NationStates Jolt Archive


The cyborg renaissance

DNS
11-09-2003, 01:29
It had started off slow, the hardcore computer geeks getting neural brain-to-computer implants. After the year 2700 most regular people regularly got those implants. This was the beginning of the end of "pure" humans, elves, dwarves, etc.

By the year 2800 the first of the enhancers were created, designed to augment the human muscles to allow for better preformance.

It is now the year 3456, the beginning of the cyborg renaissance has begun. Every part of the body can now be replaced for a minimal fee, often with over 300 times the efficiency of the natural part.

One such cyborg we will focus on to show what has happend. His name is Daniel Har'a-Taug, but most of those who know him call him Dan. He works as a research engineer at the DNS-2 college of engineering. He sports little biological material in his body, most of what is left is the skin, brain, reproductive organs, and parts of the digestive system. All else is handled by machine.

His eyes can zoom to the nano-meter wave, his ears can detect infra-sound. His nose can detect 1 in a million parts of something. He can top out at 310 kilometers per hour, and his arms can bend a bar of pure titianium. His brain has been enhanced to run at 70% of total capacity. He suffers no problems with this set up, his batteries are charged when he lies in his bed, which transmits the electricity to metal ports on his back.

The total cost of the enhancements was little over $1000 USD in real world dollars.

He is considered average.

A moral question was posed recently in the DNS-1 Times, "If someone is more machine than man, are they really man?"
11-09-2003, 01:32
OOC: How does he have sex if he had his meat and two apples removed?

IC: "This is why such technology is restricted in Mishakal for people who actually NEED such replacements, not because they "look cool"."


http://www.projectbag.com/gto/thumbs/urumi01_t.jpg
Queen Mary Rene Mythas Asha-Corrino I
Beloved Empress of Mishakal
The Sacred Imperium of Mishakal
DNS
11-09-2003, 01:37
OOC: that was part of what's left.

IC: We have it as elective surgery, but it is very popular. Most people from realworld time would not be able to tell the diffrence between a cyborg to pure biological.
DNS
11-09-2003, 14:22
Bump
DNS
11-09-2003, 14:40
"But what is it to be man? or machine? Are we more than what makes us up, but less than what we think and do? Perhaps the question is not to be man or machine, but to be static(unchanging) or dynamic(changing).

"And what of the AI's that now populate our nation. They are machine, but they live, consume, create, and reproduce. They fill most definitions of living, yet they mostly have no bodies, no way to physically alter things outside of their systems.

"We are in a period of renaissance, reinventing ourselves as a people. We have no more lifespan estimates, because we can indefinitly sustain our bodies. Broken parts are replaced, and soon our very brains will be able to be transfered to machine.

"We may have nothing left that is human*, but what is it to be human anyway?"

-Carl Mar'a'vit'chy,
DNS philsosopher

*insert prefered race if applicable
DNS
11-09-2003, 23:38
OOC: I don't get this, you yell at people for having elves... but no shouting at me about using super humans?

waa?
DNS
15-12-2003, 03:22
Whoa, don't want this one to get purged.
Dontgonearthere
15-12-2003, 03:29
The Hive approves of your actions. While you are not pure as are we, you are closer. We congratulate you on this step toward true purity and hope that you continue to follow this path.

The DGNT government supports this action, as part of national and individual soverignty. People can do what they want so long as it does not hurt other people, and even then exceptions must be made, because the good of the many outweights the good of the one.
As to whether it is human or not...does it matter? If it can think, and has a concept of 'I', or as the case may be 'we' (For you hive minds out there), its sentient and thereby entitled to all rights and responsibilites of that rank.