Houston 7 // Early Bionics

The integration of bionics into human beings was for a very long time the purview of science fiction, something that would exist solely in the realm of dreams and hopes. Even in its infancy, where entire limbs were replaced with clunky, bulky pieces of metal, circuitry and computer software the fact that a mad could have a bionic limb hard-wired into his nervous system and responding to his thoughts like a true limb was bordering on miraculous.

The first subject to receive it was Marine Sergeant Jacob Hill, a man that had earned a bronze star for valor and bravery in combat, but had lost his arm in doing so. Sergeant Hill was regarded as a hero, and of course when someone had the bright idea of putting his name forward for receiving the first powered prosthetic ever, the government leapt at it. It was the best thing they could have done, honestly, the media ate it up, the people thought it was great, and only the most hardcore political talking heads and pundits found something to complain about.

For Sergeant Hill it was a chance to regain a bit of dignity, as well as self-sufficiency. Hill was right-handed, and his wound was an immense disability to overcome. Even if the first prosthetic couldn't return his sense of touch, and wasn't as dexterous as a real hand, and technically, really wasn't the first prosthetic ever installed in a man it meant enough to him and the American people that powered prosthesis had gained the chance to become something medical and scientific communities could run with. The amount of money and funding that poured into bionic and powered prosthetic research after this was staggering.

Yet despite the miracle that this was, despite all the attention that it got in the media, and how much it changed one man's life, and could potentially change thousands more there will still dissenters. There were those voices in the crowd that called the powered prosthesis blasphemy, or inhuman, unnatural, wrong, an affront to humanity. These arguments only gained credence as in the following years where powered prosthetic limbs and implants became more widespread that elective augmentations started happening. People that didn't need these powered additions were getting them. The rich, the influential, athletes... they were becoming symbols of excess, the very excess that only decades ago had crippled the nation and sent it spiraling into the depths of poverty and ruin.

To some it is simply that these people are different, and that is offense enough. Some things never change, not in a hundred years, not in a thousand.