Lintilian
Define 'mortality'
(Note: The following is a very early draft of a probable character path. It may change completely or go away entirely)
Matter transportation works. Well...
Matter construction works. The Lintilian company created the first matter constructor capable of something as complicated as a well crafted corned-beef sandwich, and in doing so accidentally created something capable of crafting something capable of crafting something as complicated as people.
And if you deconstruct a corned-beef sandwich, and send over the exact sequence of matter, is it still the same sandwich? (Yes, said the courts)
And if you add whole-grain mustard? (Errr, said the courts)
And if you do it with a person? (This is getting a bit philosophical, said the courts. No, even if you recreate them afterwards, it's still murder. I think.)
And if you do it with a person who lost their leg, but add the leg back? (Well, it might be up to the individual, but the medical appli...)
And what about if you do it with a pile of meat that used to be a person? (Surely, said the courts, you're not considering some kind of franke...)
And if you stored the same matter sequence and created it twice? (Ah! That's cloning, and we've ruled you...)
No, not a person, a body. For medical use.
So cloning things is illegal. And cloning people is illegal. But cloning bodies for medical purposes... might not be? So long as they were always conscious, either in their body or in some kind of computer emulation, and also during the transition between the two... that's not cloning, that's just... something new...
And once a person's body & consciousness is a series of bits, you don't need to build it right away. It's just a thing on a hard drive somewhere... isn't it?
People are a bit big to broadcast, and that comes fraught with other problems...
..but then, if you die, you can just... respawn...
Thus, the Lintilians. Mostly human. Less now than then.
It's not perfect. Immortality hardly ever is. If you couldn't think while stored, that is probably death, so most of the Lintilian spend the time between incarnations as ship monitors, security bots, androids; their leisure time in some truly amazing virtual experiences, or learning all there is to know about the world, or about yourself. Can you become a genius by hacking? Modifying your own bitstream is fraught with danger, though of course people do it anyway, with greater or lesser consequences.
You can't stay electronic forever, especially when the power's going out, so the frail body is built for you. And it's perfectly safe, because you can always get a new one right?
But there's the safety switch. Your mind has to be there. Your body has to be there. You have to authorize your own respawn, and your matter needs to be reused, because otherwise it's cloning, and that would be illegal.
And it doesn't always work, at least not the way it should. Maybe there's something less... mechanical at play.
Who can tell?
Nicholas Avenell