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[Gottii]

Alright, I'm writing here to get some people's views on capsuleers and mortality, specifically what happens if a capsuleer dies outside of the pod.  

From what Ive read on the Chronicles, and from what Ive gleaned from PF, in particular the scientific articles regarding such things, my take is that if a capsuleer dies outside of his pod, he's dead.  Thats it.  No clone jump.  No resurrection.  "He's dead Jim".

However, a lot of people seem to play it that if you die outside of the pod, then you're still resurrected and you continue as if you we're podded.

Reading the scientific article regarding clone jumping, it mentions that brain scans are only really feasible inside the pod.  (DUST will change that in interesting ways Im guessing, but we dont know how exactly, and Im betting its going to be a way that capsuleers cant use)  Brain scans outside the pod almost always end in failure.  


(Burning Life spoilers)

At the end of the novel, two characters confront a capsuleer in the flesh, after he leaves his pod.  And they threaten to kill the capsuleer, beat him to death.  And he is afraid for his life. This would indicate that if you die outside of your pod, you're dead.

Im curious how people play this, and what the general consensus is on this.  Thoughts, opinions, etc?

[Ghost Hunter]

Players use the concept of "Soft Clones", or clones that have an archive of your brain data up until a certain point. This is different from Capsuleer cloning because that is in real time, down to the second of your death in terms of information.

It's a bit of a gray area and tends to be a wall banger if over used too much. I haven't seen a decisive ruling against it one way or another.

[Gottii]

Players use the concept of "Soft Clones", or clones that have an archive of your brain data up until a certain point. This is different from Capsuleer cloning because that is in real time, down to the second of your death in terms of information.

It's a bit of a gray area and tends to be a wall banger if over used too much. I haven't seen a decisive ruling against it one way or another.

But how does one accomplish that, transfer information into a backup clone, when the act of scanning a brain to transfer the data to a new clone causes severe brain damage in the original clone?  Youre just trading one clone for another?

And, btw, not trying to be a jerk or whatever, just trying to get peoples views on this

[Ghost Hunter]

Players use the concept of "Soft Clones", or clones that have an archive of your brain data up until a certain point. This is different from Capsuleer cloning because that is in real time, down to the second of your death in terms of information.

It's a bit of a gray area and tends to be a wall banger if over used too much. I haven't seen a decisive ruling against it one way or another.

But how does one accomplish that, transfer information into a backup clone, when the act of scanning a brain to transfer the data to a new clone causes severe brain damage in the original clone?  Youre just trading one clone for another?

And, btw, not trying to be a jerk or whatever, just trying to get peoples views on this

I believe the method is, off hand, that by taking the time to slowly copy the brain's information it doesn't flash burn it and destroy the gray matter. If there is a solid canon method for it, I don't know what to recall for it.

[Isobel Mitar]

Im curious how people play this, and what the general consensus is on this.  Thoughts, opinions, etc?

I play it so that for a capsuleer a death outside pod is permanent. I don't know if there is a general consensus about it, though.

In my opinion PF seems to indicate permanent death is how it goes.

Factual arguments aside, the possibility of permanent death for rich/powerful people (and their immediate circle) creates potential for what I personally consider to be more interesting stories. But that is very much a matter of taste.

[Usagi Tsukino]

Logic would dictate that if you're not connected to your pod, then if you.. Welp. Bye. Unless of course you have a 3G connection attached to one of your ports at all times keeping in contact with the cloning stations. (iClone?)

I tried to find something about this a while ago when I did a little story with Usagi. She got all shot up while having a warrant served on her (some cops mean it when they say 'stop or I'll shoot). I couldn't find any PF that said either way, so I made what I thought was the proper assumption that she would die since she was out of pod.

The only way the doctors were able to save her was that they rushed her to a jump cloning station and got her connected and moved her consciousness into a healthy body. 

The concept of a soft clone... To me that's like an entirely different person. At least with the clone after being podded you have all the memories leading up to your 'death'. Soft clone seems more like a doppelganger.

[Gottii]

I did find this quote in the "Cloning" section of the scientific articles. 

"In early tests, the subjects were left with permanent and severe brain damage after being scanned, a fact that is impossible to escape. But as the person is about to die in any case, this unfortunate side effect has little consequences."

[Kimochi Rendar]

Personally I always considered the idea of 'Soft Clones' to be a total copout. It tends to be used as a 'character re-set' button if the player RPs themselves into a corner they can't think a way out of.

It just seems like a really cheap plot device to me, so I never use them... As a result if someone were to shoot Kim in the face (without godmodding of course before anyone gets any ideas ) then she would die for real. I would biomass her and make a new character.

