In settings where you can essentially become a less than human killing machine that only looks human at a passing...

>Mechanical enhancements and Biological enhancements.
I would like to see you genetically modify yourself to be bulletproof.

>what if its just the run of the mill model that you got because you were simply eaten by an escalator? I really love the idea of people doing military things with shit that is in no way designed to do it.
>I don't why but I love the idea of a man with a full prosthetic/cyber arm using a super low tech weapon like a revolver simply because lowtech/hightech

I always imagine that would be the case. The idea of having augmentations specifically designed for combat sounds dumb to me now because Joe the repairman who's legs were destroyed while working on an elevator isn't going to get the prosthetic legs that come with vibro blades in the ankles.

That said, Mohammad who has the cheap prosthetics (something akin to what Boss has in MGS5 he could do some tinkering to make it easier to use a gun but then he doesn't have to worry fucking up the nerves in his arms because he just slides the hand on and off the stump.

>terminator 2 is fucking awesome
that and I'm a sucker for the obsolete design destroys the bleeding edge military thing

If its a normal replacement limb, it'd function exactly like a normal limb.

> Shadowrun
The limbs come off the line designed to be used for all kinds of bullshit. Like anything from Aztechnology being able to mount a machinegun/flashlight/grenade penis

>40k
The limbs out right are industrial grade. No covering and everything is just designed to be super robust as possible. I like these a bit more aesthetically, because they are designed to last/not break over 400 years.

Aight, here's a proof of concept:
youtube.com/watch?v=IaZ10VlSoZs

Dense, ironlike chitin and catlike reflexes?

Eh... I might talk to the player to see if they want to get tied up to a benefactor like that. Because if you kind of force that when they aren't really interested they might not really care for the campaign and things could go sideways.

I'm not saying it has to be that way. This is me rationalizing parts of cyberpunk sci-fi that I find particularly interesting and maybe slightly autistic.

I mean, people get hung up on details like how medievel armor is designed and what not but for me when it comes to sci-fi settings my thing is I find it weird to invest so much energy to chop up someone's brain to put a computer into it when it makes more sense (to me) to simply have inputs that can interact with a computer because I'd hate to have to go under the knife ever two years because my brain computer is outdated spec wise.

Togusa was actually hired to section 9 specifically because of his lack of modifications, if you remember, FOR THIS EXACT REASON.

>Togusa was actually hired to section 9 specifically because of his lack of modifications, if you remember, FOR THIS EXACT REASON.

I do actually.
I remember that being, like, the introductory statement for his character in the film and said a couple of times throughout the series.

Why I don't remember it "that" well is that really it didn't matter because he still got his memory and brain hacked by that uhhhh...The laughing man, so really it didn't matter.

Well, at the very least his body couldn't be puppeted and he'd be forced to turn on other members of section 9 in a gunfight.

I think a vast majority of people even without full body prosthetics have cybereyes and minor brain implants. The garbage guy also had his memories hacked as well.

It's something that people forget about a lot, but shadowrun has rules for low-essence (due to cyberware) characters who need serious medical attention also requiring the doctor in question to make mechanics/cybertech rolls to treat injuries.

He was also hired (probably more so) for the reason that he was a real police officer and section 9 needed someone to act as the rational check on a group of special forces loose cannons.

Admittedly I'm not super familiar with the relevant genres, but all the non-anime movies/etc I can think of do have something to slow cyborgs down.

In GitS the Major needs regular maintenance because she has ultra high end high performance parts. I'm sure there are gangs on the street with the equivalent to floppy drive level cyber tech that can probably get something working with just a screwdriver, but at the cost of seriously reduced performance.

In Shadowrun you have essence loss with more cyberware, which reduces your ability to do magic and technomancy, and I think it's fluffed as having some psychological issues that come with it too.

In (newer, I haven't played the old ones) Deus Ex games you need Neuropozyne, which is expensive and addictive, plus they mention augment psychosis every now and then.

Come to think of it Johnny Mnemonic didn't have any problems shown aside from lack of HDD space and related issues, but that was an action movie and may have just glossed over things (plus a single hard drive that you don't normally access is a pretty small addition).

I'm sure there's more but those are the ones I can think of.

