immortality

Trope-a-Day: Immortal Life is Cheap

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Immortal Life Is Cheap: This might be the case in the noetic-backup-having modern world – and to some degree is, when one can send deliberately-disposable temporary forks of yourself in designed-for-the-situation temporary bodies into dangerous situations, and suchlike – but the cultural attitudes were formed back in the day when immortality was still just Type II Undying, and law and custom haven’t been altered.

And in Type II Undying-land, immortal life is very expensive indeed, especially since healing and regeneration weren’t always as effective as they are in the modern era.  It is from this period that eldraeic, and hence Imperial, law got its truly draconian attitudes on the topics of murder (because you’re removing a lot more life from an immortal than you are from an ephemeral, not that the penalty is any different if you happen to kill an ephemeral), battery (again, because your victim has to live with the damage for a damn long time), torture and rape (because your victim has to live with the trauma for a damn long time).

Which, to bring this full circle, probably does mean that Immortal Criminal Life is Cheap, because truly draconian in these cases generally means “being made dead”.

Trope-a-Day: Immortality

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Immortality: In a couple of forms.  The natural immortality of the eldrae and galari, etc., is Type II Undying, without the disease (or, indeed, starvation) exception – at least where potent illnesses are concerned.  This is also the type they’ve developed, named immortagens, and sell on the open market.

Noetic backups, in which one’s mind-state (or, if you like, soul) is recorded in digital storage such that you can conveniently be restored from backup if killed, adds Type IV Resurrective on top of that for those two species, and gives it to everyone else living in a modern and civilized polity, too.  And their little dogs, too.  Literally.

(They are, however, still working on A Means To Avoid The Heat Death Of The Universe.)

Trope-a-Day: Brain Uploading

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Brain Uploading: Pervasive and universal, just about.  The Eldrae, after all, being naturally unaging, find the notion of accidental death rather unpleasant, and so took to this technological advancement with enthusiasm; and, as rabid technophiles, even more so once the other technologies it enables – reinstantiation, mindcasting, forking, gnostic overlays, etc. (unlike a lot of universes, there are no convenient laws preventing you from screwing around with mind-states in all the ways you might expect to be able to) – came along; and now are enthusiastically selling immortality to the entire rest of the Galaxy, or at least everyone they can reach.  (And, incidentally, considering governments that ban this sort of thing as, essentially, being morally, if not legally, guilty of the mass murder of everyone who dies in their jurisdiction and would have preferred not to; immortalists vs. ephemeralists is a major galactopolitical issue.)

To the point, in fact, that modern – and thus highly engineered – brains come with the technology (“noetic architecture”) for minds to hop in and out designed right in.

Also, this is how you reach the afterlife (see Deus Est Machina).

Slowly Awakening

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Flicker.

Who am I?  What am I?

Noetic reinstantiation is in progress.  Secondary noumenal systems and incrementing memory string load incomplete.  Please wait, avoiding intensive cogitative activity.

Sensations and images flicker through my consciousness: Warmth, brightness, color, rough textures, old aches, the taste of sweet fruit.  The feel of an organic body from within.  Eldrae.  I am — I was eldrae.

Running though the old stone-lanes as a child.  The feel of dog’s fur under my hands, and a poke from a cold, wet nose.  A double sunrise, clouds staining the sky green and red and gold.  Bathing in the hot mineral springs on Adírdis.  The scent of Calcíë’s hair —

Who?

Please hold all queries until incrementing memory string load is complete.  New associations may interfere with engram binding.

A golden liquor that tastes of smoke and stone.  Breakfast at a café near dome-edge, watching the ethane cascade down the water-ice cliff.  Laughing at our first attempt to learn to dance in microgravity.  Disassembling a plaser in a tearing hurry, while the room shakes around me.  The acrid smell of regolith as I take off my breather.

Confusion.  Running down a river of wine with a mass of fire in the shape of a woman while the cold-gas thrusters laughed in the methane sky…

Apologies.  Errors in the mnemonic merge-update process have produced engram cross-links.  Retrying.

Sipping wine in front of a roaring fire, my wife by my side.  Cold-gas thrusters hissing as we ride a boat down a river of oil, under the green-blue haze of Galíné’s sky.  The feeling of exasperation, my hands deep in the guts of the partly-upgraded house brain.  Walking in the garden, flowers bright red and purple against green-blue leaves, with the scent of rose and honey and old wood tickling my nose…

Incrementing memory string load complete.  Please claim your identity.

I am…

I am Elyse Adae-ith-Atridae isil-Cyprium-ith-Avalae Erinlochos, ion-Tiryn, iel-Airin, mis-Eliéra-en-Palar.

Dynamic mind-state analysis confirms mental integrity.
Am-I-Me service confirms continuity of identity; Identity Tribunal concurs.
Current mind-state backup transmitted to incarnation insurance provider.

Noetic reinstantiation complete; initiating corporal awareness.

For the first time since my death, blinking at the bright light on never-before-used retinas, I open my eyes.

Trope-a-Day: Who Wants To Live Forever?

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Who Wants To Live Forever?: This is the standard point of view of the ephemeralists.  Of course, since none of them are immortal, they don’t really have much standing to judge the issue, and in debate, well, funny how it will always start to suck in another century.  Or two.  Maybe three.

And the conspicuous lack of immortals lying down to make an end of it all would seem to suggest that any number of people do, in fact, want to live forever.  Can’t beat empiricism.

Trope-a-Day: Living Forever Is Awesome

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Living Forever Is Awesome: This is, essentially, the default position of the immortalists, which include all of the natural immortals.  There are so many places to go, people to see, things to learn, things to do, it’s impossible to become truly bored… and, oh, yes, do see also Eternal Love, okay?  Plus, of course, that whole infinite time horizon that promises no matter how grandiose the dream, you can almost certainly live to see it through, and take time out to have some fun along the way into the bargain.  Immortality: does not suck.