History Quotes / CyberneticsEatYourSoul

->''But for analog people like you [[TheBigGuy Mr. Batou]], no matter how many digital components you add on through [[{{Cyborg}} cyberization]] or [[ArtificialLimbs prosthetics]], your [[OurSoulsAreDifferent ghost]] will never diminish!''

->'''Kouji''': If I understood what you were saying before... your brain was mechanized because an accident! You were human but you died! And now with that mechanical brain, someone's controlling you.
->'''Iron Mask''': Yes, That's right. It's splendid! I don't consider myself necessary. We carry out all our orders perfectly. Death is what worries you. It'll be easy! I know you're worried! So, please, consider it.
->'''Kouji''': Even if you don't need your brain... I will not consider it. Even if it is easy, you hear?! You idiot, such a thing wouldn't even be human!

->''He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil.''

->''It took them six months to put him back together. Synthetic flesh, bio-engineered organs... It always scared him that they might take out his soul and replace it with some matrix chip.''
-->-- ''Film/{{Nemesis}}''

->''"What is the one thing that could never, ever, ever, ''ever'' in a million years get boring? If you said [[Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}} 'busting ghosts']], tragically, you'd be wrong. Was almost all the way through the 'W's when the bloom came off that rose. [[Literature/WutheringHeights Heathcliff]] [[LiteraryMashups was defending Moonbase Wuthering Heights from the crafty poltergeist]] when I realized exploring the vast realm of pure intellect is... boring. It's boring! You know what I'd really like to do? [[SenseLossSadness Like to scratch my nose.]]"''

->''"I've been thinking: What if [[BeleagueredAssistant Greg]] was right? What if injecting my consciousness into a computer robbed me of an eternal reward? Spiritually speaking."''\\

''"Alright, I just read up on it. Stumbled on [[BaitAndSwitch a book about a fella who lived thousands of years ago. Sacrificed himself to save mankind. Went by the name of]] [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Hercules]]. Destroyed all the world's monsters so humans'd be safe, then went to Olympus for his trouble. Damnit!'' Death ''was my monster! And I killed it. Where's my Olympus? [[SanitySlippage Unless...]]'' Aperture ''was the monster. Aperture, and everybody inside it -- Holy Hercules! I just thought of [[DeadlyGas something]]. Keep testing. [[ImpliedDeathThreat Or don't. Doesn't matter.]] I'll be back.''

-->-- ''The {{Munchkin}}'s Guide to Powergaming''

->'''Doctor:''' That's a living brain jammed inside a cybernetic body, with a heart of steel. All emotions removed.
->'''Rose:''' Why no emotions?
->'''Doctor:''' Because it ''hurts''.
-->-- ''Series/DoctorWho'', "Rise of the Cybermen"

->'''Jax:''' Here comes the ruckus.\\
'''Frost:''' I have the technological advantage.\\

-->-- Batou's [[SapientTank Tachikoma]], ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex''

-->-- ''Android Karenina''

-->-- '''Music/Ayreon''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjRVt3k4q1E "Evil Devolution"]]

-->-- ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''

->''Where once I saw warmth, life and joy, all is cold, grey and sterile. When others touch me... it is like the distant memory of a touch. Slowly, surely, I lose resolution - the me I used to be [[ReforgedIntoAMinion is being overwritten by a pale, antiseptic replica]]. A meaningless string of zeroes and ones, [[Theatre/MacBeth full of sound and fury, signifying nothing]], if you prefer.
->And I fear this mechanized shell devouring me - more than I fear burning in a mythological inferno or even [[CessationOfExistence fading into insensate oblivion]], if it comes to that.
->I hope that others will carry on the battle where I have fallen.
->[[ApocalypticLog End recording]].''

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]

-->-- ''{{Film/Nemesis}}''

-''>Everybody let us say goodbye to all our notions,\\

->But for analog people like you [[TheBigGuy Mr. Batou]], no matter how many digital components you add on through [[{{Cyborg}} cyberization]] or [[ArtificialLimbs prosthetics]], your [[OurSoulsAreDifferent ghost]] will never diminish!

->He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil.

->It took them six months to put him back together. Synthetic flesh, bio-engineered organs... It always scared him that they might take out his soul and replace it with some matrix chip.

->...work at remaining human inside. I'm not sure I've managed it all that well, myself. Sometimes, I just sit and stare, forgetting for weeks, Jessamyn, for weeks. I can do almost anything with this improved body, but my mind has gotten blasé about it. When you're superhuman, so little seems worth the bother. You must resist that. You must...

->There's no mechanical replacement for a future, Face. And every time I take a hit, and they have to cut away another part of me and replace it with machinery because I'm allergic to [[MagicAntidote bacta]], every time that happens I seem to be a little further away from that young doctor who had a future. He can't come back, Face. Not all of him is here anymore.

->This isn't human anymore\\

Are you still human at the core?

->Broken body, built anew\\

For the hidden man within

->Everybody let us say goodbye to all our notions,\\

Cause we've already evolved into machines in our minds.

->Our hope's dissolved\\

Have we become the victims of our science?

->The problem's plain to see\\

Machines dehumanize

->Folks that chop up their healthy body to "improve" it invariably die early. No one with [[UnusualUserInterface EI]] or full-body [[SuperStrength myomer replacements]] has a nice retirement, [[PowerDegeneration if they get one at all]].

