Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

Thu, 2009-08-27 15:10

#2

Colin Chapman Colin Chapman's picture

I was wondering the same

I was wondering the same myself. There's talk of sex, but not procreation (unless I missed it).

—

Radioactive Ape Designs: ENnie and Indie Award nominated publisher of Atomic Highway!
http://radioactiveapedesigns.com

Thu, 2009-08-27 17:33

#3

NiallNai

I made sure I looked under

I made sure I looked under the accelerated future chapter and there wasn't any talk of it.

Thu, 2009-08-27 19:08

#4

jackgraham jackgraham's picture

Lots of people are born in

Lots of people are born in vats, but pregnancy, and therefore hybridization of morphs, is possible. If you want them in your game, just start with a Splicer and add mods until it looks like what you want. "Infertile" is a negative trait, after all.

—

J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth! http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham

Thu, 2009-08-27 19:10

#5

puke

i ponder this topic

i ponder this topic here: http://eclipsephase.com/childrens-brains-egos

Thu, 2009-08-27 21:26

#6

GregH

This is EP!!! Want

This is EP!!! Want procreation? There's an app for that:)

Tue, 2009-09-08 11:40

#7

browwiw

Ok, well here's one I've been

Ok, well here's one I've been wondering about. If you do go the 'old fashioned' route and decide to use two biomorph sleeves to conceive a child does that violate the copyright of whatever morph manufacturer engineered and grew your sleeve? Technically, if you bought an 'off-the-rack' biomorph sleeve then it would most likely be a mass produced model that has a bunch of R&D and even advertising capital tied up in its creation. Whatever hypercorp produced that sleeve probably wouldn't like you to 'crack' its genome and then intermingle it with another sleeve's genome. Especially if the other sleeve was produced by a rival hypercorp. I could see that kind of being a big deal in old and transitional economies. Unless, of course, we are to assume that most biomorph sleeve genomes are Creative Commons. One way I thought of getting around this mess is just assuming that when pre-Fall people were uploaded for the first time they also had a digital copy of their DNA added to their Ego in a sub-directory. Whenever they want to make a baby with another Ego they just access that sub-directory and take it (along with their partner's DNA file) to the local gene-cruncher and have a zygote fabricated. This would also allow anybody who got nostalgic to have a copy of their original body cloned.

—

"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Tue, 2009-09-08 12:11

#8

GregH

I'd guess they are largely

I'd guess they are largely considered creative commons simply out of the need to produce more humans period (seeing how well the Lost turned out...), though I can see some varients having some genetic compatibility issues perhaps? Furthermore a lot of their inherent abilities appear to be from cybernetics that I'm guessing get installed later. Case in point the Ruster, great respiration but it comes as an implant, without that you have an unusual looking human.

Tue, 2009-09-08 14:56

#9

puke

well thats one of the core

well thats one of the core issues of the setting, right? are you in an anarchic new-economy, or a traditional capatalist economy? even in a new economy, people might not want you making derivitives of their work.

some really interesting things could be done with this, if youre working the traditional cyberpunk modes of gameplay and not the CoC existential threat style. exempli gratia: two infomorphs rent out a couple of sleeves, elope to a new Hab and start making babies. the rental agency didnt license them the rights to procreate with the sleeves, or the designer of the sleeves didnt authorize them for reproduction for any number of reasons.

reasons could look like anything. maybe the morphs were not tested for recessive genetic defects that would only express themselves in later generations. maybe they are KNOWN to have such defects. maybe there is reputation to be gained or cred to be made every time clones or variations on these morphs are sold / leased, and procreating with them is viewed as theft from the designers.

Tue, 2009-09-08 15:20

#10

Admini

"Infertile" is a negative

"Infertile" is a negative trait, after all.

It is? Where? What page?

Tue, 2009-09-08 15:20

#11

Admini

Well they don't seem to have

Well they don't seem to have enough bodies to go around. So who wants another mouth/ego to feed/sleeve?

Wed, 2009-09-09 02:16

#12

Graf

That's a creepy idea....

Wed, 2009-09-09 07:29

#13

Admini

Can this thread be moved?

Can this thread be moved? I'm not sure it fits the news category.

Wed, 2009-09-09 12:47

#14

Lucidshifter Lucidshifter's picture

worthless 2 cents.

