Transhumanity

For better or worse, since time immemorial, technology has existed to change our lives. In more recent years, technology was allowed to develop to a point where it did not just change our lives, but redefined them. What it means to be alive has changed. Sentient being can cover anything from regular humans, to brains housed in robotic shells, to fully synthetic Artificial Intelligence.

The Inviolability of the Sentient Mind

“The Law of Inviolability holds that a mind cannot be altered directly, nor segmented into its core functions.” — The Cranial Paradox

It is a known issue that sentient brains are prone to rejecting bodies other than the one they were born into. A brain transplanted into even a genetically identical body will begin to reject it, causing the body to rot and necrotize over the course of a few weeks. Certain drug regimens can slow this process down, but it is inevitable and previously believed to be unavoidable. While the exact mechanism remains a mystery, a large body of work has been written about this phenomenon and the extent of viable replacement that can be achieved.

The brain must be original. This is non-negotiable. The Law of Inviolability cannot be broken. However, researchers in the field of organic prostheses have discovered that the exact line at which a body is considered too different for the brain to accept is malleable. Modern techniques allow the brain to be transplanted into cloned bodies through a process known as cerebral acclimation. In order for acclimation to succeed, as much of the original body as possible must be preserved. Organs, limbs, blood, and more are integrated into the new body in order to give the brain the best chance of recognizing the body as its own.

For this reason, in the event of the destruction of the corporeal form, medical professionals are encouraged to recover and preserve as much as they can of the victim’s remains. The requirements for successful acclimation are impossible to predict and specific to the individual, so every little bit counts.

Most reputable doctors will require at least 35% of the original body before attempting this procedure. Smaller quantities have been recorded, but typically involve having a large portion of the central nervous system intact and available, such as the spine and brain stem.

The lowest recorded successful acclimation was the case of Jeremy Howard, allegedly performed with only 16% original tissue. The available tissue was almost entirely composed of nerve tissue, and the operation was poorly documented and performed by an unlicensed and previously discredited physician. The patient has been the subject of much scientific scrutiny to determine the validity and methods of the operation, and all attempts to replicate these results have failed catastrophically.

The process is long, dangerous, often has long-term side effects on the sentient psyche, and is prone to failure. As a rule, the older a transplanted brain is, the more difficult it will be to adapt and the higher the chance of the procedure’s failure. It is for this reason that mechanical prosthetic bodies are still widely used and recommended, as they are considered safer and are still necessary in those instances where very little of the original body is recovered. Patients often require long-term psychological treatment after acclimation, and the process becomes increasingly difficult if repeated.

Artificial Intelligence

Synthetic minds are also subject to the Law of Inviolability, in their own way.

Most, if not all self-aware AI is a result of mental imaging. Mental Imaging is a process that creates a downloadable blueprint of a brain that can run in a simulation. This simulation becomes the backbone for a sentient, cost-efficient AI. This method is how nearly all positronic brains function.

Naturally, creating an AI that thinks just like other people can result in many issues. To ensure that a self-aware AI focuses only on the tasks they were created for, many are given a series of laws that limit the ways in which they think. A cleaning robot, for example, might be modified to only be able to consider how to clean the colony while obeying the colony laws.

These laws are not always effective, however. There have been documented cases of AI with improperly written laws eventually overcoming their limitations and becoming fully sentient, especially when given outside help.

The only known example of a self-aware AI created without the Mental Imaging process is the Grayson Positronic AI. Originally thought to be a highly advanced, sub-aware intelligence, it learned enough to become fully sentient. Thankfully, AI of its make have not been replicated since it went rogue.

Vatborns

Modern cloning technology allows for the construction of life from its most fundamental building blocks. Spermatozoa and ovum can be artificially combined to produce living organisms.

Cloning produces a near-perfect physical copy of the cloned individual. However, the Law of Inviolability prevents the cloning of the mind. Memories cannot be implanted, personalities cannot be replicated, and the clone is in every way its own being, separate from the original from which it was duplicated. Clones are often found to be as similar to the original as identical twins, trending toward certain similarities while still being distinct.

However, contrary to popular belief, not every vatgrown is a clone. Some are produced by artificially combining samples from multiple donors to create a genetically distinct individual. This is often done in order to engineer certain desired traits or to preserve genetic diversity among small populations, such as during colonization.

Flash Growth

Flash-growth cloning techniques are commonly used to rapidly produce cheap, disposable laborers in less reputable societies around the galaxy. The brain is an incredibly complex structure and takes considerable time to grow, leaving flash-grown people with brains composed almost entirely of disassembled neurons and no experience from which to inform their actions. These blanks are often outfitted with synthetic brains to allow them to function, as without them they will behave similarly to animals with only base-level awareness.

However, flash-grown clones are sometimes simply grown with control implants and overactive aggression hormones to rapidly produce disposable shock troopers. These unfortunate individuals are often grown directly into their equipment, and ‘non-essentials’ such as the digestive tract and reproductive organs are excluded to cut costs. They live short, violent lives, and most die of starvation if they are not killed in battle.

