Transhuman traveller?

[GJD]

Transhumanism is a rather broad subject. In most game systems it's used as a badge for whacking in a few different 'morphs' or 'sleeves', funky cybernetics, genetic engineering and some man/machine overlays - information characters and sentient AI PC's and so on. Examples of the genre include Transhuman Space from SJG, Eclipse Phase (my personal choice), Corporation, A/State and Cyberpunk V3 (the last 3 are arguably post cyberpunk, though). Although slated for it's dire artwork and sloppy production, CPv3 includes many transhumanist themes; post currency economy, the flexibility of form, information wars and meme propogation, the splintering of mankind into forced or engineered evolutionary factions different from "baseline".

Posthuman is what humanity will become and can be anything from a brain in a jar on a robot body to a being of pure thought in an information network. It's the evolution of humanity into something which is no longer the classical view of a human - the Navigators in Dune, for instance.

G.

 

[GamerDude]

So pretty much any sci-fi set say, 100 or 150 years in the future would do. I mean already compared to just 100 or 150 years ago we have organ transplants, pace makers/artificial hearts (last not super viable yet), replaceable joints, A much longer lifespan, a extremely higher rate of obese people/diabetes, practally have electronic communications devices implanted in our heads (the way cell phones have made it soooo necessary to be constantly yakking that we can't even drive anywhere without being on one), etc.

Ok, I get it...

Oh, that would make the 3I a "transhuman" setting too.

 

[locarno24]

So pretty much any sci-fi set say, 100 or 150 years in the future would do. I mean already compared to just 100 or 150 years ago we have organ transplants, pace makers/artificial hearts (last not super viable yet), replaceable joints, A much longer lifespan, a extremely higher rate of obese people/diabetes, practally have electronic communications devices implanted in our heads (the way cell phones have made it soooo necessary to be constantly yakking that we can't even drive anywhere without being on one), etc.

Ok, I get it...

Oh, that would make the 3I a "transhuman" setting too.

Slightly. Most of the people in the street are just hom sap. Transplants and prosthetics don't really count because they're replacing capability you've lost rather than giving you capability you didn't have before (the difference between prosthetics and augmetics).

You can find some distinctly 'transhuman' or 'posthuman' individuals in the 3I - Imperial specops types are likely to be wired with Phoenix Tech nano-ware to improve reaction speed and muscle strength, have two or three graduate degree-level skills downloaded directly into their brain, be able to resist small-calibre bullet fire and have their organic aging switched off. I personally think that qualifies.

 

[rust]

A good early description of a transhuman character (and of the problems such
a character could face) is the protagonist of Heinlein's novel "Friday".

 

[justacaveman]

A good book, I haven't read it in a long time.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I think the Twilight Sector setting by Terra/Sol games does a good job of introducing Transhumanism into Traveller.

They have Scientifically Induced Mutants (SIMS) which are bioengineered for various environments (zero G, High G, etc). And they have Natural Mutants and Psions.

They used the Alien Traits features in the TMB to keep things from getting too out of hand and each SIM/NM has disadvantages that help to balance the game. Not everyone will want to play a SIM or NM, but if several people do, it doesn't throw the game out of whack.

 

[GamerDude]

...
They have Scientifically Induced Mutants (SIMS) which are bioengineered for various environments (zero G, High G, etc). And they have Natural Mutants and Psions...

Except they went for the totally unscientific "you can 'mutate' someone after they are born without killing them". That's hogwash for them and anyone else who claims you can do it. Yes, read the material... people are mutating AFTER they are born. Nanite clouds etc. The same gar-bage' (trying to sound french there) that WW pulled in their d20 Modern version of GammaWorld.

The is a movie, might have been called "The Deep" or "Deep Star Six" where it's an underwater station for a mining operation. They find a sunken Russian sub, invistigate, one idiot brings back a full bottle of vodka and someone's hip flask. Bottle gets confiscated but the hip flask contents get consumed by two of the crew, who then get very ill, whose skin starts changing, and then they die... and then they finish the change into a new creature. Turns out there was a virus in the vodka designed to use the body of whomever ingested it to mutate them into something else.

