In the thread "[Story][Season 0] Technology Exchange", Ace Dreamer asked:
That touched off an essay of a reply.... specifically, this essay. Feedback is requested before I add this to the FenWiki and link to it from the "Biomodification" page. Mind the FenWiki markup.
In case the request for feedback wasn't clear: Everything in this post is subject to change if enough of you don't like it. Besides, there are still unwritten parts of this essay...
Page Title: Biomodification (meta)
{{meta}}{{quote|That guy's part of my crew! I want him returned intact, same species and same gender he was when you found him, y'hear?|20px|20px|[[S. Malaclypse Fnord|Mal Fnord], at [[SOS-Con]}}{{TOC right}}
Along with [[Spacecraft Registry#Space Craft|flying cars] and human-grade [[Artificial Intelligence|AIs], [[Biomodification|biomods] are one of the three pillars of the background of Fenspace. Unlike flying cars and AIs, biomods are tricky to imagine, if you don't go with the blatanty obvious. Not that there's anything wrong with "blatantly obvious" in Fenspace - this is a setting that has, amongst others, [[April Roberts|an Andorian] in Starfleet, [[Hélène Aronnax|a Creature from the Black Lagoon] in the Submariners, [[the Jason|a Saiyan] in the Main Belt, and [[catgirls] all over the place. But it also has [[Katz Schrödinger] and [[Joseph Corcoran].
These are some guidelines on how to handle biomods in Fenspace stories. They are '''''not''''' hard-and-fast rules.
==How Common Are They?==
Not everybody in Fenspace has a biomod. Not everybody in Fenspace wants a biomod - for every person who desperately wants to change the body he or she lives in, there's a person who's completely happy in the body that he or she was born in, and a handful of people who wouldn't mind something different but don't know what they might want. Given that, biomods are in the minority across Fenspace as a whole.
Some factions are heavier on the biomods than others due to the nature of their fandoms - for example, [[Furries] tend to a high percentage of biomods, while [[Pulpers] have hardly any.
On the whole, biomodded Fen are roughly 10% of the population; enough to be noticeable while not dominating society.
(Pre-publication Question: Is 10% too high? Is it too low?)
==How Powerful Can They Be?==
Well, you're not going to biomod into Superman. It's not too likely that you'll biomod into Stephen Hawking, either, but that is at least possible.
If an ability exists somewhere in the animal (or plant) kingdom already, then it's fair game for a biomod, no questions asked. [[Leda Swansen]'s biomod is taken straight from the electric eel, for example.
If the biomod is a trivial change - gender, height and weight, hair and skin color, that sort of thing - without granting any superhuman abilities, then it's probably acceptable.
On the flip side, if the proposed ability exists solely to make a character look good all the time in all situations, then it's probably too powerful - even if the character is intended to be an Open Character that any writer can use and abuse. This ties back to [[Fenspace Rules#Rule #0|Rule #0] - No Fair Hogging All the Cool.
The question is, where do the writers draw the line?
more - I know there's a discussion about this somewhere in the forums, but I don't have time to look for it right now
==What Are the Downsides of a Biomod?==
That depends.
more - do moer powerful biomods have more powerful downsides? do some biomods have no downsides at all?
==What Are the More Common Biomods?==
With the exception of the [[Catgirling Machine] and similar devices, it is impossible to reliably copy a biomod exactly. There are, however, some obvious broad classes of biomods.
===Furries===
Thanks to [[Boskonian]s turning unwilling victims into catgirls (and a small handful of wolf-people), the anthropomorphic biomod is the most common biomod by far. [[Rabbit people] are the next-most-common type of "furry" biomod.
Kelly Harrison, majordomo of the Hotel Stellvia, is possibly the setting's best-known full-time anthropomorphic biomod; she's a rabbit person.
Shapeshifters who can become animals or animal-people are also possible; [[Dakota] is a werewolf, and [[Andrew Fauho] is a werefox.
===Fictional Races===
more - describe them as a class
[[April Roberts] is essentially an Andorian, and [[the Jason] pretty much turned himself into a Saiyan.
===Gender-Benders===
The ability to change gender (reliably or not) is one of the less-obvious common biomods. [[Jeph Antilles] and [[KJ DeRosia] are known gender-benders.
In a related area, there are persistent rumors that the [[Crystal Millennium] has the ability to permanently change a person's gender from male to female. This would explain why a demographic that is predominantly male - SF and fantasy fandom - has a predominantly-female presence around [[Venus].