Procreation is a standard human id component. I really think humanity would still just want to have babies to gratify their ego, as well. How this affects your thoughts on this, I don't know.

Wed, 2009-09-09 13:02

#15

puke

thats a really interesting

thats a really interesting problem, though. peoples mental state is preserved in its human form, but it would exist when running on an infomorph and on a synthmorph without any kind of glandular input. most of the hormones and emotional drives we have rely on that, so people might become much more calculating and analytical, and less impacted by testosterone and estrogen.

its kind of hard to imagine what would happen, really.

Wed, 2009-09-09 14:31

#16

Admini

After being raised in a

After being raised in a hormonal, fleshy body, I'd think the drives would be second nature by the time you'd end up in a synth or infomorph.

Wed, 2009-09-09 15:41

#17

puke

maybe, but thats part of the

maybe, but thats part of the interesting question. Dogs can be very passive or very aggressive for their entire lives, depending on how young they are when you snip their balls off. 'roided out bodybuilders can go through huge mood changes when they stop using the juice. teenagers go through massive mood swings through puberty, but mostly level out by the time theyre 30 or so.

I think like most things, part of it would become ingrained and part of it would depend on ongoing stimulus. its not one of those things thats hugely ethical to experiment on, so i dont think there is an existing body of data that we can call upon for hard conclusions.

i'd love it if there were, though. fascinating shit.

Wed, 2009-09-09 16:19

#18

browwiw

Well, this will muddy the

Well, this will muddy the waters even more. It's a fact that our organs react to stimuli before our conscious minds do. If a bear jumps out of the bushes at you, your adrenal glands start pumping and your fight or flight instinct kicks in about a quarter to half second before your thinking mind actually goes "Oh, shit, a bear!" We do this all the time, especially while navigating traffic.

Research doctors used to theorize that quadriplegics and people with other upper spinal cord injuries (basically anything that would keep you from feeling from the neck down) didn't feel as deep or wide a range of emotions as people with out said conditions. They never really ran an experiment to see if this is so because, well, it's kind of dark and nobody wanted to ask a person who already suffered the loss of their mobility if they had also lost some of their emotional depth (ie, they didn't want to ask "does being handicapped make you less of a person?").

Well, it so happened that there was a psychologist who was a quadriplegic and he decided to run a study with other quadriplegics. And, yes, he found that people who couldn't feel input from their bodies had a loss of emotional 'volume'. They literally didn't have 'gut feelings'. I wish I could better attribute this info, but I heard it a while back on an episode of RadioLab.

Anyway, the point is that even RL people who are connected to their bodies but can't feel input from them do have a muted emotional state (but doesn't make them any less a person). To get around this in EP, we may just assume that infomorphs and synthmorphs have virtual organ subroutines in their base code.

—

"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Wed, 2009-09-09 16:38

#19

Admini

First of all, that's just

First of all, that's just fucked up.

That said, cool.

Wed, 2009-09-09 16:57

#20

puke

i'd like to apologize for the

i'd like to apologize for the casual use of profanity in my above post, i cant seem to edit it out now.

i didnt think much of it at the time, but i've begun to notice other posts on the forum which are also using profanity, and they have shown up in only the last hour since my above explative.

I did not intend to open up any floodgates or set a precident for poor communication skills, and i regret my behavior and how it may have miscolored this fine forum.

Wed, 2009-09-09 17:15

#21

browwiw

You didn't set the precedent,

You didn't set the precedent, the flavor text from the core rule book did.

—

"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Wed, 2009-09-09 21:48

#22

Lucidshifter Lucidshifter's picture

Neat.

I would like to see numbers and his actual controls and basis. But no biggie. Thanks for bringing it to light.

Wed, 2009-09-09 22:19

#23

browwiw

Like I said, I heard it on an

Like I said, I heard it on an episode of WNYC's RadioLab. I listened to all 4 seasons in two days when I discovered their podcasts, so I couldn't really tell you which one. The story just stuck on in my mine. They always have great shows on neurology and the mind.

Edit:

Going back over the episodes it may have been "Who Am I" or "Where Am I", both dealing with the brain and the perception of self in relation to the body.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/

—

"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Thu, 2009-09-10 01:46

#24

RobBoyle

It was in a playtest version,

It was in a playtest version, primarily for pods. It was cut and replaced with a line saying that pods can't reproduce.

