Tom, you make good points. I don't feel as critical as you do about St records however... probabbly because it's a new gimmick to me.
The first thing I noticed was how similar it reminded me of a Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, like Everquest and friends. You have a character, you play with it - it's pretty much your avatar in that world. At one point, you may be killed. The consequence? A lot of bother and an experience point loss.
You have to admit, ST recordings sort of make things look that way. Personally, I find it funny and if I have a tool, I'm going to use it. I'll agree with you that life is cheapened by it, but let's not forget there's a whole setting centered on an army using a race of bio-synthetic female warriors in the thousands as it's soldiers. I say the damage, in a way, is already done just by the way the setting is presented.
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I'll throw a tangent and talk about how death was regarded in that other BBS RPG I was in before I came here. Megaman : New Horizon (*cough* yes, 'Megaman' ) has it's android be animated by what they called 'DNA Soul data'. Essentially, the DNA Soul represents the unique electrical imprint that a said android could have from the moment it was first activated - representing personality, archived long term memory and special affinities.
Even identical models activated at the same time, with similar brain casings, would be different... since no activation is exactly the same and even then, different perspective makes for different people.
If a character's body was compromised, it was possible to extract the DNA Soul. From there, a few things could be made.
1. Take the DNA Soul and join it to your own ressources, if you were not fond of the said android. The potential in the said Soul would allow the recipient to harness one of the best talents of the fallen (there is the eventual possibility of being freed, but usually, it's a no-no).
2. Keep the soul hoping to transfer it in another body. The experience of being wrestled out of one body and transfered to another, even if compatible, if generally traumatic and entails a period of adjustments filled with glitches and malfunctions as the DNA Soul adapts to it's new body. (I've had one amusing situation come up when a 'male' android got stuck into a 'female' body type. Lot's of laughs. )
3. The soul stays there, unclaimed, in a wrecked body. While undisturbed it can subsist for some time, the information represented by the soul can eventually start to deteriorate in a processus refered to as 'blight'. Furthermore, if the original body was destroyed through truly catastrophic means, the Soul DNA itself may be severely blighted as well. Blighted souls can be more difficult to integrate in a new frame and may not even be complete... though more often, the soul itself is spoiled and unusable.
4. On the planet 'New Horizon', there is a native creature nicknamed Grim Stalker which is notorious of being able to feed on non-organic/synthetic creatures since parts of it's system is sillicon based. When the 'Stalker devours a helpless android character, not only are the material components consumed, but the DNA soul itself is snuffed out of existence. So, when a Grim Stalker comes up... players are suddenly 'very' careful! ^_^
There can only be one copy of a particular DNA Soul, so, no copies or anything. While this does offer revival as a possibility, if the character remained on his own and was defeated... well, he was done for. That, in itself, encouraged party play (staying in a group and avoiding the lonewolf types) because it was safer and that if you did fall, one of your buddies could make sure you weren't a goner except in the gravest circumstances. Since the possibility of a party wipe was always present (I was known as a fiendish GM whom made his players go through very harsh - if epic - situations) it also encouraged the concept of shared victories, making everyone a winner (instead of encouraging damned godmoders).
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In retrospect, the Soul Transfer capability the 'Star Army' universe also has it's quirks, it's pros and cons. However, I don't feel too overly critical about it at the moment.
Unfortunately, I also don't have any good answer to offer as to how it could be corrected. An analog to New Horizon probably can't be done - apples and oranges, really, when you consider the situation the characters get put in.
