=Backups and Uploading= 
The transhuman mind is no longer a prisoner of the biological hardware on which it originates. Through various mechanisms, biological brains may be digitally emulated, allowing people to make a backup of their minds, including their entire personality, memories, and skills—a process known as uploading. The primary use of backups is to ensure the person’s ego can be retrieved in case of death, in which case they may be resleeved. For this reason, almost everyone in the solar system is equipped with a cortical stack. Backups may also be safely archived in secure storage or used to create infomorphs. A person may also egocast themselves across the solar system as a form of travel.
==Cortical Stack Backups== 
Cortical stack implants deploy a network of nanobots throughout the brain that take a snapshot of the mind’s neural state, storing the data as a backup within the cortical stack. The average transhuman’s cortical stack backs up their ego 86,400 times per day. Only the most recent backup is kept within the stack; older ones are overwritten. Pods and synthmorphs also can be equipped with cortical stacks (though AI-piloted bots often lack this feature), though these versions maintain an updated copy of the ego running in the morph’s cyberbrain.
In the case of death, accidental or otherwise, a cortical stack can be retrieved from a corpse and used to recover the character, either as an infomorph or by resleeving them in a new morph. Cortical stacks are diamond-hardened and protected, so they may often be retrieved even if the corpse is badly mangled or damaged. If the corpse cannot be recovered or the cortical stack is destroyed, the backup is lost. High rollers, well-equipped brinkers, and others in dangerous professions often opt for an emergency farcaster accessory that periodically (usually every 48 hours, but varying according to contract) transmits a backup from the cortical stack to a remote storage facility. This option is quite expensive, however, and so is generally only afforded by the wealthy.
===Retrieving a Cortical Stack=== 
Most cortical stacks are carefully excised from a corpse with surgery. In certain circumstances, however, a character may need to extract a cortical stack in the field, whether because transporting the corpse is impractical or because the dead person is an enemy and they either don’t want them knowing who killed them or they want to interrogate them with psychosurgery in a simulspace.
The process of cutting out a cortical stack is called “popping,” as a skilled extractor can usually get the smooth-shelled implant to pop right out by making an incision in the correct place and applying pressure. One does need to be careful that the tiny, blood-slick stack doesn’t slip away once popped. Popping can be done with a sharp knife and elbow grease, though it is grisly. Popping a stack is a Task Action that requires a [[Medicine]]: [any appropriate field] Test with a timeframe of 1 minute and a modifier of +20. Morphs with stacks in non-standard locations or with anatomical shielding (carapace plates, etc.) around the stack may incur penalties to this test at the gamemaster’s discretion. Of course, if you don’t have the time for a precise extraction, you can always just cut the entire head off and take it with you. Once a cortical stack is retrieved, it may be loaded into an ego bridge and used to bring the ego back, either as an infomorph or by resleeving.
**Living Subjects:** Cortical stacks may be excised from living people, but the process is usually fatal (or at least paralyzing) as it involves cutting through the spinal column. If the target is not unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, they must first be immobilized in melee combat (see [[Action and Combat Complications#x-Subdual|Subdual]]). Cutting out the stack is handled like a Medicine Task Action as above, but this process inflicts 3d10 + 10 damage on the target. If the test fails, they still inflict 1d10 + 10 damage to the target. If the person removing the stack wants to leave the target alive or harm them as little as possible, they suffer a –20 modifier on the test, but may reduce the damage by 1d10 per 10 full points of MoS. Living through the process of having your stack removed is traumatic; anyone who does so suffers 1d10 mental stress.
===Destroying a Cortical Stack=== 
Cortical stacks have an Armor of 20 and a Durability of 20 for anyone attempting to destroy them.
==Uploading== 
Uploading a backup into secure storage is usually handled with a brain scan at the storage facility’s clinic using a bread box-sized unit called an ego bridge. When activated, the ego bridge’s sensor array twists open like a morning glory blossom, revealing an enclosure with a neck rest that automatically adjusts itself to morphs with oddly-sized or -shaped heads. The neck rest deploys millions of specialized nanobots into the brain and central nervous system. The petals are full of sensors that image the brain using a combination of MRI, sonogram, and positional information broadcast by the nanobot swarm in the morph’s brain.
The ego bridge then builds a digital copy of the person’s brain, which is stored away in the service’s highly secure, off-the-mesh, hardwired data vaults. In the case of pods, the ego bridge scans the biological brain bits and also accesses the cyberbrain to copy the parts of the ego residing there. For synthmorphs, who have no biological brain, the process is much simpler, as it simply requires accessing and making a copy of their cyberbrain.
In a standard clinic with an undamaged morph, uploading takes only 10 minutes, 5 with a pod. In other situations, however, the process may take longer if the gamemaster so decides. Uploading from a synthmorph or extracted cortical stack is instantaneous. The ego bridge largely operates itself. While oversight by a medical specialist is a good idea, no test is necessary. If an uploading character does not plan to return to their morph, it is usually put on ice until someone else resleeves into it. If a new resleeve is not ready and the uploading character doesn’t want to leave a potential copy of themselves behind, they can have the morph’s mind wiped by the nanobots as part of the uploading process.
===Uploading-Resleeving Continuity=== 
In ideal circumstances, a person who is intentionally resleeving can arrange for the uploading and resleeving process to occur with any noticeable loss of continuity. Though the experience of switching from one morph to another is still a bit jarring, the transition itself can be made into a seamless process, with no gaps in awareness or memory, which helps reduce associated mental stress.