—

Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Thu, 2009-09-10 07:18

#25

Admini

I'm offended by this

I'm offended by this apology. I demand an apology.

Thu, 2009-09-10 12:33

#26

Lucidshifter Lucidshifter's picture

Your the man

Thanks again, I will check them out as soon as I get a chance.

Thu, 2009-09-10 22:11

#27

jackgraham jackgraham's picture

Sure can, & done.

—

J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth! http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham

Thu, 2009-09-10 22:14

#28

jackgraham jackgraham's picture

Ha... Oops, yeah. Sorry. I

Ha... Oops, yeah. Sorry. I started running the game when it was still a Google Doc, so I still haven't spotted some of the stuff that got cut. :)

—

J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth! http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham

Thu, 2009-09-10 22:22

#29

jackgraham jackgraham's picture

the game is kinda punk rock, & that's okay

It's true. Wait until we get the Inner System book out; my narrators in the Mars chapter apparently spend most of their time cussing & fucking (when they're not investigating existential threats to transhumanity). My fellow writers didn't follow suit quite as strongly, but this is only because writing for White Wolf has made them timid. I am deeply bothered by the misspelling of "precedent" earlier in the thread, though. ;)

—

J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth! http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham

Fri, 2009-09-11 07:20

#30

Admini

tyvm

Fri, 2009-10-16 09:07

#31

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

Re: Lots of people are born in

" "Infertile" is a negative trait, after all." Not if you want to protect your intellectual property, i.e. the latest hypercorp morph, I suppose? Then again, the infertility mod need to be seriously advanced to prevent it from being hacked in two red seconds.

—

[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/ext_userbar.jpg[/img] "People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes." - John Dee

Thu, 2009-10-29 11:12

#32

Grabula

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

I was reading some more in the core rule book last night - still haven't finished it lol but since I won't be running a campaign intil midwinter I haven't been in a hurry. Anyway, the idea of children and the complications of having them in the setting never really hit me until last night. I've always been what you call a 'transhumanist'. Since high school (about 17 years ago or so) I've been saying that I believe not only that humanity needs to develop ways to become more like machines (Machines are more adaptable and durable) but that we'd eventually be 'born' and then immediately 'plugged in'. This was years before I discovered there were others who felt the same way! There are two big issues in my book. The first, is that right now 'birth' is biological. Our children are based on the combining of two parents DNA, so what happens when we no longer have DNA!? I suppose if we maintained a biological birth format, we'd probably capture a snapshot of our DNA for future use, then through some sort of editing procedure, then vat growing children. However, would the process move more towards spinning off 'child' AI's instead? If we've become effectively machines - and I'd argue that anyone not born into an organic body in Eclipse Phase is effectively an AI and no longer 'human' in the current sense of the word - would the need for biological reproduction really be necessary? As for the biological imperative to reproduce, someone mentioned ego as an issue, and I believe that has to do with the instinct to survive. My guess is that first, becoming more machine then human, those instincts could be edited out, and it might be desireable to do so. Second, if it can't be edited out, but if individuals now were not bound by a limited lifespan, would the desire to procreate lessen? Finely, add to the fact that like in Eclipse Phase, you can spawn new copies of yourself, would spawning children sooth an ego too big to not reproduce? I'd have to imaginethose types would more than likely fork themselves (pun intended) then just reproduce random, progeny.

Fri, 2009-12-18 23:18

#33

vampire hunter D vampire hunter D's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

Grabula wrote:
However, would the process move more towards spinning off 'child' AI's instead? If we've become effectively machines - and I'd argue that anyone not born into an organic body in Eclipse Phase is effectively an AI and no longer 'human' in the current sense of the word - would the need for biological reproduction really be necessary?

Hmm, while I find your philosophical arguement interesting, I would think however that any such 'child' ego created entirely in a machine would be looked at by most as some for of AI, probably an AGI or even worse, a seed AI. And thus would be hunted down as spawn of the TITANs. Considering all the biases in the worlds of EP I'd say only children with a biological genesis would be accepted at all by society. So yes, biological reproduction would still be very necessary.

