Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Lyn Farel on 17 Apr 2013, 15:46
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I suddenly got to think about soft clones. All we know is that hard clones imply that the brain patterns are instantly burned in live on the brain of the new clone when the body dies, and the new body awakens.
For soft clones, however, it seems more complicated.
Do people scan the brain of the subject preemptively when he shows up in the medbay to update his soft clone, and that procedure takes time since it's not supposed to kill the original body unlike the capsule brain scan ? And then do they keep the scans in some kind of dematerialized storage to be burned down to the new clone when the body dies ?
Or do they directly scan the original body (slowly again not to kill him like the capsule does) and directly burn it down to the future new clone(s) ?
The main difference between both is that in the first case, the brain scan is kept in a "dematerialized device", and then pasted down into the new clone brain, and that in the second case it is directly copy-pasted into the clone brain. Meaning that in the first case it implies that as soon as you burn it down into the new clone, the brain patterns are here and activate directly, thus why they can't do it before the original body is confirmed dead. And that in the second case, you can perfectly paste the saved brain patterns into the new clone directly, and waking it up totally independently whenever you like. Furthermore, it also implies that in the second case, the storage of the brain data are the actual clones kept in storage, and that in the first case, the storage is actually not located in the clones, but in something else.
The first solution has the advantage to comply with the hard cloning process, where as soon as the brain data is copied, the new clone awakes. The second solution has the advantage that we do not introduce some kind of artifact (a "device") in the process to store the brain data.
I am not sure if I am clear enough, but it bugs me.
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One Man Too Many (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/One_Man_Too_Many_(Chronicle)) suggests that you arrange for the clones the same way that we normally do, and then do a brain scan at the time you want to "transfer". Cold scanning is supposed to be slower than the burning scanner, but that chron implies that it's still fast enough to conveniently do at the time of your clone jump.
At the same time, there's enough support (both in canon and player fiction) to support the idea that you can keep copies of your scan to use in case of out-of-pod/baseliner death.
I don't recall anything from canon that says they're required to wait until you're dead before they imprint your new clone. The cloning article (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Cloning#Brain_growth_.26_storage) talks about some handwavy neural link stuff that happens after your scan is imprinted into the clone, after which your clone awakes. I've always taken that to mean that the actual process takes long enough that you never see the clone wake up while the (now vegetative) pilot still lives in their flaming, exploding pod.
You know, now that I've re-read One Man Too Many, I realize that it may provide some insight into the attempted assassination of Ava Starfire...
Whoever came up with that arc, please contact me. Shin wants to have your babies.
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I wasn't speaking about jumpcloning, just when someone has done a soft clone at some point in the past and then gets killed (outside the pod or just being a super rich baseliner). When that happens, either your clones have already been imprinted and just await to be awaken, or either your clones are still in a blank state, and your medical staff is going to copy your brain scan (soft clone) into their brains.
They are only required to wait in both cases because of CONCORD regulations, not because of technical limitations (it's highly illegal to have several copies of oneself running around at the same time).
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I don't remember anything about CONCORD regulations prohibiting activating a clone while another is still alive, but it does seem reasonable.
The sort of soft cloning described in One Man Too Many isn't capsuleer jump cloning, though. Ancru isn't a pod captain, he's jump cloning the way wealthy baseliners do it. It seems like the same technology could be applied to making and activating clone "backups". You take a scan and store it. Then, if you're killed, they flash a clone with your stored image and activate it.
I'd suspect that clone backups wouldn't be pre-flashed. It's expensive (you buy a million isk clone and pre-flash it. Next month you meet the man of your dreams, and want to make sure you remember him, so you update your scan. Your clone is already flashed, so you have to chuck it and buy a new one), and legally complex (you buy a million isk clone and pre-flash it. To ensure there's not two "you's" running around, you keep it in a coma. It's still you, though. It's just in a coma. If you can't pay your clone maintenance bills, or if you decide to get a new clone, what happens to it? It can't easily be disposed of, because it's you. Disposing of it would be murder, wouldn't it?). Storing a brain scan and flashing it into a clone when you're killed avoids all of these issues.
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CONCORD and DED don't allow two active clones of the same individual, ever. It's super super mega illegal and they hunt you down and kill you asap.
Otherwise we'd have 30 copies of everyone running around simultaneously. Bad bad.
I think the RP convention is that the soft clone is only current to the last 'backup'. So Say I go get a softclone, scan my current state, and then run off and eat a sandwhich and die. Softclone activated, and only has memories up until the scan, no knowledge of said sandwhich or death.
