Starfinder [Starfinder]Transhumanism in d20 System

[LuisCarlos17f]

More a year ago I bought the corebook of Eclipse Phase RPG, with a lot of "fluff"(lore) and crunch, gadgets and item to be a munchkin's dream wet, but a setting where a total kill party may be usual.

Have you thought about adding transhumanism in a space fantasy setting? Let's imagine eternal youth is possible with by means of the regeneration of the telomeres (there is a investigation about the naked mole rats in the real life because they don't get older), and where everybody is young, the students who end university don't find a job because almost nobody retire (but to start their own business).
What if your memory could be loaded to a computer? But this memory could be read by the government, to test you didn't forget to pay all your taxes, or some fine. Worse, this could be been aterated. Maybe your new body is in a prison, a robot with a ape brain working in the mines, because you were with a elfing (she was +18 years old, and not physical contact, only relation in a virtual simulation for adults, but her stepfather is a high-up). And your prision partner tells you he isn't a serial killer, but priest of a forbidden religion with erased-rewritten memories and now he is recovering them. And they are helped by a security guard who wants revenge because was blackmailed for crimes he didn't committed but by an undercover corrupt cop. Other prison says he is a medium, when he touches a body, he can talk with the spirits of the alphas (original bodies)
Or you can create a fork, a body with your memory (using characters from Marvel comics, Yocasta and Virginia, Vision's wife, are Scarlet Witch's forks, because they were created with her brain patterns). Now imagine a criminal uses a fork as scapegoat to be punished while the original alpha is hidden (maybe sleeping in a cryogenic capsule linked to a matrix virtual simulation). Or could steal your robotic fork to load his mind and using for their crimen, and you would be blamed.


What if your characters could load their minds(egos) to a new body (morpho), robotic, cyborg or biological? Should the transhumanism in d20 System to be a monster class?

 

[Immortal Sun]

So, a point of note here: Transhumanism isn't just about transitioning out of a flesh body and into a less, or non-flesh body. It's a ideology that technology will help us overcome the flaws in the human condition, like greed and hatred and all that 7 deadly sins stuff that makes human life terrible, without losing what makes us "human" such as empathy and kindness and love. Keep in mind it's also not about simply replacing flesh with machines. It's about using technology to make a positive impact. That includes genetic engineering as much as it includes cybernetics.

What you're looking at would fall under what is largely referred to as "cyberpunk" the idea that technology will be used by humans to satisfy the whims of the wealthy, by the government to control the population, and the overall impact on society and humanity will be negative. Genetically engineered super-soldiers. Privately-owned genes. Mutagenic viruses sold to the highest bidder.

Starfinder does have some rules for implants and cybernetics, but doesn't really have rules for "going all the way" (which is one of many reasons Starfinder is dramatically Sy-Fy and not sci-fi).

To answer your final question, it depends on the ending point.

Transitioning from an organic body to a technological one that is for all intents and purposes identical but non-flesh would IMO be akin to simply changing race from Human to Android. You lose the benefits you gained from being a human and gain the benefits from being an Android. If you're talking about something more extreme, such as completely digitization (uploading your brain to the internet) I'd probably rule that makes your character unplayable. If you're say, going from being a human to being a robot dragon, then the barrier here should IMO be two things: the availability of a robotic dragon (replace dragon with any high-tech powerful machine like a tank or whatever) and the laughably absurd cost of purchasing it. Assuming of course that you've already found a way to transfer your mind.

You could probably make a whole class out of the Transhumanism, and I've thought about it before, but never came up with anything good. Kinda comes across like the Pathfinder Alchemist with their Mutagens, but with smaller and permanent affects as you replace or upgrade your base flesh.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We agree the transhumanism in the real world is a philosophical movement, and the transhumanism as a sci-fi subgenre a different thing.

The idea of scan a brain to copy all the memories and loading to a second body is too difficult in the real life, but we are talking about fantasy where you can change gender with only wear a cursed belt.

The sci-fi doesn't talk only about the future technology, but how that could be used in the wrong way, for example to create new biological weapons. Do remember the (techno)virus Extremis in Iron Man's comics (not MCU). What if the medicine finds the secret of the eternal youth, and the government offers it to the citizens, but only who are "loyal"? A terrorist group could hack the healing nanobots by a target to cause the death.

OK, you are right, I don't mean really transhumanism, but brain uploading or mind transfer. Why not to be added to a d20 System if there are other games like Mindjammers or Eclipse Phase. Why not a Starfinder version of the 2013 videogame "Remember me"?

* What if a player wants surrogates, remote control androids? Like that movie with Bruce Willis, or James Cameron's avatar. Maybe some coward players would like to use in a space survival horror game.

 

[Shasarak]

OK, you are right, I don't mean really transhumanism, but brain uploading or mind transfer. Why not to be added to a d20 System if there are other games like Mindjammers or Eclipse Phase. Why not a Starfinder version of the 2013 videogame "Remember me"?

* What if a player wants surrogates, remote control androids? Like that movie with Bruce Willis, or James Cameron's avatar. Maybe some coward players would like to use in a space survival horror game.

Could you use the Polymorph or Magic Jar spell to achieve the same end of swapping baodies? Maybe you could Clone yourself (or someone else) to send out if you were too cowardly to go yourself. Although then why would the Clone go, magical enchanment or geas perhaps? We could go full Manshoon although that did not work out well for Manshoon.

 

[Shasarak]

So, a point of note here: Transhumanism isn't just about transitioning out of a flesh body and into a less, or non-flesh body. It's a ideology that technology will help us overcome the flaws in the human condition, like greed and hatred and all that 7 deadly sins stuff that makes human life terrible, without losing what makes us "human" such as empathy and kindness and love. Keep in mind it's also not about simply replacing flesh with machines. It's about using technology to make a positive impact. That includes genetic engineering as much as it includes cybernetics.