Well, first off, doesn't Shadowrun explicitly deal with this via the Essence mechanic and mentions about the drawbacks of obvious cyberware? Most adventures include going through gates that scan for hostile cyberware.

GURPS talks about this in a call out box. In Transhuman Space it's a recurring theme. Basically, chromed out cybersamurai are possible but would easily be detected and so obviously dangerous that it's counterproductive.

Besides, it's easy to kill people via even more effective and subtle means. Or if you do need firepower, send a military combat drone that's just as obvious but more dangerous and also cheaper and more expendable.

As for garage surgery... that's a likely consequence of technology. In a grungy near-future setting, penalties and consequences are absolutely justified but one theme of high-TLs is that economies of scale are replaced by economies of scope, and home production of all kinds of stuff becomes common (Toffler called this prosumerism).

It's like wearing full armor and carrying a halberd everywhere. Possible with today's technology, cheap if it became common... but who would bother? It's too obviously what it is, and totally obviated by other even more potent weapons and defenses.

Existential dread is not a theme of DnD's heroic fantasy except as a subplot to one or two campaigns and thus no dedicated mechanics were developed for it. Check out the Humanity scale in World of Darkness. Pretty sure there's a 'Nam RPG with a morale meter as well

Most people have minor augmentations, such as a brain implant that enables them to connect to the web in some way (although most need some form of peripheral to use it, hence those headsets people put on now and then).

Second most common cybernetics are ones to replace injury, or one or two specialised things for their professions.

Full bodied cyborgs like most of Section 9 are rare and really expensive. The Major is an even more unusual case where she has been in one since she was a child, due to an accident, which is why she is the leading expert when it comes to that sort of cyberwarfare.

On that note, there are two different versions of the Major growing up. One is where she started off with a childs body and they changed her to a new body now and then, as she grew up. She explains the reason she wears a watch that is functionally useless to a cyborg is because it was a gift for her final body fitting. Although that begs the question that what asshole bought her a fucking watch, since at this point the only people who knew her that long were the ones giving her new bodies, and would have KNEW that she doesn't need a watch to tell the time

The other one is more simple and also fucking terrifying in it's own special little way, and that is as cybernetics were still in the early days when she had her accident, she was places straight into an adult sized body, while still having the brain of a child. In this version of her backstory they mention how she was very clumsy at first, because she wasn't used to her new size, but that aside having the outward appearance of an adult while being a child must fuck you up a bit.

that's why cyberpunk 2020 and shadowrun had essence

He was far more augmented in SAC than he was in the original manga. In the original manga, he basically just had medimahcines and a simple com system.

>but that aside having the outward appearance of an adult while being a child must fuck you up a bit

Nah. I was consistently viewed as significantly older than I was as a child due to my size. All it made me realise was that I could get away with things. Was never stopped by the police when if I skipped school. Drove without a license under age for a bit because people didn't question me getting into a car. Honestly, wasn't too bad.

Except for that time I accidentally hurt another child my age rough housing. Got the cops called on me because parents thought I was some weird adult woman messing with their kids. That was awkward.

yeah but that was because in SAC brain-cases were almost standard for everybody to the point that only the homeless didn't have a brain-case.

As a cybernetic american this is true. One is COMPLETELY reliant on someone else's money dollars to survive. It is hellish.

I never asked for this.

I realize the Major probably didn't have a meat brain anymore but I always wonder how you deal with various hormones needed for proper functioning of your remaining meat bits?

Not to mention how the lack thereof could affect you? Does the major's body produce artifical estrogen?

That aside I think there was an episode in GiTs where a politician got his body jacked and he was put inside of a briefcase essentially. This was pulled off because said politician liked to bodyswap with prostitutes and have them fuck him with his body.

The essence of trans-humanism is that being human is a state of mind.

Trans girl detected. [spoilers]It's okay, you're not alone, and being dependent upon some corporation and having to jump through hoops on regular basis just to receive "maintanance" fucking sucks. But hey, we do what we must to survive, yeah?[/spoiler]

I'm unsure what games you're talking about. Shadowrun has the whole essence system and stats for different grades of cyberware and necessary down times after surgery. I've never played C2027 but I would assume it has similar rules for downtime among other things. They also run on the assumption that shitty street docs only exist if they have at least the level of competency of a professional, so complaining about it being in someone's garage is kinda moot.

