So I know a lot of science fiction works, especially cyberpunk works, like to use cybernetics because they look cool. But they never fully explain how they are powered. I mean if you think about it most cybernetic limbs (arms, legs, hands etc)and implants (eyes, heart, lungs etc) are basically electronics, and electronics need electricity to run but not once do they creators explain where said electricity comes from.
Based on an article that I have posted on Scifi concepts and a video by Isaac Arthur it seems there are a couple of plausible explanations on how Cyborgs can power their cybernetics:
- a device, like a cloak, that collects solar energy (Source: Isaac Arthur).
- a port/socket that lets them plug in and recharge from another power source (Source: Isaac Arthur).
- Bioelectricity generated from either a) digestion of natural or artificial foods as biofuel, b) oxygen extracted from the blood, c) kinetic energy from movement, or d) a combination of all three.
- An external battery pack shaped like a backpack (Sources: Solidcorn, Aggressive_Kale4757).
- An atomic battery (Source: Isaac Arthur, Aggressive_Kale4757). Note: What the atomic battery will look like will depend on the cyborg. If they are a full-conversion cyborg, then the battery/microfusion reactor would be a part of the cyborg. If not, then the battery would also be shaped like a backpack.
In any case, what best works of cyberpunk that have plausible explanations on what powers advanced cybernetics?
6 Comments
So non-fiction science fiction?
Truthfully, there never were many cyberpunk novels with chop your meat arm off and get a cool metal one prosthetics. There are RPGs both analog and digital that do, but they took that off of one two-scene character in one novel-Ratz the bartender in *Neuromancer*-and ran with it.
It’s like direct neural interface, you think it’s the books but it’s not, it’s in the games, ninety five percent of the novels are googles and gloves or something similar for VR. Or how Gandalf threw one single fireball in Lord of the Rings and now there’s nine hundred DnD spells.
Not too many hard science cyber punk works that I know of.
its all double AA batteries
Almost Human, a one-season Karl Urban cyberpunk vehicle featured moments where he would take his leg off and set it on a charger, basically overnight charging it to fuel a presumably high-capacity battery.
You could see something similar in the Netflix show Bodies, though the charge time for one of the characters’ spinal implants is explicitly shown to be seconds-to-minutes rather than overnight.
For a game system, the very-hardcore roguelike survival game Cataclysm: Dark Days ahead actually offers a wide variety of ways to charge implanted battery packs, that, in turn power any cybernetics being used.
From memory, you could plug into any other battery or source like a solar panel (funnily enough, using jumper cables; quite the image), you could have a mod that pulled from hand-held batteries, you could have a mod that converted calories into charge, one that turned motion like walking into charge (which in turn built fatigue), and finally an “internal furnace” where you could even toss in old clothes and they’d burn and break down into energy. For a free game built by crowd-sourced contributors, it was and is pretty wild. Like most games of its ilk, not exactly a graphic powerhouse.
shdowrun had the best explanations i know. but in the end the power cell idea like it was is deus ex is the most plausible for me.