Bullet Time

[Crazy Elf]

Seems capable.

Was chatting to an associate of mine who studies neuro-science about the capabilities of bullet time, and she came to the conclusion that it's actually within our capacity to do, however while it's in motion, retrieval from the long term memory would be rather difficult.

The way it works is that the short term memory jumps happily along calcium networks in the brain. If calcium is injected directally into the brain, the short term memory processing would speed up, meaning that living in the now would also speed up. This would probably provide you with bullet time, or something not unlike it, as the cells are hyper polerised at the time.

The chemicals need to be injected directally into the brain, as the membrain protecting it regulates what comes in from the blood stream. So all you people reading this who want bullet time, put the milk down.

However, the problem with hyper polerisation is that the long term memory is practically out of reach while in that state. It woudl be wonderful for combat aplications, like combat, but woeful for an extended period of time. In order to combat this, the calcium would need to be taken out of the brain, and sodium would need to be injected to get everythig to disengage. It woudl probably work if sodium was injected to put in the balance.

In any case, it would seem that wired reflexes, if they have happy bullet time capacities, would almost definately have a trigger. Keeping the state up constantly doesn't seem like something it would be capable of doing, simply because of the chemical workings of the brain. If anything, it would probably require less essence to put in wires with a reflex trigger rather than those without, as perminent calcium modification of the brain would be very invasive and throw the system completely out of wack rather than just tweeking it occasionally with a sodium/calcium injector.

In any case, food for thought.

[CykoSpin]

Neat-o! :cool

[Cazmonster]

So, you're telling me I can dodge bullet?

No, I'm saying, when the time comes, you won't have to.

[Pepito Bastiardo]

sounds cool CE, but would this mearly speed up perception so you can see everything in Slo Mo or actually allow you to move super quick? just becuase the brain has been over clocked does that mean the body is as well?

if not, it would make bullet time just a few more perceived seconds of

OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH FFFFFFFFUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK!!!!!!!!!

before getting moowed down?

[Cazmonster]

I can only assume the nerves would also need a calcium boost and then theres the matter of how fast your muscles can actually contract and relax. Otherwise, you do get the slowest, most detailed experience of getting gunned down.

[Crazy Elf]

The calcium boost only effects the short term meory and it's capacity, that means that your perception is increased. However, the muscles can react a lot fucking faster than many of you would expect. I doubt very much that you would see any major change in what you're doing, maybe slight lag in your movements. More likely is that you're going to feel strained after working at that rate.

[CykoSpin]

Yeah, you wouldn't move faster, but your reaction time would be incredibly faster. In other words, if a bullet were on it's way toward you, there really wouldn't be much you could do, but if you noticed that someone was about to shoot at you, you'd have time to think "oh shit!" and send the "get the hell out of the way" signal to your muscles before he's done pulling the trigger.

Here's a little something to try: Play a game that requires good reaction speed to be good at. Then try playing it in slow-motion. You'll notice that you perform far better in slow-mo. (I did this with the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 "bonus round" games - the ones were you run through a half-pipe collecting rings to win the chaos emeralds - , and it works incredibly well).

[Crazy Elf]

Also you'll note that image recognition and anything which requires drawing on thought outside of the hear and now much harder to do while you're in that state. Due to the chemical nature of the increase, it would be even harder to draw apon this side of the coin until the sodium was injected.

Although your combat times will have increased, your ability to do things outside of combat would be rather tricky. Planning while in combat would have to be completely instinctive. Basically, the system would only do any real good if you had a lot of experience to back it up.

[Sorrow]

Um, Elf, you've switched from Ca to Na in your last post.

I'm assuming you mean sodium, since you're talking propagation of nerve impulses.

[Crazy Elf]

Sodium depolerises, so de bullet times.

[CykoSpin]

Although your combat times will have increased, your ability to do things outside of combat would be rather tricky. Planning while in combat would have to be completely instinctive. Basically, the system would only do any real good if you had a lot of experience to back it up.

Which reminds me of an excellent point:
The way I've always ran Wired Reflexes was that, in order to "speed things up", the system overrides your usual thought processes and forces you into pure fight-or-flight instincts, and the "wires" that run through the body of the user act as super-conductive transmitters that override the natural nervous system.
So basically, you are reduced to simplistic "try not to get hurt / hurt those that try to hurt me"-style thought processes, but your reaction speed is much faster. As CE pointed out earlier, this would really suck without an on/off switch of some sort, so before I knew about Reflex Triggers, I had always just assumed that it was triggered by adrenaline, or something.

[Sorrow]

Yup ... it looks as though you have a superconductive pathway alongside the standard neural network, so wired reflexes mean that the "neural impulse" is propagated much faster, meaning less of a delay between mental processing and muscle activation.

[Crazy Elf]

Which means it should probably require even less essence. Seems to be mainly a brain modification, and a rather small one at that.

[Sorrow]

No. You need to have a superconductive pathway from the brain to the muscle groups. Let's use a personalised example.

*Crazy Elf sees a Goth.
*Reflexive response: "I must slap him"
*Neural processing to calculate required arm movements.
*Propagation of nerve impulse to the arm muscles.
*Triggers muscle contractions necessary to extend arm in a swinging fashion.

As I understand wires, the superconductive network means that you get the impulse from the brain to the arm faster, so there's less delay between the thinking and moving.

This explains why it's a high essence cost, since you're laying down chrome throughout the body.