My solutuion to the Cyborg vs. Phase Beamers

[Damian Magecraft]

You might find this hard to believe, but some of us feel that treating bionics and/or cybernetics as being alive in any context, be it phase weapons, psionics, magic, or whatever is ludicrous.

If I snip a wire in your cybernetic arm, you don't get to save.
If I use some psionic or magic power to suppress the electric signal in that wire, why would you even get a chance to save, let alone be immune to the attempt?

Rules that exist only to preserve some arbitrary game balance and have no other rational explanation have no value to me.

--flatline

Particularly when you consider how contrarily cybernetics and bionics are considered to interfere with magical and psionic energies of the person possessing them because they're unliving machines yet they're considered alive to the specialized energies of phase weapons that can only harm living things.

so what you are saying is its ok for the systems to stop a mage from casting if they are placed in him.
But its not ok for them to protect what is left of an organic system they are attached to?
so it can work in one direction but not the other?

[Nightmask]

You might find this hard to believe, but some of us feel that treating bionics and/or cybernetics as being alive in any context, be it phase weapons, psionics, magic, or whatever is ludicrous.

If I snip a wire in your cybernetic arm, you don't get to save.
If I use some psionic or magic power to suppress the electric signal in that wire, why would you even get a chance to save, let alone be immune to the attempt?

Rules that exist only to preserve some arbitrary game balance and have no other rational explanation have no value to me.

--flatline

Particularly when you consider how contrarily cybernetics and bionics are considered to interfere with magical and psionic energies of the person possessing them because they're unliving machines yet they're considered alive to the specialized energies of phase weapons that can only harm living things.

so what you are saying is its ok for the systems to stop a mage from casting if they are placed in him.
But its not ok for them to protect what is left of an organic system they are attached to?
so it can work in one direction but not the other?

You're operating from a fallacious point of logic there, for there is no 'well if it hurts X then it ought to give a balancing benefit Y' aspect to either reality or role-playing games. You put dead, lifeless machines into living beings in the Rifts setting and it interferes with the energies of life, even proving detrimental to psionics which logically they shouldn't being derived from the energies of the brain alone. Logically they shouldn't provide protection against an effect (phase weapons) that behaves as if dead, lifeless machines don't even exist to pass right through them. You're trying to argue that those dead machines somehow come alive and filled with lifeforce for no other reason than because a brain is plugged into them when it's established machine attachments diminish lifeforce they don't enhance.

The cyborg has no more right to a special pass in that regard than the power armor pilot does, because in game phase weapons harm the living and cyborg bodies aren't living things and an out of game ruling that 'well cyborgs are special and shouldn't have to be easy kills from phase weapons like power armor pilots or people in vehicles' is never going to be acceptable because it can't be justified in game. Especially when an actual valid solution was already available based on the nature of phase weapons, the installation of a brain-protecting force field for some amount of cost. A solution that doesn't require contradictory things to be argued as equally existing when they're mutually exclusive or give a special pass to a player who unlike everyone else doesn't want to pay extra for that protection and wants it free.

[Nightmask]

A Caveat: A bionic limb has a sense of touch, --- every part is nearal connected to the person.
A Power armor is Not neural linked, unless it has a Connector, and the pilot has a translational interface, not a direct neural interface.

Bionic limbs don't have a sense of touch, they have a limited simulation of touch sufficient for the cyborg to learn not to crush things. The guy in the power armor has at least as much feedback 'touch' sense if not moreso than the cyborg has.

[flatline]

A Caveat: A bionic limb has a sense of touch, --- every part is nearal connected to the person.
A Power armor is Not neural linked, unless it has a Connector, and the pilot has a translational interface, not a direct neural interface.

The type of interface in irrelevant. Electric signals down a wire are identical whether there's a neurological interface at one end or a conventional controller.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

The Type of interface matters. Something not hardwired into your nervous system is not gonna be felt when it goes away. Like say, A power glove system for moving an arm
vs one that is directly interfaced into your nerves.
One that is controlled by brain patterns, is a translational interface and not a direct neural connection.
Brain pattern based systems just go by hemisphere mapping of electrical activity to determine what to do.
You do not think " go left" to go left, You think of "Something that triggers the left command, say, Puppies, which maps out to top left corner in the imager, and that leads to going left.

Just let it drop, you're not going to convince any of us who disagree with you that some quasi-mystical connection occurs because you hooked a reader up to a nerve ending so that somehow a robotic shell suddenly becomes a living MDC creature as a result. Because that's what you're trying to argue in the end, that because you've got a sensor picking up on a nerve impulse and sending one back as needed a machine is now alive even though it's not considered alive in any other instance, all to support a nonsensical game mechanic implemented because some players of cyborgs didn't like it that they still had some vulnerabilities like any other flesh and blood being and didn't want to have to pay anything like all the other living creatures to protect against what is in the end a rare weapon that if a GM was using it to kill cyborg players was because the GM was being a bad GM rather than the vulnerability being the problem. It's no different than a GM popping out phantom snipers doing MD headshots to SDC/HP characters which are instant kills and giving no warning or opportunity to even try protecting against it. It's something a GM should be dealing with on an individual basis rather than some broad-sweeping and nonsensical rule.

[Armorlord]

Just let it drop, you're not going to convince any of us who disagree with you that some quasi-mystical connection occurs because you hooked a reader up to a nerve ending so that somehow a robotic shell suddenly becomes a living MDC creature as a result. Because that's what you're trying to argue in the end, that because you've got a sensor picking up on a nerve impulse and sending one back as needed a machine is now alive even though it's not considered alive in any other instance, all to support a nonsensical game mechanic implemented because some players of cyborgs didn't like it that they still had some vulnerabilities like any other flesh and blood being and didn't want to have to pay anything like all the other living creatures to protect against what is in the end a rare weapon that if a GM was using it to kill cyborg players was because the GM was being a bad GM rather than the vulnerability being the problem. It's no different than a GM popping out phantom snipers doing MD headshots to SDC/HP characters which are instant kills and giving no warning or opportunity to even try protecting against it. It's something a GM should be dealing with on an individual basis rather than some broad-sweeping and nonsensical rule.

Nightmask, it is well established in the Megaversal System that bionics do in fact interact directly with the "quasi-mystical" connection between body and lifeforce. Technically it isn't even just a Megaversal thing, as Rappanui notes, ever setting that has cybernetics and magic profess similar philosophies, so you can't even argue that you got set in your ways from another game or setting.
What it looks like to me is that you decided that Phase beams damage organic tissue and then hunkered down there, entrenched yourself, and refuse to move from your position, despite the fact that your personal decision is wrong and not supported by the materials at all, which instead state that it damages living things (any, including Machine People and TIs, MDC and SDC), solid energy fields, and magic. None of which need organic tissue to be involved. All of which are stated to have specific intrinsic energy fields (except for solid energy fields, which simply are energy fields, of course).
Bio-Energy Auras are an intrinsic property of all living beings, organic or not, SDC or MDC, magical, supernatural, or mundane. Elder Race technology has been shown to surpass anything that conventional technology is capable of, even the super-science of the Three Galaxies, even to the point of interacting with magical energies, which are in turn the very energies of life itself.

In short, it isn't a nonsensical rule, it is continuity and consistency in action, major elements in building a strong setting.

It is unfortunate that your inaccurate assumptions about a fictional device have caused you to lash out and make phantom bad guys about a few cyborg players complaining, but if a few people raising hell could actually cause a major system change.. don't you think you would caused one yourself by now?
Seriously. I see this same strawman set-up by people claiming that a 'nonsensical'/'bad'/'stupid' "change" was made because people complained about it, but.. it never happened. You and others complain often enough that PB doesn't listen to you or make changes based on your complaints, then turn around and claim every clarification is due to some phantom group complaining and getting it changed. Just because a political party can run on cognitive dissonance, doesn't mean you can actually build an argument platform out of it.
1) The outcry you suggest never happened, as far I have ever seen.
2) Even had it happened, it seems a decided corps of complainers would not have actually have effected the game.
3) So how about we focus on facts instead of strawmen?

You can argue that you don't like how they work, or that they don't work that way in your games, but the facts remain that, within the Megaversal setting, the rules are in accordance with the setting material, and make perfect sense in the context of how these things function in-game.
If you want to houserule that a midget in a compact suit of power armor and a cyborg of the same size and style as that suit are mechanically the same in your setting, fine, but that has never been canon in Palladium products.

[flatline]

Armorlord, I find your strawman completely unconvincing.

Nobody is claiming that phase weapons only affect organic materials. What we're claiming is that the way a machine is controlled by itself can't change the properties of the machine. If the properties of the machine are changed, then there must be some other mechanism involved that has changed them. In the absence of such a mechanism, the machine offers no protection to the brain inside a full conversion borg body.

And cry all you want about game balance, but this is not a game balance issue. Force field technology is abundant in the 3 galaxies, so any phase world borg could trivially incorporate a force field into its design to handle phase weaponry if only to protect the brain case. On Rifts Earth, that is not the case, but phase weaponry is not easily available in that setting, so the balance is preserved.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

also, you will Not find a scifi Rpg that disagrees with this reasoning. Not Battlelords, not Cyberpunk, Not Cybernet, Not D20 Modern, Not Metamorphis Alpha, Not Gamma World, Not anything based on a Gibson Novel
Certainly not in Warhammer40k, Certainly not in Future World,... Maybe applicable to Older Scifi convention games... Where it does not have metaphysics, Like in Star Frontiers, or Traveller.

Yeah, sorry but that would be wrong and irrelevant. Everyone doing a wrong thing doesn't make it right and certainly not all RPG agree with such a notion that 'just wire in a brain and *poof* bionics become immune to outside control or psi/magical effects that affect machines and even become alive as far as things that affect only living organisms'.

