OTU Only: Whither Death?

[LeperColony]

With personality wafers and advanced cloning (or robotics), why does anyone important "die?"

Legal restrictions seem unlikely to sufficiently inhibit any of the truly powerful (especially, say, an emperor), even if they do restrain ordinary people.

Social customs may be more effective than legal prohibitions, but I doubt they'd be either universal or strong enough to prevent a sizable percentage of people who want immortality. Same with religious objections.

Expense? Sure, for common people. Though it would seem that many people on high tech worlds would save for immortality the way we save for retirement today.

 

[RandyB]

The same could be said for anagathics as well. For the OTU, it's a setting handwave, so that the implications of an effectively immortal ruling class does not have to be dealt with.

 

[LeperColony]

The thing about anagathics is that, at least for some rules editions, it's pretty clear they are subject to increasing ineffectiveness and nasty side-effects.

But the wafer is sufficiently reliable over 500 years before the classic setting, so by 1100 it must result in basically a lossless transfer. And cloning is reliable enough for emperors to use it.

 

[Timerover51]

Does the Wafer technology come from Marc's book, Agent of the Imperium?

As for Cloning, how do you compensate for the fact that any clone is going to be younger than the person cloned, unless the cloning is done at birth? Also, how does the clone know all of the life experiences of the person cloned, and is the clone even willing to cooperate with the person cloned?

 

[whulorigan]

Does the Wafer technology come from Marc's book, Agent of the Imperium?

Wafer technology has a significant presence in Agent of the Imperium (the premise of the story is in fact based on them), but the rules for them are laid out very specifically in the T5 Core Rules.

As for Cloning, how do you compensate for the fact that any clone is going to be younger than the person cloned, unless the cloning is done at birth? Also, how does the clone know all of the life experiences of the person cloned, and is the clone even willing to cooperate with the person cloned?

Also in the T5 Core Rules, there are very specific rules regarding various types of clones and cloning procedures, including "forced growth" techniques and memory transfer/overlay. IIRC most clones (and certainly relicts and forced growth procedures) also cause the lifespan of the copy to be shorter.

Cloning is also described as a possible form of "Death Insurance", meaning that for those who have paid for it or received it as a benefit, cell samples are kept preserved and ready for activation in the event of the death of an individual, at which time the "Insurance" policy activates and a copy of the person's recorded personality is overlaid onto the empty mind of the forced-growth clone. This requires the individual to regularly keep his mind-recording up to date; otherwise, the clone will only have the knowledge and memories the person had up until the time when the recording was made.

You may also want to check out this thread in the "Audience Hall" in "The Imperial Moot" on COTI:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=34279

And also this thread in the "Lone Star" forum:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=33293&highlight=relict+clone

 

[Timerover51]

Wafer technology has a significant presence in Agent of the Imperium (the premise of the story is in fact based on them), but the rules for them are laid out very specifically in the T5 Core Rules.



Also in the T5 Core Rules, there are very specific rules regarding various types of clones and cloning procedures, including "forced growth" techniques and memory transfer/overlay. IIRC most clones (and certainly relicts and forced growth procedures) also cause the lifespan of the copy to be shorter.

Cloning is also described as a possible form of "Death Insurance", meaning that for those who have paid for it or received it as a benefit, cell samples are kept preserved and ready for activation in the event of the death of an individual, at which time the "Insurance" policy activates and a copy of the person's recorded personality is overlaid onto the empty mind of the forced-growth clone. This requires the individual to regularly keep his mind-recording up to date; otherwise, the clone will only have the knowledge and memories the person had up until the time when the recording was made.

You may also want to check out this thread in the "Audience Hall" in "The Imperial Moot" on COTI:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=34279

And also this thread in the "Lone Star" forum:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=33293&highlight=relict+clone

At the risk of being banned, that sounds hideous. Producing a human being simple to be used a essentially a spare body or part is something that I cannot even think about without shuddering. It sounds like something a certain group in Germany in the 1930s would have absolutely loved.