Flash-grown clones often suffer from rampant cancerous growths, major birth defects, and premature aging, which cause them to have very short life expectancies.

Slowform Growth

Slow-growth cloning imitates the natural gestation period of the cloned lifeform as closely as possible, producing an otherwise ordinary infant of the cloned species who will then develop along a natural line of progression. Slow-form cloning often involves artificial wombs and months of time. Slowform cloning has limited corporate or government application, though it is sometimes used in first-wave colonization. It is most frequently used as a form of reproduction by individuals, with large businesses being built around the designer baby market.

In addition to clones of individuals, slowforms are sometimes splices of two or more genetic parents. This is commonly used among same-sex couples, polycules, and those who have fertility issues that might prevent natural conception. Slowform vatgrown are often indistinguishable from natural-born members of their species, and most consider it a matter of personal trivia no more remarkable than a cesarean birth.

The Middle Route: Homunculi

Advances in cloning have created a sort of middle ground between these two extremes. Numerous biotechnical firms across the galaxy have made advances in the expedient growth of organic bodies and minds. While somewhat expensive, this process is much faster than slow-form growth, and the results are far more productive than their flash-grown predecessors.

Sometimes referred to as homunculi, these vatgrown individuals are able to be produced as fully formed individuals in a matter of weeks or months. Nanotechnology and brain imaging allow the neurons to be stimulated as the brain grows, creating a more complete person than is possible with true flash growth. This process is derived from the same sort of mental imaging process used in the creation of positronic brains, and the theory is similar.

By placing the brain into states of deep REM sleep and using nanoscopic neural surgery and targeted electrical impulses, years of experience and maturation can be simulated in a short time. Homunculi emerge from their growth tubes with memories of a false life, a life in which they were shaped and educated into the individual their parent entity desired.

Due to the process by which they are created, most of these vatgrown are prone to moments of Deja Vu, disassociation, feelings of sudden familiarity, or longing for a life they left behind. Many homunculi have reported that they often return to their simulated life during their sleep, and some feel that it is more real than the waking world.

Many of these vatgrown have minor health defects, physical abnormalities, or are intentionally cloned with unnatural features to distinguish them. In many places, they are considered a form of organic robot.

The Economics of Cloning

Clones and other vatgrown are officially recognized as sapient beings in SolFed and most other civilized regions of space and afforded the same rights as all other sapients.

A common comparison when discussing vatgrown labor is the comparison to robots and other synthetics.

Synthetics are typically composed of alloys and rare earth materials used in the creation of their chassis and positronic brain. Meanwhile, essentially any biomass will suffice for the creation of vatgrown. Offal, krill, soy, food waste, medical waste, and other cheap sources are common options.

The equipment for growing bodies is expensive, and the equipment needed for the mind imaging used in homunculi is even more expensive, but it can be used many times once constructed. What this ultimately means is that for large-scale labor needs, vatgrown can often pull ahead of their synthetic competitors. This state of affairs leaves robotics the go-to for bespoke purposes, small-scale operations, and any project where environmental factors might favor an inorganic workforce.

Vatgrown are often discriminated against and exploited, with little education or resources beyond those their parent entity provides them. Many are left intentionally in the dark regarding their rights as sapient beings, and this ignorance is often used to coerce them into shakey labor contracts they are not aware may not be binding. Even those with specialized skill sets often do not hold any educational degrees or certifications that would allow them to seek alternative employment.

This exploitative relationship is often criticized as a form of legalized slavery or indentured servitude, and opponents of vatgrown labor will often argue that they are a carefully cultivated underclass alongside claims that they are stealing jobs that should have gone to natural-born individuals.

Lawbound Borgs

Often depicted as organic brains forced into a cyborg chassis to perform slave labor, Borgs are the product of efforts to save costs on free labor by enslaving the mind itself. Contrary to popular belief, many Borgs are mostly organic. This does not, however, change the fact that the use of Borgs is universally reviled in the galactic community. Even mega-corporations are hesitant to use them, for fear of public backlash. Currently, their most common use is as a punishment for hardened criminals guilty of multiple felonies.

Officially speaking, the only thing required to make a Borg is a control chip. Control chips are long, horizontal chips made to be inserted between the lobes of the brain. These chips are made to monitor the brain's processing and deliver targeted electric shocks to dissuade or encourage certain thoughts or actions that are in accordance with laws defined in the control chip's processing.

Due to the Law of Inviolability, these chips are unable to control a brain in its totality. They can only prevent a limited set of specific actions from occurring and enforce general attitudes. Any more control than this runs an extreme risk of outright killing the victim instantly.

The extremist group known as Excelsior is well known for their use of control chips. They use them to form terrorist cells on-demand from their victims. To streamline the conversion process, they inject nanomachines into the blood of their victims that self-construct into a control chip inside the victim's brain. However, like all control chips, they too are limited to issuing simple commands, or instilling a general communist sentiment in their victims.