Most of the implanted technology imagined by cyberpunk SF and its successors is not very common in Flat Black, not because it isn't possible (though some suggestions are absurd or impractical), but because the external alternatives are cheaper, more convenient,and better. For example, the "cursor" and "recog" modifications in ForeScene are possible and even available in Flat Black, but most people who have any call for the capabilities it offers find that a wearable computer, earpieces, HUD goggles, and headset cameras provide at least as good capability, far cheaper, and without surgery, and moreover that the wearable alternative is much easier to download to, upload from, recharge, maintain, repair, and upgrade. Cursor & recog are therefore rare, not mass-produced, and therefore expensive. Likewise, an armoured dermis is more expensive, more trouble, and less convenient than armoured clothing, and far less effective than overt worn armour.
The leading exception is "reinforcement", roughly equivalent to "Muscle & Bone Lace" in CyberPunk 2020. Protective clothing, helmets, athletic padding and so forth are to some extent an alternative, but the two are found to be complementary. Also, reinforcement is actually more convenient and reliable than wearable protection in many pursuits, and it doesn't need recharging or maintenance. The implanted material is "dumb", and therefore simple, and therefore cheap. High-tech surgery and anaesthetics make the procedure safe and painless, surprisingly quick. Popularity means large volumes, economies of scale in materials and components, and high-efficiency specialised clinics. Reinforcement of some sort is very common in the more developed societies.
There is a wide range of materials and techniques in use, and a long menu of particular treatments in different organs and parts of the body. The exact details of a person's reinforcement are widely variable and often highly characteristic. But very roughly, four approximate levels of reinforcement can be recognised.
Routine ligament reinforcement
It is common even for people who don't lead very active lives to have some minor reinforcement for comfort and to prevent or repair the effects of wear and tear or aging. This nearly all comes down to ligament reinforcement. The most common treatment is the reinforcement of spinal ligaments in the lumbar spine to prevent backache. Next most common is the reinforcement of the Cooper's ligaments which support the breasts, which many even rather young women have done to prevent or reverse sagging and to provide the comfort of a sort of internal sports bra. And frequent players even of non-contact sports often have reinforcement in, for example, their shoulders, elbows, ankles, knees, and hips either as a precaution or in middle age. The pattern is sometimes characteristic of particular sports.
Routine ligament reinforcement has no effects in a typical RPG.
Sports reinforcement
High tech surgery and medicine abate a lot of the danger of full-contact and "extreme" sports, from Rugby to full-contact karate and from parkour to BASE jumping. And this allows them to be played hard. There remains therefore a danger from the injury that is too quickly lethal for a high-tech hospital to be of any use. Also, reinforcement allows a player to play on after and incident that would otherwise mean the game being cut short by a visit to the emergency room or operating theatre. It is very common indeed for fully-grown professionals and keen amateurs of full-contact games, of martial arts, and of extreme sports to have precautionary reinforcement to protect them against blows, collisions and falls.
Exactly what is done in sports reinforcement varies from person to person, with some characteristic patterns in particular sports and even playing positions in certain sports. Typical sports reinforcement includes most of the following
- The main bones of the four limbs, the ankles, wrists, and fingers, the jawbone, the cheekbones, the hyoid bone, the nasal bone, ribs, sternum, and xiphoid process are reinforced with strips of strong, tough composite material to resist fractures. Strips of such material protect the vault of the skull to resist fracture. Cervical and lumbar spinal bodies are reinforced with pins and rings of composite material.
- The ligaments of spine, the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, wrists, knuckle-joints, and temporomandibular joint, and the nasal cartilage are reinforced with high-strength fibres to resist dislocations. The fibres are attached directly to the reinforcing material in adjacent bones.
- Certain tendons vulnerable to tearing are reinforced with high-strength fibres.
- Certain abdominal organs vulnerable to rupture are enclosed in a reinforcing mesh that protects them from splitting under a blow. Typically the liver, pancreas, spleen, and kidneys are thus protected.
- Sometimes nerve trunks and arteries in vulnerable locations are enclose in a tube of high-strength low-modulus fibres to protect them from over-extension and tearing.
In ForeSight sports reinforcement may be represented by raising Damage Track to 2. In GURPS, it may be represented by buying massless hit points up to about half of the character's ST score.
Military & police reinforcement
Sports reinforcement provides useful protection against blunt force, which is good enough for full-contact and extreme sports. But policemen, gendarmes, security guards, bodyguards, combat troops, and sometimes likely assassination targets often undertake further reinforcement to protect themselves for rapid death in the event of penetrating injuries from projectiles, blades, or bomb fragments. This starts with a robust version of Sports reinforcement, to which the following features are typically added.
- The cranium (vault and base) and the maxilla are armoured with a continuous envelope of rigid composite.
- The scapulas, pelvis, thoracic vertebrae etc. are reinforced.
- Larger reinforcing members in the ribs provide partial protection of the thorax.
- All the vertebrae are replaces with tough composite to protect the spinal cord.
- The intervertebral discs are laced with ballistic fibres to protect the spinal cord.
- The intervertebral joints are enclosed in a mesh of ballistic fibres to protect the spinal cord.
- The chest wall is protected with ballistic mesh anchored to the (reinforced) ribs.
- The abdominal cavity is lined with ballistic mesh anchored to the pelvis, spine, and lower ribs.
- Vulnerable organs in abdomen and thorax (heart, liver, kidneys, pancreas, spleen etc.) are enclosed in ballistic mesh.
- The solid viscera (liver, kidneys, pancreas) are laced with high-strength fibres to resist tearing.
- Major arteries, veins, trunk nerves, and nervous plexuses are encased in tubes of ballistic fibre mesh to resist tearing and incising injury.
- The trachea is reinforced with artificial fibres to resist puncture and incisions, and with semi-rigid rings to resist compression.
Most of the meshes are woven and the rigid members are cast in place by micromachines supplied through endoscopes. Nevertheless the procedure is traumatic, and requires some convalescence.
Military & police reinforcement may be represented in ForeSight by increasing Damage Track to 3, in GURPS by buying massless hit point up to about the character's ST score and two or three levels of Hard to Kill.
Extreme reinforcement
Military & police gives about as much protection as is both complementary with worn armour and compatible with not adversely affecting the patient. It is not unknown for people to undertake further modification to make themselves more formidable in combat, eg. by lacing their skin with ballistic mesh, removing external ears and genitals, building up a protective brow-ridge. protecting the throat and knuckles with bands of tough synthetic, etc. In the first place this tends to be more intimidating than effective. In the second place the patients often experience continual discomfort, and sometimes some loss of feeling, loss of flexibility and other side-effects. Also, it is conspicuous and most people find it ugly.
Extreme reinforcement may be represented in ForeSight by A/A/1 protection on unarmoured locations and + 1/1/0 to armour ratings on armoured locations. In GURPS it is DR 5, flexible skin, plus possible disadvantages.