JTAS 14 Finding Immortality

[Sigtrygg]

In JTAS 14 we find Finding Immortality by Adrian Tymes. He has obviously read Agent of the Imperium but not T5.

Now while the destructive brainscan may have been necessary at TL12/13 the rules in T5 are very clear.

During character generation you can muster out with an insurance package.

"Life Insurance archives a personality scan and DNA (or equivalent) sample during the Mustering Out Process. When notice of death reaches the archive, it enables the creation of a Clone and Implantation of the character’s personality.
Notice that unless updated, the replacement clone will revert to the memories and skills recorded at Mustering Out.
Life Insurance may be purchased: the premium is MCr1 to start a policy and Cr100,000 to update."

"A Personality Can Be Recorded
Personality Scanners make an editable, reproducible record of a Personality from any sophont. The record preserves the Elements of a Personality in a digital format.
The Scanner. Brainscan technology is commonplace and part of modern medical diagnostic practice. Any ship (or other) Autodoc has the ability to perform a brainscan (it takes about an hour)."

"For example, Duke Adawulf of Efate knew he was living a dangerous life when hostilities started in the Spinward Marches; he quite responsibly bought life insurance. In the last days of the enemy assault, Adawulf held off the enemy at the portico of his estate as his staff made their escape. After several hours, he was killed when Zhodani artillery levelled the palace. His loyal butler gathered up a few scraps of the Duke, and after the war ended, notified the insurance company. About a year later, the Duke made his appearance at a party in his honor, but with no memories of the past three years."




Relicts have force-grown organic bodies, cloned brains, and implanted personalities."

"After a terrible groundcar accident, Spyke Alpha and his bride Majack Sierra both lay in autodocs with extensive injuries. Spyke was 62 years old: the doctors took tissue samples and force grew a completely new clone body over about 18 weeks. When it was ripe, they implanted his brainscan into the new (18 year-old) body and allowed the old one to expire. Majack is 58 and her injuries are confined to the left leg. Doctors could have removed the leg and replaced it with a temporary mechanical; then when the clone body was ripe, replaced the mechanical with a clone leg and finally destroyed the remainder of the clone body. Instead, they implanted her brainscan into the new (18-year-old) body and destroyed the old one. Or did they?"

 

[Sigtrygg]

And another couple of really creepy examples:

"For example, during the Second Frontier War, Zhodani and Imperial forces repeatedly held, lost, and retook strategic
positions on Arden. Thousands of soldiers on both sides were killed.
By chance, a non-human prospector Zognar and crew were in the Arden system and saw a chance for profit in midst of all this destruction; they collected cell samples and brainscans from several dozen of the dead (some were actually not quite dead when the samples and scans were taken).
The result was a bonanza: dead soldiers became guest security guards and bodyguards; dead technicians became guest factory workers; a dead doctor became a series of sorely-needed medical staffers. Zognar made a fortune."

A note - a guest is another name for clone with an edited memory/personality and sterilised.

For example, Morio Nakamura grew up on Boughene, the child of prospectors in the copper-rich Swalian Mountains;
he was the operator of a small copper mine for more than 40 years. Both strong and smart, he was good at what he did and he enjoyed his work.
When the megacorporation Naasirka opened a much larger mine, it needed more skilled workers than the planet could provide, and they struck a deal with Morio: in return for his cell samples and brainscan, they provided him with a new cloned body and bought his mine for enough to support him in luxury for the rest of his life.
Naasirka’s Nakamura Copper Mine (they named it after him) is staffed by a workforce of strong smart Nakamura
clones, each implanted with the proper skills and a personality which enjoys its work. Naasirka’s cost-benefit analysis was confirmed: it was cheaper to create a clone workforce than to recruit, transport, and train hundreds of offworlders."

 

[MasterGwydion]

And another couple of really creepy examples:

"For example, during the Second Frontier War, Zhodani and Imperial forces repeatedly held, lost, and retook strategic
positions on Arden. Thousands of soldiers on both sides were killed.
By chance, a non-human prospector Zognar and crew were in the Arden system and saw a chance for profit in midst of all this destruction; they collected cell samples and brainscans from several dozen of the dead (some were actually not quite dead when the samples and scans were taken).
The result was a bonanza: dead soldiers became guest security guards and bodyguards; dead technicians became guest factory workers; a dead doctor became a series of sorely-needed medical staffers. Zognar made a fortune.!

A note - a guest is another name for clone with an edited memory/personality and sterilised.

For example, Morio Nakamura grew up on Boughene, the child of prospectors in the copper-rich Swalian Mountains;
he was the operator of a small copper mine for more than 40 years. Both strong and smart, he was good at what he did and he enjoyed his work.
When the megacorporation Naasirka opened a much larger mine, it needed more skilled workers than the planet could provide, and they struck a deal with Morio: in return for his cell samples and brainscan, they provided him with a new cloned body and bought his mine for enough to support him in luxury for the rest of his life.
Naasirka’s Nakamura Copper Mine (they named it after him) is staffed by a workforce of strong smart Nakamura
clones, each implanted with the proper skills and a personality which enjoys its work. Naasirka’s cost-benefit analysis was confirmed: it was cheaper to create a clone workforce than to recruit, transport, and train hundreds of offworlders."

As TLs progress, modified sophonts will always be better mechanically than natural sophonts. Just a fact of life. Doesn't matter if the alterations are mechanical or biological.

 

[Geir]

This (Insurance Package) is one of those T5 things that is best left in T5... It's like Car Wars and a get-out-of-jail free card (a Gold Card, was it?). Maybe appropriate for the 1902 Republic of Regina at TL16.5, but no so much Charted Space at TL 15¼. Not that Charted Space is Traveller, blah, blah, blah, but still. Not a current mustering out benefit in any career in Mongoose Traveller.

