The Bioforge and Biological Autonomy

What is a Bioforge

The Bioforge is a pinnacle piece of technology that combines the basic structure of a med-pod with the human engineering capabilities of a cloning facility. This will never replace dedicating cloning systems, as the Bioforge only operates on a single body at a time, and there is no way to engage in an economy of scale, as the forge itself is not a cheap or simple piece of machinery. The bioforge also has all of the same capabilities as a cosmetologist and their gene editing facilities.

What does it do?

A person is placed inside the bioforge, which closes around them iron maiden or sarcophagus style, and the system is activated. The person inside is biologically changed to fit the desired parameters as inputted at the control console. The first uses of the Bioforge were benevolent. New limbs could be literally print/grown from the site of amputation, critical and lethal wounds could be repaired all but automagically. Damaged organs could be replaced quickly.

Full Body Restoration - so long as the central nervous system was intact and biologically active, a bioforge could restore the entire body to normal functioning status. This does take time, energy, computing power, and biomass to accomplish, but it is fully effective. Even hosts with brain damage can be brought back, though the portions of the brain that are restored are not going to retain whatever information they held, so there will be gaps and memory loss, and the restored person will have to go through therapy as any stroke victim might.

Full Body Rejuvenation - like taking a car to be rebuilt, this basically rebuilds the host body, reducing the effects of age, illness, scars, and other infirmities. While it can dramatically increase lifespan, it doesn't deal with the eventual deterioration of the brain itself, only it's physical structure.

Full Body Alteration - this can radically change the body of the host, including gender, installing a full body bio-pattern, or reducing a series of genetic modifications to a single session in the bioforge.

The Implications of the Bioforge

Like any human invention, the true effects of the bioforge don't come from what it can do, but from who and how it is used. The Bioforge is an incredibly complicated and sophisticated machine, one not found in many places. The people who have these devices are the upper tier of medical megacorps, and the research organizations and agencies that have the money to afford such things. This means that there aren't bioforges in the top floor of even black hospitals, such a medical group might own a single such device, across it's various locations and cities. Even with med-pods, and surgical robots, and nursing droids, the demand for medical care outstrips the supply. In some instances the shortage is intentional to keep the service as a commodity, but in the case of the Bioforge, it is a real limitation.

What is biological autonomy?

Biological autonomy is the legal status of self ownership, and self determination, and that a person, regardless of debt or obligation, is their own master, and they make their own decisions, such as are afforded to them. One of the implications of the Bioforge is the removal of biological autonomy. With it's ability to genetically modify and engineer a person, that person can be fully and completely changed against their will, even to the point of their will and psyche being altered, violating their biological autonomy.

Homogenization - also known as gentling, clonifying, and dolling, homogenization removes most of the persons identifying characteristics, rendering them down to a perfectly normal, perfectly bland, perfectly average human being. They are de-gendered, de-sexualized, and have their brain chemistry altered to be servile, meek, and to be highly avoidant to confrontation. The reasons why this was created are highly questionable and not really answerable, but the most common victims of homogenization are serial criminals, dissidents, and test subjects, not always willing. Once biologically stripped, these dolls were easy to handle, and well suited to servitude and abuse. They are a flagrant violation of the Tycho convention article over creating sub-humans.

Pleasure Slave - the host is rendered to be a highly if unremarkably attractive member of their gender, with enhance sexual traits, and similar hormone modifications to render them almost identical to a meretrix sex clone. This creates trophy spouses, populates harems, and otherwise turns normal people into objects.

Hit the Paste Button - this function turns the host into a body double from a scanned template. This is useful for spies, bodyguards, political stand ins, and so forth, but it is more commonly used to create cookie cutter people, emulating the appearance of a specific person or an ideal person.

Existential Violation

The Bioforge can repair wounded warriors, replace faulty organs, and give a normal life to crippled people. It can also be used to rip a person's very biological identity away from them, turning their body into something that is not their own. With fairly strong autocratic central powers in the Cosmic era, from machine orchestrated nations to megacorps helmed by near corpses clinging to life via elaborate machines, the possibility of being run through a human panini maker and being popped out as a drone or toy or pet is a frightening reality.

Plot Hooks

The Prisoner - a megaprison corp uses a Bioforge to render all of it's inmates identical, save for scanners and trackers. The PCs have to go in, and locate Inmate 991B and either extract the desired information from them, or rescue said inmate from the prison. The PCs run the risk of being turned into prison dolls themselves.

Stepford Wives - a black market operator has an illegal Bioforge and peddles his work to disgruntled men. The men will pay the black marketeer to give the troublesome lady in their life a cheap gene-lift, all spa like, but the women are turned into pleasure slaves and then sold back to the chaps who trotted them in. The PCs are hired to investigate the operation and take it down.

The Immortal Mr Phelps - a fixer has access to a Bioforge and continually brainjacks victims, polyforges them into dopplegangers of himself, and then uses them in highly dangerous missions, with dozens of groups of shadowrunners thinking they've seen their fixer killed, or have killed him for setting up bad deals. The PCs are approached by Mr Phelps for work on a variety of jobs before it is revealed that he is playing a Xanatos gambit and the PCs have been working for the bad guys, even if they kill him, he'll be back.