ThinksMarkedly wrote:tlb wrote:We see several examples of bio-sculpting in the books; consider Berry Zilwicki and Princess Ruth in Crown of Slaves having their bodies molded so they could change places, like in The Prince and the Pauper. Basically it is a high tech version of plastic surgery using nanites instead of plastic, that can include skeleton changes.
That sounds like a mechanical, almost brute-force approach: having the nanites do the work.
Interesting! But personally, I would categorize nanite therapy more along the lines of a subtle approach. And I would refer to the brute force method more along the lines of utilizing high tech surgical technology. Today, surgery is limited by the tools. Knives are used to perform the incisions and cutting. And a surgeon's skill and steady hands are essential. Now, in the HV, I imagine it is carried out with computer controlled "precision lasers," cutting and restructuring skin and bones.
Another limitation of present day cosmetic surgery is the limitation of available compatible skin and bones. We often have to take skin grafts from ones buttocks. But in the HV, growing replacement tissue and bone on a limited scale should be a piece of cake. Add to that limitation the very important craft of suturing. There are specialists just for stitching.
ThinksMarkedly wrote:A gene therapy would update the genetic material so the body would do it on its own... but I don't think that's just how biology works. Do the bones get cell replenishment or are they literally calcified? I suppose you could code some genes to start doing just that, but it carries a large risk of getting out of control and producing a very, very aggressive cancer.
And it might also be both slower and harder to reverse. If you want to change your eye or hair colour, it's probably easier to have the nanites insert pigmentation (or remove, as the case may be) than to force the cells in the iris or the follicles to do something specific. Once you no longer want that, the nanites simply stop doing their work and the body reverses to normal over a period of time. Want a tanned body for Summer? Eat a pill of nanites and melanin.
I always considered things like hair and eye color to be simple changes that can be achieved almost anywhere in the HV, without requiring gene modification, and certainly nothing that would come close to violating the Beowulf Code.
I would be surprised if the use of nanites are not common all over the galaxy. Except the MA took them to an all new level and, ah, let them out of their box.
