Okay, we all know that our BotP friends have cerebonic implants that give them superhuman powers. What if, for the sake of argument, a team member had to give up one facet of their enhancements. Could they still do their job? What kind of risk would it put them under? Which enhancements are critical to functioning and which might you accommodate with some sort of external hardware? Just thinking ... curious to know your thoughts. I'm not sure in canon if we ever get a full list of exactly what the implants do, but I know a number of us have pondered the question. Thanks in advance for your thoughts. I asked this question over on the BotP mailer and it was mostly crickets over there. Personally, I think it's an interesting question, especially since in Gatch, they don't have implants. So in Gatch, does everything happen because of the birdstyle? Do they have improved sight & hearing in Gatch or do we know? Thanks again --

How suppose that would depend on how the implants work and what functions were lost. For example, if implants control the transmutation process (Sorry, Zark, but it makes more sense then you controlling it, but then everything makes more sense than you.), and the member lost that function, then I doubt he/she would be able to continue on the team. If they impact the senses, it would depend on what degree they affected them. Say the enhance vision and hearing, if that is disrupted how much vision and hearing would they lose. If they go to what is normal, it may make there job more difficult, but I don't see them not being able to be part of the team. The Gatch team does not have implants, nor does Birdstyle do much than give them some protection and glide ability. Strength and endurance come from their own training. The cerebonic implants are canonically vague, so IMHO, you are free to play with them as you wish. You can have it as a one or two small chips placed in the brain region, or you have several throughout the body doing various duties. I think the only thing BotP canon has on them is they are miniature and microscopic, likely to separate them from the bionics of the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic woman which are basically prosthesis.

I agree with everything Amethyst said. The BOTP implants are very vague in canon, so you can do whatever you want with them. When it's convenient in fanfic I will have the implants give them enhanced hearing, sight, agility, healing, etc. It's up to you if you think that losing one or more of those aspects would disqualify them for the G-Force Team. I would think that it wouldn't. Given the experience they have had being on the team already, they would still be a valuable member. Now if it was a permanent situation, there might have to be some readjusting of duties (say, an injury of Mark's makes him the primary pilot of the Phoenix and Tiny goes out on more missions) but it could still be worked out.

Ramble warning ... I'm not sure if I came up with this thought or if I came across it in someone's fic, but I look at it as: BOTP team stares at Gatch team. One of the BOTP kids goes, "How are you guys as strong and fast as us but you have no implants?" One of the Gatch team responds, "Uh, we work hard." I have the feeling that if the two teams met, the Gatch team might find the BOTP team lazy and spoiled. (Of course that could be part jealousy.) I agree with the others in that you have a LOT of room to play there. Any compensation for lost abilities has to be something that's pretty foolproof, IMO. They never know how long a mission's going to be or what situations they'll get into, so anything that involves, say, having to take some kind of daily medication would be way risky unless they could use an implant to deliver the meds. Compensations also have to be able to tolerate the transmutation/detransmutation process, and if they're electronic, they can't give out signals that the enemy might pick up on. I'd think that the major things that would make a team member no longer able to do their job at all involve becoming dangerously unreliable. Stuff that can't be adequately planned around and prepared for. Whether that's severe mental/emotional issues, some form of brain damage (epilepsy?), etc. I'm pretty sure there's some deaf and/or blind superheros out there in comics, the names just escape me at the moment. They use a variety of methods to compensate. Severe physical damage might take someone out of the field most of the time, but still allow them to participate. If you can't handle the rigors of the very physical job then you're a danger to yourself and others. Even so, I imagine that the team and their bosses would try everything possible to work around things, not wanting to lose that person's field experience and the fact that they mesh so well with the team. It's also going to depend on where they are in the war. Are things desperate? If so, many more risks are acceptable than if things feel pretty under control. Back to the Gatch team, some people do write them with enhancements. I don't. I do sometimes use the concept of some kind of regen tank for healing like others do, but for the most part I just see them as working very hard, being pretty talented to begin with, and having an advantage since they started training young. Kept veering off topic, here. Hopefully I imagined to rein it in when I went back and edited.