[Nightmask]

this intrinsic living thing rule has been used since before phase weapons were introduced, and has been part of the system's lore since 1981's MECHANOIDS.
also, in HU it applies:
Powers like Machine Merge/Mechano link Work because they are able to gain "Living" control over the machines they inhabit.
if you disagree, Well then, you must have not paid attention to heroes unlimited any while you played Rifts.

You really have a problem with insulting people when they don't agree with you don't you? I manage quite well paying attention and at no point do I have to agree with a rule that makes no sense or is just plain wrong. I may let some pass because it's not that big a deal or don't affect me (I don't ever play cyborgs) but eventually you just have to say 'enough is enough and that's simply too much'.

[Nightmask]

Just let it drop, you're not going to convince any of us who disagree with you that some quasi-mystical connection occurs because you hooked a reader up to a nerve ending so that somehow a robotic shell suddenly becomes a living MDC creature as a result. Because that's what you're trying to argue in the end, that because you've got a sensor picking up on a nerve impulse and sending one back as needed a machine is now alive even though it's not considered alive in any other instance, all to support a nonsensical game mechanic implemented because some players of cyborgs didn't like it that they still had some vulnerabilities like any other flesh and blood being and didn't want to have to pay anything like all the other living creatures to protect against what is in the end a rare weapon that if a GM was using it to kill cyborg players was because the GM was being a bad GM rather than the vulnerability being the problem. It's no different than a GM popping out phantom snipers doing MD headshots to SDC/HP characters which are instant kills and giving no warning or opportunity to even try protecting against it. It's something a GM should be dealing with on an individual basis rather than some broad-sweeping and nonsensical rule.

Nightmask, it is well established in the Megaversal System that bionics do in fact interact directly with the "quasi-mystical" connection between body and lifeforce. Technically it isn't even just a Megaversal thing, as Rappanui notes, ever setting that has cybernetics and magic profess similar philosophies, so you can't even argue that you got set in your ways from another game or setting.

Yes I'm quite sure I can, because you're wrong. Not every game system has such a rule (games where psionics and magic don't even exist by definition can't have such a rule) and others (such as the Marvel Superhero RPG) don't treat bionics as special and immune to outside control or as providing any protection against effects that bypass protections like armor to directly harm living tissue.

What it looks like to me is that you decided that Phase beams damage organic tissue and then hunkered down there, entrenched yourself, and refuse to move from your position, despite the fact that your personal decision is wrong and not supported by the materials at all, which instead state that it damages living things (any, including Machine People and TIs, MDC and SDC), solid energy fields, and magic. None of which need organic tissue to be involved. All of which are stated to have specific intrinsic energy fields (except for solid energy fields, which simply are energy fields, of course).

No, what it is is that I reject a game rule that violates common sense and logic and exists only to provide cyborgs an immunity that they don't rate and could have been provided with protection from the attack in question in game without such an obvious defective game patch. You can work backwards trying to justify something that can't logically be justified all you want but that won't make it right and standing firm on stance against such a rule doesn't make me 'entrenched' and unwilling to 'see the light' i.e. how 'right' you are because you aren't.

Bio-Energy Auras are an intrinsic property of all living beings, organic or not, SDC or MDC, magical, supernatural, or mundane. Elder Race technology has been shown to surpass anything that conventional technology is capable of, even the super-science of the Three Galaxies, even to the point of interacting with magical energies, which are in turn the very energies of life itself.

In short, it isn't a nonsensical rule, it is continuity and consistency in action, major elements in building a strong setting.

No, in short it's a nonsensical rule that you keep trying to justify with unsupportable arguments, because some robotic shell doesn't gain a life force because you plugged a brain into it. With that argument you'd have to accept people plugging brains into starships so entire ships became living things to protect against pirates using Phase weapons for one, yet we see that rejected as 'well that's too big' when there is no rule on how large a cyborg has to be so logically you'd have starship borgs flying around yet we don't (if we do we certainly don't have them doing so for that reason). If you reject those as 'too big' then you're saying 'well okay so I guess the brain alone has to be vulnerable then because it can't make the entire ship alive' so why can't it? Oh because you think maybe it's 'exploiting the game mechanic'. Isn't that the complaint against phase weapons being able to otherwise easily kill cyborgs without damaging them that causes the obvious unnecessary patch in the first place?

It is unfortunate that your inaccurate assumptions about a fictional device have caused you to lash out and make phantom bad guys about a few cyborg players complaining, but if a few people raising hell could actually cause a major system change.. don't you think you would caused one yourself by now?
Seriously. I see this same strawman set-up by people claiming that a 'nonsensical'/'bad'/'stupid' "change" was made because people complained about it, but.. it never happened. You and others complain often enough that PB doesn't listen to you or make changes based on your complaints, then turn around and claim every clarification is due to some phantom group complaining and getting it changed. Just because a political party can run on cognitive dissonance, doesn't mean you can actually build an argument platform out of it.
1) The outcry you suggest never happened, as far I have ever seen.
2) Even had it happened, it seems a decided corps of complainers would not have actually have effected the game.
3) So how about we focus on facts instead of strawmen?

It's unfortunate that you don't understand what strawmen are, or that you think perhaps that when someone disagrees with you that whatever they say must be a strawman because you're just too certain of your rightness to even consider the possibility of being wrong. This very thread alone contains people declaring how they feel it to be unfair if a cyborg were left vulnerable to phase weapons yet you insist that they don't exist.

You can argue that you don't like how they work, or that they don't work that way in your games, but the facts remain that, within the Megaversal setting, the rules are in accordance with the setting material, and make perfect sense in the context of how these things function in-game.
If you want to houserule that a midget in a compact suit of power armor and a cyborg of the same size and style as that suit are mechanically the same in your setting, fine, but that has never been canon in Palladium products.

No, the rule isn't in accordance with the setting material, it's only in accordance with the selective nerfing we see to remove aspects of things that should exist to provide protections that aren't needed. It's not contextually consistent and valid and exists only to protect players of cyborg characters from a GM deciding to just one-hit the character even though the fully fleshed characters don't get any such consideration and if the GM wants to one-hit them it's treated as 'okay' because 'well gee Rifts is a dangerous setting', but apparently cyborgs aren't supposed to have to worry about being cautious or the GM one-hitting them like so many others.

In any case just drop it. 'I'll just post one last time so everyone can see I'm right' isn't going to make you right, you certainly aren't going to convince me that wrong is right and get me to agree with you no matter what you toss out and this thread really should have been left dead instead of starting up the entire mess all over again. Agree to disagree and just move on.

[Armorlord]

Armorlord, I find your strawman completely unconvincing.

Nobody is claiming that phase weapons only affect organic materials. What we're claiming is that the way a machine is controlled by itself can't change the properties of the machine. If the properties of the machine are changed, then there must be some other mechanism involved that has changed them. In the absence of such a mechanism, the machine offers no protection to the brain inside a full conversion borg body.

And cry all you want about game balance, but this is not a game balance issue. Force field technology is abundant in the 3 galaxies, so any phase world borg could trivially incorporate a force field into its design to handle phase weaponry if only to protect the brain case. On Rifts Earth, that is not the case, but phase weaponry is not easily available in that setting, so the balance is preserved.

--flatline

What? I have said nothing about game balance, Nightmask invented some people complaining about balance causing a 'rule change', that I refuted.

I'll put it to you this way: Either your argument is that Phase Beams affect organic tissue, or you don't have an argument at all, because bionics wired directly to a living thing making them a part of that living thing has been a part of the system from the beginning. The very act of wiring a machine to a lifeform does that, that is the process and it always has been. You cannot argue that was put into effect in relation to Phase Beams written a decade later.
After that you would be arguing about a basic aspect of the system and setting, at which point you cannot be right, because, while you can complain about it, if you point at the system and say it is wrong and the system says.. anything, the system is right. Anything from there is you complaining and suggesting your own personal houserules, but you cannot be 'right'. Q.E.D.

Nightmask, it is well established in the Megaversal System that bionics do in fact interact directly with the "quasi-mystical" connection between body and lifeforce. Technically it isn't even just a Megaversal thing, as Rappanui notes, ever setting that has cybernetics and magic profess similar philosophies, so you can't even argue that you got set in your ways from another game or setting.

Yes I'm quite sure I can, because you're wrong. Not every game system has such a rule (games where psionics and magic don't even exist by definition can't have such a rule) and others (such as the Marvel Superhero RPG) don't treat bionics as special and immune to outside control or as providing any protection against effects that bypass protections like armor to directly harm living tissue.

Do you are saying that, since you don't believe Marvel has any interaction between lifeforms and bionics, that all other systems and settings are wrong? That is what you just took the time to argue about right there.

What it looks like to me is that you decided that Phase beams damage organic tissue and then hunkered down there, entrenched yourself, and refuse to move from your position, despite the fact that your personal decision is wrong and not supported by the materials at all, which instead state that it damages living things (any, including Machine People and TIs, MDC and SDC), solid energy fields, and magic. None of which need organic tissue to be involved. All of which are stated to have specific intrinsic energy fields (except for solid energy fields, which simply are energy fields, of course).

No, what it is is that I reject a game rule that violates common sense and logic and exists only to provide cyborgs an immunity that they don't rate and could have been provided with protection from the attack in question in game without such an obvious defective game patch. You can work backwards trying to justify something that can't logically be justified all you want but that won't make it right and standing firm on stance against such a rule doesn't make me 'entrenched' and unwilling to 'see the light' i.e. how 'right' you are because you aren't.

