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| .: Jack In :. |
wrx://shadowrun/cyberware/grades |
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| "It's . Do you know where your meat body is?" |
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| · DV8 [21-01-2008 / 11:30:55] |
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In 2058, five kinds of cyberware are officially available, one of which is psuedo-official. used cyberware, normal cyberware, alpha-, beta- and deltaware. Though overwhelming evidence exists that deltaware is fact rather than fiction, the manufacturers of it are incredibly hush-hush about the capabilities and specifications. Here I'll give you a rundown of all the important information regarding the different grades of cyberware.
But first, a few things...
Invasiveness
It is a well documented fact that the direct neural interaction that is required for many, if not all cyberware, is damaging to a wearer's nervous system, and the body, the first few weeks after installation, is actively trying to reject the foreign material it's interfacing with, no matter how vital the parts are to the body's survival. After the body gets used to it - through neural therapy and lacing your body up with immunosuppressants - the body functions as it should, but there is a permanent change in the body's make up which tends to change a person's behavior in one way or another, however slight it might be. Extreme cases are often referred to as "cyberpsychosis," where the nervous system of a user has taken so much damage it's turning into severe psychological trauma.
The more sophisticated the cyberware, the less invasive the surgery, and the less obtrusive the neural damage. Therefore popular belief that the more visually obtrusive the cyberware is the more cyberware a person must be carrying is obviously false. The lower the grade of cyberware, the less cyberware a body can sustain.
Availability
The availability of cyberware is directly related to the sophistication. The only exception to that rule is used cyberware. Even though it's horrendously cheap, and definitely pretty shitty, there isn't a lot of it freely floating around, and it's mostly black market stuff.
Alphaware is available to those people who are willing to pay the price for it, but Betaware, though still available, is usually reserved for law-enforcement, military, or security forces that are well funded by whomever they work for. As for Deltaware, well, like I said, we know it's out there, we just haven't seen much of it yet.
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| · DV8 [21-01-2008 / 11:30:55] |
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Of the different grades of cyberware, normal cyberware - not denoted with a specific grade - is by far the most popular and most widespread. The popularity is largely due to the sharp price-quality balance, and it's wide availability. Most of this cyberware is legal, and for many of the more restricted pieces of cyberware a healthy SIN will get you a license.
Depending on the type of cyberware, the obtrusiveness of normal cyberware is pretty appaling. Unless specifically ordered, cybernetic limbs do not come with orthoskin grafts, laying the metal bare, and appendiges are hardly what one would call lifelike. Cybernetic modifications to eyes and ears are bulky and apparent, and complete replacements are obvious and disconcerting to people not commonly exposed to invasive cybernetic modification. Some urban sub-cultures have grown to enjoy and even look up to obvious and heavy cybernetic modifications, but most people consider it disturbing that one would willingly alter themselves so much.
The obtrusiveness is not only to the eye of the beholder, but also to the system of the wearer of normal cyberware.
Current trends
Lately, I've been seeing a lot of people trading their plug-like lenses, or bare, diaphragm-like optical systems for the cool hard plastic lenses that cover the entire eyesocket, and all the modifications, like a permanent pair of sunglasses. With a little extra money the entire eyeball can be replaced, and most of the modifications tucked into it. Gold and silver eyeballs are all the rave at the moment, including some of the more realistic looking eyes, though, up close, you couldn't fool a blind devil rat. For me, the really odd thing is that these people don't blink.
Another favourite among streetcreeps is cheap neuro-boosters and wires. These systems require quite a bit of maintainance and several diagnostic and maintenance ports are needed through the body. Mostly along the spine, and the inside of the limbs, as well as near the base of the skull, jacks are needed. Having a friendly streetdoc might graft some orthoskin over it to cover it up, but eventually that becomes quite expensive to redo every time you go in for a lube job. And the movement these systems leave you with are odd, and jerky. Even if you do have the reflex trigger installed with your wired reflexes, you still come off looking like a spastic even though you're not twitching all the damned time.
