PS-Another reason I am looking things like this is one of the "concepts" of the game is Your mind is Software Reprogram it...there doesnt appear to be a lot of re-programing you can do, or would want done. So that's why we are looking at more ways you can "program" your mind.Yes, this is potentially one of the most interesting parts of the game. Challenging to roleplay, and with some very imaginative or sinister possibilities. Some things ought to be relatively simple to do: increase/decrease activity in certain brain regions, simulate the effect of any existing drug, add and remove connections temporarily. While psychosurgery takes time and effort because it deals with the large-scale complex mental representations, this is essentially low-level firmware hacking. This can do some fun stuff:
- By simulating drug effects in only some regions and at some receptors, very specific and side-effect free treatments can be done. Including software alcohol that you can turn off instantly. I think a large number of people are also on permanent software antidepressants after the Fall - otherwise they would be too traumatized to function. [Low]
- Turn off area postrema so you don't get motion sickness (hat tip to Alastair Reynolds). [Low]
- Turn off parts of parietal cortex to get those depersonalization/unity with universe Zen moments. Might be a good way of just spending time without getting bored. [Low]
- Regulate emotional sensitivity up or down - turn off your amygdala to become fearless (and unable to recognize dangerous people). Change your general mood setpoint (the fact is that our level of happiness is relatively unaffected by events and situation, so why not set it to just below hypomania?) [Low]
- Allow external software to control your attentional focus. "Muse, I need to work on this project. Please focus me on it for six hours, or if a level 2 priority event happens. And yes, allow me to go to the loo." [Medium]
- Tune your VTA reward response so you become more of an rational optimizer. People with the "homo economicus" mod are less risk aversive than normal people, have less status quo bias, don't care about sunk costs and don't do hyperbolic discounting - most normal transhumans find their behaviour slightly odd but rational. [Medium]
- Control your blood pressure through nucleus ambiguus. [Low]
- Control sleep/awake states directly - your muse can wake you up to full alertness very rapidly by triggering nucleus coeruleus (and resetting various sleep activity), although it is not pleasant at all. A nicer wakeup process may take a few seconds from deep sleep to full alertness. And of course, you can emulate caffeine perfectly with no side effects. [Low]
- Control hunger: you can change your hypothalamic setpoint to make sure you approach your "ideal weight" (a bit oldfashioned in this day of anti-obsesity macros for medichines, but this is what little old ladies still do), remove hunger pangs or give yourself appetite for that truly vile meal. [Low]
- Control thirst: modify the subfornical organ. Note that this is commonly needed when sleeving a human in a synthmorph body, since the lack of proper osmosensory activity is often interpreted as very annoying "phantom thirst" ("I have no mouth, and I must drink!" as one Reaper-sleeved soldier once said) [Low]
- Change pain responses: reduce pain, lower pain thresholds to get a suitable level of suffering and irritation to behave right at a neogoth revival, or why not cut the link between pain (somatosensory) and suffering (anterior cingulate gyrus)? Of course, rewiring the brain so it gives pleasure has been a favourite execution method in the Night Cartel. You lock the altered victim into a cell with a single razor and wait... [Medium]
- Activate "flashbulb memory recording" by artificially upping acetylcholine to the hippocampus (or just increase the synaptic plasticity directly) during an experience. Conversely, if you know you will be subjected to nastiness, you can turn off memory consolidation and deliberately forget whatever it was. [Low]
- Change your sexual preferences (or level of interest) by modifying the preoptic nucleus. Probably requires some rewiring to tell the nucleus *what* stimuli to go for. "The latest fad here in Elysium is personalized paraphilias. Everybody is scrambling to get their own unique kink, and rumour says that Lindsay Turnell and Xi Zhou are in a spat about who was first with ursusagalmatophilia!" [Medium]
- Instantly reset your diurnal rhythm by modifying the superchiasmatic nucleus. Jetlag and gatelag are just a memory. [Low]
- Amplify or decrease feelings of love, kinship or friendship by modifying the oxytocin system and links between the fusiform cortex and the limbic system. "Darling, wouldn't you like an upgrade of our relationship?" (infatuation is most likely a somewhat separate system with amphetamine-like effects.) [Medium]
- Wireheading - why use drugs when you can re-wire your medial forebrain bundle to always give you pleasure that never habituates? And if you turn off plasticity in the nucleus accumbens at the same time, it is not even addictive. Sure, you won't care about anything while wireheading, but you can stop at any time you want (which you won't). [Medium]
