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Old 12-04-2018, 11:07 PM   #1
Alonsua
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Default Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

If a character undergoes elective surgery for "altered height" modifying its spine and long bones of its arms/legs (GURPS BIOTECH/Bodysculpting) to lower its height from 6'8" to 6'2", would it look the same (same appearance), just as miniaturized version of itself?
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Old 12-04-2018, 11:19 PM   #2
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

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If a character undergoes elective surgery for "altered height" modifying its spine and long bones of its arms/legs (GURPS BIOTECH/Bodysculpting) to lower its height from 6'8" to 6'2", would it look the same (same appearance), just as miniaturized version of itself?
Certainly not. The proportions of the limbs would be changed, certainly to the head and probably to the torso, since the writeup says that you can ADD 3" to the spine but not lose it. Think of the difference between a genetically normal build and mild achondroplasia.
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Old 12-04-2018, 11:47 PM   #3
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

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Originally Posted by Alonsua View Post
If a character undergoes elective surgery for "altered height" modifying its spine and long bones of its arms/legs (GURPS BIOTECH/Bodysculpting) to lower its height from 6'8" to 6'2", would it look the same (same appearance), just as miniaturized version of itself?
If it's just modifying those things, no. Anything that involves bones that aren't on that list (e.g. hands, feet, head, hips) isn't going to change size, and width mostly won't change either. Presumably there's soft tissue adjustment at least in the areas that got shortened, but its likely to just be 'shorter' not 'shorter and thinner'. I suspect the result might be a slightly childlike appearance, since being out of proportion in those ways is a bit characteristic of people who haven't hit full growth.
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Old 12-05-2018, 12:35 AM   #4
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

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If it's just modifying those things, no. Anything that involves bones that aren't on that list (e.g. hands, feet, head, hips) isn't going to change size, and width mostly won't change either. Presumably there's soft tissue adjustment at least in the areas that got shortened, but its likely to just be 'shorter' not 'shorter and thinner'. I suspect the result might be a slightly childlike appearance, since being out of proportion in those ways is a bit characteristic of people who haven't hit full growth.
Interesting... so it would be possible to make general adjustments in order to keep the appearance while still shortening the height? Like increasing bone and muscle densities or something?
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Old 12-05-2018, 08:11 AM   #5
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

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Interesting... so it would be possible to make general adjustments in order to keep the appearance while still shortening the height? Like increasing bone and muscle densities or something?
Probably not.

There is one treatment for increasing bone density but it only adds one HP and allows for more Muscle Grafting and.or Muscle Reinforcement. It certainly doesn't make you thinner.
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Old 12-05-2018, 08:46 AM   #6
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

The bone and muscle densities are not the problem. The problem is that if you shorten Shaquille O'Neal's bones, he still has enormous lungs, intestines, liver, and heart. And I suppose the rib-cage bones are going to be tricky, but that's because of those giant lungs.

You can get some effect with weight loss surgery. You might be able to shorten intestines and trim the liver. You can probably even do a bunch of transplants, but at some point you're doing a head transplant instead of altering their body.

And that brings us to the head. Shaq does not have average sized head, and heads are very very hard to shrink, because brains tend to fit snugly inside of them.
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Old 12-05-2018, 08:51 AM   #7
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

Even growing Shaq a genetically modified 5'8" clone body for him to do a mind upload into won't result in a mini-Shaq in the sense of taking a photo of Shaq into photoshop and making it smaller. They would look like Shaq's shorter brother.
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Old 12-05-2018, 10:47 AM   #8
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

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Interesting... so it would be possible to make general adjustments in order to keep the appearance while still shortening the height? Like increasing bone and muscle densities or something?
Well, if you're doing it during character design, yes. But if the character has already been played, they've been established as being a certain height. And the kind of changes you're talking about can't be applied to a human being at our current TL, and probably not at any TL with mere surgical shortening of bones. So you're going to end up with someone who's shorter, but whose other body dimensions remain unchanged, and that will make their proportions look different.

It rather looks to me as if you're making one set of assumptions, and asking about the results, and then you're making a different set of assumptions, and applying THAT set of results on top of the first one—but the two sets of assumptions are different and may not be compatible. That doesn't produce meaningful results.
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Old 12-05-2018, 11:23 AM   #9
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

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Interesting... so it would be possible to make general adjustments in order to keep the appearance while still shortening the height?
At sufficiently high TL presumably you can do whatever you want, but it's not going to just be surgery at that point.
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Old 12-05-2018, 11:38 AM   #10
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Default Re: Altered height elective surgery, Biotech

I knew a guy who lost a couple of inches from both legs due to a car accident. Unless you knew him before and noticed the change in height or saw the scars, you would never know the difference.

More extreme than that, and the proportions between the bits that were resized and those that weren't would start to be more obviously different.
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