Wisdom From Doc

The Tang-Toledo Method replaces human skeleton by a synthetic structure in 39 surgeries. With an interval of at least 3 days for recover between each operation. We start from the feet, and the most delicate moments are surgery 3, when the femurs are replaced, and 39, which is the cranial surgery. This was the standard procedure during Baby Steps Age, and is still recommended for some structures of cyborg-skeletons.

Reduce the number of surgeries is obviously desirable, and today the standard procedure for rep-1s in Lira System is on surgery. The virtues of vampire blood allow that. It is a long and difficult surgery. Recovery, even with the blood, takes months. Still, the situation is way better than what Tang-Toledo allowed.

Have a cyborg skeleton doesn’t provide much advantage, if you don’t introduce any other improvement. The replacement surgery-1 is only a first step. Necessary base for the adoption of a lifestyle both exotic and expensive.

Your additional improvements can make you as strong and fast as the material of your bones allow. Replace the neuronal system bit by bit allow the introduction of online interfaces and accelerated logic that grant some cyborgs the status of second-class citizens on Fairy Courts. A land beyond the comprehension of any other biological entity. Depending on your priorities and resources, you can explore any path in an infinite portfolio of opportunities.

For some it makes the hard limit of 300 years for human life an unacceptable waste.

The ultimate cyborg is actually the sub human cyborg.

A path I would not recommend to anyone. However, on the other hand, the difference between human and subhuman do not make a world of difference for some cyborgs. Many people in the 99 Club underground sold their souls and existence to a lord patron of some sort to be able to afford the rep-1. Some, even before that.

Vampire thralls are slaves by definition, and they already have the project to go beyond the Alexandrine **** Like, since vampire blood taken regularly grants you practical immortality. As long as you keep drinking it.

A solid portion of 99 is made of ‘vitrals’. By becoming cyborgs they add the superior capacities of cyborgs to the supernatural powers granted by the regular consume of vampire blood. Without lose much of anything in the process. Balance the equation to the best possible result demands assistance from mages with specialized knowledge of vampiric condition. However, cytrals are in considerable advantage over vitrals even without mage assistance.

Also, goes without saying subhumans have nothing to lose in violating Alexandria. They are **** the bitch every day just by existing. Paying the bitter price for it. May as well enjoy some benefits.

Subhumans are by far the most complex and variated group of society, even if most would argue they are not a group of society because they do not qualify as part of it. They are either cattle or dead weight, never people. That is the most correct definition, probably, but the majority of people in most nations to not see things exactly like that.

Regardless of how you see things, subhumans are not considered people by the Faries, and that closes many possibilities for them in human society. Even in nations where the law does not keep them locked, or allow their owners power of life and **** over them, unrestricted.

The difficulty for a subhuman is to get the money to pay for the rep-1 and additional upgrades. Not to mention maintenance. When their owner pays for those things, they are the best clients.

However, regardless of how you feel about them, the fact is that each subhuman demands specific studies. Some of them are uplifted non-human animals, mammals being the most common option, but really not the only one. Adapt your cyborg surgery to a cold-blooded humanoid lizard takes enough effort. Insects and cephalopods are in another level completely.

Fortunately, all those subhumans were common enough in Sun System by the time when the Mystery Fleet left, to colonize this region we now call Lira. You have archives circulating thought the underground with examples for about any kind of subhuman. Countless options for cyborg improvements.

Modified lineages of humans are considerably easier. Adaptions are needed when your patient has 6 times the size and 36 times the body mass of any normal human in your planet, but they are nothing compared to design a cyborg skeleton equivalent to a client who was never supposed to have a skeleton in the first place.

The last sub-culture outside regular human society that has disproportionally high representation in 99 Clubs is the Mecha Lord Stronghold folk.

Those are not necessarily Mecha-Lord nobility.

Most of them are otherwise normal humans who got the good fortune of being allowed to move into a stronghold. They do not enjoy all the legal privileges Mecha-Lords have, but are mostly shielded against normal authorities, laws and morality. Subjected to the absolute power of the family they serve, instead of normal laws.

Mecha-Pilots seldom assume the risk of have cyborg surgeries. Balance those with the demands of a Mecha-Core connection is complex beyond measure. For the family members without realistic chance to became pilots, the cyborg improvements are a popular consolation prize.

This people have deep pockets, Mecha-Lord economy knows no recession. They are often able to pay for the best professionals, and materials. And there is no better medical facilities than those inside Mecha-Lord Strongholds.

