Jabonicus
Inactive Member
I've asked this question a few times in a few places, and ultimately the responses I've gotten have varied greatly, so this is to hopefully clear the air in a place where it can be answered for everybody.
My question is based on the medical technology of the site, and how it's used in RP. It's fairly clear that most, if not every 'modern' faction has easy and cheap access to technology to either replace or regrow limbs, and in Yamatai's case, simply switch the body in question. How this is done exists in a few forms, be it through gene therapy, grafting a cloned limb to the body, cybernetic prosthetics, body switching, and other medical devices that render wounds such as amputation and scarring void once treated. This is fine, it's great that people can have their characters go through intense experiences and come through unscathed once it's all said and done, but the issue is this is actually limiting in a way.
Make no mistake I'm not saying it shouldn't be this easy or that it should be more restrictive, I'm personally asking if there could be something that prevents this form of medical treatment from working? Be it a natural but rare enzyme in a select amount of the population that renders treatment via these technologies inert, essentially a refractory enzyme where the body simply doesn't respond, are a fault in genetic code that carries a similar purpose. Something out of control of both medical practitioners and the person who carries it, which, of course, is up to player discretion on whether or not their character even has such a thing.
The reason I'm asking this is that the setting is restrictive on disabled or otherwise scarred/damaged characters. There is very little wiggle room of what can be done with them. A common argument I've been told is "If you want to make your character missing a limb or otherwise scarred, just have them be alright with who they are." The issue with this argument is it takes for granted the idea these characters personalities. It's being told "You can do this idea, but you can only play people who have excessively proud or excessively stubborn personality types as their core values." There is no room to explore the idea of someone who, for example, is heavily scarred and as a result they are extremely self conscious. If given the chance, they would give everything they had in order to fix themselves, but with options of treatment so easy to get and so ultimate in how they fix it, there's no room for an arc of character.
Another argument I'm told is that "SARP in the prominent setting just isn't compatible with this idea, if you want to explore it you can go to the poorer and less advanced sections of space and their plots." While this is true, I don't think it has to be. At this point, a character who isn't happy with who they are isn't being limited by IC means, they're being limited by OOC ones, and after a while it will shine through. A character who starts out missing an arm and starts out in a less advanced region is essentially restricted to be poor and unable to move to the more prolific regions of space, so they must remain poor and unable to move or else the concept of the struggle collapses under a glaring option that has to be ignored or continuously shifted to be achievable.
This realm of characters is essentially told "To explore this, you must be a poor character, and you must not travel to these regions of space, which are also the most PC populated."
All I really want to know is, could there be something that prevents treatment of certain medical issues?
My question is based on the medical technology of the site, and how it's used in RP. It's fairly clear that most, if not every 'modern' faction has easy and cheap access to technology to either replace or regrow limbs, and in Yamatai's case, simply switch the body in question. How this is done exists in a few forms, be it through gene therapy, grafting a cloned limb to the body, cybernetic prosthetics, body switching, and other medical devices that render wounds such as amputation and scarring void once treated. This is fine, it's great that people can have their characters go through intense experiences and come through unscathed once it's all said and done, but the issue is this is actually limiting in a way.
Make no mistake I'm not saying it shouldn't be this easy or that it should be more restrictive, I'm personally asking if there could be something that prevents this form of medical treatment from working? Be it a natural but rare enzyme in a select amount of the population that renders treatment via these technologies inert, essentially a refractory enzyme where the body simply doesn't respond, are a fault in genetic code that carries a similar purpose. Something out of control of both medical practitioners and the person who carries it, which, of course, is up to player discretion on whether or not their character even has such a thing.
The reason I'm asking this is that the setting is restrictive on disabled or otherwise scarred/damaged characters. There is very little wiggle room of what can be done with them. A common argument I've been told is "If you want to make your character missing a limb or otherwise scarred, just have them be alright with who they are." The issue with this argument is it takes for granted the idea these characters personalities. It's being told "You can do this idea, but you can only play people who have excessively proud or excessively stubborn personality types as their core values." There is no room to explore the idea of someone who, for example, is heavily scarred and as a result they are extremely self conscious. If given the chance, they would give everything they had in order to fix themselves, but with options of treatment so easy to get and so ultimate in how they fix it, there's no room for an arc of character.
Another argument I'm told is that "SARP in the prominent setting just isn't compatible with this idea, if you want to explore it you can go to the poorer and less advanced sections of space and their plots." While this is true, I don't think it has to be. At this point, a character who isn't happy with who they are isn't being limited by IC means, they're being limited by OOC ones, and after a while it will shine through. A character who starts out missing an arm and starts out in a less advanced region is essentially restricted to be poor and unable to move to the more prolific regions of space, so they must remain poor and unable to move or else the concept of the struggle collapses under a glaring option that has to be ignored or continuously shifted to be achievable.
This realm of characters is essentially told "To explore this, you must be a poor character, and you must not travel to these regions of space, which are also the most PC populated."
All I really want to know is, could there be something that prevents treatment of certain medical issues?