It's been going on for like a decade now, suddenly episodes of some sci-fi show (sorry, SyFy show) where some unknown or "alien" DNA is injected to a person and they start 'mutating' into that other creature. Totally different body chemistry etc yet the person survives to become 'what ever'.

"nanites" aside (still a bit of 'handwavium') go to the Wikipedia page on mutations. It says they are slow and the body has mechanisms to repair damage DNA strands and 70% are fatal, the rest harmless etc.

Now, a program where the DNA of a fetus or xygote were manipulated in the very very early stages of development (first few days) thats a possible SIM. But being able to induce a mass beneficial mutation or have one "happen" after they are born? Lame ass B...S...

 

[apoc527]

Despite your well known dislike for Terra/Sol Games, I think you are trying to make too strong of a point here. Plus, you are scientifically wrong. It's possible to "mutate" someone while they alive and after they are born right now. It happens all the time with cancer. It can be done intentionally with gene therapy even today using retrovirus vectors.

It's not at all implausible or scientifically inaccurate to posit induced mutations on the scale of SIMs or NMs (ok, natural mutants might be pushing things a bit far). Nanotechnology isn't "handwavium" either. It exists now in all sorts of places and it is certainly possible to imagine nanobot vectors for future targeted gene therapy.

I say all this not as a gamer, but as a molecular biology undergrad who worked in a mouse genetics lab for 4 years.

Please try to refrain from needlessly attacking Terra/Sol products just because you had a personal falling out with the company.

 

[GJD]

The film was Leviathan.

I have to agree with Gamer Dude here (and I don't have a bone to pick with anyone). Most depictions of "mutants" and nanites are grossly unbelivable. Most living organisms are activly trying to stop the DNA in the cells being changed, and when the DNA ia altered the body quickly picks it up and tries to repair it. It's why gene therapy is so hard - you have to hide what you are doing from the body.

I also find most nanotech depictions to be laughably innacurate as well. I saw some calculations about the ammount of heat generated by a nanotech cloud just making minimachines that would reproduce, the grey goo scenario. The calculations indicated that even if the machines were made out of pure diamond - no metal, organics or plastics for moving parts and command and control - they pretty soon the mass would be generating enough heat that they would actually ignite the diamond. It's spawned a phrase in my Eclipse phase game to indicate something needs to be or was done done fast or urgently - "You really need to burn some diamond on this one".

G

 

[GJD]

So pretty much any sci-fi set say, 100 or 150 years in the future would do. I mean already compared to just 100 or 150 years ago we have organ transplants, pace makers/artificial hearts (last not super viable yet), replaceable joints, A much longer lifespan, a extremely higher rate of obese people/diabetes, practally have electronic communications devices implanted in our heads (the way cell phones have made it soooo necessary to be constantly yakking that we can't even drive anywhere without being on one), etc.

Ok, I get it...

Oh, that would make the 3I a "transhuman" setting too.

The real crux for me is that a posthuman is something BEYOND humanity. Adding pacemakers and so on isn't really changing what it means to be human - essentially you are still Homo Spaiens and recognisably so. But, a person who has altered themself or changed their fundamental being so much that they could no longer be considered fundamentally Homo Sapiens - posthuman.

G

 

[FreeTrav]

The real crux for me is that a posthuman is something BEYOND humanity. Adding pacemakers and so on isn't really changing what it means to be human - essentially you are still Homo Spaiens and recognisably so. But, a person who has altered themself or changed their fundamental being so much that they could no longer be considered fundamentally Homo Sapiens - posthuman.

This. This was the entire final point of my dissertation earlier in this thread - that transhuman isn't about 'humans able to do more', it's about 'more than human' - a transhuman doesn't think like a human, any more than a transape (a human) thinks like an ape - they've gone beyond it, into something that can't be imagined.

Friday is not transhuman; she is enhanced human. She doesn't think differently from a human, except by training in ways that most humans don't receive; she doesn't have beyond-human capabilities that ordinary humans can't even conceive of. She is, at best, an enhanced human trained in a way that might mean that she's less bound by some of the biases that prevent most humans from using their full actual capabilities.

The example of the Ousters and Aeneans from Simmons is the closest that I've ever seen anything in SF come to transhumanism as I discussed in my dissertation; even there, I noted that they are only beginning to grope around the edges of what transhumanism might be - they are still, fundamentally, human - and even the Aenean ability to use the 'void-that-binds' the way they do is, implicitly, only the smallest of steps at the beginning of the road to transexistence.

