Agent of Sector General Jeff Zeitlin (12 Jan 2024 15:05 UTC)
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Re: [TML] Agent of Sector General
Jeffrey Schwartz
(12 Jan 2024 15:13 UTC)
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Re: [TML] Agent of Sector General
Timothy Collinson
(13 Jan 2024 09:08 UTC)
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Re: [TML] Agent of Sector General
Jeff Zeitlin
(14 Jan 2024 03:40 UTC)
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Re: [TML] Agent of Sector General
Timothy Collinson
(14 Jan 2024 04:25 UTC)
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Re: [TML] Agent of Sector General
Alex Goodwin
(14 Jan 2024 09:26 UTC)
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In his Traveller novel _Agent of the Imperium_, Marc Miller illustrated the personality wafer as technology that was available even in the early days of the Third Imperium. In the novel, the wafer personality 'took over' the waferjacked person completely, and lasted for 30 [standard] days. James White, in his Sector General series, described 'educator tapes'; a doctor could "take" one of these, and have the entire knowledge of a doctor of another species available to him, but it didn't override the host's consciousness completely the way that the wafers in _Agent of the Imperium_ did. Additionally, once "taken", the effect of the tape was permanent, unless specifically erased. Doctors with sufficient experience and of appropriate psychological stability could "take" multiple tapes simultaneously, and be able to operate on any of the species whose doctors donated the tapes. A doctor "carrying" tapes could also draw on the knowledge available to come up with hypotheses about (and possibly treatments and surgical procedures for) unknown species with similarities to the tape donors. It was not clear from White's stories whether a doctor carrying a tape from a given species could remember anything about that species when/if the tape was erased from his mind, but given that Senior Physicians and Diagnosticians had research and teaching as part of their duties, it's not unreasonable to hypothesize that they might remember some particularly important details that they had to deal with during an other-species operation. It's not clearly stated anywhere I can find, but if Traveller wafer tech becomes 'better' over time, and allows both the wafer personality and the host personality to co-exist for the duration of the wafer activation, then it becomes possible for 'Sector General Junior' to exist in the Traveller universe: On worlds that have a high likelihood of other-species visitors, hospitals at major business and tourism nexi would have wafers "on file" for the most common other-species - for example, Vegans in the Solomani Rim, Vargr along the coreward frontier, Aslan in the rim-spinward areas and Behind the Claw, and any minor races in the areas near their respective homeworlds. Naturally, any nexus worlds that are majority-nonhuman would also have human wafers on file. In this case, the wafer personality could be either "for the duration" (i.e., until specifically removed/erased) or for a limited time. Hospitals that have a wafer bank are also likely to be teaching and research hospitals affiliated with major Imperial-level universities. While the various Imperial services are likely to make units single-species, some medical facilities such as Naval hospital ships and hospitals at major Naval and military bases will also have wafer banks. Question for discussion/comment: Is it worthwhile and useful to work up rules for determining whether a particular world has one or more hospitals that have wafer banks to allow them to serve "aliens"? ®Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises, 1977-2022. Use of the trademark in this notice and in the referenced materials is not intended to infringe or devalue the trademark. -- Jeff Zeitlin, Editor Freelance Traveller The Electronic Fan-Supported Traveller® Resource xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com http://www.freelancetraveller.com Freelance Traveller extends its thanks to the following enterprises for hosting services: onCloud/CyberWeb Enterprises (http://www.oncloud.io) The Traveller Downport (http://www.downport.com)