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From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Danyeal De La Luna)
Subject:	Cyber and psychosis
Date:	Sun Apr 29 00:30:01 2001

Message no. 1 I have read a lot about cyber and it take away a person's humanity. They
have various psychosis due to the loss, feeling "half a person" etc. In SR,
this would normally be the case, but presto, you can get a new limb cloned
and reattached so there you are...but do you still lose the essence? That
would be question #1. The next question is, if someone opts for the cyber
treatment, why? Economics? Or just to grab that edge? Either one would
still, IMHO be under the normal category. There is, however, the freak that
ELECTS to have parts removed and replaced with chrome...now we are into the
serious All-Day Psycho-Sucker category.

Lunatec

P.S. Did the mysterious attachment show on this e-mail too?

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Sebastian Wiers)
Subject:	Cyber and psychosis
Date:	Sun Apr 29 02:55:00 2001

Message no. 2 >I have read a lot about cyber and it take away a person's humanity. They
>have various psychosis due to the loss, feeling "half a person" etc. In SR,
>this would normally be the case, but presto, you can get a new limb cloned
>and reattached so there you are...but do you still lose the essence? That
>would be question #1.

No, such surgery would not have any associated essence loss. Its even
pretty safe for a mage- it might casue a magic check, but a "normal" cloned
limb itself is no problem as far as magic goes, unlike cyber or bioware.

>The next question is, if someone opts for the cyber
>treatment, why? Economics? Or just to grab that edge? Either one would
>still, IMHO be under the normal category.

I disagree. Forced, involuntary change (including going for "edge"- "I had
to do it to survive in this crule world") of your body is one of the biggest
traumas you can face, and can provoke severe problems with self image and
how you interact with others. Self destructive behaviors are pretty common
under such circumstances, afaik.

>There is, however, the freak that
>ELECTS to have parts removed and replaced with chrome...now we are into the
>serious All-Day Psycho-Sucker category.

Nah, they would be the well adjusted ones. At least, they would not get any
NEW problems from the chrome. Its a voluntary change, just like people who
get voluntary cosmetic surgery or body modifications these days. No NEW
issues there, most times.

-Mongoose

>P.S. Did the mysterious attachment show on this e-mail too?

PS- I didn't see any attachment.

From:	shadowrn@*******.com (shadowrn@*******.com)
Subject:	Cyber and psychosis
Date:	Sun Apr 29 10:45:01 2001

Message no. 3 --part1_c1.dd6bf8c.281d830c_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
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In a message dated 4/29/01 3:00:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
m0ng005e@*****.com writes:

> No NEW
> issues there, most times.

Except what prompted them to GO for voluntarily choppin themselves up. Agree
in the effects of involuntary surgery though; From what I've learned, a lot
of the problems we have with Vietnam vets in the US are because of that. The
government was too busy dealing with the real psychotics that, say, went into
combat stoned to deal with the more "minor" cases like that.

John

--part1_c1.dd6bf8c.281d830c_boundary
Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<HTML>In a message dated
4/29/01 3:00:32 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
 m0ng005e@*****.com writes:
 
 
 <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid;
MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">No NEW
 issues there, most times.</BLOCKQUOTE>
 
 Except what prompted them to GO for voluntarily choppin themselves up. Agree
 in the effects of involuntary surgery though; From what I've learned, a lot
 of the problems we have with Vietnam vets in the US are because of that. The
 government was too busy dealing with the real psychotics that, say, went into
 combat stoned to deal with the more "minor" cases like that.
 
 John</HTML>

--part1_c1.dd6bf8c.281d830c_boundary--

From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Bob Ooton)
Subject:	Cyber and psychosis
Date:	Thu May 3 22:50:01 2001

Message no. 4 ----- Original Message -----
From: Danyeal De La Luna <lunatec@**.mediaone.net>
To: <shadowrn@*********.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2001 1:39 AM
Subject: Cyber and psychosis

> I have read a lot about cyber and it take away a person's humanity.
They
> have various psychosis due to the loss, feeling "half a person" etc.
> [snip] The next question is, if someone opts for the cyber
> treatment, why? Economics? Or just to grab that edge? Either one would
> still, IMHO be under the normal category. There is, however, the freak
that
> ELECTS to have parts removed and replaced with chrome...now we are
into the
> serious All-Day Psycho-Sucker category.

Not really, as someone pointed out in another post, cosmetic surgery is
very common now and only likely to become more so. Datajacks are
incredibly common if not a requirement for many technical jobs in SR and
those go into your brain! Sixty years ago, people would have been
aghast at most of the things people do to themselves now with cosmetic
surgery ("You got your fat sucked out??") so think of how the times have
changed first. Laser vision correction is becoming very common now, how
do you think someone from the 40's would react to the concept of having
a laser aimed at and shot at their eye?

With regard to voluntary installation of cyber-arms, -legs, -torsos,
and -skulls, you're dealing with the same issue on a lot of levels. You
have to want (or be unable to choose otherwise) to have that piece of
'ware grafted on where your bits were previously. From a combat
perspective, there are a lot of reasons to make this adjustment: easier
and less invasive addition of other gear (smartlinks, decks, etc) and
they're cheaper, faster, stronger, and tougher than normal limbs. You
can upgrade them easier, requiring only money to do so. They also
aren't *you*. If your arm gets crushed in an industrial accident,
you'll have some issues. If your cyberarm gets crushed in an industrial
accident, you get it fixed. So there's a nice bit of detachment from
the cyberlimb that can ease future trauma. The issues of ease,
flexibility, upgradability, cost, time (you can get a cyberlimb pretty
quickly - it take a while to clone a real limb), and detachment all make
getting a cyberlimb an easy choice for someone who could benefit from
it.

You just have to weigh the cost (losing a perfectly good piece of you)
with the gain (all that stuff above) and then make the choice based on
your beliefs. Some people would never do it, regardless of the benefit.
Others would jump at the chance. It doesn't make the first group sane
and the latter one insane, it's just a matter of cost/benefit and
personal opinion.

| Bob Ooton <rbooton@*****.edu>
| aka TopCat, the cyberware advocate
| Member of the Black Hand Demo Team

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