Cyberware connects machinery and computers to the human nervous system, including the brain, allowing artificial components to replace, supplement, or extend the body's natural functions. Cybernetic augmentation is common throughout the world and beyond it. In Withmore City, every legal resident receives a Secure Identification Chip for registration and communication, while many residents choose additional enhancements.
The field includes neural interfaces, prosthetic replacements, and systems that grant abilities beyond ordinary human limits. Nanogenic injections are also grouped within the broader discipline of cybernetics, although their method differs from the installation of a mechanical limb or electronic implant.
Replacement limbs include cyberarms, cyberhands, cyberfeet, and both complete and partial cyberlegs. Artificial organs provide another form of augmentation: Saedor Krupp's Supplemental Renal System, for example, consists of artificial kidneys. A prosthesis need not look conspicuously mechanical. Some cyberarms resemble human limbs, while customized finishes can emphasize their artificial construction.
Sensory cyberware includes replacement eyes and ears alongside modules that expand what their users can perceive. Products include thermographic and low-light vision modules, telescopic lenses, amplified hearing chips, and sound-editing systems. Translator chips assist with understanding spoken languages; the Silver Translator Chip offers basic comprehension rather than promising complete fluency.
Neural processors support other implants, and visual overlays provide a means of displaying information from installed systems. Skillsoft sockets accept chips that upload knowledge into the user's mind. Specialized interfaces connect the user with external equipment: the PRI ARIN-series Rigging Interface links to vehicle systems and can feed vehicle information to a visual overlay.
Physical enhancements range from the Flashboost Capacitor Unit, which briefly improves agility by releasing stored epinephrine, to cybernetic exoskeletons. Implanted weapons include Nailz finger blades, ceramic arm blades, and wristwhips. Cosmetic and intimate augmentation also forms part of the market, including adjustable synthetic breasts and genital replacements. The same broad field therefore serves bodily replacement, personal appearance, information access, and combat.
Cybernetic implants are surgically fitted by specialists. Installation and removal involve medical procedures, preparation, and recovery; an implant's technological sophistication does not eliminate surgical risk or postoperative pain. Product packaging may explicitly reserve installation for qualified personnel.
Installed cyberware can malfunction and require specialist attention. Cybernetic repair equipment includes diagnostic displays and precision instruments, such as the articulated micro-tools in SK's reticulating cyberware multitool. Licensed technicians can also modify cyberware internally, including its software, while external customization changes its appearance.
Withmore's cyberware trade spans upmarket licensed clinics and back-alley providers. Saedor Krupp is a leading implant manufacturer, while Nito-Kodak Optical Designs specializes in optical and digital technologies, including cybernetic vision enhancement. SK Professional Services displays products from both corporations.
Augmentation is also a market for personal style. A cyberware coating display at Cordoba Wellness Home advertises colored polymers, skin-toned finishes, precious-metal plating, and premium composites. These choices allow artificial body parts to be styled for a natural appearance or made deliberately conspicuous. Advertising for skillsoft sockets appeals to professional ambition and the fear of falling behind coworkers, presenting augmentation as a way to compete as well as a way to change the body.
Cybernetics has a place in public entertainment as well. Deathball teams use customized cybernetic and biological modifications. The everyday presence of implants does not make every form of enhancement equally accessible, however: nanogenic treatments are common among the elite but often beyond the means of the working poor.
Extensive augmentation can contribute to Psychophysical Disassociation Syndrome, or PDS. The condition is caused in part by the strain of the body interfacing with too much cyberware. More complex technology and more powerful alterations generally impose greater physical and mental strain.
Symptoms can include emotional detachment, feelings of superiority or invulnerability, obsessive behavior, irritability, and aggression. These are possible consequences of the condition, not inevitable characteristics of everyone with an implant. Physical health and conditioning influence the body's ability to endure augmentation. Reducing or removing cyberware can cure PDS over the long term. Endoprine is used to manage symptoms rather than remove their underlying cause.
Biomodification alters the human genetic substance, including changes pursued for appearance or personal health. Nanogenics uses injected nanites to manufacture new or improved tissue at the cellular level. These methods differ from fitting a manufactured replacement organ, limb, or electronic interface, even when their goals overlap.
The technologies can also work together. SK's Biomod Motor-function Controller is a cybernetic implant designed to provide control over additional biomodified appendages. The presence of biological alteration therefore does not rule out the use of supporting cyberware.
Genetic modification has its own history of political conflict. Disputes over biomodification include both opposition to altering humanity and protests against the concentration of such opportunities among the wealthy.
The SK Biomechanical project contributed to several major cybernetic breakthroughs. Developed in 2073, it combined extensive mechanical reconstruction with altered brain tissue and programming. Its sole line of 250 biomechanicals entered service in 2075, and the project closed in 2090 after some developed sentience.
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