| From: | JonSzeto <JonSzeto@***.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Rigger Simsense (was Re: Rigger 2 Questions & Problems) |
| Date: | Thu, 2 Apr 1998 01:25:52 EST |
> Hmm, I don't really agree with that implementation. It would seem to
> me that the makers of this tech would put RAS overrides in to prevent
> lethal feedback from normally occuring. You mentioned Deckers as an
> example, and in a way that's a good point. Deckers only take lethal
> damage in situations when they encounter something specifically designed
> to induce lethal biofeedback, usually resulting in a heart attack from
> what I've read. There's nothing accidental about it. If they get dumped,
> they experience dump shock, other forms of damage do stun damage. It
> takes a carefully designed and tailored program to do lethal damage. This
> was in part why I raised the question in the first place.
I hate to keep repeating myself, but the way riggers interact with
a vehicle is different than the way a decker interacts with a
cyberdeck. Let me try to explain:
The basic premise behind the VCR (IMHO, of course) is that, as vehicle
technology advances (generically speaking), the controls become a lot
more complicated to operate (this is particularly true in the field of
aeronautics). Eventually it gets to the point where it's impossible to
control some vehicles with a single person, without some assistance.
Now, when simsense was invented around the 2020s or so, scientists
re-discovered an interesting fact about the (meta)human brain: the
middle brain (specifically, the thalamus, pons, and cerebellum) is an
incredible traffic-coordinator, and can automatically route thousands
(maybe millions) of different stimuli from different parts of the body
to the right sections of the cerebral cortex. More importantly, the
middle brain is responsible for maintaining balance, which means
making sure that hundreds of different muscles are working together in
sync.
What the VCR implant does is harness the raw data-processing and
synchronization power of the middle brain (normally dedicated to
maintaining balance and body coordination) to a complex electro/
mechanical system, such as a vehicle, security system, etc. However,
the limiting factor of a VCR is the "bandwidth" of the man-machine
link; simply put, the processing power of the brain is much, much
greater than the implant connection is capable of handling. Higher-
rated implants (IOW, Level 2 and 3 VCRs) are wired more extensively to
the middle brain, so they can exploit more of the brain's processing
power.
The downside to this is that, in order to fully exploit the parallel-
processing capability of the middle brain, the wetware by necessity
leaves the brain vulnerable to neural backlash. Sure, there are some
"noise" filters to filter out ASIST spikes from background noise, but
in the case of vehicle destruction or dump shock, the spike amplitude
from these events is way, WAY bigger than the filters can handle.
(Also, there's the basic signal-processing issue of filtering vs.
sensitivity; if you increase the filtering to reduce the noise, you
lose some degree of sensitivity. At some level you reach a point of
diminishing returns.)
Whew, what a mouthful. What it boils down to is this: the VCR exploits
the immense parallel-processing capability of the brain, which is
normally dedicated to monitoring body functions. But in doing so, it
leaves the brain vulnerable to backlash from simsense disruption. Such
massive spikes translate (kinda-sorta) into massive epileptic seizures
or convulsions and can be potentially fatal.
(Of course, someone will likely ask if one can infer from this model
if riggers are more vulnerable to Black IC or BTL. I would say no,
because Black IC and BTL work by the code they send to the cerebral
cortex. To use an analogy, if the brain is a computer, then Black
IC/BTL would be analogous to a computer virus. Rigger dump shock,
OTOH, is the equivalent of a lightning strike or electrical surge.)
-- Jon
P.S. Mike, please try not to extrapolate too many wild & crazy ideas
from this dissertation. This is the "simple" explanation and glosses
over a lot of details and such. Also, my B.S. is in engineering, not
neurology, so I'm not up to arguing any of the nitty-gritty.