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CONCORD and DED don't allow two active clones of the same individual, ever. It's super super mega illegal and they hunt you down and kill you asap.
Otherwise we'd have 30 copies of everyone running around simultaneously. Bad bad.
Oh, I don't disagree that it's bad, but I don't recall seeing anything about CONCORD regulating it.
I think the RP convention is that the soft clone is only current to the last 'backup'. So Say I go get a softclone, scan my current state, and then run off and eat a sandwhich and die. Softclone activated, and only has memories up until the scan, no knowledge of said sandwhich or death.
Yeah, that's exactly what I think, too. The "backup" is your stored scan on some machine somewhere, and it's only flashed onto the clone when the clone is being activated.
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I have to find the reference but it's been brought up before. Otherwise we'd have a lot more PF and RP dealing with multiple copies of capsuleers running around
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Right, so, let's start at the beginning(ish).
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/The_Elite_%28Chronicle%29 (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/The_Elite_%28Chronicle%29)
leads into
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Cloning (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Cloning)
Relevant bits:
"a clone that receives the consciousness of the original at the moment of death, granting a new life." - remember that it's called a Neural Burner (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Transneural_burning_scanner), not a Neural Happy-Fun-Copy-Time.
Which leads down the Wikihole to:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Capsuleer_Accidental_Death_and_Dismemberment_Insurance#Out-of-Pod (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Capsuleer_Accidental_Death_and_Dismemberment_Insurance#Out-of-Pod)
In stations and any other non-pod environment, capsuleers are vulnerable to the same type of accidents as non-capsuleers. Accidents can happen anywhere: from tripping over a chair leg in the local bar or failure of a lift door causing limb severance to more radical situations like fedo attacks during extreme intoxication or pirate assault on station property.
So this would imply several key items.
First, any sort of soft-copy would be A) expensive B) necessarily incomplete and out of date at all times after copy C) pretty problematic due to multiple activation possibility. Not good things.
Second, we go over to the 'Cloning' part of the Death entry on EVElopedia (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Death#Cloning) and find these notable parts:
Therefore, being cloned is a rather substantial risk that is not undertaken, even among the very wealthy, unless after some serious consideration.
Cloning outside of a capsule is also possible, although the associated risks remain pretty much the same: The brain is scanned - and thereby ruined - and its contents transferred to a receiving station that instantaneously awakens the consciousness in a new clone. This can be done only under laboratory conditions, although technology in the area is progressing quite rapidly. The possibility looms that cloning may at some point take place outside the strictures of a capsule or a similar machine, though it's considered unlikely that it will ever be anything other than instantaneous.
So-called "jump cloning" works in much the same manner. Once a jump contract has been agreed upon, the customer can enter any cloning facility at any station, whereupon they will be brain-scanned, their originating bodies effectively flatlined, and their consciousness transferred to a waiting jump clone at their requested destination. Any implants in the originating body are carefully picked out by machines and just as carefully inserted into a fresh clone waiting at the original jumping-off point. Once the owner finally jumps back, from their point of view, they are returning to the same body, with the same implants and all, when in actuality it is a new clone.
So it would seem to exclude the possibility of having a 'backup' prepared - but wait! As was pointed out, One Man Too Many (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/One_Man_Too_Many_(Chronicle)) would seem to contradict that.
Except for the possibility of face-swapping. (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Face-swapping) Remember, that One Man Too Many did not run contrary to presented jumpclone canon - it only stated that from Pier Ancu's perspective he was returning to a previously limp body, and that he knew the body was brand new at the same time. (Wuhoh, Tatiana found the wrench in the works...) And I daresay that Mr. Ancru has more ISK than all of us combined, since he's still giving us a ship and a 1 Tritanium gratuity!
But it also doesn't exclude the possibility entirely. Just that it would be a massive hurdle at best, and outright impossible for many if not most capsuleers. Handwavium aside, I've not found any lore to date which does not explicitly reference the necessity of a Neural Burner and the tight restrictions on transfers due to possibilities of abuse and essentially destructive nature of the process in all situations. (Plus the 'you will go insane' factor.) Or mentioning that Todo Kirkinen's transfer did not go exactly to plan.
But yes, physics, lore and logic do dictate that even in a best case non-destructive scenario, any backup would only be current up to the point where the "backup" was taken (inclusive memories, skills, etcetera,) iterative or differential backups are not possible, and repeated backups from an original would cause permanent brain damage.
... and this post turned out way longer than I expected. :eek:
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Yeah, so PF is not very... inclined toward soft cloning considering those quotes. It's neural burner like in the capsule and that's all...