"Violates common sense and logic"? When dealing with magic, Potential Psychic Energy, Inner Strength, Bio-Energy, and cosmic Elder Race technology that no one in hundreds of thousands of years has been able to figure out? Are you seriously not just messing with me?
There is no patch, there was never a push to change it expect from your side, we are talking about something that has always been a part of the system. As I said to flateline above, you can't claim a basic part of the system was invented just to 'patch' something created years later. If Palladium had a time machine, their publishing schedule would probably be a lot tighter.

Bio-Energy Auras are an intrinsic property of all living beings, organic or not, SDC or MDC, magical, supernatural, or mundane. Elder Race technology has been shown to surpass anything that conventional technology is capable of, even the super-science of the Three Galaxies, even to the point of interacting with magical energies, which are in turn the very energies of life itself.

In short, it isn't a nonsensical rule, it is continuity and consistency in action, major elements in building a strong setting.

No, in short it's a nonsensical rule that you keep trying to justify with unsupportable arguments, because some robotic shell doesn't gain a life force because you plugged a brain into it. With that argument you'd have to accept people plugging brains into starships so entire ships became living things to protect against pirates using Phase weapons for one, yet we see that rejected as 'well that's too big' when there is no rule on how large a cyborg has to be so logically you'd have starship borgs flying around yet we don't (if we do we certainly don't have them doing so for that reason). If you reject those as 'too big' then you're saying 'well okay so I guess the brain alone has to be vulnerable then because it can't make the entire ship alive' so why can't it? Oh because you think maybe it's 'exploiting the game mechanic'. Isn't that the complaint against phase weapons being able to otherwise easily kill cyborgs without damaging them that causes the obvious unnecessary patch in the first place?

It isn't an unsupported argument. It is a part of the system. A robotic shell does in fact become tied to a creature's life force just from connecting it to its brain. So it is written, so it shall be. Seriously, it has always been the case.
Who said you can't have cybernetic starship? Have you seen the Mechanoids? And Archie's entire complex counts as part of his body. How about the secret Triax cyborg fightercraft?
There was never an 'exploiting the game mechanic' argument.

It is unfortunate that your inaccurate assumptions about a fictional device have caused you to lash out and make phantom bad guys about a few cyborg players complaining, but if a few people raising hell could actually cause a major system change.. don't you think you would caused one yourself by now?
Seriously. I see this same strawman set-up by people claiming that a 'nonsensical'/'bad'/'stupid' "change" was made because people complained about it, but.. it never happened. You and others complain often enough that PB doesn't listen to you or make changes based on your complaints, then turn around and claim every clarification is due to some phantom group complaining and getting it changed. Just because a political party can run on cognitive dissonance, doesn't mean you can actually build an argument platform out of it.
1) The outcry you suggest never happened, as far I have ever seen.
2) Even had it happened, it seems a decided corps of complainers would not have actually have effected the game.
3) So how about we focus on facts instead of strawmen?

It's unfortunate that you don't understand what strawmen are, or that you think perhaps that when someone disagrees with you that whatever they say must be a strawman because you're just too certain of your rightness to even consider the possibility of being wrong. This very thread alone contains people declaring how they feel it to be unfair if a cyborg were left vulnerable to phase weapons yet you insist that they don't exist.

A strawman is when you invent a fictitious punching bag, point at it and say 'Oh it is all these people's fault'. Which is what you did. You claimed people rose up and complained and caused a rule change, but that didn't happen- and even if you want to insist that it did happen, when have you ever seen such an effort actually cause a change in the system? I'm saying stop pointing and trying to claim it was done 'because of them', because it wasn't.

You can argue that you don't like how they work, or that they don't work that way in your games, but the facts remain that, within the Megaversal setting, the rules are in accordance with the setting material, and make perfect sense in the context of how these things function in-game.
If you want to houserule that a midget in a compact suit of power armor and a cyborg of the same size and style as that suit are mechanically the same in your setting, fine, but that has never been canon in Palladium products.

No, the rule isn't in accordance with the setting material, it's only in accordance with the selective nerfing we see to remove aspects of things that should exist to provide protections that aren't needed. It's not contextually consistent and valid and exists only to protect players of cyborg characters from a GM deciding to just one-hit the character even though the fully fleshed characters don't get any such consideration and if the GM wants to one-hit them it's treated as 'okay' because 'well gee Rifts is a dangerous setting', but apparently cyborgs aren't supposed to have to worry about being cautious or the GM one-hitting them like so many others.

Again I will note that this was not a new thing, this has always been the case. Cyborgs did not rise up and demand protection. It is contextually consistent and has been in place long before Phase World came along.

In any case just drop it. 'I'll just post one last time so everyone can see I'm right' isn't going to make you right, you certainly aren't going to convince me that wrong is right and get me to agree with you no matter what you toss out and this thread really should have been left dead instead of starting up the entire mess all over again. Agree to disagree and just move on.

Generally, I live by agreeing to disagree whenever possible. You only se me get tied up in arguments like that when pointing out things that are factually wrong.
I'm not here arguing that the opinion of whether such protection is right or wrong or whatever.
I'm mainly here pointing out that such protections have always been in place and are written into the lore of the settings, it was not just slapped on for protection from Phase Beams.

It has been installed at the base level to protect against similar situations from magic, psionics, internal explosions, arguments that MDC creatures/beings sould have SDC bits somewhere to harm with SDC effects, and otherwise never worrying about SDC/HP on MDC beings and characters. Whether they thought of the lore first then the mechanics, vice versa, or all at once is unknown to us, but it goes back to the beginning of the game and is written deeply into how things work in the Megaverse.

My group never had an issue with Phase Beams, because to handle them otherwise would have gone against the long standing precedents of the system and setting.

[flatline]

Armorlord, I find your strawman completely unconvincing.

Nobody is claiming that phase weapons only affect organic materials. What we're claiming is that the way a machine is controlled by itself can't change the properties of the machine. If the properties of the machine are changed, then there must be some other mechanism involved that has changed them. In the absence of such a mechanism, the machine offers no protection to the brain inside a full conversion borg body.

And cry all you want about game balance, but this is not a game balance issue. Force field technology is abundant in the 3 galaxies, so any phase world borg could trivially incorporate a force field into its design to handle phase weaponry if only to protect the brain case. On Rifts Earth, that is not the case, but phase weaponry is not easily available in that setting, so the balance is preserved.

--flatline

What? I have said nothing about game balance, Nightmask invented some people complaining about balance causing a 'rule change', that I refuted.

Excellent, then we agree that Game Balance is not an issue. I apologize for even bringing it up.

I'll put it to you this way: Either your argument is that Phase Beams affect organic tissue, or you don't have an argument at all,

How small minded of you to think that unless I make the argument you want me to make I can't make an argument at all. You're creating a strawman and telling me that it's the argument I need to make.

No. I don't think so. I am perfectly capable of making my own arguments.

because bionics wired directly to a living thing making them a part of that living thing has been a part of the system from the beginning. The very act of wiring a machine to a lifeform does that, that is the process and it always has been.

But by that reasoning, hooking a space ship to a mouse brain makes the whole space ship a "living thing" which makes phase weapons unable to pass through. Therefore, I reject that reasoning as flawed.

You cannot argue that was put into effect in relation to Phase Beams written a decade later.

I am not making that argument.

After that you would be arguing about a basic aspect of the system and setting, at which point you cannot be right, because, while you can complain about it, if you point at the system and say it is wrong and the system says.. anything, the system is right. Anything from there is you complaining and suggesting your own personal houserules, but you cannot be 'right'. Q.E.D.

My concern is in making an internally consistent setting. It has never been to be in accordance to The System. If the system contains a rule that can't work within the setting, then the rule has to go.

--flatline

[Armorlord]

But by that reasoning, hooking a space ship to a mouse brain makes the whole space ship a "living thing" which makes phase weapons unable to pass through. Therefore, I reject that reasoning as flawed.

And yet, if you did construct a spacecraft such that a mouse brain could control it as if it were its own body, that would be correct. Though there are issues with how well the mind of a mouse can reasonably control a complex spacecraft, or why you would want to entrust an expensive spacecraft to the complete control of a mouse.
Outside of the Central Alliance, you aren't going to see that put into practice much. Even on giant robot vehicle scale it takes some work to set up for cybernetic control, even unusual subjects like Machine People need a special setup to be used as a ship-mind. And as the example from Phase World demonstrates, having someone made into a ship-mind against their will can result in your terrible vacuum-related death, not to mention making owning or controlling the expensive and powerful piece of hardware a difficult proposition unless you stay on good terms with it.

As for the rest, you interjected yourself into a response to someone else, if you wanted to interject with an argument completely separate from the two views that were present, you probably should mention it. Otherwise, it is not an out of line assumption that you are a party to the viewpoints being argued rather than separate. My apologies for thinking you were making arguments that you were not.

My concern is in making an internally consistent setting. It has never been to be in accordance to The System. If the system contains a rule that can't work within the setting, then the rule has to go.

On this, we can agree. Even if it seems that we might disagree as to what is a part of the setting.

[flatline]

As for the rest, you interjected yourself into a response to someone else, if you wanted to interject with an argument completely separate from the two views that were present, you probably should mention it. Otherwise, it is not an out of line assumption that you are a party to the viewpoints being argued rather than separate. My apologies for thinking you were making arguments that you were not.

Hmm...I thought that Nightmask and I were largely in agreement which is why I felt safe in responding as I did. If I am mistaken, I apologize.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

As for the rest, you interjected yourself into a response to someone else, if you wanted to interject with an argument completely separate from the two views that were present, you probably should mention it. Otherwise, it is not an out of line assumption that you are a party to the viewpoints being argued rather than separate. My apologies for thinking you were making arguments that you were not.

Hmm...I thought that Nightmask and I were largely in agreement which is why I felt safe in responding as I did. If I am mistaken, I apologize.

--flatline

Why no you're quite right as we are pretty much in agreement.

