An Engineer's Guide to the Technology of the Mass Effect Universe:
A/N: I looted systems and ideas from lots of places, some easily identified others ... not so much. Hopefully this makes things clearer.
The story bit should also make you think a lot more, since I have written up stuff about the hanar.
It ended up taking twenty minutes for Admiral Vandefar to end her meeting. A cool, elegant voice with a touch of a Terra Novan accent sounded over the speaker system. "Warrant Officer Irons, I'm ready for Doctor Valthez now. Send him in, please."
The craggy face of the warrant officer split into a grin. "You're up. Word of advice. The admiral isn't like the warhawk. Nyomba likes people who talk back, the Old Lady doesn't."
Jason nodded, and checking his uniform for defects, squared his shoulders and walked through the double doors into the admiral's office.
It was fully as wide as the reception area, the back wall entirely taken up by a huge armaglass window that displayed the entirety of the Sphere spread out below. The left wall was completely covered in bookshelves, computer displays, and oblong computer servers with haptic keyboards hovering above them. The right wall was equally dominated by a massive series of shelves, displaying various diplomas, souvenirs, decor from multiple locales, and a number of haptic models of various particle interactions.
A wide glass desk with inset haptic screens and controls in a semicircular arc controlled the middle of the room, sitting atop an intricate and highly patterned rug of black, silver, and green wools. The figure seated behind the desk looked, at first glance, as if she was in her late thirties or early forties. Only the fine lines around the eyes and the frosting of white and silver in the formerly raven black hair showed her closer to sixty. Her eyes, a brilliant fierce green, sought his, and generous lips formed a narrow, cool smile.
"Lieutenant. I am Admiral of the Green Synthia Vanderfar."
He came to attention and saluted. "Admiral, ma'am. Lieutenant Jason Valthez, at your service." He broke attention at her nod, and took two steps forward to hand her the card with his orders and assignments on it.
She slotted this into a box on her desk, and a VI chimed. "Confirmed. Authorizations currently being set by Colonel Sahu. Adding to database."
She leaned back and gestured to the two chairs in front of her desk. "Have a seat, Lieutenant. You have had a pleasant trip, I trust?"
He nodded, somewhat slowly. "For the most part. The ride from Earth was a touch cramped, as the only flight was on a marine troop transport. I was on Arcturus briefly when working on my doctorate, enough to know my way around here."
She nodded briskly. "Good. Time-saving and efficient. You will find that I appreciate three things : efficiency, attention to detail, and thinking of consequences prior to taking action." She half turned her chair, glancing out the window.
"Alliance R&D is the mercurial, misbehaving stepchild of the Alliance Command Structure. Aside from Lord General Kirsten Dularis and Admiral Okuda, there aren't any other female officers in High Command. It wasn't until after the Benezia Incident that I was promoted to Vice Admiral and only a few months since they finally made me a full Admiral of the Green. Given that I did not do any service as an Alliance Marine, and did not qualify as a line officer I won't ever make Admiral of the Red."
She exhaled. "I tell you this because you must understand that R&D is critical to the survival and prosperity of the Alliance, and yet is often seen, I'm afraid, as an afterthought. Worse, I strongly suspect that the same ... institutions that backed the research that Sirta and your own team were involved in is, in effect, a black skunkworks project of which I have no knowledge or oversight. This worries me for a number of reasons, most importantly because of the larger ramifications if my suspicions are correct."
She turned back to face him fully. "I trust Colonel Sahu gave you an inkling of what we are involved in?"
He nodded tersely. "Yes, ma'am."
She quirked her lips. "Very good. Project Ahaltocob is not, technically, on the books as precisely as what we know it to be. Ostensibly, it is simply research into aspects of some advanced cybernetic and augmetic technologies. There is a very good reasons for this. As I said, I fear off-the-books projects not under Alliance R&D oversight - or possibly even Commissariat oversight - are in place. Bad enough meddling with the sort of things the colonel showed you...and worse if they were working with the source. "
She paused. "I understand you were ... very well acquainted with such technologies at Sirta, yes? That until shortly before we investigated you were trying to replicate at least a crude version?"
He nodded again. "Yes. With nanothreading and the like. It was not successful, but ... even the failure was scary."
She folded her hands together. "Nanothreading and other advanced nanonic blackware type technologies are making an upswing, and as always anything of that kind of tech can be a threat. IF this was just about some outlandish tech, I'd not be so worried, but the source of this one is not anything conventional. In fact, it is so ... unconventional that when I was first exposed to the concept I nearly laughed it off. The source of this intelligence is however, unimpeachable - and sadly, quite dead, so we can't get any additional details."
She leaned forward. "Tell me, Lieutenant. Have you heard of Reapers?"
He frowned. "No, I haven't. Unless you mean the old-fashioned mechanical harvesting machines used on the Amish worlds..."
She gave a small laugh, a pressingly bitter one. "I only wish. Reapers, Lieutenant, are a code-word level intelligence item, classified TANTALUS. Which I do not expect you have even heard of, as it is higher than Supernova and even Thaumiel. The only people cleared for it are the heads of state, Citadel Councilors, the Joint Chiefs and their various alien analogues, and the highest level of the Commissariat."
She made a distasteful face. "TANTALUS-level intelligence cannot be allowed into the open, for any reason. It is so disruptive that it would possibly set off societal collapses. Thaumiel - which was originally designated for other things - is allowed a certain level of relaxation of that hard limit - in effect, allowing some aspects to be communicated to limited personnel with a strictly short scope of view. In this instance, your previous background with Sirta and the Commissariat assessment of you was what caught my attention. The Commissars felt that you were attempting to mitigate illegalities practiced by Sirta and that you, while integral to the project you worked on, were never in the know of what the purpose was."
He gave a grimace himself. "That's certainly true, Admiral. A lot of what I worked on had hard applications, but a lot of it was writing bioethical precis papers on ways the corporation could restructure existing known laws to allow 'various technologies' to be legal." He paused. "A lot of what we ended up working on was more bionetic or pure biotechnology than cybernetic or nanonic but I didn't do any work on those project directly."
She nodded. "And now you're wondering what a weird name, two confusing security classifications, your research at Sirta, and the Alliance salvaging your career have in common. The answer is not pretty, Lieutenant."