I much prefer the idea that while these immortal capsuleers we play as are a force of unstoppable terror when safely in the confines of their pods, they are just as squishy and vulnerable as anyone else outside of them. This is why the areas inside stations where Capsuleers hang out are segregated from the general public, as described in The Burning Life.

[Horatius Caul]

Players use the concept of "Soft Clones", or clones that have an archive of your brain data up until a certain point. This is different from Capsuleer cloning because that is in real time, down to the second of your death in terms of information.

It's a bit of a gray area and tends to be a wall banger if over used too much. I haven't seen a decisive ruling against it one way or another.

But how does one accomplish that, transfer information into a backup clone, when the act of scanning a brain to transfer the data to a new clone causes severe brain damage in the original clone?  Youre just trading one clone for another?

And, btw, not trying to be a jerk or whatever, just trying to get peoples views on this

The act of cloning into a jump clone doesn't destroy the brain of the original. That is where the idea of soft scans come from - the idea that in addition to immediate emergency scans (which practically have a legal obligation to kill the patient, and thus can use a more destructive scan), you have other options of brain scanning available if you have time to put aside for it. The chronicle One Man Too Many still describes the jump cloning process as taking only "a heartbeat," but in comparison to the lightning-fast emergency scans a heartbeat would surely be an eternity.

Soft cloning is conjecture, but it's based on the fact that jump cloning must use a different process than emergency cloning. If that process is available for clone jumps, surely it would be available for other reasons - such as for making backups. Even if it's not, it would likely be a common safety measure in the cloning business to take a backup of the received data before pouring it into a head , in case of contamination for any reason (just like how transporters in Star Trek save the pattern of everyone sent and received, in case something gets messed up). Thus, it's become fanon, if not implied canon, that a capsuleer can have backups - be it specially made backups produced in a soft cloning session, or by-product backups generated during normal cloning.

And if for some strange reason no-one is taking backups, there would be jump clones to revive. Jump clones are not destroyed when you leave them. The brain scan obviously doesn't fry your grey matter, as a clone retains its brain implants - they would simply be placed in a state of suspended animation and await a transfer of an upcoming mental imprint. If a capsuleer dies, and if there are no software backups, surely a jump clone could be rolled out of storage?

The concept of a soft clone... To me that's like an entirely different person. At least with the clone after being podded you have all the memories leading up to your 'death'. Soft clone seems more like a doppelganger.

All clones, no matter how close the memory match, is a different entity from the person that died (it's kinda why the Amarr have an issue with the whole thing). Clones revived from a backup would simply be clones of an earlier state. It's not that much of a difference.

All that said, reviving a capsuleer from a backup would likely involve a big mess of legal wrangling. Luckily, we can hire legions of lawyers with fractions of our wallets!

[Kimochi Rendar]

The brain scan obviously doesn't fry your grey matter, as a clone retains its brain implants - they would simply be placed in a state of suspended animation and await a transfer of an upcoming mental imprint. If a capsuleer dies, and if there are no software backups, surely a jump clone could be rolled out of storage?

That wouldn't work - if a Capsuleer dies and there are no software backups, you have no brain scan to wake the JC up with.

Jump Cloning effectively transfers the conciousness of the 'live' brain into the JC brain. Whether it actually transfers conciousness or if it simply puts the live brain into a coma, takes a scan and wakes up the JC brain with that scan is left unambiguous. The point is that it still requires a live brain to work - you can't wake up a JC on it's own. This is also why it's impossible to control more than one body at a time.

[Horatius Caul]

The brain scan obviously doesn't fry your grey matter, as a clone retains its brain implants - they would simply be placed in a state of suspended animation and await a transfer of an upcoming mental imprint. If a capsuleer dies, and if there are no software backups, surely a jump clone could be rolled out of storage?

That wouldn't work - if a Capsuleer dies and there are no software backups, you have no brain scan to wake the JC up with.

Jump Cloning effectively transfers the conciousness of the 'live' brain into the JC brain. Whether it actually transfers conciousness or if it simply puts the live brain into a coma, takes a scan and wakes up the JC brain with that scan is left unambiguous. The point is that it still requires a live brain to work - you can't wake up a JC on it's own. This is also why it's impossible to control more than one body at a time.

Brain scans being written into clone brains aren't transfers of consciousness. They're transfers of memories and experiences that to an outside observer look, act and feel just as if it was a transfer of consciousness. It's a copy of a brain, installed in another brain. To my knowledge there is nothing indicating that the jump cloning process removes anything from the original brain and moves it to the receiving one, or vice versa - it's simply a copy-paste job.