The sort of soft cloning described in One Man Too Many isn't capsuleer jump cloning, though. Ancru isn't a pod captain, he's jump cloning the way wealthy baseliners do it. It seems like the same technology could be applied to making and activating clone "backups". You take a scan and store it. Then, if you're killed, they flash a clone with your stored image and activate it.
I'd suspect that clone backups wouldn't be pre-flashed. It's expensive (you buy a million isk clone and pre-flash it. Next month you meet the man of your dreams, and want to make sure you remember him, so you update your scan. Your clone is already flashed, so you have to chuck it and buy a new one), and legally complex (you buy a million isk clone and pre-flash it. To ensure there's not two "you's" running around, you keep it in a coma. It's still you, though. It's just in a coma. If you can't pay your clone maintenance bills, or if you decide to get a new clone, what happens to it? It can't easily be disposed of, because it's you. Disposing of it would be murder, wouldn't it?). Storing a brain scan and flashing it into a clone when you're killed avoids all of these issues.
Good point.
So more solution 1 than 2 then. I would tend to agree considering how I view things too.
I have to admit that it was the Ava assassination event that suddenly made me think about it a lot, especially in Shere medical report stating that all her backup clones have been sabotaged. You understand that depending on how soft clones actually work, with solution 2 it's fine, clones are the recipient and are already flashed, but with solution 1 in mind, you can destroy the clones, it does not matter since the brain data patterns are not stored into them. So it would more be a sabotage of the storage itself.
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The easy way of having nonactive clones not being "you" would be that they indeed are not pre-flashed. The data is probably being stored somewhere near by, though, but should a clone activate prematurely, its brain is just the unburned gooey template, and therefore, prematurely activated clones are braindead. The mission "A Digital Soul" in the Sansha branch of the Amarr Epic Arc details that a mind scan can be stored (and possibly, studied).
As for Prime Fiction proof that non-destructive scanning is possible - well, there's little. Possible reference in Fait Accompli (chronicle), but it might as well be cloning for other reasons.
E: And finally, a can of worms: If you can find a lab to do it (I think this is illegal in fiction), while PF states that jump clones are brand new, I do not see a reason to not keep the old body in life support. Just make sure the brain and consciousness are dead, so possibly putting it to sleep with sedatives, flashing the brain for mind transfer (and making sure the entire brain is not just dead but all dead), and then switching in a plain template for burning in the new consciousness at next transfer would potentially allow to keep the grade A biomass that is already keyed to recipient DNA. Of course, as the whole body can be replicated from scratch, there is little reason to keep the old body when you could have a brand new one.
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For nearly a year, the following used to be part of the Death article on the EVE wiki. I've bolded the part about softcloning.
Two types of cloning are used throughout New Eden. In both cases, the clone is grown beforehand from biomass and sculpted to resemble the person to be cloned.[15] Gene therapy is done on the clone to ensure it matches the genetics of the original, in order to prevent immune responses.
By far the most well known and wide spread is capsule-aided cloning[..]
Because of the short time-period between death and awakening of the clone, this method is less controversial across the cluster, especially to many religions, who can more easily justify the transmigration of the “soul” from one body to another. However, many religious movements continue to insist that cloned individuals are mere copies, no more the original than a forgery of a work of art can be said to be.
The second, less common, and more controversial method of cloning is known by a variety of names, such as soft-cloning, backup-cloning, and regression cloning. In this method, the individual submits to a slow, non-damaging backup scan of their brains, which takes an extended period of time to complete. Should the person suffer death, the copied brain scan is imprinted on a prepared clone body, and the person “wakes up” at the point of their last backup scan. All memories and experiences between their most recent backup and their death are unmade, as if they never happened to that person.
Because of this, far more people consider these sorts of clones to be copies and not the original person, though the techniques involved in both methods are quite similar, being differentiated primarily by the speed of the neural scanner. This factor leads to backup-clones being far less widespread than capsuleer clones, even though they are available to a wider portion of the population.
Both methods of cloning remain extremely expensive and are typically limited to the very wealthy. Capsuleers, as a whole, tend to have the resources to maintain high-quality clones, both for when they are inside their pod and backups for when they are outside. Non-capsuleers with clones tend to be corporate CEOs and presidents, powerful governmental officials, wildly popular entertainers, or others with access to large bank accounts.
ISD Caleb Kang, currently CCP Eterne, wrote it, IIRC.
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and then run off and eat a sandwhich and die. Softclone activated, and only has memories up until the scan, no knowledge of said sandwhich
Poor forgotten sandwich! I wonder how many forgotten sandwiches there are out there :(
Ché, That's the exact quote I was looking for and how I see "soft" cloning. Time-consuming and painful, but especially the bit where it says "Capsuleers, as a whole, tend to have the resources to maintain high-quality clones, both for when they are inside their pod and backups for when they are outside." Not just the super-rich capsuleers or special capsuleers.