 

[LeperColony]

I don't think there's any need to bring real world politics or religion into this, and I'd appreciate assistance staying away from it (and I don't want this getting topic to get Pitted).

We know cloning is practiced in the 3I. There's even specific language for clones you raise as offspring, like Norris's True Daughter.

However, there does seem to be at least some stigma to cloning yourself as replacements, since in Survival Margin Strephon mentions wanting to describe his other clones as surgically altered doubles to give them better chances (whatever that means). Although that could be due to the various complications spare emperors may have on succession.

And by the time you're at TL15, biological bodies are no longer your only choices. Advanced robotics should be able to provide effective physical vessels, and if you prefer the cloud, I don't see why your wafer can't just be put into a laptop and spend its days surfing the web.

To me, personality wafers are a problematic development in Traveller. I think for other settings they may work better, but there's something about the way the OTU is presented that doesn't gel with immortality (to me).

 

[mike wightman]

Traveller has always struggled the further you get from TL10.

Think about it. We are TL7.8 now, master fusion reactors and man portable laser weaponry, invent the null grav module and we hit TL8.

Now lets say we do that by 2100 (the CT timeline no longer fits the real world) and start cheaply putting stuff in orbit, begin a space industry and start colonising the Moon, Mars, etc.

What else changes in that time? Cheap energy, space based industry - would we actually start taking care of out planet and undoing some of the damage our fossil fueled industrial revolution wrought. We continue to advance computer technology, computers and robots become smarter and more integrated (forget Cyberpunk - just watch a group of teenagers with smartphones and shudder).
Genetic engineering and medical science continues to advance so by the time we hit TL9 out society will have changed as much from today as modern society is different to the 1800s - similar in many ways but almost impossible for someone from 1850 to imagine life in 2018.

So we make TL9 - let's say 2150 - the mastery of gravitics opens up the whole solar system to colonisation and industrial exploitation, and all of those other areas of technology advance so much that it becomes even harder to imagine and predict unless we slap modern tropes onto stuff and imagine TL9 is just like 1970s/80s USA just in space.

We invent the jump drive, head off to distant worlds - and encounter a culture two whole TLs beyond ours - somehow we adapt, assimilate their technology and science, fight a war and make breakthroughs that take us beyond that now conquered culture.

Here we are at TL12 - robots and computers that by modern standards are effectively intelligent - able to utilize the resources of entire solar systems - genetic engineering and medical technologies so advanced it may not be possible to imagine them. What remains the same though is human nature - modern mankind is not intellectually superior to our ancestors, we are just blessed with having all knowledge of past ages handed down to us.

The Third Imperium is founded at TL12, it advances quickly to TL13, TL14 is experimental by the IY500s and TL15 is experimental by the IY700s. By IY1105 the TL15 worlds of the Imperium may as well be magic palaces to us - yet the game describes stuff in ways we can understand and as a result we stick to imagining 1980s USA in space. Intrinsic human nature and motivations remain.

Can Imperial nobles and Emperors make copies of themselves - most definitely. Do they? That's for the ref to decide (or MWM for the OTU).
Can body parts or even whole bodies be cloned and force grown with blank brains? Again yes. Can synthetic bodies, robot bodies or computers be downloaded with the personality and memories of dead people? Yes (In point of fact by TL15 a machine can download a personality, real or artificial , onto/into someone without wafer technology.

One of the reasons I keep reading AotI and T5 - MWM has managed to take the mundane Third Imperial setting and show that we are not in Kansas anymore. Scratch the surface and the nobility and Emperors of the Imperium may more closely resemble Lexx than I want to think about...

 

[mike wightman]

Just a thought.
The original intent of MT was 'the real Strephon' was a clone or robot double.
This was retconned due to fan reaction and so by Survival Margin, actually a TNE supplement more than a MT supplement, Strephon is the real Strephon.