She turned, tapping a control on her desk. Instantly the wide window darkened to opaque, and a haptic projector displayed images on it - a wrecked cityscape. "Six years ago, Alliance R&D roughjacks on a class B2 ruined garden world called Feros discovered an anomalous lifeform. This lifeform, which we code named THORIAN, appeared to have been a survivor of the extinct Tho'ian Precursor race, believed to have been obliterated in war with the Inusannon over a hundred thousand years ago."
The image changed, to a series of computer consoles with rough looking men and women in orange jumpsuits seated at them. "A project was developed to work with this creature, which had deep knowledge of Prothean history and technology, and to use it to assist in translating certain aspects of the Mars Archives. Several cryptic statements made by the creature were not understood at the time, and some of what it helped us translate was also ... missing context."
Another image, this time of a crude painting on a stone, a lenticular shape with four slashes painted in yellow and multiple tentacle-like limbs hovering above four-armed stick figures bowing in supplication. The outline looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place it. "The upshot of this research allowed us to deploy many new technologies, but the creature gave us warning that our understanding of the Insuannon and Tho'ians was wrong. They did not destroy each other ... they were allies. They were defeated by a stronger foe."
She glanced up at him. "A foe that also destroyed the Protheans, fifty thousand years later. A foe, the creature claimed that was still a threat today."
She changed the image on the screen again - this time showing the attack at Eden Prime. "Fast forward four years, and the Eden Prime attack happens."
His eyes widened. "The painting! It was the same as that geth dreadnought that attacked Eden Prime!"
Her expression was sourly amused for some reason. "...that was our initial belief. The investigation, as every one knows by now, eventually linked Saren and Benezia to the geth, in search of some form of what we assumed was a super weapon but turned out to be a method to invade the Citadel from within. Saren was killed but Benezia continued the plan before being killed off. The ... ship ... was destroyed by the combined forces of the Council, Alliance and Quarian fleets. "
She met his gaze again. "That was when we were finally told the truth, so to speak. The ship ... was not a geth dreadnought. It was controlled by an AI - it literally was an AI - and it was one of hundreds of others just like it. These AIs - Reapers - invade the galaxy at regular intervals, slaughtering all spacefaring races for reasons as yet unknown. They killed the Inusannon and Tho'ian , and the Protheans."
She shifted the image, showing a piece of nightblack metal with a disturbing sheen to it. "And based on recovered archological evidence... they've been doing this for the past sixty million years."
He rocked back in his seat. "W-what? How is that even possible?"
She shrugged. "Beyond your concern, Lieutenant. What is critically important is two things. First, the technology implanted in Benezia - and Saren - originated from this Reaper. No other source is possible. The second and more important thing is that Sirta had a sample of this technology in their possession and were trying to reverse engineer it, leading to your nanothreading project - and they had this technology prior to either the death of Saren or Benezia. They also had assorted batarian biotechnology of unknown provenance."
She folded her arms. "Given this technology was highly illegal and the Sirta Foundation connected to known terrorist groups like Cerberus, of course, is why nearly everyone assigned to the project was executed after interrogation. But that investigation turned up troubling facts. What we found was that a small number of specialist researchers, like you, were recruited after the fact - everyone on the core team had been part of a joint Sirta Foundation - Ithacia Technology cooperative research mission during the Benezia incident hosted by House Vabo of the Asari Republic - and that is whom they obtained this technology from , some hanar. "
She exhaled and flicked to another image - a dead drell, littered with gunshots, burns, and impacts. One arm was half blown off and ended in a swirl of blood-red wires, and the eyes were empty pits, collapsed back into the skull. "Nine months ago we killed this piece of trash in the Mars Archive after a very long fight. A preliminary comparison of the cybernetics and nanoware in the body to that in Benezia's indicated this one's nanotech was even more advanced."
"After reviewing what we knew, what we had gotten on the raid on Sirta, and some discreet inquiries, I made the call to start a new project, got permission to reveal some but not all details from TANTALUS under restriction Thaumiel, and begin figuring out a counter to this technology and where it was coming from. This is where your role starts, Lieutenant."
She tapped her desk, killing the projection. "The larger ramification of the Reapers isn't your concern. The appropriate parties are making preparation and we have enough time to do so. Unless you are secretly an asari, you and I will both be very dead by the time the Reapers are a worry in the immediate sense. I'm far more worried about subtle infiltration, about terrorism, about ... someone or something working with these AI's to destroy everything we hold dear."
She picked up a series of datapadds and set them in a neat stack on the desk. "Your first task and orders are simple. In conjunction with Colonel Sahu, you're going to review the inquest from the Sirta investigation and the resulting technology we found, as well as the autopsy results on this drell trash. You'll review certain AIS operations in batarian and hanar space as well, and some limited documentation of what we know about this ... nanothreading."
She looked at him. "Once that is complete you will be expected to construct a working theoretical application to shut down this disgusting technology - weapons that will destroy it quickly, and counter-agents to prevent it from functioning. We would also like some form of detection apparatus - we have one, but it is unclear if this technology by itself will trigger it. For all we know, a human or asari or God knows what could be walking around with this crap in them and we wouldn't have the first clue. THAT is unacceptable."
She exhaled. "Finally, once we have a clear understanding of the danger and how to counter it, we'll begin seeing if there's anything safe we can adapt from this technology, and if not, develop something from scratch. When appropriations comes, the results from that part will be passed off as what we've been researching the whole time, while our true final report will be presented only to the High Lords directly."
He narrowed his eyes. "No disrespect ma'am...but is this technology safe to research? Isn't that illegal?"
She smiled wider and tapped something in a plexiglass case on the desk. A moment later he realized it was a Red Note from the High Lords. "I'm empowered by direct order of the High Lords to protect humanity. The fact that its possible elements of the Alliance are in contact - or worse , cooperating - with beings that may be compromised by Reaper agents is simply intolerable. Compared to that - let me worry about the legalities."
She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, and he stood. "You'll need quarters, and most likely some time to settle in. Warrant Officer Irons should be done putting you into the system. You'll need to sign some things, and I'll have Ensign Courva escort you there. I recommend strongly reviewing the tech guide on cybernetic concepts - not since you need to know it, but so you are familiar with the Alliance R&D's technical level of knowledge."
She met his gaze. "Report back to the colonel tomorrow morning at 0800 hours. We'll have the full team meeting and project briefing at that time."
He saluted again and departed, coming back into the reception area. Walking over to the warrant officer, he smiled. "The Admiral said something about stuff I needed to sign?"
