Lorsa wrote:

Anyway, jokes aside, I've always assumed that all morphs are basically made with their reproduction system turned off (that is, no release of egg cells in females and no construction of working sperm cells in males). In some morphs, this is a feature that you can turn on if you feel so inclined (although the treatment for it may be extra expensive in some places). Why bother with normal pregnancy when exo-wombs are so much easier and safer?

Short answer, evolution's a thorough little bugger. Bearing in mind that I'm talking trends here, not making generalizations, women are kinda hardwired to want to be pregnant. There's the whole bit where "your biological clock starts ticking" and hormones generated by pregnancy, and even just encountering pregnant women, and the whole intimate connection of playing host to a parasite for most of a year and the crazy feedback from that both dialing in requests through your bloodstream and physically assaulting you, and triggering various weird physical changes in your body. Plus all the pride of showing off that you have the capacity to manufacture new people. Personally, I have this weird sort of philosophy I'll spout off any time someone I know is thinking of having kids that hey, people who adopt (and even some people who just have pets) really do end up loving their kids just as much as if they were really related, and there's plenty of perfectly good children just piling up in orphanages, so let's not be total narcissists and metaphorically clean our plates before we go back to the salad bar. Nobody's yet to find a flaw in my logic, but they all insist on having their own, including people for whom pregnancy is really risky, who could easily afford a surrogate. Now granted, if you're going nuts with eugenics, you could conceivably eliminate the instincts and responses involved here, but today, if we so chose, we could adopt a policy where every male child on reaching sexual maturity puts a deposit in a sperm bank, and is then fully castrated. It wouldn't hurt their ability to have children down the line, would drastically reduce the spread of STDs, cut down on aggression leading to violent crimes, and the growth stunting would cut down on overall produce demands. If it was the social norm, they wouldn't miss what they were giving up. Even so though, I can't picture this ever happening. Same deal here, for the same basic reason.

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I don't think there's any real reason why pods couldn't also be fertile, they could easily have those parts in them. The actual DNA in egg or sperm cells will probably be quite different from the DNA of many of their other body parts (which also may be different from each other) so the supposed baby would hardly be a DNA relative of the original morphs. I mean, in theory you could put a cyberbrain on an exo-womb, slap on a few legs and arms and you'd have a synthetic morph capable of being pregnant.

Absolutely no reason you couldn't toss a functioning reproductive system into a pod at all, no. The only reason there is to believe it isn't standard practice is that the core rules state point blank in the section on morphs, that "they lack reproductive capabilities." This is the same block of text though that says "Though typically run by an AI, pods are socially unfavored in some stations, utilized in slave labor in others, and even illegal in some areas." All of which precedes descriptions of the only three pods detailed in the book- Pleasure pods, worker pods, novacrabs. These are pretty unambiguously intended as AI controlled sex slaves, subhuman laborers, and freaky cyborg monster tanks. None of these are things you'd actively want reproducing, or would expect any sane pre-fall transhuman to voluntarily sleeve into (nor any sane post-fall transhuman who had a say in it or any other options). Since the core book was written though, there has been a pretty fundamental shift in the understood definition of pod from "hastily assembled low-rent meatslave" to "anything biological with a cyberbrain" with the main trend being anything with extreme biological creativity or whimsy, or because it just seems cyborg-y. The flying squid morph from transhuman in particularly strikes me as a good example of how much sensibilities have changed. Everything about it screams "cool designer body people sleeve into because it's awesome." For some reason though, it's marked with "social stigma: pod" which is not, in fact, a default feature of all pods (pleasure pods have their own, novacrabs have no social stigma at all, nothing but hypergibbons from Panopticon, no pods in Sunward Gatecrashing slaps it on a slew of pods in the same boat as flying squids). So yeah, I wouldn't take the "no reproduction" thing as innate to pods, just an intentional design feature of the three in the core book. The various pods that are described as just modified animals too tiny or weird to not require a cyberbrain really have no business being called pods in the first place beyond that it would exacerbate the quagmire of morph rules being spread all over to add a new sub-category that doesn't have any game mechanical differences from something that already exists.

