Transhumanism and the Technothriller

As the Other Wiki describes it: "Techno-thrillers (or technothrillers) are a hybrid genre, drawing subject matter generally from science fiction, thrillers, spy, action and war. They include a disproportionate amount (relative to other genres) of technical details on its subject matter (typically military technology); only science fiction tends towards a comparable level of supporting detail on the technical side. The inner workings of technology and the mechanics of various disciplines (espionage, martial arts, politics) are thoroughly explored, and the plot often turns on the particulars of that exploration.

Techno-thrillers tend to have a broad scope in the narrative, and can often be regarded as contemporary speculative fiction; world wars are a common topic. Techno-thrillers often overlap, as far as the genre goes, with near-future science fiction. To the extent that technology is now a dominant aspect of modern global culture, most modern thrillers are "techno-thrillers", and the genre is somewhat diffuse. The category of techno-thriller blurs smoothly into the category of hard science fiction; the defining characteristics of techno-thriller are an emphasis on real-world or plausible near-future technology and a focus on military or military-political action. The techno-thriller genre also has substantial overlaps with the genres of conspiracy fiction and apocalyptic fiction."

The way I see it, whether they be genetically engineered, cybernetically enhanced, uploaded into computerized consciousness, or uplifted from an animalistic state some sort of means of technological upgrade to Man or Beast will soon be available.Thus what is known as transhumanism makes a fine fit for near-future technothriller. What I'm pondering here is the ways in which transhumanism could be made to fit into such stories. So far I have come up with a few, but I'd like to see what you lot have before spilling what I've got. So I ask you the following three questions:

1. What sort of transhumanism is there likely to be within the next thirty years?

2. How much is there likely too be by then?

3. What are some of the narrative functions could it play within the context of a technothriller?

Artificial limbs would be a good one to look into; there are already pretty advanced ones (c.f. the paralympic games) and the military tend to be the ones who put a lot of money into developing them (since soldiers tend to lose limbs, particularly now that medical technology is advanced enough that they can be saved from things which leave individual parts of their body impossible to save). It's really only a matter of time before military grade prosthetics come in, so soldiers so injured can continue to serve.

As for what role they could play in the plot;

• An AL could have the MacGuffin hidden in it (artificial fingers with USB drives already exist, for example; they might also contain cameras and other data gathering equipment).
• Chekhov's Gun (literal or otherwise) being built into a limb (an Arm Cannon wouldn't be a primary weapon, but it would make sense as a conceal weapon or weapon of last resort).
• The make and manufacture of an AL would serve as a sort of fingerprint of what they were doing at the time they had the operation to attach it^note Limbs might be detachable, but even a detachable one with a non-invasive control mechanism would need some sort of socket to plug it into securely which they couldn't easily get rid of (for example, company X might have had a contract with organisation Y, who were their only customers, meaning that only Organisation Y members would have had product Xa installed, someone from country Z would have a limb made in country Z or a country friendly with it, etc). Sort of like an updated version of Foreign Money Is Proof of Guilt.

edited 20th Jul '13 4:28:51 PM by Bisected8