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Yeah, exactly. I like the implication that it's simply a matter of having the money. i.e.: It's not just capsuleers who can clone/soft clone, it's anyone rich enough.
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Merdaneth has never seen any indication that soft clones work, and hardly ever hears someone talk about them. As far as he knows they are unsubstantiated rumors and soft clones don't exist.
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There is one example of a clone being activated without a brain scan, in "The Empyrean Age". They had severe amnesia, to the point of not knowing their name, although they were otherwise a functioning person.
There is one example of a brain scan being stored, in the Amarr epic arc. This scan was created using the burning scanner, i.e. the invasive brain scan that the capsule uses. In this case, the storage facility was a psychiatric research facility, with legal authority granted to it, to do such things.
There is one example of a non-capsuleer being cloned from some form of backup, after the original person was killed in a laboratory explosion, in a mission chain "New Frontiers". They were cloned due to the value of their research.
I think, therefore, that it would be possible (but not common), for a person to create a backup thus:
1. Invasive brain scan, unconnected to new clone, connected to storage device.
2. Duplicate stored brain scan.
3. Use one copy to activate a new clone.
4. Other stored scan kept as "backup". ALL memories from that point onward are non-recoverable.
I'd consider it very,very rare, because of the legalities involved, and possibly also the expense.
It's also not "soft" cloning, since it uses the "hard" scanner.
As for how soft clones "work" in practice it goes like this:
The Summit > MOTD: People have the Right to Talk about things.
A > I'm going to connect a sansha's nation computer thing to my brain, it'll be great, and I'll learn lots!
Concerned onlookers > Don't do it, man! that's madness!
B > The wonders of science.
A > I'm connecting it now... Aaaaaargh!
B > he's dead, jim.
Concerned onlookers > Well, that was unfortunate and entirely unpredicted. What a shame. He was a good man, what a rotten way to die.
A > Howdy y'all
Concerned onlookers > Aren't you dead? what sorcery is this?
A > soft clone backup, yo
B > word.
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The main support for soft clones' existence is the various indications in cannon that killing eggers outside of their pods is just as futile (or almost as futile) as killing them in the capsule. This crops up in places like "Jita 4-4," as well as the description of the "Raven State Issue," which asserts that it is ineffective for a capsuleer to commit suicide.
The way I've always figured they worked was something like a backup activated if (1) the original's life signs cease, if they were being directly monitored; or (2) if the original fails to give occasional signs of life (paper trail goes utterly cold for, say, a month). These are probably customizable.
Yes, I think the cannon supports it. No, I didn't always think so. No, I don't actually like it much; it encourages zero-tension roleplay.
It does, however, make it a little more reasonable for even the most paranoid capsuleer to get out and go for a walk. So there's that.
Edit:
Oh! Also, there's some pretty neat drama potential if the original turns out not to be dead after all. I suspect the law requires that the soft clone "go back to sleep" (die, since the soft clone's separate experiences will presumably be overwritten in the next update) under these circumstances, which could make for some very "Blade Runner" scenes.
A REALLY fun couple of options is a capsuleer faking his/her death, then clonejacking somebody or even finagling a complete new capsuleer identity, leaving the soft clone running their life, or maybe just going baselining for a few years, leading to divergent personalities between original and clone.
It would take a lot of work to put a story like this together, given the tools at our disposal, but it could happen.
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Soft Clones are a fine enough idea, really, and as I see them they're just a copy of the Capsuleer of fine enough granularity that all of the synapses are appropriate, wth appropriate number of neurotransmitter channels at each synapse - a molecular-scale scan. Looking at it more deeply is the path to madness.
EVE cloning in general teeters on the brink of space magic - well, no, let's be honest, it's been thrown off into the abyss. I don't think there's going to be a satisfactory answer to this question beyond "person copy get" :/
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Oh! Also, there's some pretty neat drama potential if the original turns out not to be dead after all. I suspect the law requires that the soft clone "go back to sleep" (die, since the soft clone's separate experiences will presumably be overwritten in the next update) under these circumstances, which could make for some very "Blade Runner" scenes.
And here I was bemoaning the corner I've RPed Shin into... :cube:
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Not the best of 'PF choices', but TEA has the broker kill himself on purpose to get into new clones.
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*shrug* I do things outside the pod. Some of these things are dangerous. If I die outside the pod then I'm not biomassing my character so....