Fri, 2010-01-15 13:18

#34

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

The biological imperative of having children is amazingly flexible. I attended a meeting of demographers recently where they tried to figure out how low fertility could go. It turns out that although almost everybody *say* they desire children, the actual number of children they get is strongly influenced by economic, cultural and other social factors that can apparently override the obvious imperative to have plenty of kids. Hence there is no guarantee that birth rates would stabilize at replenishment rate (which is what most current UN projections assume). It could be that in advanced societies people simply do not reproduce much at all - it is too costly, messy and there are better things to do. Maybe life extension and backups was the main thing keeping human population up at the time of the Fall. There is one possibility that might increase EP reproduction: people in environments where they find the future uncertain increase (or at least do not postpone) reproduction. This likely has an evolved function: better to have offspring now than tomorrow, because tomorrow you might be dead. So maybe the unsettled situation of EP is making a lot of people unconsciously decide to have kids just because things look so bleak. They do not see it that way of course, having great emotional and practical rationalizations.

—

Tue, 2010-09-14 17:26

#35

Demonseed Elite Demonseed Elite's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

Thread resurrection here, but I've been mulling over this topic lately because of a campaign I've been brewing. I do think that birth rates and procreation methods are going to vary substantially from one habitat to another. One idea I considered is that when resleeving technology first developed, those that used it "banked" their original DNA. This could be for a variety of purposes, such as cloning their original body if they later desired to, or for the purposes of creating children with someone else who was either still in their original body or who had also banked their DNA. Now, I could see a lot of original off-world colonists doing this, but with the Fall it gets more complicated. Important, influential people were probably able to have their DNA transmitted off-world, perhaps kept in Lunar banks (or genebanks). But many people probably didn't have the luxury of doing that and were egocasted off of Earth as an infomorph with no copy of their original genetics. There are probably genebanks still on the ruined Earth containing the DNA of many re-instantiated who would love to have that information back. Assuming the TITANs haven't corrupted it.

—

"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards." --The White Queen, [i]Through The Looking-Glass[/i] [img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_zGgz13n3uzE/TWWPdvGig-I/AAAAAAAACI8/y...

Wed, 2010-09-15 00:09

#36

Xahn Borealis Xahn Borealis's picture

Re: the game is kinda punk rock, & that's okay

jackgraham wrote:
It's true. Wait until we get the Inner System book out; my narrators in the Mars chapter apparently spend most of their time cussing & fucking (when they're not investigating existential threats to transhumanity). My fellow writers didn't follow suit quite as strongly, but this is only because writing for White Wolf has made them timid.

Brilliant swear word used as well: "skronk." I never thought I'd be so delighted to hear about the misadventures of a "lanky ruster and a double-jointed pleasure pod." :D

—

[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/fallevac_userbar.png[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/nano_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/rec_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/lla_userbar.jpg[/img] I want that planet back

Wed, 2010-09-15 01:28

#37

Rhyx

Re: the game is kinda punk rock, & that's okay

Yeah It's been on my mind too. I wrote this in another thread (although I'm not sure it really belonged so I'm doing the sin of repost.)

Quote:
The problem is that genetics no longer mean jack squat in a world of morphs. Actually for most people their genetic makeup is back on earth rotting and being eaten by earthworms while their heads were taken away by TITAN headhunters. So it seems like in the world of Eclipse phase the question of nature versus nurture, the answer has become nurture because nature no longer really means anything. The body you have has nothing to do with your personality. Ergo reproduction is no longer the passing off of genes but of mores and in short every child born is the equivalent to an adoption. Here's when things get weird: Let's say I have an artistic temperament and me and my wife decide we want a child and so we get a little clone, choose his attributes, gender and hair color. Now if we make love the old fashion way the resulting child will have nothing to do with either of our temperaments, we will be putting for all intents and purposes a little stranger into the world because the genetic baggage isn't not ours but our morph's. That means that the qualities that will be the future of humanity has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the decisions made by some genehacker at the Skinestesia Hypercorp. So at this point other than nurture we have very little say about how human evolution develops. Then things get even weirder: Let's say I'm not satisfied by the possibility of having a son/daughter that is nothing like me. So me and my wife go and visit a Skinestesia genehack and custom make a child with abilities more similar to my own and my wife's. So now this genehacker is an intrinsic part of my procreation process because he is the link between my ego and my unborn child's morph. The ego and morph are quite literally a two step process in procreation. Either I do it the old fashion way and get a child with nothing similar to me and more along the lines of what a hypercorp wants the future to be like OR I custom make a child from scratch with the Genehack's help in order to give the future the traits I desire. Which every way you look at it, that Hypercorp has near total control over the mind and body of every child born.

