backups, cloning and meta

Tokiko2 · Post by **Tokiko2** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 5:47 pm #15594

I've received multiple, conflicting statements about this from different admins so I'd like to make a thread about this.

Let's assume we have the following situation:
You go to medbay and get a backup scanned in the cloner. You exit medbay and do something else and get killed by someone. Your body is not recovered! Maybe you exploded or got spaced but that body that actually experienced the murder is gone. However that doctor working in medbay remembers that they made a backup of you and clone you. You exit the clonepod and security is waiting for you, trying to question you about what happened to you.

Do you remember who killed you or how? Or not, seeing as remembering what people did to you while you were unconcious or dead is considered metagaming?

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 5:51 pm #15597

That's sort of tricky but i doubt anyone would remember that their clone backup was made pre-death and faulting them for knowing how they died even though they were scanned pre-death is a little unfair honestly, considering how rare people actually getting backups (besides an autocloner) is.

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 6:16 pm #15606

if we're going down the path of realism we may as well ask why we can spark a unique human life with it's own personality and memories but only ever for a single body.

if we want to extrapolate then you could say that souls actually exist in the ss13 universe and that's why people are allowed to remember these things despite being a back-up clone.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 6:21 pm #15612

We have nar'sie and conflicting dieties and stuff and you can't sit there and argue nar'sie as some alien creature without considering that there's some supernatural funky shit going on in ss13 at least to a degree.

Lovecraft · Post by **Lovecraft** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 6:32 pm #15615

Wouldn't the scan have all the information held in your brain at time of scanning and nothing further?
If you're killed, body recovered, and scanned, you'd obviously know what happened, but if you're living in a scanned body of your older self I can't really understand how you'd know.

Then again I have a feeling this is just all so much salad dressing here and no one has a problem making the policy lean the other way, which is fine by me.

ThanatosRa · Post by **ThanatosRa** » Tue Jun 24, 2014 9:14 pm #15662

I've personally always done it as only remembering up until point of scanning in the specific example you gave.

If scanned after death, I remember up until death. But if before, it's only up the scan.

Cipher3 · Post by **Cipher3** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 2:55 am #15712

Lovecraft wrote:Wouldn't the scan have all the information held in your brain at time of scanning and nothing further?
If you're killed, body recovered, and scanned, you'd obviously know what happened, but if you're living in a scanned body of your older self I can't really understand how you'd know.

Then again I have a feeling this is just all so much salad dressing here and no one has a problem making the policy lean the other way, which is fine by me.

Scientifically they couldn't remember, but then "realism in SS13"

Incomptinence · Wed Jun 25, 2014 4:47 am

Eh quantumn entanglement schmanglement techy dowhatsits. It knows if you are dead... somehow?

Frankly if the ability of the cloner to back up living people was realistic you could use it to generate a small army of one guy.

Tokiko2 · Post by **Tokiko2** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 5:20 am #15734

It's not even a rare situation. It just happened to me today again. Backing up each other is common for medbay staff, often the heads are also scanned.

It should be considered meta in my opinion. Identifying your location/your attackers based on what you see in your small circle while being unconcious is already considered metagaming and I don't think this is very different.

Lovecraft · Post by **Lovecraft** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 6:11 am #15742

I agree completely, though again with all the sci-fi whatsits and giggerwobbers that go into cloning it wouldn't surprise me to see it ruled the other way.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 10:16 am #15768

Lovecraft wrote:Wouldn't the scan have all the information held in your brain at time of scanning and nothing further?

Why would it?

Who says that the information is read from the brain? How can you read a dead brain anyway?

We have ghosts flying around which can be contacted and summoned and stuff (see: cult magic), so why not assume that they carry all the info?

Incomptinence · Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:05 am

Tokiko2 wrote:Identifying your location/your attackers based on what you see in your small circle while being unconcious is already considered metagaming and I don't think this is very different.

It is? Really should be tweaked to be less informative or removed then.

Helios127 · Post by **Helios127** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:49 am #15781

If you can vaugly tell shit from your critted/dead body without ghosting, I have no problem with it.

Ghosting only to be cloned is meta tho.

KingLouisXIV · Wed Jun 25, 2014 12:35 pm

I personally go for the at the time of scanning school of thought, and here's why.

If we want to get really, really deep into the lore (and trust me, you fucking don't) then we have to start considering why our characters are seemingly immortal round after round. The easiest way out of this is that every character has a master clone waiting at Central Command. If they don't check in off the shuttle, their clone is booted up and prepared for the next shift.

