From:	David Loewenstern <loewenst@****.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject:	Cybershapeshifters (was Gross. Still is.)
Date:	Mon, 10 May 1993 22:04:28 EDT

>>>>>[

If you _don't_ have cyberware change when a mage casts a _transform_,
then _transform_ becomes a fairly impressive attack spell, but
not quite the right image. The whole point behind _transform_ is to
create a basic fate worse than death -- transform your enemy into a
frog, or a flea, and quicken the spell. Turning him into a few pounds
of hamburger with skillwires sticking out isn't quite the same idea.

If that doesn't scare you enough: consider what happens if you cast
_urban renewal_ on a sammi. His clothes, guns, etc. all take damage,
but, let's hope, his encephalon doesn't. Why not? Because he paid
essence for it.

Enough of this. On to an equally gross topic, cybershapeshifters.
I'd handle this relatively straightforwardly: it tends to unhinge the
cyber-modified critter (SR2, p.220).

The way I see essence, it measures the "psychic bonding" you have to
make with cyberware. That is, you can't treat your cyberware as a
tool; you must treat it as part of your body. The cyberware becomes,
psychically, part of you (and so counts as part of you for spell
purposes). But it isn't alive. Therefore, the total "you" is less
alive, reflected in the lower essence. Mages lose magic when they
get bodyware because they are less "themselves" -- the new part may be
human, but it isn't magically active.

BTW: I'd argue that means that a mage who lost an arm would prefer not
replacing it until s/he could get a vat-grown version from his own DNA
-- you don't lose essence for losing a limb, you lose essence for
replacing it with a machine. I think that's how the standard rules
work, come to think of it.

Coming back to cybershapeshifters: yes, a shapeshifter could take
cyberware. But it might make shapeshifting harder: since the
cyberware can't shapeshift itself (it doesn't have shapeshifter
DNA...) the rest of the shapeshifter will wind up carrying the extra
load of shifting it. Also, a shapeshifter is not likely to _want_
cyberware: most shapeshifters make eagle shamans look like
industrialists. Such shapeshifters would lose multiple essence from
cyberware for the same reason eagle shamans do.

Oh, yes: shapeshifters should lose essence for bodyware. After all,
they're adding tissue which is human -- but shapeshifters aren't
human. A shapeshifter with an enhanced hypothalamus, or whatever, is
only 90% shapeshifter, and 10% human.

]<<<<<
-- Quincunx < 22:04:19 / May 10 2054 >