Adenla Kal
Mongoose
On pg. 83 of the Robot Handbook we have Medical Nanorobots that can be used to simulate the effects of drugs for the duration of the nanorobots (1 year at TL 13). How does this interact with drugs like Combat Drugs or Anti-Rad that have set durations and/or dosage limits?
Relevant rules for convenience:
"A smarm controller is required to initially program medical nanorobots but once injected or ingested, medical nanorobots operate autonomously, although a swarm controller could be used to deactivate them prior to their effective end-of-life."
"A single package can provide the effects of common drugs such as panaceas for the duration of the nanorobots’ effectiveness. Negative effects of multiple or prolonged use of certain drugs are manifest in nanorobot packages just as in normal medications. "
The way I see it there are a couple options
1. The nano-drugs are always active
1.1 Duration is set to nano's duration with any crash hitting at the end (plus any psychological effects of being hyped up 24/7 while active)
1.2 Drug auto renews when duration ends or dose is used....quickly leading to overdoses
1.3 For dosage based drugs like Anti-Rad it automatically provide 1 "free" dose per day/safe period
2. The nano-drugs are activated by some stimulus much like an auto injector. This still has the question of what (if any) dosage safeties get programed in.
For drugs without major side effects, 1.1 makes the most sense. (Panaceas, Nervous Response Dampner, G-Tolerance)
For drugs with dosage restrictions, 1.3 make the most sense (Anti-Rad, Adrenaliser, G-Tolerance)
So far so good as those two even work together well as demonstrated by G-Tolerance. However, neither of those work with the simulant type drugs such as Combat Drugs, Metabolic Accelerators. For those you would need type 2 programing.
In the end, I guess it comes down to how, and how well, did the nanos get programed to deal with activations and/or overdoses. Or just say that nanos cant replicate stimulant type drugs. (which just feels lazy when nanos can regrow limbs, enhance characteristics, and slow down aging)
Relevant rules for convenience:
"A smarm controller is required to initially program medical nanorobots but once injected or ingested, medical nanorobots operate autonomously, although a swarm controller could be used to deactivate them prior to their effective end-of-life."
"A single package can provide the effects of common drugs such as panaceas for the duration of the nanorobots’ effectiveness. Negative effects of multiple or prolonged use of certain drugs are manifest in nanorobot packages just as in normal medications. "
The way I see it there are a couple options
1. The nano-drugs are always active
1.1 Duration is set to nano's duration with any crash hitting at the end (plus any psychological effects of being hyped up 24/7 while active)
1.2 Drug auto renews when duration ends or dose is used....quickly leading to overdoses
1.3 For dosage based drugs like Anti-Rad it automatically provide 1 "free" dose per day/safe period
2. The nano-drugs are activated by some stimulus much like an auto injector. This still has the question of what (if any) dosage safeties get programed in.
For drugs without major side effects, 1.1 makes the most sense. (Panaceas, Nervous Response Dampner, G-Tolerance)
For drugs with dosage restrictions, 1.3 make the most sense (Anti-Rad, Adrenaliser, G-Tolerance)
So far so good as those two even work together well as demonstrated by G-Tolerance. However, neither of those work with the simulant type drugs such as Combat Drugs, Metabolic Accelerators. For those you would need type 2 programing.
In the end, I guess it comes down to how, and how well, did the nanos get programed to deal with activations and/or overdoses. Or just say that nanos cant replicate stimulant type drugs. (which just feels lazy when nanos can regrow limbs, enhance characteristics, and slow down aging)