Move-by-Wire

[3278]

[12:31:46] <[32|smoke-ee]> How can move-by-wire be useful, necessary, or cost essence when you have cyberlimbs?
[12:31:48] *** [32|smoke-ee] is now known as [3278]
[12:32:19] <Eighty-Six> It has a reduced cost based on how many cyber limbs you have.
[12:32:23] <Eighty-Six> I thing
[12:32:25] <Maelwys> Isn't move by wire upgrading the CNS?
[12:32:25] <Eighty-Six> think
[12:32:29] <[3278]> Does it have reduced effect?
[12:32:59] <[3278]> I mean, it should apply to cyberlimbs, but it should also mean cyberlimbs are always in use, and that they thus should wear more quickly.
[12:33:12] <Eighty-Six> Hum, not sure 32
[12:34:25] <[3278]> MBW: Device to induce constant seizure of all muscles. When a movement needs to be made, the inside muscle - the muscle on the side of the direction of movement is relaxed, improving reaction time and speed.
[12:35:03] <[3278]> It should also, over time, increase strength based on constant seizure of all muscles. And require massive food and water intake.
[12:35:13] <Eighty-Six> Hum, you know, actually I think having cyberlimbs reduces the effect of MBW....never really tried to figure it out.
[12:35:20] <[3278]> There is no real cause for it to damage your brain.
[12:36:21] <[3278]> Any more than having your computer processor tell your hard disk to always spin should damage the processor, which is using a tiny fraction of its power to notify the disk of its necessary activity.

[CykoSpin]

I've given MBW a lot of thought, and as a rule, they are about as rare in my campaigns as delta-ware (MBW, as well as a few other things, are considered absolute SOTFA and no one can start with them, unless it makes a whole lot of sense in their backgrounds), so it hasn't bothered me much yet. Also, cyberlimbs are rare (although I have no restrictions for getting them, no one ever does), so this issue hasn't been brought up yet. As a rule right now (even though I haven't had a chance to use it yet, and don't have any exact mechanics for it), reflex enhancement systems (with the exception of Reaction Enhancers and Synaptic Accelerators) don't affect cyberlimbs because there are simply no muscles or nervous tissue there to be affected.

What you said about it damaging the brain is right on the money. What I do is have them cause something like "the black shakes" (from Johnny Mnemonic) if they break down (constant muscle seizures, but no actual brain damage).

I've also thought about it building strength, too, but I think that might increase "munchkin appeal" way too much. Then again, considering a MBW's way fucking high essence, monetary cost, and availability...*shrug*

[Serious Paul]

I wish I had the good answer here. I think you have raised some serious issues here.

I think some of the questions seem easily answered at first, but in the end after reading this post two dozen times, I keep coming back with more questions. Lets see if we can tackle this one step at a time:

Is it fair to say the question at hand is:

How can move-by-wire be useful, necessary, or cost essence when you have cyberlimbs?


In the process of the discussion you raise some points that I think answer this, but in their own right, raise more questions:

I think that if the MBW system does have an effect/affect on cybernetic replacement limbs that you would incur the damage/wear and tear associated with the system. Just liek it does on the musclulatur system in normal flesh and blood humans. I agree that the system should increase a (meta)humans intake costs/needs/requirements. I do not, for the simple purpose of game balance, think it should bestow any more physical bonuses than it already does.

Really by having the muscles in a constant state of seizure you are building muscle tone and definition not building muscle mass. (This can be argued either way but int he end I think what you get is good enough.)

I do have a question on the brain damage thing real quick: I am not a neuro surgeon or even very smart but why does it, the MBW system, cause brain damage at the level it does? I can see that usage can cause early wear and tear in the CNS but is just an attempt to balance a seemingly munchkin like piece of cyberdrek? (I can balance my own game, all that crap they give me is great but I will just blow your goddamned MBW ass away if you pain me.)

[Wildfire]

I think that particular side effect is purely game balance. Even if you had the essence, the money, the access, the possibility that you could hose your brain would give you pause on actually getting it. By the time most characters are able to even think of getting something like that, most players are too attached to their characters to easily say yeah sure, hook me up, hope my brain doesn't fry, especially considering most of the characters that would look at that are the gun bunny/bullet magnet types.