 

[crossmlk]

apoc537 wrote:

It's not at all implausible or scientifically inaccurate to posit induced mutations on the scale of SIMs or NMs (ok, natural mutants might be pushing things a bit far).

Thanks apoc. Just to clear things up, the Twilight Sector does not posit that natural mutations occur after birth. They are natural, hence the term 'Natural Mutants'. We do however posit that in a thousand years we will be able to induce mutation either before or after birth. We call these SIMs or Scientifically Induced Mutations.

We well recognize that this might not be to everyone's tastes but we are clearly in the mainstream of modern Science Fiction with this concept. One of my favorite examples being Dan Simmon's Illium and Odessey (I don't think I have the name right on the second book there) two book series.

 

[apoc527]

And I think it depends in large part on one's definition of "plausible." I refuse to subscribe to a paradigm where what is possible is only what is possible under our current paradigm. Everyone knows that everything can change in an instant. There's a reason the term "paradigm shift" exists and Einstein's theory of relativity is only one of the more recent ones. There could be another next week that suddenly makes reactionless drives seem as obvious as Newton's apple experiment.

Now, obviously, that attitude could justify virtually any science fiction as "hard," but it need not be taken that far.

Regardless, even within our current paradigm of biology, SIMs, just as seen in Twilight Sector, are extremely believable. Once you appreciate how much junk DNA is the result of ancient viruses that invaded our ancestors, it's not hard to contemplate the addition of new, functional genetic coding.

As far as a complete "metamorphosis" of a living creature--that might stretch things a bit, but it's not nearly as big a stretch as a lightsaber...

 

[GamerDude]

Despite your well known dislike for Terra/Sol Games, I think you are trying to make too strong of a point here. Plus,

Please try to refrain from needlessly attacking Terra/Sol products just because you had a personal falling out with the company.

Actually, besides your total lack of what I feel or know and your I guess support of the company (which I knew). I not only presented my viewpoint on this to the T/S crew has written (and my conversations with two of the owners on this and many other topics related to their material) but also, as I said, have had this viewpoint for years... hence my citing sci-fi where I've seen this idea/concept portrayed and my opinion. So please keep your love of a company from clouding your posts.

Since you claim expertise (or enough knowledge) in this area I'll bow to your post. But then again Cancer is where the cells ignore the 'planned life expectancy' and just start replicating endlessly with mutation etc and is deadly in the end to the host organism (I know a few things about medicine and pathophysiology).

 

[apoc527]

Going through a few hundred pages of material on mutations etc, both on the web an in my textbooks, mutations are either mild/benign/useless or deadly. Cancer is the process of cells reproducing run amok not stopping at the end of their life (as programmed in their DNA) and potentially killing the host organism. And that isn't even an Organism wide mutation of that severity.

This entire concept of inducing mutation resulting in a new organism, in beneficial totally non-negative manner, and then following this "natural mutations" suddenly occurring is total Horse Excrement.

Many of the papers and textbooks I've read on this point to how one gene on a single chromosome seems to be linked to several different things via other genes. Changing one single gene has an effect on all of these.

I'm not going to comment further on your continued tirade against T/S Games. That's your prerogative. Just know that it comes off as rather nonproductive sometimes.

As for the above, none of that contradicts what I've said. I haven't seen the rules on "natural mutants" but it's very obvious that Twilight Sector is based heavily on Alternity and the Star*Drive setting and that game with that setting had "natural mutants" and so presumably Terra/Sol wanted to keep the concept. It's definitely the weakest part of the setting since, as you accurately point out, the probability of a beneficial "natural" mutation is almost nil (they do, of course, happen all the time on the evolutionary scale--they are one very important part of evolution, after all!). However, I continue to find nothing "horse excrementy" about SIMs. Certainly, a SIM is no more horse hooey than a man-portable laser rifle or air/raft!

As for the "how" part of creating a SIM, you basically got it right there. CURRENTLY, our understanding of the human "proteome" (as opposed to genome) is fairly infantile. However, just as our genomic science has rapidly accelerated (look how much faster gene sequencing is today than it was 10 years ago) and given how much work is going into proteomics (the study of protein interactions), I don't see much of a stretch in saying that in 1000 years we have completely mapped the human proteome and from that information are able to adjust it in useful and significant ways. Once you understand the programming language (DNA and protein), you can reprogram for new effects.

