Biotech in Traveller

[travalv]

Minor note: apparently, the Digest products - Vilani & Vargr, and Solomani & Aslan - are offically non-canon, or "forbidden canon", due to copywrite issues.

 

[Merchant Reaper]

I paid good money for them, they are canon for me, irregardless of what lawyers may say.

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Merchant Reaper:
I paid good money for them, they are canon for me, irregardless of what lawyers may say.

I agree, for personal use they are definitely 'canon', but it's worth noting that there is no guarantee that a future Traveller product will not come out and invalidate the work, or at least ignore it. The new Gateway domain work by QuikLink is a good example of this.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Merchant Reaper:
I paid good money for them, they are canon for me, irregardless of what lawyers may say.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Welcome fellow heretic! Its YTU, by Gumbo..!

 

[Jame]

Falkayn, I didn't mean to be short, if I offend I ask forgiveness. Your comment on the attitudes about biotech has given me something to flavor my own campaign...

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by Jame:
Falkayn, I didn't mean to be short, if I offend I ask forgiveness. Your comment on the attitudes about biotech has given me something to flavor my own campaign...

James, sorry my post does look a little offended - really no harm done! I meant I didn't realise you were talking about non-OTU biotech.

 

[Jame]

Well, I'm reading Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky (hey, I thought it was the first one!) and I discovered Focus! Truly something useful in many nasty ways... I may use it, but I'm wondering how it'd work in Traveller (in canon or not). The Sollies and Hivers would likely love it.

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Falkayn:
The interesting question about biotech (before you even work out the stats/rules for it) is the affect that biotech has on society. Here are three examples:

1. Revolution
Biotech fundamentally alters what it means to be Human. The most basic core assumptions about our humanity are put to the test. In a sense many of the cyberpunk books took us to this sort of place. It's not really very nice, and the PCs may not be relateable, but it gives your universe a very interesting twist on reality.

2. Acceptance
Biotech is accepted as a useful tool, no more, no less. Some forms of medical problem are solved using biotech, some weird uses are made of it for military/espionage purposes, but by and large it does not much alter people's daily lives. This means you handwave away many of today's medical problems, maybe give the PCs an easy way to recover from 'accidents', but the biotech does not really colour your universe very much.

3. Rejection
Humanity rejects biotech as something heretical and makes as little use of it as possible (the OTU is a variation on this). Biotech of all sorts may exist, but it is either never seen, used or referred to - or much time is spent preventing it from being seen, used or referred to.

The way people react to biotech will determine the way you want biotech to fit in the rules. Revolution (cyberpunk?) games typically wanted to illustrate the inhumanity of biotech and so often had rules for negative reactions to too much of it, acceptance games simply made use of it where it was convenient and ignored it elsewhere. Rejection games typically make it something the bad guys have and use, something to be despised and fought against by the players (like the latest Star Wars stuff).

So, if you're not basing your ideas on the OTU, what are you thinking of? One of the three attitudes above, or something else?

IMTU all three reactions to Bio/Cyber-tech exist, as each polity has a different approach towards the subject; the Solar Triumvirate mildly rejects cybernetics (i.e. it accepts simple, non-"revolutionary" ones and greatly dislikes the rest), the Post-Planetary Matriarchate takes a revolutionary approach (it supports "conscious evolution", including genemods, bio-implants and heavy cyber; it's one of the reasons why other polities - especially the Solar Triumvirate - see the Matriarchate as completely alien), and the Serpentis Quadrant Alliance takes a moderate accepting view of cyber/bio (its pragmatic, practical POV and relatively radical way of thinking welcomes cyber/bio when they are useful, but most people in the Alliance won't cyber themselves up for just for cybering up sake).

So the system I'm going to devise for bio/cyber mods has to be pretty generic; it has to support all three outlooks.