Ghost (THS)

"Skin sensors are reading 22,000 rads. Glad I’m a ghost, or else I’d be toast" - Susan Xu, within the cybershell probe "Not In Kansas"Transhuman Space, p.59A "ghost" is a machine emulation of an uploaded (human) personality,Transhuman Space, p.204 typically created through high-resolution brain scanning. 
The usual process involves taking the brain apart into small slices in order to be scanned -- as such, ghost scans are a destructive method of uploading, and fatal.Transhuman Space, p.78
Ghost scanning is highly controversial in the THS world, representing the death of a human mind and the birth of a perfectly similar AI.Not to be confused with the supernatural, floaty kind of Ghost.
== Rights ==
* As Ghosts are a subtype of artificial intelligence (AI), their overall legal rights are restricted in less-transhumanist countries. (see page on AI)
** Ghosts are legal citizens in PRAPacific Rim Alliance, SACSouth African Coalition, the USAThe United States of America (in case you thought it was something else), Dun.Duncanite stations, and Transhumanist microstates.Transhuman Space, p.127
** In the European Union, ghosts may legally occupy a bioshell if it's a copy of the original person (oddly enough).
== Similar States of Being ==
"To go places and do things that have never been done before--that’s what dying is all about." -- Susan Xu
=== Fragment ===
An incomplete scan of a ghost--for instance, one made with a less than fresh brain--can result in a Fragment, which retains much of its personality but little of its overall memory. Fragments often act like the original person, but with amnesia.Transhuman Space, p.79
=== Shadows ===
Shadows are smaller, simpler AIs made through non-destructive brain-scanning methods. They are however, not quite the same as the original.
== Major Breakthroughs ==
In 2076, Gilbert Stokes--a researcher from System Technologies AG's colony Exogenesis--became the first human to have their mind uploaded.Transhuman Space, p.14
Ghost AIs from volunteered scientists were some of the first beings to explore the outer solar system, such as Kazuhiro Nishimori (visiting Triton in 2081) and Susan Xu (visiting the interior of Jupiter in 2086).
== Violence and Mysteries ==
=== Xoxing ===
Xoxing is the act of making a copy of a self-aware mind emulation, and represents a combination of crimes related to the act. The first "xox cult" appeared around 2087, monitored and advised by a Shadow of its original leader.Transhuman Space, p.15 Xoxing was made officially a felony in China in 2091.Transhuman Space, p.16
=== The Tearing of '97. ===
In 2097, 76 people were forcibly uploaded by a "rogue emergent intelligence" in Shaoxing, China. Was this entity trying to collect minds, gather slaves, or was it acting like some lonely ghost, looking for company?
The in-book version is quite diabolical, representing the sci-fi equivalent of an unexploded landmine--an infomorph hell-bent on sabotage of a given country, left to its own devices, and capable of controlling cybershells and AI systems like a horror movie ghost. 
=== The Xox of '99 ===
September, 2099, slinky superstar Xu Fang San is kidnapped and xoxed while vacationing in Spain. Black market mind emulations of her are sold throughout the system.
== Examples ==
* The sci-fi horror game of Soma revolves around brainscanning and ghost AIs 
== See Also ==
* AIs
** Emergent AI
*** Rogue emergent AI
== Notes ==
== References ==
Category:Setting Concepts