All the Vatta books include characters who have cranial implants that enhance their mental abilities and characters who are opposed to implants as a form of “humodification” that makes the user less human and more machine.\u00a0\u00a0 Having or not having an implant creates social expectations and has legal implications as well.<\/p>\n
Not all implants are alike, and once they’ve been used for awhile, the individual brain into which they’re implanted, and that person’s needs and lifestyle, make each one unique unless the user takes precautions.\u00a0 Just as my computer contains files unique it, and my husband’s contains different files and software, Ky Vatta’s implant is not the same as her cousin Stella’s, or anyone else’s.\u00a0\u00a0 My conception of implants has grown since the first time I thought about them seriously, well before starting the Vatta books, both because of advances in IT, but also because of advances in genetics and developmental biology.<\/p>\n
Ky had an implant as a child; she was given a genetic alteration that made implant acceptance easier on her neurology, and a “pocket” was created in her infant skull by a combination of genetic and surgical means.\u00a0 When the pocket was large enough, she received her first implant, a child-level device that developed enhanced neurological connections to that, and future, implants, and also gave her some enhanced mental capacity–which she learned to use at the same time she learned to use her own.\u00a0 Ky got a standard child’s model;\u00a0 a child with developmental problems would be given a therapeutic device plus genetic and other treatments.\u00a0 The child model was considered adequate for pre-college education (the equivalent of “apps” could be uploaded to it as education proceeded)\u00a0 and except in cases of trauma, it served until the person was an adult and all growth and wild hormone fluctuations had ceased.<\/p>\n
Some people did not get an implant until adulthood; this required surgery and additional gene treatments to “re-infantilize” the brain and grow the right connections.\u00a0\u00a0 Implants require physical space (squeezing part of the brain to make that space is not a good idea.)\u00a0 So there is a visible bulge on the head, allowing the presence or absence of an implant to be detected easily (also whether there’s one or two implants.\u00a0 In some occupations, a dedicated second implant is required.)\u00a0\u00a0 In anti-humod cultures, having an implant bulge (or simply a misshapen head)\u00a0 results in social disapproval and ostracism.\u00a0\u00a0 A few are so strict that they reject the use of prostheses (certainly all powered prostheses) after injury.\u00a0 In most, however, implant use is so common that it’s not considered a humodification (whereas other changes in appearance or function are.)<\/p>\n
One function of an implant is accurate recording of the individual’s activities and surroundings, with on-demand playback.\u00a0\u00a0 This playback will temporarily render an individual unaware of current surroundings, but will not drive behavior.\u00a0\u00a0 The recording may be deleted by the implant user; low-end implants cannot store as much data as high-end ones, and their users typically edit recordings to save only the data they need, discarding the rest.\u00a0 These recordings can be accessed by others if the implant is removed, or if it is “sucked” by means of the dataport.\u00a0 Direct access from outside when the implant is installed–without serious damage to the user’s brain–is possible only with the assistance of the user, in turning off the implant’s own security.\u00a0\u00a0 Implant recordings function as memory assists, providing details of surroundings that the user might not notice; specific data the user wants to store go directly to the file system the user has set up.\u00a0\u00a0 Implants can sync with any electronic control system for which that implant has the security codes.\u00a0 Thus because Ky (and other Vatta captains) have the Vatta ship codes, they can access the ship systems of Vatta ships when not on the bridge.<\/p>\n
Because a user can grant someone permission to retrieve their implant’s recordings, and because recordings can be retrieved from implants after death (for instance), law enforcement agencies routinely check the implants of crime victims to get data far more reliable than the bio-brain will supply.\u00a0\u00a0 And they seek authorization to obtain the recordings of suspects in crimes.\u00a0 This is one reason that anti-humods, who refuse to use implants, are so often recruited by criminal organizations.\u00a0\u00a0 In general, those without implants function at a lower level than those with them, and rarely rise high within an occupation (there are brilliant exceptions.)\u00a0\u00a0 It’s easy to arouse resentment of the “humods” who are, according to some, supplanting “real” humans.<\/p>\n
What else can an implant do besides provide these recordings?\u00a0\u00a0 They store more data, in a more organized form, than the natural brain.\u00a0 It’s easy to import, for instance, a catalog of all the personnel in a corporation, with critical information about each, retrieval instantly by any category: specialty, rank, salary, biometrics, whatever the user wants to include.\u00a0\u00a0 Tables of organization, formulae that that individual may need in his\/her work,\u00a0 procedures…all that stuff that every once in awhile we blank on, even when it’s familiar…the implant doesn’t blank on.\u00a0 It makes social interaction easier (no forgotten faces or names or important affiliations–the first time the user meets someone, the implant stores facial recognition, name, and any other information), and links existing emotional responses stored in the natural brain to the hard data in the implant.\u00a0\u00a0 Standard implants also have a communications node, the “skullphone” that connects like a cellphone to local communications networks using the individual’s access code.\u00a0 This is limited to planetary calls, however, even though those may be transferred via that planet’s communications satellites.\u00a0\u00a0 Most people prefer external devices; the implant skullphone sounds funny (it’s using the brain directly, not via the ear’s sound capture system) and is affected by some medical conditions.<\/p>\n
