Regalti Cybernetics

A

Digital Zilda

If you are currently seeing an adorable green plant creature in your vision right now, Don't Panic! It just means the injection is working!... Why is your blood pressure and heart rate elevated? I said Don't Panic!.... I knew I should have chosen a different appearance...

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The Regalti as a whole species don't believe in external body modifications such as large scale body implants like artificial eyes or limbs, but are completely fine with micro and nanoscale cybernetics and machines that augment the body internally. These can range from nervous and circulatory system enhancements that keep their bodies running smoothly to eye implants that allow them to correct vision defects and see virtual objects overlayed in the real world.

Artificial cells are tailored to the type of cell and mimic nearly all the functions of that cell. Materials include titanium alloys and different types of carbon, especially diamond and graphene. Most artificial cells interface with living tissue through conductive potassium channels that naturally occur on the surfaces of cells to pass and recieve information. These tiny machines rely on sugar molecules naturally passed around the body to use as energy.

Due to the small size, the majority of cybernetic enhancements can be injected into the body using a syringe. A skilled doctor is needed to for these as being off by a milimeter or two could instead cause large amounts of damage to the surrounding cells. The artificial cells are preprogrammed to arrange themselves in the required areas before they send out a signal and fully interface with the body.

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Types of Augments

Rainbow Vision

Long graphene rods that are injected in the Retina. Used to correct colored vision defects and allows users to see colors they normally could never see suched as infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths of light. With some modification, it can also be used in species with a similar eye structure. The ability to see UV light and different colors is quite important in Regalti society, though many are born with birth defects that affects their vision, which makes this one of the most common augments. This technology is so effective that the Vusinor adapted the concept to their own vision technology, despite being thousands of years more advanced than the Regalti.

Artificial Overlays

DigitalZilda05

This augment places an entire sheet of rods at the back of the retina, connecting with optic nerve in the back of the eyes. These rods then interface with external electronics to create image overlays, sending it to the brain on the same pathways as the user's normal vision.

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Brain Augments

These nanomachines have a tiny metallic sponge structure that resemble an Astrocyte in size, structure, and can function like one. This can be injected at regular intervals through the brain, or be used in specific areas for specific purposes, such as language learning.

After injection, the nanomachines seek out their designated area by temporarily connecting with neurons. Once it finds the part of the brain it is looking for, it initiates a semi-permanent connection that can last for up to a year before the machine breaks down and is expelled from the body.

As it directly connects to Neurons, this augment can do many things, like assist in language learning, trick the mind into thinking they are in a digital world, changing the perception of time, directly connecting the mind to external vehicles or machinery, creating sounds and images that aren't there, and more.

Language Learning

This augment can be programmed to interface with several areas of the brain to assist in quickly learning a new language. When a sound is heard, if it matches a word in a database, it sends a signal through the neurons, creating an image of the object.

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Time Dilation

This augment can also put the user into a dream-like state and vastly speed up their perception of time. An hour in the real world could be as much as eight hours in this dream world. When in this state, the mind is connected to a virtual world.

Regalti often do most of their schooling in this way, learning far more things far faster than they would otherwise. Others use this for video games instead, inserting themselves into a fantasy world for days or even weeks at a time. Caution must be taken with overusing this augment, as forcing your mind to move this fast all the time can cause serious damage.

Operating vehicles

The RAN's fighter jets have pilots directly connected, vastly increasing the reflex speeds and reaction times. Time can also be slowed down temporarily so a pilot can react to things that normally wouldn't be possible. The only problem with this technology is that when connected, a person often loses their feeling of the real world, which contributes to pilot error as much as any other factor.

Many of the RAN's best pilots don't use nanomachines at all, and many have brains completely incompatible with the technology. To them, very little beats actual experience and natural reflexes.

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Skin Signaler

Regalti change their skin color involuntarily based on their body temperature and their emotional state, similar to but more complicated than that of a chameleon. This change in color occurs throughout their entire bodies and is rather uniform in its appearance unless the regalti has certain emotional states (extreme excitement, depression, ecstasy, etc.). Color Has a lot of Meaning to Regalti, so this mechanism is rather important to them.