Dermal plating, Muscle replacement, bone lacing, retractable spurs and handrazors; all of these leave very little to the imagination as skin refuses to grow over some of the shallower ports of these systems. Skin is irritated and enflamed around the edges, and sometimes slightly withered from all of the scar tissue being formed.
Most of the skillwires you see on the streets are normal grade, since the cost for them are rather steep. People who do use them have the same sort of maintenance plugs all over their body as people with other neural transplants and modifications do.
A smartlink system is something you'll hardly see when someone doesn't have their entire eyeball replaced, since it means a mandatory vizer-like modification to the eyes. The neural feedback from the smartgun system on the firearm is mostly subdermal, or through a fiberoptic cable, jacked into a dataport. If so, then the cable connects directly to the gun, which gives something for your opponents to grab hold of, so most of the systems you'll see are subdermal, and have induction pads built into the gun hand. Normal grade smartlink systems are pretty prone to malfunction when either the inductionpads on the hands or the gun are dirty.
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| · DV8 [21-01-2008 / 11:30:55] |
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 Here's a sick thought; what if you go in for some wiring at your local shadowclinic. You come out, and you later find out that the retractable handrazors you got yourself outfitted with used to belong to someone else. Now, there's a large chance that these people didn't fork over the cyberware voluntarily, and if they did, it's still a disgusting thought. Your neural pathways are now interfacing with cybernetic neural pathways that used to be implanted in someone else's body.
But, it's reality. Many poor people that can't afford any true replacements, and they need to, they'll go by the local organ leggers to see what kind of used cyberware they have on for sale. Your kid needs to replace the hand he mangled while he was running from rioters? "Well, let's just see if we can find a suitable hand for you." The trade in used cyberware isn't as lively as the one in new cyberware, but it's as lively as organ leggers make it.
The reality of it is that most people who go under the knife to get some used cyberware installed don't make it through the first week of recovery. Since these people are usually the ones at the low end of society, having only ripper-docs to rely on, they don't recieve the best of care that such a cyber-transplant usually requires. It is said that the implant has a 1500% likelier chance to be rejected by the body, and that the chance of infection is 100%. It's not so bad, if you want to be on synthetic penicillin and immunosuppressants all your life.
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| · DV8 [21-01-2008 / 11:30:55] |
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In short, Alphaware is newest generation cyberware to hit the public market, offering better quality, structurally and materially better products with a lower chance of failure and malfunction, better durability, so that you don't have to go into the shop every two months to get your oil changed, hydraulic fluids refilled, or for an extra immunosuppressant-patches, or just the right kind of look that will allow you to sport the 'wares without being shunned by friends and family. Sometimes it even offers a little bit of all of that.
It's cyberware for the serious day-to-day user who wants quality and reliability, or the style conscious who have the cred to support their longing for beautiful things. Yes, alphaware is not cheap, but if you are to believe Fuchi's brochures, it's supposed to pay itself back in comfort and luxury.
Executives, government officials, public security forces and wealthy people go in for alphaware if and when they can afford it.
Current trends
Coming soon...
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| · DV8 [21-01-2008 / 11:30:55] |
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Betaware is not officially released for public consumption yet. This is the cyberware that's being talked about right now; mostly about it's almost seemless integration onto the wearers nervous system, near invisible and supposedly "More Real Than Real."
This cyberware is for the heavy hitters who are lucky enough to be in a position to aquire it. It's ridiculously expensive, which is why people with betaware are usually people for whom cyberware is their life, their bread and butter. Highly paid prototype models, corporate sponsored athletes, corporate security forces, the Army and successful musicians and corporate executives sometimes have the luxury of obtaining this piece of excellent material.
Current trends
Coming soon...
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| · DV8 [21-01-2008 / 11:30:55] |
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Coming soon...
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wrx://shadowrun/cyberware/grades |
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