Irons scratched his head. "Yah, working on that now. Be another fifteen or twenty...mind waiting?"
Jason shook his head. "Not at all, sir." With a suppressed sigh he sat down on the lounge couch again, and decided to keep reading.
A WORD ON AUGMENTATION AND ITS APPLICATIONS
Less than seven percent of humans have any significant level of augmentation of any kind. Less than a percent of asari do. Fourteen percent of salarians and sixteen percent of turians do. Once relegated only to the clinics of the rich, the increasing development of lower cost molding technologies and the rise of ultra-cheap bionetic reactors has made augmentation available to almost anyone.
The truly limiting factors at this stage are the expense of setting up cybernetic shops, genetic sequencers, nanofabs, and the requisite surgical and recovery equipment for installation, followed by the difficulty of learning no only advanced surgery and anatomy, but oncology, septicemology, electronics, repair functionality and nanotheory for those wishing to install it.
Augmetic surgeons are one of the most demanded vocations in several spheres – military, research, corporate, public service, bio-medical and most certainly criminal. Augmetics can and has been perverted or put to ill use, and chopshops and refurb clinics testify to the horrifying reality that people have been murdered to salvage and resell their augmentations.
That being said, the official view of the Alliance R&D corpus is that 'conventional' augmentations and the more advanced bionetic and nanonic augmentations are diverging in focus and scope. More cybernetic work is being done for purely combat related functions, while bionetics and nanonics are branching out into applications useful in intelligence, research, and political arenas. The upshot of this is that despite being more flexible, harder to detect and far more dangerous, it is not bionetic or nanonic augments that are the most heavily restricted.
This is an oversight, as a man with cyberlimbs and sub-dermal armor with a MBW system is certainly a lethal threat, but a lunatic with an implanted pheromone system and blackware nanonics deploying a plague could kill billions.
As such, pursuit of understanding not only the basics of this technology, but the many ways in which an inventive (or deranged) party could modify it to different ends or possibilities is critical to our task of safeguarding the Alliance.
AUGMETICS OVERVIEW
Cybernetic augmentation is a widespread phenomena that was independently invented by salarians, turians, and humans. At its core, the use of any form of augmentation is to improve or replace the natural abilities of a living being, either due to loss or to increase its performance, falls under the concept.
Cybernetics (like many other technical terms) is often badly misused and over-applied – the proper term would be augmetics. Cybernetics refers to the use of artificial physical attachments only.
Augmetics itself is divided into corrective augmetics (those which allow for normal function to a being who has lost said function), adaptive augmetics (those which provide functions that a being does not have in a natural state) and adjustment augmetics (which provide the complete replacement of certain bodily systems.
Augmetics is also divided into lines of application. Cybernetics is the use of artificial physical components – metallic bones, myomer musculature, synthblood, move-by-wire nervous replacements, and the like. Bionetics is the use of specially designed genetically altered organs and tissues. Nanonics is the use of nanotech machines to augment existing function or (in extreme cases) replace entire systems.
Generally speaking, races such as asari and krogan tend to eschew most augmetics, as their natural regenerative systems make it difficult to retain them. Asari regeneration is slow enough (and can be completely stopped by certain drugs, burn scar issue or plasma vaporization) that some asari have limited cyberware, and bionetics can be handled with drug regimens. At least one very famous asari thief and assassin known as Ghost-Step is a full conversion asari cyborg, using unknown technologies.
Krogan, on the other hand, regenerate too fast for almost any such implants to work – only severe acid damage stops krogan regeneration. Additionally, most krogan are simply too poor to afford such work, and much of krogan biology and gland chemistry is still unknown.
Turians, salarians, and some volus make wide use of all forms of augmetics, mostly in military aspects, while the lives of quarians depend on it.
Humanity's relationship with augmetics is, like the quarian, one of need rather than choice.
The average human is sadly ill-equipped to fight the many enemies of the Alliance. In terms of pure physical strength we are over-matched by every species except salarians and hanar. (Volus come from a high-G world – despite their rotund look, under the suits they are very thickly muscled and can probably break your spine.) In speed, salarians and drell make us look like spastic quadriplegics. In terms of sheer endurance, asari, batarians, turians and krogan can shake off wounds that would kill even the toughest human.
What we have that other races do not is three things – a will to die rather than surrender, a thirst for innovation and unpredictability, and a genetic code that is much more flexible in terms of genetic alterations and improvements than most other species.
(As an aside, there is a misconception that 'genetic flexibility' somehow equals greater diversity. This is not the case – while many of the other species in the galaxy are alarmingly homogeneous on the surface, the quarians actually have the most genetic diversity in a genomic sense. Appearance only varies highly in human genetics, it is not a universal trait. In fact, humanity itself had a genetic bottleneck sometime during the Ice Age that reduced our population to well below ten thousand people. The difference between human genes and others is that many alien genomes appear to be heavily designed, and moving away from those baselines in any direction tends to produce incredibly high rates of cancer and genetic disorders or failures. Ours does not display such blatant hacking about.)
Our great equalizer, in many cases, has been augmetic improvements. And it is for this reason that the Alliance spends more on augmetic research and implantation than it does on tanks.
However, there are costs associated with such technology. The primary issue is that the more augmetics loaded into a being, the more likely they are to develop multiple disorders, cancers, and organ failure. For this reason, the legal limit for most augmetics is to replace no more than fifty-four percent of the body with cybernetics and no more than nineteen percent with nanonics or bionetics. Beyond this threshold, the human body rapidly develops cancers, system shock disorders, hemotomas, high blood pressure and capillary rupture, and a host of other disorders.
It is worth noting that this rarely applies to simple replacement for lost limbs, but more complex integrated limb replacements do seem to trigger these effects.
Even with a limit in place, however, one cannot underestimate the sheer value and power of augmetics.
AUGMENTATION GRADES
The Alliance defines all augmetics on a grading scale based on complexity, legality and capacity. Alpha, Epsilon, Theta, and Omega.
Alpha grade augmetics are simple civilian systems, not intended for combat and with limited capacity for upgrades. Most limb replacements and simple bionetic organ replacements fall into alpha grade territory.
Epsilon grade augmetics are professional grade, as often seen in athletes and military soldiers – much better quality and a good capacity for upgrades. Epsilon grade installations require Alliance certification and licenses to install, and all such augmetics must come with a lifetime warranty and maintenance support plan.