[CykoSpin]

It must be a game balance thing, because it isn't very realistic at all. To keep realism and game balance, I've dumped the whole TLE-x crap, and just made the seizures and CCSS more common. Also, as a background thing to add "flavor", I've made the MBW one of those things that just barely can't "pass inspection" to reach the major markets, and so remains in a corporate/military "testing phase"; a completely black-market piece of 'ware. So far, it's been more than enough to keep any of my players from trying to get one installed without giving it serious thought.

[Cazmonster]

Call me old fashioned - but in my book, there's nothing like a hot set of wired three with a reaction enhancer or two.

[Bethyaga]

Call me old fashioned - but in my book, there's nothing like a hot set of wired three with a reaction enhancer or two.

What do you power that with? A pentium processor with MMX? Get with the times, Grandpa!

[Crazy Elf]

Okay, brain going splat can be taken into acount from having the muscle centers in constant motion, even while sleeping. Seeing that the muscles are always in motion/tense, there is no time to actually rebuild them. If anything, the move by wire system won't increase strength from constant use, but if it's still active while you sleep, it will completely trash your system. If it doesn't trash you completely and does shut off when you're sleeping, there's going to be one fuck of a rehab time as a result.

At first your muscles are going to be tense all the time, yay, which means increased strength, yes. However, due to the nature of the use, the build of the person will change. The subject will become increadibally leen and wiry. Also, normal exercise will be completely out of the question for the first few weeks of use.

Constant muscle use means that excercise such as a simple push up is taking up so many resources it's just stupid. Try tensing as many muscles as you can, and then doing a push up. It makes the action a thousand times more complex and simply harder than it would have been before hand. Being able to act normally in that state will require a shitload of rehab, and yes at the end of it you'll be fucking powerful. But this is only powerful if you were able to turn off the system in the meantime to make use of the extra strength. If it's constant, then it's like punching someone after doing 400 push ups. Sure, you're fucking hardcore, you did 400 push ups, well done. Your punch, however, is a pice of shit, because you're completely buggered.

Consider a move by wire system as doing push ups all day, which should give you a fair take on how strong someone will effectively be at the end of it.

[3278]

Okay, brain going splat can be taken into acount from having the muscle centers in constant motion, even while sleeping.

But why does that effect the physicial structure or behavior of the /brain?/

Seeing that the muscles are always in motion/tense, there is no time to actually rebuild them. If anything, the move by wire system won't increase strength from constant use, but if it's still active while you sleep, it will completely trash your system. If it doesn't trash you completely and does shut off when you're sleeping, there's going to be one fuck of a rehab time as a result.

It /should/ be counteracted during sleep by the limbic system shutdown that automatically happens when you sleep - sleepwalkers, who don't have proper limbic shutdown, wouldn't be able to get MBW, I would think - but I'd agree that you'd have to do /something/ nutty to allow 6 or 8 hours of sleep to rebuild muscle fibre in your sleep when /all/ of your muscles are contracted the remaining hours of the day.

Just imagine how much raw protein, and how many /calories,/ you'd have to take in every day!

Try tensing as many muscles as you can, and then doing a push up. It makes the action a thousand times more complex and simply harder than it would have been before hand. Being able to act normally in that state will require a shitload of rehab, and yes at the end of it you'll be fucking powerful.

I hadn't thought about the sheer amount of physical therapy required to teach you how to use this. I mean, it's true of most cyberware - a cyberarm is going to have a different weight, balance, and control system than your real arm - but MBW would reconfigure how you did /everything./

But this is only powerful if you were able to turn off the system in the meantime to make use of the extra strength.

Someone needs to explain to me why these things don't automatically come with "off" switches, or at least "bypass" switches. Good point, CE.

[Sorrow]

Interesting topic ...

I'll take a shot at your questions, 32. Neurobiology isn't my strongpoint, so these are guesses.

But why does that effect the physicial structure or behavior of the /brain?/

My guess would be, because you've got the entire CNS in permanant spasm. There's a whole lot of spatial positioning feedback that goes on to tell the brain where everything is at any given time. Raise your hand, touch your nose. There's an awful lot of mental processing at the subconcious level to coordinate that.