Personally I would not rate Empathy, Kindness or Love as the top Human traits. Probably bloody minded stubborness in the face of unbelievable suffering would be my pick.

 

[Immortal Sun]

Personally I would not rate Empathy, Kindness or Love as the top Human traits. Probably bloody minded stubborness in the face of unbelievable suffering would be my pick.

Hair-splitting. My point was that transhumanism aims to keep positive traits while moving away from negative ones.

We agree the transhumanism in the real world is a philosophical movement, and the transhumanism as a sci-fi subgenre a different thing.

No, no it really isn't. There's plenty of transhumanist sci-fi that maintains the ideology that technology will improve the human condition. Star Trek for example, is transhumanist in many regards. Advancements in science and technology have largely allowed humanity to move away from their more "base" instincts into more higher-minded ways of life.

Cyberpunk is its own sci-fi sub-genre. And probably a more popular one.

The idea of scan a brain to copy all the memories and loading to a second body is too difficult in the real life, but we are talking about fantasy where you can change gender with only wear a cursed belt.

The answer to this question depends on if you want sci-fi(hard science fiction), sy-fi, sci-fy or sy-fy(strong "science" fantasy). Pathfinder/D&D is pure fantasy. Including Psionics or Starjammer makes it sy-fy.
Sy-Fy differs notably because almost all of the science is hand-waived away in favor of creating a fantasy narrative.
Sy-fiction does the same handwaiving when it comes to "science" but aims for a more believable "fiction" reality, usually in the very near future where *something something science* has created a dramatic change in the way humans live, but much of life is fundamentally the same.
Sci-Fy pays attention to the science, but aims for more fantastical results (Shadowrun is a good example), the science matters, but the result of the science is still fantasy.

The sci-fi doesn't talk only about the future technology, but how that could be used in the wrong way, for example to create new biological weapons. Do remember the (techno)virus Extremis in Iron Man's comics (not MCU). What if the medicine finds the secret of the eternal youth, and the government offers it to the citizens, but only who are "loyal"? A terrorist group could hack the healing nanobots by a target to cause the death.

That tends to be covered under the cyberpunk header. Technology, and the best laid plans of mice and men are in a cyberpunk approach, almost always going to go astray.

OK, you are right, I don't mean really transhumanism, but brain uploading or mind transfer. Why not to be added to a d20 System if there are other games like Mindjammers or Eclipse Phase. Why not a Starfinder version of the 2013 videogame "Remember me"?

* What if a player wants surrogates, remote control androids? Like that movie with Bruce Willis, or James Cameron's avatar. Maybe some coward players would like to use in a space survival horror game.

IMO, in a hard sci-fi setting, the question is one of resources. You need a digital network capable of supporting a human mind, and then robot shells capable of being controled remotely. It's believable sci-fi assuming you set up the technology to be available.

If you're going to magic your way to the answer, then that's sy-fy, not sci-fi.

All I'm saying is you need to determine your approach before you can determine what you're including. Do people need high-tech gizmos and cool tech to accomplish this? Or do they need a magic spell?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

A classic topic in the sci-fi is about how new technology created to help mankind by the wrong hands can be used to do horrible things, for example genetic engineering can heal diseases, or create new biological weapons, maybe a softer version to sell more medicines. Could you imagine if atomic bomb was invented in the XIX century for colonial age?

* My goal about this thread is about allowing mind transfer and digital inmortality for PCs (even begginer or low level) in a fantasy space title like Starfinder. Maybe to avoid abuses when a PC dies her soul become a petitioner fey and fighting in the fae kingdom/spirit realm the equivalent to the videogame Eternal Doom or Mortal Kombat. And after some favours she is allowed to come back to a new body(morpho). What if dark feys or other supernatural faction could change the memories within a cortical stack when anybody is decanted or transfered to a new body, for example to be a sleeping agent, and after an activation to be like the werebeast version of "Crying freeman" manga. Or after the desaparition of an alpha (main ego) a beta fork become his heir and new alpha for legal effects, but he starts to suffer nightmares about the orinal alpha's wraith, now a tortured spectre condemned to the hell and now to escape wants to possess the body of the former beta.

 

[Shasarak]

Could you imagine if atomic bomb was invented in the XIX century for colonial age?

Was there any point in the "colonial age" that needed an atomic bomb?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Was there any point in the "colonial age" that needed an atomic bomb?

Let's imagine an alien civilization visits humans, our Earth or Théah (7th Sea: 1868) and teaches them modern technology but we aren't ready yet. Do imagine the first world war with atomic bombs or transgenic biological weapons. The great war in the beginning of XX century was still colonial age.

The teleserie "Black Mirror" tells us some example of technology used in the wrong way, or causing new troubles. Can you imagine a space fantasy of "Black Mirror", mixing Flash Gordon and the Twilight Zone?

 

[gamerprinter]

They were only mentioned in the last module I published as a 3PP two-shot in December, called Rogue's Run, the Cyberians are a race of humans seeking to transition themselves though bio-engineering and cybernetics into a "higher state of being", or so they believe. They are a unique subrace of humans/humanoid that will be included in the next Starship supplement upgrade we're working on. The Cyberians right now are pirates, as their ideology and agenda are contrary to other races in the setting I'm using. So I do plan to create something like that, but I don't want all of Starfinder to turn into cyberpunk - I'd rather include the possibility, and allow the choice of inclusion, not the replacement of current ideologies with just the one.