Cyberware

Category:Power Origins
Category:Phenomena
Cyberware is the term used to describe cybernetic technology which is grafted in or onto a living body. Even though cybernetic prosthetics were originally developed for practical and medical purposes, they've since become a matter of lifestyle choice. Cyberware has become as commonplace as tattoos and jewellery. The reasons for installing it are many and varied, including simple tech upgrades, combat enhancements, and even fashion statements. The possession of trendy cyberware has become an integral and defining part of Ark City culture. Uniqueness is just another form of currency. To make it big, you need to look the part. Style is everything.
== Overview ==
Cyberware is any cybernetic technology permanently installed into the body, especially technology that interfaces with the central nervous system. All Cyberware is artificial. Biological enhancements are considered a separate category, collectively referred to as Bioware. Cyberware generally refers to technology that interacts with (or acts in place of) the nervous system. People with artificial hip joints or pacemakers are not generally considered cyborgs, even though part of their body is artificial.
Cyberware is commonplace in the cyberpunk world. It is a post-human society, where your meat body is little more than a tool to enhance for functionality or appearance. Cyberfashion (sometimes referred to as Fashionware) is its own thing in the cyberpunk world; enhancing your own body for no other reason than looks. Beside status, cybernetics are most often desired for practical applications. For most people, the main concern with cybernetics is simply being able to afford it.
While cybernetics are still expensive, they are affordable by most of the middle class to some degree, and even by the poor in some situations. The working class, especially professionals, often have two or three implants of some kind. Cyberoptics are useful for recording meetings. Cyberaudio with boosted sensitivity could be useful for eavesdropping on gossips in the executive lounge. While the Arkverse is a much more violent society, there are plenty of non-violent everyday uses for Cybernetics that make them desirable to almost everyone. Installing cybertechnology is generally considered a major purchase (like buying a laptop, TV, or car), but is still within the means of most people.
=== Getting Wired ===
Cybertechnology can be acquired almost anywhere. Some installations are trivial, and can be done with a walk-in visit. There are many chain stores that can perform these. These shops can also upgrade, repair, or tune existing cyberware. Other installations will require an actual hospital, and involve recovery time. As in the real world, the quality will depend on what you're willing to spend. Mall stores are considered middle of the road. Specialist clinics can deliver much higher quality installations. And for the desperate or the criminal, there are ripperdocs.
Ripperdocs are underground medtechs that can perform installations cheaply, but with a serious cost in quality and integrity. Ripperdocs do not follow the medical codes and procedures of the mall stores or clinics or hospitals. This can lead to complications such as additional pain. Ripperdocs are also used by the underworld for installing cyberware that is otherwise illegal.
Cyberware installation involves the use of nanotech to establish an interface between the module and the nervous system in the body. There is no limit to how much of the body can be modified. Full body conversions involve replacing virtually everything except the brain. It is difficult (some would say impossible) to avoid cyberpsychosis in such a situation however, so full body conversions are rare.
=== Linear Frames ===
These are high tech exoskeletons, that resemble contoured body armour. Think Iron Man, but actually grafted to your body. These frames go past the limitations of conventional cyberlimbs, because the frame does not rely on the meat body to brace itself, allowing for truly superhuman feats (like lifting small cars or bending steel bars in your hands). They have some limitations: you cannot swim in them, and they will slow your reflexes. Also... you are going to be wearing body armour for the rest of your life, all the time and cyberpsychosis is a genuine concern if you get one installed.
=== Body Plating ===
This involves grafting actual armour plates into your body. Unlike Subdermal Armor, this stuff is on TOP of your skin. But it is as permanent as any other cyber implant. Body plating can be installed in sections, or over your entire body. It can also be incorporated into Linear frames and other Cyberware.
The armour is more complicated than just slapping steel plates onto your skin... it has many layers and is porous (your skin still exists underneath, as does your meat body). From the outside though, you will resemble a robot. Body plating does not need to look especially robotic or ugly though... it can be styled like anything else. It can be styled in almost any way, including minimalist designs (do you want a basic reflective ovoid sphere for a head?) or fearsome and intimidating creatures from fantasy (would you like to look like a metal manticore?). Your imagination is the only real limit. People who have body plating are basically immune to the trivial damage that the rest of us worry about (cuts and scrapes and stuff). Body plating offers better damage resistance than even Subdermal Armor, and can be enhanced even further than that if desired.
=== Fully Body Conversion ===
The majority of full body conversions, the spine, brain and adrenal systems are transplanted into a fluid-filled support sack, in which nutrients are infused. The nutrients, infused via an IV that plugs into a port on the external shell, or derived from masticated food that passes through a "blender" into a separate digestive chamber and is routed to a processing food holder that routes the vitamins to the support sack.