I fail to see the point in applying the limitations of our current understanding to a game set 1000 years in the future. Doing so seems to defeat the purpose of science fiction. If you want to play a totally contemporary game, go ahead, but it's not fair to excoriate a sci-fi game for logically expanding on science that exists and is knowable today.

 

[GamerDude]

I'm not going to comment further on your continued tirade against T/S Games. That's your prerogative. Just know that it comes off as rather nonproductive sometimes.

um... if my posts are tirades, then you have anger issues.

'nuf said.

 

[rust]

... the probability of a beneficial "natural" mutation is almost nil (they do, of course, happen all the time on the evolutionary scale--they are one very important part of evolution, after all!).

Potentially beneficial mutations probably happen quite often, given that human-
kind now has reached several billion individuals. However, most of these muta-
tions will not be recognized, except perhaps as a way to identify a specific per-
son through a DNA fingerprint, because there is not enough environmental pres-
sure to ensure that the mutation will enable the individual to have more descen-
dants than other individuals.

For example, if I had a potentially beneficial mutation which would make me mo-
re resistant to a specific tropical disease, this would remain meaningless, since
I do not live where this mutation would help me to survive longer and have mo-
re descendants than other individuals. The mutation, although perhaps most be-
neficial under other circumstances, would just go down in the statistical noise
of my individual DNA, and perhaps the DNA of a few generations of my descen-
dants (if I had any).

In a way, our modern technology "prevents" the spread of many potentially be-
neficial mutations, because it removes the environmental pressures which only
would make the mutations true survival advantages. With antibiotics to kill the
bacteria there is no real advantage in being immune to the disease, with devi-
ces to change the climate to my requirements, there is no advantage in a mu-
tation which adapts me better to the climate.

So, in a future scenario where the environmental pressure (for example other
surface gravity, other composition of the atmosphere, extreme climate, and so
on) would be high and technology would not be available or sufficient to elimi-
nate this environmental pressure, potentially beneficial mutations could appear
and spread much faster than we might expect.

 

[GJD]

... the probability of a beneficial "natural" mutation is almost nil (they do, of course, happen all the time on the evolutionary scale--they are one very important part of evolution, after all!).

Potentially beneficial mutations probably happen quite often, given that human-
kind now has reached several billion individuals. However, most of these muta-
tions will not be recognized, except perhaps as a way to identify a specific per-
son through a DNA fingerprint, because there is not enough environmental pres-
sure to ensure that the mutation will enable the individual to have more descen-
dants than other individuals.

For example, if I had a potentially beneficial mutation which would make me mo-
re resistant to a specific tropical disease, this would remain meaningless, since
I do not live where this mutation would help me to survive longer and have mo-
re descendants than other individuals. The mutation, although perhaps most be-
neficial under other circumstances, would just go down in the statistical noise
of my individual DNA, and perhaps the DNA of a few generations of my descen-
dants (if I had any).

In a way, our modern technology "prevents" the spread of many potentially be-
neficial mutations, because it removes the environmental pressures which only
would make the mutations true survival advantages. With antibiotics to kill the
bacteria there is no real advantage in being immune to the disease, with devi-
ces to change the climate to my requirements, there is no advantage in a mu-
tation which adapts me better to the climate.

Indeed - and in many cases such mutations may be a double edged sword. For instance, there is some evidence that being a carrier for sickle cell may also defer a resistance to Malaria.

What you won't see is a spontaneous mutation that suddenly turns somones arms into tentacles like a squid, or sprout eyeballs on stalks like a crab or turn their hair into feathers.

G.

 

[apoc527]

What you won't see is a spontaneous mutation that suddenly turns somones arms into tentacles like a squid, or sprout eyeballs on stalks like a crab or turn their hair into feathers.

G.

Well, unless you are playing Gamma World, of course.

 

[JLees]

Well, unless you are playing Gamma World, of course.

...or a game that is designed to invoke elements of classic Space Opera/Pulp. Mutants are a recognized element of those subgenres.