Both alpha and epsilon grades are fully legal in both Citadel space and Alliance space, usually without registration.
Any augmetic system that allows for mil-spec style abilities, any nanonic upgrades that have a deployment function, and anything incorporating weapons or defenses of any kind is immediately considered theta grade and requires licensing and registration. Cybernetic enhancement beyond fifty-four percent is illegal in Alliance space without specific permits and clearances.
Omega grade augmetics are highly experimental special-forces or high mil-spec specialty systems. All blueware, blackware, brain augmentation, and any form of move-by-wire system is considered Omega grade. Currently the Citadel requires omega grade augmetics to come with limiters, and in the Alliance only specially licensed military personnel or Class V citizens (and their knights) can use such.
There is also a final, unofficial grade – street. Usually second-hand and of dubious quality and provenance, some black-market doctors and shops will install such. This cyberware is not customized to the user, has distinctly inoperable interface connections and is unlicensed and likely to fail. It is also dangerous, with between six and eighty five times the chance of causing toxic shock syndrome and a staggering four thousand percent increase in the likelihood of cancers.
CONVERSION RATES AND THRESHOLDS
There are three different 'levels' of augmentation that you will commonly see applied or talked about : enhanced, partial conversion cyborg, and full conversion cyborg. An 'enhanced' being is anyone with more than fifteen percent of their body mass replaced by cybernetics. Partial conversion is anything over forty percent, and full conversion is technically anything over sixty-five percent.
The highest known conversion rate that has been confirmed is that of a turian, one Rlaxhatis Duris, who passed away six years ago, with a ninety-one percent conversion ratio – only his brain and small portions of his immune and nervous system were not converted.
As a baseline : each limb besides the head is accounted as five percent. Secondary systems (nervous system, immune system, liver, kidneys) are counted at five percent each. Core systems (heart, lungs, and digestive) are at ten percent. Minor aspects (senses and built in armor) are five percent. The head itself is ten percent, and the spine is five percent.
A typical augmented Alliance marine will usually have at least one cybernetic limb, partial sub-dermal armor, cybernetic augmented eyes, and possibly a secondary systems upgrade, which clocks in at twenty to twenty five percent. A Commissar, with all secondary systems and senses augmented, will come in at forty five.
Understanding these thresholds is critical because more often than not they serve as good breakpoints for design planning purposes. With the advent of easier to make augmetics, more recent armor designs now place less importance on armoring the limbs and more on the head and torso, allowing storage of ammo, energy, or other systems in the limb armor. Likewise, there has been an increasing amount of secondary systems upgrades now openly available such as blood filtration units and artificial lungs for eezo miners that blur the conventional lines.
PHYSICAL AUGMENTATION
Most physical augmentation is done via either cyberware or bionetics, and can be corrective, adaptive or adjustive in scope and purpose. Most augmentations fall into the realm of replacements for limb functions and physical defensive upgrades.
The most common augmentation is the replacement of damaged, destroyed or severed limbs, or the replacement of flesh-and-blood limbs with cybernetic ones for improved combat performance. There are three rough grades of such limb enhancement.
The simplest of these is basically a hydraulic powered artificial limb, made of durable plastics with an nerve-splice cap and a small VI to interpret nervous system commands. A more advanced limb would have hydraulics and titanium bones, under bionetic cloned muscles and skin for a more human look and natural feel. The most advanced cybernetic limbs would be flash-compressed titanium, artificial myomer muscles, optronic nerve systems and a thin bionetic synth-skin covering that is warm to the touch and bleeds but is not 'real'.
Myomer bundles are microscopical carbon-nanofiliment tubes filled with an actistrandular fiber. These fibers are created by mixing specially programmed nanoware 'carvers' with specific polymers within the tubes, carving out a complex weave. An electric current is sent through these tubes, causing the fibers to arrange themselves into a complex nano-structure similar to the proteins myosin and actin that allow biological muscles their movement. It is extremely tough due to its composition and resists heat, cutting and most impacts very well.
Most cybernetic limbs have various options. Almost all of them include gyroscopes for balance, some level of protective plating, and usually a choice of implanted technology (omni-tools, blades, etc). Some cyberlimbs (especially arms) have multiple configuration options. These can trend to the slightly creepy (built in holsters for weapons, or multiple cybernetic arms) to the outlandish (a cybernetic tail to add balance, or medigel auto-injectors in every bodypart.)
Bionetic upgrades tend towards cultural muscle tissues, sometime spliced with alien DNA analogues. DNA analogue mapping (DAM) attempts to recreate alien function by building mirrored amino chains that mimic alien gene structures and incorporates them into existing tissue. Such bionetic muscles repair themselves rapidly, tire more slowly, and are much stronger pound for pound than normal human muscles.
Very few nanonic physical augmentations exist, mostly nanite infusions of hard metals into bone structures or lacing of ligaments and connective tissues with long-strand high-strength polymers.
As far as defensive upgrades go, the most common option is insertion of sub-dermal armor plates. Usually thin sections of military grade surgical steel or Silaris panels, these are inserted under the skin and above the muscular layer, often contoured so as to not be immediately visible to sight or even touch. Bionetic versions include bone weave upgrades to fill in gaps in the rib-cage or toughen existing bone structures. The nanonic version, which is a series of injections that slowly creates barrier layers of hardened metals below the skin, is similar to sub-dermal armor but is more like a mesh, useful for stopping stabs and cuts but not as effective against hard trauma or gunshots.
More outlandish variations exist – armored gorgets to prevent choking, spurs that eject from the heel to stabilize, built in mag-plates on hands or feet for traction, and many others.
At the most extreme levels of physical augmentation are the full conversion options, which basically result in replacing as much flesh as possible with cybernetic systems, backstopped with bionetic organ analogues and nanonic immune and maintenance systems. The turian Final Line soldiers utilize this barbaric method, which results in a being that is little more than a brain, spinal column and some needed organs in a canister slotted into a robotic body.
MENTAL AUGMENTATIONS
The field of mental augments is much more diverse – and controversial – than physical ones. At the most basic, most mental augmentation draws upon cybernetic quantum storage/retrieval technology, known as quanboxes.
There are four variants of such boxes: grayboxes (which store memories and data), whiteboxes (which are powerful VI systems integrated with the human mind), greenboxes (which are main nervous or autonomous nervous system controllers and balance/nerve integration systems), and the highly illegal redboxes (AI reconstructions of a dead person inserted into living flesh).