The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world after all!

—

[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/A_Rep.jpg[/img] 2 [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/R_Rep.jpg[/img] 7 [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/C_Rep.jpg[/img] 2
[img]http://i.imgur.com/qtBZ9.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/AT25J.jpg[/img]

Wed, 2010-09-15 11:32

#38

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

Quote:
The problem is that genetics no longer mean jack squat in a world of morphs.

I would disagree with this strongly. My psyche, inclinations, likes and dislikes, mental abilities, etc. are defined quite heavily by the genetics which form my brain. Traits we develop as infants and children do to 'nature' oftentimes stick with us for the rest of our lives. If you grow your 'child' in a generic flat (or any sort of morph) and expect the 'nurture' of your implanted ego fragments to be the only defining influence, you're in for a sore surprise. (The important part here obviously being, you want it to be 'your' child, as in a child made up almost solely of your traits, expressed and recessive, and those of your mate(s). If you don't care about that, never mind.) Or maybe you mean genetics is very important, but for most people, is beyond their control? In that case, yes, I would agree there. I can see of two real ways to make an actual child of yours - 1) You have a genetic sample of yourself and your mate (or of relatives who are close enough to serve as proxies). You use this to either make clones or, more likely, do genetic sequencing to make a set of possible combinations and choose the one most desirable (plus mods to remove genetic diseases and such), use the 'mother's' traits to define the conditions of the exowomb, implant the generated stem cells in the exowomb and wait. 2) Copy your ego and your mate's. Put them in the Willy Wonka Ego Machine, which strips all memories, splices critical traits, and spits out a finished, combined, amnesiac fork. Then you put it in whatever morph you like (although probably a splicer during those formative years).

Wed, 2010-09-15 16:07

#39

Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

Seeing how there are so many options for immortality, cloning, having a shared group mind and so on, the idea of having children isn't so attractive. Combine that with hypercorp control over potential development of a child and I think you can see heavy pro-birth propaganda from PC to its citizens, and discouragement of other options. Sure the PC can use infomorphs-but they come with their own beliefs and issues. Children on the other hand can be molded as they see fit. Plus the PC probably tries to increase synthomorph phobia-as more synths would weaken its hold on the population. Of course there are also plausible concerns about synths being easy prey to TITANs.

—

[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]

Wed, 2010-09-15 16:09

#40

Rhyx

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

Yeah I agree with pretty much all you've said. But there's the part about the re-instantiated, most of the people that evacuated earth did so ego only so the genetic diversity that created (part of?) their temperament is rotting headless back on earth. The morph they are in now, Splicer or other is not their genes so unless they have uploaded their gene sequence along with their ego they have no original personal breeding stock from which to breed except from what the Hypercorps offer. Put in that position a hypercorp could easily breed out undesirable (to them) social traits during the creating of morphs so that any child will have predispositions that are more in line with the Hypercorp's world view than the parents. For example your choice #1 you need a genetic sample of your own DNA (from earth) but many Re-instantiated that left the earth as 1's and 0's do not have their genetic baggage so they have to rely on a rough genehack approximation. You can have all the babies you want, they are simply not genetically yours, as in the genes of your forefathers and mothers have not been passed on to them. They actually belong to Skinesthetic Splicer model 2501-D v. 2.74.

—

[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/A_Rep.jpg[/img] 2 [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/R_Rep.jpg[/img] 7 [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/C_Rep.jpg[/img] 2
[img]http://i.imgur.com/qtBZ9.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/AT25J.jpg[/img]

Wed, 2010-09-15 16:18

#41

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

I also image that certain factions (the ultimates come to mind) wouldn't have children but would instead two individuals (regardless of gender) that felt their egos would mix well together would both create an Alpha Fork, and then merge them together to create their "child". Throw this "child" into a Remade and you done (no need to clean dippers). I would imagine that the genetic differences between certain morphs would make it hard for cross mating (and the result would be a "mule" so to speak), but certain morphs would have a high level of compatibility (flats, Splicers, and Exalts for instance). I imagine that most cultures (the Jovian Republic being the biggest exclusion) would have a more "Gattica" approach to mating (not to be confused with sex). As such you would go to your local geneticist/psycosurgeon to tailor your new born child.