What if we retcon again to introduce the T5 wafer tech that didn't exist for the authors of MT or TNE - it has been there all along after all in the setting

The real Strephon is 'the real Strephon' because one of his body clones has had the prime personality imprinted - going against Imperial custom.

Imperial custom is for dead Emperors to be maintained as wafers, possibly being run in a VR set up so that the current Emperor can go and talk to them if need be.

Strephon is the first Emperor to have routinely made use of body doubles/clones, but care is taken to always sync the clones and keep them at least a sector apart. Imagine being the IISS crew tasked with transporting the Emperor's latest personality/memory downloads jumping into a system and learning of the assassination. Is there a termination clause for the Strephon clones? Does someone take it upon themselves to advance a clone as the prime Strephon (which one is the original anyway?).

 

[Timerover51]

I don't think there's any need to bring real world politics or religion into this, and I'd appreciate assistance staying away from it (and I don't want this getting topic to get Pitted).

We know cloning is practiced in the 3I. There's even specific language for clones you raise as offspring, like Norris's True Daughter.

However, there does seem to be at least some stigma to cloning yourself as replacements, since in Survival Margin Strephon mentions wanting to describe his other clones as surgically altered doubles to give them better chances (whatever that means). Although that could be due to the various complications spare emperors may have on succession.

And by the time you're at TL15, biological bodies are no longer your only choices. Advanced robotics should be able to provide effective physical vessels, and if you prefer the cloud, I don't see why your wafer can't just be put into a laptop and spend its days surfing the web.

To me, personality wafers are a problematic development in Traveller. I think for other settings they may work better, but there's something about the way the OTU is presented that doesn't gel with immortality (to me).

I am sorry, but I view human beings as a bit more than simple electronic coding on wafers. As for cloning as described, that does not appear in Classic, which makes me all the more inclined to base everything on Classic and the Cepheus Engine, as modified.

You are discussing what it means to be a human being here. Is a clone a human being or simply a piece of flesh to be used for whatever is needed?

 

[Reban]

One more variant in T5 that people might miss is the "brain in a jar" thats detailed under "How brains function" p.519 of the BBB.

Just a thought.
The original intent of MT was 'the real Strephon' was a clone or robot double.
This was retconned due to fan reaction and so by Survival Margin, actually a TNE supplement more than a MT supplement, Strephon is the real Strephon.

What if we retcon again to introduce the T5 wafer tech that didn't exist for the authors of MT or TNE - it has been there all along after all in the setting

The real Strephon is 'the real Strephon' because one of his body clones has had the prime personality imprinted - going against Imperial custom.

Imperial custom is for dead Emperors to be maintained as wafers, possibly being run in a VR set up so that the current Emperor can go and talk to them if need be.

Strephon is the first Emperor to have routinely made use of body doubles/clones, but care is taken to always sync the clones and keep them at least a sector apart. Imagine being the IISS crew tasked with transporting the Emperor's latest personality/memory downloads jumping into a system and learning of the assassination. Is there a termination clause for the Strephon clones? Does someone take it upon themselves to advance a clone as the prime Strephon (which one is the original anyway?).

Great ideas and insight there Mike. I like the idea of Strephon being a cultural disruptor, breaking the accepted Imperial cultural mores on cloning and personality transfer. It puts a lot more depth in some of the assassination background, perhaps adds another reason for why and when?

I like how transhumanism has made its way into Traveller very subtly through T5 and AotI.

Some very interesting questions about, self, memory, identity raised here, things that are explored in a lot of modern sci-fi like Altered Carbon, the TV version of which is coming to Netflix next month.

And IIRC consulting dead Emperors (personality simulations) gets mentioned in Traveller's Digest 9.

 

[LeperColony]

Just a thought.
The original intent of MT was 'the real Strephon' was a clone or robot double.
This was retconned due to fan reaction and so by Survival Margin, actually a TNE supplement more than a MT supplement, Strephon is the real Strephon.

