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[Makkal]

While I'm at it, I assume birthcontrol in the future will be more sophisticated than a rubber or a monthly pill.

[Casiella]

Well, it is now, too, so that makes sense. I mean, we already have biological implants that take care of it for many years.

[Natalcya Katla]

Cybernetic eye stalks. Ruby has them.

[Rin Kaelestria]

While I'm at it, I assume birthcontrol in the future will be more sophisticated than a rubber or a monthly pill.

If not that, people have the option of having their clones engineered to be sterile in the first place. Prefect option for those who don't wish to have an accidental "oops."   

Anyhow, after watching some of the Avengers cartoon series, I could see power suits similar to the Ironman one being around in the EVE universe. Especially for ground combat.

[Matariki Rain]

If not that, people have the option of having their clones engineered to be sterile in the first place. Prefect option for those who don't wish to have an accidental "oops."   

This. For me it's the default.

Mata's from well before the change to the new player experience which means you now have your original body euthanised. I've long played that the default--for a woman, at least--is that your original body is fertile and your subsequent meat-puppets aren't. Podders who cared about this sort of thing got jump clones early and carefully didn't lose a pod before then. I've also played that it's normal as part of training to have a range of samples taken and stored for later use in doping meat-puppets, insemination, IVF, gene-splicing, etc. My approach has been that you need to make a choice to (a) bring out the fertile original body (for old-timers); (b) bring out the samples; or (c) engage the appropriate skilled people to craft functional gametes or gamete-making systems and insert them into your meat-puppet in ways which mean they're not contaminated by any other DNA in our chimera bodies. That might mean you have one of your bodies modified by a discreet fertility team in Oursulaert and then continue "as normal", or it might mean sending samples to that team and getting news within a year that your bundle of joy is ready for delivery.

For quite a few characters it seems to have been important to their stories that they be fertile. I work around the permutations of this by assuming that there's variation in cloning services, with medical advances all the time. I still find the idea of unwanted podder pregnancies odd. Against that, I now very much get the social contexts where it's considered appropriate to leave such matters to the ancestors or to Fortune, and deal with the consequences... which was one of the things I wanted to explore playing someone from a pro-natalist background.

[Casiella]

IIRC, there was actually a dev response in the last month or two clarifying that capsuleers ARE fertile. Will search for it later unless someone beats me to it.

[Matariki Rain]

Yes, please: I'd love to know more, especially if it casts light on the "cloning" process (that's apparently anything but actual cloning).

[Casiella]

IIRC, there was actually a dev response in the last month or two clarifying that capsuleers ARE fertile. Will search for it later unless someone beats me to it.

See the thread Can capsuleers have children? in which Abraxas says:

Here's one: Capsuleers are not sterile by default, nor do they have any missing organs or interior plumbing. There is a slightly stronger tendency among them to have that stuff removed than there is among the general population, but it's not anywhere near a majority of the entire capsuleer class.

You don't see capsuleers (at least not the ones I've encountered) taking steps to rid themselves of any other base desires - greed, resentment, anger or hate - and I truly don't see them wanting to rid themselves of the sexual one, either. Moreover, we don't want the capsuleer option to be "You'll be rich and powerful beyond your wildest dreams ... but you can never have children." It's a decent hook for a story or two at most, but for any writing work beyond that, it's far too restrictive.

So if they want, they can, but they don't have to.

[Mathra Hiede]

I was thinking on this last night, came up with an idea that built on the topic a while ago about augmentation where it was said that if you say wanted to have augmented muscles you needed the bones to be stronger.

Now this made me think, its virtually impossible to replace your entire skeleton with hardened bones. But! with EVE's level tech and the use of nanites I was thinking that, if a small amount of nanites where injected to critical points in the body and/or bone structure itself (potentially during clone development) which adds a compound that uses the bone material itself as a basis for a metallic/organic compound that has much greater strength and thereby allowing more serious augmentation.

As a side note, i had a shiny piece of sci fi tech a while back that I haven't used in ages in my RP, essentially was a camo cloak - heavy nanites infused weave that when standing in shadows (only in shadow) changed the external appearance to mimic the darkened surfaces behind it - I also seem to vaguely remember something similar to this being used in PF but I cant for the life of me remember where I saw it.

[Natalcya Katla]

The modifications to Katla's body/clones include a reinforced skeleton and synthetic muscle grafts. Not for any combat purpose, but simply to prevent bone and muscle atrophy from extended stays in her preferred low-/zero-gravity environment.

[Matariki Rain]

IIRC, there was actually a dev response in the last month or two clarifying that capsuleers ARE fertile. Will search for it later unless someone beats me to it.

See the thread Can capsuleers have children? in which Abraxas says:

Here's one: Capsuleers are not sterile by default, nor do they have any missing organs or interior plumbing. There is a slightly stronger tendency among them to have that stuff removed than there is among the general population, but it's not anywhere near a majority of the entire capsuleer class.

You don't see capsuleers (at least not the ones I've encountered) taking steps to rid themselves of any other base desires - greed, resentment, anger or hate - and I truly don't see them wanting to rid themselves of the sexual one, either. Moreover, we don't want the capsuleer option to be "You'll be rich and powerful beyond your wildest dreams ... but you can never have children." It's a decent hook for a story or two at most, but for any writing work beyond that, it's far too restrictive.

So if they want, they can, but they don't have to.

