Stargate Universe, 1.16 "Sabotage" (open spoilers)

[asterion]

@Max_the_Immortal

I keep daydreaming new uses for the stones. Imagine a couple swapping bodies to spice up their sex life. Or criminals sentenced to provide the use of their able bodies to people like our physicist friend, all the while enduring life in a severely crippled body (brings “cruel and unusual punishment” to a whole new level). Would rich people hire surrogates to endure painful recovery from surgery for them?

Or a competition along the lines of The Biggest Loser (well, what I imagine that show to be like), except the contestants are fitness gurus body-swapped with really out-of-shape people. Will the fitness gurus be humbled when their “sure-fire” weight loss systems don’t translate to people with different body chemistry, or will the “body donors” be forced to admit that no, they didn’t have a glandular problem after all?

It’s been done, and by Kevin J. Anderson of all people. Hopscotch, which I first became aware of several years ago when he published an earlier story using the same characters in Analog. Not a very good novel, in my opinion, but then again I think Anderson is a mediocre writer. Of course, the writers for Stargate Universe are pretty mediocre as well.