Sea turtles Softclones
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Not the best of 'PF choices', but TEA has the broker kill himself on purpose to get into new clones.
I did get the image that the Broker has figured out a way to "multiclient", so to speak, and has several clones active. How he maintains coherence is not very clear to me. (Also, the usual implication for "being multi" would be insanity.)
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The instamatic hard scan thing and having single copy available at all time has a slight hint of individuality (and sanity) linked to the concept of soul.
Soft scans and cyber implanted hard scan devices we're injected to the player lore by Culture enthusiasts years ago, as far as I can tell they have never been verified by CCP.
If soft cloning has been retconned out of the EVEwiki, it would imply that the concept is not supported by CCP.
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The problem with that argument is that it has not been retconned out entirely. The exact mechanics the paragraphs discussed has been removed from official acknowledgement, but there is still tremendous amounts of PF indicating that softscanning must exist in some form or another.
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Soft cloning was written out of EVElopedia, yet Falcon just mentioned it in a post on the official EVE forums a few weeks ago. -vOv-
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A relevant discussion (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=197079) on the EVE-O forums. Includes comments from CCP Eterne and CCP Falcon.
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Doesn't a soft clone backup go against the CONCORD law in the sense that there is more than one copy of a person in existance?
Not running around of course, but still there is two (or more) copies of the same individual existing at the same time.
The fact that the copy is in 'stasis' (I'm not even sure if there is tech for this in New Eden) would probably not factor in, because a person could go into stasis and declare himself dead and avoid taxes, conscription, justice system, then reinstate himself as himself afterwards without any ill effects.
This just without any cloning malarkey.
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Just like having a ready clone waiting for your pod to go pop, the "soft clone double" could be circumvented by having the mindstate kept separately and burned to the new body only after the old body is certainly dead. This would, however, cause some legal issues with the question of what makes a person dead. Also, if the blank brain still "functions" while the clone is not activated, I could see that there could be issues with the template brain starting to spontaneously make connections, which might mess with uploading the intended consciousness, or waking up if something goes wrong with storage.
The same thing with regular clones as well, though. I understand the Good Guy in TEA had a partial mind transfer done, interrupted by the Bad Guy, so he did not wake up in a completely blank state. The question is, which parts need to be functional while the clone is waiting activation and are these parts sufficient to call the clone a person? If they are, we have the case of accidental Frankenstein's monsters if clones are prematurely awakened. Therefore, let us assume that clone templates, before activation, have levels of brain damage (or rather, no brain) such that before the new brain is burned to the icky gooey parts, it does not have personality nor any ability to stay biologically alive without life support. Which makes the Good Guy Amarrian from TEA extremely lucky to have just enough stuff written in the brain to have only amnesia and a personality change. (And probably SP loss, though he demonstrated still very high level of subconsciously knowing how spaceships work.)
As such, the problem with soft clones comes down to two questions: First, the legal problem of how to secure the stored mind state in such of a way that accidental activation or theft is very, very, very difficult and unlikely to happen. Second, how the mind can be scanned for storage. The technically easiest way would be to use a regular, destructive scan and instead of burning the mind state, store it and burn a copy. However, the way soft cloning seems to be "intended to work" in many cases is a non-destructive scan, leaving the origin body alive and well. This has some extra complications. First, of course, is non-destructiveness of the scan. Second is accuracy of the scan to avoid changes or errors in the mind state (it is only partially understood, after all). Third is sufficient speed, shortness of time or otherwise ensuring that the patient's mind state stays constant during the scan, or I imagine the copy would not be of sufficient coherence. The case of Theseus's ship: Legend says the people of ancient Athens saved the ship the hero Theseus used when he went to kill the minotaur. When the ship rotted, they exchanged parts, eventually making part-by-part a new ship. The question with mind state is how much it can be allowed to change so that the person is still the same? In this case, I'd expect a chance of incoherence or schizophrenia/multiple personality, if the mind state changes during the scan.
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The way I like to interpret the legal issue is that whatever criteria you use to determine the original person's death (and those could well vary), as soon as those criteria are met, and the backup clone is woken up and assumes the legal identity of the presumed dead person, then that new clone is the actual person in the eyes of the law, no matter what. If the original person then turns out to have been just missing or whatever, and returns, then that's tough luck to him or her. They are not persons any longer in the eyes of the law.
CONCORD law isn't supposed to be fair or just or reasonable, not in my book anyway. It is there to impose some kind of order onto the madness of interstellar society and capsuleers in particular.
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What stops regular people from using the same loopholes in the system to avoid legal repercussions for their actions.