Citadel law expressly forbids construction or research into redbox technology. It was originally created by quarians as an analogue to expert decision systems, loaded with destructive-level scans of their elders as they were near death. Redbox AI's believe themselves to be the beings they were in life and experience rampancy even faster than most conventional AI's.
The most common augs are grayboxes and whiteboxes. Many professionals with a need for vast amounts of data storage and memory recall utilize these. However, greyboxes can be heavily encrypted and are also used by covert agents, spies, and other types to temporarily store stolen data, secrets and the like. Whiteboxes are often needed in advanced luminal math, hypercalculus and the calculations used in FTL acceleration coding, augmenting the ability to perform high-order math without needing to rely on external sources.
Greenboxes are rare, mostly used by people who have suffered brain damage that interferes with breathing, moving, speaking, or other actions, or those with extensive nervous system cyberware. Some greenboxes have been hacked to allow uploads of certain purely physical skills such as shooting or martial arts, but these rarely work as well as you might think – the body of the person recording such information is not identical to the user, so balances and some other issues do crop up. One cannot simply 'download' how to do kung-fu, for example, much less pilot a craft.
Even so, it does help speed up training times. The Salarian Union and the VDF both rely heavily on greenboxes to rapidly train troops.
Bionetic augmentations include remapped neural chemical balances for faster memory retention, and several exotic methods based on drell proteins and the like to give near photographic or eidetic memory. Direct bionetic manipulation of intelligence has been heavily pursued but with little actual results, although it has shown very impressive results with vorcha. (Then again, considering what one must deal with in vorcha intelligence levels, any improvement is impressive.)
The only known nanonic augmentations are nanochemical mind locks or devices that allow a being's memories to be remotely wiped, and various augs to provide additional resistance to interrogation or torture. Most of these are highly illegal and have a host of unpleasant side effects.
SENSORY AND NERVOUS SYSTEM AUGMENTATIONS
Most sensory augmentations are cybernetic or bionetic in nature. Fully half are eye replacements, as cloned eyes do not function correctly. The basic cybernetic eye is merely a high definition camera with a small VI system that creates electrostimulus directly to the optic nerve to produce vision, while more advanced cybernetic eyes can actually mimic how regular vision works with tiny haptic projection insets playing across the retina for those who have no retinal damage.
Bionetic eye upgrades are usually designed to sharpen vision, and are also common – although too expensive to fully replace glasses for most of the working poor, it has eliminated the need for them among the middle class and rich.
Hearing enhancement is less impressive, with most cybernetic systems producing less than quality results due to the complexity of converting sound to nerve impulses. Nanonic treatments to cure deafness by having nanometer scale machines mimic the function of the inner ear have proven successful but outlandishly expensive.
So far, there has been very little success with smell and taste augmentation. Very limited 'reporting' systems exist, but those simply consist of chemical scanners that can detect and identify various trace compounds in the air. Compared to the relatively straightforward nervous system impulses involved in sight and hearing, taste and smell are so intertwined and connected to various parts of the brain that reasonable analogues are few and far between.
Some success has been had by carefully recording the nerve results from healthy beings and hard-mapping them to certain 'detected' values. Even so these are not full sensory capability.
Nervous system augmentations range from the life-saving and benign to the disturbing and utterly revolting. The most common nervous system augs are optronic-relay nerve patches, designed with a bionetic 'patch' to restore destroyed or damaged nerve function in spines or other trunk nerves. (These systems do not work for volus or hanar due to their bizarre nerve construction.) More complicated systems include the so-called 'reflex triggers', that tie in pre-programmed detected events to scripted nervous system overrides using optronic-to-nerve splices.
The most famous and disturbing nervous system upgrades are the move-by-wire system and the ghost-hack system. Move-by-wire systems overlay a secondary nervous relay network using optronics and bionetic nerve splices directly over the main nervous system, hooked into a specialized greenbox that is often tied to visual cyberware and other sensors. MBW, when activated, places the user in a semi-autonomous state of nervous system epileptic seizure. These seizures are managed by the greenbox VI, channeling only desired reflexive motions to the nerves.
Connected to the senses, a move-by-wire system allows nearly instant reaction times and unearthly, almost superhuman reflexes and agility. MBW systems can allow users to easily dodge most incoming fire by instantly modeling the trajectory of firing lines and moving the user to evade them even before the aggressor pulls the trigger. Melee combat is equally frustrating as greenboxes connected to the MBW system can be programmed with the styles and movements of every known form of martial arts and combat, allowing the user to parry or react before the attack even lands.
Since the system relies on optronics and not regular nerves, it also allows near complete immunity to nerve-stun weapons such as neural maces and electroshock tasers. The drawbacks, however, are quite significant. Primarily, placing the body and brain in such a state for any period of time has deleterious effects on sanity, nervous control, and can cause tremors and shakes after any use. Brain damage, epileptic clonal-tonal seizures, and in some cases complete nervous system malfunction can also happen. Cancerous growths and nerve sheathe degradation are extremely common. But the most severe outcome is known as 'nerve interaction separation syndrome', where the body is unable to take control of itself and the system does not cut off. Use of the system in more than short bursts is never recommended, and after thirty minutes it almost invariably causes death by massive cerebral hemorrhage.
Ghost hacking systems are even worse. They are commonly deployed from blackware nanonic attacks (see below) but some are installed into hapless victims who go into cybernetic clinics for other work. The ghost-hack rig is a remote activate and controlled nervous system override, using tiny but numerous optronic-bionetic splice points. A wireless receiver connects this system to a remote user, who can literally puppet the actions of the helpless victim at range. The arch-criminal known as P. is well known to install these systems almost as a standard option on many of his agents. Ghost hacked victims cannot control their own bodies – they could be commanded to pick up a gun and shoot someone or have their lungs turned off remotely and suffocate.
A final (and revolting) cybernetic implant are nerve sensation chips. These are overrides, forcing a nervous reaction to mimic another one. The most commonly used ones are employed by sex-slave rings (or other serious sexual deviants) to transmute pain into pleasure or to force orgiastic states. Sadly this is not limited to humans – some slaver rings chip asari to be locked into a melding state, turian females to be constricted and always in heat, or salarian females to constantly emit mating pheromones.
