Does your future setting feature offsprings and genetic/cybernetic engineered versions of humanity?

Does your future setting feature offsprings and genetic/cybernetic engineered versions of humanity?

No but my fantasy setting does

Yes, and my party is very split on it. But the aliens go balls to the wall Combine with it.

>no taste buds, just electric stimulation
>no genitals, colostomy bags and genital simulation as reward
>kidneys replaced with more efficient filters. Liver and lungs too
>eyes replaced entirely
>nerves augmented, muscles augmented
>brain augments to reduce empathy and increase combat effectiveness and protocol/law task memory (soldiers and cops only).
>voicebox replaced with microphone
>implanted radio transciever
>ballistic weave along the outside of ribs, to increase protection and catch shrapnel.
[Spoiler] its deliberately dystopian [/spoiler]

And more.

Cyborgs are kind of shit on because their bodies are basically tailored to do something, like lift, fight, etc.

We do have designer babies though. Even middle class folks get in on it but not as much as the big spenders. Just filtering for disease.

No, but only because of conservative pushback against it.

The colonial authority that oversees human territories beyond Earth (which is to say, the current government after humanities various space territories told Earth to go fuck itself after Earth tried to drag its colonies into world war 4 and everyone realized they didn't fucking care who owned a given stretch of land on that planet) has a bunch of different regulations and laws about what you can and cant do in terms of 'human adaptation'. They are really worried that people will use genetic engineering and cyberization to modify themselves to live in hostile environments and settle new planets, effectively splinting humanity into a bunch of increasingly unrelated species/cultures. With such division, cooperation becomes less important and conflict becomes inevitable.

The end result of this is that all of the same technologies ARE still being developed in research labs, its just illegal to apply most of it to people beyond a short list of approved treatments like anti-cancer genes (super important in space) and medical prosthetics.
Transhumanist tech is still legal on other lower life forms, leading to a growing population of 'smart dogs' who are essentially slaves but their standards are so low that as long as you give them basic comforts they still think they are getting a good deal. With the right treatments and gear, a smart dog is as intelligent as a person is. But they still, on most levels, think like a dog so they come off as dumb. Smart dogs generally do better in groups with very organized hierarchy, so they tend to serve roles in military or police organizations.
Smart Cats are a thing too, but in much smaller numbers and they are more tightly controlled, because they are basically only useful as terror weapons. They don't take orders well and while they can be very friendly to people they like they can't or wont understand that its wrong to kill people for petty reasons.

There's quite a bit, but most modifications have very strict rules. All races received a genetically inheritable "upgrade" centuries ago, which improves general toughness, disease resistance, and other such useful things that make dying harder and living to old age much easier. These modifications were added slowly, and as I said are genetically inherited so all but the crazy purists have them. There are also more advanced bio-engineering methods that are generally not inheritable and are more exotic. Those are things like advanced muscle enhancements, optional hyperagressive spleens, adaptive cammo, acid glands, etc. Most of these augs can fly under the radar.

Cybernetic augs are usually more noticeable, but sometimes can be concealed. Some mechanical augs are only legal as emergency replacements, like arms and legs, but others like an infrared module in the eyes or a midbrain computer can be purchased with a large sum of cash. Cybernetic augs are generally not though of as highly because some are very difficult to control, or cause particularly nasty side effects in some species.

>the war between humans and machines had been raging for centuries
>both sides had been augmenting and enhancing themselves with bioengineering and cybernetics, until they could no longer tell eachother apart
>a heavily augmented human officer was surprised to find out, one day, that his wife was a robot all along
>as much as she was surprised to find out that he wasn't
>the birth of their child was treated as an armistice
>now this bizarre synth-organic species has turned their gaze outwards, to explore the vast universe
>SHENANIGANS ENSUE

I'll say it does.

Yes, Dragonborn are an engineered caste race produced by dragons having sex with virgins. Very intelligent, very strong, but sterile after the second generation (like a time-delayed Mule) and the sterile ones are typically dumb brutes fit only for warfare.

Giants and half-giants are human genetically meddled with by a dragon that tried to get a workaround the Dragonborn sterility issue, only to be killed by his creations who now hold that region of the Empire as a breakaway revolutionary state that sells guns to insurgents.

