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Soul Crypt
Despite their name, Soul Crypts don’t actually house any soul. Officially known as Cerebral Interface Buses(CIBs). They’re small devices no greater than a smart phone of old that are placed in the chest of a sapient being. Hosting a small, specialized nanohive this device takes ego backups every thirty seconds, monitors the host's well being, is capable of housing basic or specialized software and runs on the host's natural bio-electrical signals for power. What this means is, if someone were to have an unfortunate dying accident. The original ego of the victim can be recovered and resleeved into a new body, effectively granting functional immortality.
Soul Crypts were partly a realized concept, but their realization was more of a morbid curiosity that took off. In 2361 as positronic cubes called into question the value of a single person if one can just be ‘turned on’ of all things. A Doctor Abrim Laurolil of Ceres University had another idea. “What about those already around?”
His personal side-project with the positronic technology was to adapt it to transfer an ego steadily from a living brain to a positronic cube or device via the same neural-to-electrode connections most prosthetic limbs use. His first proof of concept tests were on rats and after the positronic cube lit up with a faint, but present ego - a grim idea hit him. “What if I reconnected this to the rat’s brain?”
Expecting nothing more than a bit of guilt for desecrating a braindead lab rat’s body a little more, the unexpected happened. The rat showed cognitive awareness and motor function - while connected to the positronic cube. While not perfectly ‘alive’ due to the brain damage done by disconnecting the neural connectors in the first place. This raised all sorts of questions on application of this technology.
The next tests were also done with rats - yet their bodies they would be rehoused in were flash-cloned as to serve an undamaged and braindead body to try and transfer a rodent’s ego. The test rats were played with and tested with mazes and puzzles beforehand to note down each one’s quirks and behaviors. Once they were reconnected with much more cognitive function and motor ability than the first time, it was as if the little rodents hadn’t lost a beat. After some adaptation to their new bodies the quirks and habits of the reconnected rats carried over, raising the question ‘Are these really the same rats? Or a simulation running on meat bodies?’
Soon a more practical prototype was drawn up as a positronic cube connected to an exposed brain was hardly a desirable immortality. Tests were done on larger animals with more complex brains using this new, smaller design. Most of them showing little set-back after resleeving. With such reproducible results, Dr. Laurolil was directly hired by Nanotrasen and put in charge of a small team to continue his work.
With the funding and encouragement Dr. Laurolil's team designed the earliest version of the CIB we see today utilizing recent breakthroughs in nanotechnology, as the direct brain interface that had been used on livestock was still too large and cumbersome for the human skull. The CIB in the chest cavity however allowed a nanohive to take records of their host's brain as often as they needed to. While not housing the direct ego of the host, it utilized the same proof of concept - that the ego could be converted to digital format.
Eventually in 2372; 11 years later. The question came to human testing finally, it’s ethics and if that was even a possibility. Again with the help of Nanotrasen, Laurolil’s team gathered. Five volunteers were picked who happily signed non-disclosure and legal waiver forms. Permits to flash-grow braindead clones of said volunteers were granted by Solgov and as if to say ‘no pressure’ - the experiment was scheduled at Olympus University with humanity’s most well known neurological researchers watching.
Each test subject was given a series of questions ranging from personal to semi-complex mathematics and requested to commit a certain phrase to memory before going under. Simple but complex things such as ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.’ Also to eliminate bias and provide a control. The other four test subjects weren’t allowed to observe the other’s resleeving.
In all five cases, each subject showed the same results as test animals. A period of confusion and lethargy. Complaints of an inability to control motor functions that passed within a few minutes. Speech impediments and sensory phantoms that passed… and eventually. Perfect cognitive awareness. Each subject was re-asked the questions they were given before resleeving and gave the same answers, and in all cases remembered their secret phrase. When asked what being ‘resleeved’ felt like a common answer was that it was as if very little time had passed - like a small nap. Despite the operation taking at least an hour from anesthesia to awakening.
With proof of human immortality within reach, the rest is a much less interesting series of legal legislation and patents on Nanotrasen's part that made Soul Crypts as accessible as they are today.
Only in the past twenty years have Soul Crypts become a main stream thing, having undergone several changes, operating system updates, models and anti-tamper safety features, becoming more and more efficient and compact while nigh-impossible to access without the proper software. Soon changing from just a immortality method to a health and wellness monitor, media storage and playback device and information sorting tool too, all while having cross compatibility with most cybernetic implants. However as Nanotrasen owns the patent to these devices and their operating systems, they're either too expensive or not an option to the suitably paranoid.
This has also raised some uncomfortably legal questions in the past few decades, while the definition of murder hasn't changed. Some Judges in Solgov space have gone more lenient on sentencing that had a re-sleeved victim. It's also become a privacy and rights debate if read memories from a suspect's soul crypt are legally permissible in court, not to mention the legal battleground capitol punishment has gone through and just when it should be applied.
While humanity took to CIBs with mostly positive, but still mixed reactions over the past fourty years, they've become common on the frontier or those working in high-risk careers. While those in the core world can't afford, don't need or don't wish to subscribe to Nanotrasen's mandatory software service for them.
the Skrell took to them with no hesitation, making the ruling lineages major investors in Nanotrasen almost overnight. The Dominion has all but outlawed Soul Crypts together, while they appeal to the Unity's eternal perfection of a purpose and craft. Some Disciples feel it denies them their part in the final battle against The Unmaker. Other species such as the Tajara, Teshari and others have mixed feelings much the same as humanity be it cultural, religious or anti-corporatism reasons.
In any case, it’s clear Soul Crypts as a thing aren’t going away anytime soon and what this means for the galaxy has yet to be seen now that the idea of functional immortality is a reality.