I don't remember the title/author, but I do remember reading a short story at some point about a future where death was obsolete in this way.

It affected entertainment in some pretty interesting ways. No more need for complicated special effects or stunt doubles in movies. The violence and death was all 100% real. Yay!

And there was some kids show where a clowns act on almost every episode was to allow himself to be devoured by a hungry lion. The kids loved it. The clown got extremely depressed (and maybe suicidal, if he could have actually been allowed to kill himself) because he was subjected to the sheer torture and pain of being eaten alive over and over and over again...

Im not convinced that this would be a useful gameplay addition.
All the extra work involved in modifying the universe's society to cope with the concept is IMO not worth it for adding such a feature.

A death-free society would be a very strange place indeed. With such networks in place and such tech available the universe could quite possibly descend into a 'matrix' state where everyone stays in their homes plugged in to the networks where they can get anything they want, if their souls can be transplanted.

Funny idea for transport though, so if you wanted to move to the other side of the planet, you'd just plug in, have a synthesiser on the other end produce a carcass, and transplant your soul into it, pretty neat but a little unpleasant.

All these different side effects and things would have to be explained away. How about interplanetary problems, if you die in space is your soul transported to the nearest planet? If you were lightyears away that would cause a significant time delay :) The universe would have changed significantly. Yet another tricky mechanic unless you put some sort of faster than light communications in.

Maybe you could have a 'scramber' device which scrambles signals coming from these implants, so all you kill die permanently, but so do you :) obviously these would be illegal.

Crime and punishment would be easy though, the governments would supposedly control these networks, if a murderer is captured and to be executed, then that could be arranged by the factions.

Eternal youth would be possible too, although by then age probably wouldnt be so much of a problem.

All sorts of problems.

(Sorry, got carried away a bit there)

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Original post by toipot Im not convinced that this would be a useful gameplay addition.

You may be very right, but consider this: There's a huge chunk of potential players who think death is not very interesting, but loss is. Then there's an even BIGGER chunk out there who won't even play such games because they can die (girls, particularly, in my research).

What is the gameplay point of death when you can just restore anyway? (I'm thinking of removing or heavily modifying saves, btw).

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All the extra work involved in modifying the universe's society to cope with the concept is IMO not worth it for adding such a feature.

But wouldn't it help distinguish the universe?

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A death-free society would be a very strange place indeed. With such networks in place and such tech available the universe could quite possibly descend into a 'matrix' state where everyone stays in their homes plugged in to the networks where they can get anything they want, if their souls can be transplanted.

Keep in mind this isn't for everybody in all societies. It's broken between the haves and have nots everywhere except utopias loaded with free resources.

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Funny idea for transport though, so if you wanted to move to the other side of the planet, you'd just plug in, have a synthesiser on the other end produce a carcass, and transplant your soul into it, pretty neat but a little unpleasant.

Yes, this would be the MO for VPs of transtellar corporations, as well as spies and such. It really separates them from the common rabble.

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How about interplanetary problems, if you die in space is your soul transported to the nearest planet? If you were lightyears away that would cause a significant time delay :) The universe would have changed significantly. Yet another tricky mechanic unless you put some sort of faster than light communications in.

Quantum entanglement: Intervening space is an illusion where it concerns fundamental and instantaneous connections between matter. (Sorry, you asked [lol])

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Maybe you could have a 'scramber' device which scrambles signals coming from these implants, so all you kill die permanently, but so do you :) obviously these would be illegal.

Very nasty, but I really like it for the gameplay risk it creates, especially if saving as normal were completely different.

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Crime and punishment would be easy though, the governments would supposedly control these networks, if a murderer is captured and to be executed, then that could be arranged by the factions.

For the elites who have this, yes; or societies take the view that personality redesign or a cyborg prison of public service is much more productive. Already in game the plan is that serious player crimes cause the installation of things like violence inhibitors (you can't kill people if caught). Of course, there's always a black market for hacks.

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Eternal youth would be possible too, although by then age probably wouldnt be so much of a problem.

Yes, such a tech MIGHT prevent such research; but I'm really thinking that it's expensive.

You start out in a very pretty utopia, btw, which helps make the learning curve very friendly for this idea.

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Original post by lucky_monkey Cyborg body-parts and equipment should definitely be stolen if the body's in an area where that's likely (e.g. a city), but in more remote areas you should be able to go fetch your body and get any equipment/cyborg parts back (if they weren't destroyed/damaged by whatever killed you...).

Agreed. For tough areas, I think you should have to get them back yourself. But for safe areas, should this happen automatically, should you have to go, or should it be automatic with a fee (for sending a runner, or whatever).

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I'm not sure about the brain part though. If you're going to bring that into it then surely after the first death you'd be foobar'd.