[Nightmask]

Armorlord, I find your strawman completely unconvincing.

Nobody is claiming that phase weapons only affect organic materials. What we're claiming is that the way a machine is controlled by itself can't change the properties of the machine. If the properties of the machine are changed, then there must be some other mechanism involved that has changed them. In the absence of such a mechanism, the machine offers no protection to the brain inside a full conversion borg body.

And cry all you want about game balance, but this is not a game balance issue. Force field technology is abundant in the 3 galaxies, so any phase world borg could trivially incorporate a force field into its design to handle phase weaponry if only to protect the brain case. On Rifts Earth, that is not the case, but phase weaponry is not easily available in that setting, so the balance is preserved.

--flatline

What? I have said nothing about game balance, Nightmask invented some people complaining about balance causing a 'rule change', that I refuted.

No, I said 'people complained that cyborgs shouldn't be easy kills like any other person to phase weapons and made it out to be a game balance issue', which you can't refute because it's true. People in this very thread I note once again have even made that argument so you can't refute what has actually been said by people.

I'll put it to you this way: Either your argument is that Phase Beams affect organic tissue, or you don't have an argument at all, because bionics wired directly to a living thing making them a part of that living thing has been a part of the system from the beginning. The very act of wiring a machine to a lifeform does that, that is the process and it always has been. You cannot argue that was put into effect in relation to Phase Beams written a decade later.
After that you would be arguing about a basic aspect of the system and setting, at which point you cannot be right, because, while you can complain about it, if you point at the system and say it is wrong and the system says.. anything, the system is right. Anything from there is you complaining and suggesting your own personal houserules, but you cannot be 'right'. Q.E.D.

Making an 'either/or' fallacy argument there, and one that's pretty nonsensical to be making since it doesn't even apply to the context involved. Since bionics aren't living tissue then phase beams don't affect them, and wiring them to a human brain won't make them alive. So I'm certainly right in rejecting the rule treating bionics as alive when they aren't, the only actual living bionics around are what you see in cases like the Anti-Monster techno-wizard cyborg where it explicitly states that they undergo a ritual that makes the entire package alive which wouldn't be necessary if it were so from the start.

Do you are saying that, since you don't believe Marvel has any interaction between lifeforms and bionics, that all other systems and settings are wrong? That is what you just took the time to argue about right there.

I imagine you'd get a lot of penalties in a debate match with efforts at rebuttal like that. Particularly with all the fallacies you toss out in there. First you try and claim (erroneously) that all game systems hold that there's some mystical link between organics and bionics which is patently untrue then go with the 'x number of game systems have this so all others that don't are wrong' fallacy because ten people agreeing a wrong thing is right does not make the one right person wrong. What it makes is a lot of wrong people. The Earth doesn't become flat because everyone believes it to be so when it's spherical.

No, what it is is that I reject a game rule that violates common sense and logic and exists only to provide cyborgs an immunity that they don't rate and could have been provided with protection from the attack in question in game without such an obvious defective game patch. You can work backwards trying to justify something that can't logically be justified all you want but that won't make it right and standing firm on stance against such a rule doesn't make me 'entrenched' and unwilling to 'see the light' i.e. how 'right' you are because you aren't.

"Violates common sense and logic"? When dealing with magic, Potential Psychic Energy, Inner Strength, Bio-Energy, and cosmic Elder Race technology that no one in hundreds of thousands of years has been able to figure out? Are you seriously not just messing with me?
There is no patch, there was never a push to change it expect from your side, we are talking about something that has always been a part of the system. As I said to flateline above, you can't claim a basic part of the system was invented just to 'patch' something created years later. If Palladium had a time machine, their publishing schedule would probably be a lot tighter.

Of course there's a patch, it's never been part of the system until they tossed out a rule that said cyborgs were living MDC things as far as phase weapons are concerned and all your efforts to pontificate aside it will never change that fact.

It isn't an unsupported argument. It is a part of the system. A robotic shell does in fact become tied to a creature's life force just from connecting it to its brain. So it is written, so it shall be. Seriously, it has always been the case.
Who said you can't have cybernetic starship? Have you seen the Mechanoids? And Archie's entire complex counts as part of his body. How about the secret Triax cyborg fightercraft?
There was never an 'exploiting the game mechanic' argument.

God complex much? 'so it is written, so it shall be.' Seriously? The Mechanoids are creatures who were built as integrated cybernetic beings from the DNA up, you can't even remotely hope to use them as an example when they're a specialized case and an exception not a rule. I don't even know why you're bringing up ARCHIE as I haven't seen anyone saying his factory was alive because he's hooked to it (other than you apparently) which you'd think SOMEONE with psionics that detect living things would have noticed something larger than a city block since you're arguing the factory is alive due to being hooked to ARCHIE which would mean it would show up to anyone in the area because it's such a huge, living thing.

It is unfortunate that your inaccurate assumptions about a fictional device have caused you to lash out and make phantom bad guys about a few cyborg players complaining, but if a few people raising hell could actually cause a major system change.. don't you think you would caused one yourself by now?
Seriously. I see this same strawman set-up by people claiming that a 'nonsensical'/'bad'/'stupid' "change" was made because people complained about it, but.. it never happened. You and others complain often enough that PB doesn't listen to you or make changes based on your complaints, then turn around and claim every clarification is due to some phantom group complaining and getting it changed. Just because a political party can run on cognitive dissonance, doesn't mean you can actually build an argument platform out of it.
1) The outcry you suggest never happened, as far I have ever seen.
2) Even had it happened, it seems a decided corps of complainers would not have actually have effected the game.
3) So how about we focus on facts instead of strawmen?

It's unfortunate that you don't understand what strawmen are, or that you think perhaps that when someone disagrees with you that whatever they say must be a strawman because you're just too certain of your rightness to even consider the possibility of being wrong. This very thread alone contains people declaring how they feel it to be unfair if a cyborg were left vulnerable to phase weapons yet you insist that they don't exist.

A strawman is when you invent a fictitious punching bag, point at it and say 'Oh it is all these people's fault'. Which is what you did. You claimed people rose up and complained and caused a rule change, but that didn't happen- and even if you want to insist that it did happen, when have you ever seen such an effort actually cause a change in the system? I'm saying stop pointing and trying to claim it was done 'because of them', because it wasn't.

You really don't pay attention much to what people post around here do you? Along with the fallacies you've got here you're tossing out that you don't believe that any customer complaints to Palladium have ever been listened to or brought about a change in the rules which is very much wrong.

No, the rule isn't in accordance with the setting material, it's only in accordance with the selective nerfing we see to remove aspects of things that should exist to provide protections that aren't needed. It's not contextually consistent and valid and exists only to protect players of cyborg characters from a GM deciding to just one-hit the character even though the fully fleshed characters don't get any such consideration and if the GM wants to one-hit them it's treated as 'okay' because 'well gee Rifts is a dangerous setting', but apparently cyborgs aren't supposed to have to worry about being cautious or the GM one-hitting them like so many others.

Again I will note that this was not a new thing, this has always been the case. Cyborgs did not rise up and demand protection. It is contextually consistent and has been in place long before Phase World came along.

Again no that simply isn't the case and it's certainly not contextually consistent and people even in this thread have argued that it was 'unfair' that cyborgs be easy kills to phase weapons like everyone else and since a rule was made to say that cyborgs qualified as MDC beings then obviously that wasn't the rule before since the brain in the cyborg was shown to have Hit Points which it wouldn't have if it were as you claim always living MDC. So you're wrong, they weren't in the past and the rule is an obvious patch made because some felt it unfair that their cyborg could be easily killed with phase weapons like the power armor pilots and Kevin is well known for nerfing what he can the options to one-shot or easy-shot kill targets.

In any case just drop it. 'I'll just post one last time so everyone can see I'm right' isn't going to make you right, you certainly aren't going to convince me that wrong is right and get me to agree with you no matter what you toss out and this thread really should have been left dead instead of starting up the entire mess all over again. Agree to disagree and just move on.

Generally, I live by agreeing to disagree whenever possible. You only se me get tied up in arguments like that when pointing out things that are factually wrong.
I'm not here arguing that the opinion of whether such protection is right or wrong or whatever.
I'm mainly here pointing out that such protections have always been in place and are written into the lore of the settings, it was not just slapped on for protection from Phase Beams.

Except you're the one who's factually wrong, it was an obvious patch that was added on to nerf the phase beamer weapons by giving cyborgs special powers.

It has been installed at the base level to protect against similar situations from magic, psionics, internal explosions, arguments that MDC creatures/beings sould have SDC bits somewhere to harm with SDC effects, and otherwise never worrying about SDC/HP on MDC beings and characters. Whether they thought of the lore first then the mechanics, vice versa, or all at once is unknown to us, but it goes back to the beginning of the game and is written deeply into how things work in the Megaverse.

My group never had an issue with Phase Beams, because to handle them otherwise would have gone against the long standing precedents of the system and setting.

Cyborgs did have SDC/HP bits prior to that ruling, and why they provide some protection against things like magic is directly contrary to the argument that 'cyborgs are alive!', it's because machines are dead, lifeless, non-magical things which is why they both hinder or negate magical potential (once total conversion level) and provide some protection because of the reasoning given that the interference also shields.

[Nightmask]

Cyborgs having Sdc / hp? only in heroes unlimited, and the original Mechanoids. and headhunters were not borgs prior to RUE.
however, that's cause in RUE, headhunters are partial borgs now, the classic style still available with Canada sourcebook.

It was previous stated that the brain of a full conversion cyborg had a PE and HP of 24 for purposes of determining effects that dealt with such, it was only much later that the 'no really there is no organic part and it's all just one big living machine' came about.

