[UT] Near-Future Medical Equipment

[Wavefunction]

Hey guys,

For a game I'm going to be running certain events have conspired to shunt medical science along a little further than they are in reality*, it's not quite TL9 but it's getting there. I was wondering what Ultra-Tech medical equipment would be the most plausible for implementation at around TL8?

Thanks.

* It's a supers game in which powers manifested in animals, not humans. This caused a massive increase in funding for genetics research as people scrambled to figure out why how the hell they developed these powers and to try and engineer them into humans, with partial success. The initial increase in investments occurred around 30 years ago.

[Wavefunction]

Upon further consideration I may be better off looking at TL8 equipment and drugs from Bio-Tech and High-Tech, and just slightly increasing the benefits or slightly reducing the downsides.

Any ideas on what to do in that regard would also be appreciated.

[Varyon]

I'd imagine you'll see advances in the realms of genetic surgery (not just genetic engineering - you'll want to give existing humans powers), advanced tissue culturing (growing entire organs), xenotransplantation (an alternative to genetic therapy, if humans can gain abilities by transplanting relevant organs from the animals), the creation of viable chimeric tissues/organs/animals (mostly to reduce rejection issues from xenotransplantation, but possibly for better customization of powers), and animal cloning.

You'll want to look through BioTech for examples, likely going with lesser versions of TL9 technologies. A primitive Proteus nanovirus (higher chance of the body fighting it off, chance of modified tissues being rejected) for genetic therapy would make sense. Growth tanks may be limited to growing organs, not entire animals, although the latter might still be an option (but will be more expensive, and will require frequent monitoring - probably roll against the relevant skill a couple times during early development, then once more to cover the rest of the growth; any Failure means the organism isn't viable - flush it and try it again - but a Critical Failure causes damage to the tank and it requires Minor Repairs). Xenotransplantation will probably be comparably reliable to modern human transplantation (and knowledge gained might cross over, making human transplantation more effective), although it might involve stronger immunosuppressants (leaving the recipient more susceptible to disease). Chimeric tissues/organs will be grown in growth tanks without too much issue, although doing whole animals is going to cause some skill penalties. Cloning might be a fully mature technology - if so, humans will see a benefit in terms of reducing the problems of aging.

Note here I'm ignoring any benefits the field itself might see thanks to the study of animals with powers. A wolf with nearly-inexhaustible stamina might yield some sort of hyperefficient blood replacement. Study of a viper with some sort of hyperspectral vision might yield better imaging technology. An elephant who's skin is nearly as strong as tank armor and has borderline-unbreakable bones might lead to medical equipment made of such leather and bone (grown in vats) to reduce weight. A purring cat that repairs injuries rapidly and even protects against disease could revolutionize medicine.

[Anders]

Things I've seen in the pipeline:

Growing organs or using special 3D-printers to print them from stem cells cultured from the patient, avoiding rejection issues
New diagnostic tools that give positive identification of infectious agent, strain and resistances within an hour or so
Broad-spectrum anti-viral agents
Nerve bypasses, allowing paralysed people to move their limbs
Vaccination against cancer
New broad-spectrum antibiotics

[The Colonel]

Artificial blood is probably a big item - we're fairly close already, so stepping it up a little shouldn't be an issue. Essentially, we could be looking at transfusion units with the storage endurance of saline but with outcomes as good as or better than whole blood (and without the immunological issues and sourcing constraints).
With improved gen tech you could then add additional healing factors to the base material to improve recovery from wounds.

[Wavefunction]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'd imagine you'll see advances in the realms of genetic surgery (not just genetic engineering - you'll want to give existing humans powers), advanced tissue culturing (growing entire organs), xenotransplantation (an alternative to genetic therapy, if humans can gain abilities by transplanting relevant organs from the animals), the creation of viable chimeric tissues/organs/animals (mostly to reduce rejection issues from xenotransplantation, but possibly for better customization of powers), and animal cloning.

Very good points there, growing new organs and limbs would probably be fairly commonplace at this point, which leads to some interesting possibilities. For the record, all attempts to transplant organs from animals into grown humans to give them powers have failed miserably, as have attempts to isolate exactly what it is that's giving animals powers.

Originally Posted by Varyon

You'll want to look through BioTech for examples, likely going with lesser versions of TL9 technologies. A primitive Proteus nanovirus (higher chance of the body fighting it off, chance of modified tissues being rejected) for genetic therapy would make sense. Growth tanks may be limited to growing organs, not entire animals, although the latter might still be an option (but will be more expensive, and will require frequent monitoring - probably roll against the relevant skill a couple times during early development, then once more to cover the rest of the growth; any Failure means the organism isn't viable - flush it and try it again - but a Critical Failure causes damage to the tank and it requires Minor Repairs). Xenotransplantation will probably be comparably reliable to modern human transplantation (and knowledge gained might cross over, making human transplantation more effective), although it might involve stronger immunosuppressants (leaving the recipient more susceptible to disease). Chimeric tissues/organs will be grown in growth tanks without too much issue, although doing whole animals is going to cause some skill penalties. Cloning might be a fully mature technology - if so, humans will see a benefit in terms of reducing the problems of aging.

