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Old 05-11-2020, 11:40 AM   #1
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

Within Transhuman Space, there is a societal bias towards digital intelligences because they have functional immortality (as they can be copied) and perfect shapeshifting (as they can switch bodies with ease). Despite this, I find myself preferring characters who are biological intelligences, because it is the functional immortality and perfect shapeshifting that make digital intelligences boring. Whether bioroid, humanoid, or uplifted animal, the limitations that bound the lives of biological intelligences make them meaningful.

For example, one of my favorite groups of NPCs is a group of liberated female bioroids that run an underground railroad for enslaved female bioroids. They are named the Daughters of Tisiphone. Using technology, they assassinate people involved in the enslavement and exploitation of female bioroids. They are known for being extremely thorough, as they make sure that every copy of their target is eliminated, giving them a terrifying reputation among the wealthy elites of the Sol System, as their targets always suffer true death.

What about you? Do you have any preferences for biological intelligences? If so, what do find appealing about them?
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Old 05-12-2020, 06:54 AM   #2
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

I used to have a preference towards biologicals to some degree in the past, though this was more about the origin of intelligences and about the shells. I think the two things that changed my attitude was exposure to SOMA (where one gets to play with cybershells and that experience made me open to them) and Eclipse Phase (which has technology for writing a digital intelligence back into a biological brain; at that point, the reversibility of the conversion process made me less concerned about cutting off the way 'back' on a philosophical level, because then I realised there's not much reason to want back into a biobrain when an opportunity is given).

I still find bioroids cool, and would pick them as the starting point for the intelligences of my PCs in the future (if I get to play THS some more), but in the long term, digitalisation all the way.
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Old 05-12-2020, 05:47 PM   #3
whswhs
 
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Default Re: The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

In my two THS campaigns, no one ever chose to play anything but a human or parahuman. Not only no digital intelligences, but no uplifts and no bioroids.

No, wait, that's wrong. In my first campaign, one player chose to play a ghost occupying a bioshell created from his former body. That led to some interesting complications . . .
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Old 05-13-2020, 03:50 AM   #4
johndallman
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Default Re: The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

In my new THS Royal Navy campaign, the PCs are two upgraded humans, one parahuman, a ghost in a bioroid based on his old body, and an SAI who lives in the ship's computers.

There are two NPCs, who are another upgraded human and a ghost who doesn't feel the need for a body and just lives in a mainframe. Plus swarms of LAIs, of course.
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Old 05-13-2020, 05:52 AM   #5
Phil Masters
 
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Default Re: The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

I'm playing one of the humans in John's game (actually just genefixed rather than upgraded, but with a bunch of transhuman modifications that make them look less baseline than a lot of bioroids). The last time I played in a TS game, it was as a ship's SAI whose crew were the inevitable ragtag band of misfit PCs, which allowed me to indulge my usual assumption that a SAI should have a sense of humour, which of course leant far too hard on 2001. (Playing Ligetti over the ship's comms system whenever the cargo bay doors needed opening, say.) He also had a LAI aide in a humaniform shell with a high-end computer, and used to play shell games with that when we were on extravehicular missions.

(Yes, for rules purposes, the humaniform was "his" body.)
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Old 05-14-2020, 04:29 AM   #6
Michele
 
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Default Re: The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

Sorry, I'm afraid I don't agree with the premise. AIs are very different from us, in no small part exactly because of the characteristics you refer to, so they are seldom that boring to roleplay. It is conceivable that an AI is bored, and I think a player roleplayed that once, with interesting acting and results, but that's different. Those characteristics are a feature, not a bug.

Naturally, being immortal changes the way in which you face danger. But then again, even back in the day of early fantasy dungeoning, many players loved their characters having huge HP figures, and hated things that circumvented their armor. So, I suspect that same type of players don't dislike that their beloved SF characters are functionally immortal.
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Old 05-14-2020, 04:30 PM   #7
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

The risk of death is what makes life exciting. Without the potential of mortality, you cannot really experience life, which is why people do extreme sports. In the webcomic Freefall, the AIs actually refuse to back themselves up (because the entity that will come back will not be them) and are not immortal (the neural networks that make up their minds decay with time).
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Old 05-15-2020, 04:33 AM   #8
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
The risk of death is what makes life exciting. Without the potential of mortality, you cannot really experience life, which is why people do extreme sports.
That is one perspective, but not a universal one.

In fact, disagreement over this stance seems to be a major dividing line between the more necroconservative people who don't want to live forever, and necroabolitionists like Big Yud whose stance 'death is a disease, eliminate it like we did with the other diseases of old'.
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Old 05-15-2020, 10:47 AM   #9
Michele
 
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Default Re: The Appeal of Biological Intelligences

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
The risk of death is what makes life exciting. Without the potential of mortality, you cannot really experience life, which is why people do extreme sports.
You are assuming that life is excitement. I suppose all the old people seeking, right now, in the real world, some new drug for their current serious illness, in hopes of surviving it, will disagree.
Even assuming they agree, maybe they think that currently bored and alive is better than formerly excited and now dead.
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