Respawning in PS2 lore?

[Micro]

Just have to say that Sonny's ideas are awesome!

. Sent from my phone

[Sonny]

Thanks Micro!

Woh FrothyLord - that's a really cool explanation. I love your point of view that you know that you are in fact a different person every time but with all the horrible memories intact. That's very dark and very cool at the same time .

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by Brogan

Another interesting place to go is what if suddenly the rebirth malfunctions? Some guy dies, another day another dollar for him, and then, something isn't right. Either physically or mentally. This could be done with varying degrees of squick. Could even be that he is reconstructed with the same bullet wound that killed him in the first place. Could be sabotage, or it could be the original vanu saying GTFO as it happens more and more often to each faction...
Original vanu are like *facepalm* "we set all this up to prepare you for peaceful relations." *sigh*

And to answer your question, I'd imagine that the those that are institutionalized would probably be experimented on for a way to selectively stop someone from ever respawning again. (A useful thing to have in a world where respawning effectively make true victory impossible)

This could also be used for a less dark story too, where the guy die for the first time and respawning, with the Sargent waiting there for him, ending with "what took ya so long" or something.

By the way, I forgot to reply to your message Brogan. I think each of those ideas could lead to a very interesting story . I especially like the idea of someone sabotaging the respawn system so that slowly with every respawn the genetic code gets more and more corrupted... It is then a race against time to fix the code/stop the sabotage before the entire army becomes crippled and useless.

Man... The PS 2 lore and backstory could really be awesome if the devs put a bit of time into it!

[Brogan]

That's just it though. The whole idea of the rebirthing matrix brings up an interesting question: what happens to the soul? (Even if you are not religious/don't believe in the concept, you must admit this makes for a great literary device). Put simply, if a copy is identical in every way to the original, and the only difference is that the matter he/she is made of is not the same as the original, and the original is dead, can this replica be considered the same person? Will it consider itself the same person. For those delving into the question of the soul, what soul dwells within the replica?

Please, I don't want to start a flame war. It's a philosophical question that can make for a good plot device.

[Sonny]

Indeed. I'm sure we could almost write a book just on trying to understand what happens to you, your body and your soul after respawning. A lot of fan fiction potential .

P.S. I started a similar discussion on Reddit yesterday and got a lot of interesting replies about this subject: http://redd.it/197vv6

[Brogan]

I see an interesting way to incorporate this: someone asks the main character a question, about his beliefs, or something (basically something that you tend not to change you mind about) and the main character gives an answer. But when asked the same question later (after being reborn) they give a different answer, as if they always believed it. (Also there shouldn't be any point before or after rebirthing that something happens to change their mind). Where it goes from there is the writer's choice.

[Zulthus]

Respawning was explained in PS1 like this;

A TR soldier flew his aircraft through a warpgate without authorization, so upon his return, they executed him. Soon, though, he 'respawned' in the middle of Ishundar, marked by the crystal (I forgot what they were called). The TR were confused, and they tried to make sure he stayed dead by blowing him to bits with a Prowler. He returned again, and I think they gave up.

Going through the warpgate recorded the matrix of the person, and allowed them to reconstruct via nanites at a respawn tube after they died.

[Vigilite]

I'm not the best with writing stories, but the ideas are where I'm best. Thanks for this thread.

Anyways, the way I see it is that the moment you enter through a WG (going with what I've read from PS1 lore here), your brain waves begin getting constantly tracked. That way, when you die, you die. That conscious is gone, impermanently. Personality, emotions, relationships, everything. But back at the spawn tube, an exact copy of the memories are placed within a perfect genetic makeup body, with a few defining characteristics that make them look vaguely like the original (you notice only the race of the character are different from all the others of a faction?). Since only the memories are restored, the copy's personality is based solely off those memories, with no outside interference. They remember their death perfectly, but since they're memories are placed within a soldier's genetic makeup, he is driven to continue the fight he was made to wage.

After a while though, there would be so many memories of being forced into gruesome, painful death that his memories would overpower his genetics. Either he would go insane and get killed, rebel and get killed, or commit suicide, just to be revived again. It would be a constant circle of death, and the only way to end it would be to eliminate your neuro-code from the database. And, chances are, you would die doing that. It would take a mass group of elite soldiers to break the cycle, and even then, it would only be until they enter another WG.

At the end of the day, the only way to break the cycle would be to destroy the WG, which may be more catastrophic than the cycle itself.

[Rictavius]

Originally Posted by Sonny

Hi all,
I've had a quick read through the official PS2 backstory on the main site. One thing that I noticed is that there is no discussion of respawning in the lore. I remember that in PS1 they went into a lot of detail to explain how people were effectively ending up as 'immortal' when going through the warpgates. But in the few stories we have here, it seems that the characters are genuinely afraid of dying (e.g. here).

So, can we assume that 'respawning' or 'immortality' is just an in-game convenience and is no longer connected to the backstory? I think that would be a shame, as I thought that respawning was a really cool feature of the PS1 backstory that made it kind of original within the sci-fi literature already saturated with similar stories.

Anyone else noticed this, or any other omissions from the PS2 backstory that you think should be put back in?

PS2 is a CLEAN SLATE on lore, in order words - a redo. No immortality that is the official word, but there is the re-birthing technology.

[Neutral Calypso]

Nanite Systems already rules the world. They are just hosting some continent-spanning full-contact sports...

[HiroshiChugi]

Respawning in Planetside Lore is "Rebirthing Technology" and is only mostly used by the Vanu Sovereignty. It was outlawed by the Terran Republic and isn't used by the New Conglomerate even though the TR don't want it being used.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by HiroshiChugi

Respawning in Planetside Lore is "Rebirthing Technology" and is only mostly used by the Vanu Sovereignty. It was outlawed by the Terran Republic and isn't used by the New Conglomerate even though the TR don't want it being used.

If the New Conglomerate isn't using it, then how come they are able to respawn like the other two factions?

By the way, I recently asked the PS 2 dev team to give us a bit more background on how respawning came about in PS 2 and they said they would. So hopefully a lot of our un-answered questions in this thread will be addressed in the near future . Expect some more official lore from the time that Auraxis was discovered to the start of the war.

[HiroshiChugi]

Originally Posted by Sonny

If the New Conglomerate isn't using it, then how come they are able to respawn like the other two factions?

By the way, I recently asked the PS 2 dev team to give us a bit more background on how respawning came about in PS 2 and they said they would. So hopefully a lot of our un-answered questions in this thread will be addressed in the near future . Expect some more official lore from the time that Auraxis was discovered to the start of the war.

Well they also don't have a lot of the lore in the gameplay, so that may answer your question. Who knows, maybe the NC have their own way of "rebirthing" their soldiers.

[Carrionghoul]

According to the PS2 Lore Wiki the TR never banned rebirthings use. They did, however, order their scientists to keep its existence secret from the general population. This is one of the reasons that the scientists formed the Vanu Sovereignty and rebelled against the TR. Once the war broke out, all three sides were forced into using rebirthing technology, or they would fall behind in numbers and lose the war.