That's definitely interesting. Cloning powered animals would probably produce a powered clone in a reasonable number of cases (greater than 1%), of course powered animals are rather difficult to control, and any attempts to engineer versions that still have the powers but are easy to manipulate (whether through training or other means) would have failed.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Note here I'm ignoring any benefits the field itself might see thanks to the study of animals with powers. A wolf with nearly-inexhaustible stamina might yield some sort of hyperefficient blood replacement. Study of a viper with some sort of hyperspectral vision might yield better imaging technology. An elephant who's skin is nearly as strong as tank armor and has borderline-unbreakable bones might lead to medical equipment made of such leather and bone (grown in vats) to reduce weight. A purring cat that repairs injuries rapidly and even protects against disease could revolutionize medicine.

Yeah, ignore all that stuff. The powers are basically magic, if you somehow cut the skin off an invulnerable elephant, it's not going to be anymore durable than normal elephant hide. They appear to have a genetic route in some way, but no one can figure out how the hell it works.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

That's definitely interesting. Cloning powered animals would probably produce a powered clone in a reasonable number of cases (greater than 1%)

<snip>

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

They appear to have a genetic route in some way, but no one can figure out how the hell it works.

For what it's worth, that points strongly to epigenetic factors, not genetic. There may be a requisite genetic sequence(es) to make you vulnerable to the unknown epigenetic factor, but clearly they don't activate without an (uncommon) outside influence.


So there's some fun buzzwords to dress up your fluff with :)

Plain Talk version: You need to be exposed to a "mutagen" or other super-power origin thingamy before your mutant super-power genes turn on. Depending on how rubber your science is, this could be cosmic rays, magic words, astrological concordances, etc etc.
The clones that develop powers are clearly the ones impacted by the X factor. Which will frustrate the HELL out of scientists creating 1000 clones of a superpowered lab rat, raising them all in what they thought were identical environments, simultaneously, and only getting ten hits.

[Wavefunction]

Originally Posted by Bruno

<snip>



For what it's worth, that points strongly to epigenetic factors, not genetic. There may be a requisite genetic sequence(es) to make you vulnerable to the unknown epigenetic factor, but clearly they don't activate without an (uncommon) outside influence.


So there's some fun buzzwords to dress up your fluff with :)

Plain Talk version: You need to be exposed to a "mutagen" or other super-power origin thingamy before your mutant super-power genes turn on. Depending on how rubber your science is, this could be cosmic rays, magic words, astrological concordances, etc etc.
The clones that develop powers are clearly the ones impacted by the X factor. Which will frustrate the HELL out of scientists creating 1000 clones of a superpowered lab rat, raising them all in what they thought were identical environments, simultaneously, and only getting ten hits.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm going for. Powers are activated by exposure to other powers during periods of extreme stress, and even then not reliably.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

Yeah, ignore all that stuff. The powers are basically magic, if you somehow cut the skin off an invulnerable elephant, it's not going to be anymore durable than normal elephant hide. They appear to have a genetic route in some way, but no one can figure out how the hell it works.

If that's the case, you probably aren't going to see medicine getting much of a boost compared to how other technology advances in the near future. When powers crop up, there will be a sudden boost in funding for purposes of researching and acquiring powers. When this research turns up next to nothing, the increased investments are probably going to rapidly trickle off and Powers research is just going to be another field competing with the others for funding. If powered animals are particularly ornery, and their powers make them even harder to control, this applies double, as all Powers research automatically has greatly increased costs just to do it (meaning less of the money goes into actual research, the rest serving to make labs into bomb shelters).

Of course, keep in mind that powers being basically magic doesn't have to mean they can't be duplicated/researched. Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners series features superpowers that are basically magic, but there's a great deal of tech built based on the powers. Highlight the rest of this post for some minor third-book spoilers:
Creating Epic-designed technology is deceptively easy. Grow up a cell culture from some of the Epic's cells and run a specific electrical current through it (this takes trial and error, but the frequency of the current dictates which power is replicated, provided the Epic has more than one). Toss this "motivator" into a shell that lets you manipulate it - attached gloves for powers that manipulate stuff, a rifle for attack powers, clothing for forcefields, etc - and you've got something that lets you use that power. Something similar might work in your setting. At least, I'm assuming you intend for the characters to have superpowers in some way, as a setting where only animals have powers is more like low-magic Fantasy than Supers (basically, there are monsters with crazy powers).

[Wavefunction]

Originally Posted by Varyon

If that's the case, you probably aren't going to see medicine getting much of a boost compared to how other technology advances in the near future. When powers crop up, there will be a sudden boost in funding for purposes of researching and acquiring powers. When this research turns up next to nothing, the increased investments are probably going to rapidly trickle off and Powers research is just going to be another field competing with the others for funding. If powered animals are particularly ornery, and their powers make them even harder to control, this applies double, as all Powers research automatically has greatly increased costs just to do it (meaning less of the money goes into actual research, the rest serving to make labs into bomb shelters).

Well it's not so much that powered animals are particularly ornery, more that most animals are tricky to train, the animals don't necessarily know how to control their own powers properly, and they could do a lot of damage in the process of trying to train them.

Also, there has been some success, like I said, some clones develop powers, as do some chimeras, so they know it can work. I also don't envisage this being government funded, perhaps a little at the start, but I mostly imagined a few groups of terrifyingly wealthy people getting together and funding research programs.

After the first few years there was sufficient pressure that it was made illegal to attempt to engineer powers in most countries. However there had already been a dramatic funding boost, and a whole generation of bright people inspired to study genetics or medicine by these events.

All that said, I wasn't expecting a huge leap, that's why I said near-future, more like the stuff we could expect from 2020-2025 than 2100. A theoretical TL8.5, not TL9.