>>(Don was reasonably sure he could develop an implant that would fix
>>that, but why bother? The guy would probably just be all ungrateful
>>about it anyway.)
>
>His powers or his sense of humor? Either one could be helped with
>some brain surgery, really...
>
><"OK, Scott, when I press this button, you're going to get a sense of [BR>>humor. Try not to do something stupid like give Logan a wedgie, OK?"]

I dunno... Don would be terribly afraid that if he did that, Scott would become drunk with power and start trying to use the advanced forms of humor first, before he was really ready for them, instead of starting with knock-knock jokes and working his way gradually up to the advanced forms. Knowing Scott, he would decided on the first day that he was ready for, say, sarcasm, or even irony, and the result would be a disaster such as the X-Men have never seen before. It would be appalling.

Don would try to explain that it's just like any other ability you recover after an injury takes it out of commission for a while - you have to start out slow and work your way up. "If I fixed Professor X's spinal transmission problem today - and I could, by the way, think about it won't you? - he wouldn't be playing basketball tomorrow." But Scott probably wouldn't listen.

Plus, on a somewhat more serious note, one of the things about Don's character that was only touched on briefly in EPDTMU is that he has a horror of mind control and mind alteration, especially the surgical kind. (This is a side effect of his having unwisely visited a Very Dark Future once.) So he would be highly unlikely to develop or install a cerebral implant designed to alter somebody's personality that way, even if it would be a change that benefitted all mankind.

He did develop and install cerebral implants for several other purposes, but the scope of EPDTMU wasn't wide enough for me to do more than mention the effect of one of them in passing. (And if you're looking for a challenge to your dexterity and your confidence in same, try installing your own cerebral implants sometime. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

LAST EDITED ON 04-30-03 AT 04:57 PM (EDT)
 
(edit for can/can't typo)

>Plus, on a somewhat more serious note, one of the things about Don's
>character that was only touched on briefly in EPDTMU is that he
>has a horror of mind control and mind alteration, especially the
>surgical kind. (This is a side effect of his having unwisely visited

As far as I'm concerned this ios an entirely resonable thing to have a horror of, with or without having seen it in action. Bariancomps yes, skillchips maybe, minbending no. Even if the potential bendee came up with the notion and really wanted it done I'd be hesitant, just because of the precedent it could set.

>passing. (And if you're looking for a challenge to your dexterity and
>your confidence in same, try installing your own cerebral implants
>sometime. :)

Given the knowledge of how to install them and some means of getting the right angles of reach to do so (a pair of waldoes and a camera/monitor system spring most readily to mind) I'd think it more a test of pain tolerance than skill over sticking them in someone else's head, since while the brain doesn't feel pain the rest of the head certainly does, the nerves go direcly to the brain so you can't use a nerve block, and being clearheaded means no anasthetic. Yeah, there's probably still ways around it at a high enough tech level, but at that point you might as well have an AI put them in and suck the happy gas.

- CD

>Given the knowledge of how to install them and some means of getting
>the right angles of reach to do so (a pair of waldoes and a
>camera/monitor system spring most readily to mind) I'd think it more a
>test of pain tolerance than skill over sticking them in someone else's
>head,

Gracious. You're not implying that a Time Lord and a trained dimensional engineer would stoop to actually opening the patient's head, are you?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>Gracious. You're not implying that a Time Lord and a trained
>dimensional engineer would stoop to actually opening the patient's
>head, are you?

"Brain, and brain. What is brain?"

Redneck

Kris Overstreet, aka Redneck Gaijin
http://www.wlpcomics.com
White Lightning Productions - huge tracts of land for sale

>He did develop and install cerebral implants for several
>other purposes, but the scope of EPDTMU wasn't wide
>enough for me to do more than mention the effect of one of them in
>passing. (And if you're looking for a challenge to your dexterity and
>your confidence in same, try installing your own cerebral implants
>sometime. :)

Well, being a Time Lord with his own TARDIS, it is not as difficult for Don to do as you make it to be. Now for us mere mortals....

Michael

	Michael C. Fortner RCW #2(n+1) I may not fly high with the eagles, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!

>Well, being a Time Lord with his own TARDIS, it is not as difficult
>for Don to do as you make it to be. Now for us mere mortals....

Oh, that just means that the screwups aren't as messy. Well, unless the materialization goes wonky, then the sudden displacement of brain matter would cause Don's head to explode. But Don's too smooth for that to happen. ;)

The tricky part is making sure the implants hook up to the right bits of brain. If that screws up, the results could be as bad as or worse than a Cyclops humor install.