—

Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Wed, 2010-09-22 18:02

#42

sndwurks

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

One issue that occured to me regarding this issue comes with the inherent nature of the majority of biomorphs created / designed post Fall. Aside from the Flats / Exalts / Remades who were the first generation out into space and their subsequent offspring, who is to say that a biomorph's brain is designed to inherently develop a consciousness? Designed to hold and be programmed with one, certainly, but would it not be easier to design more modern biomorphs with an inherent Blank State setting, in order to prevent them from even reaching consciousness after the decanting process? This way, there is no previous 'personality' in a morph when someone sleeves their ego into it for its first time. With that in mind, it might actually be designed into the morphs that most people are running around with to not have a genetic code to develop a consciously thinking brain. As such, having childen with these morphs would be an exercise in futility. Of course, there is always reverse engineering that genetic sequence, and reintroducing it, but that requires the intervention of a third party. However, look at our modern medicine. How many unaided births are there in the first world? And in the participatory panopticon of EP's world, how common are unknown births? The intervention of third party might be expected in the vast majority if EP's societies. Probably, the only place where 'natural birth' is even considered is in the Jovian Republic and other bioconservative factions. Everyone else? The natural birthing process is costly, time-consuming, painful, and medically hazardous. Alternatives (surrogate pods, cloning, nanofabrication from a zygote blue print) are probably the norm. Once you start dealing with the more post-human transhuman populations, the concept of birth might be entirely discarded as an archaic concept rooted in biological terminology, as an identity as an ego is now separated utterly from the morph.

—

Doomsayer

Wed, 2010-09-22 18:43

#43

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

If your looking at the ego to be the child, why not just put the ego in a simspace for training and development (but at regular speed so you don't get a "Lost" effect) and when they are mature enough, sleeve them into a morph. I can see entire "daycare" servers where children "grow up" in. I like the idea of surrogate pods (especially ones that are puppet controlled and lack a fully functional cyberbrain). It seems to be very EPish. Another option is Iron Wombs (like with the Clans in Battletech). Vats filled with womb-like nano-fluids where the future youth are "grown" and then once the splicer/exalt/remade/sylth/etc is "born", the child would be handed over to the parents.

—

Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Wed, 2010-09-22 19:23

#44

sndwurks

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

That's the ultimate question, though, TBRM. Is it the ego or the morph that is the child? Or is it a combination of the two? It's distinctly a matter of discussion in transhuman thought. At which point does a creature become transhuman? At conception? At the age of reason? What defines something as transhuman? Is it the capacity for sentience (hence why smart rats and basic AIs that are not forks don't qualify)? Is it something else? I think the most common form of "birth" in the world of EP comes from a pair of consenting adults who decide to rear a child. Considering the absolute ease at which contraception is available, accidental pregnancies have to be extremely rare. However, probably as a result of the cultural impact of the Fall, procreation is likely seen in a very positive light. Transhumanity was nearly wiped out. How better to combat that than to bring new life into the world? As such, terminating a pregnancy might actually have started to become taboo after years of acceptance, as simply safely removing the fetus and having another method of birthing it would be an option. The use of medical technology is a given. Once a fetus is created either through intentional intercourse, external insemination, or genetic splicing, it is likely placed into the female morph. If neither of the pair of adults are in a female morph, or if the morph is not ideally suited for giving birth, then a surrogate pod (probably the safest 'artificial womb') is likely used. Otherwise, the female can carry the fetus to term, likely having specific nanomachines in her body to deal with the hormonal changes, whereupon labor is safely induced in a controlled medical environment. This is probably how it is even handled in bioconservative areas. Once the child is safely born, they are released back to the parents to begin the rearing process. Mind you, this is all assuming you're dealing with an "average" citizen of EP, who have some means through either economics or societal allowance and lives in a biomorph. Your mileage may vary, from everywhere from the purist Bioconservative approach (little miracles, every one) to the Ultimate eugenics (only the strongest genes, all intentionally decanted) to the merging of alpha forks, with careful psychosurgery, and placing it in an adolescent hybrid clone (more likely in the outer systems).

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Doomsayer

Wed, 2010-09-22 22:01

#45

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

This makes me wonder, the bioconservative movement cam out of the conservative movement and was always against abortion. I can see places like the Jovian Republic making abortion a capital punishment on the same level as murder. I can see even quite liberal societies like the Titanians to even sympathise with the Jovian's on this point (though not the punishment).

