I know that the tech bias can be so low that you cannot use certain tools. However, what about the body bias? Could the tech bias be high enough that you could use the tool, but the body bias be too low to physically use it? I was just thinking that a lot of blacksmithing is an @1 skill, so that would work in a flatline tech bias, but it involves using hammers. Could the blacksmithing work under the tech bias, but the body bias be too low to pick up a hammer? I know, strange thought, any ideas?
I've thought about this myself. I think that since object manipulations are B0@ skills (that is, zero-level bias), they're immune to being curved out by a flat-line bias, so we don't have to worry about whether or not you can physically use the hammer. Your basic senses - sight, hearing, pain, etc. - are also 0@, which is why the bias is never too low for you to be able to see. Same goes for P0@0 Language Use.
This isn't to say you couldn't run into other bias complications - especially with negative biases (which can do some weird things, especially in bod) - and, as you note, some of blacksmithing isn't @1 (which could complicate some tasks), but usually one thing you don't have to worry about is, "does the bod bias support my physical use of this device?"
That's just something that is very hard for me to imagine. A world in which your own body wouldn't function properly. A world where scissors don't work is hard to imagine also, but I can grasp that a lot easier than I can your own body not working. Does the world block the nerve pathways that would normally send the signals to your muscles or something?
I read Vernor Vinge's 'A Fire Upon the Deep'.
The galaxy was known to be divided into circles that surrounded other circles.
The Center==Unthinking Depths
Earth and its space out from the center==The Slowness
Further out just a bit==The Beyond
Further still at the very edge==The Transcend
In UD, max IQ was Sixty.
In the Slowness, no hyperdrive, no natural language translation, no AI's
In The Beyond you had hyperdrive, and lots of really cool SF stuff like Anti-gravity fabric
In the Transcend==Million IQ's and superfast nanotech that could do all sorts of things, AI's ...
Its an extremely cool story. At one point you're fifty miles up in the air on a dock made of anti-grav material that is under attack and failing and you're trying to get to your spaceship before you hit the ground...
The UD is kinda sorta like what you're thinking about.
And even if its not, its one of the best examples of MJ's idea of sub-universes.
Eric