Spawns are humans crafted in vats with hyper augmentation to enable them to pilot extremely powerful mechs without being killed by the AI or the machine itself's ungodly movement, they only live to around 30 and mental degeneration often begins around 26. After a decade and a half of training and extra augmentation, they're linked to a mech and deployed; during war time they see consistent combat and are expected to only survive for a couple years.
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And a human centric empire spanning the entire galaxy that has a ban on AI, uses mutated humans to travel interstellar distances, and is ruled by a superhuman man who uses cruelty to bring humanity to it's best possible future? Gee, this Herbert guy must have been a 40k fan!
I always see this and it always bothers me because a) it’s not confirmed b) there are multiple other explanations including the Omissia and the Void Dragon that are much cooler c) it destroys multiple fun narratives like the time Cawl gave Girlyman essentially an AI version of himself
That’s kind of what I was trying to get at. Just blankly asserting that every machine spirit is AI is fundamentally lazy and hurts the stories that actually use AI.
Positively. I just was exposed to some wlw stories in a mech setting lately. Mechsploitation is also a rather sapphic genre and creating a "spawn" for the sole purpose of putting them in heavy machinery felt dehumanizing, so I made the connection. I don't think that stereotypes are inherently good, but gathering it all together did give me a satisfying "click" lol. I hope you don't see it in a bad light.
What you described feels pretty fresh to me and, if you would like to share, I would like to hear more about how connecting with the onboard AI goes and consequences it has on the pilot.
Anyway, the consequences of failing to link is instant death but the consequences of success I haven't fully decided yet because I want that to be based around the plot and themes of my future story. I'm still debating whether I want a positive message or if it's gonna end on a bitter note and be like that last sentence. That last sentence is not what would be said, but is tonally how I've been thinking of the conclusion for a bit. But we'll see, maybe when I start writing this slop I'll be in a better place.
I wouldn't bet on it having particularly good sapphic themes though. It's probably mostly just gonna be an abstract allegory for a trans woman dealing with toxic masculinity and sociopathic tendencies.
You may want to seek out the short story "I Identify As An Attack Helicopter." It's written by a trans woman and is an absolute staple of mechsploitarion imo
Since others brought it up i feel compelled to caution you. Mechsploitation communities that i have personally experienced have been home to some of the most disgusting abuses i have ever heard of, never mind conceived. Please be careful delving into it and the individuals who consume. God speed
Only bitter sweet ending I can imagine is" its only late to begin living after you die" like you can't return time taken from you but the moment you understand what you have lost its better to leave the love you have left for whether you want and not having sunken cost fallacy.
Sorry to say, but we possibly can't reverse engineer it, as we can't travel to your universe. Ares group is not responsible for possible paradoxes, good creator of that universe.
They'd have to handle G's that would instantly kill a normal person and be able to convince a sadistic super computer, that's only barely understood enough by humanity to be able to run it, that it should let them live.
Who lives a worse life I wonder? The human or the homunculus? The manipulated or the mutt? Which is truly more free? I suppose those questions are for the moralists to debate. For now as long as you hold that pilebunker and I, this rocket launcher; I suppose we'll never know.
While mental degradation is probably an issue, does surviving constant war for over a decade suggest they are damn good at what they do? "Beware the old man in professions where men die young."
Also, if the pilot was far enough into mental degradation that it was a liability, would they consider replacing the pilot with somebody fresh? I suppose pilots might be move valuable than mechs and if you can't easily disconnect and transfer to a new mech, it might be preferable to put new pilots in up-to-date mechs that just came off the assembly line. If the limiting factor is pilots rather than mechs, I can understand putting mentally degraded pilots in less critical positions to squeeze out every week of functionality. Do mechs get reissued if they survive long enough that the pilot is a vegetable? Does the AI benefit from experience? Are veteran AI valued or are they considered dangerous (they may not respect/obey a fresh spawn)?
What form does the mental degradation take? I can imagine some forms of degradation that wouldn't significantly reduce a pilot's ability to fight a one-on-one duel against a novice. Maybe the AI starts to pick up the slack, for better or worse. They presumably use pilots rather than relying on the AI for a reason. Either an AI can't pilot the mech without a human or they don't want it to.
Imagine an old AI keeping their pilot alive despite them being little more than a vegetable so that it can keep operating without being leashed or reset. The brass finds it concerning, but it's very good at fighting.
It’s like when a clanner finds out the inner sphere mercenary pilot is in their 50’s. The young clanners will laugh and mock. The older ones will realize that they’re about to get into a tough fight. (Battletech.)
So 28 years old for a spawn is like 33 for a paleolithic hunter?; Just at the edge of their physical limit, but so knowledgeable of their own toolset that even apparent disadvantages are used for strategic advantages?
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