[Damian Magecraft]

Cyborgs having Sdc / hp? only in heroes unlimited, and the original Mechanoids. and headhunters were not borgs prior to RUE.
however, that's cause in RUE, headhunters are partial borgs now, the classic style still available with Canada sourcebook.

It was previous stated that the brain of a full conversion cyborg had a PE and HP of 24 for purposes of determining effects that dealt with such, it was only much later that the 'no really there is no organic part and it's all just one big living machine' came about.

Cite your source.
Book and page #.

[Anthar]

That this is still going on in the face that there is an offical rule about it and the continuity persists since practially the beginning of Palladium Books is truely astounding. Obsessive much?

[Armorlord]

Nightmask, I have posted no fallacies. I have only stated facts.
Bionics have always been a part of the living thing they are a part of, and has alwayd been the reason that bionics could never be targeted by magic or psionics separately, and being made into a MDC being has always been why SDC/HP and flesh targeting abilities have never worked on cyborgs.
That argument can literally go nowhere, this is a basic fact of the setting.

If you want to suggest that Phase Beams affect organic tissue instead of living beings, that is at least something we could discuss. I would disagree and point to everything that refutes that again, of course, but at least there is room for discussion there, rather than explicitly stated fact.

[Nightmask]

Nightmask, I have posted no fallacies. I have only stated facts.
Bionics have always been a part of the living thing they are a part of, and has alwayd been the reason that bionics could never be targeted by magic or psionics separately, and being made into a MDC being has always been why SDC/HP and flesh targeting abilities have never worked on cyborgs.
That argument can literally go nowhere, this is a basic fact of the setting.

If you want to suggest that Phase Beams affect organic tissue instead of living beings, that is at least something we could discuss. I would disagree and point to everything that refutes that again, of course, but at least there is room for discussion there, rather than explicitly stated fact.

No Armorlord you haven't posted facts, you've posted your opinion. Your opinion does not constitute a fact, nor can you refute my points because you don't have facts to refute my points only your opinion. A robotic shell is not a living thing, it will not become a living thing because you wired a brain into it, it's still a dead shell that requires a lot more to make it alive such as we see with the techno-wizard Anti-Monsters. No matter how often you say 'No I refuted that!' will that rise to the level of being true.

[Armorlord]

Nightmask, I have posted no fallacies. I have only stated facts.
Bionics have always been a part of the living thing they are a part of, and has alwayd been the reason that bionics could never be targeted by magic or psionics separately, and being made into a MDC being has always been why SDC/HP and flesh targeting abilities have never worked on cyborgs.
That argument can literally go nowhere, this is a basic fact of the setting.

If you want to suggest that Phase Beams affect organic tissue instead of living beings, that is at least something we could discuss. I would disagree and point to everything that refutes that again, of course, but at least there is room for discussion there, rather than explicitly stated fact.

No Armorlord you haven't posted facts, you've posted your opinion. Your opinion does not constitute a fact, nor can you refute my points because you don't have facts to refute my points only your opinion. A robotic shell is not a living thing, it will not become a living thing because you wired a brain into it, it's still a dead shell that requires a lot more to make it alive such as we see with the techno-wizard Anti-Monsters. No matter how often you say 'No I refuted that!' will that rise to the level of being true.

Except for, you know, the rules and the setting disagreeing with you. Also, neither they nor myself said anything about it becoming alive, they say that it is a part of a living being metaphysically when directly connected, and are one singular being for the purposes of all spells, powers, and abilities- the meat and machine are one being.

[Nightmask]

Nightmask, I have posted no fallacies. I have only stated facts.
Bionics have always been a part of the living thing they are a part of, and has alwayd been the reason that bionics could never be targeted by magic or psionics separately, and being made into a MDC being has always been why SDC/HP and flesh targeting abilities have never worked on cyborgs.
That argument can literally go nowhere, this is a basic fact of the setting.

If you want to suggest that Phase Beams affect organic tissue instead of living beings, that is at least something we could discuss. I would disagree and point to everything that refutes that again, of course, but at least there is room for discussion there, rather than explicitly stated fact.

No Armorlord you haven't posted facts, you've posted your opinion. Your opinion does not constitute a fact, nor can you refute my points because you don't have facts to refute my points only your opinion. A robotic shell is not a living thing, it will not become a living thing because you wired a brain into it, it's still a dead shell that requires a lot more to make it alive such as we see with the techno-wizard Anti-Monsters. No matter how often you say 'No I refuted that!' will that rise to the level of being true.

Except for, you know, the rules and the setting disagreeing with you. Also, neither they nor myself said anything about it becoming alive, they say that it is a part of a living being metaphysically when directly connected, and are one singular being for the purposes of all spells, powers, and abilities- the meat and machine are one being.

Except you know, they don't disagree with me and you know since phase weapons only harm living things then to insist that phase weapons harm the machine parts of a cyborg then yes you are saying that they become alive. There isn't any other interpretation available.

[Armorlord]

Except you know, they don't disagree with me and you know since phase weapons only harm living things then to insist that phase weapons harm the machine parts of a cyborg then yes you are saying that they become alive. There isn't any other interpretation available.

Phase weapons harm living beings, not living tissue. Be it rock, crystal, metal, flesh, magic, or even diffuse space gas.

[Nightmask]

Except you know, they don't disagree with me and you know since phase weapons only harm living things then to insist that phase weapons harm the machine parts of a cyborg then yes you are saying that they become alive. There isn't any other interpretation available.

Phase weapons harm living beings, not living tissue. Be it rock, crystal, metal, flesh, magic, or even diffuse space gas.

Right, and you're saying a robot shell becomes a living being because you jacked some living tissue into it which is absurd. You need a lot more than that to make something alive, like the magical ritual Anti-Monsters undergo that explicitly makes their cyborg shells alive.

[Nightmask]

Except you know, they don't disagree with me and you know since phase weapons only harm living things then to insist that phase weapons harm the machine parts of a cyborg then yes you are saying that they become alive. There isn't any other interpretation available.

Phase weapons harm living beings, not living tissue. Be it rock, crystal, metal, flesh, magic, or even diffuse space gas.

Right, and you're saying a robot shell becomes a living being because you jacked some living tissue into it which is absurd. You need a lot more than that to make something alive, like the magical ritual Anti-Monsters undergo that explicitly makes their cyborg shells alive.

I think you've brought up the perfect example. The Anti-Monster is the only borg who is immune because it is a magical construct. Oh man that would be the perfect weapon for them too, they could never hurt themselves!

Actually Anti-Monsters are the only ones that do fit the definition of alive for the cyborg shell due to the ritual that's included in their creation. Regular cyborgs on the other hand don't and logically shouldn't, it's an absurdity to think that nothing more than hooking a bunch of sensors up to some nerve endings from a brain would make a machine suddenly alive. There is no way that somehow extends life to an unliving machine, particularly when hooking up even a few machines to a body are explicitly noted to suppress things like ISP and PPE as well as magical and psionic ability which are aspects of life. It's illogical for someone to insist that something that interferes with these things somehow gets considered to be alive when a specialized weapon comes along that only affects living things.

[Armorlord]

Except you know, they don't disagree with me and you know since phase weapons only harm living things then to insist that phase weapons harm the machine parts of a cyborg then yes you are saying that they become alive. There isn't any other interpretation available.

Phase weapons harm living beings, not living tissue. Be it rock, crystal, metal, flesh, magic, or even diffuse space gas.

Right, and you're saying a robot shell becomes a living being because you jacked some living tissue into it which is absurd. You need a lot more than that to make something alive, like the magical ritual Anti-Monsters undergo that explicitly makes their cyborg shells alive.

No, I'm telling you that a cybernetic body is part of the living being, it is not alive in any organic sense. If you want to bring robotic shells into this, the same applies to TI robots as well.
You are confusing two different concepts, so maybe the robotic example will help: A Transferred Intelligence character is a living being, in the sense that we are talking about, with absolutely no living parts, in the sense that you seem to be referring to.

Grab two identical robotic shells, install a Neural Intelligence into one, and instill a Transferred Intelligence into the other. Run a metallurgy test: exactly the same. Look at them with See Aura: one has none, the other is alive. Stand the TI behind the NI, shoot a Phase Beam at them: NI is unharmed, TI is wounded.
For bonus points, grab a fresh dead body and shoot through it without harming it a few times.
This is how these things function under the rules. If you want to know how the heck that works, it is officially a mystery as to the function of this elder technology, and is theorized to have more to do with the Promethean's super abilities than anything else, unable to be unraveled even with thousands of years of trying while it has been on the market.

Personal theorization based on the evidence:

Spoiler:

Looking at the things it can hurt, there is only one common factor: having an aura. Cyborgs, Machine People, Ecto-People, Astral beings, true undead, humans, supernatural beings made of pure evil and magic, creatures of magic, bunnies, SDC, MDC, etc. The only way you could be universally shooting all things that live while ignoring the rest would be by interacting with the one thing all living beings share, and having a damaging reaction with it.
If you want to know how that works, you've gone too far down the rabbit hole, because Phase tech is the perfect intersection between the three biggest middle fingers to physics in the Megaverse: Cosmic Elder Race Technology, Magic, and Superpowers. Technology built by an elder race using a combination of unique superpowers/magic and super-science.

[Nightmask]

Neural intelligence, as in the AI robot option.
artificial brain that can learn.
... Armorlord has this wrapped up....

He doesn't have anything wrapped up, you can't compare the Neural Intelligence to the Transferred Intelligence, particularly since ARCHIE-3's existence makes the case that they can become alive. The TI is also explicitly placing a living essence into a specialized container to link it to robotic shell, not much different in that regard than an Earth Warlock transferring his essence into a robotic shell. A brain in a box with sensors communicating through some nerve endings to the robotic shell simply isn't in the same category.