The aforementioned example would be a perfect way to avoid taxes linked to inheriting anything.
If used in unscrupulous hands it could be used to steal someones identity.
Making exceptions in the legal system for cloning and clones would probably have zero support in any nation in New Eden, which of course is a completely different issue.
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I think we're going to be able to draw some more conclusions about soft cloning from Karin Midular, if she dies. The news items say she's too badly injured to clone. She's not a capsuleer, so she's facing baseliner cloning, so obviously that's possible. If she does die, they'll either be able to clone her from a past scan (in which case we have our PF in favor of backup clones) or not (in which case we have our PF in favor of only real-time cloning). Looking at the PF some more (TEA excepted, I could never get into that thing) and reading the thread on cloning in the Eve Fiction forums, I'm starting to lean more towards cloning being a real-time thing only. Something about the fluid relay, perhaps.
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Looking at the PF some more (TEA excepted, I could never get into that thing) and reading the thread on cloning in the Eve Fiction forums, I'm starting to lean more towards cloning being a real-time thing only. Something about the fluid relay, perhaps.
But ... "Jita 4-4" ...
Gah, I don't even know. That one's not wholly consistent either because it implies continuity of consciousness. I think for the moment soft clones are on the border of quasi-canon-- stuff that makes sense in context and constantly verges on being flat-out verified, but isn't.
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It was flat-out verified, until they retconned that passage away.
As far as the particulars of cloning go, I have pretty much decided to keep interpreting it as I always have, and to hell with CCP's shifting whims. My characters have soft clones, their use of jump clones do not fry the brain of the body they jump from, and if anyone takes issue with that I honestly don't give a shit. I'm not retconning my RP because <Suddenly :psyccp: >
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It was flat-out verified, until they retconned that passage away.
As far as the particulars of cloning go, I have pretty much decided to keep interpreting it as I always have, and to hell with CCP's shifting whims. My characters have soft clones, their use of jump clones do not fry the brain of the body they jump from, and if anyone takes issue with that I honestly don't give a shit. I'm not retconning my RP because <Suddenly :psyccp: >
Take your pick: These (http://i861.photobucket.com/albums/ab180/mkwashere/macros/post.jpg) three (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llbrtpDhMr1qint86o1_500.jpg) pictures (http://25.media.tumblr.com/f49762aa9bbcea79dd7fc5dafbbe3743/tumblr_mf28kdYQJL1rlm565o1_400.jpg) all sum up my thoughts.
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^^^^
THIS.
Fuck this "no soft cloning" bullshit.
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Therefore, let us assume that clone templates, before activation, have levels of brain damage (or rather, no brain) such that before the new brain is burned to the icky gooey parts, it does not have personality nor any ability to stay biologically alive without life support. Which makes the Good Guy Amarrian from TEA extremely lucky to have just enough stuff written in the brain to have only amnesia and a personality change.
This is correct. (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Cloning#Brain_growth_.26_storage) Before activation, the clone's brain is just gray mush, and once activation starts, the process is gradual, with a snap-burning followed by fine tuning. Said TEA guy probably got the snap-burning done but had the fine tuning interrupted.
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I'm certainly sufficiently accustomed to having to include soft clones in conversations about capsuleer "immortality" that they seem to be de facto canon even if they're technically not. And, as noted above, there are plenty of bits indicating that death out of pod is not permadeath.
The simplest way to explain that is with soft clones, because you capsuleers out there definitely don't have DUST implants.
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Looking at the PF some more (TEA excepted, I could never get into that thing) and reading the thread on cloning in the Eve Fiction forums, I'm starting to lean more towards cloning being a real-time thing only. Something about the fluid relay, perhaps.
But ... "Jita 4-4" ...
Gah, I don't even know. That one's not wholly consistent either because it implies continuity of consciousness. I think for the moment soft clones are on the border of quasi-canon-- stuff that makes sense in context and constantly verges on being flat-out verified, but isn't.
Yeah. There sadly isn't a lot of consistency around cloning at all. The thread currently simmering in Eve Fiction is interesting because it's clear that there isn't a consistent position within CCP, either. Falcon's position that "loads of people have used it in their backstories and RP, so I'd like to see it be official" is heartening, though.
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the prospect of a character being killed out of pod (with a spoon), was one of the points made against the idea of Incarna.
the recent, shelved, thing about multiplayer exploration of space stations with expendable clones, was a thing suggested as something that Incarna was useful for.
Not just disagreement at CCP story department. Game mechanics also confused.
what purpose do soft clones have at this point ? Other than consequence-free RP in otherwise dangerous circumstances.
