From:	Wafflemeisters <evamarie@**********.NET>
Subject:	Re: Cyberware Power Sources
Date:	Fri, 8 May 1998 20:17:18 -0500

>
> Re: Cyberware Power Sources (Katt Freyson , Thu 18:21)

> |> <tounge in cheek>
> |> I always assumed it drew power from its essence cost, turning essence
> |> sustaining lifeforce into electricty directly.
> |> </tounge in cheek>
>
> Gosh I love it! Best excuse for essence loss I've read so far. I might
> actually use it. It's not pure technology, it's magic-tech! <grin>
>
It actually explains some things, likle why cyberware didn't (as such)
apear BEFORE the awakening, and why there might be a "minimum essence
cost" for any given cyber. It also has an intersting relationship to
ED's "blood magic". But if FASA makes something like that official,
I'll walk down to Cermak with a carp and go "listal" on them. (BTW,
Chinatown is really nearby to FASA, and is the best place in Chi-town to
buy carps, even really old ones). Besides, not all essence consuming
cyber takes power- bone lacing pretty much just sits there. It even
weighs you down!

> As for powering cyberwear with biological energy, well, why not? Standard
> limbs [by that I mean that give a person his normal strength] would not use
> more power than a normal person does, so why not from a human biological
> system? As for powering more powerful devices, people with such cyberwear
> could be given drugs to increase their metabolism, so that they would
> generate power at a high enough rate.
>

Or they could have really ODD dietary requirements, like a hankering
for some trace nutrient or unnatural additive... "Twinkies and kimchee-
I need twinkies and kimchee fer my 'wares, dood!" Would be a dead give
away if security checked your lunchbox... :)

In fact, in Bruce sterlings "Islands in the Net", a Jamaican
"soldier"
had a special gut with bio-engeneered bacteria that produced a variety
of "combat drugs". To fire himself up, he ate a case of yogurt...

Has anybody considered bioware that can be "turned off" with a dietary
modification or drug? (or requires one to function?) This would be
very useful for, say, the Suprathyriod gland, which we allow
hyperthyriod medication to shut off temprarily (you'd have to know what
you are doing, or you could really mess yourself up, though- the thyroid
is a primary metabolic gland).

-Mongoose