[Nightmask]

What I was going for is that between transferred intelligence robots and borgs we're getting a clearer picture of who gets hurt, at least to me.
A.I, Warlock Transfer, M.O.M Transfer, and V.R controlling would not be harmed, as it is only Mental Essence controlling an object, often artificial, and there is no biological thing to hurt (unless the Warlock is in a biological object). Borgs, Brain Transplant Robots, and Mechanoids(excellent Mechanoid defense weapon) are living tissue inside the shell which can be injured, like anyone in armor. Borg exceptions would probably include Anti-Monsters, who are not only magical constructs but are a "magical flesh and metal creature", and any borg with living tissue on the outside, for instance Wolfen Quatoria, and any Terminator T-100s ("I'm a Cybanetic' Oarganism, livin tishoo ova meta endaskeleton!") I wonder if Phase Beamers hurt magical metals, like a Magical Armor, Magic Power Armor, or Dweomer Automatons.

I think there's a bit of a miscommunication here as phase beamers affected things that are alive, not just things that are organic that happen to be alive. The Warlock Transfer would be hurt, same as an earth elemental would be. They don't hurt anything else and just pass right through things that aren't alive whether it be mundane metal, magical metal, or the like. The disagreement is over the insistence that mundane non-living cyborg shells were retconned to be alive with regards to phase beamers simply to have it that cyborgs were safe from one-shot kills from an obscure weapon rather than using means more in keeping with the weapons (i.e. built-in force fields to protect the organics as force fields stop phase weapons).

[Vrykolas2k]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

[Damian Magecraft]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

What is RAW?

Rules As Written

[flatline]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

What is RAW?

Rules As Written.

And the answer to your next question is "no, nobody actually plays the rules as written, even if they think they do". And this isn't their fault. The rules as written are incomplete, inconsistent and quite literally can't be played as described without house rules to cover the gaps and resolve contradictions.

The degree of house rules required varies from GM to GM, but it's impossible to play without at least some.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

RAW doesn't say the BRAIN also becomes MDC, and when the book came out weapons that could bypass the cyborg shell didn't exist. So while the MACHINE is MDC the BRAIN inside is not, or are you going to argue that because power armor is MDC then the person inside is as well because they're effectively an MDC being at that point?

[Vrykolas2k]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

RAW doesn't say the BRAIN also becomes MDC, and when the book came out weapons that could bypass the cyborg shell didn't exist. So while the MACHINE is MDC the BRAIN inside is not, or are you going to argue that because power armor is MDC then the person inside is as well because they're effectively an MDC being at that point?

It's nice that the books written since Phase World came out that state that a 'borg is now an MDC being don't exist, such as Rifts Ultimate Edition...

[flatline]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

RAW doesn't say the BRAIN also becomes MDC, and when the book came out weapons that could bypass the cyborg shell didn't exist. So while the MACHINE is MDC the BRAIN inside is not, or are you going to argue that because power armor is MDC then the person inside is as well because they're effectively an MDC being at that point?

It's nice that the books written since Phase World came out that state that a 'borg is now an MDC being don't exist, such as Rifts Ultimate Edition...

Some of us are quite comfortable ignoring canon statements or rules that defy reason and explanation.

--flatline

[Nightmask]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

RAW doesn't say the BRAIN also becomes MDC, and when the book came out weapons that could bypass the cyborg shell didn't exist. So while the MACHINE is MDC the BRAIN inside is not, or are you going to argue that because power armor is MDC then the person inside is as well because they're effectively an MDC being at that point?

It's nice that the books written since Phase World came out that state that a 'borg is now an MDC being don't exist, such as Rifts Ultimate Edition...

Strange, seems like you said you played by RAW and not by RUE, so which is it? Since someone who says 'I play by RAW' really can't go and say 'oh but these later rules in the new revision are what I really play by' and still actually manage to get away with saying 'I play by RAW' because you aren't.

Of which either way you admit they added a rule to render the brain invulnerable to PHASE weapons, one that illogically calls a robotic chassis alive because a brain is wired into it.

[cornholioprime]

To anyone and everyone who has said it:

I don't think that Kevin said or implied, at any time, that Cyborgs are actually turned into either through-and-through MDC beings, OR that the whole creature is turned into a living being via a few cybernetic connections.

I think that he simply made an on the spot, out-of-game decree -which I suspect he knows full well doesn't even comport with the internal game logic of the fictional setting -just to protect the 'Borgs from a "silver bullet kill" from Phase Weapons.

That doesn't make Kevin's ruling any less non-sensical, but it does make it official.

[Nightmask]

To anyone and everyone who has said it:

I don't think that Kevin said or implied, at any time, that Cyborgs are actually turned into either through-and-through MDC beings, OR that the whole creature is turned into a living being via a few cybernetic connections.

I think that he simply made an on the spot, out-of-game decree -which I suspect he knows full well doesn't even comport with the internal game logic of the fictional setting -just to protect the 'Borgs from a "silver bullet kill" from Phase Weapons.

That doesn't make Kevin's ruling any less non-sensical, but it does make it official.

If phase weapons deal their damage to the borg's machine components instead of the only actual living part of it then yes he is in fact implying that the entire machine is now a living being because Phase weapons only harm living beings.

As far as 'official' goes, no one is required to use any rules or game adjustments that they choose not to, certainly not rules that exist only to nerf things and violate the general rules of the setting when there was NEVER any need for such a rule.

[cornholioprime]

To anyone and everyone who has said it:

I don't think that Kevin said or implied, at any time, that Cyborgs are actually turned into either through-and-through MDC beings, OR that the whole creature is turned into a living being via a few cybernetic connections.

I think that he simply made an on the spot, out-of-game decree -which I suspect he knows full well doesn't even comport with the internal game logic of the fictional setting -just to protect the 'Borgs from a "silver bullet kill" from Phase Weapons.

That doesn't make Kevin's ruling any less non-sensical, but it does make it official.

If phase weapons deal their damage to the borg's machine components instead of the only actual living part of it then yes he is in fact implying that the entire machine is now a living being because Phase weapons only harm living beings.

He isn't necessarily "implying" anything if in fact he hasn't said it.

Just because many of us know how Nuclear Batteries work in real life, that doesn't necessarily mean that Kevin is "implying" that that is how the batteries in his fictional setting work. They just "work."

Sometimes, he just says things like "Me Grimlock say that Planet-sized Counter-Orbital Debris Field works," and he doesn't necessarily have to "back that up" with a logical (or even pseudo-scientific) explanation, it just works that way in order for the author to have things work a certain way.

Likewise the "inexplicable invulnerability" of Palladium Cyborgs to Phase Weapons.

SOMETIMES, by the very nature and self-definition of a fictional setting, even the internal pseudo-physics of the setting doesn't adequately explain a plot device that the Author has put into place in order to make things work a certain way.

Kevin wants an Orbital Debris field in order to keep most people earthbound in the Rifts setting, therefore it just "works," even though it really doesn't. No detailed explanation is given, because no explanation is really possible.

Kevin wants an 'eternal bad guy' in the Coalition that is strangely able to refuse the use of magic yet still remain the unscathed, most powerful force on the continent by far despite its incredible vulnerability to the supernatural, therefore the Coalition just "works" as written. No explanation can really be given, because no explanation is really possible.

And Kevin wants his cyborgs to be immune from what would be insta-kill attacks from Phase Weaponry, given the incredibly and comparatively miniscule amounts of Hit Points that the remaining biological bits have, therefore the cyborg as a whole is (mostly) immune to the attack, even though, as other people point out, other equivalent situations are not afforded the same immunity.

No explanation can really be given, because no explanation is really possible.
It's a mini plot device.

[Nightmask]

To anyone and everyone who has said it:

I don't think that Kevin said or implied, at any time, that Cyborgs are actually turned into either through-and-through MDC beings, OR that the whole creature is turned into a living being via a few cybernetic connections.

I think that he simply made an on the spot, out-of-game decree -which I suspect he knows full well doesn't even comport with the internal game logic of the fictional setting -just to protect the 'Borgs from a "silver bullet kill" from Phase Weapons.

That doesn't make Kevin's ruling any less non-sensical, but it does make it official.

If phase weapons deal their damage to the borg's machine components instead of the only actual living part of it then yes he is in fact implying that the entire machine is now a living being because Phase weapons only harm living beings.

He isn't necessarily "implying" anything if in fact he hasn't said it.

Just because many of us know how Nuclear Batteries work in real life, that doesn't necessarily mean that Kevin is "implying" that that is how the batteries in his fictional setting work. They just "work."

Sometimes, he just says things like "Me Grimlock say that Planet-sized Counter-Orbital Debris Field works," and he doesn't necessarily have to "back that up" with a logical (or even pseudo-scientific) explanation, it just works that way in order for the author to have things work a certain way.

Likewise the "inexplicable invulnerability" of Palladium Cyborgs to Phase Weapons.

SOMETIMES, by the very nature and self-definition of a fictional setting, even the internal pseudo-physics of the setting doesn't adequately explain a plot device that the Author has put into place in order to make things work a certain way.

Kevin wants an Orbital Debris field in order to keep most people earthbound in the Rifts setting, therefore it just "works," even though it really doesn't. No detailed explanation is given, because no explanation is really possible.

Kevin wants an 'eternal bad guy' in the Coalition that is strangely able to refuse the use of magic yet still remain the unscathed, most powerful force on the continent by far despite its incredible vulnerability to the supernatural, therefore the Coalition just "works" as written. No explanation can really be given, because no explanation is really possible.

And Kevin wants his cyborgs to be immune from what would be insta-kill attacks from Phase Weaponry, given the incredibly and comparatively miniscule amounts of Hit Points that the remaining biological bits have, therefore the cyborg as a whole is (mostly) immune to the attack, even though, as other people point out, other equivalent situations are not afforded the same immunity.