The reason we can't leave the left-behind bodies walking around (as I see it) is twofold:
1. For legal reasons. Having two people with the same legal identity running around would be a clusterfuck for local and CONCORD legislature to keep track of and regulate.
2. For continuity of mind. The reasons the left-behind body is held dormant is so that the mind of the faraway jump clone can be re-merged with the original brain when the capsuleer chooses to jump back. If both are left to roam around, their minds will go in divergent directions and make it difficult if not impossible to merge the two.

So: you could wake up the jump clone, because there is already a copy of you in it, waiting to wake up.

[Saede Riordan]

It just seems like a really cheap plot device to me, so I never use them... As a result if someone were to shoot Kim in the face (without godmodding of course before anyone gets any ideas ) then she would die for real. I would biomass her and make a new character.

Maybe I'm weak willed, but I could never go through with that, if I ever biomass Nikita, it'll be because I've basically given up on life irl. I have a really odd relationship with my character in that regard. Do I get too attached? definitely.

On that same note though, I think I might be able to stomach that (emphasis on might) if CCP included a way to dump gained SP from an old character into a new one. But as it stands, if I ever lost Nikita, I'd feel like I just took almost three years of my life, and erased it. It would probably kill me inside to a degree.

So yes, I use softclones, and I justify it a bit that Nikita is a heavy duty tinkerer, and has basically installed signal readers in her brain, to actively record her thoughts as she's thinking them, there's still some memory loss if she's killed, and there are rp consequences to her being killed, but that's how I roll it.

If that makes people not want to RP with me *shrug* plenty of folks out there who will.

[Kimochi Rendar]

To my knowledge there is nothing indicating that the jump cloning process removes anything from the original brain and moves it to the receiving one, or vice versa - it's simply a copy-paste job.

I am aware of this, and I did mention in my post that to my knowledge it's left unambiguous whether that copy/paste of the subject's brain pattern onto the JC contains a person's 'conciousness' or not. If it does, then it's a full transfer of conciousness. If it does not, then it is simply the organic components of the JC brain fabricating it's own conciousness from the patterns that are transferred to it from the live clone. To my knowledge there is (as of yet) no PF which clarifies whether it does or does not - if there is then please point me to it, because it's probably something I should read! Either way though, the process has the outward appearance of transferring conciousness, even if it does not do that from a technical perspective.

The reason we can't leave the left-behind bodies walking around (as I see it) is twofold:
1. For legal reasons. Having two people with the same legal identity running around would be a clusterfuck for local and CONCORD legislature to keep track of and regulate.
2. For continuity of mind. The reasons the left-behind body is held dormant is so that the mind of the faraway jump clone can be re-merged with the original brain when the capsuleer chooses to jump back. If both are left to roam around, their minds will go in divergent directions and make it difficult if not impossible to merge the two.

The first reason doesn't hold water as there are Capsuleers out there in low / nullsec who are a law unto themselves and don't give a rat's ass about CONCORD or regulations other than those they make for themselves.

The second reason is a good one until you consider the above... I'm sure that if it were technically possible there would be loads of capsuleers who would happily have multiple permanently active copies of themselves running around furthering their collective goals with no intention of re-merging. It makes sense from an efficiency standpoint - why get a friend to light a cyno field for your supercarrier when you can do it yourself?

Of course the chances of someone in that position losing their grip on reality are huge, but then since when have the big nullsec alliances ever let a little thing like keeping one's sanity get in the way of acquiring more power?

This leads me to believe that there must be some in-universe technical limitation of the JC process to stop that happening.

When all is said and done though, both our viewpoints are valid until there is some PF written that contradicts one or the other.

[Horatius Caul]

When all is said and done though, both our viewpoints are valid until there is some PF written that contradicts one or the other.

Agreed.

[Kimochi Rendar]

Maybe I'm weak willed, but I could never go through with that, if I ever biomass Nikita, it'll be because I've basically given up on life irl. I have a really odd relationship with my character in that regard. Do I get too attached? definitely.

...

If that makes people not want to RP with me *shrug* plenty of folks out there who will.

Oh I totally understand your view on that and likewise it is not an option I would consider lightly. I wouldn't kill her off on a whim, and certainly not without a damn good reason for doing so. It does mean I have to RP her a bit more cautiously than those who use the soft clone safety net, but no moreso than anyone with a normal sense of self-preservation would act. It just means I can't do the whole Space Marine thing with her, which isn't much of a bad thing imo.

Also just to clarify, even though I think soft clones are trite and I do shake my head in disappointment when people use them as a 'get out of jail free card', I wouldn't flatly refuse to RP with someone just because they use them. I just wouldn't use them myself.