The idea we're considering is setting up a medical bay for a spacecraft we're playing with, and I was merely wondering just how good a Dr. Bot is, and what, specifically, it can't do, because none of the PCs have much in the way of extensive medical training. I'm mainly looking for something official on it, but I'm willing to go along with your interpretation. We're wondering if the darn thing can make modifications to biomorphs, such as add cyberware/bioware, install and extract cortical stacks, perhaps regrow limbs, treat toxins, things like that. Because, from the books we have, we don't have listings for anything better than the Dr. Bot, something that we could evaluate from a cost perspective. We're more than willing and able to pay for something more expensive, multiple, if necessary. Our ship is kind of big.

It's a large bulk freighter, the size of a modern-day container ship, only a bit bigger, converted for espionage purposes; we used a ship design from Traveller 2300 and took out a few things to make it conform to EP, notably the Jump Drive, and we redesigned the whole deckplan to accommodate float passages between decks, expanded the shuttle bay, and other things. Naturally the technology of Traveller is vastly superior in a general way than it is in EP, so we had to be rather careful. That's one of the reasons why we wondered about the Dr. Bot; the core book doesn't give a whole lot of information on this thing, and we just wanted something concrete. Maybe they'll go into it more in a supplement. One of the ideas we had was a Quarantine Bay, in case someone was hit with something nasty and contagious.

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Regarding Quarantine: If you have something nasty enough that you need to quarantine it in Eclipse Phase, the best way to quarantine it is to put it on a purpose-built quarantine shuttle, and have it hold station about a quarter of a kilometer from your ship. Aim some very large plasma weapons at it, in case whatever's in there goes postal and turns into a killbeast and tries to close the gap, or manages to subvert the shuttle and try to ram you. A plasma bomb on the shuttle doesn't hurt, too, but build it intentionally dumb - IE, entirely analogy, triggered by both radio signal and the lack of a specific radio signal. Failing that, put it on some kind of long extension that you can extend from the ship. There should not be any kind of passageway, just a railing to extend the quarantine module out on, and the railing should not have any kind of anything in it - it should be just a mechanical armature, nothing more. Don't forget to have a way to eject the pod, and if necessary the armature.

We've thought about both of these ideas. But what we want is something where we can examine a subject closer if necessary. We came up with a very cheapo idea, of using the extending docking port and put a roomy habitatpod outside of that, then extend the port. If necessary, we can jettison the entire port.

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Anyway, on a ship the size of a panamax container vessel, you have tons of room for medbays. Hell, you could even sport a full hospital if you wanted to, though it sounds like that may be more than you're in the market for.

The issue with regard to the ship is that it must still pose as a cargo vessel. The campaign we're doing is that we're all working for the Jovian Republic, and we work for a new secret organization, the purpose of which is to investigate external threats to the human race other than transhumanity. Someone apparently figured out what spurred the TITANs to do what they did, so this ship is out there to find out more. If you watch enough of the James Bond films, this ship is kind of like some of the crazy stuff that MI6 does in far-flung spots around the globe, having a full HQ and base in the wreck of the Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong Harbor, for instance. So most of it has to look like a cargo vessel in case we get boarded. We have a good graphics designer in my group who is doing big maps for this ship, and they look pretty good so far. We just keep coming up with new ideas, like secret passages, and secret panels leading to secret rooms, etc.

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That said, a Jovian/medbay hospital would be very different. They wouldn't trust robots at all, so you'll probably have NPCs, and they probably wouldn't trust nanotech, so you're more likely to see traditional surgical theaters, with the healing tanks as the last resort option. This is a problem in microgravity, since neither the patient nor his innards will stay put politely in micrograv. Not saying it can't be done, just saying it makes things a lot more complicated.

