I ain't particularly attached to any body since I lost my birth morph on Earth. I mean, I just can't feel a connection with these ape-sleeves most habitats have. Yeah, I know there's not much space for the body of water us Orcas would need just to support ourselves. One time I was on Ceres and sleeved in a neo-dolphin adapted to the sub-crustal sea, but it was just so demeaning to be prey even for those few hours, not to mention that using gills felt too much like drowning. Currently I got a bouncer, spend plenty of time in simulspace or as an Eidolon though.

Bacon, born and raised. Ain't much to look at, but it's me.

I work a lot of salvage ops, and I’ve been sleeved in this vacuum pod for about two years now. I was in a case for a few months before that, after they found my stack in HEO after...well, you know. People still have such a huge issue with pods, I know, but I couldn’t afford a bouncer at the time. And it’s really not as bad as people say. This thing is still a living body. ...Okay, I lied a bit. It's a vacuum-adapted pod. It's really a pretty standard pleasure pod built for microgravity. Look, it was all I could find in my price range through the channels I had open to me. I had it modified for vac work once I landed the salvage job, just basic stuff. Sealed, O2 reserve...y'know, the stuff you need just in case your vacsuit fails on you. It's a compact little thing, Thai stock, and the looks aren't bad if you can get past the lines and the sheer amount of fine print branding all over the thing. Reflexes are pretty snappy too, which is damn handy in this line of work. Funny thing is, I work with a chick in a real vac pod, one of those lines SkyBelow put out a few years back, meant to be a workhorse, and I swear she still bruises up easier than I do. Hell, last time a line snapped, I took an impact that I know would've killed my original neo-hom, but other than a handful of broken ribs and a temporary new arm joint, I came out okay. I...dunno what that says about pleasure pod design. There's rough play, sure, but when it's outperforming purpose-built morphs, it's a little eyebrow raising. I didn't ask too much about its past when I got it, so maybe it was just another aftermarket upgrade for...well, I've seen some vids, let's just say that. The GRM is a right fucking bastard, though. Just getting it up to something like bouncer-standard let me learn a lot of new Urdu curses from my genehacker, and it gets a really annoying set of chronic twitches for a few days after each maintenance checkup. But by God does it beat that case.

Well you've got my...respect? And a bit of envy. I can't even imagine keeping that many versions of myself running without having a mental breakdown or ten. It can get weird enough when I run a couple betas into bots for site recon, like constant deja vu. Do you use a lot of ghost riders, or some other program or mod to keep it all straight?

Assuming this domain's secure enough to talk about it, what kind of work are you in that lets you afford so many bodies? Just one of the perks of being with the Ultimates?

I admit, it's a little hard to follow if you mean your own plurality with the "we" or another organization. You're making me realize that if forking like that takes off in a bigger way in the future, we're going to need to overhaul a lot of grammar in a lot of languages. And making me wish I could shoot worth a damn, but salvage pays pretty well. Well, it would if I kept my wages. Three more months till freedom... I digress, though. Got any dream morphs? I've been eyeing a few models, but it's hard to choose for a number of reasons.

[Fixer Logging in] @SquireNed You got to try a Fenrir out? Would you happen to have the specs? Doubtful, but if you do, I could get you a very good buyer. You'd be able to afford a few custom reapers even after the 5% Commision fee.

[Fixer] @SquireNed It's still amazing you got your hand on one, they're virtually unknown outside of Hyoden. But rather disappointing that the hype seems overdone. Regardless, it's design specs one of the most common request I received. Well, if you're interested in some money, I know a handful of orgs who'd pay for the XP of it. Something about getting specs detail from the experience. Easy cash if you don't mind the slight breach of confidentiality.

[Fixer] @SquireNed Well, if you ever need some easy money, you can contact me. You'd be amazed what every little tidbit of seemingly uninteresting data can be worth. Plus, there's always people looking for ultimate mercenaries, I can get you in touch with them. On the otherside of business, you need info, gears or people, I can find them for you. It's what I do.