No, no. My bad, I meant to explain that in this world a cyberbrain and a fleshbrain are practically the same. (You go cyber for AI, you go flesh for psionics). Your "soul" or ghost or whatever contains your stats, and your body / brain add to it. Leveling the soul requires special items / plot shifts; leveling the body (flesh or cyborg) just costs money.

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This is an ok idea, but maybe the really powerful factions have satellite soulcatchers?

Yes, the bigger and badder the faction, the more complete the coverage. This gives you incentive to level up in whatever faction you choose, be it the syndicate, church, government, etc.

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Isn't death death? I mean, if you're reincarnated by having your soul 'caught' then surely only something that destroys your soul (e.g. going to a Britney Spears concert...), or prevents it being caught, will kill you permanently...

[lol] Yeah, Britney's instagib!

The original idea was that the implant is an encoder and transmitter that can turn you into an eGhost and put you on the net. But now that I'm thinking of drastically altering saves, the possibility of implant destruction isn't so tasty.

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So these mausoleums are going to be the main target in inter-faction warfare...

Yes. For you, I'm thinking if the mausoleum of your faction is destroyed, you can risk switching to the public one. There will always be one indestructable public masoleum in the game world, no matter how deadly the galaxy gets.

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So this assimilation stops them from being uploaded? This might be the most effective means to kill enemies permanently at your disposal. Does this mean that an enemy Corekeepers can do this to you (and thus permanantly kill you...). This might be the best way to introduce permanent player death, as it probably furthers the 'hunted' feeling if the only thing that can actually kill you is a bunch of people who are hunting you down.

I like this for the NPCs. Maybe this should be a game options for the player, sort of a "hardcore" mode where this is possible?

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Original post by TechnoGoth Hmm, this is kind of system just begging to be obused by players, and npc. You seem to have missed a major aspect in terms of game play, and that is copies. How do you know you're the only you out there? A couple of ways you could work this into the game.

Thanks TechnoGoth, hadn't even considered data copying. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this. I think it should be possible but rare, otherwise it suggests a universe of eGhost clones which I DEFINITELY don't like. I don't mind ideas like Ghost In The Shell's ghost dubbing (which costs the original his life force).

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1)Some times the implant makes mistakes - There is a chance that injury that triggers the upload wasn't fatal and the old you survives.

EXCELLENT plot opportunity! "I'm the original! No I'm the original! The hell you say, I'm the original!"

Should be rare, of course.

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2)Illegal Ego Cloning - Some factions like to gather egos with certain traits, they use these egos for various nefiarous purposes including, blending, experimnation, framing the original for crimes, etc..

Again, great plot potential. Should cause serious harm to the soul being cloned, and be highly illegal.

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I think the best way to prevent the player from constantly killing themselves is to seperate ego stats and skills from body stats and skills. Body stats and skills are all body specific and so if your body is lossed, then the body stats and skills of your new body are based on eith the quality of the cloning process and the body stats at the last time you left a dna sample. OR in the case of Cyborg bodies stats are based on price, cheap generic bodies are mostly random. So the player will have to regain any body stats and skills that may have been lossed, not to mention all their gear and implants.

Precisely what i had in mind. Flesh or cerametal boost your soul's physical stats; a brain or cyberbrain boost the mental / skill stats.

Your soul is a unique blend of quantum energy that can be leveled. You level either by absorbing other "highlander" type characters who are gunning for you, finding special energy (strangematter), or accomplishing plot points and being rewarded.

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You could even include a fragility aspect to the ego implanting processes.

This is interesting, but I'm not sure its needed here. Oh, wait. Or maybe it is. It could be a leveling choice (one of the stats) and determine how long you're out of the action via time skipping. If you're out for weeks, your rivals could gain major ground.

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For how to stop enemies, what about containment? You could imprision their ego in one of a varity of containers from a data storage module to a paralized body.

Perfect! Maybe an item that has a chance to deflect them into a nearby container?

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How does crime and punishment fit into a universe that has this system? How do you track criminals who can swap bodies at will? Or how do you prove your innocence if your ego is transfered into the body of a wanted fugitive?

These are intriguing questions, which would make for intriguing gameplay.

Such things should be possible. They might even fit into a kind of hacking ghost hacking gameplay.

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Original post by Taolung Ooh, fun, lots of questions:

Thx for the thought provoking responses!

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It seems that hacking should be a major concern. Not only could this network possibly be hacked to slow down or re-route a soul, but maybe to just delete the file entirely.

Yes, agreed. Maybe this is based on faction control and a kind of need to travel through enemy territory? The more you have to go through enemy relays to get routed to a masoleum, the more likely you are to be degraded / infiltrated?

