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Author Topic: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)  (Read 21948 times)

TCM

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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #360 on: February 25, 2014, 10:52:35 pm »

Mm-hm. Just keep thinking you're amusing/meaningful/whatever.

:c
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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #361 on: February 25, 2014, 11:07:51 pm »

Wyrm, may I ask btw what you have against the biomods I would like for my character? I want to understand your POV so I have a better idea of what the problem actually is.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #362 on: February 25, 2014, 11:09:48 pm »

The only problem I have with them is that they wouldn't really make sense to be on a character in a military setting.

Also they're just silly.
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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #363 on: February 25, 2014, 11:23:21 pm »

SILLY! Why sir we are all dwarves here, we are silly and death incarnate!

Okay, in all seriousness, I can think of a couple ways for it to make sense in this setting:
Stowaway, caught and removed.
Specific branch of military working on that kind of stuff, decided to "flush" a test subject.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #364 on: February 25, 2014, 11:25:47 pm »

Why would he be sent...anywhere important? And how would he stow away? The military tends to guard their stuff pretty well.

What would they be hoping to achieve with it? Infiltration of furry communities?
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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #365 on: February 25, 2014, 11:46:53 pm »

Stowing away could just be for moving to a dif local, if a person is sufficiently skilled in hacking they could sneak onto a cargo shuttle and get onboard, obviously they would get found just due to cameras everywhere, but with luck they could last until the ship gets into warp/interstellar space/hyperspace/whatever form of ftl travel this universe has due to simple not unloading the shuttle, or hiding or moving around too much to pin them down, by that point most military fleet ethics would demand they wait till they can dump the person and do so, possibly on some random planet or craphole of a colony.

And often the military does stuff for pure science, if you have soldiers with some of the same abilities as animals (thermal vision, night vision, agility, strength, rending ability, speed, uv vision, hearing, reflex, and so on), then you can save on equipment costs as they wouldn't need some things (like night vision goggles or similar things) and have a higher survival rate due to natural harder to hit/killness because of the mods. Some mods would be great for assassin/spec ops/spies/infiltrators.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #366 on: February 25, 2014, 11:55:57 pm »

Stowing away could just be for moving to a dif local,
You might want to explain this more...

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if a person is sufficiently skilled in hacking they could sneak onto a cargo shuttle and get onboard, obviously they would get found just due to cameras everywhere, but with luck they could last until the ship gets into warp/interstellar space/hyperspace/whatever form of ftl travel this universe has due to simple not unloading the shuttle, or hiding or moving around too much to pin them down,
Dude, he'd need l337 h4xor skills just to get to the hangar where the military transport was being refueled. How about you find some "sufficiently skilled" hacker and see how far he gets into the nearest Air Force base? And the military cargo ships would be more heavily guarded still, since the ships will be away for months on end. A closer approximation might be trying to stow away on a nuclear submarine, in the middle of the Cold War.

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by that point most military fleet ethics would demand they wait till they can dump the person and do so, possibly on some random planet or craphole of a colony.
Depends on the mission.

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And often the military does stuff for pure science,
No, that's not the military. The military leaves "pure science" up to universities and stuff, they focus on application. Which is why DARPA has not one particle accelerator.

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if you have soldiers with some of the same abilities as animals (thermal vision, night vision, agility, strength, rending ability, speed, uv vision, hearing, reflex, and so on), then you can save on equipment costs as they wouldn't need some things (like night vision goggles or similar things) and have a higher survival rate due to natural harder to hit/killness because of the mods. Some mods would be great for assassin/spec ops/spies/infiltrators.
1. How would these mods be cheaper and better than the alternatives? (Natural thermal/night vision isn't as detailed and low-light as human technology is--in fact, few animals have true night vision and stick to either twilight or hearing/smell--to say nothing of how few animals have any thermal sensing at all, let alone sufficient to tell a human from a warm rock or a motor). And "rending ability" would be almost useless, and literally everything you mentioned has pretty notable drawbacks that can't be removed when they come up (unlike gear)...and you'd need to redo it for every soldier--you can give night-vision goggles to a new soldier, but if your cateye soldier dies, gets promoted out of the field, or retires, you can's pluck out his eyes and give them to a new recruit.
2. How would they even work? Genetic modification is something you need to do around the "zygote" stage of development, rather than the "bearded and beer-drinking" stage.
3. How do any of them relate to ears and tails?
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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #367 on: February 26, 2014, 12:59:21 am »

Gene modding is unrelated to chimeric bio modding, bio modding involves implanting organic structures into an already functional body, so yes, in theory you could take out the eyes and give them to somebody else provided you saved the guy's original eyes, or even if you didn't you could, by this point I'm sure there are cybernetics that work just as well.

I am assuming that we are in high tier scifi, meaning most processes, including refueling of shuttles is run by computers, if you have minimal human guards and know what you're doing, in theory you can get in, in practice you will get caught within several hours after boarding, but that may be enough to get to the ship. Current day air force bases would be a tad hard to get into because we happen to not run everything on computers yet.