I like the idea of mindslaved brains forced to a life of menial labor, and sometimes the laws that bind them going haywire. Maybe even something as simple and sadistic as a brain in a jar running a roomba.

Absolutly

Reminds me off pic

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This virg/chad doesn't make sense, if you are gene-edited you too are transhuman. Cyborg vs Bioborg may make sense, but we all know who true superior borg is: Nanoborg.

Yes, as the status quo. Cybernetics and biomechanical modification have progressed to the point of normality in Corporate Space. Basic limb replacements are considered entry-tier by the more passionate enthusiasts. CNS transplants allow a host of bizarre, outlandish forms, and galactic fashion trends feature all sorts of humanoid and extra-articulate bodies.

Along with them, a side-effect of a thousand years of biological, nanoweapon and radiological warfare has left a noticeable footprint in modern human beings, made up of inactive artificial matter, genetic contamination and dormant viral strains. The majority of these are harmless, but ecological activists argue that their presence has resulted in a human race which is fundamentally polluted.

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A few genetic enhancements here and there are fine, the rich even get away with heavy gene modding. Cybernetics are completely fine.
But altering the human form is outright illegal. Widespread changes are just about the only thing that prompts Earth to intervene in anything.

The number one concern of the Earth government is keeping humanity a somewhat united group, instead of every colony just doing its own thing. If half the colonies ended up looking like squid people so they can fuck each other more efficiently then they wouldn't really be humanity anymore. They don't have efficient FTL communication, so the risk is very real.

Setting is inspired by All Tomorrows,
my players don't know it yet. They just found a turtle fossil thousands of lightyears away from Earth and have no idea why anyone would want to try and cover that up

Your poor players dear god, do they have some serious shock in store for them.
I hope it works out for you.

At this point, wouldn't it just be cheaper to make droids?

Bump

t. antiquated Mechanist

Okay Veeky Forums, how would you run a game in the Half Life universe?

By stopping 2/3rds of the way through the campaign.

FUCK

>Does your future setting feature offsprings and genetic engineered versions of humanity?

Yes, exclusively.
There used to be massive ethical/moral resistance to genetic engineering at one point, but eventually people came to terms with it and it was the people who REFUSED to accept even the basic entry level modifications like genetic screening, gene therapy, and genetic grooming who were considered ethically and morally reprehensible- since they'd be willingly allowing themselves and their offspring the opportunity to be ugly, sick, get cancer, or be deformed.... Which at this point is illegal.
Occasionally you'll get some people with 'cosmetic' genetic enhancements and by law these are SUPPOSED to NOT be genetic, but people are still a little racist against cat girls and the few who are falling down the rabbit hole (kek) of devolving into their f-list characters and rightfully so.

Cybernetic enhancements though are generally frowned upon and deemed as either excessive or a last resort in case someone's body is completely unsalvageable for whatever reason. Cybernetics used to be a case of 'apple vs pc' but genetic engineering began to side and win over the public due to world health organizations and all sorts of other non-profits advocating it's less expensive and long term benefits to humanity.
The other newly developing issue and worry of advanced, full-body, cybernetics is the development of machine 'ghosts': people who've been stripped down to nothing but their brain that it allows them not just the ability to freely transfer from body to body, but project their consciousness into other applicable machines or cyberspaces- causing no end of worry since it's extremely difficult to lock out someone from entering a machine or computer without bricking.

...

Swhr

Are you seriously running an Orion's Arm game, or is your setting just a knockoff of OA like mine is?

They have robots. I just mean the average alien is like that

This. Ya done good.

First
Ha, thats funny.

Second i had this idea, do with it what you will:
>party is in City 13 (Chicago)
>party gets told about a promised-land dimension, preferably by a man in a suit with coordinates.
>party decides to risk it all and travel to the only teleportation lab they know about: Black Mesa research labs.
>party has to make their way across USA, driving and wandering, meeting up with US resistance (rocking old M4s, lever actions, whatever)
>finally get to the teleportation chamber
>turn it on, plant explosives to cover traps
>get in
>flash of light
>party wakes up at some large interdimensional Mujahadeen training camp, the transdimensional Combine Resistance.