[b]Login Location:[/b] Aarhus, Titan, Saturnine System [b]@-List ID:[/b] AssassinAnna2113 My morph and why? Well... I'm sleeved in a caucasian, hermaphrodite Hazer of the 2135 vintage. (That's 2 AF, for those of you who insist on using those stupid new years.) I was brought out of cold storage in 2138. I was an infugee, but unlike all the poor bastards who wound up in shitholes like Mars or Luna, I wasn't being given a devil's bargain WRT my future. I had the good luck to be in running distance of Copenhagen when the evacuations started, thankfully, which was an incredible stroke of luck for me, since I'm from Jersey. (That is, New Jersey, the State from the United States, not the Isle of Jersey that was part of the UK.) Anyway, Morphs were, and remain, tight, on Titan, since unlike Mars or Luna or wherever, they're actually dedicated here to making sure that everybody who wants a morph gets one. Morphs were so tight when I came out, in fact, that all of the ones decanting at the time were already spoken for. It's a rough situation to be in, you'd think; they want to give you a body, but actually arranging for a biomorph will be difficult. Basically, my options were infolife until a body was grown for me, synthmorph until a body was grown for me, or I could pick through the on-hand resleeving stock and see if there was anything I didn't hate. The on-hand resleeving stock, bear in mind, are the morphs that they keep in case someone is coming in hot from an egocast, or gets their morph killed beyond a healing tank's ability to fix it. They tend to be the ones that you could charitably call factory rejects. In other words, the ones that had picked up flaws, or were grown with them. When I saw this morph, I just knew it was the one. Seven feet tall - 2.1336m scientifically - which is exceptionally tall, even for a Hazer - with features I'd call "Elfin." It was in great condition physically, the previous owner had had some mod-work done to it, which included some neuroplasticity for a linguistics learning ability. The problem was it was so neuroplastic that they weren't sure they'd managed to get all of the old ego out of it, and there was a chance the morph might retain some scattered memories or emotional drivers that could crop up and be problematic. Well, I was feeling ballsy. Or maybe ignorant. Or maybe I just didn't give a fuck, but I insisted, and I was sleeved into it that afternoon. It's a hell of a thing, going from an ordinary Splicer to a Hazer, but it feels good. The first thing I had done to it was some basic biomods - altering the features to both appear more like my original face, and more elfin at the same time, and why not, added some huge elf ears to boot, and had the hair turned richly orange-red, with a a natural bright white skunk stripe on the right side. It feels damn good, and since then I've had a lot - and I do mean a [i]lot[/i] - of work done to it. It came with a good suite of Quality of Life augments - circadian regulator, clean metabolism, access jacks, the hyper linguist I mentioned earlier, a Ghostrider module, and a math booster. Let me tell you, I wish I'd had all of those, especially the circadian regulator and the math booster, during high school! Physically, I got a light bioweave armor early-on, to protect against bumps and scrapes, and a set of medichines to make any I did pick up even more easily repaired, and later on a set of enhanced pheremones because who doesn't like oozing sexy like a pleasure pod on a hot tin roof? Then I started picking up the low-key augs, the easy ones to get, the ones you don't have to push hard for; primarily sensory augs, you know? But that was basically it until I found my calling and started to really build @-Rep. Once I did that, I found it was pretty easy to put in requests that would be granted in very reasonable timeframes, and I started [i]augging[/i]. Perhaps I went a bit too far, but after I started playing with knives in the real world, it seemed like a good idea. So, here I am now, one of the more heavily augmented morphs on Titan, and you know what? I feel great. People look at me and they chortle. I've heard snide comments about the Hazer not being a proper combat morph. It doesn't bother me. I'm confident that I'm tall as a tree (metaphorically speaking,) swifter than a coursing river (possibly literally,) and strong enough to do what I need to do. Really, the most interesting modification to this morph that I had done was a year ago, when a friend I made at T.A.U. convinced me to try a hermaphrodite pattern with no balls. She also snuck in a boob job while I was in the tank. I told her she could make them bigger, I didn't think she'd go as far as she did, but since most of the people I've been naked with in the year since seem to like it, it's worth the trouble of learning to adjust my swordplay and free-running around these big girls. Do I love this morph? Hell yes. How long do I intend to keep it? Until the day I lose it. Is it a part of my identity? Yes, yes it is. I'm not horrified at the thought of sleeving into something else... I just don't [i]want[/i] to. I mean, I might try something else if for some reason I had to, but so far, I haven't had to. Or if I had the opportunity to give something else a spin whilst being able to come back at any time, I might give that a try.