In this case, during the process of uploading, the ego bridge is also connected to another ego bridge and the new sleeve. This connection can even be made wirelessly or by farcaster link (with a maximum distance of 10,000 kilometers). As the mind is uploaded, the ego bridge builds a virtual brain by copying the morph’s brain bit by bit, using the data gained from the brain scan. At the same time, this data is slowly copied to the new sleeve as nanobots rewire the sleeve’s brain structure (a much slower process). As the transfer occurs, the nanobots in the brain sever individual neural connections and re-route them to their duplicates in the virtual brain, and then eventually to the new brain. Effectively, the character’s ego is running partially on the meat brain and partially on the virtual copy. By the time the nanobots sever the last of the neural connections in the old brain, the ego is running completely on the virtual brain and the new sleeve’s brain. Once the resleeving is completed, the virtual brain is shut down. In terms of perceptions, the character, who is awake during this process, experiences a very gradual shift from one morph to the other. As the process takes hours, however (or even longer if done via farcaster), the subject usually entertains themselves with some AR media, VR, or even XP to pass the time.
===Uploading After Death=== 
It is possible to upload the mind of a person who has recently died as long as the nanobots have time to scan the brain before cell deterioration kicks in too heavily, which takes approximately 2 hours. It is possible to sustain a corpse for longer by placing it in a healing vat for nanostasis. Post-death uploads may suffer integrity damage; see Backup Complications, below.
Cyberbrains may also be retrieved from a destroyed synthmorph and reactivated, assuming they are not damaged too heavily (gamemaster discretion).
===Destructive Upload=== 
Though rare, some people engage in a process called destructive uploading, where the biological brain is literally sliced apart and scanned piece by piece. Considered abhorrent and wasteful by most transhumans, “brain-peeling” is practiced by some bioconservative factions who view it as the only “pure” method of uploading or the only real way to transfer the “soul.” Such people typically refuse to resleeve, living out the rest of their lives as infomorphs, quite often in dedicated simulspaces that are treated as a sort of virtual afterlife.
==Backup Insurance== 
Almost everyone, with the exception of neo-primitivists and very young children, has a cortical stack. In the event of death, however, a cortical stack alone will not ensure resurrection unless you have acquired backup insurance to cover the costs of your resleeving. Going without backup insurance for any length of time is taking a severe risk. Some jurisdictions (such as the Titanian Commonwealth) have a practice of bringing everyone back, even if only to an infomorph state, or at least filing the most recent backup away in dead storage just in case someone decides to pay to resurrect them later. Other authorities will simply destroy the stack or, worse, sell it on the black market to a soul-trading syndicate such as Nine Lives. Backup insurance typically includes a subscription to an uploading facility, usually requiring a visit every 6 months, to ensure that backup is held in safe storage in case of cortical stack loss. People with risky jobs (construction bot supervisor, hypercorp exoplanet staff, girl who fights vicious giant eels for rich jaded audiences, etc.) may back up once a week, or even daily. In the event of a verified death where the cortical stack could not be retrieved, the most recent backup is used to resleeve the person.
At the basic level, backup insurance will bring the character back as an infomorph, at which point they can access their credit and purchase a new morph. More expensive versions will automatically resleeve you in the pre-purchased morph of your choice. The exceedingly rich will often have customized clones (often of their original body) waiting on ice for them. Backup insurance often involves a missing person clause, which states that a person will be brought back if they have not checked in for X amount of time (a calendar function automatically handled by your muse) and cannot be located.
It is worth noting that some criminal syndicates also offer backup insurance at a much reduced rate. The likelihood that copies of your backup are being used for illicit purposes, however, is quite high. For some people, however, what happens to a copy of themselves is of no concern.
===Backup Insurance Limitations=== 
Backup insurance is not always perfect. Though insurance providers are required to make a reasonable effort to retrieve your cortical stack, for many hypercorps this is a simple cost-benefit analysis that often will not work in the character’s favor. If you died in a dangerous area such as the Zone on Mars, in a remote area such as the Kuiper Belt, or are simply difficult to track down (pushed out an airlock somewhere), odds are against your cortical stack being retrieved—instead you will be re-instanced from a backup. Jurisdiction can also play an important role. The insurance offered by many inner system providers is automatically nullified if you travel to an [[Anarchists|anarchists]] habitat, gatecrash, break the law, or engage in certain life-threatening activities like suicide sports or scavenging in TITAN-infected ruins. At the least, they will refuse to retrieve your stack in these circumstances.
Likewise, if you struck a backup insurance deal with a medical collective from an autonomist habitat and then go and die on a hypercorp station, the hypercorp is very likely to refuse to recognize the authority of a bunch of anarchists and won’t hand your stack over. Even an archived backup and a missing person clause is no guarantee. A determined enemy could capture you, pry the backup insurance access codes from your muse, keep you on ice or quietly kill you, and then regularly “check in” on your behalf using the access codes so that the insurance provider never realizes you are dead or missing. Though this requires quite a bit of effort, it is often less difficult than dealing with an immortal opponent who keeps coming back no matter how often you kill them.
Other dangers also exist. An entire habitat may be destroyed, taking you, your backups, and your insurance provider’s records with it. A resourceful enemy might penetrate a provider’s security and delete your backups, or simply bribe the right people to make sure they get “accidentally” corrupted. Given these possibilities, the paranoid often make sure to get multiple redundant backup policies, assuming they can afford it.
==Backup Complications== 
In most cases, backing up/uploading is risk free unless someone tampers with the equipment. If the character suffered brain or neurological damage, the backup is transferred via farcasting, or the upload is made from a dead character, then the backup may be damaged due to missing neural information. In any of these instances, make a LUC Test for the character. If the test fails, they suffer 1 point of mental stress per 10 full points of MoF. Note that this stress (and possible) trauma applies to the backup, not the original character. If the backup is used to re-instantiate the character, however, then the stress is applied.

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