SCMR Chpt 50

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==Chapter 50 - Self Configuring Modular Robot==
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"...they just slap a bigger thing to an even bigger...
...thing." This is Elizabeth on drugs. The drug cocktail for this thirteen year old, includes LD-150 to suppress emotional responses, thus preserving dopamine receptors and endorphin receptors, Paramorphinal to deal with constant aches without damaging her other internal organs, and Tetrahydracannabinol to guarantee appetite and buffer the side-effects of the LD-150 and the Paramorphinal.
"Yeah, but these aren't 'mechs. They're powered armor." Peter Steiner-Davion argued. He's fifteen, he's also Arthur's older brother, and going to The Nagelring this year.
"Right. It's bigger than the scout suits Carlysle found on Helm, but scaling down, it wouldn't really be any tougher or stronger." They were analyzing a captured piece of Clan kit. Not really an authorized examination, but Peter had picked up a few things in the years with the Brats, including a decisive interest in finding things out-even when it's forbidden, and a certain disregard for safety rules where there was something to learn.
Elizabeth picked up a piece of the armor composite.
"It's derived from Starslab." she said, "I mean, they layered it a little differently, but look at the spectral on this stuff-it's the same cerametal composite you find wrapped around every 'mech since the Mackie-they just changed the layering some."
"We can do better?" he asked.
Lizzie shrugged, "Maybe. It might be a matter of hitting the limits of the atomic structure-but maybe not? Sometimes an advance isn't in the hardware."
"Tactics." Peter said with a nod.
"SOFTWARE." Elizabeth corrected him, "The advance here isn't in the suit, it's how it was designed and used. The suit's kinda clunky really-except that it's optimized for a specific role, and against energy weapons or an energy heavy environment."
"Could you do better?" he asked.
"Ask Penny." Liz said, "She's got Materials Science and Chemistry chops I don't have the talent for. Still, it might distract them before they figure out the answer to my problem, which is a good thing."
He stopped, a little stunned, "WHY is that a 'good thing'."
"Imagine Jess's Grandfather's axe. It's all original, but the handle's been replaced three times and the head twice." She picked up a power screwdriver, and checked the cell's charge. "Okay, so my genes are killing me, but I'm not dead yet, now the way they're killing me, is through my nervous system, and it's a replacement process-somehow, the 'make good nerve tissues' coding in my genes is on the outside, with the junk dna, which breaks off every time a cell divides." she put the driver down, "So...rewriting genetic code kills the patient, but protects the offspring, okay? how do you keep me-the part of me that is 'me' alive?"
"I...don't know." Peter admitted
"Same way you fix grandfather's axe." she said, "You replace the parts that break down too far, and eventually, the whole person is replaced with those parts. Our bodies already do this, Yvonne's books say it takes seven years, but with MY syndrome. That means the progress can be damn near charted to the day. I who is me right now, know how many years I have left, because of the cell replacement process. and how it impacts human DNA. Something known since the 20th Century. The real question is whether what comes out of it, is me, or just a copy of me that thinks she's me."
"Okay, I'm still lost." Peter confessed.
"Get your dad to declassify the August 3048 report on Callison." she told him. "I know how to survive the syndrome, the question is only if I'll still have a soul and still be me, if I do it."
"Huh?"
"The Machine Plague started copying people." she explained. "Imperfect copies, but copies. It's one of the tricks that clued Yvonne and Arthur into designing predators."
"OH."
"I have nightmares about being copied, Peter." she told him, "Especially when I'm on a ship during jump."
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