(Pre-publication Question: Should anything else be in this article?)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:Are most of the people in active service with the 'Sammies' biomods (via their special handwavium)? So, strong and athletic and generally female? With the odd strong and athletic tuxedo-clad male, mostly in a supporting role?Then Star Ranger4 referred Ace to me.
That touched off an essay of a reply.... specifically, this essay. Feedback is requested before I add this to the FenWiki and link to it from the "Biomodification" page. Mind the FenWiki markup.
In case the request for feedback wasn't clear: Everything in this post is subject to change if enough of you don't like it. Besides, there are still unwritten parts of this essay...
Page Title: Biomodification (meta)
{{meta}}{{quote|That guy's part of my crew! I want him returned intact, same species and same gender he was when you found him, y'hear?|20px|20px|[[S. Malaclypse Fnord|Mal Fnord], at [[SOS-Con]}}{{TOC right}}
Along with [[Spacecraft Registry#Space Craft|flying cars] and human-grade [[Artificial Intelligence|AIs], [[Biomodification|biomods] are one of the three pillars of the background of Fenspace. Unlike flying cars and AIs, biomods are tricky to imagine, if you don't go with the blatanty obvious. Not that there's anything wrong with "blatantly obvious" in Fenspace - this is a setting that has, amongst others, [[April Roberts|an Andorian] in Starfleet, [[Hélène Aronnax|a Creature from the Black Lagoon] in the Submariners, [[the Jason|a Saiyan] in the Main Belt, and [[catgirls] all over the place. But it also has [[Katz Schrödinger] and [[Joseph Corcoran].
These are some guidelines on how to handle biomods in Fenspace stories. They are '''''not''''' hard-and-fast rules.
==How Common Are They?==
Not everybody in Fenspace has a biomod. Not everybody in Fenspace wants a biomod - for every person who desperately wants to change the body he or she lives in, there's a person who's completely happy in the body that he or she was born in, and a handful of people who wouldn't mind something different but don't know what they might want. Given that, biomods are in the minority across Fenspace as a whole.
Some factions are heavier on the biomods than others due to the nature of their fandoms - for example, [[Furries] tend to a high percentage of biomods, while [[Pulpers] have hardly any.
On the whole, biomodded Fen are roughly 10% of the population; enough to be noticeable while not dominating society.
(Pre-publication Question: Is 10% too high? Is it too low?)
==How Powerful Can They Be?==
Well, you're not going to biomod into Superman. It's not too likely that you'll biomod into Stephen Hawking, either, but that is at least possible.
If an ability exists somewhere in the animal (or plant) kingdom already, then it's fair game for a biomod, no questions asked. [[Leda Swansen]'s biomod is taken straight from the electric eel, for example.
If the biomod is a trivial change - gender, height and weight, hair and skin color, that sort of thing - without granting any superhuman abilities, then it's probably acceptable.
On the flip side, if the proposed ability exists solely to make a character look good all the time in all situations, then it's probably too powerful - even if the character is intended to be an Open Character that any writer can use and abuse. This ties back to [[Fenspace Rules#Rule #0|Rule #0] - No Fair Hogging All the Cool.
The question is, where do the writers draw the line?
more - I know there's a discussion about this somewhere in the forums, but I don't have time to look for it right now
==What Are the Downsides of a Biomod?==
That depends.
more - do moer powerful biomods have more powerful downsides? do some biomods have no downsides at all?
==What Are the More Common Biomods?==
With the exception of the [[Catgirling Machine] and similar devices, it is impossible to reliably copy a biomod exactly. There are, however, some obvious broad classes of biomods.
===Furries===
Thanks to [[Boskonian]s turning unwilling victims into catgirls (and a small handful of wolf-people), the anthropomorphic biomod is the most common biomod by far. [[Rabbit people] are the next-most-common type of "furry" biomod.
Kelly Harrison, majordomo of the Hotel Stellvia, is possibly the setting's best-known full-time anthropomorphic biomod; she's a rabbit person.
Shapeshifters who can become animals or animal-people are also possible; [[Dakota] is a werewolf, and [[Andrew Fauho] is a werefox.
===Fictional Races===
more - describe them as a class
[[April Roberts] is essentially an Andorian, and [[the Jason] pretty much turned himself into a Saiyan.
===Gender-Benders===
The ability to change gender (reliably or not) is one of the less-obvious common biomods. [[Jeph Antilles] and [[KJ DeRosia] are known gender-benders.
In a related area, there are persistent rumors that the [[Crystal Millennium] has the ability to permanently change a person's gender from male to female. This would explain why a demographic that is predominantly male - SF and fantasy fandom - has a predominantly-female presence around [[Venus].
(Pre-publication Question: Should anything else be in this article?)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012