Forums of the Megaverse®

Other than having a Librarian stick you for your memories:
When you need visual proof of something for your House (Machine formations/new factory layout/whatever), how do you get it?

RiftJunkie wrote:Other than having a Librarian stick you for your memories:
When you need visual proof of something for your House (Machine formations/new factory layout/whatever), how do you get it?

Anecdotal, informants, Deliverymen, recon via Packmasters & Gorehounds, Falconers & Black-Hawk talons, Skinjob surveillance, Gardens, Technojacker cameras and recorded footage "IF" your Great House has residential TJs or works with them, etc.

I think in one of the rifters there is an advanced bio-comm or a Gardner plant that displays images. Other then that not sure sorry.

so far as i am aware, you don't actually need metal to make a camera. you can form a fairly basic one with a lens and the right chemicals to react to light from said lens.

i would expect that the splicers are perfectly capable of making lenses (they can make biological light-based weapons capable of focusing such an intense beam of light that it can melt through modern tank armour in a couple seconds at a range of 1,000 feet) and are likewise well-versed in their knowledge of chemistry.

so i would expect that they just make ceramic or even biological cameras as needed.

The advanced Bio-Comms used by the Falconers and their War Hawks are able to transmit images as well as instructions... which is useful since the Falconer Armor renders the wearer blind save for such input. With such a development, a biological video recorder is at least possible. I would think it would act sort of like the SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interfacing Device) from the movie "Strange Days"... and with a name like that... well, it is just begging to be made into Splicer biotech.

I am pretty sure the spy eyes collar thing from the rifter gorehound article also could record and "transmit" a certain amount of video data.

kaid wrote:I am pretty sure the spy eyes collar thing from the rifter gorehound article also could record and "transmit" a certain amount of video data.

It does

That is what I thought. So if splicers want a sneak and peek gorehound scouts with spy eyes is probably one of the safer ways to get a "look" at whats going on in a certain area.

Ok. So far, only TJ video/camera(regular or ceramic/plastic) are able to produce "hard" evidence that you want to properly plan surgical strikes. Everything else still boils down to word of mouth interpretation or artistic skill rolls for sketches. While I like them, the Falconer and Packmaster stuff listed (at least the way I read it) is a "real-time feed" and only goes to the Falconer/Packmaster controlling them. Still nothing "concrete" to take back to the Warlord. Sketches can be horrible (we can't all be like Premier), my drawing looks like I use a crayon in a fist. Verbal descriptions can be butchered.

Back in the day, we could get by with troop count over which hill. The Machine is ridiculously coordinated when it wants to be. Minor raids on Machine patrols are one thing and not ever going to get you anywhere. To hit her/her/her/her/her/her/her where she/she/she/she/she/she/she will feel it, you need a very well planned and coordinated attack. I'd like to see exactly what's there and go over everything in a war council.

no TJ required for the camera. like i said, no metal is required, just chemistry and the ability to make good quality lenses. the splicers can probably even make a biological creation that will spit out pictures no problem. might even be able to have one spit out fast enough to make video footage with splicers level mastery of chemistry and genetics/biology.

A Dreadguard pulling out a ceramic camera and going all Peter Parker just doesn't seem right for the setting though.

I was having a Librarian moment and came up with this concept: Start with something flat like a flounder. Give it one eye on it's "bottom" so that image is what is replicated on it's "top" as camouflage. You pick it up, point the eye at what you want to capture and pinch the eye or pull a tendon or something to severe the optic nerve and lock in the image on it's back. The image can be kept as long as the "bio-camera" gets the standard nutrient bath like any other bio-creation. No nutrient bath, it dies in X number of days with the image fading from sight. Different types of eyes could also be used, such as enhanced eyes if you want thermal "pics".

Just a concept. What do you think? Did I get the "feel" for bio-tech?

RiftJunkie wrote:A Dreadguard pulling out a ceramic camera and going all Peter Parker just doesn't seem right for the setting though.

