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

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by dscheidt

One thing, about self reproducing bioroids. I think one of the reasons that they don't exist in in THS is because the people that own the rights expect to be able to sell copies. If there weren't the loss of income, people would have done them, I think.

The implication/statement in TS is that bioroids are assembled from assorted cultured tissues, which may logically not even have the same genetics (so long as they're carefully designed to be compatible), and the chromosones they do have in their tissues are designed with "slots" into which specific genes can be inserted to produce particular local effects. Splitting out half their genes and matching up with half from elsewhere isn't likely to produce a viable genome unless the other half is from something specifically designed for the purpose...

Basically, they're not self-replicating living things, and their genes aren't designed for that, and may not be internally consistent. I doubt that they could express in a viable foetus; they can't reproduce sexually any more than a toaster could. This isn't malicious copy protection; it's the simplest way to do things, and designing a reproductively viable life form from the ground up is orders of magnitude harder.

[Phil Masters]

Chapter 3

I'd recommend that all Transhuman Space GMs review this chapter at some point. It may not affect PCs or even major NPCs very much, but consideration of what high-TL10 biotechnology can do to and for a society should have some interesting consequences for campaigns.

* Manna (p.80): There's no "universal food" mentioned in TS that I recall, and one might suspect that capitalist bioengineering companies would regard the idea as dangerously unprofitable... Assuming that it's feasible, of course, which might be an open question. (Your universal crop would need to grow equally well everywhere. Ask any gardener how feasible that is.) Some more benevolent TSA nations may be working on these lines, but let's not forget that the TSA is actually quite capitalist itself in many respects.

* Blood Roses (p.80): A handy and vicious trap for slightly more lurid TS games. Likely to be somewhat legally controlled, though.

* Residential Trees (p.80): This sort of thing does crop up in TS, but it's not widespread. Frankly, microbots and cybershells probably allow one to throw up cheap, adequate housing much faster, without having to worry about the quality of the soil underneath - and the two years quoted for a residential tree to grow strikes me as seriously optimistic.

* World Trees (p.80): The subject of research out in the Deep Beyond, of course. Trying to conduct TL11 genetic engineering that far from a proper technological infrastructure must be great fun.

* Fungal Infonets (p.82): Might be feasible in TS, though as in other cases, the big question is going to be "Why bother?"

* Fungal Surveillance Net (p.82): See above, and anyhow it's TL11. Surveillance dust seems like a better option all round.

* Smart Fungi (p.82): Might be under consideration for sneaky biowar/infowar purposes, I guess. Probably a bit susceptible to targeted countermeasures, though.

* Gengineered Insects (p.82-4): Basically a variant treatment of the "Insect Bioswarm" idea from TS, and might be useful in games.

* Doolittle Dolphin (p.89): A straight conversion of the template from Under Pressure (complete with the Delphis second-generation variant), and while it's tempting to preserve the GURPS tradition of multiple dolphin templates, one should use this as written.

* Jagrilla Hound (p.89-90): A cheerfully sinister legacy of the 3e version of Bio-Tech; I think it may have been mentioned in various TS sources, but never showed up in the books. It looks like it's fully within the scope of TS biotech, though chimerical uplifted warbeasts are rare at best - a bioroid version might be rather more plausible. Makes a neat quasi-terror weapon, but really, a competent human or simpler bioroid with the right tools is likely to be cheaper and deadlier. Still, just the thing for some screwed-up dictator's personal bodyguard.

* K-10 (p.90): As the name implies, best seen as an earlier precursor of the K-10A (as detailed in Changing Times) - and can be used as such. One problem, though; the template has Extra Legs (Four Legs), which is already included in the Quadruped meta-trait which it also has. Oops - time to submit an erratum. Also, should always have Dead Broke in TS games.

* Monkey Plus (p.90): It'd help here if I hadn't recently been looking at Nina Conti videos on YouTube... But anyway, yes, another good straightforward adaptation of a Fifth Wave template.