Which is fine--and pretty much as it's being played these days--but sounds as though Abraxas is saying "clones" are clones--which is not what the cloning article says--or that there's something in EVE's Future Science which means that the doping of the biomass-built body with the client's DNA includes a way to replicate the effects of oocytogenesis.

It'd be kinda nice to know which.

[Reyd Karris]

Which is fine--and pretty much as it's being played these days--but sounds as though Abraxas is saying "clones" are clones--which is not what the cloning article says--or that there's something in EVE's Future Science which means that the doping of the biomass-built body with the client's DNA includes a way to replicate the effects of oocytogenesis.

It'd be kinda nice to know which.

Two issues here. First, that of "literary conceit". Second, that of "true science vs. fictional science".

The literary conceit of cloning is that it is you in the sense that everything you are transfers, as a way of explaining how you can go from copy to copy and retain knowledge. It's a way to explain the respawn mechanic, and help with the willful suspension of disbelief in the setting.

Combined with the assumption that these clones follow scientific principles, sometimes that believable explanation of "It's a clone body, get over it" falls apart if you know enough about real science.  I doubt Abraxas has studied the concept of cloning (and the biological processes that by the nature of reality must occur in such a body) in depth.

A few years ago a friend developed a tabletop game that included cloning. In this setting, genetic engineering and gene splicing took center stage. The characters were established as being sterile prior to the game starting, for the simple reason that due to the genetic changes that occurred to each and every character, it simply wasn't feasible to allow them to breed. What happens to a character spliced with cheetah DNA if they breed with someone with lizard DNA? What's the likelihood of the mother's body flat-out rejecting the fetus? Questions like that were simply answered by "Your character can't have children, period." There was a wonderful RP situation that occurred when a character became pregnant due to being attacked by a member of the main enemy species in the game, and an unscrupulous scientist trying to play god and trying to become immortal - because that's what insane scientists that are nearly immortal themselves tend to do, right? Body horror and questions of morality quickly ensued; needless to say, the movie Prometheus doesn't seem all that original to me as a result. .

In EVE, the question is more what exactly is a clone, and how accurate that depiction is to true biological principles. CCP is more interested in what makes a good story than what makes good science, which is fine from a certain point of view. The whole concept of having a child is slightly out of the realm of in-game mechanics (thankfully), so it lands firmly in the realm of fiction and RP.

So, how much hard science you want in EVE depends on how much research must be done to accurately depict the setting.

Did that make any sense? I just had my caffeine so feel free to correct my rambling. 

[Ulphus]

Now this made me think, its virtually impossible to replace your entire skeleton with hardened bones. But! with EVE's level tech and the use of nanites I was thinking that, if a small amount of nanites where injected to critical points in the body and/or bone structure itself (potentially during clone development) which adds a compound that uses the bone material itself as a basis for a metallic/organic compound that has much greater strength and thereby allowing more serious augmentation.

I thought Eve clones had malleable plastic for bones, so that you can mold them to fit the clients requirements at short notice?

[Matariki Rain]

Two issues here. First, that of "literary conceit". Second, that of "true science vs. fictional science".

The literary conceit of cloning is that it is you in the sense that everything you are transfers, as a way of explaining how you can go from copy to copy and retain knowledge. It's a way to explain the respawn mechanic, and help with the willful suspension of disbelief in the setting.

<snip>

So, how much hard science you want in EVE depends on how much research must be done to accurately depict the setting.

Did that make any sense? I just had my caffeine so feel free to correct my rambling. 

EVE's capsule cloning is primarily a way to explain its respawn mechanics. I think it works well for that. I like the fact that it makes enough sense within the world framework that we can talk about it IC and have it as part of our characters' lives. Props to CCP for that.

The bodies we live in also affect a lot of other things, so there's a strong motivation to derive consequences and implications from the initial conditions. That's where things can get a bit stickier, as we bring different knowledge, desires and and assumptions to the world-building.

If we used real clones I'd have no problems with fertility, but some issues with the timing and ethics of growing them for use. (I might bring up telomere fraying, but I don't think we've had time yet for that to be an issue and I'm happy enough to assume we have a telomere hack.) Since we don't use real clones, but manufacture bodies from biomass and osteoplast which are then doped with the client's DNA, I do expect there to be differences. Istvaan shaped some of my assumptions with his early stories, and other things flowed from there.^*

Anyway, it seems we now have the answer that it's normal to have the special work done that means a female capsuleer has oocytes made for her "clones". It still seems to me that the logical form of contraception for "clone"-users would be to order your bodies without that by default--have all the bits, just don't pre-load the ovaries--and then commission a fertile version when you actually wanted to use it. I imagine there's quite a lot of variation out there about how this is handled.

^*

“Now, a couple of quick questions”, Farrad cooed, tapping keys on a pad on the side of the mod-bed and waving another surgeon over to assist him. “Are you fresh squeezed, or from concentrate?” The fetishist was, of course, referring to Hamish’s clone status – the skeletal structure of clones was quite different from that of trueborn human beings. Hamish had never been cloned.

[Matariki Rain]

I thought Eve clones had malleable plastic for bones, so that you can mold them to fit the clients requirements at short notice?

Some of them, in some circumstances. We don't know if it's always the case.

And we've had this discussion here before, as I was reminded while looking for the Infection link: http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=2593.msg37191#msg37191

In the light of Abraxas' comments I think I'm going to have to read the cloning article yet again to see if I can squeeze out an interpretation that means that some "clones" are clones. It would simplify some things.