- Reduce boredom effects by reducing basal ganglia habituation (quite dangerous, you could end up in a loop). [Low]
- Turn off the parahippocampal gyrus to induce a "freshness effect" - everything looks new, as if you have never seen it before. The exact opposite of deja vu. [Low]
- Increase mirror neuron activity (or add extra) to improve empathy. Or turn them off for a cool-headed outside look at what is going on. [Medium]
—
- Data: A neural network can store data, which becomes available to external software when the brain's owner gives a mental command or experiences some kind of cue. Note that the owner doesn't "know" the data themselves, they will just respond with it when needed. The most common use is to store long cryptographic keys, but it can be used to smuggle small pieces of software, recordings or data. The amount of data scales roughly with network size; a N neuron network can store about N kbytes (assuming ~1 bit per synapse, 8000 synapses per neuron). To hide a gigabyte requires about a million neurons, which is a needle in a haystack (especially since they are widely distributed in the brain). Unfortunately, hiding a terabyte starts to require noticeable amounts of neurons. Also, the standard design is read-only: the synaptic update rules of most brains are too low-fi to enable good computer data storage on the fly. Stress value: 1 for small stores, 1d10/2 for moderate stores (a gigabyte), 1d10 for larger stores. [Moderate]
- Rolodex: An add-on to the fusiform face recognition area that acts a bit like Oracles or face recognition software. When run together with external software like a muse it connects the face-recognition perceptual system to a database of people, allowing it to bring up who's who information and point out people satisfying various importance criteria. It can even be provided with an emotional response, making the owner experience positive or negative responses to people in different groups. This information can be learned by the neuralware (takes about an hour of running a training loop) and then will be available even when there is no outside software. Stress value: 1d10 [Moderate]
- Hallucinospace: Simspace software that can start a pre-defined simspace inside the head of the user. When activated they simply appear to fall asleep as they go into the simspace. While the complexity and size of the simspace is limited it is a convenient way of avoiding an unpleasant outside world. Stress value: 1d10 [Moderate]
- Apparitions: Like AR overlays, but visual or auditory hallucinations controlled either by external software or other neuralware. Stress value: 1 [Low]
- Fake EEG: Neuralware that produces apparent brainwave activity corresponding to pre-set states, such as being deep asleep, dreaming, being awake and alert, attending to a certain stimuli or being in an epileptic fit. It can be programmed to fake recognition responses (useful when subjected to brain fingerprinting interviews). This only works in biomorph brains and against simple (or remote) brainwave measurement devices that do not actually check the true internal state. Stress value: 1d10/2 [High]
- Neuroskillware: just like skillware, but implemented as a neural network rather than a cybernetic implant. On the plus-side, this makes it always available. On the minus-side, unless the skillsoft is externally available it must also be compiled into the neuroware when the system is set up and cannot be changed afterwards. Stacking neuroskillware and skillware is possible but problematic: the different systems will be interfering with each other and cause stress: every time the user shifts from using neuroware to skillware or back they need to roll a WILx3 or get one stress point. Stress value: 1d10 [High]
- Translatorware: Neuroware that takes information from some senses and runs some form of encryption/decryption on it. A user may for example view a barcode, a page of apparently random letters or a piece of music, actually experiencing the translated information hidden inside. Conversely, translatorware can also allow the user to produce messages with encrypted or steganographic information, e.g. writing a response in the form of random letters or singing with messages encoded in microvibrato. Standard translatorware comes with pre-set keys at build time. Stress value: 1d10/2 [Moderate]
- Beautyware: Artificial neural networks for recognizing certain high-dimensional patterns or symmetries that normally would not stand out. While the network doesn't help to understand them, it allows the user to notice them. For example, a network to find supersymmetric patterns in data might be helpful for a physicist. The name comes from the experience of "beauty" or recognition when the patterns are "seen". Some people get beautyware intended to help comprehend certain forms of extremely complex art. Stress value: 1d10/2 [Moderate]
- Exploits: A trick among certain criminals is to encode exploit software in their neural network and then attack code that interfaces with their brains such as simulspaces. Also useful for carrying contraband software such as scorchers into secure installations. The exploit software gives a -20 modifier due to its neural slowdown. Stress value: 1d10/2 [Moderate] or software price, whichever is highest.
