I've been playing a lot of Borderlands 3 recently, and am reattempting Borderlands 2 at the moment. The in-game resurrection technology, the New-U system, explains the endlessly respawning bandits and lunatics and other cannon fodder. But the fact that most things are generated by the DigiStruct - 'Digi' as in digital - has nasty implications over time...
Audra looked at Doctor Ted (who, it must be noted, was no relation to the famous Doctor Zed, or his evil twin Doctor Ned). "So… what's the prognosis Doc?"
She absently glanced at her reflection in a nearby medical tray. It blinked. She looked away sharpish.
"Well…" Ted took a deep breath, "The good news is, it's not gonna kill ya. Not directly at any rate. The bad news is, it's a side effect of excessive reconstruction via the New-U system. Digital Neural Degradation, or just New-U Crazies."
"And that's making me see and hear shit?"
"Pretty much. See, the New-U system is a specialized kind of DigiStruct system, but thing is, DigiStructing bodies is a lot harder than it looks. Lots of complex microscopic structures, including the brain. So, the New-U algorithm cheats. It uses standard algorithms to generate all the meat, organs, skin, nerves… just has to say how it's arranged. But the bulk of the data is the brain…and that's where resolution comes in."
"Resolution?" Audra fixed her eyes on Doctor Ted's, all the better to ignore the conviction that something with a complex number of legs was lurking just outside her field of view. It's just a hallucination, Audie, just your brain playing up.
That's what you think, Audra, her voice replied from a corner of the ceiling, it's not like it's a real brain any more.
"Woah," Ted was staring – Audra groaned internally – she'd obviously been speaking aloud. "You're worse than I thought. Anyway, all digital scanning skips over details, just how big or small depends on the resolution. New-U scanners are a lot finer grained than regular ones, but they still miss out fine details, like exactly how braincells connect together. Following me?"
"Y-yeah," Audra said, walking behind her train of thought, "so, sometimes it hooks up my circuits wrong?"
"Bingo. Normally the system can work out an approximation, and brains are pretty flexible so they can work around minor damage, but sometimes not. And then there's the fact that sometimes bigger errors get past all the checks… and…" Ted shuffled his feet, "Sometimes the flaw was always there, but it got worsened."
"And the more times I get killed, the more these errors pile up."
"Bingo again."
She blinked. "Wait a minute… that's what happened to those bandits, right? Drugged out of their minds, getting killed and 'Structed over and over… no wonder they're so fuckin' psycho!"