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Fabber in a Synthmorph

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Wed, 2012-09-19 17:40

uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture

Fabber in a Synthmorph

Can a synthmorph have a fabber installed in their morph? Is this problematic metagame, or just in-game (PC holdings such as Mars have laws about jail-broken fabbers lying around, so its a recipe for morph impounding I would imagine). A player asked me, the GM of an impending game, and I didn't have an answer and wanted to feel out the repercussions or limitations in such a plan... the game is likely to be one based in the Wild West Mars.

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Exhuman, and Humanitarian.

Wed, 2012-09-19 17:50

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Fabbers require power and

Fabbers require power and cooling. A typical home-fabber is likely the size of a microwave oven and uses slightly more energy - that is not going to fit into a reasonably sized morph, and carrying around extra batteries and feedstock is a problem. Expect to double the size if you want a recycler. However, small nanomanufacturing systems can presumably be done. Think of a nanoswarm hive, for example. They are still pretty energy intensive, so you better be a synthmorph with spare power and some cooling ability. The real problem is of course legality and acceptability. The fact that this is against the law in many jurisdictions unless you can show that it is a controlled fabber implementing all NanoSys DRM is just part of it. Remember that it was just 10 years back when compromised fabbers spewed hunter-killer weapons that most likely killed several near and dear of any character. People do have some respect for the power of fabbers, and putting them in your body shows that you are most likely either 1) crazy, or 2) going exhuman. In which case the best treatment is "kill it with fire!" (Come to Extropia, where the only prejudice you get for your choice of morph is higher insurance premiums! And maybe swarms of anti-TITAN surveillance gnatbots launched by vigilante charities.)

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Wed, 2012-09-19 18:05

Madwand

Easily possible

You would need a small-vehicle sized morph to fit in a cornucopia machine, but one or more small fabbers would fit into a normal synthmorph just fine. I've done just that in the past, in fact, and it's not crazy or exhuman at all. I used a masked steel morph with a concealed compartment in the belly, and a small fabber system essentially replacing the digestive system in a human. It doesn't take a large fabber to manufacture ammunition or specks, for example, and specialized nanohives can fit in there too. To feed the fabber system, just eat. For a self-sufficient mercenary type, a use like this is quite logical. It's also quite difficult to detect under faraday cage armor and the bonus from masking and the hidden compartment itself; if detected (which would generally require them to essentially disassemble you, in which case you have a more serious problem), you could get in trouble, but not necessarily a lot if you are a professional security type as you have good reasons for it. Make sure you aren't spotted sticking your hand in your stomach if possible. You can just exhale out smaller items, like swarms or specks. The fabber system does need power, but you already have nuclear batteries powering your morph. Fabbing does cause heat, but not so much it can't be conducted out to the surface of the morph; a synth mask generally needs to make heat anyway to duplicate a normal humans heat signature, so you just turn down the heater system you already have.

Wed, 2012-09-19 18:09

uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture

Excellent! That was just the

Quote:
Remember that it was just 10 years back when compromised fabbers spewed hunter-killer weapons that most likely killed several near and dear of any character. People do have some respect for the power of fabbers, and putting them in your body shows that you are most likely either 1) crazy, or 2) going exhuman. In which case the best treatment is "kill it with fire!" (Come to Extropia, where the only prejudice you get for your choice of morph is higher insurance premiums! And maybe swarms of anti-TITAN surveillance gnatbots launched by vigilante charities.)

Excellent! That was just the sort of insight I was looking for! I figured that out in the Autononist areas they would just be cautious but permissive and vigilant, but completely forgot about the social ramifications with regards to compromised makers spewing out death bots during the Fall. Thanks! Edit: still figuring out not just the forum but posting on my infernal "smart" phone.

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Exhuman, and Humanitarian.

