Alright, lets not get mired in a mud fight where we both yell "Hypocrite!" at each other. Let me reiterate that I never said that the Nightmare cube could cause extreme psychosis, nor did I say that it could cause Ella to be locked in a psychic induced coma. If you read my post I specifically stated that my worries are on how even mild mental traumas as well as the other side effects might be more problematic then the side-effects of the other options. I also specifically stated that all options had drawbacks, only that the cube had a larger one. In fact, if you posit that the Cube is the fastest way to solve our current psychic problem (i.e, largest benefit), wouldn't it make sense to you that it also had the largest drawback compared to the other two?
What I did say is that although the Nightmare cube could be turned off, it interacts directly with our psyche, and compared to another aspect of the human body and consciousness, the human psyche is the hardest to measure, understand, and thus the hardest to directly treat or rehabilitate. The term "experimental" becomes much more dangerous then, since everyone's psyche is abstract and it is much harder to quantify. That means the chance that we stumble on an unknown factor when using the cube is larger then with the implants. At least with the implants, any possible resulting defect can be traced to a chemical imbalance or a physical change in Ella's body. Since we assume that she won't be turned into a vegetable, she'll be in a position to at the very least mitigate it.
The cube on the other hand, causes mental traumas and mood swings, not defects and eccentricities. Mood swings are random, traumas are by their very definition hard to overcome, hence the word trauma.
I also find it curious how you completely ignored my point on how we might be weaker to psychic attacks when we are using the cube. Some of my fears were unfound, rendering my arguments based on them invalid, but that doesn't mean you could sweep aside all my other arguments by hand-waving them away.
I posit that the cube is
focused into one particular area, to solve
one particular type of problem. It is the phylactery, without being an implant, and being oriented towards growth rather than immediate reward. I suspect that the drawbacks are equivalently debilitating, while the
use of each upgrade is focused in a particular manner. The phylactery is immediately rewarding, but ultimately useless outside of
right now, before things have had a chance to escalate. It's a good piece of gear that lets you cheese through the first few Will encounters, and you don't have to maintain it (leaves personal actions open). The pedagogue is a small but constant boost to everything, but ultimately
doesn't actually solve the problem this decade. We're
still going to be the reavers' plaything on a string, because our innate willpower is
8 and it'll take
at least four years/four actions to get it to 10, assuming cumulative success rates for continued practice. The cube is an enormous boost to
one thing, but it takes a little effort to build up steam and the side-effects are more persistent
while in use (because AN wouldn't have said it has side-effects
while in use if it screwed us up
forever). It can easily run at twice the rate the pedagogue does, and if you feel like it, you can put that effort into other stats and training (though it's hardly advised).
I wouldn't even be surprised if it further reduced resistance. And I don't care. We're liable to fail basically every willpower check that comes from a reaver until we have our will in the middling double digits regardless of the penalty, and the cube gets us there sometime this decade as opposed to the next one over.
The options are 'no longer fail willpower checks for the immediate future (special circumstances can ignore this benefit entirely), with defects that may cause permanent losses of individual stat points', 'fail willpower checks for at least 12 personal actions' worth of willpower training (6 years minimum, 12 years expected)', with defects that may cause permanent losses of individual stat points', or 'fail willpower checks for at
most 5 years, reduced by personal action allocation, with experiences that may cause negative traits to surface quickly and other minor dice roll penalties (latter only applies while in use)'.
But you're purporting them to be more similar to 'as above, with defects that
might occur to cause penalties for
maybe a full turn', 'as above, with defects that
might occur to cause penalties for
maybe a full turn', and 'fail willpower checks for at most 5 years, loss of control of character for multiple vote segments for at least a decade, all other stats risk going into the toilet, etc.'
You're
still demonizing the option you don't like, and hand-waving the risks and possible losses of the ones you prefer,
despite their relative permanence. "Oh, defects and personality disorders? Well we can mitigate those so they're not noticable." Yeah.
Mental defects and personality disorders are easily mitigated. Let's all look at Messer, the delightfully insane nutbar that just fucking died, in part because he's a cornucopia of mental defects and personality disorders,
courtesy of physically mind-altering substances. We
cannot mitigate or repair massive brain trauma caused by a bad reaction,
especially when the functions being offloaded to the MMI are
memory or sensory input.
Edit: That was odd.