The military cargo ship would be where he/she would get caught most likely, the stowaway would be hedging their bets on that A, the ship will be in warp/whatever and therefore less likely that they will kill him, and B, the ship crew won't just shoot them out the airlock due to the mission operative rules.

The concept of the internet was a pure science that was made and used by the military early on in its life, they designed it and applied it. Darpa lacks particle accelerators because they can't currently be applied to anything, bio mods can technically be applied now irl but aren't considered ethical currently, the military is looking into them.

Actually there are several species of snakes that have thermal vision to the point of seeing in stereo through it. Plenty of biological systems work as well or better then the machine counterparts right now and probably some still in the high scifi setting I assume we are in, seeing as how the military hasn't been swapped out for cyborgs and robots ingame.
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TealNinja

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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #368 on: February 26, 2014, 01:26:18 am »

Gene modding is unrelated to chimeric bio modding, bio modding involves implanting organic structures into an already functional body, so yes, in theory you could take out the eyes and give them to somebody else provided you saved the guy's original eyes, or even if you didn't you could, by this point I'm sure there are cybernetics that work just as well.

I am assuming that we are in high tier scifi, meaning most processes, including refueling of shuttles is run by computers, if you have minimal human guards and know what you're doing, in theory you can get in, in practice you will get caught within several hours after boarding, but that may be enough to get to the ship. Current day air force bases would be a tad hard to get into because we happen to not run everything on computers yet.

The military cargo ship would be where he/she would get caught most likely, the stowaway would be hedging their bets on that A, the ship will be in warp/whatever and therefore less likely that they will kill him, and B, the ship crew won't just shoot them out the airlock due to the mission operative rules.

The concept of the internet was a pure science that was made and used by the military early on in its life, they designed it and applied it. Darpa lacks particle accelerators because they can't currently be applied to anything, bio mods can technically be applied now irl but aren't considered ethical currently, the military is looking into them.

Actually there are several species of snakes that have thermal vision to the point of seeing in stereo through it. Plenty of biological systems work as well or better then the machine counterparts right now and probably some still in the high scifi setting I assume we are in, seeing as how the military hasn't been swapped out for cyborgs and robots ingame.

Refueling done by computers in space would mean that everything around the tank would be exposed to vacuum because there would be no reason for safety measures.  There wouldn't be an open airlock, as there would be no need for a human overseer.  There wouldn't be an open access panel, because during refuel everything would be locked for safety and security measures.

Being caught on this ship, which is essentially a glorified military prison ship, would result in: If you're a known "terrorist" (which is basically what a pro-mutationist would be painted as), you'd be summarily executed, and if you're somehow not labeled that, you'd be imprisoned and returned to more civilian space for a tribunal by military leaders, who would imprison you indefinitely for espionage concerns.  Because, after all, you snuck aboard the ship, so there's no obligation for them to protect your rights.

Cyborgization is also only done as an emergency method; otherwise they'd use limited cloning to reproduce an organ for you to survive with.  This universe's government is afraid of tampering with natural evolution for fear of: creating something they can't control, and the political ramifications of failed mutation experiments.  They use Artificial Intelligence in many levels of their civilization, but it is always controlled A.I., because they are afraid of what a free A.I. could do.  Basically, the government is scared of everything.  What they're scared most of is their own people, as since it's in space, it's almost entirely impossible to catch a rebellion before it happens.



As for military and "pure science;" the internet was developed as a means to deliver information faster and more securely than radio waves.  Every science I can think of that was developed by military was for a purpose, and was not developed "just because."



@ Gigla: Funny you should mention that; I mostly attached Command & Conquer and Starcraft to my thinking, rather than Total Annihilation and its spiritual successor Supreme Commander.  Also, my game vision does not, at all, limit RTS and FPS.  If you want to play RTS?  Go for it.  Is your whole team on RTS mode?  Oh well!  I'm not going to force you to play one or the other.  That's why you have A.I. infantry and vehicles after all!  It should be theoretically possible for a single, highly skilled player to defeat any number of low skill players, but at the same time, the A.I. should never perform better than what you'd expect from an actual player, and because of that, the lower skilled players should feel fine with their skill level when fighting in first person mode; they will feel overwhelmed by the amount of things going on, but they should never feel like the loss was any one of their team's fault.  Especially so if you can do intra-team reports on player performance.
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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #369 on: February 26, 2014, 01:37:52 am »

So I'm assuming with this specific campaign setting, biomodding is out, what about hepatics or prosthetics?
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TealNinja

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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #370 on: February 26, 2014, 03:29:32 am »

Don't know what hepatics are.  Soldiers with prostheses would be honourably discharged from duty as an easy way to get rid of them.  They served and were injured in the line of duty.  There's no need to "hide" soldiers with prosthetics, as there's no issue with the public seeing them be removed from the military.
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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #371 on: February 26, 2014, 03:48:00 am »

Hepatics are basically machines with some form of sensory interfacing that isn't directly connected to a nervous system.

