So I just threw in BladeRunner, and I was wonding is there ever going to be some uber form of soldiers? Like Replicants? and maybe a police force to govern them? That'd be pretty cool if we had a replicant class for PC's, Sure they'd be stronger/faster then the lot of us…but...oh well:) just and Idea.
As far as SD, we've had plotlines revolving around genetically enhanced humanoids. I'm sure it will show up in the future in another plot…those pesky corporate R&D guys just don't know when to quit...do they?
I frown on giving any player an advantage like this straight out of char-gen.
This sort of thing can easily be developed by a player on his own over the course of several weeks of playing.
Let's all PK Dick!
Simulants/replicants = synthetic lifefor with artificial intelligence.
Genetically improved/modified human(oids) doesn't fall into the same category. A genetically engineered human(oid) would be 'born' from reproductive materials and would not fall into the simulant/replicant category. These kind of enhancements -will- be available in the form of bio-ware, a subset of cyberware. Injections of genetic material to 'improve' your own genetic make-up. Creating a genetically engineered character out of chargen is just a matter of suitable history/descriptions.
Sims/reps - I muse about these. Would they have a 'soul'? Would they be able to clone? Doubtful, by conventional methods. Although downloading their 'persona' to some kind of storage media and transfering it to another simulant body would probably be possible. Sims/reps will probably exist at some point in the future but I feel they fall squarely in the NPC category, along with AI's. Actually, I feel that they are simply AI's with a 'vehicle' in the human world.
That all said, I -do- envisage a future possibility for players to choose to become data entities, most likely via some kind of perma-hookup of their brain to a matrix connection, giving them superior matrix talents at the expense of their meat body. Find your own mystical explanation, but my view is that when your clones are activated your 'soul' is somehow drawn to your new existence (hence the journey into the tunnel of light and such). Any transfer of your 'persona' to a non-biological storage medium would result in an AI that indeed behaved exactly like you but would not actually -be- you.
Iunno, the potential what-if's and theoretical debate that could go into this topic is endless... I disagree with Johnny's reason for their not being a replicant option out of chargen, since any chargen 'option' potentially gives you benefits over other characters at the expense of certain disadvantages. Replicant would just be the same as this, no different to any other choice you make in chargen. That said, I'm terribly against the Bladerunner cliche of replicants, rogue replicants and a police force dedicated to hunting them. Since that 'police force' would be the most logical 'disadvantage' to give people who created replicant characters I'd have to see a more original and viable 'disadvantage' to give them before even thinking about implementing a replicant option.
All that said... perhaps we -could- create some kind of 'replicant' option in chargen that doesn't actually carry massive stat advantages but -does- render the character subject to a different set of IC laws and OOC constraints. It'd be an interesting flavor... To avoid the Bladerunner cliche I'd be -far- more tempted to base our system on the recent movie, A.I. Mecha, was it? I forget the term used in the movie, but I remember after seeing the movie that I was -very- into the idea of blending those concepts into SD.
We could... prevent mecha from using the regular cloning systems but make their 'corpses' subject to repair/reactivation. Perhaps render them immune to KO but allow them to be immobilized at around the same point at which a human would be KO'd. That'd be very simple to do, they'd be subject to -all- the same rules as a KO'd character except they would be able to see everything going on around them. I'm already about the process of hacking combat and some other systems to suitably substitute messages to have non-blood based fluids squirting around when damage is done, mostly for cyberlimbs, but the same code would support any substitutions.
How about this? An immobilized Mecha would never 'die' or go to limbo, nor be able to clone. Instead it will be rendered permenantly in the immobilized state (KO'd but can see) until repaired or until the Mecha player decided to 'move on' and typed a command to self-terminate. Mecha would be legally subject to 'ownership' and any un-owned Mecha would be subject to capture by the WJF and impounded for resale to a new owner. Mecha's would also be legally required to have installed an implant that renders them incapable of attacking. This implant -can- be removed by a cybertech skilled character but is -highly- illegal. A Mecha owner who's Mecha is found not to have an implant would be sentenced to death, the Mecha would then be apprehended and subject to the same impound/resale as an unowned Mecha after being fitted with the non-combat implant.
Technically all this gives Mecha's no big advantage, but does add flavor to the game. The big problem I had with CS's simulant system is that it is purely viewed as a method to create statistically superior characters and while that works on CS it doesn't generally fit with the way the SD world is evolving to be non-combat oriented.
Hrm... food for thought.
This reminds me of Asimov's laws of Robotics, I remember a short story whereas a robot psychologist had removed the constraints from a robot's brain to see how it'd react, it ended up having dreams - in fact, the story was called Robot Dreams.
It also reminds me of an old pen and paper game by West End valled Paranoia, where one of the secret societies, Corpore Metal, had the goal of removing all Asimov chips from bots in order to cause a revolt. Of course, Paranoia was a humor game and one of the prominent members of Corpore Metal was named Schwartzene-G-GER (i.e. name:Schwartzene Secirity clearance: Green Home sector: GER). There were other neat names like Anne-R-KEY and Tois-R-USS.
But anyway, yeah.
It would also allow for other char types to be more prominant within the dome, CyberDoc's(owners), Trainers(coders),Parts dealers(Highly Expensive).
Getting deeper into the supporting chars, you could have CYTAC teams,(kinda like the command base for all Rep/Sim activities), HackJobs(your common thieves, Running around Disabling them stealing Procs, optical nurves and such, selling them on the black market), to Imps(implant Doc's, that are able to turn Rep/Sim parts into something the average Joe can use)