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As far as hornomes go, I figured you could sort of "tune" a female (they're the ones with most noticeable cycle after all) morph to set it to release the hornomes for your chosen menstruation period. So if you want to feel all sexy and horny most of the time you'd set it to ovulation levels. The reason for "lack of control" in the Scurrier morph is probably due to not really understanding the physiology perfectly just yet. Given time I'm sure they could be made to always be in heat (if desired).

That sort of fine-tuned hormone control is specifically explicitly canon as is, comes with the basic biomods. As pertains to scurriers though, my point is, the way estrus works is, if you excise the reproductive organs, you stop going into heat (or responding to females in heat, as the case may be). If we're assuming they're as sterile as humanoid pods and for the same reasons (we intentionally left out functional reproductive organs), it wouldn't be a thing to worry about when sleeved into one. I mean, yeah, either way you'd have a lack of physical desire most of the time which would presumably be seen as a design flaw to be fixed when the underlying physiology is understood, and by the same logic, tone down the intensity of an issue caused by them being "vulnerable to the impulses and hormonal urges of the morph." As it stands, the only way I can interpret it is that if you get an off-the-rack scurrier, it's fully fertile, has an overwhelming instinct to take advantage of that at certain points in the year, and unless you take it in for some elective surgery to get to the root of the problem (which would absolutely solve the problem), you really want to stay far far away from scurriers of the opposite sex. Females should also probably plan vacations accordingly.

ORCACommander wrote:

There is a societal trend no one has brought up yet. In areas of extended lifespans right now people put off child rearing to later and later ages and breed fewer in number when they do. in 10 AF with practical immortality sure people are getting it on all the damn time but planned pregnancies are likely to be at an all time low and I agree that there being a switch of some sort for males and females to control sperm production and egg release would probably be a standard feature starting with the splicer

Well, post-fall I'm sure people would suddenly be questioning the immortality end of things quite a fair bit. That sort of massive death toll brings a lot of personal uncertainty and safety concerns up, plus the sudden societal pressure to shore numbers back up. On the other hand, most morph designs covered in the books predate the fall. I'd definitely think the really specialized designer-focused morphs (sylph, futura, etc.) would probably have some IP protection oriented infertility built in... although maybe not even then, as mixing and matching features from two different sylphs wouldn't necessarily give you the same sort of name brand beauty for the next generation. Splicers though don't seem like they'd specifically be engineered to be infertle. It is (or was) kind of the default morph for the bulk of humanity at one time, and the core rules are pretty clear about the only real difference in flats and splicers being that the latter have been "screened and genefixed" to eliminate hereditary diseases and other undesirable traits. They're pretty clearly just Gattaca babies (and there's enough real world precedent/planning to extrapolate a bit there). Mom (or the exo-womb) gets pregnant. A technician examines the zygote early on. If it's too far off the splicer model, it gets aborted and we start over. If it's just a little off, maybe we have nanites get in there and splice out what one or two little troublemaker genes snuck in. This being the standard for quite some time though, it's reasonable to assume that mom and dad were also splicers, and really, there was likely this whole iterative process to build up to splicers as we know them over several generations of skimming undesired genes out out the pool. If there was a point in there where someone said "OK so we can guarantee you a perfectly healthy attractive baby... but they're going to be infertile" (or they didn't and it came out 20 years later), this would not have caught on as a standard, even if people aren't so keen on the whole about having kids. I'd also imagine the immortality angle wouldn't have quite as big an impact as it might otherwise when A- we're terraforming everything and eliminating scarcity, so it's not like we're worried about running out of food or space (things that legitimately impact this sort of thing, instinctually), and the immortality we have (such as it is) is really just minds only. Unless you have some sweet deal cut with a cloning operation, your original morph, with your original DNA still has a shelf-life, and especially if you're planning to resleeve to some fancy new thing, any sort of concerns about preserving your family legacy, or just good old fashioned evolutionary pressure are going to have you wanting to get what kids you're having out while you're still in your birth-morph. A related topic here though- Which morphs breed true? Obviously, if you have two flats, they can pop out more flats. A flat and a splicer will get you an above average flat. Two splicers will almost definitely get you another splicer, but there's a chance of going flat. Past that though, it's harder to say. Not everything about these morphs is necessarily strictly genetic. The bits that are might only work based on specific combinations of genes that aren't all on a single chromosome, or something where the you want something on one chromosome but not the match from its pair. Two bouncers I'd like to think would get you a bouncer no problem, but a bouncer and a splicer, if they're even still compatible, would almost have to net some serious complications. Two furies might cause you some serious issues, due to a tricky and precarious balancing act. Uplifts, again, are something I'd like to see something official on at some point, because on the one hand, if I were a scientist playing Dr. Moreau, I'd consider it a failure if what I came up with wasn't self-perpetuating, but, check upthread for the huge can of worms that gets opened either way.