No explanation can really be given, because no explanation is really possible.
It's a mini plot device.

Do look up the definition of 'imply', because yes he does imply the machine becomes alive once that brain is hooked up to it.

In regards to the rest of that wall of text, totally irrelevant and pointless. The topic has nothing to do with what Kevin wants (nor your opinion as to what he wants or why he did something either), it's about phase weapons and the illogical declaration that machines become alive when you hook them up to a brain, when if there was a concern about a rare weapon like Phase beamers killing cyborgs easily there was already a mechanism available to cover that which didn't require an illogical declaration that machines become alive when you hook a brain to them. Namely that even weak force fields block phase weapons and all you needed was a brain force field option for cyborgs to provide them protection equal to regular people in power armor. Particularly since the people in power armor are expected to suck it up and die quickly or spend the money on a force field, no magical gift of immunity in power armor like the brain in a jar gets in a robot shell.

[cornholioprime]

To anyone and everyone who has said it:

I don't think that Kevin said or implied, at any time, that Cyborgs are actually turned into either through-and-through MDC beings, OR that the whole creature is turned into a living being via a few cybernetic connections.

I think that he simply made an on the spot, out-of-game decree -which I suspect he knows full well doesn't even comport with the internal game logic of the fictional setting -just to protect the 'Borgs from a "silver bullet kill" from Phase Weapons.

That doesn't make Kevin's ruling any less non-sensical, but it does make it official.

If phase weapons deal their damage to the borg's machine components instead of the only actual living part of it then yes he is in fact implying that the entire machine is now a living being because Phase weapons only harm living beings.

He isn't necessarily "implying" anything if in fact he hasn't said it.

Just because many of us know how Nuclear Batteries work in real life, that doesn't necessarily mean that Kevin is "implying" that that is how the batteries in his fictional setting work. They just "work."

Sometimes, he just says things like "Me Grimlock say that Planet-sized Counter-Orbital Debris Field works," and he doesn't necessarily have to "back that up" with a logical (or even pseudo-scientific) explanation, it just works that way in order for the author to have things work a certain way.

Likewise the "inexplicable invulnerability" of Palladium Cyborgs to Phase Weapons.

SOMETIMES, by the very nature and self-definition of a fictional setting, even the internal pseudo-physics of the setting doesn't adequately explain a plot device that the Author has put into place in order to make things work a certain way.

Kevin wants an Orbital Debris field in order to keep most people earthbound in the Rifts setting, therefore it just "works," even though it really doesn't. No detailed explanation is given, because no explanation is really possible.

Kevin wants an 'eternal bad guy' in the Coalition that is strangely able to refuse the use of magic yet still remain the unscathed, most powerful force on the continent by far despite its incredible vulnerability to the supernatural, therefore the Coalition just "works" as written. No explanation can really be given, because no explanation is really possible.

And Kevin wants his cyborgs to be immune from what would be insta-kill attacks from Phase Weaponry, given the incredibly and comparatively miniscule amounts of Hit Points that the remaining biological bits have, therefore the cyborg as a whole is (mostly) immune to the attack, even though, as other people point out, other equivalent situations are not afforded the same immunity.

No explanation can really be given, because no explanation is really possible.
It's a mini plot device.

Do look up the definition of 'imply', because yes he does imply the machine becomes alive once that brain is hooked up to it.

Do provide his EXACT quote on the subject -or at least give us the book and page number -so that we can judge for ourselves whether or not he implied any such thing.

As I recall, he simply made a terse comment on the matter, with no detailed explanation, just a sentence that went along the lines of "it just works this way."

In regards to the rest of that wall of text, totally irrelevant and pointless. The topic has nothing to do with what Kevin wants (nor your opinion as to what he wants or why he did something either), it's about phase weapons and the illogical declaration that machines become alive when you hook them up to a brain,

Book and page number, please, that says that the entire creature is actually transformed into a "living metal" creature like Salkind the Metal Mage, or Lord Frommalaine.

Kevin only says that they are Mega-Damage beings (Rifts: Ultimate Edition, page 47), not that the robot parts of the cyborg are a living creature along with the rest of the unit.

when if there was a concern about a rare weapon like Phase beamers killing cyborgs easily there was already a mechanism available to cover that which didn't require an illogical declaration that machines become alive when you hook a brain to them.

Book and page number, please. You're stating the same premise without proving it.

Maybe if I ask you enough times, you can actually point me to a page where Kevin actually says that they are alive as a whole unit.

Sorry to break it to you and anyone else with the view, but the aforementioned statement doesn't mean that the whole creature is living. It's just a standalone, "can't be logically explained within the setting" declaration that the creature as a whole is 'considered' to be a Mega-Damage being now.

"Of course, since there is still a human mind inside that robot body...."

"...He is a machine with a human brain."

"The brain is put into a reinforced, M.D.C. alloy skull."

Now why, pray tell us, does the brain have to be put into a "reinforced MDC alloy skull" if it in fact literally turns into a megadamage material anyway?

[Vrykolas2k]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

RAW doesn't say the BRAIN also becomes MDC, and when the book came out weapons that could bypass the cyborg shell didn't exist. So while the MACHINE is MDC the BRAIN inside is not, or are you going to argue that because power armor is MDC then the person inside is as well because they're effectively an MDC being at that point?

It's nice that the books written since Phase World came out that state that a 'borg is now an MDC being don't exist, such as Rifts Ultimate Edition...

Strange, seems like you said you played by RAW and not by RUE, so which is it? Since someone who says 'I play by RAW' really can't go and say 'oh but these later rules in the new revision are what I really play by' and still actually manage to get away with saying 'I play by RAW' because you aren't.

Of which either way you admit they added a rule to render the brain invulnerable to PHASE weapons, one that illogically calls a robotic chassis alive because a brain is wired into it.

RUE is RAW?
Those rules aren't written?
Interesting...
And it ignores the fact that books were written pre-RUE which support the fact that 'borgs are living mechanical beings... actually, that's almost a direct quote.

[Nightmask]

I just run and play according to RAW, which clearly states that Rifts cyborgs are MDC beings.
There is no logical way to argue that point.
It's clearly written in more than one book.
Don't like it? Write your own game.

RAW doesn't say the BRAIN also becomes MDC, and when the book came out weapons that could bypass the cyborg shell didn't exist. So while the MACHINE is MDC the BRAIN inside is not, or are you going to argue that because power armor is MDC then the person inside is as well because they're effectively an MDC being at that point?

It's nice that the books written since Phase World came out that state that a 'borg is now an MDC being don't exist, such as Rifts Ultimate Edition...

Strange, seems like you said you played by RAW and not by RUE, so which is it? Since someone who says 'I play by RAW' really can't go and say 'oh but these later rules in the new revision are what I really play by' and still actually manage to get away with saying 'I play by RAW' because you aren't.

Of which either way you admit they added a rule to render the brain invulnerable to PHASE weapons, one that illogically calls a robotic chassis alive because a brain is wired into it.

RUE is RAW?
Those rules aren't written?
Interesting...
And it ignores the fact that books were written pre-RUE which support the fact that 'borgs are living mechanical beings... actually, that's almost a direct quote.

You said you play by RAW, then promptly pointed to RUE to support your position after saying you don't play by RUE. Cyborgs are living MDC beings only inasmuch as there's a living component (the brain) integrated into it, certainly the machine parts can't be considered alive because they aren't.

Given RAW comes before Phase World obviously it doesn't take into account new weapons coming about that ignore machines and unliving metal to hit the living part inside.

Given there was a rule added saying 'treat cyborg shells as if they were alive with regards to Phase Weapons' obviously cyborgs were NOT considered such prior to that as there wouldn't be such a rule introduced if that was always the case.

You can claim that the stuff prior to RUE says cyborgs were living machines but none of the game material actually supports that, including the introduction of the magical Anti-Monster Cyborgs which make the point of explicitly noting that they're alive right down to the mechanical components. If such was a given for all cyborgs there would not be such a note necessary. Clearly the material contradicts the claims that cyborgs were somehow always alive because they weren't, simply no one cared because until Phase Weapons came around that brain in the chassis was as protected from existing weapons as a guy in power armor. The crying came later when a weapon that ignored the cyborg body came around and they found themselves as vulnerable as any other flesh and blood creature, unable to hide inside their mechanical shell.

[Vrykolas2k]

When did I say I don't play by RUE, in which there are rules, making it RAW?
You're talking in circles to make things more difficult than it needs to be.

[Armorlord]

Neural intelligence, as in the AI robot option.
artificial brain that can learn.
... Armorlord has this wrapped up....

He doesn't have anything wrapped up, you can't compare the Neural Intelligence to the Transferred Intelligence, particularly since ARCHIE-3's existence makes the case that they can become alive. The TI is also explicitly placing a living essence into a specialized container to link it to robotic shell, not much different in that regard than an Earth Warlock transferring his essence into a robotic shell. A brain in a box with sensors communicating through some nerve endings to the robotic shell simply isn't in the same category.

I like to think I pretty much wrapped it up, though I did burn out on visiting the forum for six months afterward.
ARCHIE-3 isn't a NI, he's an actual (artificial-protein) living brain in a box with psionics and ISP since creation, he 'simply' gained personality, insanity, and free-will over the course of time. Otherwise the NI was in the comparison, instead of AI in general, just to emphasize the comparison with intelligent thinking and learning minds in both positions.
TI's aren't just in a specialized container, though the 'soul' tends to centralize in a random part if not created for the purpose. But yes, not much different from the Earth Warlock version.