I was having a Librarian moment and came up with this concept: Start with something flat like a flounder. Give it one eye on it's "bottom" so that image is what is replicated on it's "top" as camouflage. You pick it up, point the eye at what you want to capture and pinch the eye or pull a tendon or something to severe the optic nerve and lock in the image on it's back. The image can be kept as long as the "bio-camera" gets the standard nutrient bath like any other bio-creation. No nutrient bath, it dies in X number of days with the image fading from sight. Different types of eyes could also be used, such as enhanced eyes if you want thermal "pics".

Just a concept. What do you think? Did I get the "feel" for bio-tech?

sure, something like that works just fine (though more likely there would be some sort of minor neurological connection to act as the trigger). i don't know that the image would necessarily disappear... but i would certainly agree that the humans of the splicers setting would probably find the idea of using a mechanical device to record images just as odd as we would find the idea of using a biological creation to do the same. maybe triggering it causes the image to freeze, and then they shed that layer of skin off with the image on it?

i was merely making the point that inability to use metal would not prevent you from using the exact same principles as a regular camera.

OK very rough idea help flesh it out guys!



Eye Spy (with networking)
The Eye Spy is is a bio recording device. It looks like a six inch long three inch wide bamboo rod with a lens on one end and a snail like foot on the other end. One simply points it at what you want to record and squeeze. It can record up to six hours of video or can be set to transmit via a bio comms device. If set to record it can later project the recording on to a wall via the eye. If set to transmit a second Eye Spy is needed to project in real time.
The downside is it can only store six hours of recordings, once used it is encoded and if used again will forget all previous data. If used to transmit it will die after six hours, even if you only a protion of the time aviable. After death a butchers organ can recover the data but it must be eatten and destroyed.

Technically its in the unofficial area but the eye scouts from the gorehound collars already work pretty much like that. They record audio and visual information they can either relay via a gorehound or directly to the pack master directly.

Anybody with the implant the pack masters have can see the audio and video or it can be given to librarians or geneticists to display. I would expect if something like this is the only way to see scout video then all house leaders/warmasters would likely wind up with the implant so they can interface with them directly.

Shark_Force wrote:
i was merely making the point that inability to use metal would not prevent you from using the exact same principles as a regular camera.

Yup. I got that. It just seemed odd for a Splicer to use "tech" to me.

I kinda like the idea of the thing shedding it's skin. The Eye Spy sounds cool too. I had overlooked the Gorehound collar. It would be nice if the collar was made canon. Still, how would you get the image out for all to see in "the real world" without the need for some kind of eye patch?

RiftJunkie wrote:I kinda like the idea of the thing shedding it's skin. The Eye Spy sounds cool too. I had overlooked the Gorehound collar. It would be nice if the collar was made canon. Still, how would you get the image out for all to see in "the real world" without the need for some kind of eye patch?

The pack masters have an implant that lets them see the output directly as they can from their hounds so anybody with the implant can interact with it directly. It also states it can be given to librarians/geneticists so I would imagine they have some way to extract the information to a form thats more usable to the people who need the information.

Microbial Paint-
Paint a wall using Microbial Paint, connect a bio-comm to it, it will stick. The microbes glow and can change color working with a bio-comm they are able to create images or "video". Microbial Paint is a lithovore so it slowly eats away at the wall.

Another option if one wants a "TV" look could be some kind of modified octopus in an aquarium as they have amazingly chromatophores that can change color almost instantly in dot patterns and would likely not be that hard to use as pixels of a "display" and for audio it likely would not be hard to just have some kind of parrot/mimic bird that could accept the input and just parrot out all the audio track.

kaid wrote:Another option if one wants a "TV" look could be some kind of modified octopus in an aquarium as they have amazingly chromatophores that can change color almost instantly in dot patterns and would likely not be that hard to use as pixels of a "display" and for audio it likely would not be hard to just have some kind of parrot/mimic bird that could accept the input and just parrot out all the audio track.

Yet another reason to modify the SQUID device from "Strange Days" using an actual Squid/Octopus as the base blueprint.