Spidersilk somehow woven into your skin?

The Major does have a meatbrain At first at least. I believe at the end of the animated movie she goes full "Ghost on the Internet"

Otherwise, I imagine they have the hormones they need stored in the body and they get topped up now and then. There is special cyborg only food, so maybe that helps.

There is also the thing where cyborgs can still feel sexual pleasure, and if they connect cyberbrains with someone they can share it, but it is dangerous for a man and a woman to do it since their nervous systems are subtlety different and it could cause serious harm, but it is something Mitoko is really good at for some reason.

GitS has the weirdest kinks.

they explain that in the show.

the cyborg food is literally glue and carpet. the cyborgs have no real stomach. bato drinks but only for taste as he can't get drunk, they get their nutrients delivered directly to the brain.

Didn't the Major say they could break down the alchohal in their body and sober up in an instant? I suppose older bodies still had something resembling stomachs and intestines if they could get smashed.

that was just straight mechanics. like when they are blown apart, they only really have about a pint of blood, a tiny air filter, and a tiny thing for onboard food. Its weird.

i once had an argument on here because the user thought that you needed blood transfusions because you have less marrow. He did not understand that the less of a body you have that the less blood/nutrition you need.

Irl you could be a stump and be just fine on terms of blood. Only real issue would be heat build up.

I have a pacemaker. I've had one since childhood. I've had bones fixed with a shitload of titanium because reasons. Presently 1/16th of my weight is metal. I was born broken and would rather have not been, but unfortunately it is what it is: EXPENSIVE.

this kind of shit is why I think most people will opt for wearable tech over augmentations in the future. Organics are superior in that they are self-repairing.

depends on the type of tech really. They have self healing plastics that use a fluid matrix to self heal and all you really do is replace it once its unable to heal or refill the reserves.

I like the idea of direct neural interface and straight replacement of broken/awful shit. Hell, i've got medical ailments that tech could fix in 20 years with cybernetics.
>fucked up eyes
>arthritic knees
>damaged ligament in foot
>fucked up stomach/intestine

>becoming bullet proof
how big of a bullet?

It makes sense you wouldn't see soldiers with full on military grade prosthetic arms although that brings up an intereing point.

There are some soldiers who have fake legs and hands and still operating in the military (albeit outside of active combat) I wonder what would the military do for such soldiers to put them in the field? More so how would you be considered disable if you could still fight on the front line with your prothetic limb?

Fucking lol

...

there is an active combat duty soldier who is missing both legs and his right arm at the shoulder. With modern day prosthetics and re-arranging his loadout he's just as effective as a normal soldier.

today's prosthetics are just slower moving, which forces you to be more deliberate with how you move.

wish my GM would focus on the downsides of shit like this. It's always this side of good natured plot hooks. Kind of annoys me when an optimist runs a game.

I really do love how running with distinctive style, no one has noticed or said shit about it yet, and its been like 20 sessions in.

Well fuck you too buddy. Next go round get born with a congenital heartblock and a heart rate of 55. See how much you like being a fucking cybernetic american.

CYBORG IS OUR WORD, FLESHMEATS.

What nation?

nation of the soldier is united states. there's also a shit ton of double amputees.

i know a dude who has a heart condition where his body attacks the cardiac cells. they cored his heart out and gave him a pace maker and a defibrillator. He also does a shit ton of cocaine and weed. 40 year old guy who used to be a debt collector for the mexican mob in florida. Coooool guy.

Actually, now I want to flesh this out more in terms of a future where it's pretty hot and heavy with Bio-engineering and Robotic-enhancements competing against one another for a monopoly over the people...

Because the cons of advanced Bioengineering don't really seem, uhh.. obvious to me? You know?
Trans user over here could easily and gradually develop into any kind of beautiful girl he wanted to over the span of a few months maybe half a year with the one time purchase of a few biologists "flicking some switches" in his dna.

Pacemaker user could go through some gene therapy and basically watch as his body becomes "the best version of itself" in a few years- getting better n' stronger every day without having any kind of expensive maintenance.... Well, besides FOOD and EXERCISE.

