Cyborg Life Span

[grimmhold]

How long can a person live as a full conversion cyborg?

[Tiree]

With the Eternal Brain cybernetic enhancement, Cyborgs can live over 200 years.

[eliakon]

With the Eternal Brain cybernetic enhancement, Cyborgs can live over 200 years.

And for the rest of the borgs who don't have access to a nigh-unique implant from a single ultra-secretive source that doesn't make the implant available for anyone else?

[dragonfett]

I don't know the cannon number off hand, but in my opinion probably 100 - 150 years.

[Shark_Force]

With the Eternal Brain cybernetic enhancement, Cyborgs can live over 200 years.

And for the rest of the borgs who don't have access to a nigh-unique implant from a single ultra-secretive source that doesn't make the implant available for anyone else?

until their brain dies, pretty much. they'll probably have all kinds of mental problems long before that i would imagine though.

[dragonfett]

Ok, my opinion differs from the canon, because as stated in CWC p. 71

Full Conversion 'Borgs: With regular maintenance and replacement of old or defective parts, and avoiding brain damage, trauma or mental deterioration, the 'Borg can remain active for 200+ years.

[Library Ogre]

An interesting thought: Consider a mercenary cyborg who does not have access to the Eternal Brain implant. He does, however, have access to common magical and psychic healing* for his few remaining meat bits.

How long is he going to last?

*Standard powers from any human source native to Rifts Earth; no bio-wizardry or unique artifacts, but things like spell magic, psionics, millenium tree wands and staves, mystic herbology... basically, anything where more than 1000 humans in the world have it.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Cyborgs can already live for 200-300 years without the eternal brain implant.

With the eternal brain implant, the cyborg is effectively immortal, so long as their cyborg body is kept in good repair. They can still die if the body is destroyed naturally.

[Shark_Force]

Cyborgs can already live for 200-300 years without the eternal brain implant.

With the eternal brain implant, the cyborg is effectively immortal, so long as their cyborg body is kept in good repair. They can still die if the body is destroyed naturally.

well, sort of.

note that they can live for that long provided they avoid certain things, one of which is "mental deterioration".

now, i gotta figure that in many cases, mental deterioration is at least *partly* connected to physical deterioration irl. but i also suspect that long before 200 years, living in a body that can punch through trees, has extremely limited feeling, is not actually your own body (and which likely causes most normal people to avoid you), and can survive small nuclear explosions, is going to have an impact in the best of times. when you start talking about centuries (so, 5 times as long as the expected lifespan of a human outside of advanced medical technologies) of probably either combat (either full on war or regular skirmishes) or slavery (the 2 main areas where full conversion 'borgs are used in rifts AFAICT), i can't help but suspect that 200+ years is very theoretical for most cyborgs, even the ones that don't die of unnatural causes long before then.

or, in other words... if you're a 200+ year old cyborg and you've been living on rifts earth for that entire time, you're probably nuttier than a fruitcake.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I dunno. Some militaries do require some psycological screening before they'll recruit you as a Cyborg (the NGR and RoJ are noted to do this). there otherwise isn't any mention of Cyborgs being particuarlly likely to go off the deep end of feeling too inhuman or feeling too godlike the way Juicers and Crazies are. I do grant that playing with the feeling of alienation and loss of humanity is a rather common Cyberpunk trope, Palladium has never really gone any deeper into Cyberpunk than to say "Bionics are so cool, man. And like, hacking is tottally a thing you can do!"

In other words, that kind of loss of sanity for cyborgs is a pretty big aspect of games like Cyberpunk 20xx and shadowrun, but Rifts just tends to handwave it away.

[eliakon]

I dunno. Some militaries do require some psycological screening before they'll recruit you as a Cyborg (the NGR and RoJ are noted to do this). there otherwise isn't any mention of Cyborgs being particuarlly likely to go off the deep end of feeling too inhuman or feeling too godlike the way Juicers and Crazies are. I do grant that playing with the feeling of alienation and loss of humanity is a rather common Cyberpunk trope, Palladium has never really gone any deeper into Cyberpunk than to say "Bionics are so cool, man. And like, hacking is tottally a thing you can do!"

In other words, that kind of loss of sanity for cyborgs is a pretty big aspect of games like Cyberpunk 20xx and shadowrun, but Rifts just tends to handwave it away.

In point of fact there ARE various transformations and the like that have listed mental effects.
For example in Japan and MiO and Triax they talk about the effects certain highly inhuman shells can have on people's mentality....
...and how the cure is to put them back in a human looking body.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I dunno. Some militaries do require some psycological screening before they'll recruit you as a Cyborg (the NGR and RoJ are noted to do this). there otherwise isn't any mention of Cyborgs being particuarlly likely to go off the deep end of feeling too inhuman or feeling too godlike the way Juicers and Crazies are. I do grant that playing with the feeling of alienation and loss of humanity is a rather common Cyberpunk trope, Palladium has never really gone any deeper into Cyberpunk than to say "Bionics are so cool, man. And like, hacking is tottally a thing you can do!"

In other words, that kind of loss of sanity for cyborgs is a pretty big aspect of games like Cyberpunk 20xx and shadowrun, but Rifts just tends to handwave it away.