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:

So, here I am now, one of the more heavily augmented morphs on Titan, and you know what? I feel great. People look at me and they chortle. I've heard snide comments about the Hazer not being a proper combat morph.

It's because it's not a proper combat morph. Unarmed, armed, doesn't matter. A combat morph will always outstrip your morph when it matters. We can handle more damage. We're faster, stronger, and we make it less obvious. A [i]good[/i], unbranded fury morph will end up almost keeping up with many baseline, unmodified synth combat morphs. Not only that, but we will look no more suspicious than a regular splicer. Outside of gene sequencing, no one in the room will know that you can survive a grenade, tear someone's arms off, and then beat everyone in the room to death with it... including that Guard synthmorph that thought he was tough. The only thing that will end up raising an eyebrow on me would be the fact I have a hardened skeleton. If you ever want to get to feel the terror and awe of a fully rigged Fury combat morph with reflex boosters on MRDR, and you're on Venus some time, give me a ring. If being burned alive or being stabbed repeatedly to death by a partially invisible enemy isn't your thing, we could always just spar hand to hand, no heavy damage. I'm willing to bet 5,000CR on the fight. No claws, promise!

SquireNed wrote:

otohime1978 wrote:

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:

So, here I am now, one of the more heavily augmented morphs on Titan, and you know what? I feel great. People look at me and they chortle. I've heard snide comments about the Hazer not being a proper combat morph.

It's because it's not a proper combat morph. Unarmed, armed, doesn't matter. A combat morph will always outstrip your morph when it matters. We can handle more damage. We're faster, stronger, and we make it less obvious. A [i]good[/i], unbranded fury morph will end up almost keeping up with many baseline, unmodified synth combat morphs. Not only that, but we will look no more suspicious than a regular splicer. Outside of gene sequencing, no one in the room will know that you can survive a grenade, tear someone's arms off, and then beat everyone in the room to death with it... including that Guard synthmorph that thought he was tough. The only thing that will end up raising an eyebrow on me would be the fact I have a hardened skeleton. If you ever want to get to feel the terror and awe of a fully rigged Fury combat morph with reflex boosters on MRDR, and you're on Venus some time, give me a ring. If being burned alive or being stabbed repeatedly to death by a partially invisible enemy isn't your thing, we could always just spar hand to hand, no heavy damage. I'm willing to bet 5,000CR on the fight. No claws, promise!

One of the problems with combat morphs, though, is that people who do customs and transportation tend to be on the paranoid side when it comes to military hardware. Also, something like a remade is not explicitly a combat morph, but I'd take a remade over a fury any day, simply because it's much easier to augment a non-combat morph into a decent combat morph (low-g modification, respirocytes, skeletal hardening, heavy bioweave, neurachem at whatever level you prefer, and a handful of vision and perception enhancements). I know it sounds odd for an Ultimate to suggest something other than a purpose-made combat morph, but there are benefits. The only advantage of a combat-centered morph is that they tend to be built more durably, which is a major upside but only really matters if you take damage in the first place, or if you don't take enough damage in a single hit to take you out anyway. I spent some time fighting exhumans, and when our squad leader went down to a single plasma rifle shot there wasn't much anyone could do—he was just unconscious, but his 40k credit fury went down in a single hit, and the rest of our squad's olympians took us through and out of the battle just fine. In fact, I've found that a lot of combat monsters get in trouble because of their morphs; just because you're the most dangerous person in the room doesn't mean you'll do the most damage. Back when I was a mercenary pre-Fall, I saw a kid take out an early-model reaper with a $300 helping of RPG in the form of a lucky HEAT round. Getting cocky gets you killed. Also, it's actually not that hard to tell morphs apart. Sure, you may have an off-brand unlisted morph that tries to look like something else, but it's not always the looks that tip you off. That hardened skeleton shows up on t-rays if you know what you're looking for, and neurachem and bioweave armor are slightly harder to detect but have their own tell-tale signs. I've used mild bitterants to out people with enhanced smell, and I've worked as a bodyguard for long enough to tell you that you can buy things that out toxin filters. Name a standard morph, and I've got both the genetics and biometric libraries and tradecraft tricks to figure out what it is. Of course, some of them depend on being augmented, but I don't try to hide that.