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Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Thu, 2010-09-23 01:19

#46

Rhyx

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

I would definitely could see the Jovians taking a hard line on abortion simply because not only is it killing one of a race about to go extinct but you're also killing a Jovian. I figure that the Jovians would actually give a lot of sociopolitical incentives for reproduction if only because right now they are lacking in numbers. I'd almost wager that birth control might be frowned upon, which would also explain a lot of poor families in the Jovian traditional economy. Children of poor families usually see military service as a way of getting an education and to get themselves a steady job perhaps helping out their families even. This in turn will give the Jovian Republic more than enough cannon fodder for upcoming military campaigns. I could even seen memetic advertising campaigns in the Jovian system that would push for large families to "Make humanity stronger"

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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/A_Rep.jpg[/img] 2 [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/R_Rep.jpg[/img] 7 [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/C_Rep.jpg[/img] 2
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Thu, 2010-09-23 05:20

#47

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

TBRMInsanity wrote:
This makes me wonder, the bioconservative movement cam out of the conservative movement and was always against abortion. I can see places like the Jovian Republic making abortion a capital punishment on the same level as murder. I can see even quite liberal societies like the Titanians to even sympathise with the Jovian's on this point (though not the punishment).

Bioconservatism as a view has both politically conservative and politically liberal origins. In the US and elsewhere the loudest bioconservatives are often politically conservative, but it is not hard to find plenty of politically liberal bioconservatives - Germany is full of them (try mentioning human enhancement or reproduction technology), the greens are extremely bioconservative, a lot of social democrats think human enhancement is a tool of capitalist oppression and so on. It is not uncommon to hear people first strongly claim women have an absolute right to abortion and then turn on a dime and claiming that aborting an embryo because it has the wrong gender or genes is morally evil and should be prevented. Virginia Postrel had a good insight in her book "The Future and Its Enemies". It is not left vs right, but stasists vs dynamists. Stasists think that the future will be bad unless somebody controls it: either to prevent change altogether and get back to the good old days (reactionaries) or that it needs to be carefully directed by people who know what they are doing (technocrats). Dynamists think the future will happen anyway, better let a thousand flowers bloom and learn from the mistakes. Note the similarity to the political factions of EP.

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Thu, 2010-09-23 11:09

#48

sndwurks

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

Arenamontanus wrote:
Virginia Postrel had a good insight in her book "The Future and Its Enemies". It is not left vs right, but stasists vs dynamists. Stasists think that the future will be bad unless somebody controls it: either to prevent change altogether and get back to the good old days (reactionaries) or that it needs to be carefully directed by people who know what they are doing (technocrats). Dynamists think the future will happen anyway, better let a thousand flowers bloom and learn from the mistakes. Note the similarity to the political factions of EP.

+1 R-Rep I think this is a very good point, and relevant to the topic at hand. The more bioconservative factions (Jovian Republic, Lunar Lagrange Alliance, Hypercorps) are more likely to view birth as an inherent aspect of the human (not transhuman) experience, and something that should be aided. I also agree that the Jovian Republic probably does use propaganda to encourage their citizens to propagate through the denial of access to contraceptive measures, and it probably does add to the problem of poor economic standings in their lower echelons. The more dynamist factions are more likely to deal with birth as an evolutionary throwback that is either now irrelevant (the more posthuman approach, when you think of egos as biological AGIs) or something to be improved upon (accidental creation of another life leaves behind several unwanted features; intentional creation can make them "better"). Regardless of faction? Technology plays a role. Even in the most bioconservative faction of the Jovian Republic. As was said, that's a Jovian citizen being conceived and born, and the human race is in a serious decline. I could, almost frighteningly, see governmental incentives for families, provided you have the means to support them.

