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[Katrina Oniseki]

I've had some RP recently that got me thinking about what sort of unique medical issues a Capsuleer might face. They use cloned bodies which can vary wildly in quality as much as any commercial product can. Manufacturing defects in the clone can come with a host of medical issues, I'd imagine. But what kinds?

I don't mean psychological issues either. Purely physical ailments that would affect a clone body under the daily stresses of Capsuleer use.

I have some ideas.

Socket infections due to contamination.
Rogue nanites
Cancerous growths due to a poorly grown clone
Cellular degeneration of a bad clone

Any number of space borne issues could arise as well. Extreme radiation, negative effects of using jumpgates often, or the stresses of overloading modules and using boosters. You could also consider dirty or bad capsule fluid, capsule malfunctions.

In a recent RP, I played out that some inert and spent medical nanites leftover from the implantation of the five sockets into the clone body (before she activated the clone) had somehow reactivated. Maybe some electric charge gave them power, or something. Part of the RP is that she doesn't know what's done it, twice in a row.

The nanites, without any programming, have only clumped together and found themselves attracted to the active sockets while Kat uses them in flight. The (now much larger) foreign objects in the sockets caused an immune response that resembled an infection complete with swelling and irritation. So, she's had to go in to have the nanites removed from the sockets... essentially having the sockets cleaned.

thoughts?

[Darveses]

Mold and bacteria in Amarr wrinkles.

[Vieve]

Mold and bacteria in Amarr wrinkles.

And on a similar note, Thrush/yeast infections.   Respiratory ailments. General gastrointestinal upset when transitioning from a liquid to a solid diet (and just how clean is that recycled water from the station reprocessor?  Got anything growing on the inside of those two hundred some odd year old water pipes?).  Low grade contact allergies.

[Z.Sinraali]

I've used the term "clonesickness" as a sort of generalized malaise in getting used to a new body.

[Casiella]

Why couldn't psychological issues develop from physical ailments? That could be particularly interesting, I think.

[Seriphyn]

Regarding clones, I tend to do a handwave whenever Seriphyn is podded.

If it is sudden and unexpected, the clone reanimation is violent and uncontrolled, sending Seriphyn into some primal rage that might see some medical staff (or drones, at least) at the forefront of this violence. However, if he has sufficient time to prepare for it (had my pod locked down for several seconds, not being instashot), then the reanimation is relatively peaceful.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Regarding clones, I tend to do a handwave whenever Seriphyn is podded.

If it is sudden and unexpected, the clone reanimation is violent and uncontrolled, sending Seriphyn into some primal rage that might see some medical staff (or drones, at least) at the forefront of this violence. However, if he has sufficient time to prepare for it (had my pod locked down for several seconds, not being instashot), then the reanimation is relatively peaceful.

I'm just now getting into the meat of The Empyrean Age novel. At the beginning, it has the capsuleer encased in a clone tube vat thingy, so... I would assume that Seriphyn is possibly restrained until he calms down.

[Matariki Rain]

As Dust 514 gets closer and, with any luck, Templar One tells us the (new) current state of play with cloning, we might get a better idea of the types of things we're working with.

For now I'd add to the list:

-- Either auto-immune disorders as the customer's immune system attacks the biomass (which might not even be human), or seriously damped immune responses as everything's turned off to avoid that (meaning you'd be susceptible to just about anything and the air in station might indeed be a problem).

-- Lung problems from liquid-breathing. Yes, mice can breath in perfluorocarbon, but from what I can see so far they've died afterwards from lung trauma. Assume FutureScience improves this but there are still problems at the extremes. Apparently there's work to develop nanites that will "eat" the perfluorocarbon that clings to you when you de-pod, but no news yet on what they'll do with the mass or where they'll go, which could be rather important on the exchange surfaces of your lungs.

-- I'm not sure if there'd be huge emotional swings from the chemical changes of changing bodies, or if all bodies would be heavily monitored and fed a blend of psychoactive drugs that was considered appropriate (Equilibrium). I do imagine there are different cultural protocols about whether a pilot has the right not to take their meds.

If osteoplastic is used for all bones, and not just the bones that are required for a body to look like the customer profile:

-- Ligament attachment problems where the biomass tears away from the osteoplastic.

-- Various blood disorders possibly requiring blood supplementation. Is there something in the "clone" that does the jobs of bone marrow, especially producing red blood cells and platelets? Which immune regime does that belong to: the customer's? Sync it with whatever acts as a spleen so old cells are cleaned away but not too quickly. Alternatively, use something artificial and have the pilot go in for a blood change periodically.

Also:

-- Why do we still use bodies at all? Wouldn't it be more efficient to have some sort of carrier for the brain matrix that doesn't have all these messy biological problems?

(Argh! I hate this idea, despite thinking it makes a lot of sense and also having fond memories of The Ship Who Sang.)

[Lyn Farel]

I thought a meat clone is quickly turned into a copy of the original body when the DNA model is introduced, making it not very different (its barely half synthetic, remodelled yes, but still coming from biomass). This way you just can't have immune system attacking the body or the likes. Unless as you say, the clone is something totally different, a meat puppet of some kind that has nothing to do with the original body... :/

[Matariki Rain]

I thought a meat clone is quickly turned into a copy of the original body when the DNA model is introduced, making it not very different (its barely half synthetic, remodelled yes, but still coming from biomass). This way you just can't have immune system attacking the body or the likes. Unless as you say, the clone is something totally different, a meat puppet of some kind that has nothing to do with the original body... :/

I'm not sure how much it's worth speculating in depth about cloning at the moment, hence my riders on my previous suggestions about podder illnesses. We've had the discussions repeatedly, the information we have -- mostly in the chronicle about Cromeaux Inc. -- is open to various readings, and we expect that medical tech will change in the lead-up to DUST 514.

[Matariki Rain]

Istvaan, are you reading this?

There's a passage in one of the hellgremlin pieces where one of your young male protagonists gets taken to (from memory) some sort of dive which happens to have an operator with the gear to do a body scan. The operator asks whether our protagonist is (again from memory) "Fresh or reconstituted?". Do you have a link for this? It's one of the scenes that -- while non-canonical -- influenced my understanding of EVE "cloning".

[Katrina Oniseki]

Sounds like fresh means womb born human, and reconstituted means a clone grown from biomass.

-- Either auto-immune disorders as the customer's immune system attacks the biomass (which might not even be human), or seriously damped immune responses as everything's turned off to avoid that (meaning you'd be susceptible to just about anything and the air in station might indeed be a problem).

Click the button next to the CQ door and it will tell you,

"Station atmosphere not yet decontaminated for capsuleer consumption."

[Casiella]

Which I took as code for "osht we don't have this done yet"

[Matariki Rain]

Which I took as code for "osht we don't have this done yet"

Oh, absolutely, but humans are storytelling beings, hard-wired to try to join the dots (even when the dots are random). Humour me while I suggest that this could be one more dot to join.

[Lyn Farel]

So I suppose if capsuleers start to get out of the CQs before Incarna is released, they start to feel like sick quarrians from mass effect ? Not fun. So they can't either walk on planets and stuff with normal people without wearing suits ?

Haven't thought of that before, but now that I re-read this message from the CQs, I ARE NOT HAPPY.