bio-printing press

[abe]

How would the houses print books & pamplets for communication purposes?
What sort of bio-printing presses would they make?

[The Galactus Kid]

genetic pre-programming of pigmentation on organic material.

[Shark_Force]

actually, printing presses are something i would expect to be fairly straightforward. you don't really need metal in particular, so it would have been simplest to just directly copy the regular printing press, except use muscle-based motors instead of electricity-based motors.

mostly because it would have been one of the first things to be converted, i feel... people wouldn't be getting creative yet.

also, genetically coding something every time you want to make a new pamphlet feels like an awful lot of work.

[The Galactus Kid]

also, genetically coding something every time you want to make a new pamphlet feels like an awful lot of work.

A simple wood block printing press would be fine and not trigger the nanoplague response, but it's not nearly as gross as pulling your vellum scroll out of a vat of goo.

[Slight001]

so we want bio and slightly gross... k...

Living scrolls - essentially pale sheets of skin.
Living quill - releases a chemical 'ink' that causes living scrolls to develop a strong and localized pigment allowing for writing.

[The Galactus Kid]

so we want bio and slightly gross.

Of course. Bio-tech is should be weird and gross in almost all cases.

Living scrolls - essentially pale sheets of skin.
Living quill - releases a chemical 'ink' that causes living scrolls to develop a strong and localized pigment allowing for writing.

These are great.

[krispy]

A papyrus snake that sheds its skin, providing paper for the scribes

[The Galactus Kid]

Also a good option!!!

[glitterboy2098]

the living quill should be a modified squid.. oohh... living printer..octopi modified for dry land, to crawl over a page and leave ink dots ala the old dot-matrix printers.

A papyrus snake that sheds its skin, providing paper for the scribes

nah, just engineer a special tree that sheds thin layers of bark.

and maybe a parchment livestock, that sheds its skin to make parchment. could have variations for other leather types too..

[Talon Starblade]

I find many of these ideas interesting, but why feel the need to work crudely with wood blocks or even set typing? I can fully see the Librarians solving the problem by combining the DNA and materials to create an actual “bio-printer.” (Literally. WE’VE got printers 3D printing organs, why not the reverse for Splicers.) Use spines or squirter points in a line, have a feed system set in it and boom… Say hello to your book maker.

Hell, take a vat grown brain, craft a shell that can input information, store it, process it, and then output it through things like a controlled bio-luminescent area, compatible with other “peripherals” by the various biological connection systems they’ve created, and boom, you have bio equivalents of Computers, modems, printers, displays, hard drive… The sky’s the bloody limit, and the potential for expansion and processing power is only limited by the biological potential of the brain construction the Librarians

[abe]

I find many of these ideas interesting, but why feel the need to work crudely with wood blocks or even set typing? I can fully see the Librarians solving the problem by combining the DNA and materials to create an actual “bio-printer.” (Literally. WE’VE got printers 3D printing organs, why not the reverse for Splicers.) Use spines or squirter points in a line, have a feed system set in it and boom… Say hello to your book maker.

Hell, take a vat grown brain, craft a shell that can input information, store it, process it, and then output it through things like a controlled bio-luminescent area, compatible with other “peripherals” by the various biological connection systems they’ve created, and boom, you have bio equivalents of Computers, modems, printers, displays, hard drive… The sky’s the bloody limit, and the potential for expansion and processing power is only limited by the biological potential of the brain construction the Librarians

yes, but so is the potential for information storage mistakes as well.

[Slight001]

I find many of these ideas interesting, but why feel the need to work crudely with wood blocks or even set typing? I can fully see the Librarians solving the problem by combining the DNA and materials to create an actual “bio-printer.” (Literally. WE’VE got printers 3D printing organs, why not the reverse for Splicers.) Use spines or squirter points in a line, have a feed system set in it and boom… Say hello to your book maker.

Hell, take a vat grown brain, craft a shell that can input information, store it, process it, and then output it through things like a controlled bio-luminescent area, compatible with other “peripherals” by the various biological connection systems they’ve created, and boom, you have bio equivalents of Computers, modems, printers, displays, hard drive… The sky’s the bloody limit, and the potential for expansion and processing power is only limited by the biological potential of the brain construction the Librarians

yes, but so is the potential for information storage mistakes as well.

A trinity of trinities aka a grouping of 3 groups of 3 should just about eliminate the possibility of information flaws via multiple data checks and backups. It's what I did with my House's librarians.

[GlitterKnight]

I love the idea of the living scroll and quill, as I had that idea as well recently. I envision a lot of the Resistance as living a mostly medieval life. So much technology relying on metal, and it taking a lot of resources to try to replicate everything with things like ceramics, plastics and resin. They probably could, but the name of the game for the Resistance is survival and fighting. All the nice Splicer resources go to that; what we need to survive and what we need to fight. Providing food, clean water, safe dwellings, light, temperature controls, clothing; those are our survival needs. Stuff like the Host Armors and War Mounts must consume massive Bio-Energy resources that can't be spared for things like printing presses.

Add to that the fact that most houses form from a nucleus of Retro-Village escapees, and I see a generation of mankind that's more comfortable with quill and ink, illuminated manuscripts and scrolls, than with printed news papers and books. There was a deliveryman OCC from one of the Rifters, taking letters, packages and news between Houses and Retro Villages; a post apocalyptic postman. That's the kind of world I see; humans reduced to primitive means, supplemented with Splicer enhanced biotech and organisms, with the high tech-substitution Splicer tech restricted to military purposes. So a gongfarmer in the underground haven, sitting on his wagon, pulled by a mule, wearing homespun clothes as he uses a handcarved wooden shovel to spread his load across the mushroom patches to feed the House. His children are educated by the schoolmarm, whose lesson plans are overseen by the Scarecrows, who reads to the children out of an illuminated manuscript of the history of the House and the Resistance, full of hand drawn pictures of Machines and Splicers locked in combat.

[abe]

what sort of books & pahmplets would the resetants make anyway?

[The Galactus Kid]

what sort of books & pahmplets would the resetants make anyway?

Archived literature, propaganda, technical or training documents etc.

[abe]

How about a bio-brial printer for the blind?

[glitterboy2098]

i could see a "mentat" type class for humans that is upgraded with near perfect memory and high IQ's.. a living computer that can defend itself if needed. for mobile recording, birds upgraded with perfect recall and mimmicking abilities (a kinda 'super parrot') to serve as a portable recorder and as a messenger.

really, for civilian biotech i can't suggest reading In the Courts of the Crimson Kings enough.. the Martian civilization in that novel takes biotech to a fairly major level.. (the lack of useful energy sources on mars, and the fairly rich biota in its early millenniums means they use biotech for stuff we'd use conventional tech for.. didn't hurt they came up with ways to tinker with genetics as well, to mold the martian animals and plants into highly specialized "tool" forms..)

[Shark_Force]

i'm a fan of the geneforge games for a setting where biotechnology is the standard.

granted, they have magically created biotechnology, but it is biotechnology nonetheless