What if we retcon again to introduce the T5 wafer tech that didn't exist for the authors of MT or TNE - it has been there all along after all in the setting
.

Yeah, this is actually my point. Of course the real world answer for issues like these has to do with the setting's development over the course of the last 40 years.

But despite the fact that wafers were introduced later in reality, they must have always been part of the setting once they've been added.

It could be, with regard to things like succession, that the title passes upon the death of the first biological body. So maybe there is a "former emperor" theme park, where retired sovereigns mill about playing 3D-Chess.

Maybe the coercive effect of whatever restraints exist actually is effective at preventing an emperor from an immortal reign. So mortality is the price for the throne. Or maybe the palace is just super cutthroat, and nobody has successfully managed such a transition.

The thing is, though wafers and cloning (or robotics) are certainly expensive, functional immortality would seem to be within reach of the governing and plutocratic classes.

Now, to be fair, in Agent the personality is dormant for long periods. Perhaps continuous life for severely extended periods results in uncontrollable psychological issues.

 

[mike wightman]

Another thought.
Pseudoreality communication - you know the one where a computer emulates a person so well you may as well be talking to the real person.

You are.

Pseaudoreality communication involves a computer generated holographic avatar that is running the personality/memory that at TLs below 15 meant wafers and wafer jacks.

Duke Norris has his personality and memory copied just after the FFW concludes, he sends this 'wafer' via courier to the Imperial Palace. Computers run the personality as a hologram, but the hologram 'is' Norris.

After the audience the wafer is couriered back to Norris, who has it implanted into his own memories via personality transfer machine - because they are 'his' memories there is no rejection issue (or risk of insanity, or possession by Trojan memories etc... or is there )
He remembers the audience with Strephon as if it were yesterday...

 

[mike wightman]

Now, to be fair, in Agent the personality is dormant for long periods. Perhaps continuous life for severely extended periods results in uncontrollable psychological issues.

Perhaps this is the origin or points the way to The Dakhaseri...

some electronically/wafer preserved personalities find the way...

 

[LeperColony]

Duke Norris has his personality and memory copied just after the FFW concludes, he sends this 'wafer' via courier to the Imperial Palace. Computers run the personality as a hologram, but the hologram 'is' Norris.

Dulinor didn't mean to kill Strephon, it was the hologram!

 

[mike wightman]

Perhaps Strephon passed an edict that only he could clone himself to be in many places at once. Lesser nobles could make use of pseudoreality but are forbidden from downloading into real bodies.

Dulinor, due to his religious beliefs amongst other things, considered this to be one step too far and hence the plot to assassinate Strephon began...

 

[LeperColony]

Perhaps Strephon passed an edict that only he could clone himself to be in many places at once. Lesser nobles could make use of pseudoreality but are forbidden from downloading into real bodies.

Dulinor, due to his religious beliefs amongst other things, considered this to be one step too far and hence the plot to assassinate Strephon began...

I doubt any such edict could really restrain the super powerful. But even if it were effective within the Imperium, you'd still have plenty of other regions of immortals.

 

[mike wightman]

The Essaray say hi there...

 

[Drakon]

Does the Wafer technology come from Marc's book, Agent of the Imperium?

As for Cloning, how do you compensate for the fact that any clone is going to be younger than the person cloned, unless the cloning is done at birth? Also, how does the clone know all of the life experiences of the person cloned, and is the clone even willing to cooperate with the person cloned?

Assuming a clone is "decanted" in a normal method, instead of 3D printed a la "The Fifth Element"

Wafer tech will implant the memories, but you do have a good question about rebellious clones.

 

[LeperColony]

Assuming a clone is "decanted" in a normal method, instead of 3D printed a la "The Fifth Element"

Wafer tech will implant the memories, but you do have a good question about rebellious clones.

Rebellion may not even be possible. If the bodies are just grown in tubes and stored awaiting upload, they'd be blank slates. Hard to conceive the inequity of your situation if you're insensate.