Full Borgs; How could it be done?
When you want to abandon the flesh.

I'd like to create this thread to try and figure out how the hell a full-borg system could be implemented in the game. I have a few ideas of the upsides and downsides of being a full borg that are already expressed in other mediums.

[What is a Full Borg?]

A full borg means that someone has gone through with fully and completely transforming themselves cybernetically. This means arms, legs, torso, organs, everything but the brain and vital organs have been stripped away, and the 'person' is now a jar of organs floating in a small jar, typically called a biopod. The biopod /is/ the person. Everything else has been replaced.
This is an extreme procedure that requires tons of physical therapy, emotional strength, and mental fortitude to endure. The origins of the practice are obvious- Extreme dangerous locales for workers that regular human beings simply could not endure, and war, for soldiers that needed to be more than meat. Then, when people in extreme situations realized it could save their lives, they reached out to take it.

[But what does it mean?]

Fullborgs have several advantages over a regular person, being closer to a machine.
- No need to breathe, immune to radiation- The biopod life support system generates it's own oxygen and essentially keeps the brain in stasis, and is lead lined.
- Less nutrition required - The brain only needs a specialized blend of nutrients and minerals introduced once monthly in order to maintain functionality. This includes needing water.
- Stronger, Better, Faster. - All physical stats go up. Built like a machine means built better than biology in a vast majority of the cases. Obviously, you can't 'machine' yourself smarter, or sexier.
- Disease is no factor - With the brain safely tucked away into a sterile pod, there's no way to get ill. You have the potential to work with patients that nobody else would dare to work with.
- Tough - Built out of metal, you are simply tougher than most people. You automatically have dermalweave-tier armor protection on top of your already rebuilt frame. You also do not experience physical exhaustion, but you do still need to sleep. You do not bleed from injuries, as there is no blood to bleed. You do not feel 'pain'. Extreme heat and extreme cold do not effect you. Fire can only singe your clothes, if you choose to wear them, but you lack anything to burn.

THE DOWNSIDES.
Processor?? - You will absolutely either need an overclock or several coprocessors to handle your new body, if not both. While the overall package is less taxing than getting all the individual parts would be due to more advanced procedures, materials, and functionality, you will be more limited in what you can take. You are, however, considered to have the 'prerequisite' chrome for every type of chrome in the game. Your eyes ARE cybereyes. Your ears are cyberears. You simply need get the modules.

Nothing in, nothing out - Besides your 'nutritional brain juice injection', you cannot eat, drink, or do drugs. Drugs are too dangerous to inject directly into the fragile ecosystem of the biopod (sans the Flashboost, which has careful modulation of epinephrine generated by your vital organs already and is already in a sealed, safe environment). This also means you cannot be poisoned. You can no longer smell, or taste, which some may consider a positive in Withmore, but you do retain the sensation of touch thanks to advanced FleshRite systems, as well as vision and hearing.
Additionally, unless you install certain 'sexual' chrome, your gender has been effectively nullified physically. You will always appear as a 'cyborg' unless in disguise.

Nanos? Biomods? - You are a machine. Biomods have no matter to effect. Nanogenics are entirely ineffective as there is no body for it to adjust.

EMPs - You are very vulnerable to them. Misfortune can mean simply perishing instantly if your Biopod goes offline. If the body itself goes offline, but the pod remains intact, you are rendered blind, deaf and dumb, but can still utilize your SIC to beg your friends for help. Only a Cybertech can save you now.

Damage - While you are tougher, you cannot simply go to the hospital when you are injured. Either you have to wait for your auto-repair system to kick in to self-repair very slowly, or go to a mechanic and have them use scrap kits to repair you, which is considerably costlier than going to a regular hospital. If you are 'knocked out', your systems crash, then if you are not 'finished off', reboot in emergency mode, allowing you to crawl away to give your auto-repair systems time to get you into a more stable state. At least your limbs can't be severed.

PDS - Despite the advanced methods and technology that comes with being a fullborg, the PDS present with such a transformation makes 95% of people on the planet unable to tolerate a Full Body Conversion without experiencing at least minor PDS. With NuPoz being ineffective for Full Borgs, only continual therapy and meditative techniques are effective.

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When getting fullborged, I believe that you could could make your new 'skin color' one of the chrome colorations, or FleshRite (if you can handle the spike in processing power) if you wanted to pretend to be a regular human.

Please contribute your ideas, critiques, or whatever, I'd like to talk about this topic and it's potential.

Edit to add: I think you should still be able to get a clone, since it can still scan your brain, that would allow you to return 'back to human' should you perish', but the psychological toll of going from machine perfection back to muddled meat should be CONSIDERABLY harsher than a regular vatting.
I also believe that if the 'Biopod' goes down and the person 'dies' but isn't finished off, a defib 'kick-starting' the pod's electrical emergency system is still a viable way to bring a full-borg back to life as long as it's done before brain death occurs.

(Edited by AdamBlue9000 at 6:12 am on 9/11/2026)

I think your biggest hurdle is PDS. Perhaps a "BORGPDS" script can be implemented to replace generic PDS? Or a modulator that prevents certain physical aspects of it flowing out?

Going full Borg could also, in theory, allow players to wield heavy weapons casually. You could make it so they could not wear clothes/armor, I mean what's the need?
You could limit what vehicles they can get in because they now weigh 1000lbs. I mean there are tons of ways you could balance it and still keep it themely and desirable.

Or an origin?

Smasher: You're immune to PDS, or you completely revel in it due to your psychotic nature so you're unaffected by PDS so you have access to restricted, military-grade or UN-grade chromes. Only corporations, or big-time factions have access to them, and once you get them, they're not gong to let you leave them afterwards.

They will absolutely do everything to keep you, including killing you repeatedly to ensure that you'll stick with them. It's either be a loyal dog, or perm out.

all im saying is in the material that we are directly ripping cyberbrains from they're used to access the internet without a physical device. a mnemonic cyberbrain would be much more worth its cost if it had a built-in gridterm, even if it's just equivalent to a liteterm. i believe a regular full cyberbrain should be able to do this too but the connectivity of that depending on signal would be a fine trade-off. partial could be just functionally a quickterm in its entirety, maybe even a streetterm



or i suppose we could do partials as quick-equivalents, full as lite-equivalent, and mnemonic as a nova-equivalent

True, although I do think some implants could do with having their PDS load dialed back a little. Not saying entirely get rid of it, but, you know.

There'd need to be some mechanical drawback to that, though. Maybe it tanks the shit out of your charisma, being an Unfeeling Machine and all?