In point of fact there ARE various transformations and the like that have listed mental effects.
For example in Japan and MiO and Triax they talk about the effects certain highly inhuman shells can have on people's mentality....
...and how the cure is to put them back in a human looking body.

sure, for highly inhuman shells. We're talking about standard borgs here though. after all, you said yourself--the cure is to put htem in a human looking shell--so those already in human looking shells don't really have much problem in the first place, which was my point, no?

If I make a blanket statement, and you bring up an explicit exception in another book, that also states the cure is to put them in the same humanoid body that I was already talking about not being bad for you psycologically, you arn't proving me wrong--you're proving my point.

[eliakon]

I dunno. Some militaries do require some psycological screening before they'll recruit you as a Cyborg (the NGR and RoJ are noted to do this). there otherwise isn't any mention of Cyborgs being particuarlly likely to go off the deep end of feeling too inhuman or feeling too godlike the way Juicers and Crazies are. I do grant that playing with the feeling of alienation and loss of humanity is a rather common Cyberpunk trope, Palladium has never really gone any deeper into Cyberpunk than to say "Bionics are so cool, man. And like, hacking is tottally a thing you can do!"

In other words, that kind of loss of sanity for cyborgs is a pretty big aspect of games like Cyberpunk 20xx and shadowrun, but Rifts just tends to handwave it away.

In point of fact there ARE various transformations and the like that have listed mental effects.
For example in Japan and MiO and Triax they talk about the effects certain highly inhuman shells can have on people's mentality....
...and how the cure is to put them back in a human looking body.

sure, for highly inhuman shells. We're talking about standard borgs here though. after all, you said yourself--the cure is to put htem in a human looking shell--so those already in human looking shells don't really have much problem in the first place, which was my point, no?

If I make a blanket statement, and you bring up an explicit exception in another book, that also states the cure is to put them in the same humanoid body that I was already talking about not being bad for you psycologically, you arn't proving me wrong--you're proving my point.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.
I was trying to say that the books already suggest that being a borg is NOT destabilizing unless your shape is radically different than your racial norm.
Thus the normal borg won't deteriorate or suffer from 'cyber-psychosis' simply because they are a cyborg.

I was unclear, totally 100% my mistake.

[Nekira Sudacne]

It's all good

[Shark_Force]

i don't think rifts earth *has* any 200+ year old human cyborgs to hold up as evidence that you don't go barking mad after an extended period of being a cyborg. certainly, it isn't as bad as it is for crazies. but the books do talk about even the fairly humanoid 'borgs in triax, for example, having extra measures taken to prevent them from feeling too inhuman.

then add that in to the fact that many humans kinda lose their mind with age even without all that stuff.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I think there probablly are 200 year old cyborgs kicking around the NGR, they never fell during the apocalypse after all, and while casualty rates were atrocious, there's probablly a handful kicking around.

[Stone Gargoyle]

For example in Japan and MiO and Triax they talk about the effects certain highly inhuman shells can have on people's mentality....
...and how the cure is to put them back in a human looking body.

sure, for highly inhuman shells. We're talking about standard borgs here though. after all, you said yourself--the cure is to put htem in a human looking shell--so those already in human looking shells don't really have much problem in the first place, which was my point, no?

If I make a blanket statement, and you bring up an explicit exception in another book, that also states the cure is to put them in the same humanoid body that I was already talking about not being bad for you psycologically, you arn't proving me wrong--you're proving my point.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.
I was trying to say that the books already suggest that being a borg is NOT destabilizing unless your shape is radically different than your racial norm.
Thus the normal borg won't deteriorate or suffer from 'cyber-psychosis' simply because they are a cyborg.

I was unclear, totally 100% my mistake.

I read a book like that recently. The newly adapted cyborgs (actually in this case, robots programmed by transferring over consciousness of humans into robot bodies) were put in bodies very similar to their normal ones and as they became accustomed to being mechanical they were later transferred to increasingly non-human looking bionic bodies.

[kaid]

For example in Japan and MiO and Triax they talk about the effects certain highly inhuman shells can have on people's mentality....
...and how the cure is to put them back in a human looking body.

sure, for highly inhuman shells. We're talking about standard borgs here though. after all, you said yourself--the cure is to put htem in a human looking shell--so those already in human looking shells don't really have much problem in the first place, which was my point, no?

If I make a blanket statement, and you bring up an explicit exception in another book, that also states the cure is to put them in the same humanoid body that I was already talking about not being bad for you psycologically, you arn't proving me wrong--you're proving my point.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.
I was trying to say that the books already suggest that being a borg is NOT destabilizing unless your shape is radically different than your racial norm.
Thus the normal borg won't deteriorate or suffer from 'cyber-psychosis' simply because they are a cyborg.

I was unclear, totally 100% my mistake.

I read a book like that recently. The newly adapted cyborgs (actually in this case, robots programmed by transferring over consciousness of humans into robot bodies) were put in bodies very similar to their normal ones and as they became accustomed to being mechanical they were later transferred to increasingly non-human looking bionic bodies.

In rifts we see examples of the latter as well of going from really non human looking forms with options to change to a more human looking or even full bio cybernetics body for "retirement".

for the full brain in the box conversion borgs in the sovietski sneak peak the biggest least humanoid looking shocktrooper chasis were also given a in town basic mostly human looking borg body for when they were not on active duty. So they could socialize pretty normally and then when they were on duty pull the brainbox jack it into their combat chassis and go to war.