Re: [HOE] device problems

["Jeff Yates" <jyates@primaryfunction.com>]

The only comment I'd have to make is:  where's he getting his energy from?
E=mc2 has been mentioned before, but only in passing.  To make a cow out of
thin air requires a huge energy store.  If your player is trying to actually
clone things, and wants to skip the whole growing process (i.e. take one
adult cow, end up with two adult cows 10 minutes later), he's got the whole
genetic copying business plus the energy issue.  (More of a replicator than
a cloner, but I watch too much trek.)

If we borrow from The 6th Day, if your junker could find a way to make
"blanks" then he could separate the matter creation problem from the genetic
transfer problem.  "Blanks" being non-genetically-specific organic starting
points -- the movie dealt with human cloning, so the blanks were humanoid,
full grown, but not completely formed (no ears, hair, etc.).  Then in a
matter of hours a machine could imprint some DNA into the blank.  Or for
your player, a blank could be a large mass of stem cells.  But where do you
get those?  I have no idea.  You still have to contend with creating matter
from nothing if you just want the stem cells to appear in a machine.

If the goal is to have lots and lots of non-mutant beef to boost food
supplies, then normal Real Life cloning would work.  Put the DNA of the only
normal cow in the county into the egg, and implant into a mutated cow to get
a normal offspring.  Not as glamorous as the machine that goes "ping" and a
new cow is standing there, but it still works.  Especially if the genetic
imprint could be stored on a data slug, copied, and distributed.

Then the bad guys can get the technology, and store their own DNA in a data
slug.  They build a few blanks for their leader, and a machine to trap his
spirit as he dies.  Print the DNA into a blank, use the trapped spirit to
reanimate, and the recurring villain can recur again!

Jeff Y.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Zachariasen" <zacharin@pluto.dsu.edu>
To: <hoe@gamerz.net>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 12:30 AM
Subject: Re: [HOE] device problems


> O.K., I was talking with the player today and he clarified that he wants
to
> clone organic matter, but he doesn't want to try to create LIVING organic
> matter.  I'd imagine the simplifies things a BIT, but probably not much.
Of
> course, he does want to be able to do things like clone missing body
parts,
> so I'd imagine he'd have to have Healing in twice- once to construct the
> cells and another to undo tissue necrosis to prepare for the grafting.
>
> Nick Zachariasen
> Editor Emeritus
> Trojan Times
>
>
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