Augmented Solidiers: Cyborgs, MOM, Juicers

[jackofallgeeks]

Be All More Than You Can Be
This is some interesting stuff on DARPA's projects to augment soldiers biologically and mechanically. Very interesting stuff.

The Glove: Vinh Cao, their squat, barrel-chested lab technician, used to do almost 100 pull-ups every time he worked out. Then one day he cooled himself off between sets with an early prototype. The next round of pull-ups — his 11th — was as strong as his first. Within six weeks, Cao was doing 180 pull-ups a session. Six weeks after that, he went from 180 to more than 600. Soon, Stanford’s football trainers asked to borrow a few Gloves...

I’ve started shivering again — all across my legs and chest, muscles pulse to a manic rhythm. And then I start having tremors. My thighs jackknife to my chest, unbidden. I moan, and darkness closes in from the edges of my vision.

Then, just like on the treadmill, Grahn takes my wrist. He slips each of my hands into a modified Glove prototype. This time, the metal hemispheres inside are hot to the touch — 113 degrees. After two minutes, I can think again. The tent comes back into focus. “You can stay this way indefinitely now. You’re at a thermal equilibrium; the heat going into these two hands is equivalent to what’s going out of the rest of you,” Grahn says. “Now you’re uncomfortable again — merely uncomfortable. That’s a huge difference when you’re talking about survival.” The water is still bitter, of course. But now I can take it.

Comments

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

Oh, as an aside about troupe-style play: I've made considerable use of that technique in one of my VtM chronicles and was highly pleased with the results.

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

I'm really interested in that because... Well, a bunch of reasons. Firstly, because out of the majority of my friends, I'm the only one who bothers to know the mechanics -- I read RPG books cover-to-cover regularly. There's also a bit of me that doesn't trust other people to play the way I like playing: namely, character-driven, interaction-based stories, rather than level grinding and slash-fests (though, admittedly, sometimes a good slash-fest can be relaxing). This basically means that I feel cornered into running (GMing, DMing, STing, whatever) the game, and while I'm OK with giving guidance and playing referee (1) I want to play interesting characters, too, and (2) I don't really have the energy or creativity to keep a story standing all by myself. If I could, I'd stick to writing and leave gaming as a passing fancy. So I'm really, really interested in any system or mechanic that can decentralize that -- I'll still be OK with guiding and refereeing, but I want to *play*, too.

I think, though, that it would work best if I could find other character-centered players who know the rules too, so we're all interested in telling stories about our characters and we're all comfortable enough with the mechanics and setting to pass 'GM status' around the table.

(alternatively, if I could find a guy who was willing to run a character-based game of the sort I'm looking to play in that'd be cool, too, but bad experiences in DnD leaves me... less than trusting of DM's motives...)

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in Capes, which has an interesting take on shared narrative control. It's not exactly GM-less, it's GM-rich. Everybody's the GM more or less simultaneously, and the game's mechanics are really about controlling the narrative rather than fulfilling individual tasks. It's a conflict-resolution rather than task-resolution system unlike most RPGs. Ultimately, the player that's the most invested in a particular course of events tends to be able to take the helm for that part, and likewise when a player wants to sit back a little and let others take the helm it is easy to do so.

As for being the eternal GM that wants character-driven goodness, I know your pain. Perhaps we could play something together somewhere, sometime.

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

I'll have to see about checking it out. I've got a 20% discount waiting for me at the local game shop (yay for Friday Night Magic prizes) so maybe I'll see about rolling that into an order.

As for playing together: if it can happen, I'd be all over it. Especially if you wanted to do Ars Magica. :p I'm still a little upset that my group wants to do BtS and not Ars, but...

You're out here in The West, though, right? I'm not sure I ever established where you're located. I'm probably going to be headed back to MD when I graduate, which is kind of a plus because then I'll be within physical proximity of most gamers I know, but... I still have faith in the possibility of having a successful email- or forum-based game run, and I fear that may be my best option for quite some time. (That's what my little foursome BtS game is going to try and be; I'd invite you along if you were interested.)

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

Yup, I live in the West. In Babylon (AKA Los Angeles), to be precise.

I'd be down with trying out Ars Magica or, really, quite a few other things at some point. I've got the PDF of I think 5th ed, but I've never actually gotten to play the game.

Email, forum or LJ-based games can certainly work. I've been tinkering with them lately. Another handy venue is the IM-based game, especially if a group uses some of the group chat options that are built into messagers like AIM and Y!M.

BTW, I don't know if you know my AIM handle: it's the same as my LJ. Fell free to toss a "yo!" my way sometime.

[uhlrik.livejournal.com]

Rather, "feel" free. Bah.

[bsgnome.livejournal.com]

I never did point it out, but at one time, I tried my hand in a communal story-writing project, futurefantastic. Really, it was (almost) everything I enjoyed about role-playing, minus all the mechanics.

I know it's not exactly what you'd want, but I'd definately be up for a similar world-building project.