Canonically, and we have no policy dictating this one way or the other, I personally like to "not remember" rounds where I die and don't reach the shuttle, or I do so as a changeling, wizard, alien, adminbus entity, etc. Ones that my characters do reach the shuttle towards will remember, in one way or another, details regarding the last shift and can reference clearly back to it. Stuff like antagonist details are never, ever clear, and even that's a whole other ball game.

I'd see cloning working as almost a tool to immortality, where you can have a master clone that stays twenty-four years of age even if the actual time you've been around is longer than that. Nanotrasen might like to re-scan employees after shifts for whatever reason as well, which could eliminate that 'immortality' clause. Apply this all to the round, however. If you have no body to scan, you're done, kaput, RIP. If you have a backup from an hour ago, you're going to be at best completely fuzzy about what might've happened to that missing hour. For all you know, you're stepping back out from the cloning scanner after voluntarily going in alive.

Unfortunately I think this is another thing that's gonna end up on the players shoulders to decide. Ghost metagaming (I think) is frowned upon, and players are already encouraged not to use knowledge from their death and apply it to when they're cloned, i.e. waking up and immediately shouting "ALIENS IN ATMOS MAINT" is probably not a good idea for people to be doing. This same standard of logic should apply to the missing time between a clone's scan and the actual cloning sequence.

Post by **MisterPerson** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 9:05 pm #15854

My dream of admin-enforced clone amnesia is coming closer and closer to fruition.

For the record, I'm talking about a "remember nothing that happened the whole round when cloned" policy, not the "remember only things prior to when you were scanned and only while you were alive" policy that everyone else is talking about. Current is, if I'm not mistaken, just "remember everything while you were alive".

miggles · Post by **miggles** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 9:07 pm #15856

shitty dream tbh

Incomptinence · Wed Jun 25, 2014 9:38 pm

Putting random ghosts in clones would be more reasonable than banning people for remembering anything ever.

Also not everything to do with memories is valid hunting good lord, man a xenobiologist needing to ape being amnesiac every time he dies while his rounds work starves in pens won't get annoying!

Alzam · Post by **Alzam** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 10:47 pm #15875

the cloner scans your brain so it makes literally no sense for you to somehow not remember anything, its pretty cut and dry that your clone should remember everything up until the time of the brain scan.

miggles · Post by **miggles** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:18 pm #15880

but your brain is just a construct to house your soul, isn't it? considering the only time you are actually forced out of your body into ghost mode is when your brain is destroyed.
evidence: you can be debrained and remain a brain, and you can be debrained and have your body gibbed (ei nath) but you dont exit the body totally unless you're gibbed outright, brain included.
server rules dictate you cant remember things you see as a ghost, but you can remember everything up to and including the point at which you go unconcious/die instantly. everything after that is supposed to be forgotten.
so what remembers that? your brain, or the soul that is in your brain?

Hornygranny · Post by **Hornygranny** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:59 pm #15885

The fact that you can die and be cloned and still control the new body is indicative that our de facto canon is that consciousness somehow transcends the electrochemical activity of your brain.

Aurx · Post by **Aurx** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 12:25 am #15889

Hornygranny wrote:The fact that you can die and be cloned and still control the new body is indicative that our de facto canon is that consciousness somehow transcends the electrochemical activity of your brain.

The player can also return as a golem, or a positronic brain, or an alien larva, or a mid-round wizard, or deathsquad, or any of a number of other things. But just because the player controls those does not indicate in any way that they would be the same consciousness. As point of fact, using pre-death memories under those situations is against the rules, so it's clearly NOT the same consciousness.

How is a clone from a backup any different from becoming a golem or posibrain? The ONLY reason it has any difference is the brain scan. But the brain scan for cloning from a body happens at the time of cloning, so it's reasonable that the memories are transferred in the state from just before loss of brain activity. The brain scan for backup cloning however, takes place well before the cloning. Therefore, it is logical that the memories the new clone has are the same as the memories the original had the the time of scanning.

Also, from a gameplay perspective, killing somebody and having them screaming bloody murder about you a minute later is NOT fun.

Subtle · Post by **Subtle** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 12:50 am #15890

Oh! Isn't this a curious little issue.

I'm with MisterPerson on this one; the closer we can get to new bodies being treated as new people the better. Though for the sake of actually making it work it's true that much more would need to be changed policy-wise. I don't see it happening anytime in the near future. To address this specific situation, however, it seems reasonable to assume that getting a backup scan would have some kind of drawback. Why not let it be related to your memory?

As things stand a scanned person is pretty much invincible without going to the trouble of destroying cloning before they out you with fascinating specificity.
Don't get me wrong. Having preventative measures is nice, it's just that currently some forms of cloning have very few quantifiable negatives.

