Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 3: Chapter 3)
 

That's the plan. These were meant to be a bit of a warm-up for that, in fact, but they came out a bit longer than I expected. (Things may speed up a bit now that I'm onto chapters without long lists of racial templates.)

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 1: TL Overview)
 

Many Thanks. This is a huge point which many people seem to miss, and which I'd never been able to express clearly enough.

(I guess "A genome is not a blueprint; it is a recipe. Humans are thus made using recipes. Bioroids are built partly from blueprints; there is no complete recipe." might be a good strapline...)

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 1: TL Overview)
 

I just want to add that the difference between designing the final state and the way how to get there was a big problem when the new chancery in berlin was build.
IIRC it had a roof design which was statically sound. The real problem for the architects was to come up with a way how to build it. They couldn´t just teleport everything into place at once, and designing stable intermediate stages was apparently much more complicated then designing the final one, even with the use of scaffolding.

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 1: TL Overview)
 

One point to remember is that THS bioroids can't reproduce, because of the way they're made. "Bioroids" in other settings are often made from a single zygote and force-grown, making it entirely plausible for them to pass on their traits.

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 1: TL Overview)
 

As others have pointed out, that not actually possible given what a Bioroid is (as the product of exogenesis). However she may be able to successful sue for the right to build bioroids of the same model (despite EU law) and without paying the patent holder any fees. IIRC the Vacs in High Frontier have this sort of special legal status.

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 4: chapter 4)
 

Chapter 4

Another good "stuff to bear in mind for a biotech world" chapter, but
with fewer templates this time (hurrah)...

* Photozyme Solar Film (p.106): Not discussed in TS that I recall, but
may explain some of the setting's quite good solar power
capabilities...

* Surveillance Infection (p.107): Not mentioned in TS that I recall,
but might make for some interesting plots. There may be legal issues
in some jurisdictions, especially with the TL10 retrovirus option;
deliberately infecting people, let alone fiddling with their DNA in an
unmonitored fashion, is asking for lawsuits. The first time a more or
less innocent subject shows an unexpected biochemical reaction to the
infection, the idea is likely to drop off the legal scale. (Anyway,
Fifth Wave crooks will often have standard, completely legal
anti-disease biomods that may turn out to negate this.)

* Germ Warfare (p.112-118): A reminder that any high-biotech setting
like TS will have its points of justified paranoia. One must assume
that some surprisingly innocuous-looking tools and supplies are going
to be treated as WMD-grade material, and ferociously restricted,
because of what they can be used to do.

* DNA Eraser (p.121): If this is available in TS, a lot of criminals
will want it - and it'll render the "Wiper Treatment" described on
p.101 of High Frontier pretty much irrelevant. It might be better to
assume that messing destructively with the internals of cells is a bad
idea, even if it's only supposed to happen when the cell dies.

Chapter 5 follows soon...

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 5: chapter 5)
 

Chapter 5

And on, we hit the "saving (meatbag) PCs from the consequences of their own actions" chapter (which is also the most universally useful one in the book).

• Cell Regeneration (p.133): As in TS, but the radiation healing rate has been halved, and the costs have been fiddled with - take your pick which to use.
  
• Reattachers (p.133): Another thing that hasn't been mentioned in TS, but looks quite logical. Of course, it's only really useful when treating clean amputations.
  
• Chrysalis Machine (p.133): Probably a bit too high TL11 for TS, although a good hospital will doubtless have prototypical equipment approaching this level in some respects.
  
• Neural Inhibitor (p.136): This is a bit ultra-tech (fairly explicitly so, in fact), and I can see PCs picking up some of these to use as weapons if they can. I suspect that the nearest thing in TS would be a nanotech gizmo that performs the same task rather more slowly and cautiously. We probably need a bit more treatment of non-ultratech TL10 anaesthesia, in fact (including those handy knockout/paralysis agents to load into darts and stinging microbots).
  
• Automed (p.139): In TS, this is a cybershell - a cyberdoc is really just the bells-and-whistles TL10 version - and the skills used may be those of an infomorph installed on the system (or the skill sets it's given to run).
  
• Head and Brain Transplants (p.143): Probably possible but extremely rare
  in the TS world (except for occasional brain transplants to a new clone body following really massive injury); there are almost always better options.
  
• Deep Learning (p.143): This is of course the technology used to prepare bioroids in TS. Whether it works on normal humans in the setting may be an open question; it might be considered too tiresomely stressful and un-fun for most folks, all else aside.
  
• Cryonic Revival (p.146): This basically follows the TS assumptions, though TS is rather optimistic - amnesia is the exception rather than the rule, and a ghost mind emulation is complexity 7 rather than 10. (I always thought that it should be 8, given the quoted size of a scan, but 7 allows it to be run on a lot more person-sized cybershells, so I can see where the decision came from.)

And so on to chapter 6 - which will probably require more work, so I might not get it done for a day or two.

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 6: Chapter 6)
 

Chapter 6

I'd regard much of the (very interesting) material in this chapter as more detailed descriptions of the sort of stuff that turns up in a TL10/11 medikit, or an explanation of why TL10 First Aid does so much, so quickly. I'd also think of a lot of the drugs listed as being replaced by nanomods and nanodrugs in the TS world.

* Genericillin (p.150): Not canonical for TS; it feels very slightly too skiffy to me. I'd either treat it as shorthand for "the really good suite of antibiotic treatments available in the setting", or stick with higher levels of detail - specific enzyme-blocking drugs and so on. The idea of a powerful broad-spectrum antibiotic that can never be evolved around by some bastard microbe just strikes me as optimistic over-simplification.

* Enzyme-Blocking Drugs (p.151): An interesting expansion of the short note in the TS main book.

* Adders (p.155): I don't think that TS has anything quite like these, canonically... They're probably not too implausible for the setting, but anyone who wants to keep them out of the hands of munchkins can feel free to ban them, or ramp up the side-effects.

* Bone Stimulation (p.155): This is part of some other, more extensive biomods in TS, so yes, it should be available.

* Super-Steroids (p.156): These could probably be available in TS, while being regarded as painfully dated.

* Basic (p.156): Looks like a nanodrug cocktail to me...

* NERV (p.156): Canonical TS.

* Hypoxyline (p.156): Probably possible but rare in TS.

* Tempo (p.156): Can one believe in a drug granting Enhanced Time Sense? I think I'd stick with nanomods here.

* Gravanol (p.157): Might be possible in TS (probably using nanotech), but doesn't have many uses - except for spacers visiting Earth, perhaps.

* Deep-Sleep (p.158): Likely to be very popular with PCs if allowed in a game...

* Antitox (p.161): If this seriously protects against all poisons, it's a little bit cinematic, if you ask me.

* Atman (p.161): Comes from Under Pressure, which might seem a bit odd, given that TS nanodrugs can't, canonically, grant Animal Empathy. Oh well.

* BodyHeat (p.161): Also from Under Pressure, despite the fact that TS nanodrugs also haven't been described as granting Temperature Tolerance. Maybe the list of appropriate advantages and disadvantages in Changing Times could do with expanding... But anyway, given the limited effects, built-in drawbacks, and plausible mechanism, this one doesn't seem too strange.

* Destruct Nano (p.162): Plausible enough for TS, given a sensibly defined trigger mechanism, I think.

* Focus (p.162): The induced Careful might be debatable, but probably isn't worth arguing about, especially given that this is yet another byproduct of Under Pressure.

* Morlock (p.162): The last of the Under Pressure derivatives... Stress Atavism isn't on the Changing Times list, but given that it's only really appropriate for uplifts, that's probably less anomalous than some things.

* Panimmunity (p.164): Equivalent to TS Immune Machines, of course.

* Blood Cops (p.165): Not canonical in TS; might be plausible for the setting, though the effects look a bit generous to me. I'd re-class them as TL11, make them expensive and experimental, and say that they need extra treatments to provide the full Longevity effect and only work against specifically blood-born metabolic hazards.

* Carcinophages (p.165): The Longevity these grant is a bit more generous than the canonical TS version, but maybe it assumes synergy with a number of other backup treatments.

* Pore Cleaners (p.165): I stand by the ruling in Changing Times that you need extra stuff in addition to these to get Sanitized Metabolism. They don't make all your excretions nicer.

* Brain Boosters (p.166): Like several others, a TL11 invention which is canonically available in TS. I'd use the higher (Bio-Tech) price.

* Cell Surgeons (p.166): These, on the other hand, aren't available yet...

* Electroreceptors (p.166): ...whereas these are. In fact, the TS version doesn't have Vague, but maybe it should. Humans aren't built to acquire extra senses at whim.

* DNA Repair (p.166): Another thing that is available in TS, but doesn't give as much of a lifespan boost there. As I said, I'd say that you have to stack several of these things to get a full level of Extended Lifespan.

* Metabolic Regulators (p.166): Available in TS without the Mastery refinement. Sounds fair.

Chapter 7 will follow in due course.

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 1: TL Overview)
 

One qualification I should really acknowledge here; it's canonically possible to construct a bioroid which is a clone of an existing organism. (In the EU, ghost infomorphs are permitted to occupy bioshells based on bioroid clones of their original bodies.) While there may well be some tweaking at the genetic level required to grow a set of viable tissues for this, especially if you want a brain that's suitable for the usual bioroid high-speed education process, you do have a complete and reproductively viable genome there, and you could give the bioroid a fully functioning set of reproductive organs.

Of course, the main point of most bioroids is to create an organism which isn't akin to any human or parahuman. While there've no doubt been a number of genetically human bioroids created over the years, there are good reasons for most people to avoid doing so. First, what's the point? "Congratulations. You've created a human being. Put it in the box with the other ten billion." And second, creating a bioroid which is more or less completely human hands a huge hostage to the opposition in the "bioroids are slavery" debate; if you want to argue that bioroids aren't human and hence can't be treated as such, creating one which more or less is human is a bit stupid. In fact, it may well be legally banned in some places which permit bioroid construction generally.

Re: Notes on Using GURPS Bio-Tech (4e) in TS (part 1: TL Overview)
 

In such a case they probably would not be called bioroids; instead, "forced mature growth clones" or somesuch. Technically correct, but misleading.