--
Mr. Fnord, author of the bestselling book Trepanation: How To Give Your Brain A Sunroof

>Oh, that just means that the screwups aren't as messy. Well, unless
>the materialization goes wonky, then the sudden displacement of brain
>matter would cause Don's head to explode. But Don's too smooth for
>that to happen. ;)

Well, there are safety protocols involved; it's really quite a safe procedure.

Not that Don was ever able to convince anybody he knew to have any of his modules installed. He designed a neuroprocessor once which used electronic-to-photonic signal switching so that being phase-passed through other matter wouldn't disrupt its operation, but he's the only one who has one. (Hey, you never know when that might be useful.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>He designed a neuroprocessor once which
>used electronic-to-photonic signal switching so that being
>phase-passed through other matter wouldn't disrupt its operation, but
>he's the only one who has one. (Hey, you never know when that might
>be useful.)

He hangs out with Kitty. I get the feeling that a feature like that may be very useful.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter
My LiveJournal

>He hangs out with Kitty. I get the feeling that a feature like that
>may be very useful.

Yeah, there's just nothing more irritating than having your neuroprocessor crash because your best friend couldn't be bothered to go around you to get to the fridge.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>>(Don was reasonably sure he could develop an implant that would fix
>>>that, but why bother? The guy would probably just be all ungrateful
>>>about it anyway.)
>>
>>His powers or his sense of humor? Either one could be helped with
>>some brain surgery, really...
>>
>><"OK, Scott, when I press this button, you're going to get a sense of [BR>>>humor. Try not to do something stupid like give Logan a wedgie, OK?"]
>
>I dunno... Don would be terribly afraid that if he did that, Scott
>would become drunk with power and start trying to use the advanced
>forms of humor first, before he was really ready for them, instead of
>starting with knock-knock jokes and working his way gradually up to
>the advanced forms. Knowing Scott, he would decided on the first day
>that he was ready for, say, sarcasm, or even irony, and the result
>would be a disaster such as the X-Men have never seen before. It
>would be appalling.

I just wanted to say that the above caused some severe breakage over here. The very idea of ol' one-eye having a sense of humor is enough of a boggle all on it's own. The idea that he could turn it on and off like Data's emotion chip...

Of course, the fact that Scott probably needs an emotion chip in the first place...

At least the movie version of him had a little bit of humor. He doesn't make jokes himself. But at least he has a little bit of warmth. It showed up in the scene with the kid in the train station and in his willingness to be amused by Logan's popping the single claw at him in the museum entrance. Also his willingness to take being the butt of one of Logan's insults, in order to ID the man, with some aplomb. That's better than the comic version has ever really managed.

I did wind up liking the version of him in X-Men Evolution though. He still was pretty serious. But he actually had the occasional wise-crack.

-Logan

	I like to see Kevin Costner get work. I think it's wonderful that in this age of steel and high tech plastics, they still use wooden actors. -Mark Kobrak

>
>
>I just wanted to say that the above caused some severe breakage over
>here. The very idea of ol' one-eye having a sense of humor is enough
>of a boggle all on it's own. >
>Of course, the fact that Scott probably needs an emotion chip
>in the first place...

Seriously, what *does* Jeanne Grey see in him?

Brad

>Don would try to explain that it's just like any other ability you
>recover after an injury takes it out of commission for a while - you
>have to start out slow and work your way up. "If I fixed Professor
>X's spinal transmission problem today - and I could, by the way, think
>about it won't you? - he wouldn't be playing basketball tomorrow."
>But Scott probably wouldn't listen.

I do believe the Professor is playing basketball anyway, I think it was in the issue where beast cured the Legacy Virus and Colloussus died, he fouled beast and scored a 3-pointer from his hoverchair.

-The One
"POLICE!! Random Dead Body search!"

I just had a brain-flash as to why not as well...

Even supposing that Don had considered it, (which Gryph has noted that he probobly wouldn't) a quick scan of Scott's Cerebro records revealed that the part of the brain that controls humor had been the part that mutated into the 'generator' for his eye blasts! This hand wave actaully works on several levels, in that a bio implant wouldnt work to add a sense of humor, and it gives a tradeoff... Scott could have a sense of Humor OR his optic blasts... and has chosen his optic blasts instead. ;)

>I just had a brain-flash as to why not as well...
>
>Even supposing that Don had considered it, (which Gryph has noted that
>he probobly wouldn't) a quick scan of Scott's Cerebro records revealed
>that the part of the brain that controls humor had been the part that
>mutated into the 'generator' for his eye blasts! This hand wave
>actaully works on several levels, in that a bio implant wouldnt work
>to add a sense of humor, and it gives a tradeoff... Scott could have
>a sense of Humor OR his optic blasts... and has chosen his optic
>blasts instead. ;)

I always figured it was the part the *controlled* his blasts that
got damage when he and his brother took that unexpected skydiving
lesson courtesy of the Shi'ar.

Brad