I guess really the only thing I can think of is it can't do anything SUPER FAST?
I'm thinking about, like, hormone therapy, rejection, etc.. but if we're talking about >ADVANCED Bioengineering, those problems would probably be a thing of the distant past; as long as you had the dna or material available they could most likely cultivate or change you in all sorts of ways quite easily overtime.

I dunno, maybe people wouldn't like being inconvenieced while their baby limbs grow back?
Or the fact that if they went through -huge- changes it'd be a 2nd puberty all over again due to the hormones?

Cancer? Maybe? I dunno.

see

I head about this massive crocodile in africa that's survived multiple gunshots.

That's something crocodiles in general can do

They can avoid having to deal with the benefactor by not getting the augments and relying on their natural body, it's a good way of balancing out how powerful they are. You can either have a natural body that maintains itself or you can have an unnatural body that has to be maintained, requiring you to have people who can maintain it, or you can try and get by an un-maintained unnatural body that doesn't operate at peak effectiveness (but is still significantly better then a natural body in some areas).

I mean are all your games just endless power fantasy's where players never have to make tough decisions? Sounds boring.

How much younger then 18 were you though? I think the major's supposed to be like 8 or around there when she gets in the accident, not a teenager yet even.

>depends on the type of tech really. They have self healing plastics that use a fluid matrix to self heal and all you really do is replace it once its unable to heal or refill the reserves.
Sorry but I'd rather rely on a self-healing mechanism that's literally over a billion years old rather then one some egghead cooked up last week. It's not perfect but at least we have a very good understanding of it's kinks.

worst case scenario would be the plasmids from bioshock. temporary stem cells that have to be reapplied over and over again just to stick.

Your DNA doesn't really like to be re-written while its still being used. When your body detects changes from the original it will try to kill it. Say you have a problem with a certain tissue in your stomach and you get the problem fixed with gene-mods. Well, stomach tissue is extremely fast replacing and you'd quickly be out of modified cells as your body would be going back to the original blue print.

>basically in order for gene-mods to work you would have to change the genetic code of the stem cells already present in your body.

only a few ways you could do this, but the easiest would be retro virus. 2% of the human genome is viral.

>Problem with retro virus is they simply don't like to go away and literally have to be evolved around. So while you want everyone to have healthy tummies, the virus is simply a program that is using your DNA to manifest a symptom that is beneficial.

Virus could mutate and kill you. Or do what other retro viruses do and change your DNA in an unforeseen way 30 generations down the line. Hell, HIV is a retro virus that would take 3,000 years for us to evolve past, and that is if everyone has it.

>symbiotic organisms
these would be able to self replicate inside you without actually needing to fuck around with what makes you actually YOU. There are a few. One man made an egg that would grow into a tape worm that would be sterile and not make more eggs. When he took it, his immune system would be bolstered by the simple fact there is a foreign body. As a result of said jack fuckery, he no longer has hay fever.

problem with symbiotic organisms could be all kinds of things really. You could end up devoting too much food to it. It could move to a spot that is uncomfortable, such as under the skin. No real way to predict how it will be have as you are literally a host.

>Say you have a plastic skull because you were stupid and decided to do a table top over a moving car on your BMX.

If you have no option and must go with a plastic self healing skull you would not have to worry about micro fractures that would slowly cause an extremely expensive surgically implanted skull to crack, it will cause it to outlast you. Plastic doesn't degrade, and if it heals, that means it will last even longer as it will literally have to erode away or deplete its own built in amount of healing epoxy.

>plastic would help with replacement bone or as a scaffold for the bone to grow on.

You can also use self healing plastics in many many applications. Hell, wrap your bones in a lattice of plastic that heals, if you break a bone it will hold together. Plastic is not naturally broken down by the human body either so there is low risk to you.

crocodiles have a brain the size of your testicle. Their skull is just fucking thick as hell with nothing really in it. If you want to look at an animal that is really hard to fucking kill, look at the Alligator Gar from the united states. Its scales are extremely sharp, over lap, and have been used as arrow heads and on plows. They are also known to stop/deflect buck shot fired out of a fucking 12 gauge shotgun.

yeah, having a lot of titanium in your skeleton doesn't exactly make you tougher. Stress on the individual pins and plates/rods can cause them to crack or the bone itself to just break free. Your skeleton doesn't really like being held together in weird ways. Which I am quite certain you're well aware of.