While we're on the subject; what about pod-people? Is it actual cloning or a replacement like adamantine slimes considering you're being created from blood.

Post by **MrStonedOne** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 1:59 am #15897

Officially, in game, (and code) scanning someone implants a cloner beacon into their brain that communicates with the cloner at all times.

So lore wise, remembering what happened up to your body (and the beacon) being destroyed work.

IC wise, it works.

OOC wise is what matters thou. So I'm not sure why we are even discussing the ic/lore/cannon aspect .

Lovecraft · Post by **Lovecraft** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:00 am #15899

Oh.
Well pack it in everyone, good discussion.

callanrockslol · Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:30 am

You could always go back to bay with this shit for one.

On topic, there is a difference between a new character and being cloned from your own body, soul bullshit is involved.

There are already servers that have this, it's stupid as fuck, incredibly hard to enforce and causes all sorts of needless bullshit.

Aurx · Post by **Aurx** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 4:20 am #15920

MrStonedOne wrote:Officially, in game, (and code) scanning someone implants a cloner beacon into their brain that communicates with the cloner at all times.

So lore wise, remembering what happened up to your body (and the beacon) being destroyed work.

IC wise, it works.

OOC wise is what matters thou. So I'm not sure why we are even discussing the ic/lore/cannon aspect .

Can I get a citation on this? I've never heard of this before now.

paprika · Post by **paprika** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 4:35 am #15921

Code: Select all

/obj/item/weapon/paper/Cloning
	name = "paper - 'H-87 Cloning Apparatus Manual"
	info = {"<h4>Getting Started</h4>
	Congratulations, your station has purchased the H-87 industrial cloning device!<br>
	Using the H-87 is almost as simple as brain surgery! Simply insert the target humanoid into the scanning chamber and select the scan option to create a new profile!<br>
	<b>That's all there is to it!</b><br>
	<i>Notice, cloning system cannot scan inorganic life or small primates.  Scan may fail if subject has suffered extreme brain damage.</i><br>
	<p>Clone profiles may be viewed through the profiles menu. Scanning implants a complementary HEALTH MONITOR IMPLANT into the subject, which may be viewed from each profile.
	Profile Deletion has been restricted to \[Station Head\] level access.</p>
	<h4>Cloning from a profile</h4>
	Cloning is as simple as pressing the CLONE option at the bottom of the desired profile.<br>
	Per your company's EMPLOYEE PRIVACY RIGHTS agreement, the H-87 has been blocked from cloning crewmembers while they are still alive.<br>
	<br>
	<p>The provided CLONEPOD SYSTEM will produce the desired clone.  Standard clone maturation times (With SPEEDCLONE technology) are roughly 90 seconds.
	The cloning pod may be unlocked early with any \[Medical Researcher\] ID after initial maturation is complete.</p><br>
	<i>Please note that resulting clones may have a small DEVELOPMENTAL DEFECT as a result of genetic drift.</i><br>
	<h4>Profile Management</h4>
	<p>The H-87 (as well as your station's standard genetics machine) can accept STANDARD DATA DISKETTES.
	These diskettes are used to transfer genetic information between machines and profiles.
	A load/save dialog will become available in each profile if a disk is inserted.</p><br>
	<i>A good diskette is a great way to counter aforementioned genetic drift!</i><br>
	<br>
	<font size=1>This technology produced under license from Thinktronic Systems, LTD.</font>"}

Aurx · Post by **Aurx** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 4:38 am #15923

Well then, a health monitor implant is VERY different from a constant brain re-scanner implant.

KingLouisXIV · Post by **KingLouisXIV** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:22 am #15925

Wow, well.

That paper pretty much blows my entire argument before out of the water. It seems like a good time to backpedal and argue that yeah, you should in-fact remember just as if your body was dragged in.

I still want to know though, as Aurx said, what's the difference between a brain-memory scan and a health-scanner implant?

Kelenius · Post by **Kelenius** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:32 am #15926

Line of Delirium, anyone?

Anyone?

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:22 am #15950

Aurx wrote:The player can also return as a golem, or a positronic brain, or an alien larva, or a mid-round wizard, or deathsquad, or any of a number of other things. But just because the player controls those does not indicate in any way that they would be the same consciousness. As point of fact, using pre-death memories under those situations is against the rules, so it's clearly NOT the same consciousness.

That is not true. When being scanned, the body goes through "mental interface". That is the device (or MMI, for that matter, it, too, contains mental interface) which connects your past memories with a new body.