Glancing over the rest of the thread since then, I just note to it that there is a difference between 'living machine' and 'connected part of a living being'. Expanding on my previous examples, if you shot yourself in the finger with a phase beam, your whole finger would be gone, with no fingernail (a non-living component) left behind. If you clipped your nail (or finger) off first, then shot it, it would be unharmed (outside of being cut off).
Any questions from there should refer to previous posts in the thread, because I think every base has been touched on at some point or another. So anyone could find the response of their choice and find responses to said response, barring off topic musings and non-sequiturs (like me now pondering that the Angel of Death's immortal brain replacement probably has a lot in common with ARCHIE-3's underpinnings, complete with the high instance of megalomania, or declaring an intense love of pie).

[Nightmask]

Neural intelligence, as in the AI robot option.
artificial brain that can learn.
... Armorlord has this wrapped up....

He doesn't have anything wrapped up, you can't compare the Neural Intelligence to the Transferred Intelligence, particularly since ARCHIE-3's existence makes the case that they can become alive. The TI is also explicitly placing a living essence into a specialized container to link it to robotic shell, not much different in that regard than an Earth Warlock transferring his essence into a robotic shell. A brain in a box with sensors communicating through some nerve endings to the robotic shell simply isn't in the same category.

I like to think I pretty much wrapped it up, though I did burn out on visiting the forum for six months afterward.
ARCHIE-3 isn't a NI, he's an actual (artificial-protein) living brain in a box with psionics and ISP since creation, he 'simply' gained personality, insanity, and free-will over the course of time. Otherwise the NI was in the comparison, instead of AI in general, just to emphasize the comparison with intelligent thinking and learning minds in both positions.
TI's aren't just in a specialized container, though the 'soul' tends to centralize in a random part if not created for the purpose. But yes, not much different from the Earth Warlock version.

Glancing over the rest of the thread since then, I just note to it that there is a difference between 'living machine' and 'connected part of a living being'. Expanding on my previous examples, if you shot yourself in the finger with a phase beam, your whole finger would be gone, with no fingernail (a non-living component) left behind. If you clipped your nail (or finger) off first, then shot it, it would be unharmed (outside of being cut off).
Any questions from there should refer to previous posts in the thread, because I think every base has been touched on at some point or another. So anyone could find the response of their choice and find responses to said response, barring off topic musings and non-sequiturs (like me now pondering that the Angel of Death's immortal brain replacement probably has a lot in common with ARCHIE-3's underpinnings, complete with the high instance of megalomania, or declaring an intense love of pie).

ARCHIE-3 is stated to have began as a Neural Intelligence, nothing about the material on it even remotely suggests that it was a living brain or that it was built with psionics, those psionic powers came after it's further mutation after the Cataclysm occurred.

Phase weapons aren't said to vaporize anything, simply disrupt the energies of life, you won't blow someone's finger off with one (although you would end up killing the cells, so now have a dead finger that would need removed before it turned gangrenous). Machines aren't alive and plugging a brain into one should never make one alive, if it did then it should let you make entire starships alive and block phase weapons as a result.

There also isn't anything in common between ARCHIE-3 and the Angel of Death's eternal brain implant, ARCHIE-3 is an artificial Neural Intelligence brain, Angel's implant goes into normal organic brains in order to help them retain their youthful vigor and renew indefinitely.

[Armorlord]

ARCHIE-3 is stated to have began as a Neural Intelligence, nothing about the material on it even remotely suggests that it was a living brain or that it was built with psionics, those psionic powers came after it's further mutation after the Cataclysm occurred.

No, he is stated in both original and revised to be grown from synthetic neural cells. Elsewhere it has been stated that artificial proteins were used. No where does it say he developed or mutated his abilities.

Phase weapons aren't said to vaporize anything, simply disrupt the energies of life, you won't blow someone's finger off with one (although you would end up killing the cells, so now have a dead finger that would need removed before it turned gangrenous).

Fair enough, replace 'gone' with 'damaged'.

Machines aren't alive and plugging a brain into one should never make one alive,

One, as previously discussed, being part of a living thing does make it alive any more than your hair or fingernails. Two, the metaphysics of the Megaverse have firmly established in the rules long before phase weapons existed that cybernetics are considered a part of a living being, preventing them from being targeted my machine and technology control/damage powers and being a part of their auras and bio-energy signatures.

if it did then it should let you make entire starships alive and block phase weapons as a result.

Yes, yes you could, and we previously discussed that as well, while noting that going by the existing examples that it is not a simple matter to accomplish. Also 'block' isn't quite true, it means the ship is taking that damage instead.
Once wired in, cybernetics are effectively considered 'possessed' by their host in the metaphysics of Palladium- telemechanics doesn't work on them, machine possession doesn't, animate device is a non-starter, phase beams damage them, and magics can't disable bionics, cybernetics, or any other implant/device directly connected a living being (outside of damage of course). Every power, spell, and psionic that affects machines calls out bionics/cybernetics as a no-go for being a part of a living being. Negate Machanics (BoM p118) gets particularly explicit in listing bionics, cybernetics, and things attached to people of all kinds as not affected. Robots and cybernetics not attached are fine for messing with though.

As far as the Megaverse is concerned, wiring a power saw to your arm stump makes it a part of you for all metaphysical intents and purposes. If you to do it differently in your own games, that is fine. All I've ever done here is point out that this has always been a part of the Megaversal settings, it has never been a retcon or change to protect cyborgs after the fact, it was get up long beforehand. Though I would be surprised if protecting Mechanoids and cyborgs didn't factor into the creative process, it is protection written in from the beginning.

[Nightmask]

ARCHIE-3 is stated to have began as a Neural Intelligence, nothing about the material on it even remotely suggests that it was a living brain or that it was built with psionics, those psionic powers came after it's further mutation after the Cataclysm occurred.

No, he is stated in both original and revised to be grown from synthetic neural cells. Elsewhere it has been stated that artificial proteins were used. No where does it say he developed or mutated his abilities.

What do you think a neural intelligence is? It has a design to mimic human brain interaction but that doesn't make it a living brain and again it's been well established that ARCHIE-3 USED to be just a Neural Intelligence but is a full-fledged living being now hence where it gains its psionics since nothing says it was built with those abilities nor has any Pre-Rifts technology been shown capable of making even a Neural Intelligence with Psionics.

Machines aren't alive and plugging a brain into one should never make one alive,

One, as previously discussed, being part of a living thing does make it alive any more than your hair or fingernails. Two, the metaphysics of the Megaverse have firmly established in the rules long before phase weapons existed that cybernetics are considered a part of a living being, preventing them from being targeted my machine and technology control/damage powers and being a part of their auras and bio-energy signatures.

Which makes no sense at all, you plug a sensor onto a nerve ending and *poof* somehow you're now pouring life energy into a giant robot shell.

if it did then it should let you make entire starships alive and block phase weapons as a result.

Yes, yes you could, and we previously discussed that as well, while noting that going by the existing examples that it is not a simple matter to accomplish. Also 'block' isn't quite true, it means the ship is taking that damage instead.

Yes and to block that means the entire starship has to be considered 'alive', as in filled with life-essence for no other reason than you wired a brain into it.

Once wired in, cybernetics are effectively considered 'possessed' by their host in the metaphysics of Palladium- telemechanics doesn't work on them, machine possession doesn't, animate device is a non-starter, phase beams damage them, and magics can't disable bionics, cybernetics, or any other implant/device directly connected a living being (outside of damage of course). Every power, spell, and psionic that affects machines calls out bionics/cybernetics as a no-go for being a part of a living being. Negate Machanics (BoM p118) gets particularly explicit in listing bionics, cybernetics, and things attached to people of all kinds as not affected. Robots and cybernetics not attached are fine for messing with though.

As far as the Megaverse is concerned, wiring a power saw to your arm stump makes it a part of you for all metaphysical intents and purposes. If you to do it differently in your own games, that is fine. All I've ever done here is point out that this has always been a part of the Megaversal settings, it has never been a retcon or change to protect cyborgs after the fact, it was get up long beforehand. Though I would be surprised if protecting Mechanoids and cyborgs didn't factor into the creative process, it is protection written in from the beginning.

Well it's obviously a 'cyborgs are special, their players shouldn't have to worry about being hijacked like everyone else has to or subject to things everyone else is' motivation, you can't justify it any other way.

[Armorlord]

Well it's obviously a 'cyborgs are special, their players shouldn't have to worry about being hijacked like everyone else has to or subject to things everyone else is' motivation, you can't justify it any other way.

I don't have to justify anything, I'm just saying how it works in the Megaverse. Linking a machine to flesh intrinsically links it to a creature's life force, interfering with the creature's own use of his lifeforce and inner-strength, and preventing others from using their own against those same components. If you are going to houserule it otherwise remember to remove all the protections along the impact on the subject's psionic and magic ability.
The setting and system both tell you that this is how the game world works, and you cannot tell me that it is not how the real world works unless you have access to magic, psionics, and bionic technology to test it on, so, in turn, you can not honestly state that it does not work way. You can do things however you wish at your own table, but, as my point has been from the beginning, Palladium has been consistent in their canon on the matter. No changes were made just for Phase Beams. That's the only argument I've ever been a party to here.

Personally, I love the internal consistency and would abide by the setting and rules on the matter, and would encourage others to do so as well, but that is simply my choice. If you would rather bionics have no effect on life, roll with it full force, I want to see Cyber-Mages and PsiBionic Commandos duking it out in true Rifts-style with magical protections and nullifers battling to keep each other from taking over or shutting down the other's systems while the landscape is torn apart by the fury of the physical battle. Hell, I might even be interested in playing that.

(If you want to debate the nature of ARCHIE-3, we should move that elsewhere. That strays a bit from the topic here.)

[Jerell]

I know I might be a little in left field here (talking about the planetary batteries, not the hand held weapons), but I wouldn't allow a ship to protect its crew from Phase World phase beam planetary cannons simply because someone wired a brain to it.