* Neo-Coon (p.90): Plausible for TS (and fun).

* Neo-Horse (p.91): Ditto. Likely to be a bit of a toy, so no one's likely to invest in developing the Wonder-Horse variant. (Developing a super-mule for future phases of the Mars colonial effort might be interesting.)

* Octosap (p.91): Weaker but slightly smarter than the treatment in Under Pressure; still, a useful guide to the principles of conversion, which is a little more fiddly here than sometimes. (Under Pressure also has the markedly smarter Octosap II.) The Astropus variant comes out a little different to the treatment in Changing Times, I'm afraid.

* Space Cat (p.91): Plausible in TS terms, if a bit space-operatic. If it can avoid litter tray issues, I could imagine this appearing out in the Belt.

* Ganesh (p.92): Another Fifth Wave conversion, tidying the thing up a bit (losing the insane 3e HT 16) and demonstrating that 4e makes the concept much more viable for PC use. (254 points saved - anyone converting a campaign which has one of these as a PC is going to be grinding their teeth.)

* Neo-Gorilla (p.92): Uplifted apes do exist in the TS world, and this is probably a very plausible template for one version thereof.

* Neo-Pinniped (p.92): Another useful update from Fifth Wave. Note that this gets some adjustment in the errata for the book.

* Ursamorph (p.93): This doesn't appear to come from TS, but in fact, it's quite similar (but not identical) to the Guardian Bear given "bestiary format" stats in In the Well. Anyone who wants a character sheet for a Guardian Bear could start with the Ursamorph template, maybe buying ST and DX up a bit.

* Non-Sapient Animals (p.93): I think that pharm goats are canon for TS, so now we have stats. The neo-vampire bat might show up in some Broken Dreams-esque games.

* Construction Coral (p.94): Basically much as covered in Under Pressure (p.94).

* Biovehicles (p.96-101): Not much covered in TS, and anything useful on these lines is likely to be a bit bleeding-edge for the technology. Still, there might be some work being done (aside from the bioship project noted in Spacecraft of the Solar System).

More to follow...

[DryaUnda]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

* Manna (p.80): There's no "universal food" mentioned in TS that I recall, and one might suspect that capitalist bioengineering companies would regard the idea as dangerously unprofitable... Assuming that it's feasible, of course, which might be an open question. (Your universal crop would need to grow equally well everywhere. Ask any gardener how feasible that is.) Some more benevolent TSA nations may be working on these lines, but let's not forget that the TSA is actually quite capitalist itself in many respects.

Actually, I think Manna would more likely than not be opposed. Universal crop = monoculture, aka the ultimate boo-word in agricultural policy. I know from first-hand experience that agropolitics is nasty, and I wasn't even trying to get involved in the first place!

By the way, thank you very much for these notes! Will there be any "Notes on Using GURPS Ultra-Tech (4e) in TS" upcoming?

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by DryaUnda

Will there be any "Notes on Using GURPS Ultra-Tech (4e) in TS" upcoming?

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.)

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

When you make a bioroid you fabricate some sort of scaffolding, and you introduce tissue cultures which proliferate, invade the [appropriate parts of] the scaffolding, and maybe replace the scaffolding. The anatomy is produced by molding and shaping operations, and the different tissues can all be engineered separate. You probably use 'stem' cells that invade their specific parts of the scaffold and then specialise, but you don't need totipotent or even pluripotent ones, which means that each tissue type can be genetically engineered separately, not as part of a branching tree of differentiations with context-sensitive switches to control them. You have to design a viable organism, but you don't have to design its development.

When you design a self-reproducing organism the first challenge is that you have to design not a viable adult form, but a viable series of forms all the way from the one-cell stage to the 100-billion cell adult.

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...)

[Pomphis]

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.

[MrTim]

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.

[Phil Masters]

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...

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

(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...)

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.

[Nelson Cunnington]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

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