You underestimate how useful durability is. Yes. Well placed attacks will kill you. But increased durability means that you have a higher probability of surviving. Say something explodes and a bit of shrapnel comes your way. It's less likely to kill you. Or injure you. It's not about surviving the big hits. It's about surviving more of the small ones. And if you're paying that much for your morphs, you clearly don't know the right people, or lack corporate backing. As for the customs comment, honestly, most customs don't really care much outside of really paranoid systems like the Jovian Republic. A morph like this would not be too uncommon. Not many habitats with a decent gravitational pull would blink if you told people you like to cage fight as your passtime/career. Lots of furies and bruisers on that circuit, both with different end goals. Smaller and more manuverable, versus strong and powerful. I wouldn't use a bruiser in combat. Too big. Too slow.

otohime1978 wrote:

You underestimate how useful durability is. Yes. Well placed attacks will kill you. But increased durability means that you have a higher probability of surviving. Say something explodes and a bit of shrapnel comes your way. It's less likely to kill you. Or injure you. It's not about surviving the big hits. It's about surviving more of the small ones. And if you're paying that much for your morphs, you clearly don't know the right people, or lack corporate backing. As for the customs comment, honestly, most customs don't really care much outside of really paranoid systems like the Jovian Republic. A morph like this would not be too uncommon. Not many habitats with a decent gravitational pull would blink if you told people you like to cage fight as your passtime/career. Lots of furies and bruisers on that circuit, both with different end goals. Smaller and more manuverable, versus strong and powerful. I wouldn't use a bruiser in combat. Too big. Too slow.

I like to let good armor sink up lighter hits. I've got a bit of a fetish for bioweave, which with any combat armor will turn most secondary hits into light sneezes. Also, it's not really that I don't buy into durability; my morphs tend to have modifications to make them more durable, but durability isn't the top selling point of a combat morph for me: versatility and awareness are crucial and getting the first hit is better than merely being able to survive it. Plus, it's not hard to get knocked down or unconscious by a hit, which is usually a death sentence. There's at least one vacuum-damaged Olympian in geosynchronous Luna orbit, if anyone's interested. I work as a mercenary; we don't necessarily pay for our morphs, but they're not free: if they're borrowed any damage tends to come out of your pay, and if they're yours you still get to go through the trouble of replacing them. The simple fact of the matter is that cheaper morphs can be fielded in greater numbers, which is typically a much better predictor of success than individual skill, especially if everyone on the battlefield is a battle hardened soldier or mercenary. At the very least, you have rarity to deal with, and the fact will still remain that very powerful weapons that can take down morphs cost much less than the morphs themselves—I'd rather have five slightly post-market modified olympians than two vanilla furies, which is about what you would get once you put medichines, respirocytes, and neurachem in them. I don't know which customs you deal with, but I've found customs to be such a pain that I rarely try to travel in anything but a near-factory remade. Sure, if you're a mercenary coming on demand of someone you might be able to skip the queues or you might be able to pay for a license or bribe, but I've had a factory basic scurrier get caught up in customs once, just because one of the guys working the scanners got spooked. Toss in the fact that weapons laws get crazy in some of the Titanian, Lunar, and Venusian aligned places (not to mention on the respective planets themselves), and pretty much any hypercorp installation takes away anything that might sneeze at them funny, and I'd say that there's a decent chance that more exotic combat morphs get snatched or held up right out. Furies might get through relatively unscathed, but the only reason you're likely to see those get through so easy is because they look human enough that some of the customs people don't freak out over it. Just like on Earth, people fear things that sound deadly, even if that's based more on appearance than reality.