- Blank: For the paranoid, a cortical suicide pill. This extensive neural network will trigger a massive epileptic fit at the same time it maximizes synaptic plasticity. The result is an endless fit that gradually erases memories and everything else. A scan of the brain will likely at best produce a gamma fork. Stress value: 1d10+3 [Moderate]
- Firewall: For the utterly paranoid, security software that runs *inside* the brain. While much less capable than a software firewall, it might be the extra surprise needed to escape egonapping or enemy capture. The firewall has -20 due to its slowed down reactions, but acts as a filter against exploits entering through neural access jacks, the stack, endos, cyberware and the senses. Some Firewall teams are experimenting with hardening their brains against basilisk hacks this way. Stress value: 1d10 [High]
- Daemons: Small AIs can be compiled into neural networks and run inside the brain. The exact relationship between the daemon and the owner depends significantly on how the setup is implemented. The most basic version keeps the daemon in an entirely separate network and allows it access to the outside through normal cybernetic enhancements; it is as if it was just carried along. A more common approach is to give the AI access to sensory channels and a few limited output channels (overlays in the visual or auditory fields are most common): the owner can speak with the daemon and it can talk back, but it cannot do anything more than advice. A more full integration gives the daemon motor control, allowing true multitasking (assuming both can agree on what to do - alien hand syndrome is not too uncommon). The most full integration gives the daemon read access to the owner's memories and emotions (the converse is normally not possible due to the differences in internal representation, but Cognite is working hard on fixing that). Obviously, the owner and daemon better have compatible personalities or they are going to drive each other mad. Stress value: 2d10 [High].
Adding neuralware is done like other direct ego editing: the neural map is updated with the neuralware, and then the ego is put into a morph. A successful Psychosurgery roll will have inserted a fully functional network with a normal amount of stress. Less successful Psychosurgery may produce flawed neuralware (it only works partially, comes and goes, triggers disagreeable side effects etc) and of course more stress. Neuralware is tricky to remove, since it becomes part of the wider neural network of the user. If the original brain state and edit information is available it can be removed with relatively low stress (1 SV) by editing the ego file, but if it has been inside for long enough it will require a serious psychosurgery effort spanning a week and with a -20 modifier (SV cost 1d10/2). It is also possible to just disable the neuralware; this gives a +30 bonus to the psychosurgery but leaves the neural patterns behind. Cognite has been a major developer of neuralware but is getting some stiff competition from ExoTech (who offer tempting package deals with their resleeving options). Meanwhile smaller cognotech design houses like Brent Brains of Extropia, Mindshot Enterprises and Toko Otak are gaining grounds in specialized areas of neuralware. Mindshot's expanding range of translatorware and beautware has many investors interested, especially since they are now developing translatorware to "natively" understand alien environments.- Improved pleasure memories: The hippocampus-midbrain links are strengthened so that the pleasurable emotional content of memories can give a stronger signal. This can be done with bioware or neuralware. The result is usually rather benign in psychologically normal people and has been used to treat some forms of depression. In some people memory addiction occurs (a likely Trauma when something unpleasant happens), and people with this enhancement are particularly vulnerable to new addictions and tasping (-30 to resistance rolls). Removing the enhancement tends to produce depressive symptoms. SV: 1d10/2. [Bioware: Low, Neuralware: Moderate]
- Removal of habituation: Pleasure does not fade or habituate as rapidly as normal. A popular version is the party drug Purrrfect, but it also exists as a neural hack of the forebrain. The overall effect is to make pleasant things improve mood and enjoyment for longer. There are reports that users become unmotivated and "too content" in their everyday lives (WIL -10 for purposes of doing something unrewarding when there is something nice to do). SV: 1 [Drug, Bioware, Neuralware: Low]
- Enlargement: This bioware system allows radical hedonic enhancement. The VTA/mesolimblic bundle system is expanded so that greater magnitudes of pleasure can be experienced. Usually the VTA response function is also made more linear for pleasure, since otherwise it would be very hard to achieve extreme levels of ecstasy. People with this enhancement will feel enjoyment in pleasurable situations that is normally impossible to experience: they not just feel more when enjoying art, sex or doing something useful, but when it is really good it goes beyond normal limits of ecstasy. In fact, the implant deliberately has an autonomous system cut-off to avoid excessive autonomous responses - otherwise the user could get tachycardia and literally die from pleasure.
An obvious downside is that this level of happiness is very addictive: characters experiencing ecstasy will develop a minor addiction to their source if they fail a WILx3 roll (and a critical failure produces moderate addiction). Note that they can develop addictions to any pleasure source as long as it is equally good, and that they all substitute for each other. For example, after the user has experienced sex with enlarged pleasure, they may become addicted to the experience. However, having an ecstatic athletic experience can also cause addiction - and now the character will crave sex or sports equally. Tasping will risk major addiction directly: it is the only way of reaching the full potential of pleasure. It is possible to add an anti-addiction bioware hack that temporarily blocks nucleus accumbens plasticity (cost: [Moderate]) that removes this risk, but this protection (somewhat crudely called an accumbens condom) must be deliberately activated during the experience - forgetting it will risk addiction (and who can remember such small things when heavenly experiences are about to happen?) Removing the bioware will cause 3d10 SV and very likely extreme depression as a Trauma.