Urthdigger wrote:

Googleshng, you now have me pondering a hab that enforces a 50/50 split with sex switch mods and requires everyone to breed when possible, to make morphs to sell. Or heck, a criminal-run brothel doing that, actually increasing fertility of the whores after finding they can sell the new bodies for more than they'd otherwise make while she's pregnant.

Why 50/50? I mean, you don't actually need any males at all if you're running with artificial fertilization. You could get by with none at all. Or to crank the horror up a notch, just the one creep who set it all up, or an insemination bot, maybe styled after that freaky black torture sphere in Star Wars. Possibly with the ego of whoever set the whole thing up for good measure. Plus there's the whole question of how the whole sex switch/healing vat option works with regard to fertility. If it conveys fertility at all (and that's a big if), I'd still imagine it doesn't actually alter the DNA of your germ cells. Either there's donor cells involved, or (less likely) you're just messing with cell behavior, in such a way that an initially male woman and an unaltered male would have a 25% chance of conceiving a child with a YY chromosome pair, that's not something you want. You can't just "turn a Y chromosome into an X" because those aren't handy labels for interchangeable bits. There's tons of variations, with more notable variables tied into that particular chromosome pair (as in, beyond sex assignment) than the rest of your DNA combined, and Y chromosomes are called such because a huge chunk of them is missing, forcing associated traits to go completely off what you have on the X there. Really the most sensible way for sex switching to work would just be some sort of deal using new stem cells to grow whatever, with your DNA used as is, just hormone baths controlling the growth. Similarly, the brothel angle seems a bit off because that end of the business is going to suffer, and you're depending on clients who A- have genetically compatible morphs, and B- no in-built contraception built in on their end (which the core book specifically states basic biomods can handle for you). Actually, that one sentence alone speaks volumes on this issue. I think there's really only three relevant sentences to the issue in the book. "With basic biomods providing contraception and protections from STDs, casual sex is the norm." "Basic biomods consists of a series of genetic tweaks, tailored virii, and bacteria that speed healing, greatly increase disease resistance, and impede aging." "[Pods] lack reproductive capabilities." If the intention was that anything that isn't a flat morph can't ever become pregnant, I can't imagine the section on "Gender, Sexuality, and Relationships" not stating so in no uncertain terms. Particularly since the section on pods states so in no uncertain terms, and that would just be completely redundant if we were supposed to infer it from the basic biomod contraception bit. Said feature of basic biomods though is a part of a standard package everyone is outfitted with though, which pretty strongly implies full reproductive capacity is the default, not the exception. Most biomorphs have their basic biomods preventing pregnancies, in a way that can be turned off. Given how basic biomods are explained to work, it's safe to assume this is either handled by taking antibiotics as a sort of reverse birth control pill that temporarily depopulates spermicidal microbes, or there is some sort of actively controllable biological block (say, some muscle/nanite/hormone that kinks and unkinks the relevant tubes on command or somesuch), which makes reality of Todd Akin's crazy fantasy that if one wants to avoid pregnancy, "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." And presumably also the male body. Really hard to read any further into it than that though. One could argue if they're specifically calling out pods as sterile, any other morph intended to be so would call it out too, but I'm more inclined to believe no tremendous thought was put into this at the time the book was being written, and barring some future sourcebook (or, I suppose, designer input into this thread), the grand total of thought officially put into the matter is just those two brief sentences. And maybe some more I'm forgetting or missed elsewhere. I know I've definitely put more thought into the matter than anyone should this week.