What those three groups, cytrals, subhuman cyborgs and stronghold-cy, have in common that affects they way you must deal with them. As a cyborg doctor or tech-guy, is the prospect of time. All three groups are for one reason or another shielded against the Dead Line set by Alexandria. By consequence, you need to plan their skeleton for longer durability. More likely than not they will one day need replacement, but your goal is to make that day as distant as possible.

The vast majority of society is normal human. Even with the social stigma against cyborgs rebalancing the statistics you still can expect the majority of your clients to be in that group.

They plan to live 300 years or less. In anywhere but Litimus you can count on “or less”. So, don’t worry too much about durability. As long as your work lasts 300 years, it will last longer than the needs of your client.

We are vanilla humans ourselves give or take some superficial cybimplant of no consequence. I do not need to go into details with you about what means being “just” human.

Our human clients are the heirs of lineages of humans that go all the way back to the days before the Consensus of Alexandria. Because of that, they are the heirs of human rights, granted by Alexandria and protected by the Fairy Courts. Being human means your parents were humans, and also means that your children will inherit human rights if you make them with someone who is also human. That second part may not be 100% guaranteed. Because shit and genetic mutations happen. Nevertheless, it is guaranteed enough for most practical purposes.

What that means to you is that: you cannot compromise the purity of human genetic code in your client. When the client is human. Also, you need to preserve this the reproductive potential this person has. Men or woman, take as implicit truth that all your vanilla human clients will eventually, in the future, wish to have children. By the classic method.

Even if they say otherwise. Even when they sign documents promising they will not hold you accountable for destroy their potential for biological reproduction. Do not take the risk.

Human law will not forgive you. Even if it does, the fairies cannot. You don’t need any bad blood between you and the Beautiful Folk.

Inside this large group, the vanillas, we have most mages. Those are clients who happen to have special needs. Despite being completely human in every aspect that can be detected by our instruments.

As you should know there is no magic in the real, physical, world. Magic do not happen here.

Magic can affect the physical world, what our instruments can detect and our senses can feel, by changing the properties of natural materials. Or by affecting shadows and vampires. That is called “technomagic”.

Shadows and vampires are made of some very similar substance that is neither physical nor astral, but something in between.

Mages leave their bodies every night, their physical bodies, in a sort of astral-body. There is an entire universe connected to ours that is accessible to them. With its own laws and its own passage of time. In astral-body mages experience much more time than the hours of sleep their physical bodies have. The difference is nothing to write home about if compared to the gap in perception of time between physical organisms and fairies in their online courts. Still, it is significant.

Significant enough to make our physical world less important from the point of view or mages, than their society in the Astral World. Our reality is important to them, still, because they die in the astral plane little after their physical bodied die. However, that is a relation of means and ends, for most of them. Their physical existence is a necessary support for their real life in the astral.

Your mage clients cannot take their cyborg-implants with them in the astral plane. You can do nothing for them up there.

What we can do is give them physical bodies able to endure long periods of hibernation without danger or traumas. That is the main request of 99 mages. What 99 among each 99 of them want more than anything.

Not saying that is the only thing they want!

Mages still need to survive their time in the physical, never forget that! They appreciate stronger, faster, and more resilient bodies too. As much as the next cyborg.

Fortunately for them, they can pay for those bodies. Technomagic is a profitable field, always on high demand in Lira System. Mages make fortunes while the rest of us sleep. They are demanding costumers, but they can afford to be.

That covers most of what you need to take under consideration to survive as a doc, or even as a mere tech-guy.

There are rare, very specific, situations. Like those rare actual vampires who enjoy cyber-implants. Don’t worry about, they are not clients for you at the moment. Their needs demand very specific strategies, heavily dependent on technomagic.

We would have more than enough work only doing maintenance for vanillas. In fact some “humanist” zealots do not accept any other kind of client. You will do you, I don’t have much sympathy for those colleges, and I admit that much. Just mentioning the fact that they exist to prove that way of life is possible.

You choose your clients! Only you can decide is an operation is viable or not, to you. Oh, all sorts of people will say all sorts of garbage about every decision you make. Do not pay attention to any of that. When in doubt, refuse the client. Your reputation will suffer a lot more if you accept to do a job and the patient dies on your table. No one else knows your skills as well as you do.

We have more work than we can handle. In part because no one opens legal process against us when we make medical errors. The community either accepts it was not or fault or kills us without give us any chance of defence. You will see how great that system is, as a method to preserve our “market balance” between offer and demand. So, to speak.

Many medic professionals who could otherwise be attracted by the money flowing from cyber-surgery, let’s say for lack of better expression: are not. Attracted. By that money. Due to that cultural flavour implicit in our field.