Cyborg Fever

A sort of overheating, affecting exclusively biological humans with cybernetic implants. Often as a result of poor cooling, the entire body or a certain part gets really hot from the cybernetics just functioning as intended. This has a whole host of adverse effects, from inconvenient to lethal.

Transmission & Vectors

Doesn't spread, is instead caused by common factors.

Causes

The root cause is the person's cybernetic implants overheating. The most common cause is either faulty cooling or poor-quality cybernetics. While the more common augmentations, like enhancements for organs or brain-connected computers don't produce that much heat, especially the modern versions, older or badly made renditions do heat up significantly. The amount of cybernetics is also a major factor. There's a reason the condition is so much more prevalent in highly-modified individuals, like Nanomancers.

Symptoms

The symptoms are varied, but all trace back to high internal heat, local or overall. There's two main categories, ambient heat, and direct heat. Note that these aren't any sort of medical terms, but eh.
Ambient heat is a fever, essentially. It has similar effects, and is generally dangerous when it gets to around 43 or so degrees Celcius. Most often caused by either nanomachines or artificial muscle fiber enhancements. Can also induce other conditions like heat exhaustion.
The other, more common effect, is direct heating of a spot. This can range from a mild inconvenince, to crippling damage, and can even be lethal. The symptoms are also more varied. They range from tissue damage, though that is somewhat rare, to higher blood pressure. An area of particular danger is the head, and specifically the brain. If the brain heats up too much, a common condition is a heatstroke. That ranges from slight discomfort to impacted thinking and behaviour to outright death.

Treatment

The main treatment is to decrease the heat. Often done by either shutting off the cybernetics, even if that can be uncomfortable, or by directly cooling the body. Long-term, the two most common options are to install a better cooling system, or upgrade the cybernetics themselves. Another, more impactful choice is to remove them altogether, though this is rare for obvious reasons.

Affected Groups

The cybernetically augmented, which would be most of biological humanity. The risk is only major to those with a lot of augments or poor quality cybernetics.

Prevention

Better cybernetics, or a better cooling system. Less cybernetics also applies when talking about the extremely modified.

History

The condition has been around for as long as cybernetics have been around, and even with modern additions like the cooling systems or better cybernetics with improved efficiency and heat management, there are still hundreds of patients every year for every million or so people.

Cultural Reception

Cyborg fever generally has reduced the prevalence of mass cybernetic augmentation, where while most people have some, only a small, small minority actually practice extreme cybernetic modification.
It's also lead to the comparative lack of brain augments, which while common, are rarely more than a basic computer add-on. This is because a more powerful computer would either require a direct cooling cable, the placement of which would be risky, or a fin or sorts, or multiple, on the head of the augmentee. Those fins are quite inconvenient, and don't look too good. Of course, that doesn't stop that small minority from doing it, but it's not common at all.

"When I fought that guy, I noticed something on his back, a sort of additional set of veins, only with clear water-looking stuff flowing through it. Look, you can see it still kind of flowing out of him. Any clue what that is?" - Quaken
"That'd have to be the internal cybernetics-cooling system. Considering how hard you said he could hit, he's gotta be pretty damn augmented. And cybernetics produce heat." -Skejon

Type

Physiological

Cycle

Short-term

Rarity

Rare

Affected Species

• Human