TechWeekly with Kelly Matthews (via Frater POV)

Everyone knows about Z(corp)'s premier line of cybermemetics.

Halve your evocation time to visible apparition.

Z(ee) ur tomorrows today.

Handing you your brain, one piece at a time.

          From Chiba City to Rio de Janeiro z(corp) taglines are being assimilated into everyday streetspeak.

          From their humble beginnings in cryptomemetics and their subsidiary offering in antinomian fashion, the z(family) has rocketed to internation buzzworthiness. But now that they've broken the implantable-memetics market will they be able to keep it?

          Everyone's heard the success stories. Cultus design reduced to a weekender's project with the z(pare) randomizer. Pheremone modulation as precise as a synthesizer, thanks to the z(enter) limbic prosthesis. Rumour has it that even Phil Hine has been plugging his new body with z(entrance) homeostatics to accelerate neural renormalization.

          What you don't hear so much about are the effects of rejection. Preliminary case studies show that up to 10% of test subjects have experienced total prosthetic rejection, and another 15-20% show signs of partial incompatiblity.

          In the partial cases symptoms are mostly exagerations of known side effects. With the (attitude)z implant this often manifests as dangerously misproportional endorphin levels, elevating street cool to aninsufferable divine arrogance, similar to prolonged opium use.

          The z(pare) device has been shown to induce Stansfield's Syndrome, where rather than constructing coherent semantic structures the user reinterprets the same symbol sets, attempting to correlate all possible semantic objects to all others.

          The cases of total rejection are the most peculiar, though less harmful in the long term. For some there is no assimilation at all, and the implant remains dormant. For others, primarily with the high-end z(entropic)z implants, rejection is instantaneous, but on the part of the implant rather than the host. In these extreme cases the implant begins overloading the target areas of the brain, acting as a broad-spectrum dendritic agonist. The implant is immediately deactivated and removed.

          No succesive implants have been attempted in these cases.

          Sol Amoun, one of z(entropic)z executive chairs, responded to these technical issues in a TechWeekly exclusive interview:

          "We are looking at a radically new technology here.

          Previously there were very few extant memetic appliances, and none with this level of sophistication. Practicing sorcerors primarily relied on extreme techniques of self-dicipline or on high-powered chemognostic utilities.

          Customizable memetic implants represent the first major advance in idealogic technology since the Templar's Baphometirc Anti-God programs. So I'd say the advances we're making speak for themselves.

          We're looking at ways to upgrade our existing devices as well as direction to expand our product lines."

          Marik and FireClown, primary share holders in z(corp), were unavailable for comment.

          The shortcoming of z(plant)z have left this new market open to competition, with early press releases from Retromemetics and PostModern Neuro Design suggesting a radically different product line.

          Early promotional materials are sparse, referring to the product as "XP." Harpon Koss of Retromemetics isolated the market segment :

          "Z(plant)z are not user friendly. To use even a fraction of these utilities you'd need Adeptus Minor-level training. These 'wanna-zees' are putting a lot of money and cranial space into devices they hardly understand. We think there's no need to sacrifice user friendliness for utility, and our upcoming consumer implantibles are designed around this very idea."

          While the Retromemetics/PMND partnership seems likely to make a strong offering to the market many prospective players have already backed down. Sy Olburg of the Orthodox Council and Chasidic Rabbinical Experiment has said:

          "While the practical utility of these devices in exploring the sacred kabblah and in markabic work is obvious, the implantation of neurological devices would prevent the resurrection of the body, contradicting scripture."

          The Golden Yawn Active Party, considered the centrist voice of old aeon industry, declared the results of z(plant)z "illusory, phantasmal, deleterious, and likely the work of the Prince of Da'ath himself."

          ChRNZN declined to respond to this claim, but is under contract as a spokesman for z(corp) through his Abyssal Aeonics firm.

          The New Order of Fundamentalist Unrepentant Neopagans has announced that it plans to subsidize work on an ultrasonic/holoprismatic alternative to implantible memetics. They did not announce any vendors.