BRAIN AUGMENTATIONS
Despite what most people think, quanboxes are not actual brain augmentations. That falls into a very specific range of cybernetic, bionetic and nanonic modifications to the brain. Specifically, mental augmentation are things the user can do – improved memory, for example. Brain augmentation itself is designed to allow the brain to do things it normally cannot do.
Most cybernetic applications involve data and communication. The most simple of these, the internal omniport, acts as a wireless commslink that can transmit 'spoken' thoughts without the need for verbalization. Other common systems include direct interfaces to vehicle or battlesuit VI's or linking systems to literally 'jack in' to a battlesuit.
Balance augmentation is also common with installed or implanted gyroscopes in the limbs being coordinated by master laser-guide implants in the brain. These can work in conjunction with other upgrades like greenboxes, or be fully autonomous.
The most common bionetic applications involve bionetic remapping of certain cerebral tissues to form much tighter and more sense neuron networks, or improve neuron transmission speed. The net result is described as 'as if your head suddenly cleared up'. Thoughts are sharper and easier to follow and ideas seem easier to come up with, although some users report maintaining focus is more difficult.
An offshoot of this technology, known as 'force-focus', is the inverse, allowing highly alert and focused behavior while turned on at the cost of suppressing most higher order thought and memory retention. Some bodyguard units and other protective services install these augs into members.
The other common bionetic upgrade is more along the lines of 'hacks' to the brain's ability to rapidly form neuron memory chains. This is not photographic memory or anything like it – instead, it allows the user to rapidly absorb and process massive amounts of learned data much faster than normal, and retain at least a good memory of such data for some time until it moves into the long-term memory. The AIS uses this heavily, allowing agents to learn language variants or memorize complex plans and intelligence information rapidly.
Thrown into this mix is the disturbing pheromone control system. This is a set of tailored emitters that attempt to transmit positive pheromones during discussions or at will, to convince a listener that the speaker is trustworthy or to induce a sense of amusement or amorous interest. These systems do NOT function on other species besides the one they were designed for, and are of contested and dubious effacity in most cases. Hanar and elcor are utterly immune to such things, and for obvious reasons they don't work on quarians or volus either.
BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATIONS
There is a reason why the Commissariat is not allowed access to this document.
An offshoot of brain augments is implants designed to control behavior and, in some cases, memory. Although Commissars have a host of implanted cybernetics, bionetic upgrades and gene modifications, the most critical aspect is that each has an implant that modifies behavior according to the requirements of the Commissariat Cadres.
This is combined with training and behavioral modification instruction to ensure Commissariat loyalty and prevent abuses of power. Specifically, Commissars cannot disobey direct orders, cannot take action of any kind against the High Lords without permission, cannot study any form of surgery, cybernetics or bionetic information, and in most cases have their memories managed – negative memories that could cause disloyalty to the Alliance are removed.
Some researchers, particularly ethics types, have a problem with this. Alliance R&D's formal stance on this issue is that the cybernetics were demanded by the Commissariat to avoid them turning into something akin to the Sao Paulo Death Guard. Even so, it is imperative that NO DETAILS of the Commissar cybernetics program are ever leaked to the public, and that no Commissar is ever to come into any technical documentation about how to remove or subvert such programs.
One other, ugly piece of cranial cyberware exists – the cortex bomb. A VI hooked to both an explosive of some sort and a sensory tap that picks up on what the user is saying or doing, the cortex bomb is designed to explode if a threshold is crossed. Depending on the complexity of the VI, the trigger can be almost anything – and depending on the explosive , which can be anything from a bit of C-4 to half a gram of contained antimatter – the results could be devastating.
Cortex bombs are widely used by other races as well as humanity, as well as criminal elements. Pirate pilots who know the secret hideouts used as bases and docks often have them installed to prevent their capture from exposing the entire network. Particularly ruthless corporations on Noveria install them in critical researchers to prevent them from leaving the company prior to contract completion.
ORGAN REPLACEMENTS
Organ replacement technology is well researched, but still is an area of high experimentation and some level of failure. Most organ replacements are seen either from organ failure, or on full conversion cyborgs.
Cybernetic organ replacements are limited to functional systems. The heart is the most common one, being a simple pump. Kidney and liver functions can be replicated by cybernetic systems as well, although these require regular maintenance to clean out the filtration systems and can cause unpleasant side effects from missing glandular emissions.
Sexual prosthesis also fall into this category, both for transsexual conversion and to help those who have suffered unfortunate accidents.
Bionetic organ replacements are more common – any organ in the body with the obvious exception of the brain can be upgraded or replaced. Digestive systems and skin replacements are the most common. The asari have a very large amount of bionetic work done to transplant erogenous zone tissues to various bodily locales depending on alien preferences, and some human sadomasochists have produced weird substitution effects. And of course, like cybernetics, sometimes these systems are coopted by slavers for use in sex slavery.
Adding additional organs and tying them into the body's systems is much harder but possible – backup hearts, extra adrenal glands and pumps and the like are only the beginning. Some vegans replace their natural digestive system with one equipped to handle cellulose, and a few adventuresome humans have bionetic gill breathing systems for swimming. More outlandish examples – extra arms, legs, eyes, or even sexual organs – are possible but rarely function as intended, as the brain rarely knows how to operate these.
Nanonics does not 'replace' organs, in most cases. But one exception does apply – nanonic blood production systems, or 'synthmarrow', for near-terminal patients with bone marrow disorders or cancers. These operations are a nightmarish marathon, scraping out every bit of bone marrow from the entire body (usually done sectionally, under stasis field segmentation), replacing it with nanofabricating devices that can produce blood cells, and then sealing everything back up. These systems are not perfect, and most eventually break down, but they can give a patient doomed to die in a few months another decade or more of life.
OTHER CYBERNETIC SYSTEMS
A listing of all known cybernetic upgrades and systems is beyond the scope (or purpose) of this chapter. The Alliance Primer on Technological Augmentation (SA-493) and the Combined Engineering Corps Cybernetics Primer (SA-9993-CECS) are hotlinked in the infoappendix at the end of this guide if you have further queries.
However, a few systems stand out that are not covered above as they don't cleanly fit into neat categories, but are nonetheless important to understand and be prepared for.