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Doomsayer

Thu, 2010-09-23 12:42

#49

TBRMInsanity TBRMInsanity's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

Even if you don't have the means to support a large family I see the Jovian's implementing policies like the Conservative Party of Canada ($100 per child per year from the ages of 0 - 16). Maybe "Better Family Homes" Jovian institutes will provide free child care as long as your a Jovian citizen with a job. This may be the Jovian Government's way of encouraging people to be productive (both economically and biologically). I do agree that transhuman societies will more then likely view the ego as the essence of a person and as such the creation of an ego (either through biological means, forking, or some other method) will be the creation of life. I do see accelerated development of egos to be frowned upon (if not illegal in certain areas because of the Lost Generation), but virtual development would be quite acceptable and the norm (especially in Scum barges where physical living space is sometimes at a premium). This gets me to another question, how long does it take to create certain morphs? I know that Futura morphs only take a few years and Flats take roughly 20 years, but what about the others? Synth morphs of course would be the quickest to produce (along with Pods), which probably contributes to their "lower" value as well.

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Jovian Motto: Your mind is original. Preserve it. Your body is a temple. Maintain it. Immortality is an illusion. Forget it.

Fri, 2010-09-24 11:24

#50

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

I would also see a form of licence needed to have children. People who have dangerous occupation would either have to fork temporarly (requiring ANOTHER licence, in some place) or give up the child to professional carrying mother. However, there's a problem that seems to have gone missed in the arguments above. When mothers bear their child, there is some bond that is created even inutero (at least in most case). What happen to the mother-child bond when said child is conceived and grown in a tank/artificial womb? I tend to agree that after the Fall, most parents have relationships kin to adoptive parents with their offspring. in the anime Terra E, there is a very good exemple how thing could go: children are grown extra-utero and placed for the duration of their childhood with foster parents randomly chosen. At a certain age, the child has to pass a maturity test when he is examined to see if he can be a productive member of the society. If yes, the teenager is sent to a school according to his specific set of skills. if he's not, he's terminated. In either case, the memories of the parents are erased and edited, and after a while, they're given a new child to raise. The hero of the anime, off course, fails the test, but his saved, and goes against the system. How to translate that to EP well, pretty much like it is: an new ego is sleeved in a young morph (would that be why the neotenic morph was originally created?) and grow up with his or her parents, until, say, 15 or 16 years, depending of the habitat and faction of the parents. He/she passes the maturity test. if he/she makes it, he's loaned a basic morph until he/she can afford one on his own, and goes to study to an university, or get a job, or simply lives as a dandy, depending of his/her background. But if he/fails the test, he/she goes into psychosurgery, is pruned and goes through a new cycle, or is given menial odd jobs, or maybe even got endentured. the big question is; what's in that maturity test, does it change from habitat to habitat? one who succeeded in one might have failed in another one, and reciprokely another question comes to mind Quid of the uplifted children? How are they raised, and conceived? A neo-avian wouldn't be conceived and raised as a neo-hominid, or a neo-cetacean wouldn't not grow up as a neo-octopus. And how do they mingle with other transhuman kids? (could see Mercurial neo-octopus mother punishing her hatchling for watching an old Animal Planet documentary about octopod reproduction, saying he's watching porn!)

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Fri, 2010-09-24 11:59

#51

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

The emotional bond between parents and kids can be artificially strengthened. I think that once we have the technology (within a few years from now, I think) we will likely have a moral imperative to really make ourselves love them as much as we can. In EP this can be fixed with a bit of neo-oxytocine or a trip down to the family psychosurgeon. Different styles of childhood: Different societies have very different views of what a good childhood means. Western humanism thinks that people are ends in themselves, and a good childhood should make people grow into responsible, fully autonomous adults who can flourish. A collectivist system might regard a good childhood as producing people who become productive members of society. Some cultures view children as small, uneducated adults, others think they are investments, objects of design or animals in need of being civilized. Now take people from different views and force them to live together, plus you add technology that can allow all sorts of radical modifications, an uncertain situation, plenty of emotionally disturbed adults and possibly a need for increasing population. Sounds like a recipe for all sorts of fun and frightening differences from habitat to habitat, or even within habitats. "Sure, my children are all happy and productive humans and citizens. I make them that way. See, my wives and me give them muses running this operant conditioning software that makes them obedient, happy to enjoy their lot in life and tells them about the true faith. From time to time we take them on simspace evaluation outings, and then we tweak them if we find that they are misthinking or not developing right. When we found out that little Upsilon had doubts we love-bombed him and psych-fixed the remaining erroneous pathways. He became much happier afterwards, just ask him. In fact, if you doubt what we are doing is good, just talk to any of the kids. You will never find a bunch of better-adjusted people who are sincerely happy with what they are doing."

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Mommy, Daddy, where do babies come? (real EP question?)

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