"So... far you've come.. but there is Con-sid-er-able work to do... But its not... Time, yet... until we meet again.."- T. Gman

I really like the transhuman arm of the Combine Overwatch?

Same. They shoulda been tougher

Players are all citizens in one of the Combine's cities.

Through no fault of their own, they get embroiled in some rebel insurgent activity, and end up with their entire living block marked for "liquidation".

Cue the entire campaign focusing on their escape through the city, transitioning from very stealth focused, intense inner city stuff, to picking their way through the shelled, abandoned outskirts of the city and eventually the wilderness.

Big emphasis on scavenging and survival. Conflict would come in the form of Combine patrols trying to track down dissidents, xeno lifeforms, and even the occasional hostile rebel group (there's no way every single rebel is an altruistic good guy).

Wouldn't all the PCs be pretty useless then? Civvies in HL2 aren't exactly capable.

>Mechanical and gene transhumanism: inferior
>Spiritual Transhumanism: only true transhumanism.

Repackaging a virus in a shiny shell doesn't make it less a virus.

Yes. It's a space opera setting and meant to justify why so many alien races look like humans of different colors and some fancy makeup. Their colony ships genetically remodeled them in stasis to help them survive the worlds they ended up on. They also might have gone through a weird space/time distortion which means those ships landed at their destinations tens of thousands of years before they had originally even been launched into space.

There are true aliens, and they are meant to be weird as hell.
>Hiveminded, mobile coral colonies who developed
>A race that's hit technological singularity until they're all robotic and end up being more racist to one another than organics.
>Axolotl/snake/electric eel people.

Sort of: It's fairly near future, only a century hence, so genetic modification is something we can do to people but is still expensive and new if it has any serious effects.

There's a variety of soldier, GLM (Golem) Operators, who are genetically modified to be thicc and burly; basically, in order to make them have the maximum amount of energy available for the longest amount of time, they're modified to be naturally fuckheug muscular with minimal working out, and they're thicc so they can store extra energy. They're also all selected so that they're all the same size, since GLM suits are expensive power armor. They also have boosted adrenal glands and such, which means they get even scarier when they're hyped up.

The side effects are minimal; this isn't a dystopia, so the gubment still feels like they at least have to hush up atrocities, if not avoid them altogether. The most obvious is that when an operative gets hyped and the adrenaline starts flowing, they tend to drool. The boosted adrenal glands also make them kind of twitchy - jumpscaring one is a common cause of accidental death in the Navy and Space Corps, or really anywhere they're deployed. Beyond that, they have a big appitite, because they can't moderate their energy usage. This also means they can overheat - thankfully, GLM suits and most nice power armor has internal cooling. But outside of their suit, if it's hot or they're too active, they can overheat and die of heatstroke easy.

Still, they end up being hyper-mobile tanks - small arms fire can't really penetrate the suit, they're 6 time faster than any normal soldier in normal power armor, and they can actually carry proper railguns and the associated cooling equipment, instead of rail-assisted chemical propelled ballistics.

Not to say plenty haven't fistfought light vehicles before. Operators tend to be adrenaline junkies, so there's plenty of stories about them 1v1ing tanks proper (not advised), usually via flippings.

I like all the weaknesses you've built into this, they're interesting.

Yes, as a matter of fact most of Humans are either gene modified test tube babies, cyborgenetically modified since early childhood, or descended from modified humans that went "feral" so to say and bred among themselves.
>pdf unrelated but we might as well post it now

>voicebox replaced with microphone
how do they speak then?

By ending it with a: "And the intergalactic empire didn't even notice your heroic sacrifice, though subsection 2345356-243345 of one of their sub-research-projects that called for the subjugation of Earth to get their hands on the teleporter-research is kind of annoyed because they're seriously falling behind scedule now."

You're a squad of overwatch gone rogue after a malfunction in your control implants. You're running from your former comrades as they seek to "prevent further infection", are on bad terms with the resistance for being former collaborators, and you need to steal resources from the Combine to keep your implants and guns functioning. The short term goal is survival, long term goal is determined by players; convince resistance to work with you, free more of your fellows by trying to replicate your malfunction, be murderhobos, etc.

