Author: Jürgen Hubert (---.uni-erlangen.de)
Date: 03-19-2002 07:03
The setting of "Transhuman Space" offers some fascinating thoughts on "what it means to be human" - and indeed, that question is of central importance to the setting, since humanity has created new "human races" thanks to genetic engineering, or even created entirely new sapient beings where none existed before - like bioroids, who are enslaved like the replicants of "Blade Runner"; uplifted animals, which were uplifted to sapience whether they liked it or not, or sapient AIs, which exist purely in the realms of information and light.
And even "ordinary" humans can change themselves drastically. From cellular regeneration that can turn people who are older than a century young again (at the cost of possible amnesia), to all kinds of "biomods", to destructively scanning their brains and running their personality as computer programs...
What does it mean to be "human"? In the setting of Transhuman Space, this question continues to be asked - and nobody has come up with a good answer yet.
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