Re: Medtech a la Los

OK, how 'bout this:

If technology exists to completely replicate a human, including
personality
and ability gained from experience AND the technology can be selective
about what is reproduced, why bother 
	a) making mechanical robot soldiers:  grow bazillions of sort-of
human
ones in big tanks a-la Matrix, and send them off to fight.  Perfect
copies
of a few successful designs, available en-masse.
	b) sending "real" people to fight at all.  No problem with
fixing broken
people 'cause you can make soldiers that aren't part of the controlling
faction of society, and then who cares if they die 'cause you can just
make
a dozen more.

Scary social implications - a society of people who control the cloning
technology and are actual "individuals" and then vast castes of workers
who
do all the unpleasant stuff.  You could take these thoughts down dozens
of
different paths, and get any number of unpleasant conclusions...  These
ideas have been the food for all kinds of SF stories.  

I don't like it, from a purely "aesthetic game play" point of view.  I
don't like that kind of vision for "the future", 'cause I wouldn't want
to
live there.  

It seems to me that the Canon GZG history describes a world of
individuals.
 It feels that way, anyway.

I agree with Tom's sentiment about the potential for medical advances.
And
Los (and others) have all kinds of valid "criticisms".	Where does that
leave us.  How about looking at this from a more "Gameplay" point of
view.
I don't like the idea of mass clone armies stomping across the GZGverse,
'both 'cause I don't like the feel of that kind of universe and 'cause I
don't think the Canon history supports it.  I do think that Medtech
would
be WAY advanced over what we have achieved so far.

Is it fair to say that humanity will tackle limb regrowth by 2180?  I
certainly think that isn't unreasonable.  Organ growth?  Sure.	Brain
transplants?  Uh, maybe, but yuk.  Complete replication of the
personality
and abilities of a person?  I don't think so, but more importantly I
don't
like that from a Gameplay point of view.  It dehumanizes the soldiers. 
OK
- in the end, these are little lumps of lead and paint, in a fantasy
setting that exists largely in our collective imagination, but with all
these sorts of games I always end up thinking beyond the table - I love
getting into the world setting in my imagination...  Medicine will be
able
to tackle most injuries, given proper treatment facilities and timely
medical intervention.  But some poor squaddie who takes a round through
a
lung on a colonial battlefield out in the Fringe someplace - at the end
of
a LONG line of communication and left for months without resupply 'cause
that spot really isn't that important anyway - is going to die choking
in
his own blood.	And it's unpleasant, but it's going to happen.	And it
makes the game MUCH more dramatic, and REAL.  Well, to me, anyway.  

There is the GW style "science"fantasy with genetically engineered
supersoldiers fighting bioengineered monsters who can just throw any
living
material into big vats to make more beasties when one gets killed. 
That's
ok in it's own context, if you like that sort of thing (ok, nobody
kneejerk
here).	But this isn't that sort of context, at all.  I like the idea of
my
soldiers being some kind of individual.  Not that I write a background
for
each grunt in a SG game, but in the end, it makes gives the game more
flavour and dramatic impact if you think of the troopers as people, like
us
but in a different setting, as it were.

Medical tech that, in the right circumstances, can fix most injuries is
believable and works from a dramatic point of view.  But there will be
lots
of times when it won't be the "right circumstances", 'cause those are
the
kinds of stories/circumstances that we create.

Way more interesting, and more satisfying, than the "ok, we got a brain
cell so we can regrow him in 3 days" perfection (with all the
social/moral/ethical traps accompanying it) of Tom's initial ideas.  So
the
PSB in my version of the GZG universe will have zoomiemedtech (tm) but
dead
is still dead, dead, dead...

Anyway, it's 4am and I'm off to sleep... :)

Happy New Year to all, and I'm happy to say that my 4 year old P133
running
an old Win95 is still working just fine, and it tells me that the date
is 3
Jan 2000...  I had wondered what would happen when I turned it on
today... :)

Adrian

Adrian Johnson
ajohnson@idirect.com

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To win one hundred victories in one
hundred battles is not the highest 
skill.	To subdue the enemy without
fighting is the highest skill.

Sun Tzu

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