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I really like the idea that viruses could alter your soul - what if you killed your enemey, altered his digital soul to be more helpful to you, and then let him get re-born, now on your side?

Yes, this MUST be a possibility! :)

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However, assuming that the system is secure and that damaging or destroying the digital soul is difficult if not impossible, wouldn't physical battles become more or less pointless? Or just viewed as little more than a street brawl with no real consquences? How would the society react at large to the idea that no one could die? Would murder be a crime more akin to grafitti? It's now acceptable (though not terribly polite) to shoot someone in the head that's a slight annoyance to you?

Lots of alternative societies here, which is good. Death is still traumatic, so you don't want to just keep doing it (not sure, maybe soul stat loss should be a factor here to reflect?)

But all would be possible, and give you different world conditions to deal with. In one, for instance, a warlord Somalia type society where everybody's hopped up on drugs, people blast at each other for fun (watch your back). In another, death hasn't been heard of in centuries (but a murder suddenly occurs, investigate why...)

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If physical battles are no longer important, would "battles" be fought through technological, political, and media control?

I think in a highly regulated, civilized environment, THIS is the norm.

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Or, maybe more likely, battles are just fought away from the networks so that souls cannot be caught and the fight is meaningful once again...

In a revolutionary environment, I think THIS is the norm.

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If the implant can upload your soul, could it also be used to download a soul?

Yes, would have to because it's on the end side of the body you're dowloading to. It's the converter and transceiver.

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Would there be weapons specifically designed to counteract the implant? What if weapons generate an EMP as well as their normal damage so that the implant is disabled or destroyed the moment the victim dies?

This is so touchy, but I like the possibility. It's way beyond EMP, but something like a low yeild nuke could incenerate it.

As mentioned before, I'm thinking of making this THE primary means for saving, so you perma-died, you'd have to restart at an autosave, which could be game days ago with time skipping (autosaves every 5 min or whatever).

I have only briefed over the conversation, but one of the immediate things I thought of was "over population." How would a society free of death manage this one? Perhaps some sort of "waiting" list...when you die, you go to the back of the list, and have to wait until enough other people die to and the people infront of you respawn until it is your turn, to keep the planet in perpetual balance.

But I suppose that depends on the masoleum, wouldn't it? Or perhaps the specific soul catcher network.

I mean, probably in the way the game was implemented, over population wouldn't be an issue anyway...but just for the sake of argument, how would this be dealt with?

Also, you could have players subscribe to different soulcatcher networks. So there is one big general government one, which is slow and virus ridden, that all are members of. Then players can "subscribe" to other networks, and ally with factions to get to use their networks. So some gang could set up their own network that only picks up their gangs souls, but there is no other coverage in their area...so death is permanent unless you are aligned with them (and hence on their list). You could have "services" like AT&T and Verizon and what not that would allow the player to "subscribe" when in general areas (as in, not gang controlled). Some might be faster, some might be less likely for viruses, etc. Free enterprise all the way.

Just some food for thought.

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Original post by visage I have only briefed over the conversation, but one of the immediate things I thought of was "over population." How would a society free of death manage this one?

Trust me. This universe DOES NOT have that problem. [smile] (Backstory has things that devour civilizations).

Also, stressing again this isn't necessarily for everyone. Also might hint at 32nd century mores.

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Also, you could have players subscribe to different soulcatcher networks.

Definitely.

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So some gang could set up their own network that only picks up their gangs souls, but there is no other coverage in their area...so death is permanent unless you are aligned with them (and hence on their list).

Thinking this is part of gaining territory, and would be one VERY visible way you'd have of progressing with a faction.

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You could have "services" like AT&T and Verizon and what not that would allow the player to "subscribe" when in general areas (as in, not gang controlled).

No roaming charges? :) I like the principle. The best should be the most expensive.

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Original post by toipot Im not convinced that this would be a useful gameplay addition. All the extra work involved in modifying the universe's society to cope with the concept is IMO not worth it for adding such a feature.

I disagree. This is the kind of thing that makes a game stand out from all the other cookie-cutter clones out there.

Another set of good books to read would be Per Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy (actually six books). In that series, mankind is introduced to the beyond, and dead souls are flooding back into the "real" universe via possession of living humans. The books deal with humanity's fight against the possessors, and the questions raised about life when you know that there is an afterlife (not quite resurrection, but close).

About the overpopulation issue, even if the universe isnt overpopulated larger planets probably would be, or at least be getting there.

Reproduction would probably be liscenced, only those with fantastic genes are allowed to have children.

If you can get the idea really well fleshed out and implement it well then no doubt it'll be a great addition, its just a tricky game mechanic.

But sometime being different for the sake of it (just to stand out) makes things difficult for yourself :)