Could the augmentations in DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION really exist by the time 2027 rolls around? It might sound hard to imagine, but modern science is making a lot of impressive stuff seem plausible. We sent our makeshift science correspondent Laurie Pycroft to investigate…
For all the wonderful points of the original Deus Ex – of which there are many – I get the sense that more thought could have gone into the technology. Sure, there was a reasonable amount of background information on the augmentations, but all too often it seemed to resort to a lot of hand-waving and overuse of the term “nano” – a tendency that was even more evident in the game’s sequel, Invisible War.
I was therefore glad to find out that, for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Eidos Montreal have been consulting with a serious technologist – Will Rosellini, CEO of Microtransponder, Inc., a company that specialises in creating devices designed to stimulate nerve cells and thereby treat a wide range of disorders. And it seems that a great deal of thought has gone into the designs of the augmentations installed into the body of protagonist Adam Jensen. While understandably the developers have sometimes allowed the demands of the game (or the rule of cool) to overrule realism, the ideas behind the implants featured are generally solid.
Could they actually exist in some form by 2027? Let’s find out…
Retinal prosthesis
The HUD is explained by Jensen having a device that directly interfaces with the retina, the patch of light-sensitive cells at the back of the eye which turn incoming light energy into electrical signals to be interpreted by the brain. This allows him to view the world with an augmented reality overlay, giving easy access to tactically useful data (or, presumably, allowing him to watch TV shows inside his own head).
So could it happen?
In real life, a range of research teams and companies worldwide are developing similar devices, mostly using externally-mounted cameras linked to a chip implanted in or on the eye, with early human trials looking positive. At the moment, the devices are relatively low-resolution, and designed to treat conditions involving damage to the retina such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. Resolutions are gradually improving, though, and cameras small enough to fit into an eyeball already exist. Even if the implants don’t improve radically by 2027, there may be other sources of augmented reality overlays, such as contact lenses with displays worked into them. Such devices are currently under development, with a team at the University of Washington having trialled an early prototype in animals to assess the concept’s safety.
Verdict: YES! | Want to know more?
Cyber arms
One of the most distinctive features of Adam Jensen is his pair of rather badass carbon fibre arms, complete with super-sharp ceramic blades which pop out when he feels like stabbing someone.
So could it happen?
While the fold-out blades seem a little unwieldy to fit comfortably into his forearm, the arms themselves have a solid grounding in reality. Various companies and academic research groups are working hard on developing prosthetic limbs with increasingly realistic ranges of motion, and progress is speeding along rapidly, with some models looking a lot like less-advanced versions of Jensen’s ones.
Most conventional devices, such as Segway inventor Dean Kamen’s “Luke arm”, use an external interface, such as a controller manipulated by a person’s toes, or electrodes which measure electrical activity in remaining muscles near the stump. Some emerging devices, however, take the more direct route that the engineers behind the Deus Ex tech seem to have taken – directly interfacing with the nervous system by either attaching electrodes to the motor nerves normally controlling the arm muscles, or placing a chip under the skull where it can directly respond to brain activity in one of the motor control areas. The latter strategy is currently being pursued by a team at Johns Hopkins funded by the real-life crazy science group that is DARPA – the USA’s top high-risk high-reward military research coordination group (whose predecessor, ARPA, oversaw the development of an early version of the internet).
But what use is a well-controlled bionic arm if you can’t use it to punch through walls? Fortunately, nanotechnologists are hard at work developing powerful muscle-like fibres so that the robotic overlords of tomorrow can easily crush the skulls of puny humans. Perhaps the best example is the work of a team at the University of Texas at Dallas, who have developed two artificial muscle technologies which convert the energy in a chemical fuel into mechanical energy, causing the “muscle” to flex. In addition to having the potential to allow prosthetics to move more naturally, one of the novel fibres was able to develop around a hundred times more power than a natural muscle fibre of the same dimensions – easily enough force to snap a shady mercenary’s neck or knock a hobo out cold.
Verdict: YES! | Want to know more?
Icarus landing system
When Adam Jensen wants to get from the top of a building to the ground, he doesn’t take the stairs; he just steps off the edge and lets his “Icarus landing system” slow him down to safe velocities – and stun anyone unfortunate enough to be near his landing spot.
So could it happen?
While certainly an impressive sequence to watch, with a cut to third-person showing arcs of energy flying everywhere, this seems to be the least well-supported augmentation available. The in-game description talks about an “electromagnetic lensing field” that initiates in response to an accelerometer detecting a free-fall, pushing against the Earth’s magnetic field, slowing the user down. But the only references to EM lensing fields I can find mostly seemed to relate to a completely different field of research, and nothing seems related to the system as described. Additionally, the magnetic field of Earth is small, so unless Adam had some kind of superconducting electromagnet concealed up his backside, it’s pretty implausible that his internal energy generators could produce enough power to slow him significantly in this manner. Some sort of compressed air-based system, or simply integrated shock absorbers into his already-augmented legs, would have made a lot more sense.
Verdict: NO!
Invisibility
One of Jensen’s coolest capabilities is his cloaking function, allowing him to snap off a few shots before turning invisible and flanking his enemies as they approach his last known location. The game explains this as a layer that can bend light around him, making it appear as if nothing is between the viewer and whatever is behind Jensen.
So could it happen?
This basic mechanism already exists, albeit operating on a smaller scale than a whole human. For a few years now, scientists have been able to use “metamaterials” to render small objects invisible to microwave and infrared radiation – parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, like visible light, but longer wavelength – by engineering the material to bend light in unusual ways. More recently, two teams have demonstrated the possibility of using crystals such as calcite to achieve a similar effect, refracting light around an object and rendering it invisible to the human eye (from some angles, at least). Currently the size of object that can be concealed in such a manner is quite limited, but these things have a tendency to improve over time, especially given the significant military applications that rendering things invisible would have.
Verdict: YES! | Want to know more?
Energy converter
Having punched one too many people in the face, Adam has depleted his energy reserves, turning many of his best augmentations into useless chunks of titanium alloy and woven carbon nanofibre. Fortunately, he has picked up a stack of sugary candy bars, which he munches hastily in a manner that would make JC Tenton proud. As if by magic, power cells recharge swiftly and Adam can go back to stabbing cops with his vicious arm-chisels.
So could it happen?
Of course, it’s not really magic, it’s just sufficiently advanced technology. These days, medical implants have a pretty significant problem: power. It’s certainly possible to use batteries charged across the skin, but that carries a number of problems, not least the fact that patients tend not to enjoy having to sit still with leads attached to them while their cardiac pacemaker or deep brain stimulator recharges. Fortunately there are scientists on-hand to overcome this inconvenience, and hopefully provide the next generation of implantable electronics with a reliable internal source of power. By creating enzyme-based fuel cells capable of using glucose as fuel, researchers have managed to deliver a proof-of-concept for an implantable device generating enough electricity to run a small implant. Trials using rats have given positive results and indicate that these devices should be safe for long-term implantation, although questions remain as to quite how much energy they’ll be able to generate.
Verdict: YES! | Want to know more?
Laurie Pycroft
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