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Yeah. There sadly isn't a lot of consistency around cloning at all. The thread currently simmering in Eve Fiction is interesting because it's clear that there isn't a consistent position within CCP, either. Falcon's position that "loads of people have used it in their backstories and RP, so I'd like to see it be official" is heartening, though.
I would view it as exactly the opposite.
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what purpose do soft clones have at this point ? Other than consequence-free RP in otherwise dangerous circumstances.
For me? Mostly background story. I'd like to know, one way or another. The more I think about it the more I'd prefer the idea that you can't simply make backups, that you can only do a clone transfer in real-time. But in the end, I just want some sort of final word on it.
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If softcloning is deemed not fitting with the setting, then I am still in favor of the solution I posted on the EVE-O thread: Don't retcon, but create new fiction like that CONCORD and the empires make it illegal.
That might even leave some room for players that still want to use it, while still restricting it. Now, the already costly softclones will become more expensive, and you'll likely have to put your trust in some shady criminal organization, with all the risks that come with that.
But if a major NPC gets publicly assasinated, he is still effectively removed from the chessboard, wether the NPC clones or not, which might solve one of the problems CCP has with softcloning if I'm right.
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what purpose do soft clones have at this point ? Other than consequence-free RP in otherwise dangerous circumstances.
Honestly for me, this is enough. Having characters killed off in ways you don't want is very annoying. Especially if you've put a long time investment into them.
EDIT: 20,000th post in OOC Summit. Great Success.
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That's the thing.
Soft clones are free.
They're made of handwavium.
Not expensive commodity only for the rich and few for a great price.
There is nothing actually done by the player or the character to gain access to a soft clone, not in game.
No training time lost, no ISK spent.
It is a different thing to put sixty million ISK to a jumpclone and take it where you need it.
Work with the time limitations you have for jumping your clone.
The hassle you have to deal with changing your training queue.
Actually having something to do when you are working with some concept that is in-game.
I would think that having a 'soft clone', a jump clone left in a freezer with its brain intact, would be a good workaround the lack of existance of soft clones within the game.
At least it would be something.
I'm not retconning my RP because <Suddenly :psyccp: >
Yet TEA happened and pretty much all the Roleplayers had to change their RP or leave the game.
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That's the thing.
Soft clones are free.
They're made of handwavium.
Not expensive commodity only for the rich and few for a great price.
There is nothing actually done by the player or the character to gain access to a soft clone, not in game.
No training time lost, no ISK spent.
It is a different thing to put sixty million ISK to a jumpclone and take it where you need it.
Work with the time limitations you have for jumping your clone.
The hassle you have to deal with changing your training queue.
Actually having something to do when you are working with some concept that is in-game.
I would think that having a 'soft clone', a jump clone left in a freezer with its brain intact, would be a good workaround the lack of existance of soft clones within the game.
At least it would be something.
I'm not retconning my RP because <Suddenly :psyccp: >
Yet TEA happened and pretty much all the Roleplayers had to change their RP or leave the game.
You're thinking, perhaps, of medical clones. Jump clones are super cheap (relatively).
As far as reasons for 'soft clones', they can lead to interesting situations - I think the 'classic' would be someone kills you, you wake up in a soft clone and have to piece together what happened. There are certainly others.
Edit: As far as TEA, there are other options. Like not examining certain parts of it too closely, or worrying about every single detail too much. ;)
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Had an interesting chat w/ Greyscale at the charity dinner about soft cloning. It'll be brought up at the storyline panel later today.
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Not ret-conning either. Block me now IG if you don't like it.
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Bit late coming to this topic, but I just wanted to throw in,
1. Invasive brain scan, unconnected to new clone, connected to storage device.
2. Duplicate stored brain scan.
3. Use one copy to activate a new clone.
4. Other stored scan kept as "backup". ALL memories from that point onward are non-recoverable.
This has actually been how I've always defined the process of softcloning for the purposes of my RP. Though, I throw in the exception case that my corporation has created and started marketing a form of memory chip, that those memories can be backed up in, and thus removed from the body and used to get the memories back. But it only works if the chip survives and the body is recoverable. I think the chips add an interesting element of depth to RP, wherein, for instance, memories could be held for ransom.
As for how soft clones "work" in practice it goes like this:
The Summit > MOTD: People have the Right to Talk about things.
A > I'm going to connect a sansha's nation computer thing to my brain, it'll be great, and I'll learn lots!
Concerned onlookers > Don't do it, man! that's madness!
B > The wonders of science.
A > I'm connecting it now... Aaaaaargh!
B > he's dead, jim.