Brain hooked directly to mic, which has 3 benefits:
1- what you say is recorded

2- your commanding officer can issue orders or alerts through your voicebox to civilians directly if there are no megaphones around

3- the voice is optimized for radio transmission clarity and to sound aggressive and uniform

This would work better for Metrocops, Overwatch have gone full robobrain indoctrinated, I don't think there's much coming back.

>tfw it looks like we're gonna have to cut a path through every chickenshit metrocop who's having second thoughts about defending City 17.

It would, but I've always had a thing for mind controlled mooks breaking free as a concept.

Maybe there are a mad resistance scientist and a helpful vortigaunt that were able to break the indoctrination and some players were able to flee from the Overwatch.

Ingame they are quite buffed. It's ridicolous how resilient rebels are compared to the combine. Just see any test about half life AI and you'll see it.

Qu did nothing wrong desu.

Civvies literally have like 3x as much help as Overwatch soldiers

I don't think the game mechanics are really meant to be reflective of the realities of the setting, come on now.

I dont disagree but its fucking weird how its set up.

>overwatch has armor, better equipment on average, is more accurate, strong melee, and a somewhat more cover oriented AI

>civies get rare rocket launchers, extra HP, medics

I'm not sure why they set it up that way when HECU marines would have been perfect to copy-paste and upgrade

...

Bruh, microphones are for picking up sounds, not transmitting them.

Well, I guess I should tell about my OA ripoff game:

Yes, 5000 years in the future and Solarians have had an interesting place in the galaxy for the last several millenia. They were introduced into a galactic society ravaged from an eon long war between Higher Dimensional angel-like beings known as Celestials and monstrous, depraved beings from an unknown realm called Hellborne, the latter of which invaded the galaxy an unknown amount of time ago, forgotten or unknown to the species and civilizations left behind from the war. There are very few of those peoples left (at least known and in contact with galactic society, though some say most dead planets still house what's left of their inhabitants, near the core of their worlds).

As such, Solarians have exploded into the barren niches of the galaxy in a great variety of forms. Nowadays in the Utopic Realm near the galaxy's core, people look so wildly different from each other that no one can be sure of anyone's galactic origins. This galactic affinity for morphological novelty ripples through what's left of the people's of the Milky Way, some more than others. Baseline humans still exist, for example, though most of them live on luddite or relatively primitive and non ascended worlds, or sometimes even in nature preserves. Still, they are a ubiquitous meme and icon in the galaxy, and seeing a human will usually warrant some kind of reaction.

Finally got around to reading this after ignoring it for years
Well that was dark.

Bump

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Basically every character in nearly every fictional universe is some degree of posthuman now that I think about it.
In one fantasy setting everyone belongs to different races all descended from extinct human precursors.
In another fantasy setting everyone Are actually various godlike beings that have convened in the realms between realities to share stories with each other only to forget who they during their role play and split their minds into billions of "human" fragments
And in a sci fi setting everyone is some manner of genetically engineered and/or cybernetically modified human or synthetic artificial being derived from humans spread across the solar system and a few other colonized stars.

you're right, I meant loudspeaker, my bad. Absolute brain fart on my part

Sadly less fluffy than that.

When I say 'smartdog', you should instead imagine what looks like a vaguely canine robot that can switch between 4 legged and two legged modes at will, with most of a dogs brain and a bunch of organs inside.

There is a tiny robot 'tail' for signaling on the shoulder. It doesn't serve any real function, but the dogs get really stressed not having a tail. Its a big part of their nonverbal communication.

Its not uncommon for smartdogs to swap out frame mods for specific tasks. For example, a military dog wouldn't keep their combat-grade armored body during downtime. Casual time smartdog frames almost always have a patch of synthetic skin and fur along their back with a color that is supposedly the same as their organic body was, before they got transplanted and achieved full intelligence. This skin patch is more sensitive than most of the artificial sensors, and again forms an important part of the dog's psychological well being. Dogs place a greater emphasis on touch for comfort than people do. Just resting your hand against a dogs back can have a great calming effect.

tldr: he may look like a robutt, but dont forget to hug your smartdog today!