Through electrical stimulation by micrometer scale implants on the skin and interfacing with augments in the brain or a separate computer, a Regalti can voluntarily change their skin to whatever they please. Some will mimic animals and have stripes and spots on their skin. Others working for various corporations, individuals who can't speak, or just because, can put entire still images and letters on their skin.

This technology does not work on Colorless regalti, who have fully lost the ability to change their skin color on large patches of their skin.

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Cell Replacement Augments

Artificial Muscle Fibers

Each muscle fiber is a individual cell that when electrically stimulated will contract, pulling the tendon and skeletal structure it is attached to. Artificial Muscle Fibers perform the same function. They can be injected into healthy muscle tissue, or form entire Fascicile sections of a muscle, or can be created as an entire artificial muscle. Includes a nanoprocessor attached to long strands of electroactive graphene polymers that are laces between existing muscle fibers. Requires surgery to insert into existing muscle tissue.

Unlike normal muscle tissue that gets stronger or weaker based on how its used, artificial muscle fibers can't have this function. For this reason, individual muscle fibers are often calibrated to the individual strength of the user. If a user goes a long period of time without exercising, then the artificial fiber can rip the natural tissue if overexerted. If a user exercises past the capability of the artificial muscle, then there is no effect, but removal of the artificial fiber is recommended.

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Immune System Support

Due to how large the Regalti civilization is, viruses and bacteria can become quite isolated among various regalti populations. Diseases don't seem that deadly to the isolated population, but in the larger Regalti civilization, it could potentially become very deadly. Then there are pathogens from other worlds to worry about as well.

Vaccines are developed all the time to boost natural immunity, but when that is taking too long, Regalti also utilize artificial neutrocytes. The disk shaped structure of this artificial cell is designed to contract and enclose around foreign cells. The bulb in the center of the artificial cell contains a powerful acid that is then injected into the trapped foreign cell, completely destroying it. The acid is synthesized from the surrounding material in the body.

Artificial white blood cells have a nanoprocessor that can recieve automatic updates from external systems, making it capable of always being able to identify internal threats to the body.

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Artificial Neurons

Must be custom made for each and every single individual neuron that gets replaced due to the vast differences in size, length, and function of each individual neuron. Because of this, artificial neurons can range from just under a micrometer in length in the brain, to more than a meter in length in the spinal chord. No function is lost in neurons made specifically to interface with muscles, but function is not quite perfect in other areas. In the brain for example, synaptic connections are only about 25% of normal neuron function, only having 1700 connections instead of over 7000.

Artificial neurons have limited memory storing capacity and can greatly slow the effects of age related brain disorders or assisting with brain damaged individuals. Unlike real neurons that can live almost indefinitely unless damaged or killed, artificial neurons have a lifespan of only a few years and must be replaced at regular intervals.

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Artificial Blood Cells

Nanomachine created with a hexagonal structure to increase surface area. There is also a chamber in the center of the structure that will absorb toxins and foreign matter. In performing the same function as red blood cells, Artificial blood cells will pick up oxygen in the lungs. They can stretch and squeeze like regular blood cells and will release oxygen as they squeeze through the tiny capillaries, then pick up carbon dioxide as they go back to their original shape. Then when they reach the lungs they will dump their carbon dioxide and pick up a fresh oxygen supply.

The chamber containing dangerous substances will never empty. When the chamber is full, the cell will release a chemical when it reaches the kidney, and then be expelled from the body within a few days.

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Story...

For the majority of the characters in Finite Horizons, their biology is compatible with Regalti nanomachines. They are able to link up with the Starship Void Chaser's systems. The ship's pilot, Kaline, can't. It doesn't seem to affect her ability to fly the ship, and she is also an expert at flying the ship's XF-337 Griffon fighter jets.

sarahsjournal00

Of the humans, Sarah was the only one that wasn't compatible with the Regalti technology. Because of this, many things the other humans were able to experience things that she had no concept of. She also had to learn the Regalti's language on her own. This also contributed to her growing kind of isolated from the other humans over time.