There are rumours of hedonistic exhumans who have added multiple banks of mesolimbic bioware, reaching truly posthuman levels of enjoyment. They might even be permanently tasping some banks, while leaving others free to motivate action. However, it is unlikely they are able to (or would ever want to) live any kind of normal, useful life.
SV: 2d10 Cost: [High]. Illegal or restricted in most inner system habitats.
- Modifiable motivation: What is enjoyable or not depends to a large degree on the connectivity of the VTA with the rest of the brain. Change that, and the pleasure of (say) music, sex, a particular painting or doing maths can be changed. While such motivator levels can be changed using Psychosurgery (as system as emotional control), it is possible to make a nanotech implant that allows direct manipulation of afferent strength. When in use, the owner (or somebody controlling the implant) can regulate the level of pleasure produced by the current input-pattern, essentially deciding how much to like it or not in the future. To prevent autotasping the total effect is kept constant; making yourself love classical music ecstatically will slightly reduce the enjoyment of everything else. This allows a character to change their values and motivations on the fly. A simple shift (such as liking/disliking a person, a kind of food or exercise) is nearly instant, while shifting political or sexual preferences may take a week of adjustment in different situations and may require a WIL roll.
Cost: [High] Stress value: nothing for implanting the system, but once the character starts to realize the total arbitrariness of their values and motivations, roll for a SV 2d10 philosophical crisis. Radical shifts in motivation (or the occurrence of fundamental contradictions in value, behaviour or social situation) may cause further 1d10 stress... unless the character decides to not care about being inconsistent.
{See Greg Egan's short story "Reasons to be cheerful" for a fantastic writeup of how this implant works}
Note that it is entirely possible (though very, very inadvisable!) to stack these enhancements. Obligatory reference: http://www.hedweb.com/ - however, David is mainly looking at removing aversive experience rather than maximizing pleasure (he is a scary negative utilitarian :-) ) There are definitely people around in EP who have similar ideas. Actually, that suggests a new and interesting faction: Abolitionists Abolitionists want to abolish suffering and maximize pleasure. Once suffering had an evolutionary purpose but in this era of self-modification and artificial environments it can be replaced with something more suited for rational beings. There should not be any trade-off between motivation and pleasure: while passive enjoyment has its place, so does life in dopaminergic hyperdrive. Abolitionists are generally in favour of radical human enhancement, yet interested in keeping the best results of the old culture around. They tend to get along with all but the most bioconservative, duty-oriented and militant groups - and of course, their parties are legendary. There is a split between the "dark" abolitionists who focus on ameliorating suffering, even to the extent of preventing suffering beings from coming into existence (or maybe staying in existence) and the "light" abolitionists who think a bit of pain is acceptable as long as there is much more pleasure. There are also "green" abolitionists who emphasize the abolishment of suffering in animals and "lower" lifeforms - which may require some heavy ecological and biological re-engineering. Some of the most radical green abolitionists want to - in the long run - get rid of all forms of predation from the universe. Advantages: +20 Interest [Partying], +10 Protocol, +10 to Kinesics, Medicine or Psychosurgery, +10 Networking: Media Disadvantages: None Common morphs: Exalts, Sylphs, Pleasure Pods, Synthmorphs (due to their natural pain control), Infomorphs+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep
- Depressive realism: depressed people have a more correct estimate of the likelihood of bad things happening to others (and an overestimation of the risks to them) than normal people, who are generally overconfident. This modification reduces optimism bias without the emotional effects of depression. Users become level-headed, realistic and (to non-treated outsiders) somewhat pessimistic. SV: 1d10/2 [Moderate]
- Monomania: a deliberate focus on one issue, making it (temporarily) the One True Goal of one's life. Monomanias can be broad topics or compulsions towards a particular project. There are regular rumours that hypercorps, lunar citystates or ideological groups use this kind of treatment to get a loyal, obsessive workforce. SV: 1d10/2 [Moderate]
- Pronoia: Just like paranoids have delusions that outside powers are trying to harm them, pronoids believe there is a conspiracy to help them. While still as delusional it provides security and happiness, and a surprising number of people have deliberately tweaked themselves with pronoia to avoid depression. SV: 1d10 [Low]
- Clang association: A form of thought disorder where sound matters in associations, making sound-alike words be alike. As a modification clanging makes people speak (and think) in rhyming, punning ways without impairing thinking (much). This is very popular among some scum barge performers. SV: 1d10/2 [Low]
