Medtech 2180 Part II

Though I agree with Carlos (Los) about the action-reaction sequence,
the equilibrium points change. Soldiers nowdays have a much higher
chance of surviving (given their battlefield protection, given the
medtech - have to have the kit and the support apparatus) than
soldiers of years back. Yet weapons are more lethal. The balance,
though still there, has shifted. I'm proposing a similar shift.
Someone said we can barely conceive of 2180s tech given our progress
from 1880. They are probably right. To those that say we can't map a
human brain... remember the old saying "If a grey haired distinguished
scientist tells you a thing is possible, he's probably right. If he
tells you it is impossible he is almost invariably wrong."

I agree with some of the concerns people have raised about the nature
of the regrowth - the trauma (mentally) (but if I can rebuild brains,
can I not edit this out?), the time factors, etc. But try to go where
I was going. In 1980, I lose a hand, I'm out of the infantry with a
prosthetic probably. In 2180, I'm out for a month getting a cloned
hand accelera-grown and acclimatizing.
That's better than being cashiered or relegated to a desk job.

Keep in mind that the ability to rapidly and completely heal normal
wounds will mean a change in the scale of campaign speed - healing
that used to put you out of the line for a week might take 2 days.
Stuff that used to take several months might work out in several
weeks. That makes a difference - you're still out of the battle, but
not the war. Hospitals always have been a target to some for just this
reason, and this will only make them moreso (and the morale effects
are nasty too).

I don't know about any of the bioscience crowd on this list... but
from my view of the computer world, I find that I (despite working in
a broad-spectrum cutting edge company and reading journals,
newsgroups, websites, etc) am constantly surprised at the pace and
variety of innovation. If this is true in other fields, as I suspect
it is in biosciences, I think we'll look at what they can do in 2180
with awe. We probably wouldn't even understand it.

To deal with specific comments:

Weapons: Of course, weapons will develop to be as effectual as
possible. There will be someone build neurotoxic ammo that prevents
regen from working well. But the civilized countries won't use it
because in RL they use jacketed rounds NOW - to wound, not kill.
They'll be happy with taking the soldier out of today's fight. It'll
still take his buddies to get him back to the medical system. He might
come back sooner, but he'll still be worth putting down temporarily.
And a shot to the head with an IPG *will* probably make you
irretreivably dead. (To follow on someone's thought: What kind of
weapon vaporizes you but nothing in your surroundings if it misses? A
Star Trek phaser....). Seriously though, I have no doubt some kinds of
wounds will take a while to heal, and some types of weapons will have
gross lethality. But, in general, lighter wounds will be healed
quicker.

Infrastructure: Nanites. Medics with brain freezers. Built in personal
health monitors. Automatic Trauma Prep kits the soldier wear that will
treat them if they are hit until medical help arrives.	Maybe even
anti-grav stretchers and mini-stasis chambers. Who knows. There will
be a lot of this kit, but it will be expensive to use and deploy and
will require an infrastructure. But this goes with the support arm of
the future military and represents well the "high tech force" cost
factor.

Clones: Useful for replacing grossly badly damaged soldiers. Useful
for parts. Take time to grow, though probably faster than we think -
might be the hollow head variety with drop in brain fittings... I have
heard talk of a brain transplant in the next 10-20 years. If you had
to grow one and "refit" the brain from scratch, it might take a long
time. But if you did updates before every mission, it might not be so
bad. Good life insurance policy for soldier's families. Do I agree
there are issues with the initial update? Sure. It might take a bunch
of work to make your clone like the "you of today" so that the wakeup
is not a shock. Would there be councilling, adaption technologies,
adaption therapy? Yes. Could we remove traumatic memories of death?
Probably. Will all this cost? Yes. Will all of it require a big
system? Yes. Will everyone use it? Probably not.

Life Extension: Biosciences promise us lives of 120-150 years, and
health and youth (18-25 like physique) up until we are 60+. This
hasn't happened yet, but if and when (and I do suspect it'll be when),
we'll have a soldier who could be combat effective for 20 more years!
Makes keeping him alive or piping his memories into a new body, even
with a six month or year adaption, a viable investment. Imagine the
level of a professional (though small) army of the day: The typical
service length is 40 years, the average time-in would probably be
around 20+ years. That makes for a high degree of professionalism.

Improved Reflexes, Enhanced Endurance, Quicker Reactions, Healing
Rates: All of these may well translate to the better survivability,
quicker recovery or avoidance of strains, pulls, fatigue, exhaustion,
hunger, etc. It may also produce better mental agility. Overall just
better soldiers.
Combine this with a longer service life, more high tech training and
kit, and you have an astoundingly effective (though very expensive)
force.

Robots: Bots will be used for a lot of fighting in the future. But
(like the construction of the NAC) this one area Jon decides men will
still be involved in, and whether it is likely or not, we enjoy it so
we assume it is so for whatever reason. It might not be real (or you
might need a big PSB, but so what...)

GAME EFFECTS:

Most of this may already be assumed within SG2 - faster reflexes -
everyone has em - shows up in troop quality. As does the longer
training lifecycle. The medicine and weapons lethality could be
figured into the recovery rolls. The infrastructure is beyond the
scoope of the game normally. But you could easily say that someone
with say backward 20th Century medicine subjected to 22nd century
firepower rolls recoveries on a different chart (1-4 dead, 5 wounded,
6 okay). My point pretty much was that although these wonders
undoubtedly exist the only two places we'd probably see them are 1) in
an RPG for GZG (where such things would make a big difference to PCs)
and 2) in a campaign game where the level of support varies.

For an example of the second part, contrast these recovery tables:

If wounded, roll d6 if basic (third rate) medical system. roll d8 if
enhanced (modern) medical system. roll d10 if advanced (state of the
art) medical system. d12 for alien or hyper advanced (UN?) medical
system and d4 might be primitive (no tools to speak of). Penalize 1
die shift for supply problems.

roll	 results
1	   dies
2	   permanent unrecoverable injury
3	 recovers in 1 year
4	 recovers in 1 month
5	 recovers in 2 weeks
6	 recovers in 1 week
7	 recovers in 4 days
8	 recovers in 2 days
9	 recovers in 1 day
10	 recovers immediately

This might give the flavour for a campaign where a small high tech
force is opposing a larger local lower tech force. The locals have
supply problems (out on the rim) and a good-but-not-great medical
system (enhanced). So they are rolling d8 downshifted to d6 for their
wounded. By contrast, the Marine vessel in orbit has a superior
medical system and lots of supply (relative to unit size)at least to
start with so they roll d10. On average, wounded in the superior
facility recover within a week, those less fortunate in the poorer
conditions average a month. The best someone in the poor conditions
can hope for is a week (due to shortage of supplies, etc), and the
best someone on the ship can hope for is an immediate return to active
duty.

Thomas Barclay
Software UberMensch
xwave solutions
(613) 831-2018 x 3008