But that's just my opinion.

 

[MasterGwydion]

This (Insurance Package) is one of those T5 things that is best left in T5... It's like Car Wars and a get-out-of-jail free card (a Gold Card, was it?). Maybe appropriate for the 1902 Republic of Regina at TL16.5, but no so much Charted Space at TL 15¼. Not that Charted Space is Traveller, blah, blah, blah, but still. Not a current mustering out benefit in any career in Mongoose Traveller.

But that's just my opinion.

Maybe it is a thing in Charted Space, just none of the Careers offer it as a mustering out benefit. Multiply the cost by 100 and otherwise use as written. That way, it is doable, but rare due to supply and demand. Although, the more I think about it, the more I think that this would break the Charted Space setting, since no rich person would ever actually die.

 

[Vormaerin]

Altered Carbon was a cool book series, but I'm not following T5 into including it in my campaign.

 

[Sigtrygg]

B

This (Insurance Package) is one of those T5 things that is best left in T5... It's like Car Wars and a get-out-of-jail free card (a Gold Card, was it?). Maybe appropriate for the 1902 Republic of Regina at TL16.5, but no so much Charted Space at TL 15¼. Not that Charted Space is Traveller, blah, blah, blah, but still. Not a current mustering out benefit in any career in Mongoose Traveller.

But that's just my opinion.

But it is ok to conjure personal energy screens out of thin air and require their retrofitting to TL14 ships and vehicles?

Limiting it to TL14 and 15 cultures and worlds - the Imperial Core worlds and the TL15 powerhouses in the frontier sectors.

Thing is MT showed that the Imperium already has many TL16 worlds by 1120.

 

[MasterGwydion]

B

But it is ok to conjure personal energy screens out of thin air and require their retrofitting to TL14 ships and vehicles?

I don't use energy screens in Charted Space. For other settings, yes, but for Charted Space, no.

 

[Geir]

B

But it is ok to conjure personal energy screens out of thin air and require their retrofitting to TL14 ships and vehicles?

Not happy about the personal shields, but it passed Inner Circle muster. Should be like a TL17 thing if it were me, or a thing for Traveller:Arrakis.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Not happy about the personal shields, but it passed Inner Circle muster. Should be like a TL17 thing if it were me, or a thing for Traveller:Arrakis.

Don't get Me wrong. I love having them in the rules, but not in the setting of Charted Space. I will totally use them for other settings that I may run using the Traveller rules.

 

[Vormaerin]

Not happy about the personal shields, but it passed Inner Circle muster. Should be like a TL17 thing if it were me, or a thing for Traveller:Arrakis.

Yeah, that's another thing that I just ignore.

If I was going to use anything like that, it would probably work more like the Mindjammer Haze fields anyway. Useful, but a lot less problematic. But either way, they don't have any precedent in Charted Space.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Altered Carbon was a cool book series, but I'm not following T5 into including it in my campaign.

According to the T5 TL charts the TL of a society routinely downloading into a "sleeve" would be TL17, so no danger there

 

[Vormaerin]

Yeah, but most of the problems associated with immortality for the wealthy and not for others, plus the game play problems of dealing with resets to memories and xp levels would remain. Even if you aren't going full Altered Carbon/Eclipse Phase, there would be pretty radical changes resulting from implementing this technology.

It also adds even more holes to the whole Dulinor assassination/False Strephon storyline.

 

[Arkathan]

This (Insurance Package) is one of those T5 things that is best left in T5... It's like Car Wars and a get-out-of-jail free card (a Gold Card, was it?)

Gold Cross Plans.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Assuming the default setting for T5 is the 1900 era solves some of these issues.

T5 doesn't actually mention destructive brainscans - setting not following rules as written, very Traveller - it does, however, mention that brain recordings can be made as low as TL12 (in the Robots section). Adding in the relevant bits of the tech tree
TL 12 - personality recording and editing.
TL 13 - cloning, forced growth, wafer technology, wafer jack, wafer headset
TL 14 - temporary personality transfer
TL 15 - mindwipe and editing, pattern personality transfer.
TL 17 - permanent personality transfer

So destructive scans at TL12.
A temporary personality transfer (Agent of the Imperium) TL14 (Bland et al are experimental/prototype)
Non-destructive at TL14 - immortality but at a price - every week you have to re-upload your personality to your clone, failure to do so results in a mindwipe (this is how I think the Essaray do it)
Cloning and transferring the personality permanently TL15
Altered Carbon/Eclipse Phase at TL17

 

[Jame Rowe]

I'm still going to put cloning at TL9 and forced growth at tl 12.

 

[agentwigggles]

Mongoose 2e isnt subdorinate to T5. And T5 isnt subdorinate to Mongoose 2e.
T5 cant invalidate Mongoose 2e.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Mongoose 2e isnt subdorinate to T5. And T5 isnt subdorinate to Mongoose 2e.
T5 cant invalidate Mongoose 2e.

Agreed. I still know ppl who play the pre-1980s CT rules and use nothing that was printed later, at least not the mechanics. Use what system you enjoy the most and borrow what you wish from other systems.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The Third Imperium is Marc's OTU. T5 describes it. The novel Agent of the Imperium and the short stories the Red Ship and Names are the best descriptions we have of the setting as the owner/author sees it.

The further MgT Third Imperium drifts from those sources the more of an Alternative Universe and less a canonical Third Imperium it becomes.

Personally I would like to see Mongoose Traveller useful for many settings, but if it is going to be wedded to the Third Imperium then, in the paraphrased words of MWM himself, we must be bound by canon.

 

[Vormaerin]

If we have to play T5 in order to play Traveller correctly, you can definitely put me in the "guess this an ATU then" camp.