Or... that paper

Aurx · Post by **Aurx** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 4:40 pm #15990

Lo6a4evskiy wrote:
Aurx wrote:The player can also return as a golem, or a positronic brain, or an alien larva, or a mid-round wizard, or deathsquad, or any of a number of other things. But just because the player controls those does not indicate in any way that they would be the same consciousness. As point of fact, using pre-death memories under those situations is against the rules, so it's clearly NOT the same consciousness.
That is not true. When being scanned, the body goes through "mental interface". That is the device (or MMI, for that matter, it, too, contains mental interface) which connects your past memories with a new body.

Or... that paper

Did you read the second paragraph? Because I addressed that exact point in the second paragraph.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:55 pm #15998

My point is that there's a fucking spirit which carries the memories, not the brain. Brain is fucking dead.

CreationPro · Post by **CreationPro** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:22 pm #15999

The spirit is also used for the pAIs and the golems. What gives?

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:29 pm #16001

>but spirit used for golem/pai

>golem
>magical creature summoned via slime cores
>not a single link or relation to a human soul

>pai
>lines of code
>not a single link or relation to a human soul

>human back up
>replica of previous host body
>specifically linked and related to a unique human soul

but most of all

callanrockslol wrote:You could always go back to bay with this shit for one.

On topic, there is a difference between a new character and being cloned from your own body, soul bullshit is involved.

There are already servers that have this, it's stupid as fuck, incredibly hard to enforce and causes all sorts of needless bullshit.

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 7:46 pm #16018

Pretty much. The point of my post above (about mental interface) was to show exactly why spirit doesn't carry memories into larvas or pAIs or golems. Because the mental interface is what connects the memories of a spirit to a new body.

CreationPro · Post by **CreationPro** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:01 pm #16021

This is going into some spiritual territory.

Is that brain implant just a monitoring tool, or something that constantly transmits all the data from a brain via some wi-fi thingy? Because I used to think of cloning as of a "save file" rather than "o hai im bak"

Cipher3 · Post by **Cipher3** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 9:27 pm #16032

Deep Nanotrasen conspiracy and the truth of SS13 grounds here. Stay away from the reality that our reality is not reality.

Aurx · Post by **Aurx** » Thu Jun 26, 2014 11:21 pm #16052

CreationPro wrote:This is going into some spiritual territory.

Is that brain implant just a monitoring tool, or something that constantly transmits all the data from a brain via some wi-fi thingy? Because I used to think of cloning as of a "save file" rather than "o hai im bak"

The text posted indicates it's a health monitor. Not a brain scanner, a HEALTH MONITOR IMPLANT. Which explains how you can't clone somebody who's alive.

Post by **MisterPerson** » Fri Jun 27, 2014 2:53 am #16080

MrStonedOne wrote: OOC wise is what matters thou. So I'm not sure why we are even discussing the ic/lore/cannon aspect .

I think some of you guys need to reread this. The lore is irrelevant; it can be changed ultra-trivially. Just worry about what interpretation has the best OOC consequences and we can fit the lore to match that OOC desire.

bandit · Post by **bandit** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 2:02 am #16216

The real problem with all of this is that it would require most people to radically change their RP style (if it exists at all.) I sort of think of this like rev -- the in-game text says you remember nothing from your time as a rev other than the guy who flashed you, but who ever does that, or enforces that?

Incomptinence · Sat Jun 28, 2014 2:35 am

If someone is converted to rev or cult after a backup and they get cloned they keep their rev or cult status right?

At the moment the lore fits the game mechanics better than MisterPerson.

Totally discarding all lore for more and more arcane rp rules from one guy will make us the best rpers ever!

Isane · Post by **Isane** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 3:33 am #16237

Are you guys who want clones to not remember anything volunteering to monitor every single person who gets cloned in order to ensure that they do not utilize any knowledge they gained while they were alive?

Post by **MisterPerson** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 7:53 am #16268

Isane wrote:Are you guys who want clones to not remember anything volunteering to monitor every single person who gets cloned in order to ensure that they do not utilize any knowledge they gained while they were alive?

There's exactly one shitty behavior that I personally dislike, and it's extremely easy to spot by everyone. It's the sole behavior I care about at all when it comes to clones.

The bartender murders the clown.
Bartender runs off without gibbing the clown.
The clown gets found and cloned.
The very first thing the clown is gonna do is find a radio and shout "Hey guys the bartender murdered me. We should lynch his ass honk honk".

