This week’s Doctor Who started me musing on the negative parts of being actually immortal, notably our unreliable, puny human memories and the questions of how well you might age. In previous episodes of the Major Spoilers Podcast, we’ve had discussions about the possibility of cybernetic enhancements and how much of you is still you if your whole body is replaced, but I still wonder about the possibility of upgrading. And if you’re going to upgrade, you don’t want to piece it out a little at a time like a kid rebuilding a ’58 Plymouth, you might as well go whole hog, leading us to today’s existential metallic query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) thinks that maybe the shape-shifted T-1000 robot body has its charms, as long as my brain is fully in charge, ’cause I don’t wanna track down John Connor all day long, asking: If you could have your consciousness uploaded into any robot body, which one might you choose?
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I assume we are going full robots and not cybernetics and androids? If androids are a allowed, them Data would be in pretty high ranking for me. 100% robots, T-1000 would feel the most functional considering everyday life.
Androids would be allowed, presuming you can make a compelling good-faith argument. :)
Alright, Data it is! Im thinking this from still being able to be part of society and have at least somewhat normal life, while being awesome at the same time perspective. Data is perfectly balanced with “all the functions” of a normal person plus computer speed brain and android physique in same package.
In general, I would lean towards the Human Replica Droids of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, but with a few tweaks. We know that beings can potentially “live” inside a droid or other machinery as General Grievous did by choice as he had his brain, lungs and a few other parts implanted in a droid body, and Callista Ming used the Force to put her essence inside the computer of a ship to survive. So instead of going directly for a high-armored droid body like Grievous and looking too obvious, I would go with an HRD body to appear human on the outside but have all the benefits of a mechanical being inside. Synthflesh and technology can mimic sensations such as pressure, pain and other things, but they can also be disabled if the need arises, so I would still be able to retain physical sensation as I know it to some degree (it isn’t quite 100% the same, but is fairly close). Beneath the artificial human candy coating, though, is the rich nougaty mechanical center and all the benefits it brings, such as being stronger, faster and so much more.
If I have to choose a specific mechanical form, though, I’ll just go with G1 Grimlock, because being a robot warrior that turns into a T-Rex is awesome.