Cyber Hero/Star Hero

[TheImperialKhan]

The Imperial Khan will begin with a simple question. In the HERO Universe timeline how are you planning to explain the absense of Cyberware in Star Hero if Cyber Hero exists in the same timeline?

Once that particular genii has been let out of the bottle it's rather hard to cork it back up . But Cyberware doesn't seem to fit with say Solar Hero or indeed any tradition Space Opera style SF campaign of the type that I assume The Terran Empire is. Or do you plan to have Cyber Hero take place in an alternate timeline?

[dbsousa]

INSB (I'm Not Steve, But) if it were my call? Cyberware causes cancer. It takes 20 years to establish the link and another 20 to convince the public, but the proof is undeniable. The life expectancy of someone with major cyberware is 10 years. Tissue cloning makes most reparative cyberware obsolete. Both the law and culture make enhancement cyberware a freakish thing, used only by people with a fetish for it. by 2100, no practicing surgeon has ever seen a cyberware implantation. The information can still be found in books, but in the same chapter as sulfa drugs and leeches.

I run a Space Opera game where this is the case. Cybernetics is a third world technique; Anyone from a civilised world has access to Synthorganic transplants which are 95% as effective as the original.

[Steve Long]

I'm not planning to "bottle it back up," or to use an alternate time line -- that wouldn't make much sense given the "meta-setting" concept behind the HU. Pick up the Terran Empire book in a few weeks and you'll see a section on the cybersystems available. The Spacer's Toolkit will have more. But TE also touches, briefly, on why it's not extraordinarily common.

[Syberdwarf2]

Originally posted by TheImperialKhan
The Imperial Khan will begin with a simple question. In the HERO Universe timeline how are you planning to explain the absense of Cyberware in Star Hero if Cyber Hero exists in the same timeline?

Once that particular genii has been let out of the bottle it's rather hard to cork it back up . But Cyberware doesn't seem to fit with say Solar Hero or indeed any tradition Space Opera style SF campaign of the type that I assume The Terran Empire is. Or do you plan to have Cyber Hero take place in an alternate timeline?

Forgive my ignorance, oh mighty Khan.......
But I wasn't aware that cyberware was absent from Star HERO.
I imagine it would be very much a part of things in Star HERO, but maybe it's just not the MAIN focus of the campaign. Example,; Andromeda has Harper running around with a jack port behind his ear. (How early cyberpunk can ya get?) and there are charaxters with implants, etc but cybernetics aren't absent, they just are so incredibly commonplace or unnecessary/passe that you don't see a lot of them.

[TheImperialKhan]

Originally posted by Steve Long
I'm not planning to "bottle it back up," or to use an alternate time line -- that wouldn't make much sense given the "meta-setting" concept behind the HU. Pick up the Terran Empire book in a few weeks and you'll see a section on the cybersystems available. The Spacer's Toolkit will have more. But TE also touches, briefly, on why it's not extraordinarily common.

The Imperial Khan would agree with this for the most part and in fact looks forward to reading Terran Empire with great anticipation. Still it seems that cyberware is reasonably uncommon in the later eras, The Imperial Khan looks forward to seeing why and hopes there is a deeper explanation than "It's no longer in vogue".

But then again The Khan would expect no less from the creative minds at HERO Games.

[TheImperialKhan]

Originally posted by Syberdwarf2
Forgive my ignorance, oh mighty Khan.......
But I wasn't aware that cyberware was absent from Star HERO.
I imagine it would be very much a part of things in Star HERO, but maybe it's just not the MAIN focus of the campaign. Example,; Andromeda has Harper running around with a jack port behind his ear. (How early cyberpunk can ya get?) and there are charaxters with implants, etc but cybernetics aren't absent, they just are so incredibly commonplace or unnecessary/passe that you don't see a lot of them.

WHAT!!! You dare to mention that hideous raving of a drug addled mind in The Imperial Khan's presense?! While the Khan has had great respect for the vision of The Roddenberry in the past, these new "discoveries" are naught but the scribblings of a fallen man high on cocaine!

You will be subjected to unspeakable torture:

You shall be strapped into a chair, your eyes propped open with toothpicks and surrounded by a battery of video screens. There you shall be forced to watch hour after hour of Gilligan's Island reruns until your brain has turned completely to mush!!!!!

[Greeter]

What book will cover cyberspace and the tools needed to access it? The Terran Empire or The Spacers Toolkit or something else?

[TheImperialKhan]

Probably Cyber Hero when they get around to it.

Maybe in 2005 or 2006

It doesn't seem to be a big priority right now.

Of course if enough people ask for it that could change.

[Steve Long]

What book will cover cyberspace and the tools needed to access it? The Terran Empire or The Spacers Toolkit or something else?

See Star Hero, pages 162-65.

Also check out "The HERO System Genre By Genre," available on the "Free Stuff" page of this h'yar website.

[Herolover]

I understand the idea of of a "meta-setting," but I hate it. Somethings just don't fit. This is the one area that I feel DOJ really didn't hit the ball.

That said, I love the idea that cybernetics cause cancer. Works for me.

[Guilo]

If I remember reading correctly, there is mention of cybernetics in the genre listings at the start of the book, and a basic framework of building cybernetics in the sidebars.

[Gigakaiju]

Originally posted by Herolover
I understand the idea of of a "meta-setting," but I hate it. Somethings just don't fit. This is the one area that I feel DOJ really didn't hit the ball.

That said, I love the idea that cybernetics cause cancer. Works for me.

It's rare that a science fiction setting assumes that technology less effective than in the real world. That, or the medical community has been hiding the side-effects of current implant technology from us. After all, there are (conservatively speaking) tens of thousands of people out there with pacemakers, artificial joints, cochlinear implants, skeletal reinforcements/repairs, and other assorted types of implanted technology who are overdue for some nasty cancers by now. A number of them are friends or relatives of friends of mine, so it's going to be hard to break the news to them. i tend to go with the presumption that most advanced cybernetics are nearly imperceptible to casual scrutiny and are only employed when certain types of augmentation are desired that can't be achieved using less maintenance intensive organics. Man-machine interfaces, certain types of sensory agmentation and similar enhancements would be likely candidates. Of course it's not hard to imagine that installation/maintenance costs and social pressures would discourage obvious or excessive cybernetics.
On a related note, wired.com recently had some interesting articles on recent advances in the area of vision replacement/prosthesis.

-m[arcuS]