Getting cloned and then tattling on your murderer is complete horse shit with a myriad of negative consequences. First off, it forces murderers to escalate all murders into gibbing/spacing/etc everyone they murder rather than allow them to be cloned. Giving the bartender the option of allowing the clown to continue playing = clown having some fun. Clown not playing = clown having 0 fun. Some fun > 0 fun. Simply giving the bartender the option to be nice is a huge improvement (and yes I'm aware traitor objectives right now don't really allow this, but let's just say they were changed). Second, it completely invalidates all the forensics tools the Detective has. Why work very hard and deduce who murdered someone when you can just clone them and ask? Cloning isn't even hard. I dunno about you, but I'd rather do nothing and get the information than work hard and maybe get some of the information. Third, it's a source of information that's 100% reliable. No need to have an investigation or trial or even to question the perp. You have an unquestionable witness, might as well just permabrig whoever the clonee says. No thought, no interaction, no roleplay, just cut right to the manhunt. Boring.

I don't mind if you come back and use pre-death knowledge subtly. We already do the same thing with knowledge learned while dead, which is actually MORE informative than what you learned while you were alive. I don't even mind if you come back and distrust your murderer or even hide from them "subconsciously", all I want is to say "no, you can't tattle on your murderer".

Lo6a4evskiy · Post by **Lo6a4evskiy** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 9:00 am #16277

But pretending not to know your murderer after cloning is kind of annoying and stupid

MisterPerson wrote:Cloning isn't even hard.

Unless chemistry is good, it's incredibly annoying. It takes quite some time, you come out almost dead, retarded and blind/deaf/something. If chem has cryo mix set up with alkysine, clonex and ryetalyn, it's okay. But otherwise it's incredible pain the ass. Because you are retarded, it's actually incredibly hard to communicate sometimes. I've had some of the worst times ever when medical doctors decided that they should not heal me and should instead handcuff me and ship me to security. I don't think I ever managed to tell them that I'm not guilty because retarded.

miggles · Post by **miggles** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 9:51 am #16283

>killed by a coworker you recognize while you personally see them with your own eyes
>cloned with future space magic
>implying you wouldnt fucking know who killed you
stop
gameplay hindrance or not there is no logical reason to explain your argument and forcing people to RP the way we want them to does not work on /tg/

Munchlax · Post by **Munchlax** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 11:40 am #16292

If the bartender was wearing a mask and hid his ID and parapenned and bashed the clowns head in until he died and the clown got cloned, in that case it would make sense.
But as miggles said, the clown saw with his own freaking eyes the bartender bashing his head in so why wouldn't a clone of him be aware that the bartender murdered him?

imblyings · Post by **imblyings** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:01 pm #16295

> First off, it forces murderers to escalate all murders into gibbing/spacing/etc everyone they murder rather than allow them to be cloned.
>murderers ever allowing their objectives to be cloned if they can help it

which server do you play on because it's not /tg/

> but let's just say they were changed
>traitors still letting their victims be cloned

in what alternate universe are murderers nice enough to let their victims come back to life.

>Second, it completely invalidates all the forensics tools the Detective has.
are detective players currently complaining about being completely useless
>no
okay then

> Third, it's a source of information that's 100% reliable.
>Boring.
it's 99 percent reliable and you think it's boring.

This is a question of whether you think antag greentext or victims being able to continue playing ss13 is more important. An antag killing me obviously has no obligation towards my fun, having reduced it to something that needs to be stopped so they can have greentext, so there is absolutely no reason why I should be obligated to care about their fun.

Steelpoint · Post by **Steelpoint** » Sat Jun 28, 2014 1:10 pm #16302

Forcing people to forget who murdered them is arbitrarily stupid, of all the things you would forget after being murdered and brought back to life, you would forget their name. Under that policy I could remember what they were wearing, their gender, their weapon of choice, the location, what they sounded like, everything EXCEPT THEIR NAME.

The only possible way a policy like this can work is to enforce a complete mind wipe on someone upon being cloned, which to be frank is not fun or enjoyable.

damiac · Post by **damiac** » Mon Jul 07, 2014 7:20 pm #18162

I've played on servers with the rule that after cloning you don't remember how you died.

It works fine, and it's easy to enforce, just like the no IC in OOC rules, or the no remembering stuff you saw while all the way dead rule.

Essentially, if someone murders you, and you end up coming back to life, no saying who murdered you. It's literally that easy.

I've taken advantage of the rule in ways just like the OP pointed out. I had an objective to kill X. When I killed X, Z and Y stumbled onto the scene. So now X, Y, and Z are all dead. I gib X, then delivered Y and Z to medbay. Now Y and Z get to keep playing. If they were allowed to remember me killing them, I would have just gibbed them too. Plus now the detective has something to do.