I think you misunderstand how the JR looks at technology. It's not that they won't use such technology, it's that they mistrust it enough not to let the general public, the last vestiges of humanity, from using it out of a justified fear of what this technology has wrought, the near extinction of the human race. Having said that, they do use some nanotech, just not a lot of it, and they're not above using it for a noble purpose. For instance, they most certainly use Taggers. They try not to use nanotech in Jovian habitats where feasible. They do use robots. Lots of them. They don't use particularly sentient AIs. They don't use Muses, either. They operate drones, and other means at their disposal to get around self-imposed constraints. And I wouldn't necessarily call this all paranoia. Consider their situation. They're the last vestiges of Mankind, right. This is not a matter of opinion, not a matter of debate. This is the truth, as far as the Jovians are concerned, and this point is difficult to contest. The instant someone decides to resleeve, they've actually committed suicide. They are surrounded by machines that see them as paranoid, backward, even tyrannical and repressive, but in light of the situation, you can't really blame them for their caution. I, personally, can't help but see the parallels of this situation from the Terminator films, The Matrix, and most especially Dune. If you know the novel series Dune, the history leading up to the first book has a similar situation to both Terminator and Eclipse Phase, whereby machines have taken over and either threaten to wipe out or enslave mankind. For a thousand years, the machines had ruled, under an overmind called Omnius, and then what follows is something called the Butlerian Jihad, where the free peoples manage to overcome the machines, and in so doing, eschew AI to develop their own minds and abilities, albeit some through incredibly psychodelic drugs such as the Spice Melange. What I and my fellow players think is very interesting about Eclipse Phase is how the machine revolution is tilted on its head. In EP, it's not that there's a Skynet or an Architect or an Omnius and his Cymeks, there is none of that. People willingly choose to download their minds into machines and whatever else. Whether or not you believe they're actually doing this and not really dying is beside the point. The Perspective is the point. To play as humans outnumbered and, yes, outteched in many ways, is a challenge. I liken this to playing in Zombie Horror, only far more compelling. Zombie horror gets old fast. In our campaigns, the JR has to be more proactive in order to safeguard the survival of the human race. It can't be Switzerland. This means military conquest is on the table, but so far our games haven't resorted to that. This enables Jovians to interact more with Firewall, either as enemies or as allies, even as Firewall Agents from time to time. It's a world of difference, after you've played a typical transhuman character, to try playing a Flat or a Splicer with no Cortical Stack, and no back-up insurance. It makes the game a lot more challenging and fun, to use your wits and the available technology you can use to solve problems and defeat the odd swarmmorph or arachnoid or something. I have two, so far, and they're both alive and kicking. Playing the game like this offers a lot of elements of drama, danger, and excitement that I encourage people to try.

ShadowDragon8685 wrote:

Thing is, Wayfinder, if you go "by what they believe," then nobody is behaving irrationally. If you go by "what they believe," then ISIS and Boko Haram are fully justified in capturing and selling women and girls of various targeted ethnicity/religious/denominations/education into sexual slavery. Why? Because they sincerely believe that is what is right. You can't just go by what is right. The Jovian Republic [i]are[/i] backwards and repressive, and their attitudes towards resleeving - treating anyone who's ever resleeved as a soulless abomination - are monstrous. Everybody is right to fear them and plot against them, because they [i]by definition[/i] have Othered everyone from themselves.

But there is a huge difference between Islam is and what the Jovian Republic is doing to protect the human race. When you learn to examine theology and philosophy, you begin to discern the Truth of things. To believe that you didn't just up and die when you resleeved means that you don't believe in a soul. Well, if you were actually ever given the option, really, would you ever do it? Think about it. What basically happens when you resleeve OUT of your original body, the one you were born with? First, the information in your cortical stack is uploaded to a computer. Then, at the same time, the nanites in your body thanks to that stack begin to delete everything in your brain, so to speak. How they do this and what they do is unknown, but I'll be some brain damage occurs. Even so, what you've just done is destroyed yourself, physically and mentally, as a human being. What you've recorded into your stack was uploaded. It might be still there, but according to this game, it doesn't want you to fork, so the brain is reverted, so to speak, to allow a new set of memories to enter it. Maybe the same ones it started out with, probably not, depending on where you live, right? At that point, the person you are now will no longer be. It's uploaded. That's not really you, though, not if you believe in a soul. At some point it'll become decayed and worn out, maybe perish, at which point it's gone. Where is the soul? Did it travel with you in the Mesh, on its way to God-Knows-Where? How do you record a soul? Tell me if you know? How do you record something spiritual? To the Atheist, scrambling to let himself off of the hook of morality, there must not be a soul. But, what if there is? You should watch a film called The Tenth Dimension, by Robert Bryanton. He doesn't get religious, but what you ought to consider is that there is more to this world than we can see. We are goldfish in an aquarium, utterly at the mercy of an Aquarium Keeper. Consider this when you watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA