[THS] Why Make Bioroids?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by hal

The phrase "essentially human" has me scratching my head here. Toss into the mix "4x faster" and I wonder at the process required to accumulate sufficient mass to reach adulthood for a body. It takes about 9 months for a baby to form from two single cells (Egg and sperm). Call it 9 weeks right? A full 18 year old adult, would take what, 5.25 years of time to assemble if going by natural biology? If the statement "no, weeks to make fully formed adult bodies" then why would they even bother to specify a 4x rate of speed in the first place?

Sorry, still not buying the story line and having to hit that fabled "I believe" button to suspend belief.

<shrug>

Bioroids aren't created by even an _accelerated_ growth process for whole bodies. They're actually a spin-off from wet nano "construction" of individual organs (used in conventional medicine in 2100). You do it for all the body's organs (the only novel bit is creating a whole brain) and then assemble the result. It's Frankenstein's monster without the corpse parts, the baseball stiches or the lightning.

The time to produce a bioroid is the time to produce the organ that takes the most time (because all the organs are on their own nano "assembly line" at the same time) plus a little bit for final assembly. Even much of the time attributed to "training" or "learning" in the brain could be spent doing the reverse of destructive uploading i.e. constructive downloading.

Personally, I don't believe anything like destructive uploading will ever work. I tend to doubt that the brain "stores" memories in a non-volatile "hard drive". Even getting all the memories might not give you things you need. The mind is probably more like an OS but it's one that grows rather than booting from storage.

Now, "mirroring" a functional mind might work a lot better than trying to "download" but it makes it obvious that you've got a copy rather than having moved the original.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by hal

I think your analogy would work better if living organisms could have prefabricated parts made in mass quantities,moved into place, and made to function properly after assembly. Proper placement of the exact proper cell in exact proper location faster than is done naturally isn't something I'd believe. Note too that each cell itself would need to be assembled from component parts AND empty alive AND allowed to function naturally as if the body were fully completed even if it were not. In other words, the assembled body has to be self sustaining while under construction, all the while the cells themselves are built, all the while these cells are being added to the body's areas still under construction. So tissues already completed in need if nutrients that will be dependent upon a non-existing as yet disassembled cardiopulmonary system in place dependent upon a non-existing kidney or gas exchange system such as lungs, etcetera, can bypass nature's methodology of starting in a womb and having the host body act as life support and provide raw materials and remove dead material and scrub the construct of waste products of a living growing organism all the while being completed faster than normal means of the body in a womb?

Why do you think the tissues need to be self-sustaining while under construction? The biogenesis vat isn't an inert metal drum. The container and the nanotech bath inside it can do considerably more than an organic womb.

Originally Posted by hal

In theory then, would not this assembly method not only be desired for bioroid construction, but also normal replacements indistinguishable from normal genetic children and even repairs of gravely injured adults? Hell, why not shoot for functional immortality while you're at it.

Bioroid biogenesis doesn't produce biologically normal tissue. Bits of wet nano are left throughout the body serving active purposes, making bioroid physiology different from that of a mostly-equivalent human modification/parahuman.

I'm not sure that's the most logical feature, but it's in there.

Originally Posted by hal

Put a regular body in a biogenesis environment to keep the brain and its already existing neurological structure alive in a medical coma and rebuild its body around the brain?

That's also a technology, though it's probably a more advanced one than bioroid manufacture. Found under Radical Nanosurgery. Doesn't work quite the way you describe - actually stripping the brain bare would probably be riskier and less effective, since the brain needs to be repaired as well.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Personally, I don't believe anything like destructive uploading will ever work. I tend to doubt that the brain "stores" memories in a non-volatile "hard drive". Even getting all the memories might not give you things you need. The mind is probably more like an OS but it's one that grows rather than booting from storage.

If it's volatile under nanostasis, you need better nanostasis.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If it's volatile under nanostasis, you need better nanostasis.

I don't believe nanostasis would actually work either and I don't use it in my personal settings.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by hal

saying that I'm reinventing something is disingenuous...

If the biogenesis is a nanotechnological based system, that's one thing. If it is an organ transplanting technology where adult organs are built and laid together, that misses the point I raised about having to have the network of supporting systems ready to go when you insert the vat grown organ (like blood vessels, neurological pathways that are essentially the wiring of the body).

It's a relatively quick nano-assembly. It's done in a nanoassembly unit; a half-assembled bioroid is non-viable on its own.

Originally Posted by hal

My point isn't that I don't believe bioroid construction should or should not exist for THS or even going the route of whether or not you can or can't have a campaign based on the premise. Just as Magic doesn't work (or so we believe, and I for one have no intention of opening THAT can of worms!), so too do I state that Biogenesis as portrayed, has some major issues. If you use the narrative to fix those issues, then the narrative opens up a whole new can of worms. Being able to preassemble organs and transplanting them into a Frankenstein's monster like assembly implies that if they can perfect that technology for Bioroids, the implications for normal humanity are equally portentious.

That having been said, I think you've managed to convince me that I shouldn't be weighing in on this and let you have your fun with your discussion. <shrug>

Organs can be nanoassembled for transplantation, if that's what you're thinking. That's one of the things biomods can be.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The time to produce a bioroid is the time to produce the organ that takes the most time (because all the organs are on their own nano "assembly line" at the same time) plus a little bit for final assembly. Even much of the time attributed to "training" or "learning" in the brain could be spent doing the reverse of destructive uploading i.e. constructive downloading.

It's not downloading. Nanoassembly is good enough to produce the right tissues, but not good enough to assemble a neuron by neuron copy of a digital ghost.