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[Xav Serise]

So; perhaps this is a newb question, but how does aging in the world of Eve work? With capsuleers able to clone themselves after death, is aging defeated?

I went looking through the timeline, and found examples of some fairly long-lived individuals - Zaragram II, for example, had a reign of 114 years - and that was 1881 years before the merging of capsule and clone technology in YC 105.

I thought this might indicate fairly advanced breakthroughs in biomedical technology. And, given other tech evident in the world of Eve (nanites? nanites!), one might come to the conclusion that aging is quite different in this world. Does anyone have any evidence that can clarify this issue? Prime Fiction snippits?

Am I even presenting this topic in the right forum? D:

[Louella Dougans]

People live a long time. e.g. Admiral Noir was well over 100.

Amarr Holders can live several centuries.

Its down to various implants and biomedical treatments, yes.

Capsuleers can alter (to an extent) how old they are when recloned.

[Hamish Grayson]

The Crielere project short story and New Horizon's chronicle both have characters who were alive during the Gallente-Caldari war, which ended anearly 100 years ago (about 90 at the time it was written).   Trevor, the character from New Horizon's is a an independent capsuleer who was a child during the start of the war.  I'm not sure how long the war lasted off the top of my head, but that puts Trevor at least 100 years old but he looks to be about 30 in the chron's artwork. 

[Ken]

Good question.

The hardscan brain-state transfer sort of cloning tech has been around for a while, predating by at least a few decades its merging with the hydrostatic capsule.  Capsule tech has been available outside of Jove space for about 100 years.

Amarrians reputedly have the best in life-extending cybernetics and bioengineering technologies, but these things remain prohibitively expensive for most people.  A holder may live for three, four, maybe even five hundred years, but he/she has access to experts and technologies that very few others may.  And note that in their very advanced ages, these Methuselahs are not living vibrant, youthful lifestyles.  Emperor Heideran VII was portrayed as rather frail and unaware in Kiss of the Soul, near the end of his long life.

In PF there is rarely an example of anyone other than a senior Amarrian holder/emperor living beyond two centuries.

The dilemma of the capsuleers' effective immortality has yet to really impact New Eden as the 'immortal capsuleer' is still a relatively new phenomenon.

[Xav Serise]

Louella, Hamish,  Ken - Thank you for the responses! From a writer's perspective, it's certainly an interesting quandry. I did the math, and in Hamish's example, the characters mentioned would be nearly 200 years old. A child at the beginning of a 93-year-long-war, and then operating in current-time, 100 years after the end of the war? Yeesh.

I think the socio-economic reprecussions of greatly extended lives would be staggering and hard to imagine, especially as tied as these immortals are to fatty stacks of fliff.

Ken, you make a good point - perhaps it's fortunate for my brain that the full weight of these implications haven't really come to the fore, with the technology only becoming readily available recently.

Thanks again!

[Ken]

There is not much in PF that presents multi-century lifespans and any disparity in average lifetimes between New Eden's "haves" and "have-nots" as being a problem, so you're probably safe to presume that either the people who can live very long lives are extremely rare and/or the society has adapted to this dynamic such that its ramifications are not major, pressing concerns.

As you mention a writer's perspective, for a look back at New Eden history, may I recommend this... http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/Ken/The_Hitchhikers_Guide_to_New_Eden_v0.91.pdf 

[Saede Riordan]

I'd say its likely that from a practical standpoint, capsuleers don't age. The can just jump into a younger body. That's why Nikita's appearance is frozen at 17 despite her being 28, cause that's when her first clone was made, so she keeps the age dialed to there. However, that's not to say clones don't degrade over time, and I'd see a capsuleer as being forced to clone at least every few years as the cloned body started to fall apart. There's no evidence for this in the PF, but its always been something I imagined happening.

[Invelious]

Graelyn, for example, is a old, withering and decrepit man who happens to be a capsuleer.

[Mithfindel]

One of the books does mention baby skin for a capsuleer that got podded, one of the Gallente pilots flying escort to a certain Nyx. Other than that, no mention of aging or the reversal of aging, but I'd assume that capsuleers with enough money can have clones which make the most advanced plastic surgery pale in comparison - and plastic surgery is damn advanced in New Eden (full-body replacement except neural system, while the patient is conscious). Re-growing limbs has been mentioned (a certain Amarrian Heir, who happened to step out of what is allowed to him and was punished a kind of eye-for-an-eye punishment - but happened to have wronged perhaps a few thousand people).

Naturally, there might be psychological issues, if you modify your body too much - I'd at least assuming that waking up as someone who isn't you might be traumatic.

I assume that the oldest person currently alive is King Khanid II of the Khanid Kingdom. He competed with the late Emperor Heideran VII (the old frail guy) for the Imperial Throne, and lost. Usually losing that game means you commit suicide, but Khanid (assumedly quite young by Amarrian royal standards, perhaps a hundred years old or so) decided to take his estates and secede, instead. And he's still ticking. The Kingdom has had contact with the Gallente Federation for perhaps a hundred years or so, and the King has seen fit to get a former Gallentean pop star as a personal slave. (As this is older PF, I assume we are expected to think dirty.) Of course, the King is a special case, since he's likely kept going with the best Amarr and Caldari tech can provide (with possibly cloning - he's already given the finger to the Amarrian Orthodox customs of how to choose the Emperor, I assume the tabu of cloning royals doesn't mean much to him).

Cloning, however, is not necessarily a lightly taken endeavour. One chronicle has a person use jump clones as a personal teleportation device, but even when the tech is near perfect, there is an infinitesimally small chance that something goes wrong even in well-controlled situations (on a well-prepared operation in a hospital, in the hydrostatic capsule). In a hurried operation (personality-saving emergency cloning to escape a dying body) things can be expected to go wrong.

[lallara zhuul]

One of the reasons people die is because their DNA degrades.

[Ken]

DNA, however, can be repaired or replaced.

[Ammentio Oinkelmar]

I'd say its likely that from a practical standpoint, capsuleers don't age.

I'd also say that cloning defeats aging, but it's only available for a restricted elite, and there are other technologies available for people, like some Amarrians, who might not accept it. My guess is that few people seem to live more than 200 years because it's enough time to get killed by unnatural causes.

[Hamish Grayson]

One of the reasons people die is because their DNA degrades.

The  lowest grade clones don't even use your DNA.  They are reanimated cadavers with cosmetic surgery made to look like you.  I don't even think the have to be the same gender or bloodline. 

[Sinjin Mokk]

Cloning tech dosen't have to mean full body replacement.

I imagine that you can extend the life of a person by a considerable degree just by replacing cloned organs or sending in nanites to do some repair work. Some of these methods would probably be no more expensive then cosmetic surgery today.

That plus advances in nutrition, eradication of many diseases and cancers and a better overall healthcare system would probably extend the average person to about 150 years without needing major clone replication.

[Ciarente]

One of the reasons people die is because their DNA degrades.

The  lowest grade clones don't even use your DNA.  They are reanimated cadavers with cosmetic surgery made to look like you.  I don't even think the have to be the same gender or bloodline.

Actually, yes and no. Clones aren't bodies grown with your DNA, but they are treated to be seeded with your stem-cells which then take over the manufactured biomass body.