Re: Medtch 2180

I buy the improved medical services, field stabilization etc. no
question.
Though it's still pretty dangerous in smaller operations where you don't
have
the infrastructure or resources  to evac your forces in a timely manner
since
it still seems to be a time issue.

Jonathan White wrote:

> Um, it's theoretically possible to grow a clone from one cell, given a
> complete DNA 'strand'. However, without your memory and skills it
would not
> be 'you'. And you'd need to accelerate growth hysterically to make it
a
> worthwhile propostion. I want my clone *now*, not in 5 years..

> > 2) If a weapon kills you dead so you can't be brought back, your
> > memories may be able to be mapped to a clone.
>
> Whole different kettle of fish that. We're only really basically
beginning
> to understand how memory and the brain and mind relate. Even *if* you
could
> (maybe via nanite tech) distinctly study each neurone in the brain ,
we're
> talking about *billions* of neurones each of which has many
connections.
> And you clone from above will have probably developed different
neurone
> connections as it developed. You would have to take it's brain apart
cell
> by cell and re-wire it. Ouch. Again, nanite tech is a possible but
that's a
> lot of wires. I can't even get my christmas lights to work :). Oh and
you
> *do* backup your brain regularly, don't you?
>

I happen to agree with Jonathon here. That's where I fall off the boat,
with
this whole proposition. Sure the guy gets blowed up. Is it proposed that
a
replacement body is grown in a few hours or days? This is again another
attempt
in the endless line of devaluing the "man" (or "woman") inside the
soldier's
body, and assuming a simple technical work-around, device or whatever .
Even if
you could grow a body in a few days and you could just remove the guy's
memory/mind imprints and throw it in a new body what about his "spirit?"
(Not
in religious terms) What about the emotional trauma of finding yourself
in a
whole new body with new sensation. Sure you could possible take DNA and
grow a
match of what your body would have looked like if you had been developed
completely in a lab, but will it take into account that you sat in front
of a
couch watching TV 11 hours a day, or ate Frankenberries for lunch every
monday,
or spent eight hours on the range  twice a week for ten years honing
reflexes
muscles and skills? How will the cloned body be able to  take all of
these
external influences that went into making you YOU that are only partly
dealt
with by DNA? An analogy: Sure Tom and I may have the exact same shoe
size but
his shoes have molded to his feet after years of wear.. If I put them on
they
won't fit right for some time or even ever and this will cause
performance
discrepancies. All of these adjustments going into the emotional self
that make
you effect or not. Not to mention the trauma of the actual death or
wounding
that got you to where you need a new body. These to me do not seem like
issues
that can be brushed under the rug when you plop someone's memories into
a new
body. There's a lot of emotional damage that has to be dealt with. And
please
don't give me any BS about simply using drugs to deaden/fix these
issues.

BTW I'm no brain researcher but we have attended some very detailed
workshops
on heart/mind synching, stress control and other issues along these
lines.
(some of which has gone into the development of heart sensors which help
you
detect people with a device forma a distance or behind a wall ala
Rainbow
Six.") Summing up in very unscientific terms: The way you learn and the
way you
build memory is facilitated by the fact that neuron synapses in various
parts
of your brain through firing the same way over and over actually build
increased connections to each other, thicken and undergo some actual
physical
transformation. So a cloned brain, while potentially of the same
capacity as
the one in my head would not have the same neuron "pathways/ interfaces"
established the same as the one I've been using for almost 40 years. So
even if
you could imprint the exact memories on you new brain, your brain would
not be
physically capable of processing them or working with them in the same
was as
the old one.

I guess an analogy might be that if I worked out in the gym lifting
weights for
two hours a  a day for ten years my body would look much different than
if I
chose an alternate path and decided to work in front of  a computer
screen ten
hours a day and hardly every got the chance to work out since I've been
so
busy. In both cases I still have the same DNA in my body that started me
along
my life a certain way. Clone my body then put "me" back into this new
body. I
have to relearn or remap everything I do tho this new body which is
completely
different  than the  "old shoe" I'm used to. This takes time. (years?)
It also
would take toll emotionally.

> > 3) If a weapon wounds you badly, stabilization will probably be so
good
> > that you can get to a med facility. If so, you're probably
gauranteed a
> > near full recovery.

By the way if this technology advances to a point where all of Tom's
suppositions are fact, then it's pretty obvious that weapons would have
to
advance ahead of this technology to ensure the complete obliteration of
anything you hit since a "kill" as we know it not would not really be a
kill in
the future. I would submit that personal weapons would inevitably have
to
advance to the point that if you hit something, then it simply would not
exist
any further since any weapon that didn't do that would not be
accomplishing
anything to further its cause in the long run. For every action a
reaction....

> if the worst comes to the worst they could simulate you as a hologram.
> You'd have to wear an H on your forehead though. A program I saw today
> postulated the idea that as armies move to smaller groups of more
highly
> trained soldiers, more is spent on keeping them alive in terms of body
> armour etc. The same should apply to medical technology I think.

I think a better tact to take in this. Either take fighting out to where
it's
done by cyborgs or robots or even controlled by humans from somewhere
else,
(there's been some of SF written along these line)

But to get to Tom's original point about how this effects a campaign I
guess
you could easily develop a new casualty table that differentiates
between
"wounded out for good", "wounded returns to some efficiency" in a few
turns and
"wounded is available for the campaign again in x amount of time".

Cheers...
Los

BTW on an unrelated note I just picked up the new John Dalmas book
""Three
Cornered War" which is the fourth installment in the Regiment series.