I am only mentioning this because some retarded user probably has an idea for a character by breaking every bone he has and getting internal armor thanks to health insurance.

>I am only mentioning this because some retarded user probably has an idea for a character by breaking every bone he has and getting internal armor thanks to health insurance.

Which makes me wonder how much sense bone lacing actually makes. I mean, you're covering your bones in a foreign material but while the metal might not break the bone underneath very well could. I'd hate to have to have surgery done and the surgeons can't operate on me because they can't cut my sub dermal armor or my metal laced bones can't be set without undoing all of it.

>Behold my impenetrable subdermal armour! No blade can pierce these plates!
>dies of appendicitis the next week

>bone lacing
your bones will fracture when enough force is applied. Fractures naturally start at the surface. The bone lacing would basically redirect some of that force over the bone allowing it to bend more and simply holding it together when it does fracture. So instead of you getting a compound fracture or simply shattering your femur it can be simply put in a cast for a 4 months and heal faster. Plus the lattice itself could be used as a delivery system for whatever super drugs they have in the future.

>sub dermal armor
well, its still UNDER the skin. You just simply cut at the side of the plate, slide it out and go in for surgery. Or simply go in through the gap in the plates. For your appendix they tend to go in through your belly button and snake through you with tools.

Now, I really hate how you can't stack shit in shadowrun. You totally could make your bones way denser simply by standing on micro vibration plates. Nasa made a sheep stand on one and the bone density increased by a third because the vibrations tricked the body into thinking its on higher gravity. Then wrap the super dense bone with plastic or metal or what ever. Throw the sub dermal armor on and make your skin tougher by either thickening it or running another lattice through it.

If they have the technology to wrap your bones in a lattice of metal/plastic, they can easily run it through your skin in certain spots. Most likely it'd be ontop of the plates of armor since they are most likely to get shot.

>you'll be fine either way
seriously, you'll be less likely to die from anything besides natural causes.

user, we're already at the point where nobody needs a watch to tell the time

it's jewelry

While this is mostly true we arn't quite there yet where we have HUDs built into our eyes. I eagerly look forward to that.

ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_the_new_bionics_that_let_us_run_climb_and_dance

That's one of the things I hate about stuff like Read-Only Memories and Deus Ex's prequels - social issues boil down into 'racism against guys with plastic arms' when it should be 'everyone NEEDS a smartphone, or at least a phone, but you need the latest and greatest if you want to do more stuff'.

The way bias against genefreaks and cybered up chromes is depicted is like trying to be racist against a guy with an iPad.

There ought to be more about the very real danger of being unable to maintain augmentations, or due to a botched operation, being unable to take new augs, or augs being subject to planned obsolescence.

On the 'I never asked for this' side of things, desu it's like current trends with tech. Most people are going to be okay with some level of getting augs. Some are going to be lucky enough to get hi-end augs. The guys who go all-out and aug into super-specialized shit like, I don't know, mobile cryptocurrency hacking or abstract art or ultra-high-end psuedosupercomputer brains are going to be treated the same as modern geeks who build bitcoin rigs, get those ultraexpensive nvidia HPC processors, or do shit like juryrig holograms and simulators, some with 'haha get a life nerd' disdain, mostly with 'wow that's neat but damn that's hardcore'. There's going to be people who think REEEEEEE END OF THE WORLD END OF SOCIETY END OF ACTUALLY TALKING TO PEOPLE and will be suspicious of new tech, and there'll be one step further than that and people who reject everything and move far the fuck away from it as possible, be it small conservative towns or communes or just livin' in the wilderness or in a cabin (and we already have shit like this today, so).

Well, problem is, you're looking at it from how our world will look in the future.

But Deus Ex is set in a world where dumbfuck Alex Jones is actually onto something. It's set in a world where society is controlled. Where people don't think logical things, but things they're meant to be thinking.

Well yeah, I mean, all it takes is one AI chick and she can sway the majority of the worlds opinion in whatever way you want.

That said, knowing that little Susie and Tyrone had thier Isight eyes gouged out by some aug stealing gangs seems way more compelling story telling than "omg! That guy has a plastic body!" Especially if you take the route where people who give up a majority of their real body for such augs for an industry that crashes results in them being violent junkies doing anything to keep themselves alive and semi functioning.