I've tended to assume that the birdstyles in Gatch provide defense, say, against bullets, fire etc. (though not in a foolproof way -Joe does get stabbed with a scalpel through his glove in ep. 19, Jun gets shot in the back through her birdstyle in ep. 16 of Gatch II, etc.) and also help with all the extremely high leaping they do, and soaring down from great heights instead of plummeting. But otherwise, in Gatch, I assume that it's all years of intense training combined with innate talent that gives them their "powers." Like others, I've tended to assume that the BOTP implants give a boost to speed and strength, but that they also can enhance the senses, accelerate healing, reduce/remove the effects of poison, translate foreign languages, solve differential equations -heck, whatever a plot needs! But to lose one or more of these enhancements... I agree, a member of G-Force would have to lose a lot of enhancements to be considered not worth keeping on the team (unless there are a ton of perfectly-implanted-and-already-trained replacements waiting in the wings, each ready to step in, that we just happen to have never seen or heard about in canon...). I'd like to think that, if one of them did lose an enhancement -like if they use their implants to have perfect aim with their weapons (I mean, they never miss) but suddenly one of them no longer does and is missing all the time- then maybe they could learn to compensate by training really hard, the old-fashioned way. In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series, there's a character who has an eidetic memory chip in his brain -has had it nearly his whole adult life, for decades- and he can remember absolutely everything he's ever heard, seen or done, perfectly. Then the chip has to be removed for medical reasons and... he can't even find his way around the city he's always lived in without getting lost. He's never had to bother, for so many years, using his brain's organic memory because the eidetic chip was so superior. He basically has to learn, or relearn, how to remember, and how to deal with the fact that his organic memory will never be as good.

Thanks, everyone, that's very helpful. Before I went too far down this path, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't being too mean or leaving someone defenseless such that they would have to leave the team. lborgia88 -- Love that example from Lois McMaster Bujold. She's one of my husband's favorite writers & he got to meet her last year, so I have a poster in my kitchen with her signature on it. LOL on the implants doing whatever the plot requires. I like that.

Originally posted by jublke She's one of my husband's favorite writers & he got to meet her last year, so I have a poster in my kitchen with her signature on it.

Ooh, I am so jealous! She's one of my top favourites too. It occurs to me now that not only does LMB show Illyan having to deal with losing his chip in Memory, but also Miles has to deal with no longer being able to be Admiral Naismith, and his identity is so tied up in playing his undercover alter-ego, he goes through a nervous breakdown for a bit, but in the end, finds a truer version of himself and a role that he can do, honestly, all the time. It would be interesting to see a member of G-Force go through something akin to that!

Originally posted by lborgia88 It occurs to me now that not only does LMB show Illyan having to deal with losing his chip in Memory, but also Miles has to deal with no longer being able to be Admiral Naismith, and his identity is so tied up in playing his undercover alter-ego, he goes through a nervous breakdown for a bit, but in the end, finds a truer version of himself and a role that he can do, honestly, all the time. It would be interesting to see a member of G-Force go through something akin to that!

That's pretty much what they're doomed with for the end of the war, no?

True, unless some new menace to peace in Federation space comes along and they're needed again! (More common in books, I suppose, where sequels are more frequent). In G-Force's case, maybe if they can all retire voluntarily and together (and in undamaged health), along with lots of recognition for their heroism and sacrifices, it might make it a bit easier.

This is one reason I find "after the war" a fascinating time period for the team. I think the BOTP kids have a better chance to do okay than the Gatch ones do, since G-Force is part of a much larger security organization. They might "retire" the team but that doesn't mean that the members have to leave GalSec completely. Here's a question. What happens with their implants after the war? Will they be turned down to remove the superhuman features? Removed? Will they doom the team to being lab rats or being somehow mothballed and locked away? Will they never be allowed to retire because so much money was spent on making them? Or will they just go their own ways as they are with the blessing of the Chief and GalSec?