The interfacing can be a simple as air jets blowing on the skin to provide sensations of texture to as complex as weak electric shocks zapping the nervous system directly to stimulate the nerves into receiving data, often hepatics take a bit for the body to get used to interpreting the data if it is the first few times interfacing. After the first few times the body is very much adapted to it to the point of expecting being able to affect it even if it isn't attached.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #372 on: February 26, 2014, 04:04:43 pm »

Gene modding is unrelated to chimeric bio modding, bio modding involves implanting organic structures into an already functional body, so yes, in theory you could take out the eyes and give them to somebody else provided you saved the guy's original eyes, or even if you didn't you could, by this point I'm sure there are cybernetics that work just as well.
Which brings up the question of, once again, why bother with all of that when a set of night-vision goggles is cheaper and can be given to other soldiers easily, even in the field, without so much as leaving either soldier temporarily blind and bedridden.
And why biomodded eyes have anything to do with animal ears or tails.

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I am assuming that we are in high tier scifi, meaning most processes, including refueling of shuttles is run by computers, if you have minimal human guards and know what you're doing, in theory you can get in,
The military still uses essentially the same tanks as it did in World War II. Well, they don't technically "use" the tanks, since there hasn't been a war where they'd be useful since WWII, but...well, look at the technologies they have been using. The Air Force's planes, for instance. The military doesn't change unless there's a damn good reason--and if the change makes their bases more susceptible to infiltration, they won't do it.
And the idea of a hacker that can beat military-grade security is absurd even if guards and barbed wire are taken out of the equation.

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Current day air force bases would be a tad hard to get into because we happen to not run everything on computers yet.
And if they make it easier to break into, why would they change? Security is more than a little important to the operation of a military.

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The military cargo ship would be where he/she would get caught most likely, the stowaway would be hedging their bets on that A, the ship will be in warp/whatever and therefore less likely that they will kill him, and B, the ship crew won't just shoot them out the airlock due to the mission operative rules.
Not safe bets. Although it's moot since that requires you get within spitting distance of wherever the refueling is happening.
Which, since these are spaceships and it's horribly expensive to get them off of a planet and into space, will probably be done in orbit.

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The concept of the internet was a pure science that was made and used by the military early on in its life, they designed it and applied it.
Yes, there's no possible applications it could have. It's not even useful for communication!

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Darpa lacks particle accelerators because they can't currently be applied to anything, bio mods can technically be applied now irl but aren't considered ethical currently, the military is looking into them.
Difference: Particle accelerators are pure science, because they lack practical applications. Bio mods of the sort the military is interested in are the ones with applications, not furry ears and tails.
P.S. The military looks into all sorts of projects that may well not turn out to be practical. The ability to get a government grant from people who don't understand the subject is in no way indicative of an idea's viability.

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Actually there are several species of snakes that have thermal vision to the point of seeing in stereo through it. Plenty of biological systems work as well or better then the machine counterparts right now and probably some still in the high scifi setting I assume we are in, seeing as how the military hasn't been swapped out for cyborgs and robots ingame.
Stereo vision has no impact on quality. It just means you have two coordinated sensory organs. Older 3D movie cameras were also stereo-vision, but you're not waxing on about their quality.
And you know what? We've only been developing machine counterparts for a century, two if you're going by a broad definition. Sure, we develop them at an exponential rate, but nature does too.
And on that topic, name one non-neurological system that nature does better. Brains are literally the only thing biology has going for it.

Hepatics are basically machines with some form of sensory interfacing that isn't directly connected to a nervous system.
So, cameras?

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The interfacing can be a simple as air jets blowing on the skin to provide sensations of texture to as complex as weak electric shocks zapping the nervous system directly to stimulate the nerves into receiving data...
I think the latter example violates your definition.

Anyways, our problem isn't so much with transhumanism as it is with the suggested methods of applying it. I'm sure that we can think of some way it could be made practical...but in this era where drones are supplementing our military forces and specialized AIs are outperforming humans at more and more tasks, it's hard to avoid seeing obvious easier solutions.
And this is Bay12, where we overthink everything. You need an airtight case.
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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #373 on: February 26, 2014, 04:33:09 pm »

An airtight case you say? *pulls a briefcase out of my car and hands it to you* Here you go.

Now since I'm running of arguments for the pro-military stuff, lets change tacks, what if there is a civilian/bioterrorist/whatever the hell we come up with, comes across a drop-off, and gets shot down. Or just pure crashes into the planet?
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Neustra Veritas: Betrayal and Survival (7/4)
« Reply #374 on: February 26, 2014, 04:46:43 pm »

...What do you mean? If there is someone coming across what and getting shot down, or is someone crashes into what planet?
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