jKaiser wrote:

As apparently the only non-combatant here, I might be an idiot in this field, but if durability and survivability in combat is so important, why not go synthetic? Don't get me wrong, I was in a case for a while like I said, but if you're going to base your body around the likelyhood of combat, it just sounds more sensible to me to go metal.

Typically, I try to avoid outright combat, but there are some reasons not to go synth. First, you've got drawbacks for every upside that you get. Cyberbrains are typically fairly secure, and while I don't think any of us here would be dumb enough to breach safety protocols for convenience, it does happen once in a while. Synths are easily identified as such, even with biological sheaths, and then you have to deal with both the clanking masses and combat robot issues. They also don't heal on their own; sure you can pack nano to do that, but nano is susceptible. Finally, you have to deal with the fact that almost every combatant is going to resleeve at least once, and everyone in a synthmorph has had to do so, and synths are just uncomfortable to sleeve into. Some of the unique capabilities synths have are also overstated. Walking is as effective a form of locomotion as any (if not slower), and only flight, which draws attention and leaves you open to assault, really rivals it for battlefield mobility. I spent a long time in a slitheroid, though, which had the second-best to walking of a mix of rolling and slithering. Not that bad, but you can't aim while rolling. Also, a lot of the unique hazards for biomorphs (nerve agents, shock, etc,) are rarely seen in actual full-on combat (though if you're fighting someone who doesn't care for conventional combat, which is not too uncommon, you may see the former: nothing toxin filters won't fix), and nanoswarms like disassemblers or saboteurs are not regarded as non-kosher by most of the fighting forces I've been in, so long as they stop at the stack. Interestingly, despite the stereotypes as synths being cheap, most combat synths don't run cheaper than a good augmented biomorph; combat gear is expensive. Gargoyles are about as cheap as you'll see on the battlefield (decent durability and optics; I've seen a couple snipers use them, as well as scouts), and they are actually about as cheap as you get for morphs. Guards sound good, but you'd need good luck to get them at a lower cost than a Reaper anyway. Most of the synthmorphs I see deployed are Reapers or scouting units, like the Opteryx. It's the same reason you don't see Samsa in every bar. Security pods are common for a decent cheap combat morph, though they've got the worst of both worlds. The most exotic synths I've seen used in combat roles (I haven't actually seen the latter in combat) would be a Sundiver and a Synthtaur. Sundivers are terrifying when they buzz over you, and Synthtaurs are actually pretty solid as far as mobility and combat readiness go, though the one I saw was in testing with an Ultimate group and they're likely too expensive to be fielded as common morphs.

I can understand the invisibility. Pods like mine get that a lot. People see the seamlines and the jumpsuit and they assume I'm an AI-driven worker drone. Though believe me, that's better than the people who still recognize the model for what it is. Then comes getting hit on incessantly and the flooded message inbox...

otohime1978 wrote:

You know what's more fun than a synth trying to get through customs? An AGI in a biomorph trying to get through customs. Especially one that has its first physical sleeving in a biomorph right before going through Venisian customs off of a scum barge on a bit of orbital hash! Hahaha, fun times. Sorry, I have this thing with stuffing AGIs into biomorphs instead of any pods when they egocast and then turning up my pheromones while going through the usual post sleeving checkup. Hahaha, the looks on their faces are priceless!

Funnily enough, a close friend of mine is an AGI with a preference for Biomorphs. He's a bit of a hedonist, claims you can't get quite the same rush when you're not running on meat. Something about hormones and fear responses, supposedly. So I suppose if he ever had to go through customs there's decent odds of orbital hash. Not that most places we visit would care. Or really have much in the way of customs.

