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why bother with morps and all; just grow human "parts"

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briansommers briansommers's picture
why bother with morps and all; just grow human "parts"
Maybe I missed it but if tech is so far advanced in EP why couldn't you just grow another heart, lungs, kidney, etc and keep replacing, then you wouldn't have to resleeve into another morph. Yes? or ?
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
Growing limbs and organs is
Growing limbs and organs is very common. Any biomorph with basic biomods will slowly regrow lost limbs. Organs and large portions of the body can be quickly grown in a healing vat. IIRC any morph fancier than an Exalt is often biologically immortal. So why resleeve? Physical trauma, travel convenience, or to "upgrade" parts of a morph which can't be done without a full rebuild.
eaton eaton's picture
That's pretty much what a
That's pretty much what a healing vat is all about — there's plenty of tech dedicated to keeping your current morph up and running, even after it's been pounded to a pulp in combat. I think there's just a lot more emphasis on morph selection because 1) It's fun, and 2) Firewall missions are often... extra tough on the ol' shell. In general, most transhumans have never resleeved, let alone hopping bodies to avoid repairing the current one.
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
eaton wrote:In general, most
eaton wrote:
In general, most transhumans have never resleeved, let alone hopping bodies to avoid repairing the current one.
That's not quite true, thanks to the Fall, most have at least once.
eaton eaton's picture
Is that the case, though?
Is that the case, though? There's a pile of infugees, but percentage-wise, how many folks in physical bodies are reinstanted versus "just survivors"?
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
EP Core page 38 wrote:Most
EP Core page 38 wrote:
Most people now alive left Earth as infomorphs and were subsequently resleeved into new morphs.
I don't know the percent, but I am pretty sure that most people have resleeved at least once.
EP Core page 41 wrote:
Today, transhumanity is divided into three groups. The rst group contains the true veterans of space life, the less-than-one-percent of humanity that was already living in space before the Fall. The second group is the ten percent of the population that was either born after the Fall or is too young to remember living on Earth. The remaining eighty-nine percent of the current population of the solar system lived generally happy and prosperous lives on Earth before the Fall forced them to flee to safety. These refugees form a powerful social force, but as time goes on memories of Earth grow dim and people adapt to their new homes and lives.
From that I'd imagine that somewhere between 70% and 90% of living transhumans resleeved to leave earth, and a number of space vets probably have resleeved as well.
eaton eaton's picture
I stand corrected! I'm going
I stand corrected! I'm going to have to rethink a few things… For some reason, I had imagined that 'less-than-one-percent' to be a lot larger, given the number of large habitats on Mars, Luna, and so on, but I guess that's still a drop in the bucket due to the overall transhuman population before the fall.
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Worth noting: "Just grow the
Worth noting: "Just grow the bits" is basically how Pods are made. They're grown from bits and pieces in vats and stitched together around a synthetic nervous system. It appears to be that the central nervous system is the most difficult part of a body to recreate, given that you can, say, rebuild a whole body from just a severed head. The architecture of the brain may be so specialized that it's not really possible to create save by just fast-culturing neurons. Resleeving might seem to run counter to this, but that's more "Rearrange a few brain regions that already exist" than "Create a whole new one from scratch". Some handwavium in that but... Stands up as an answer, right?
eaton eaton's picture
That's a really good point,
That's a really good point, and also clicks nicely with the "Synths versus Biomorphs" access disparity. Although many synths are just as expensive as biomorphs, there aren't really any "cut rate" options the way there are with Cases and so on.
UnitOmega UnitOmega's picture
Also market forces to
Also market forces to consider. A flat is theoretically cheap, and dirt simple to make (humans have been making them without the assistance of technology for thousands of years), but I think it's the MRG that notes that some hyperelite like to collect discarded flats as almost a kind of museum or antique thing? So depending on how many there are lying around you could easily have sharp demand driving that cost up - but for synths and pods the supply should easily catch up to any demands, since you can shit out a Case in a couple of hours.
H-Rep: An EP Homebrew Blog http://ephrep.blogspot.com/
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Something also worth
Something also worth considering is that most synths probably aren't made in fabbers; they're probably made in pieces on production lines and assembled later on, and given extensive quality assurance testing. Cases are what happens when you decide just to throw together things made in a fabber and off-the-shelf parts without giving much of a damn about them. Synths, despite being looked down upon, are actually of pretty high quality. Most indentured transhumans would be in cases, not synths, which may be a part of why synthmorphs in general are seen as shoddy and unreliable; most people have only ever used cases.
DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture
I theory, yes you could do
I theory, yes you could do many things to avoid resleeving. However, there are many reasons why you might want to resleeve instead. It can be way faster. It takes an hour to imprint an ego into a new morph. A dip in a healing vat can take anywhere from 1 hour (simple) to 3 days (very complex). And I think thats per change you're making (I'm not sure at the moment). Repairing damage is also time consuming, ranging from 2 hours per wound to 3 day per wound. It can be way cheaper. Morphs with built in augments are typically cheaper than trying to remake the same morph using after market improvements. If you look at the morph creation rules in transhuman, the price of augments and traits are often reduced to 1/4 of their market price. After market improvements are typically done at full price. Some traits are not easily duplicated. Durability and aptitude bonuses are not easily improved. There may be plenty of SOM and REF augments, but there few COG and INT augments. DUR augments tend to be quite expensive. You are not doing yourself many favors if you seek to augment a Flat or Case to anything high performance. Increase options. As a piece of meat, you can't fork without an ego bridge. It is easy to abandon a synth morph. Become an infomorph and escape by wi-fi. Flexbots and Swarmanoids are quite different from a typical human biomorph. I don't think a meat brain will serve a flexbot well, and swarmanoids are definitely out of the question. Infomorphs can be accelerated to 60x simulation speed.
ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture
I would imagine on marz luna
I would imagine on marz luna and venus that access to healing vats would be restricted to upper middle class incomes or those who prefer to have excessive insurance premiums and that cost of a new splicer or high end artificial morph would be easier to save for, and legal loopholes and insurance policies ultimately though its how hard to do you want to drive morph scarcity in your game and how hard to you want access to top of the line medical treatment to be