IF YOU DUPLICATED YOUR BODY, WOULD YOU STILL BE YOU? (2)
Eternal life as a reprintable digital model would be great ... right?
The Cortex Intelligent Machines Mark 9A Full Body Printer
In the Cortex series, the invention of scanning and reprinting resulted in many global consequences—some good, most bad—which led to the UN setting up a specialist reprint task force.
The UN understands that if there are no legal limits on reprinting, the 0.1 percent would reprint thousands of copies of themselves, and take all the jobs they have control over. The UN is trying to work as a force of good in this world—to mediate between the inevitable selfish impulses of each country—and outlawed having multiple reprints of the same person. However, it is still a massive bureaucratic organization and its reach only goes so far…
I discuss the implications of this more in Book 2, This Automatic Eden, and as the Cortex series progresses we will see how the UN’s grip on augmentation and reprinting slips.
As for the actual machines, a standard organic 3D printer looks like a large metal sarcophagus, based in part on the Egyptian burial designs due to their beauty and idea of an afterlife.
I intentionally made the printers have twin Mechanical Intelligence's, one at either end, with a pronounced seal on top showing the Cortex live-long logo.
King Tut's Sarcophagus
The printer's exterior is typically utilitarian—a steel box with an information panel and side door that slides out containing the stretcher holding the final print. Some versions have bioink canisters on either end, depending upon their location and access to supplies. Other boutique reprint companies make their printers sculptural objects in a variety of shapes, their cases being fabricated from high-end materials such as polished ceramic or cast gold.
A cut away of the Mark 9A printer. Removable Bio-Ink canisters are arranged at the ends of the machine, color coded per their contents. These are removable and arranged around twin Mechanical Intelligences (the larger bronze cylinders.)
The complete machine, note the "Seals" atop each MI:
Once we arrive at a point where you can reprint an entire person, the inevitable next step would be to improve that baseline human with a more efficient cardiovascular system, or stronger muscles and bones, or better eyesight... the options would be endless. This is the reason why the UN outlawed illegal body modification, but it’s down to each country and state to enforce that law. And some places are worse at enforcing it than others…
Next some 'pure' SF, that's right—destructive full body scanners!
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