Inside the Cyborg | The Starset Bulletin
The Starset Bulletin is an in-game independent free press, bringing news, updates, and lore from the tabletop RPG world of Starset: The Great Dimming.
Inside the Cyborg
7.00.00 Grayson Margen wakes in his charging bed, chargers automatically disconnecting from the sides of his forehead. A small box located next to his kidneys inside his stomach pumps out a small dose of adrenaline, jolting his mind to full wakefulness immediately. The glass dome of his bed cracks open, and he slides out of bed to begin his day.
7.36.04 Margen leaves his apartment and walks down eight flights of stairs, opting for exercise over speed on his way to work. He catches the public bus a block from his building just as it pulls up to the stop. His net-connected neural link had informed him exactly when he needed to leave his home based on the gps tracking of the bus online.
8.09.37 Margen arrives at work, clocks into his shift five minutes early, and plugs into his neural set-up, launching his consciousness into the fully digital office where he conducts virtual therapy sessions and begins reviewing his notes for his first client.
Margen will stay at work for the duration of the day, and leave precisely four minutes and thirteen seconds before the bus arrives at the stop outside his job. His neural link will place an order for dinner on the ride home, which will be delivered via drone within fifteen minutes of his arrival, giving him just enough time to clean up and change, then eat and relax for the rest of his evening. Margen is just over 57% machine, considered a cyborg rather than a human, and he says, “[He] couldn’t be more content with the conveniences of [his] tech.”
Margen was born and raised in Verfax, Nevada, North America. He was born with only one eye and received his first bionic eye at only five years old. His parents made sure to upgrade the eye as often as they could afford to, with him receiving a new eye at 7, 10, 13, 16, and 18 years old. The day after his 18th birthday Margen purchased his first cybernetic enhancement, one he’d been saving for since he was 15, and lined his upper arms and back with subdermal plating under his skin. At 21 he purchased his first of four neural augmentations, which he would continue to upgrade every few years until he had the full net-connected neural link that he uses today. At 25 he purchased a resynthesization respirator, allowing him to breathe underwater or in space, and six months later he purchased the adrenal box that allows him to come instantly fully awake. Each of the next four years, he would acquire one new bionic organ, replacing or enhancing each of his lungs, liver, spleen, and heart. At 32 he began upgrading each of his joints to increase his physical speed and flexibility. At 34 he implanted a nano-healer, an internal medical bay that releases microscopic bots into his bloodstream to help his body fight off infections and viruses and repair damage to his body. At 35 he replaced his biological eye with another bionic eye, and in two weeks at age 38, he has a surgery scheduled to line his skull with subdermal cranial mesh to prevent concussions and head injury.
While there are many people who have invested in one small cybernetic or another, and an increasing popularity of simple dataport augmentations, Margen is an extreme rarity as a full cyborg. He is stronger, faster, and more durable than the average human, but his existence raises many questions for people—and the law—to answer. When asked about the topic, Margen had this to say:
“I don’t think I’m any different than other humans. Should there be laws about how tall a person can be, or about ‘extra protections’ from particularly muscle-y body builders? I’ve always been careful about sourcing my cybernetics from reputable sources, and so I don’t see any reason the law should need to be applied any differently to me than to someone who trains harder than the average person, or is smarter than the average, or anything else.”
Margen also noted that he has no plans on stopping his cybernetic enhancements anytime soon and has said, “The Engineers will run out of upgrades before I run out of desire to get them.”
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