Gene-mods

Playing a cyberpunk setting, for a moderate price, gene therapy is a thing in this setting, although legally anything too useful (such as venom, wings, night vision) is 'illegal', although corps of course use it.

My character is having to get some mods to be done to her as her mugshot is all over the city thanks to previous escapades.

For example young street urchin in the party already has glossy black eyes and pointed teeth.

Considering something like pic related right now, 'living' tattoo under the skin, gloey blue eyes.

So Veeky Forums show us your best post-humans!

I sometimes forget how awesome Batman Beyond was.

I really dislike the sci-fi trope of gene-modding being able to suddenly grow limbs and drastically change the body. That's not how it works at all.

Consider it the "politically correct" way of saying "Mutation".

Mutations don't do that either, unless (just like with gene-modding) they are acquired before conception or generally very early in life.

Op here, they don't. They take weeks of excruciating pain that people normally just wait out in medically induced comas

Well yes, retroviral changes to one's body would be less dramatic and take longer, but what about using a human body as a host of a deliberately gengineered, vat-grown organism?

You can have your anime style biological/shapeshifting weapons/blood auras.

But how do you communicate to the player the effects of having crazy mutant eels living in their body?

You still can't grow limbs from DNA changes. You have to grow the limb seperately in a vat and then attach it. The limb must have the same DNA as the host, not the other way around, and would require invasive brain and spine rewiring to work.

That would work, and would also be extremely harmful to the host. Painkiller hormones and regeneration would be required. Not Wolverine speed regen, that's ridiculous, but healing any moderately serious injury in a day or five seems reasonable.

Expect the host's appetite to triple, because regen needs materials.

You got me here senpai. I'm not medically knowledgeable enough for this. Still, seems doable in a cyberpunk setting.

Sure. It's just hella hard and slow. Most would be easier as prostethics or cybernetics. For the pointy teeth and black eye example, sharpening teeth or replacing them with sharp fake teeth is trivial, as is tinting the eyeballs. No genetech or cyber required. Pretty sure you can do both IRL already.

Do the furry bio-sculpts from Cyberpunk 2020 count?

I've got a sort of Cyberpunk setting where one of the world's biggest superpowers relied heavily on genemods and biotech. The other superpower was more about augmentation and cybernetics instead. I wanted to split them into equally ridiculous extremes while having them continue to be neck-and-neck, but I find it hard to come up with ideas for extreme gene-mods and other biotech that would equal or surpass the type of high-end cybernetics you usually expect from that kind of setting.

How would you write it so that the biotech matches traditional tech, or is it something that is always going to be inferior?

Fuck me and I was hoping to purge my memory of them.

If you ask me, biotech will eventually, super super long term, beat hard tech. If you want it in a simple meme, look at the senator from metal gear rising.

The crux of the conflict is: Machines are superior in physical terms, harder, stronger, etc; Biology will always be more adaptable, more reliable.

If you're thinking of end game biotech stuff, think in similar terms to nanomachines. Entirely moudable matter, perhaps they can cook any chemical they like up in some internal chemistry glands or some shit, they'll be able to chameleon, no heat signature, take literally any shape they like, consume other biomatter to fuel themselves. Prototype is a good reference for this kinda stuff.

What system? I have been in the mood for cyberpunk.

I didn't think of it that way. It does make sense that it would be more adaptable. An augmented tool might perform the same function better, but it still takes time to design, produce, and then apply it for use whereas end game biotech could likely adapt to the need in a fraction of the time.

Depends on how much of the DNA is changed...

Is it really necessary for bio-tech/cybernetics to be two distinct things?

"Mutation" is the politically-correct way of saying "Transformation". It's a euphemism treadmill

They are two separate means of approaching the same problem. That doesn't mean you can't use them in conjunction with one another.

While not being an outstanding game, Fracture had just the theme you're describing, bio-mods and all. I am having a incredible hard time finding the art for the creatures tho

Biotech has an advantage in reproduction, and to some extent ease of production in general - as well as auto-reproduction thanks to being alive, the equipment for biotech might be high-end, but a lot of it is just medical stuff, whereas there's a lot of parts and materials - possibly complex ones - needed for good cybernetics

Eh come on, it's easy to work around the real science here, even if the end result isn't 100% accurate to life.

e.g. in the example of extra limbs, say the clinics have the limbs 90% pre-grown, with the remaining 10% being taking DNA from the host-to-be in order to have some handy bio-organisms (or nanomachines, but that's less bio-themed) prepare the arm so that it won't be rejected by the host (i.e. DNA splicing the host's DNA into the 'semi-blank' of the arm).

As for the brain / central nervous system re-wiring, well again, that's hella complicated to invent, but actually carrying it out wouldn't need to be that ridiculously difficult if you also invent the right virus, bacteria, nanomachines, whatever, that can 'infect' the brain and work their magic, growing extra nerves, connecting them to the newly attached muscles, etc, etc. In essence, it's not too bad a handwave to say "they've invented viruses to work as nanomachines to install the new neurons, nerves etc". Afterall, if they're meant to be a futuristic nation based on biological enhancement, that's how they would do it ...

Eh come on, it's easy to work around the real science here, even if the end result isn't 100% accurate to life.

e.g. in the example of extra limbs, say the clinics have the limbs 90% pre-grown, with the remaining 10% being taking DNA from the host-to-be in order to have some handy bio-organisms (or nanomachines, but that's less bio-themed) prepare the arm so that it won't be rejected by the host (i.e. DNA splicing the host's DNA into the 'semi-blank' of the arm).

As for the brain / central nervous system re-wiring, well again, that's hella complicated to invent, but actually carrying it out wouldn't need to be that ridiculously difficult if you also invent the right virus, bacteria, nanomachines, whatever, that can 'infect' the brain and work their magic, growing extra nerves, connecting them to the newly attached muscles, etc, etc. In essence, it's not too bad a handwave to say "they've invented viruses to work as nanomachines to install the new neurons, nerves etc". Afterall, if it's meant to be a futuristic setting with biological enhancement, that's how they would do it ...

Would someone gene-modded to the pinnacle of biological capability be able to calculate on par or better than a computer? Why mutate yourself if a cyborg can outperform you?

For that matter, if one man replaces most of his body with technology and another genetically modifies himself to become something like describes, which one is more "human" than the other?

Brains and computers are good at fundamentally different sorts of mental tasks. Computers are always better at recalling data and running mathematical operations. Brains are always better at interpreting a vast set of sensory inputs and controlling a body in response to them.

It's why we have computers that can run billions of calculations a second, but we still struggle to build a bipedal robot that can walk over uneven terrain without falling over.

Depends on the type of 'computer'.

In some ways, the human brain is a hell of a lot more efficient than a modern CPU - Imagine a 15W (i.e. a low-mid end laptop) CPU trying to simultaneously handle driving a car, having a conversation, and interpreting the flavour of the gum in your mouth, the smell of the air you're breathing, and all of the touch sensations you're unconsciously interpreting at all times. In this regard, a biologically engineered person would be able to play social situations absolutely perfectly, and think & react very quickly, while still being in all other aspects, like a version of 'captain america' i.e. superhuman.

A Cyborg would be able to calculate really quickly, and lift cars. The level of computer-brain interaction would decide whether a cyborg would have better reflexes and/or reaction time etc. Which is better depends on your opinion.

The biggest problem with the game was you were clearly part of the villainous faction.