Omnigel repair systems are mostly used by heavy combat types. This is a set of under-armor nozzles connected to an internal tank of omnigel that dispenses it whenever sub-dermal armor or armored core systems are damaged or breached. Note that this omnigel is construction grade, not medical grade – it will not stop bleeding or damage to biological components, but it will patch up damaged cyberware to some degree. It can reattach severed or crushed myomer bundles and patch leaks in hydraulics, but cannot replace, say, a crushed cybernetic eye.
Detachable faces are a disturbing aspect of complete cybernetic skull replacement. A blank mag-plate fronted head can attach a number of hydraulically driven face plates, enabling a user to change their appearance entirely. Combined with omnigel hair systems, which can produce various styles, grades, and colors of hair at any length in moments, a user could go from a bald-headed black male with a heavy beard to a finely-featured Asian with long hair and no facial hair. Some variants on these systems can even provide basic reshaping of the outlines of shoulders, hips, and chest, to allow a woman to mimic a man's appearance and vice versa. Combined with bionetic skin mods, these can be extremely effective.
Direct brain-computer interface link systems are incredibly dangerous because they run the risk of allowing a hostile VI to access and possibly overwrite a living being's mind. Even so, these allow incredible feats of hacking and unparalleled speed when accessing computer database systems. Most importantly, these systems can allow someone to be sitting quietly at a cafe, with no visible omni-tool or computer, and hack into a system – making it VERY difficult to physically localize the hacker.
OTHER BIONETIC SYSTEMS
A number of off the wall bionetic applications (mostly salarian in origin) don't fit any existing category cleanly.
Chameleon cloak skin implants replace the skin with a bionetic, vat-grown skin surface that can mimic patterns and backgrounds, tied in with an adaptive VI system that monitors and builds a 'surface map' to compare and update with. This is certainly not invisibility, but a chameleon cloak can be maintained for an unlimited time, unlike cloaking systems, and from a distance is strikingly difficult to pick out, especially in natural terrain. More importantly, there is no EM spike showing up when a user cloaks to pinpoint their location. Obviously these systems can incorporate other features, such as making a blue asari appear purple, or a black male appear white.
Grafted weapons, such as claws tipped with mono-molecular edges, are also a common upgrade. These are contained in natural looking bionetic 'sheaths' to conceal their presence.
Synthblood is the largest and most important bionetic technology commonly used, an artificial substance with genetically crafted improvements – higher oxygenation capacity, strong anti-viral or anti-bacterial agents, high-effect clotting agents, and the like. These can be manufacture far more quickly than natural blood plasma and stock can be gathered and assembled, and can even be made in the field by the proper bio-medical creches with a sufficient supply of resources and omnigel. Synthblood is very commonly used in full conversion cyborgs.
Bionetic Symbiotes are one of the most frightening developments we've seen in bionetics. These are batarian in origin, and display capabilities that baffle most bioengineers who've examined them. There are several common variants, most of which attach permanently to the user and subsist on the food and oxygen the host provides, while in turn providing a benefit of their own.
All symbiotes put extreme stress on the body and have a tendency to burn the user out. Most users who wear them will die within fifteen to twenty years of acquisition – then again, most who choose to live this dangerously will die long before that point from combat in any case. They require a high-caloric diet and some require special drug supplements. If the symbiote is killed systemic shock and sepsis will almost certainly kill the host. Surgical removal is possible but ends in death more than half the time.
Durasyms are symbiotes that boost physical durability, hardening skin and muscle to near metallic toughness. This results in a loss of speed and reflexes, but allows an unarmored host to bounce pistol fire and most melee attacks and take highly reduced damage from rifles. It is not sufficient to stop shotguns or heavy weapons, or any sort of projectile weapon at point blank range, but combined with even light armor can make a tough foe almost impossible to drop through long range fire.
Ragesyms augment muscle strength, adrenaline release, pain suppression and overall speed (but not reflexes or agility). They inject a series of what appear to be highly distributed steroidal and agonal substances into the body and interfere with pain perception to a high degree. A human equipped with a a ragesym was able to beat a krogan to death in hand-to hand combat (albeit dying afterwards from internal bleeding and a broken skull), and a krogan equipped with one managed to defeat a battlesuit with nothing more than a kinetic hammer.
Juicesyms are the most rare and are highly illegal in the Alliance, and of dubious legality in Council space. These inject a number of performance boosting substances, including various amphetamines, hallucinogens, pain suppressants, blood clotting agents, some form of PCP-analogue, and huge, possibly near-lethal doses of synthetic epinephrine. They combine to turn the user into a raging combat psychopath, capable of shrugging off terrible wounds and demonstrating terrifying strength, speed, and stamina. We have limited footage of batarian Imperial Guard elites with such symbiotes engaging a hastitim strike-force. They were capable of weathering even heavy weapons fire and direct hits from a sniper rifle to overrun the turians and rip them limb from limb. Juicesyms are hard to find outside of the Terminus and Traverse, and the Alliance plans to try to acquire one for dissective research soon.
OTHER NANONIC SYSTEMS
Nanonic systems emerged only in the past fifteen years. Most of these still revolve around supporting more extreme cybernetic or bionetic implants. There is, for example, no such thing as a 'nanonic replacement arm', or 'nanoeyes'. Nor are there purely nanonic organ replacements.
What we find instead is nanonic compromise systems, where they upgrade existing functions and add new functionality. The other major impact nanonics has made – blackware – is covered in its own section.
Nanorepair systems are the most commonly seen system, although these are staggeringly expensive to install, maintain and operate. Microscopic surgical robots can repair damaged tissues and blood vessels, break up clots before they cause strokes, and clear out kidney stones and other minor ailments. Most such systems work from a central canister of nanites implanted in the back, and these have no self-replication functions – when they run out the system can provide no more repairs. Repair systems are VI managed through wireless, and are vulnerable to shutdown (or worse, malfunction) if exposed to EMP.
Nanofiltration systems are implanted in 'filter trays' most commonly in the lungs, kidneys, liver and in some cases stomach. They aid the body in filtration of toxins and contaminants. All quarians have extensive nanofiltration work done, the largest ongoing expense the Migrant Fleet has after eezo and fuel, due to their weakened immune systems. More than a few alcoholic rich kids have these installed to prevent themselves from wrecking their liver.
Blood management systems are more extreme versions of nanorepair systems, which maintain the pulmonary systems – cleaning out plaque buildups, repairing worn vessel walls, leaky valves, or torn heart muscle. These systems can also be programmed to temporarily boost oxygenation or immune response, and alter clotting rates.