Concerned onlookers > Well, that was unfortunate and entirely unpredicted. What a shame. He was a good man, what a rotten way to die.
A > Howdy y'all
Concerned onlookers > Aren't you dead? what sorcery is this?
A > soft clone backup, yo
B > word.
This is what I would call absolute silliness.
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@MorwenLagann: Soft-cloning: Naughty, messy consistency landmine. No official stance on it yet. (Gnauton) #evestory #evefanfest #tweetfleet
From my half-assed livetweeting of the "Story in EVE" panel yesterday. Player fiction panel is about to start in a little bit, but I doubt soft-cloning will come up.
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I think we're going to be able to draw some more conclusions about soft cloning from Karin Midular, if she dies. .
I have actually wondered if Karin Miduar is the reason they've pulled the soft-clone stuff. I can imagine a conversation
"Ccp1: right, we need more dynamism, so it's time to get rid of some faction leaders we've written into corners. Let's start with Midular
Ccp2: let's have her be the victim of a terrorist attack, shoot her in the head or something
Ccp3: but wouldn't they be able to just recover her from a soft clone backup?
Ccp2: WTF? Then we can't get rid of any of our NPCs that are capsuleers without someone asking What about soft-cloning? Let's get rid of it, I'm sure nobody will notice. "
Delegate Zero did imply they'd been considering who might have moral objections to soft-clones, or perhaps just that the possibility of those moral objections might also give them an out.
It does feel like a thing they need to work around for story advancement, but then that's a microcosm of the problem of capsuleers in general. How do you get promoted if your boss is immortal, and need never step down?
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I disagree on that front, personally.
They've stated that she cannot be cloned for two reasons that have nothing to do with soft-cloning's viability as a concept:
- Her brain is far too damaged to perform a scan with an acceptable probability of success. The woman took a high-velocity round to the fucking head. That she's not dead outright is insane.
- She does not have a backup to use in the first place; whether that is by choice or tradition based on her being a Ray of Matar or her clan's beliefs is unclear.
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- Her brain is far too damaged to perform a scan with an acceptable probability of success. The woman took a high-velocity round to the fucking head. That she's not dead outright is insane.
I've seen a documentary about a guy who took a 7.62 NATO round to the head which took out a reasonable percentage of his brain, spent 12 hours without medical attention beyond a shell dressing (he got triaged to e bottom of e casualty list) was patched together, and then recovered enough to learn to walk and talk again. Human bodies are amazing pieces of engineering, with both fragility and
toughness. Given high tech medical treatment, I don't find that at all stretching of SOD.
- She does not have a backup to use in the first place; whether that is by choice or tradition based on her being a Ray of Matar or her clan's beliefs is unclear.
Did they confirm that? My recollection is that Delegate Zero suggested it was a possibility, but I don't recall if he stated it was definite. (but then, I haven't read all the news on this)
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As resilient as the human body is, we're also looking at technology that's probably about 2000 years ahead of what we have now (would be 20k but for lolevegate, of course). We also know that her brain is in no state to have a scan done of it right now, which means that the only 'immediate' cloning solution is a backup.
It seemed a lot more definite than "a possibility" to me. What wasn't definite was the reasons for why that might be the case.
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http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Vuld_Haupt#The_Blessing_of_Clones
While this is specifically about capsuleers' clones, there's this :
"these pilots [are] especially disposed to the loss of spiritual connection that comes with ohnesh, since they experience death without the subsequent blessing that accompanies it."
I think it's safe to make this generalization, that escaping death through cloning was frowned upon in the matari culture, probably more in a "poor guy" than "get out of here, freak" way.
Vuld Haupt changed the deal by proposing rituals to repair this disconnection, but :
-Those new rituals can't be older than 10 years : the acceptance of the spiritual status of capsuleers (and therefore, that escaping death through cloning isn't that bad) is still relatively young, and maybe not widespread. Karin Midular could be, spirituality-wise, a member of the old guard (even if she was rather liberal politically-wise).
-The fact that she is a Ray of Matar could be the very reason she doesn't have a backup. A Ray appears in times of trouble, leads, does great things, and dies. An everlasting Ray would be a terrible thing -for the Ray herself and for the people she's supposed to lead.
-And there is, of course, a crapload of personal reasons someone, even given the possibility, would not get a cold-scan backup.
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Personally, I think cultural reasons would be quite sufficient for not copying the Ray of Matar. My take on things is that cloning is problematic for at least some parts of Matari society (and yes, that includes for my pod pilot).
... although under the current sort of situational pressure people make decisions that have society-changing effects. It'll be interesting to see how this storyline develops.