ProtoMechs for other Phenotypes

[Sartris]

And making converts

always room in the clown car for more clowns!

[grimlock1]

The Domini weren't all that brain-washy, though they did create more than a few unwitting agents they could use (like Donner the Detonator). The operatives who got all those implants and suped-up prosthetics had to be unabashedly and utterly loyal to the cause (they were, after all, being asked to go out, commit genocide on an interstellar scale, and die if necessary to achieve it).
The artificial limbs would be removed before entering the ProtoMech interface; it's simply how the system was designed to work. They would only need prosthetics when outside the machine, after all. As to the surge protection...they couldn't use buffered VDNI, which mitigates pilot feedback. Nothing is said about the Pain Shunt, though. The rules ran as follows:

Rules Level: Experimental
Available to: PM
Tech Base (Ratings): Inner Sphere (E/XXFX)
The Word of Blake’s ProtoMech interface enables the use of ProtoMechs
in the same fashion as Clan warriors with EI neural implants, but requires
that the pilot be fitted with a standard (non-buffered) VDNI implant. The
implanted pilot may not possess any limbs—prosthetic or otherwise—but
may be equipped with other cybernetic modifications including dermal
armor and cybernetic eye, ear, and other internal organ replacements.
In gameplay, a ProtoMech operated via an Inner Sphere ProtoMech
interface will function in the same manner as a standard ProtoMech.
The interface lacks any form of ejection or escape systems.

Bottom line: the system plugged a VDNI-equipped head-&-torso-only subject directly into the ProtoMech's onboard systems, at which point the pilot functioned just like a Clan proto pilot with EI implants. They perceived the world around them "naturally" through the machine's sensors, and experienced its movement and damage as if it were their own bodies. (And in Necromo Nightmare, they went feral while inside their machines thanks to a bio-weapon, and thus the players could encounter bestial ProtoMechs acting just like animals, complete with attempts to "eat" them, even though the machine couldn't actually do so.)

So, to also answer SD501st's comment: yeah, the WoB Proto pilots likely got basic prosthetics for out-of-cockpit activities, though we never saw very much/any of them outside the Necromo Nightmare, and thus it remains vague just what their quality of life was.

- Herb

I was always a bit unclear on if WoB proto pilots got to have prosthetic limbs that techs would disconnect prior to plugging the pilot in. That seemed to make the most sense, but we have some other headscratcher rules like omni smoke, or IS ammo performs better when used in a Clan built weapon.

Thanks for clearing that one up!

[Talen5000]

Right now it seems that ProtoMechs are only used for Trueborn Aerospace pilots. Could ProtoMechs be retooled for use my Trueborn Mechwarriors or Elementals? What about Freeborn (Clan) pilots? What about Inner Sphere people?

The answer is...it depends.

The reason why the pilot phenotype is used is simple.
No others would fit.

The typical Clan pilot is 4, 4.5 feet high - the size of a child. They are small and ProtoMechs are too cramped for a normal cockpit, with engine and weapons, etc. You could probably build something similar to Protos fir larger but it wouldn't be combat viable.

So, the answer to your question is no other phenotype would be used because no other phenotype could be used.

As for the IS...that has been looked into. The possibility of using children was considered and dismissed. The WoB used Quadruple amputees in its protomech program but by and large, Protos aren't a good fit for the IS. Maybe if they'd been more popular but between rules and looks, they never took off and have been relegated mostly to flavour units for the Horses and Ravens.

The elephant in the room is that CGL appears to be making a quiet retcon to increase the size of Clan pilots. There are one or two stories where they seem to no longer unnaturally small...simply freakishly thin. This change would explain why Randall Bills wrote a story whereby a Mechwarrior phenotype was able to enter a ProtoMech cockpit and find himself merely cramped, whereas previously he would have had trouble fitting anything other than his head and torso....witness previous canon on the necessity of using children and quadruple amputees, never mind the entire reason of using the pilot phenotype in the first place.

[Colt Ward]

The story you are talking about goes back to the beginning of Protomechs- it pretty much debuted the Gen2 Protos.

Current fiction still places them as smaller than average and that has not stopped . . . but I will admit its been a while since I remember a Clan ASF pilot character . . . though Sterling McKenna is the last one, and her ER3145 pic gives no sense of scale . . . and is another of those weird ones in that book, not as bad as some of the other Mr Potato Head pictures like Callandre Kell or Dragan Fletcher.