Meanwhile, the actual metal body frame is powered by a rechargeable battery with a multi-day charge. The skin is chrome implanted RealSkinn similar to the type used on cyberlimbs; it's soft, warm, but hairless and shiny. There's a neural net that ties sensors in the skin to the brain.
== Fashionware ==
Fashionware is a class of cyberware focused on physical aesthetics.
Fashionware is low-impact cyberware designed for casual convenience or merely for looks. Fashionware is generally innocuous, easy to install, and carries a low or negligible humanity cost relative to real cyberware. Most mall stores and retail outlets that install commercial cyberware will have options for fashionware as well. There are even standalone kiosks that can install it.
* Biomonitor: A favorite of Solos and Corporates, this is an under-skin display mounted on the forearm. It provides a real-time readout of common body functions like heart rate, blood pressure, blood chemistry, brainwave activity, temperature, cholesterol levels and a number of other bodily functions.
* Advanced Biomonitor: A more detailed version of the common biomonitor. The readout is not limited to a forearm display, as it can be fed into cyberoptics or broadcast to a remote receiver. It is most often used by militaries or corporations who want to monitor troops/workers remotely. The transmitter has a range of a about a mile.
* Skinwatch: A precursor to the biomonitor, it is the same except that its functions are limited to that of a simple digital timepiece.
* Light Tattoos: Light tattoos are quite common. They appear identical to normal tattoos, except that they use chemicals that can emit light. They do not require batteries. Energy is absorbed from ambient light during the day and re-emitted at night. Just as with conventional tattoos, the quality varies greatly. Some are basic shapes and some are very intricate and detailed.
* Shift-tacts: Contact lenses that offer a cheap alternative to expensive cyberoptics. They can have some novel effects, like shifting color based on mood, patterned logos, or exotic colors (including reflective metallic).
* ChemSkins: These are dyes that can be rubbed into the skin, like body paint. They can change the skin color to any human shade, or more exotic shades and patterns. Want your skin to look like a Leopard? Or a Crocodile? The patterns can be very vibrant and detailed. The patterns can even react to ambient temperature or your moods. Chemskins can be temporary, long-term, or permanent depending on the variety.
* Synthskins: These are an upgrade from Chemskins. They are actually embedded into the real skin and contain a display layer that can emit light and patterns. Synthskins can display a number of special effects.
* Techhair: Artificial hair with properties similar to synthskin. Tech hair can be any color, can emit light like light tattoos, or change tension (so you could make it stand straight up when you are angry, for example). It can completely replace your real hair or be added to real hair (like a weave). (And yes, it can also be used on any part of the body)
* Flashlight/Strobe Implant: A specialized synthskin implant designed to function as a common flashlight that's bright enough to dazzle or blind people. Workers in dark environments use them most often ( think miners, diver's, and deep sea explorers ). And they can also be implanted anywhere on the body but fingers, palms, and forearms tend to be the most common areas, and It also requires battery power.
* Kill Display: A simple synthskin display that is on all the time, like a skinwatch. Except that it displays kills or other threat-display stuff. It can, of course, be updated in real time. The display is a few inches and can be mounted on any part of the body. Of course, it will be a part of the body viewable by the public. Otherwise, what's the point? (The display is on the honor system...nobody is going around auditing people's kill displays).
* Subdermal Viewscreen: This is a marquee style display, otherwise similar to a biomonitor screen.
* See-It™ Transparent Skin: A specialized synthskin that is transparent. It presumably filters any radiation (such as UV) that would be dangerous to internal organs. It is more easily damaged by light than real skin, however. While it has an obvious cool factor, most people do not find exposed organs and muscle tissue hot.
* Mood Skin: A type of synthskin that changes color based on your moods. It has been banned in most countries because the chemicals it uses are toxic.
* Turn-On Nails: Fake nails with properties similar to synthskin.
* Show-On Nails: A more advanced version of Turn on Nails.
* Logo-Line Tattoos: Specialized light tattoos (or shaped synthskin) featuring media or corporate logos.
* TVSkin: Similar to a biomonitor, but will display HD TV signals as well. It requires battery power and a basic neural processor.
== Bioware ==
Bioware is a class of cybernetic enhancements that are based on human anatomy and physiology rather than electronics or mechanics. Bioware can have some non-organic components. But the enhancement itself is improving a biological function, rather than replacing the biological component with technology.
Bioware is often preferred to cybernetics for a number of reasons. It has little impact on appearance (this is not just about vanity, it is also a matter of stealth; maybe you do not want people knowing you are enhanced). There are fewer possible complications because it is enhancing functions that are already present naturally. And a lot of people have problems with Cyberware for one reason or another (religion for example).
Nanotech is the basis of most forms of Bioware. And you can stack all forms of Bioware with each other. It is possible for a single person to have all enhancements listed below at the same time.
Category:Technology