I've always assumed that the MBW system steps in and totally overrides that. The *system* has to patch into this and know where your right arm is relative to your hip, when you want to reach down and pull your pistol from a hip holster. I interpret this as the MBW system "eating" all the signalling and sending an edited version to the brain. Sometimes, this doesn't work and the signal is wrong, confusing the brain.

Not very scientific, I apologise

Someone needs to explain to me why these things don't automatically come with "off" switches, or at least "bypass" switches. Good point, CE.

What are the effects of putting the CNS into spasm? What are the effects of taking it *out* of that sustained spasm? What are the cumulative effects of running "spasm on, spasm off" every day? I'd guess this is meant to be (assuming they've thought about the science behind this rather than ignoring it) that a permanent, sustained spasm is less damaging that an on-off cycle. As an analogy, go turn a light on and off repeatedly. It's going to knacker the bulb a lot faster than turning it on and leaving it on for the same period of time.

[Crazy Elf]

But why does that effect the physicial structure or behavior of the /brain?/

The extra muscle use would mean that the body needs more regenerative sleep. That means more delta sleep rather than REM which is bypassed when you suffer from extreame exhaustion and need of muscular repair. If you don't get lots of sleep every time you crash, then you're in trouble as the brain will slowly go nutty from lack of REM.

That's the only reason I can think.

Someone needs to explain to me why these things don't automatically come with "off" switches, or at least "bypass" switches.

Well there's the trick. If you're constantly under the muscle strain, then yeah, it's happy stress day and more muslce power in the long run. Long run. However, if you don't have it turned on all the time, then you don't get that benifit.

There's the catch. You get strong, sure, but you can't use that strength unless it's turned off. You don't get that strength unless it's turned on.

Also, the idea of turning on a controled seizure every time you wanted to move probably has some serious drawbacks. Maybe the first controled seizure is hard enough to initiate in the first place.

Brings me back to another point. There's always the chance that the brain could readapt itself to bypass the Move By Wire system. The chance is much higher in children, but still their in adults. Adults who suffer from brain damage have a much lower chance of recovering from it than children do, due to the regenerative processes in the brain at different ages. However, there is still the chance that an adult brain can repair itself in such situations.

Keeping that in mind, a controlled seizure may be "fixed" by the brain, causeing a real one. I still don't see how this can lead to mental problems, but most certainly physical ones are in order. Then again, I'll have to dig to back this up.

[Sorrow]

Well, having just read through the MBW side effects in Cybertechnology (Closer to hand than Man and Machine) "Brain Go Splat" is CCSS: chronic seizures hitting just about everything inside your skull, all at once. That does make sense in connection with the Elf:

a controlled seizure may be "fixed" by the brain, causeing a real one

which would suggest that CCSS is a *huge* overcompensation to the induced seizure.

Aside: What looks to be a pretty good article on Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

[3278]

Well, I think one of my major objections is that it should require a seizure in the brain at all; it should simply be able to tell your /muscles/ to contract, without doing much of anything north of the medula oblungata. I mean, I move my fingers a lot; that doesn't seem to damage my brain at all. If you contract all your muscles, it doesn't have any real effect on your /brain,/ only on your muscles.

My thing is this: It doesn't need to cause seizures.

[Sorrow]

I wish I'd taken neurophysiology units at university now

I think the point is, your brain is trying to move your fingers in all directions at once. That's the point of the seizure. It's not locking your muscles up, it's spasming the neural impulses that make them tense up, without those impulses actually having a physical effect.

[Serious Paul]

Intresting article thanks Sorrow.

[CykoSpin]

"Brain Go Splat" is CCSS: chronic seizures hitting just about everything inside your skull, all at once.

Actually, TLE-x is the "brain go splat" thing:

TLE-x can be corrected with brain surgery, but because the procedure involves cutting away a small area of brain tissue that has become chronically dysfunctional, ...

CCSS is an affliction that affects the MBW system itself; it goes away when the MBW system is removed, and will affect anyone else the system is implanted into.

[Crazy Elf]

Ah, got it. This really depends if we're increasing the speed of the mucles and the response time, or if the brain is also affected. If the brain is gaining the ability to comprehend what's going on at a faster pace, then being in a constant seizure is probably capable of doing this.

