Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.

Synthmorphs

3 posts / 0 new

Last post

Mon, 2013-01-07 12:08

Maskin

Synthmorphs

Trying to come to grips with synthmorphs, so any help appreciated. Is there any data (e.g. text in the rulebooks, fansite, forum post) on the components, signal and power conductors, power supply (single source or distributed?) and physical build of a synth morph? Any idea if they could explode if shot in the right place or tampered with? According to the book cyberbrains are modeled on biological brains with a holistic architecture - any examples of distributed cyberbrains or any reason why it wouldn't work? Also, I'm slightly confused about cyberbrain security. They are vulnerable to brainhacking and so are off-line, but equipped with two or more access jacks for physical connection. However, all synths have basic mesh inserts which connect to the mesh using radio transceiver. Does that mean that anyone who can break through the mesh insert firewall can attempt cyberbrain hacking - and how hard is that? Edit: Ok, found example of distributed cyberbrain in Swarm Composition: "The cyberbrain, sensor systems, and implants are distributed throughout the swarm." Also found a thread by Arenamontanus mentioning "That is why the body is also filled with circulating fluid carrying repair nanites (if only for the skin), filtering away broken parts and maintaining temperature. In the body cavity you will find the central energy sources, body maintenance systems and quite often just padding to make the shape right." So while a synth might not "bleed" it may start to overheat if leaking circulating fluid...

—

Transhuman Mind

Mon, 2013-01-07 21:01

Undocking

Just the idea of synthmorphs

Just the idea of synthmorphs in general? Mesh inserts have a range of 1 km in Urban environs and 20 km in open range (299, 300 EP). It is run by a nuclear battery as far as I can tell (299 EP). A synth picture is used for the Barsoomian Freelance Journalist sample character. It looks like Iggy from Ergo Proxy. I assume that synths just look like humanoid robots from Iggy to the I-Robot movie's droids (they could look like anything, really). No... they don't explode if you shoot them in any spot. However, if you shoot a synth with munitions that cause explosions then you could cause one to explode. Even if you shoot the nuclear battery it won't explode. That's not how it works. Cyberbrain security is described in the hacking section (261-2 EP).

Tue, 2013-01-08 08:19

Maskin

Thanks, I have now re-read

Thanks, I have now re-read the various bits about cyberbrain security, mesh inserts and device hacking and I think I have a better grasp on this now. I was just thrown by "Cyberbrains are not wireless-enabled for security reasons", but the answer was there right in front of me: "This means that in order to hack a cyberbrain, the hacker either must have direct physical access to the morph’s body in order to jack in, or they must first hack into the mesh inserts and then break into the cyberbrain from there." Also p.237: "... the mesh inserts installed in synthmorphs and pods are directly integrated with their cyberbrains (creating a potential security concern as cyberbrains are vulnerable to hacking)." However Scorching on p.261 makes me wonder what sort of content filtering is done on the link between the cyberbrain and mesh and if this is hackable at all, is there any information about this? From the text: "Having direct access to a cyberbrain opens the possibility for certain kinds of attacks that are normally infeasible due to the strict content filtering that occurs on the link between the cyberbrain and mesh inserts." I would think you are always "logged-in" to your mesh insert (correct me if I'm wrong), because you are directly wired to it? I was first thinking that maybe they have built in passkeys wired into the morph, but then I realised that the morph is hard-linked to the mesh insert so there is only on/off with no "logout" option. This means that hacking into the mesh would have to be done with an intrusion test and defeating the firewall (p.255) as there is no authentication to spoof. This was also useful on p.253 (Acitve monitoring) "Characters may actively monitor their own PANs if they so choose, though this requires a moderate level of attention..." As for synthmorph physiology I was trying to come to grips with the technology they are built from - motors, electronic muscles, components, etc. This thread was useful: http://eclipsephase.com/synth-physiology

—

Transhuman Mind