->The process of absorption fascinates... [unclear] one's body might somehow swallow the item, like unto a serpent or the surface of some [viscous?] fluid. Yet it doth seem a mutual [process]. For not only doth the body absorb the [weapon] but also [doth the] weapon, in some strange way, seem to [absorb] the body...[RECORD CORRUPT] as the weapon becomes like unto my flesh, so doth mine flesh... [unclear] like unto the weapon. Indeed, I trace this [stylus] upon mine arm, and the shape and form of the weapon appears under [my touch?]. It doth not appear in mine hand so much as mine hand doth arrange itself so as to become the weapon... [BREAK IN RECORD] capakhity of mine new form to abkhorb weaponsh ish akhtonishing... [unclear] a whole lakhgun! But I do shtart to lokhe zhe shenshation in mine shkin. Mine jawkh are [hardening?] and mine ribkh are protruding from mine [chest]. Zhey are of a dull, metallic sheen and tekhts show zhey are a mix of [bone?] and shome metal I cannot identify... [BREAK IN RECORD] thsi wil be mmmylsat [RECORD CORRUPT] cannnnnnnnnnnot useth esse febel mahcinsse aaaaany log;ner [RECORD CORRUPT] tothe eyeof the larybinht the hearto fthe maichnettttto the pppplaceo f... metalll...

->Where once I saw warmth, life and joy, all is cold, grey and sterile. When others touch me... it is like the distant memory of a touch. Slowly, surely, I lose resolution - the me I used to be [[ReforgedIntoAMinion is being overwritten by a pale, antiseptic replica]]. A meaningless string of zeroes and ones, [[Theatre/MacBeth full of sound and fury, signifying nothing]], if you prefer.

->[[ApocalypticLog End recording]].

->UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein said technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal. Took me a while, but I finally see his point. How often have we chased the dream of progress only to see it perverted? More often than not, haven't the machines that we built to improve life shattered the lives of millions? And now we want to turn that dream on ourselves, to fundamentally improve who we are. Experience has shown me how dangerous that can be. [...] Technology offers us strength. Strength enables dominance, and dominance paves the way for abuse. [[spoiler: Darrow]] understood this. He knew that using technology to become something more than we are risks losing our ability to love, aspire, or make moral choices, the very things that make us human.

->No glands, replaced by tech. No digestive system, replaced by tech. ''No soul...'' replaced by tech.

->Artificial enhancements are no substitute for the human soul.

->It's one of those summer days in Sarn, when the sweat dries on your skin the moment it dares slither from your pores. Lorenzi and I are sipping coffees, iced with cubes from the north. There's a tremor in his voice as announces that he is going to see Malachai tonight, to have a gem implanted in his hand. The palm of his left hand to be exact. Once I have run out of expletives and paused for breath while the waiter wipes spilled coffee from our table, I manage to ask him why. "So that I might have the fastest fingers in the Empire," is his reply. Lorenzi, first violinist of the Sarn Symphonic, and my dear friend, is going to become a Gemling.\\\

A year has gone, and the day is once again hot enough to dry the sweat on my skin the moment it dares slither from my pores. I sip an iced coffee and think of Lorenzi. He played last night, in God's Theater. Fleet, furious, and wondrous, he was. We passed in the foyer, and I looked into his grey face, his pale blue eyes. I don't know what he saw, but it wasn't me. I don't know what I saw either, but it wasn't Lorenzi.

->The Warrior's bland acronym, MMI, obscures the true horror of this monstrosity. Its inventors promise a new era of genius, but meanwhile unscrupulous power brokers use its forcible installation to violate the sanctity of unwilling human minds. They are creating their own private army of demons.

->I think, and my thoughts cross the barrier into the synapses of the machine - just as the good doctor intended. But what I cannot shake, and what hints at things to come, is that thoughts cross back. In my dreams the sensibility of the machine invades the periphery of my consciousness. Dark. Rigid. Cold. Alien. Evolution is at work here, but just what is evolving remains to be seen.

->Every implant exalts you. Every line of code in your subsystems elevates you from your disgusting flesh.

->The more I see, the more I don't want to see. That twisted hulk of flesh and metal... driven by the alien technology, can we still call that life? We have to keep moving forward with the project, but the thought of treading the same path as the aliens... is troubling. What if they were like us once? Are we just part of a continuing cycle? If this is a glimpse of our future, I want no part of it.

->That hulk of flesh and metal troubles me. What do we risk with our own investigations into the melding of human and machine? Will we see a line in the sand and refuse to cross it? Or will we move forward, willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of total victory? I have to believe that is not our future. Provided, of course, that the aliens' technology remains in the right hands.

->That yours was a depraved species was not unknown to us, but your latest act of insanity has surpassed even our darkest fears. Making imperfect copies of your brains and plugging them into mobile synthetic containers is not the same as transferring your essence into a new body, for such a thing cannot be done.\\
Your souls are lost forever. Do you even realize the enormity of your mistake? Destroying the bodies you were gifted with at birth was nothing less than the collective suicide of your entire species. There is truly no hope for you now...

->It's our human qualities that give us courage, endurance and the power to tell right from wrong!

->The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden, it is not made of mud and can not dream of returning to dust.