I actually did somehow totally miss that bit about anti-aging aspect of basic biomods, but it doesn't really change the argument. You're still free to switch morphs, likely will at some point if you live long enough, and there's no reason to deal with the whole reproductive cycle if you decide you aren't a fan at some point in your life prior to that. And hey, here's a rather timely article on this very subject: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/07/wireless-implant-microchips-gates-fou...

Blue Screen of Death wrote:

Regarding unaging morphs and menopause. Menopause may not be part of the aging process, [i]per sé[/i], but it does only happen 'at a certain age' that youthful and evergreen morphs are not likely to emulate off the rack.

What it comes down to is, you don't continuously generate new egg cells over the course of your life. You just kinda get the one batch up front, to be dolled out over a certain period. Refreshing that supply indefinitely is something that's clearly in the realm of what basic biomods CAN do, but I'm not sure it's a feature that would necessarily be built into the package over population management concerns.

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2. While all facets about reproduction also concern gender and sexuality; not all aspects of gender and sexuality are concerned with reproduction (strictly speaking) but menstruation is. I honestly disagree with you in that I consider menstruation to be deeply connected with reproduction.

It isn't though. I mean, strictly speaking, it's something which comes about as a result of [em]not[/em] reproducing. Your body just kinda kinda goes "Really? ANOTHER month we aren't doing the baby thing? Well @#$% it, I guess I set all this up for nothing." If you're generally rigging up bodies to get their act together and not do stupid things like break down completely, or generate too much stomach acid and burn holes in things, or generate all those depressing reactions in the brain, and generally micromanaging cell growth, it's pretty trivial to nix the whole "grow womb linings regularly and throw them out when not needed" bit, especially if you're already controlling ovulation, which is a controlling element of the whole thing, and something we are almost definitely, canonically controlling with basic biomods. Plus, that whole process isn't a thing for most other species. I don't know that it's even really a thing in other mammals. Totally not an expert here, but I think it's something humans are saddled with due to the combination of being mammals and also having constant year-round fertility instead of a seasonal thing, which I'm pretty sure is far more common.

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In the year 2014, is a transwoman (anatomically male but identifying as female) [i]really[/i] a woman? I believe [i]she[/i] is. In the year 10 AF, is a mother now indentured as a novacrab for the next decade still a woman? I believe she is.

Right. Aside from the concerns of transwomen, and various medical conditions causing fertility problems though, if you're defining femininity strictly in terms of reproductive capacity, you're also cutting out anyone outside the fertile age range, over or under, the bulk of all eusocial animals, potentially including hermaphroditic species, and if you're specifically going with the potential for pregnancy, out goes the bulk of the animal kingdom.

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Finally, I am utterly confused as to whether the copyrighted morphs are fertile or not. I read different things in different threads. Is there a [i]canon[/i] answer to this question?