Wed, 2012-09-19 18:12

uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture

Madwand wrote:You would need

Madwand wrote:
You would need a small-vehicle sized morph to fit in a cornucopia machine, but one or more small fabbers would fit into a normal synthmorph just fine. I've done just that in the past, in fact, and it's not crazy or exhuman at all. I used a masked steel morph with a concealed compartment in the belly, and a small fabber system essentially replacing the digestive system in a human. It doesn't take a large fabber to manufacture ammunition or specks, for example, and specialized nanohives can fit in there too. To feed the fabber system, just eat. For a self-sufficient mercenary type, a use like this is quite logical. It's also quite difficult to detect under faraday cage armor and the bonus from masking and the hidden compartment itself; if detected (which would generally require them to essentially disassemble you, in which case you have a more serious problem), you could get in trouble, but not necessarily a lot if you are a professional security type as you have good reasons for it. Make sure you aren't spotted sticking your hand in your stomach if possible. You can just exhale out smaller items, like swarms or specks. The fabber system does need power, but you already have nuclear batteries powering your morph. Fabbing does cause heat, but not so much it can't be conducted out to the surface of the morph; a synth mask generally needs to make heat anyway to duplicate a normal humans heat signature, so you just turn down the heater system you already have.

A fair counterpoint, though it requires the character to be or impersonate someone with the sort of security clearance so to speak to justify the part. But still, fair counterpoint.

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Exhuman, and Humanitarian.

Wed, 2012-09-19 18:28

Madwand

uwtartarus wrote:A fair

uwtartarus wrote:
A fair counterpoint, though it requires the character to be or impersonate someone with the sort of security clearance so to speak to justify the part. But still, fair counterpoint.

Having security clearance helps -- my PC was an Argonaut Medean with an excellent reputation -- but I must stress how unlikely it is for a cautious PC to be detected using a system like this. Any old case morph or even biomorph could be modified to carry around an internal hive and thus become a potential terrorist that would be very difficult to detect. Somehow, though, even with this possibility Eclipse Phase society keeps on ticking along. Such terrorism is likely very rare unless exsurgents are mixed up in it. This might be because "Terrorists Suck": http://boingboing.net/2012/09/17/terrorists-suck.html

Wed, 2012-09-19 18:45

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Madwand wrote:Somehow, though

Madwand wrote:
Somehow, though, even with this possibility Eclipse Phase society keeps on ticking along. Such terrorism is likely very rare unless exsurgents are mixed up in it.

Or it could be that the groups looking for it are actually quite good. Habitats that had security services that let through a few are now festering craters... When you consider what a competent security organisation in EP can do things get rather chilling: *every* smart object is pooling data which is run through pattern detection AI and probability mapping, there can be specks and gnatbots *everywhere*, nanosensors not only look for nanomachines but smell-patterns of manufacturing that can be cross-correlated and fused with other data, and you can have tireless COG and INT 30+ analysts looking for suspicious patterns 60x realtime. Of course, that level of competence is not compatible with most games. Normally PCs get away with a lot of sloppy planning because it makes the game more fun. So we explain away the obvious giveaways by assuming the security corps cannot watch everybody all the time or were not paying attention right there...

Quote:
This might be because "Terrorists Suck": http://boingboing.net/2012/09/17/terrorists-suck.html

Remember that suicide bombing is more akin to car bombs in EP. You have a backup (if you suicide-bomb 10 times, do you get 720 virgins once you finally kick the bucket? ;-) Traditional suicide bombing is about making certain kinds of statements. But just using a disposable morph as a weapon has many more possibilities. The morph is just the vehicle for (or *is*) the weapon. It is also good for getting past a lot of security: plans without a getaway plan are much simpler and harder to counter-plan against. The potential for infiltrators to wreack havoc is worrying. Stay paranoid citizen, and report all commie mutant traitors! Direct Action is your friend!

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Wed, 2012-09-19 19:00

Smokeskin

Arenamontanus wrote:

Arenamontanus wrote:
Remember that suicide bombing is more akin to car bombs in EP. You have a backup (if you suicide-bomb 10 times, do you get 720 virgins once you finally kick the bucket? ;-)

It seems like the more powerful meme to spread, optimizing for attack frequency.

Thu, 2012-09-20 10:56

Prophet710 Prophet710's picture

You could have a mobile

You could have a mobile armory and arsenal by installing several major fabbers in a massive, mobile robot with industrial grade equipment. Or, alternately you could have a mobile outpost used for exoplanet exploration and colonization. Whatever your flavor. I keep thinking about that big thing that sucked up the pyramids in Transformers 2 (lame movie but cool concept), sucking up materials, spitting out slag and dropping out groups of synthmorphs programmed for destruction!

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"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."