Artificial Immune Systems are very rare and currently too expensive for anyone not a millionaire to even think of affording. These are microscopic robots that mimic and augment the natural nervous system, connected to a medical VI database with a complete mapping of valid cell proteins and the like. Extremely valuable for sufferers of AIDS and lupus, these systems can become lethal if hacked or if they malfunction. After the quarians joined the Council, the Sirta Foundation gifted them everything humanity knew about such systems. Many quarian outcasts have turned to crime to afford the cost of buying such things, as without them they are extremely vulnerable to suit breaches.
Anti-Cancer Systems are the most highly advanced nanonic system on the market, pioneered less than a year ago by a Nobel-Manswell prizewinning team of human scientists working with salarians and Citadel hanar. The ACS requires a fully genomic map of the patient, with analysis of the cancer types and locations, and then is implanted. Nanobots devour cancerous cells, using the material to make more of themselves as well as heal damage or remove toxins caused by the cancer. The system is not effective in extremely advanced Stage IV cancers, but even early stage IV brain, lung, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers can be beaten back and cured with this system. At six million credits for just the genomic mapping and twenty million for the installation, as well as a million or more a year for maintenance, however, it is beyond the price range of most ill people.
There is a movement by certain medical corporations to develop a 'mobile' or temporary version that can be used inside a clinic on a more limited basis. If so, these would be much cheaper (if less effective) and could probably eliminate lower tier cancers altogether.
Nanosurgical 3D printing systems are, at this stage, purely prototypes. These have VI medical databases as well as cybernetic or bionetic installation requirements, and the ultimate goal is to allow the in-field installation or removal of cybernetic or bionetic implants and upgrades, and the ability to send instructions wirelessly to a system and have it flawlessly perform complicated surgical procedures inside the patient without a doctor needing to be involved. Some systems are in use for clinical trials, but so far nothing has been authorized for open market sales.
BLUEWARE BIOTIC AUGMENTS
Biotics relies on both the natural nervous system of the user and their ability to generate bio-electrical energy (which powers your nervous system) to affect and control their biotics. As there is no natural method for humans, salarians, turians and others to 'control' this directly, the very first cybernetic implant that incorporated biotics was the bio-amp.
Blueware is named as such because any cybernetic implants that replace the nervous system or limbs require eezo-channeled, electroconductive optronics made with metallic elements in order for biotics to function. All such devices must also be resistant to the slight static charge biotics generates, and cannot ground the user or rely on mass effect fields (to avoid resonance).
Blueware, as it incorporates eezo to magnify the more feeble bio-electrical field of a user, is staggeringly expensive. Most conventional cybernetic systems have blueware equivalents.
A few specialty pieces of blueware exist. The most common are barrier augmenters (which increase the generated strength of a biotic's barrier) and pulse stabilization devices (which counter pulse dissapators that disrupt biotics).
On paper, blueware is no more than biotic-adapted cybernetics. In practice, however, each piece has to be custom designed for the user, tuning it to their body's currents, their biotic field, and a host of other subtle adjustments. Most blueware is so tightly integrated into the remaining nervous system that other nervous system upgrades must be made at the time of implantation or not at all.
Currently, there are a host of reasons why some biotics utilize blueware. With advanced VI management and enough quality customization, a biotic with blueware experiences much less drain and need for cooldown than a natural biotic, while being able to shape biotic fields much faster and with sharper focus. The sheer amount of eezo in the system of a blueware cyborg tends to enhance the sheer hitting power of some high order biotics.
BLACKWARE NANONICS
The final – and most dangerous – type of augmentation is a style of nanonics called blackware. Blackware is so named because it incorporates highly illegal black nanites – self-replicating without limit, uncontrolled by anything but onboard programming and encrypted wireless, with no external shutoff and EMP hardened.
Black nanoware is outlawed in most cases out of a fear of 'gray goo' scenarios, where runaway nanonic conversion consumes entire planets. Such scenarios are possible but highly unlikely. What is likely, of course, is a minor outbreak that kills thousands or millions.
Blackware weaponizes unlimited replication.
At its core, blackware incorporates a super-powerful version of nanorepair systems, artificial immune systems, and extreme levels of tissue lacing with exotic elements. Alongside this is the incorporation of a nanoconstruction kit that can build almost anything with enough resources, plans, and time.
A blackware equipped terrorist could walk into a target site with no armor, weapons, explosives, or tools. Deploying his nanobots, he could effectively create and uparmor himself in thick combat armor, manufacture heavy weapons and explosives, create various tools to break into areas, or simply concoct a virulent virus and spread it as he goes, immune due to his own artificial immune system. All he'd need is a little eezo, and a VI with all the designs.
In open battle, such operatives are worse – rapidly healing from even being blown to pieces, as long as the nanites can find energy and resources, killing such a being is extremely difficult. As nanonics continues to evolve, the idea that blackware could incorporate 3D printing systems is very worrisome.
The most insidious and disgusting use of this power is to implant ghost-hacking systems into targets that can be puppetted remotely by the blackware user. The sheer damage that such an attacker could cause is terrifying.
This is of course ruinously expensive. The cost of such high order nanonics, tailoring to the user, the cost of a VI or AI to manage it all, and the requisite surgical equipment required means any such system runs into the low billions to implement. It is therefore thankfully (we hope) out of the reach and price range of terrorists, criminals, and the like. Unfortunately, that does not mean such groups could not be gifted such products by corporate or governmental clients.
Blackware requires a very powerful VI (or AI) in order to manage and control all design functionality, but otherwise is only controlled by highly encrypted emissions polling between nanites and the control unit itself. This encrypted transmission can have keys in the low millions, making hacking it impossible – and in the absence of a signal from the VI or AI, the nanites will simply continue what they were told to do. The control unit is often implanted in such a way that reaching it would detonate a cortex bomb or other method of destroying, leaving no way to shut off the nanites.
They can be destroyed by breaching plasma, high energy ion blasts, or strong enough cosmic radiation, but in low-tech areas of the galaxy they are nearly indestructible.
Officially, the Alliance has outlawed all use, production and shipment of blackware and black nano in general, as has the Citadel. In reality, the AIS has a group of deep cover agents that regularly utilize this technology in defense of our freedoms. It is strongly suspected that the Salarian Group of Zero and the Turian Deathwatch also use this technology.
