: This is what I originally thought. But I am not so sure now. Why call them
: tanks when they are referred to as "unreliable Pfhor stasis
: chambers". And why the reference to "translation to the Pfhor
: slave tanks", the emphasis being on "translation".
Different words for the same device, used by different characters, possibly written by different people behind the scenes. Stasis in tanks is by no means a rare or novel conceit in science fiction - see Event Horizon for a nearly contemporaneous example. The use of 'translation' here is odd but not strictly incorrect. We tend to think of translation as being to convert media from one format or language to another, but originally it also meant to move something. Perhaps Greg was bored and flipping through a thesaurus... Mind you, it would be an equally strange choice of word to describe a process of cybernetic modification.
Pulling back to the bigger picture, I would argue that turning the player into a Pfhor tank never fit Tycho's motives or methods. Whether the cyborg tanks are canonically meant to be mutilated BOBs or not, they are indisputably crude and clumsy things compared to Sol-produced battleroids. This was the best the Pfhor could do even after having a Sol-programmed science AI in their hands for seventeen years, first as a lab rat and then a mercenary.
Tycho, like Durandal, well understood both the limitations of Pfhor cybernetics and the superiority of existing human-based battleroids against Pfhor ground forces. Why even consider throwing away the advantage of having an intact battleroid close at hand, with an established willingness to work for less-than-stable masters at short notice?
