The Body Thief

Carpe Pod is back up and running!

Yep, that’s right. I’m back. Though for those of you trying to figure out who this guy is, I once went by the name of Mikolan. I was a Minmatar of the Sebastior tribe until about a year ago when I was approached by some diplomats and asked to do a very special mission that has changed my identity forever.

Cloning technology is a very scary thing when you think about it. Especially when you consider what has transpired with me. We all think of our clones as an extension of ourselves. This clone is me. It’s not really me until I say it is me or certain circumstances (such as being podded) make it me. But until then, it is a clone of me and nobody can be me, except me…or so I’d think. Does that make sense?

Fact is, until that clone is activated, until your knowledge and memories are injected into that clone, it’s not you! It’s not me! And the scary part is that we entrust all those unknown med-techs with copies of ourselves. Sure, no brain activity is present until it’s injected and activated but have you ever considered the possibility that someone might actually steal your clone and become you? Or they could at least become a physical copy of you just with a different personality and memories? And what happens when “you” are deviated upon death? What happens if your thoughts and memories are corrupted or worse destroyed and never reach your new body? What happens if someone takes your clones without your knowledge and you try to jump to that body? There are so many questions, so many chances for error, that it’s really quite scary.

We are fearless. We move about through new Eden, boldly calling ourselves demi-gods and acting as though nothing can touch us. We mercilessly attack and destroy each others ships and pods with little regards to the thousands of mortal lives that perish in our wake. We walk around in “special” sections of the station, almost completely cut off from the rest of the New Eden population. Why? So we’ll never have look upon the thousands of innocent faces whose lives we will possibly cut short. So we can go on casually toying with their lives and not have to be given the moral dilemma that crewman Joe has a wife and 2 kids and has signed onto the crew roster because a few weeks pay will feed his starving family for years.

But then one day reality strikes us. We don’t see it coming. We can’t see it coming. In fact, we don’t even know it happens. Quite simply, we just cease to exist. Our memories, our thoughts, our personalities…everything we are is frozen, locked down deep in the heart of some super computer. And nobody even notices. One day we are flying casually through empire, feeling nice and cozy in the depths of our pod goo. Next we know, a small fleet of ships drops out of warp right on top of us and before even Concord can respond, lock us, scram us, pop our ship and finally, introduce us to the vacuum that is space. The pod systems work flawlessly of course, taking a snapshot of our brains in that searing and blinding moment, barely micro-seconds before we “die”. Only this time….we don’t wake up. Our death was planned. The suicide gank was actually the final chapter of a much grander theft. The theft…of a body.

And in your last moments, in a solar system far away, I, formerly known as Mikolan Lutrova, lay strapped to a chair. The same sort of mechanisms plugged into your brain, in your pod, are also plugged into mine on this simple gurney bed. I lay there waiting, knowing what is to come. I’ve been through it before, but never like this. I too, as a pod pilot, have died a few times previously. It’s an experience you never forget. Yet, never has any of my deaths been planned such as this…never had I the time to anticipate the upcoming death experience. And for me, in essence, it really was to be perma death as well. For as you die, your essence is rerouted into stasis, your soul shoved into some unknown database storage.

And as you die in your pod, so do I on my table.

I am the body thief. And now….I am Amarok Tonrar.