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Technology

The following information is a breakdown of the current level of technology known to humanity. This overview illustrates the mainstream, rather than the cutting edge, so the VoidWalker's systems may not necessarily fit neatly into these areas.

Medicine

Medicine has not advanced too much beyond what was possible in the early 21st centuary. Any real changes have been the result of morality shifts, allowing some already known technologies to be used, and banning the use of others.

Individual organs can now be grown in special nurseries. There was a lot of opposition to this when the laws were passed allowing it, however any organ with a complex central nervous system (like most areas of the brain) are forbidden, on the grounds that such a life form would be self-aware to some degree. In addition, technolgies are being developed to induce limb regeneration in patients that have lost them.

Because nanotechnolgy is still in its infancy, the use of nanobots in medicine is limited. Where it is used is in cybernetics, allowing the development of non-rejecting cybernetic organs that interface directly with a patient's central nervous system.

Improved conditions, social structure and medicine has extended the life span of humanity by approximately 20%

Due to the problems of population overcrowding the birth rate is legally controlled. A couple wishing to produce an offspring must apply for a parental permit. The couple undergo rigourous genetic screening and psychological profiling before they are legally allowed to become parents.

Although human cloning is possible, its application is totally forbidden.

Communication

In the twenty first centuary, it would have taken days for standard satelite signals to reach Earth from the furthest planets. The elusive tackyon - a theoretical particle that could transcend the light barrier, remained out of reach.

At the beginning of the millenium research into quantum physics had made some progress. Single photons of light could be made to act upon their "quantum pairs" with the apparent effect of transfering information faster even than time itself (a affected photon's twin was shown to have changed its "spin" several nanoseconds earlier than the original). This had limited application since single photons were useless as a method of information transfer.

In 2100 scientists had found a way of creating a tackyon stream that could travel several times faster than the speed of light. This stream could carry terrabytes of data along it, allowing communication between planets within our solar system as simple as a telephone call to a neighbouring country.

Computers

The limits of silicon in circuitry were quickly reached by the mid millenium years. Todays computers work on quantum particles rather than electricty.

Modern computers can be accessed using a screen and keyboard, but more often than not the computer operator is fitted with a datajack at the base of the spine. This allows the computer to feed data directly into and out of a human brain. Many new and elabourate operating systems have been developed to create "cyberscapes" for the budding cybernaught to explore.

Since computers can now store terrabytes of data it is theoretically possible to download the entire memories of a single human being into a computer, but this has never been done in actuality.

Artificial intelligence has been replaced by a new buzz-word "Self Awareness". Research into the self-aware computer is still in its infancy and the more sophisticated systems can be thought to have the intellectual capacity of a small dog, or six month old baby.

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