Depends on how you play wires. Some people say, "It's a reflex", others say, "You get bullet time."

Living in constant bullet time would fucking suck.

Anyway, another point that I forgot to mention. Due to the increased stimulation of the muscles as an instantanious thing from when you wake to when you sleep, you're going to eventually have a stroke. The way the blood moves when you're in a constant exercise state completely conflicts with resting blood. Also, when you wake, you're right into it, and therefore you're doing the equivilent of intense exercise without a warm up, also very bad for blood circulation in the brain. Due to the intensity of this, a stroke is going to happen eventually.

There's another brain go splat theory.

Also, with the intense amount of activity your body is doing at all times, sleep would be really really fucking hard to get in the first place, which is funny, because you'd really really need it.

Move by wire is fun!

[Sorrow]

Actually, TLE-x is the "brain go splat" thing:

TLE-x can be corrected with brain surgery, but because the procedure involves cutting away a small area of brain tissue that has become chronically dysfunctional, ...

CCSS is an affliction that affects the MBW system itself; it goes away when the MBW system is removed, and will affect anyone else the system is implanted into.

I was using Cybertechnology, partly because it's the original source and partly because I couldn't find Man & Machine anywhere at that point. Since I now have both in front of me:

CCSS is a catastrophic breakdown of brain functions. Chronic seizures grip all major perceptual, motor and associative regions

... a breakdown of brain functions known as .... CCSS

It's a brain problem, and I consider massive seizures in all major functional areas more "splat" than one small area becoming chronically dysfunctional.

However ... Reading M&M's description of CCSS makes a little more sense than Cybertech's. As per M&M, CCSS is triggered by a breakdown of the MBW system. Again referring to the Elf, failure of the MBW system removes the control on the induced seizure causes the system to attempt to fix it and inducing new seizures.

[Salvation122]

Out of sheer curiosity, can you get a reflex trigger installed on MBW?

[Silent Sniper]

Nope.

[CykoSpin]

It sounds like as of Cybertechnology, CCSS more or less went hand-in-hand with the effects of what is now "TLE-x" in Man & Machine.

Depends on how you play wires. Some people say, "It's a reflex", others say, "You get bullet time."

Living in constant bullet time would fucking suck.

I've seen a lot of descriptions of plain ol' run o' the mill high-end Wired Reflexes (as well as MBW) as running something like "bullet time". I had given this much thought (especially before I found out about Reflex Triggers), and I also came to the conclusion that, in a constant state, it would suck big time.

... Due to the intensity of this, a stroke is going to happen eventually ...

That would definitely make sense of brain damage resulting from the use of MBW.

[Sorrow]

It sounds like as of Cybertechnology, CCSS more or less went hand-in-hand with the effects of what is now "TLE-x" in Man & Machine.

Uh, you've lost me there. There isn't any significant difference in the effects of TLE-x and CCSS between the editions, or any significant difference in the explained causes of either. The only change is in the mechanics handling the onset of the dysfunctions.

[quote="CykoSpin"
I've seen a lot of descriptions of plain ol' run o' the mill high-end Wired Reflexes (as well as MBW) as running something like "bullet time". I had given this much thought (especially before I found out about Reflex Triggers), and I also came to the conclusion that, in a constant state, it would suck big time.[/quote]

Yup. With wired reflexes you're *always* on edge. Hatchetman, in Cybertechnology, hated them and described it as "losing total control of your body". You lose the thinking and judging part of a response, so what you get is a very fast reflex ... which, IMO, would suck just as much as constant Bullet Time.[/i]

[Salvation122]

...which is why you get a trigger.

[CykoSpin]

Sorrow:: Oops, my bad. I didn't quite word that the way I intended it.
I meant: TLE-x causes actual physical damage to the brain, where as CCSS is only mental; TLE-x requires physical brain surgery to cure, but CCSS only requires the removal of the MBW. I've never owned or even read Cybertechnology before, but it sounded like they originally made CCSS a brain-fry thing - whereas in M&M, it is simply a breakdown of the MBW system itself, and only affects the person it's wired to by association (as long as it is still wired to them; when it is removed, it goes away, but that particular MBW is permanently fried).