The only mentions of fertility anywhere in the core book are the note that basic biomods can serve as contraceptives, and that pods are infertile. Panopticon actually goes into a surprisingly detailed bit of uplift reproduction that I missed until just now when I did a quick search for baby instead of *fertil* and... yeah, it supports the hypercorp biological copy protection angle, but not to the degree a lot of people have been suggesting, and specifically with regard to uplifts. Honestly these whole sections (Panopticon p. 104 and 106 by the way) are weirdly self-contradictory on a lot of points, but the practical upshot is: Because they are still something of a work in progress, and selective breeding helps smooth things out, plus the dubious personal rights from not actually being human, plus hypercorps being largely run by terrible people, uplifts who come about as the result of research projects by some (but not all) hypercorps are rendered infertile at birth, and must fill out some paperwork and submit to testing with their partner(s) with regards to whether them having kids will make their particular uplifted line more or less generally buggy, after which they can buy "a licensed genetic service pack that will turn the reproductive cycle back on." And then potentially have to sign over any children to the company if they "are part of an ongoing uplift research project." However, there's also a lot of mention about black market options, hypercorps which don't insist on this sort of reproductive control, and there are "public domain" germlines produced by various parties, who also reverse-engineer the corporate ones, so any uplift who is not enslaved by the people who specifically and personally set them up with all the speech and tool use toys is totally fertile and can just plain have sex and have kids as a result if they are so inclined, or do the exowomb thing. The fact that this is all detailed specifically with regard to uplift, and hinges so heavily on the fact that their unique situation of the rest of their families being dumb animals with no ability to file lawsuits. From where I sit there is no way the whole corporate controlled reproduction angle would ever possibly fly for anything human-derived, and even if it did, it wouldn't be "all sylphs are infertile" just "all sylphs from this one company over here are infertile until they pay for an upgrade." This same chunk of text technically supports the exowomb thing too, saying with regards to uplifts going through the corporate child registry process, "someone actually has to blend that genetic material together to make a zygote and then grow it in an exowomb (or if you’re particularly old-fashioned, implant it in a surrogate parent, but who outside of the Junta wants to go through that bother anymore?" But then, it also specifies that actual in a womb plain ol' pregnancy is totally still an option, just that you'd have to be a weirdo to do so. And that much is said in an "in-character" aside by someone who has a clear bias , because the very next sentence here says "that includes state-of-the-art genetic engineering and the cost of maintaining a team of technicians and doctors working for the gestation period. That’s another significant cost." It then goes into how difficult it is to raise the money for any of this. So yeah, contrary to the opinion of whatever in-game voice is responsible for that aside (and/or whoever wrote this particular chunk of the book), it seems pretty reasonable to assume that beyond the explicitly stated exceptions, all biomorphs are perfectly fertile, and carrying babies the old fashioned way is probably the norm for anyone who doesn't have a lot of extra cash to blow that's also creeped out by the concept. It's just going too counter to real world precedent for me to see exowombs being the more popular option.

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

If one were to take a cell from a pleasure pod's right arm, for example, and clone it, you'd get an absolutely perfect right arm... attached to an unholy mess of organ meat, hair and teeth.

I don't know enough about cloning or artificial organ growth to say for sure, but I think that's largely the case for anyone. You need stem cells to clone a whole organism, and largely still undifferentiated ones for specific body parts, don't you? I'd think for the mostpart the DNA for pod parts still comes from complete human stock, only slightly modified for the traits wanted in a particular bit, but it'd be more like extreme dog breeds. There's a line just for those shapely pleasure pod thighs, but years of selection have all sorts of ugly flat-ness going on with the rest of the body if you grow a whole person from that stock.

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Alien pods like the Scurrier or Whiplash may be fertile, but they're alien. A scurrier female may be totally fertile... as long as there's a non-fruiting M'kungg Tree available to which she can attach her Polyps.

Scurrier's an outlier because it was specifically cited as an example. They go into heat, like lots of earth animals, and presumably past there it's all pretty standard as this is specifically called out as one of the least weird bits of instinct one can suddenly find themselves dealing with. Whiplash morphs could potentially have some real freaky issues to deal with in that department though.

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So, ruster + ruster = ruster, bouncer + bouncer = bouncer, ruster + bouncer = splicer.

Not totally sure there. Inheriting the morph type if its shared by your parents is pretty much a given, but ruster+bouncer=splicer is an optimistic best case scenario. You could easily end up with some weird mix of adaptations from both sides, maybe just partially developed because multiple genes are involved, maybe weird nasty complications. I think in those cases a genefixing specialist where you pick what you want the kid to be and make whatever modifications are needed at the zygote level would be almost mandatory, because you are really rolling some dice otherwise.

That would be a pretty handy thing for basic biomods to do... but there's a lot of specific mention in the book of teams of experts monitoring pre-natal development, so I don't think you'd really have a fully autonomous system. Various passive monitoring systems constantly reporting various changes to a log somewhere sure, but you'd probably need to actually consult with experts if anything looks out of whack. I could also definitely see people getting all hypochondriacal about things there. "Look look look at this spike in hormone levels that showed up the last time I was freaking out about whether there was too much radiation exposure in the outer corridor here what does that mean!?"