Re: Medtech a la Los

At 04:25 AM 1/3/00 -0500, you wrote:
>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.

Well by robots (if we extend the term to mean cyborgs) because you can
make
better physically performing soldiers, faster shoot more accurate,
stronger, etc. This might make them more survivable. Instead of just
sending hordes of humans to get kille dover and over again. It might be
cheaper.

>	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.

>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.

Though they'd make great bad guys! Think about it, with the mad rush to
colonize and decentralize, who's to say Planet X, owned by Corporation Y
under the leadership of madman Bill Gates the XIII doesn't sucum to the
temptation.

>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.  

This disparity happens today we don't have to go two hundred years out
to
see it. It's part and parcel of my alternate line of employment that I
find
myself working with third world countries, helping them to settle
"issues".
Now the difference between medical care here in the US or in a US
military
operation of say Desert Storm size, and what is available in say
Eritrea/Ethiopia, Phillipines, Sri Lanka etc etc, is like the differnce
between medical care today and medical care in 2183. Simple injuries
which
get you a day in the ER here kill people over there all the time. It
really
gives you an appreciation for the courage of some of these soldiers
because
they know if they get hit, even a minor hit, and they are either going
to
die or lose a limb etc, which is especially hard to take when you know
that
the tech is out there to save them.

Part of the differnce is in Evac capability, part in medical technology
and
resources funding available and part of it is the fact that most third
world snuffies are just not considered to be important enough tow arrant
such effort, that needs to be saved for important people (high level
officers etc etc) It's amazing stuff.

>

Good post Adrian.
Los