenities? Cyborg Adaptation?
"I have a brain in my brain."
Ejection Seats?

And here's the worst: Extra Entry/Exit Points.

Well, rigging people certainly gives the bunraku experience a new dimension; anyone might be in that body. "Darling, I can't stand the sight of you. Why don't you rig something young and pretty?"

That's sort of the direction I was going. A possible advantage would be that you'd have more IP's than normal. That's pretty much the approach that Cyborgs use, and if you can control your meat (or cyber) body the same way a cyborg controls their robo-corpse, I don't see why you wouldn't get the same benefits.
Or are all drones physically constructed so as to allow amazingly quick physical response, given the proper input? If so, it may be that a body can't (without the proper augementation) react to rigger inputs that fast.

This thread has gone well beyond what is usualy called "Silly" ..... good work fella!
(P.S. you become a drone but a biodrone, and biodrones can't recive vehicle modifacations, only cyberware)




Oh my god, Xahn you crack me up!!

Never seen it. But strangely, Rob Boyle is an old friend who I used to game with, and we read a lot of the same books; we've been out of touch for years now, wondered what he was up to.

Most times you (or some human) would be running your body in hot sim, so bodily functions wouldn't be an issue, but I agree that a pilot program you let take over would likely neglect some of your bio-needs / limitations. Not something you'd want to do long term, to be sure.

I'd say no.

Even an animal w/ a stirrup interface does not have a pilot rating. It's 'autopilot' is it's animal brain. You're either jumped into it and rigging it, or it's moving on it's own. (maybe w/ that balance thing to tell it which way to go).

The stirrup allows people to jump into the animal, but biodrones are wierd in that your control options are a bit more limited.


Also I'm seeing cyborgs badly misunderstood here. Cyborgs are brains in a jar, they use the cyborg interface to control DRONES which have a cyborg adaptation. You can stuff a jarhead into an attack chopper and use it as the autopilot. Cyborgs do not control their 'meat bodies', they control drone bodies like the Otomo. (cyberzombies are the ones which keep their heavily cybered bodies and are a type of undead).

Why can't a cyborg control a meat body?
A jarhead could control a bio-drone- they don't have to be installed inside the thing, they can remote it just like a normal rigger. And if that biodrone is a primate (something directly mentioned as being possible), and controlled by a human brain, well, you've effectively got a remote controlled meta-human already. Is there any practical difference between a large primate and a metahuman, as far as the technology is concerned?
Similarly, it should be theoretically possible to build an anthroform drone out of cyberware components (cyberarm, legs) and maybe even some bioware components. The rules don't cover it, but what is a cyberlimb except a robotic arm grafted onto a metahuman body? In point of fact, that is already a sort of drone; its got a simsense interface, motors, etc.

Mongoose, you're missing my point entirely.

Biodrones are not entirely like normal drones.

Yes, a cyborg(jarhead) can rig a biodrone. However, the act of becoming a jarhead kinda prevents him from rigging his own body. He could jump into someone else w/ a stirrup interface. However, his own dead body is now not usable. It's dead. If the street sam is killed, his MbW is no longer functional until it's put into another living body.


As far as building a drone out of cyberlimbs... hell I partly agree with you. But I've had 3 GM's so far veto the idea. (I wanted to make a wierd street doc who'd build drones out of salvaged cyberlimbs). Pretty much it came down to this... it's called an Otomo, and it costs a lot more than the limbs do. I viewed it, as here's a chance to build a really 'lifelike' drone.

Here's one of the big problems... there's a huge disconnect in the mechanics. Drones have a completely different set of stats than people do. Drones don't have agility, etc... they have response and other wierdness. I view this as one of the failings of the system.

Oh, I get that fully. Yeah, just because your body could be rigged doesn't let somebody drive your bullet riddled corpse- that's obvious, I though. And obviously a jarhead doesn't have a body of his own to drive- that's why he needs a drone of whatever sort to control.

I'll have to look at those Otomo costs- I suspect there's some other stuff in there (aside from research recovery costs) that jacks up the price (and performance) compared to what you'd get from a baseline anthorform drone, regardless of what the source of the motors / material was.

I would not allow this at my table. All this does is make for ridiculous rules situations and broken characters.

First of all, it's not dead. It just doesn't have anyone controlling it, so it lays there limp. Unconscious is a better descriptor. You also act like the same thing doesn't happen when a regular rigger does the same thing. And how on earth are you able to say a jarhead cannot rig his own body? His body was designed to be rigged and that's where all of his bonuses are coming from! That's the whole point. Adding a Pilot program to it for when he jumps into another drone himself is totally viable if he doesn't want to just lay there when he does it.

Funk... think here. It's a body, w/o a brain... w/o any basic autonomous processes.

He's had his brain removed. You have a braindead corpse without even a PULSE. You keeping it on full life support? Even if you put the jarhead on, it still doesn't have a pulse. The body is dead barring a lot of specialized cyber... and at that point why bother. Once a jarhead, it can only interface w/ bodies by rigging them. At that point, don't remove it... just turn him into a chromed street sam for the same essence.

Look at all the problems which come with jarheads. Now why the hell would you do it, just to put the jarhead back on it's feeble meat body. The entire point of a jarhead, is that the jarhead is smarter and more capable than an autopilot, and you put it on a drone to replace it.