So I've had this thought bugging me for a long while now (Being the roleplay nut that I am). But aside from sight and sound, Would a CAST retain the other 3 senses they would have prior to becoming who they are now, which of course are Taste, smell and touch-

Would they be able to feel if something's hot, cold, rough or smooth just by touching it? Heck, canonically speaking, do they even need to eat or drink (or at the very least, can do so out of luxury.), or is it a case of Gameplay and Story segregation?

Also do they sleep? That might be another question on my mind.

I remember reading that CASTs in Pso2 normally retain just enough organic parts to reproduce (although the child would not be a CAST but from the organic genetics it was conceived with) and their brains are organic.

I think theres plenty of room for variance, after all these are people who had their brains put into mechanical bodies, so theres probably a differing degree of how much is now machine.

I imagine a CAST would need to at least recharge on energy to keep their life support systems going, taking care of their organic brain. Eating food might be possible too, since they could be designed to be able to use organic matter to fuel that.

iirc, some very few CASTs are completely machine. Or pretty much would be. I know Risa/Lisa doesn't even care what her past life was (nor does she really remember), and thus technically would be full machine.

It's not impossible to create organic-looking full-on machines, considering Xiera and Auxiliaries are a thing. It feels like Phantasy Star Online follows the Xenosaga Android (IE: KOS-MOS (T-ELOS isn't an android)) style more so when it comes to such situations.

Lisa doesn't remember her past life apparently becuase CASTs just dont. her being part organic has nothing to do with her own desires or personality and everything to do with an organic brain or part of one inside her robo head.

Xiera is a Hi-CAST who is full AI but it seems those are not common yet.

@ZeeHero9271 The question is, how easy it is to grow/build a person? If it's quick and doesn't require a lot of recourses, then ARKS could just grow/build an army over night (or however long it takes). Someone dies? Doesn't matter when you have an endless supply of mooks. I wonder why they haven't done that yet? Heh, maybe the characters we play WERE made like that. Maybe your character is "the chosen one" because that is what they were created for? Maybe making someone stronger is harder than just making some pencil pusher? Meh. Probably going to simply explain nothing and/or hand-wave it.

@ZeeHero9271 said in CAST Physiology questions.:

Lisa doesn't remember her past life apparently becuase CASTs just dont. her being part organic has nothing to do with her own desires or personality and everything to do with an organic brain or part of one inside her robo head.

Xiera is a Hi-CAST who is full AI but it seems those are not common yet.

@Yggranya said in CAST Physiology questions.:

@ZeeHero9271 The question is, how easy it is to grow/build a person? If it's quick and doesn't require a lot of recourses, then ARKS could just grow/build an army over night (or however long it takes). Someone dies? Doesn't matter when you have an endless supply of mooks. I wonder why they haven't done that yet? Heh, maybe the characters we play WERE made like that. Maybe your character is "the chosen one" because that is what they were created for? Maybe making someone stronger is harder than just making some pencil pusher? Meh. Probably going to simply explain nothing and/or hand-wave it.

Quoting both you, you get to see some more depth into this on Episode 6. The opening cutscene shows a bit more about the nature of CASTs and there is a prominent character who isn't exactly too central to the story (rather a substory) of someone who wasn't a CAST who was turned into one. We also get to see another Hi-CAST who ends up shaming Xiera and her Episode 4 woes.

And lastly to drop another hint that we (the player character) is affiliated with someone who tried to create artificial life and essentially succeeded. The only problem with that is that it wasn't allowed to flourish and as a result the most you saw of that was in Episode 5 from a hint that was dropped. As I mentioned, the very first cutscene (prologue) of Episode 6 spells these out if it wasn't so obvious already from the ending of Episode 5.

Too much.

I feel like this conversation massively diverged from my original questions.

To help get things back on track here, most likely the CAST would require food/drinks to keep their organic parts alive and their power cells charged. I run a CAST and use the drink dispenser on the gateship all the time and food items for their boosts.

Their senses might still work as normal, or with slight possible changes from being mostly machine.

They do how ever have unique traits from being mostly machine based, the CAST still seem to function when parts are broken off (There is an image of Zig broken in half in the Phantasy Star Wiki in the gallery), and they can survive in space with out extra life support (Near the end of episode 6 with Regius and Maria helping Alma hold the barrier, with only extra thrusters attached to them).

@Thedovahmon Yeah, i'll just remove that rant. Sorry.

This is a very sci fi setting with high levels of technology, remember Clarke's laws. The first states if a respected scientist says something is impossible he is most likely wrong, and if he says something is theoretically possible he is most likely correct.

the 3rd of course is the most famous, any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic (to those who dont understand how it works)

I would not be surprised if organic races had an average lifespan of over 200, with CASTS having that almost doubled in some cases.

Synthetic life would not be too difficult to create, and with the Hi CASTs we see its definitely possible.

The attempts that failed badly were trying to recreate the literal librarian computer goddess to all information of the multiverse, copying that is far far beyond what is required to copy a normal life form.

as for surviving in space... All characters, organic or otherwise seem to have some sort of photon based life support system which is not apparent from their clothing. We regularly are out in space without an EV suit, so clearly theres some kind of advanced photon tech for life support.

Risa is not dead yet therefor they do not know how long casts can actually live for.

Casts not maintaining their memory is likely not true given Lukot. It is more likely that mosts Casts are created when the child is a baby and thus have no memories, are old and having mental problems as is thus lose of memories, or view the entire thing as traumatic and block memories out. The process has nothing to do with memories in and of itself.

Taste, touch, and smell are all kept. Arks and particularly Casts are weapons. It would be stupid to strip away senses that would help keep them alive if they did not have to. However, almost all arks do have extra senses via photon sensing which in turn dulls other senses in most Arks...