Ky’s father’s implant held everything the top brass of Vatta Enterprises might need to know: financial data, personnel data, market analyses, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 It had advanced (for its type) communications functions, biomonitoring and adjustment capability (could, for instance, detect toxins in the body and–for some at least–get the body to synthesize antidotes.<\/p>\n
When someone with an implant exits a planetary communications net, their skullphone goes dead; when they return to one, it pings–a single sharp “sound” signalling that the skullphone is working again.\u00a0 The skullphone app is available.\u00a0\u00a0 Combining skullphone access to the planetary net with access to an ansible for interplanetary\/interstellar communication is possible but difficult.\u00a0 Ansible booths are set up to work with manual input of the destination codes.\u00a0 (This was a decision on the part of InterStellar Communications, or ISC,\u00a0 from the beginning.\u00a0 They wanted to control ansible traffic completely, so they limited input to it.)<\/p>\n
So what about the internal ansible, lodged in their implants, that Ky and Rafe now share?\u00a0 This internal ansible is different, unique at this point.\u00a0\u00a0 The usual ansibles are large satellite-based machines,\u00a0 with booster units orbiting a planet; their use is for real-time communication across deep-space distances.\u00a0\u00a0 They are far too large to be fitted into a spaceship, but they can handle a huge load of communication.\u00a0 Most systems have at least two, one of them limited to the transmission of financial data.\u00a0 Only recently have ship-board sized ansibles been developed; the original design was pirated from ISC and Stella Vatta was able to get a patent for it because Ky had “acquired” a number of the pirated units.\u00a0 Her distant cousin Toby has since improved on the original, which could not interface with system ansibles (and was thus useful only for ship-t0-ship communication.\u00a0 The personal ansible lodged in Rafe’s input was an even more secret research project at ISC. \u00a0 It was the only one made by ISC, and supposedly only Rafe himself and his father knew the access code for it.\u00a0\u00a0 It requires an additional power source (outside the body) for full function, but can then interface with system ansibles or the planetary communications net.\u00a0 ISC decided it was too dangerous (as well as a threat to their monopoly) but the prototype could not be removed from Rafe’s implant without damage to his brain.\u00a0\u00a0 On the first test, the implant ansible self-replicated into a\u00a0 test implant (not in anyone’s head) when the implants were linked for download.\u00a0\u00a0 The research team could not find a way to make an implant-sized ansible that did not self-replicate, meaning that ISC could not possibly keep a monopoly on them.<\/p>\n
So…how are implants powered?\u00a0 Implants do have a battery, and the battery is normally recharged from the electricity the brain generates, via the genetically engineered “spike neurons.”\u00a0\u00a0 If for some reason the battery power is not fully recharged biologically (some illnesses, injuries, starvation, etc.)\u00a0 there’s a power input jack and a cable that connects to normal commercial voltage with a step-down transformer in between to deliver the low-voltage current needed.\u00a0\u00a0 Implants with an ansible, however, require a different cable and a different voltage.<\/p>\n
Implants can be removed and–if not damaged–preserved for later use by someone else by careful packaging and storage.\u00a0\u00a0 They’re fairly tough–Grace Vatta had packaged Ky’s father’s implant after his death,\u00a0 then baked it into a fruitcake to conceal it and sent it off with Stella to give to Ky.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s how Ky was able to use her father’s implant after his death.\u00a0 Her own had been removed after a head injury (standard procedure) though a direct transfer in a healthy individual is a fairly standard procedure.\u00a0 Usually it takes 24-48 hours for someone to adjust to a new implant.\u00a0 Some things were removed from that implant as part of Ky’s medical treatment after the loss of her ship at Moray, including her father’s personal memory-recordings and records of her childhood; these are now stored externally in a secured location at the treatment facility.\u00a0 She agreed with the recommendation that she not access any of those for at least a full year; she hasn’t yet accessed them.<\/p>\n
Some of the implant tech is derived (in my mind, anyway) from the earliest brain implants used on humans in the 20th c., cochlear implants for the profoundly deaf that convert sound waves to precise electrical signals delivered to the auditory processing system.\u00a0\u00a0 The CRISPR technology that is revolutionizing genetic manipulation right now would have advanced by the date of this story, but the concepts (the ability to change specific base pairs in the genetic material) allow for the development of such things as “spike” neurons.\u00a0 Probably, anyway.<\/p>\n
And this may be way more than you ever wanted to know about implants in the Vatta books.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All the Vatta books include characters who have cranial implants that enhance their mental abilities and characters who are opposed to implants as a form of “humodification” that makes the user less human and more machine.\u00a0\u00a0 Having or not having an implant creates social expectations and has legal implications as well. Not all implants are Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[24,27],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-science","tag-technical-bits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}