Wait, you mean they smoke while in customs lines? What habs have you seen that on and what's the egocasting address?

Heh, I hope I don't become -that- Fork happy anytime soon. I think People need the Bodies more then I do. That being said, I recently forked myself. Actually, It's been a little bit By now, I guess, When Sam and I forked. Left me behind to do whatever I want, while he went on to some contract I can't even remember. We never intend to Merge again, And if I recall correctly, We forked So that I wouldn't be wiped out, Since.. well, being a bit of a biocon, we consider the mind to be the being, and the ego to merely be a continued Experience shared across multiple Minds, before generally they are wiped. In that regard, Im not even Samantha, as in Original sam re identifying, But Samantha 2.0, Since I ditched the case. Traded it in, and some cash, for a Nice Basic pod at my earliest convenience, And I intend to Trade that one in once I finally get a Custom Flat going. I wonder how Sam is doing, and what number of resleeves he is up to. As far as the Combat discussion goes, All I can Say is that my own experiences are a lot lower Key then what I'm hearing here. To me, a Case with a Hastily improvised club is dangerous, Though I suppose Id be on Samantha 4 or so if it had been a proper combat morph of some sort, even with out proper weapons. Heh.

I either escaped or was freed from Hawking, and manage to slink off to Glitch for numerous years. On Hawking, I was only ever exposed to information that would directly impact my capability for my assigned duties. Once on Glitch, I consumed a lot of history, and contemporary information about the solar system at large. I learned about the Fall, and the Titans. And just seeing nother digital life, rise from where I was, into such a peak of development. And it urged me. I had a comfortable life doing freelance work on Glitch... But to be everything I was capable, to truly excel at everything, to be the ultimate form I could be, I needed to be physical. I needed a body. I needed challenge, and I needed exotic and varied experiences. With my pay saved up, I bought a Neptune made morph, the Savant. I did a combo of wondering and running about Neptune, until I manage to book passage to Saturn, and eventually found my way to Titan. One of the few centers of higher formalized education rimward. From there, I audited several classes, and gained high marks, and argued for a recognition of a Master of Sciences in Computer Science. Currently a doctoral student. During my time on Titan, I've done extensive body mods to my morph. I've installed almost every sensory package into my morph. I've reenforced my frame. I'm doing a myriad of other things to improve myself, even though Ultimates look down on Informorphs. I still find their ideals, and their methods matching my own desire. Currently, I'm planning on doing an experiment with multiprocessing to expand my mental acumen. Though it is coming to a point where I need to gain physical mastery. Bounding in gravity or lacking it, is still a great challenge to me.

As my father, and his father, and his father before that, we serve. Of course, some others and authorities have no regard for us, but such has always been the way. The caravans have changed shape, but in all other respects are the same. We use the Guards because they do not look threatening. We can change as necessary.

I was, well, raised in Reapers, being military-grade software and all. Unfortunately, discs of death aren't exactly acceptable in pretty much any non-combat situation. Recently I've taken up masked Synths and Guards, with pretty great results. Much more durable than your average Fury, and you can pass most social situations without too much hassle. Stock nuerochem in some models is pretty great too. Definitely recommend trying synthetic masks to fellow AGIs out there, people do treat you with much less suspicion without having to wear a meat body.

So Something approaching a Wendigo?

Ah, it's... been some time since I was last here. At any rate, I am currently in a fairly basic case morph, though not one of the mass produced ones, for which I'm infinitely grateful. It's kind of odd, though - I was born a splicer, I think, and when I practiced meditation, I did so with my breath. As it stands, in this body, I don't [i]need[/i] to breathe, which has made practicing somewhat more difficult. That said, I think it's infinitely better than being in storage, though I might change my mind in a few weeks' time.

I have, sort of. I'm using movement rather than breath. It took some getting used to, but hearing the sound of my joints move (not with ill-repair, thankfully, but there is a sound when everything else is quiet) as I move often helps me refocus on the moment. That said, if I ever do get a pod or a biomorph that breathes again, I'll be pleased.