- Hypervigilance: A slight re-tuning of the arousal systems a la PTSD, but with some mood modification to avoid anxiety. The result is that the person is constantly scanning the environment for threats, easily startled and ready for anything. Gives a +20 bonus to detect ambushes and react quickly to them (+10 initiative). SV: 1d10 [Low]
- Phobic speedup reflex: Phobics can detect the presence of what they are afraid of very rapidly by using a low-level visual system-amygdala link. This modification borrows the link but does not connect it to fear, but rather other pre-planned responses. For example, on seeing a certain kind of weapon the spontaneous reaction is to start a pre-trained evasion or disarmament kata. +50 initiative, but only on the pre-defined action. An enemy ready for it has a +30 to defend. SV: 1 [Moderate]
- Emergency persona: An alternate personality is imprinted, to be activated under certain extreme circumstances. This personality has the same skills and knowledge as the "real" person, but different motivation, mood and psychology (and quite possibly even different positive or negative traits). Usually intended to ensure that in a real crisis the person will take the necessary actions to save themselves - or save others and go down with the ship. SV: 1d10 [Moderate]
- Religious tuning: By creating semi-epileptic foci in the temporal lobe, disinhibiting agency detectors, change the level of serotonin binding or other manipulations a person can become more likely to have religious feelings and experiences. These range from a mild increase in self-transcendence with the serotonin tuning ("zen serotonin") to intermittent religious ecstasies (the "Dostoevsky Map"). Even if the person is not religious it can be enjoyable to experience the state. These days religious tuning is more done with petals than psychosurgery. SV: 1d10/2 [Low]
- Positive hypomania: Hypomania with the positive mood and energy, but without the irritability. Essentially tuning into hyperthymia on a semi-permanent basis. SV: 1d10/2 [Low]
- Exercise bulimia: A tuned-down version of the disorder, giving the user a strong urge to exercise (but not excessively). Another method of doing this is "beneficial addiction" that essentially makes the user addicted to something useful (e.g. cross-checking the flight logs, updating software security). SV: 1d10/2 [Moderate]
- Narcissism: A personality tuning that increases the level of self-centeredness, need for admiration, interest in power and prestige, and reduces empathy. While not as severe as real narcissistic personality disorder, it is basically a diluted version. Popular among a certain type of ambitious people who think they are held back by a "wussy" emotional background. Similar tunings can provide increased levels of antisocial personality with no increased impulsiveness or lowered frustration threshold. SV: 1d10 [Low]
- Schizoid introversion: Some transhumans need to work far away from company. By taking traits from schizoid personality disorder they can be tuned to not care much about the outside world. They do not desire or enjoy close relationships, including being part of a family or having sexual relations. The tuning usually tries to avoid the reduction of pleasure seen in real personality disorder, but sometimes a flattening of affect, detachment and coldness is desired. SV: 1d10 [Low]
- Multiple personalities: While it is entirely possible to run multiple forks at the same time, sometimes it is useful to bring out the differences in order to maximize problem-solving diversity. With this tuning some aspects of a persons personality (or hidden 'eigenpersonas' inside them) are brought to the foreground. Very successful tuning (critical successes) can bring forward extreme aspects with special traits not truly found in the full personality, like a sociopatic side with improved manipulation or an asethetic personality with impeccable tasteSV: 1d10 [Moderate]
- On-demand depersonalisation: Sometimes it is useful to have an out-of-body experience or think that one's pain is somebody else's problem. This modification makes it possible for a person to zone out, becoming quite detached from themselves and what happens to them. Very useful for agents who might be captured or people worried about ending forks of themselves. Gives a +30 bonus to resist torture or other influences while activated. SV: 1d10 [Moderate]
- Derealization: Sometimes it is practical to not experience the world as real, for example when going up against TITAN-constructed horrors or having to do necessary but dirty wetwork. When this tuning is activated it is as if the outside world was seen from behind a pane of glass, or that it is just a simspace. This gives a +30 bonus to resist psychological stress - but the disconnect tends to add 1 SV per week kept running (It will last until deactivated by psychosurgery). SV: 1d10 [Low]
Insertion works just like all other psychosurgery, but with a +15 bonus since it exploits natural faultmodes of the brain. A downside is that if the person suffers trauma or a derangement while having this kind of mindware in their minds they are likely to get the condition for real. Many of these ones are also found in various forms of petals, especially the religious themes, depersonalisation, derealisation and pronoia.