1. The matter-transport/sentient-life-form MIME type

In order to promote the wider interoperability of life-bearing email, this document defines a new MIME content-type, "matter-transport", and for an initial subtype, "sentient-life-form". This subtype was designed to meet the following criteria:

1. The syntax must be extremely simple to parse, to minimize the risk of accidental death due to misinterpretation of the standard.

2. The data format must be extremely robust, with redundancy to ensure that individual life forms will survive and be reconstituted in such a form as to be nearly indistinguishable from their initial state, no matter how many bizarre email gateways are encountered in transit.

3. The syntax must be extensible to allow for the description of all yet-undiscovered aspects of life forms which will be required for the transport of non-human species (e.g. dolphins, Klingons, or politicians).

4. The syntax must be compatible with SGML, so that with an appropriate DTD (Document Type Definition -- the standard mechanism for defining a document type using SGML), a general SGML parser could be written to parse the data structure and produce directives to a lifeform-reconstitution mechanism. However, despite this compatibility, the syntax will most likely be far simpler than that of full SGML (so that no SGML knowledge is required in order to implement it), since it is anticipated that the full complexities of SGML will not be necessary for the description of even arbitrarily complex organic life forms.

The syntax of the new content-type is very simple, and indeed makes considerable sacrifice of efficiency in the interest of simplicity. It is assumed to describe a three-dimensional rectangular solid, with the height, width, and depth (calibrated in centimeters) specified as parameters on the content-type line. (In general, this should be a cube that completely contains the life form being transported; but, where high bandwidth is not available, a somewhat smaller cube can be used, provided that facilities are known to be available at the recipient's end to administer the medical first aid that could be necessary if an individual is reconstituted sans some of its extremities.) A fourth parameter gives the resolution of the matter scan, calibrated in Angstroms. Thus, the following Content-type value:

      Content-type:  matter-transport/sentient-life-form;
              height = 200; width = 60; depth=60; resolution=10

implies that the cube being described is 60 cm by 60 cm by 200 cm, and is described to a resolution of 10 Angstroms. The resolution gives the quantization unit, and therefore determines the quality of the reproduction. The data stream itself then consists of a readout of the molecule found at each location, using the given resolution. If the resolution is high enough that more than one molecule is found in a given location, the molecule whose nucleus is closest to the center of the cube is used. Each molecule is described by its molecular formula, rendered in ASCII for maximum readability if matter-transport mail is inadvertently delivered to a human recipient and displayed on a terminal screen. Each molecule is followed by a space (ASCII 32) to separate it from the subsequent molecule description. Extremely long molecules may require the use of a content-transfer-encoding such as quoted-printable, to ensure that line-wrapping mail systems do not, for example, cause the unintended breakdown of complex proteins into their constituent elements.

The following is a message that gives a somewhat simplified rendition of a well-known American politician, starting from the top:

   From:  "Nathaniel S. Borenstein" <nsb@bellcore.com>
   To: Mark Linimon <linimon@lonesome.com>
   Subject: Think hard before reconstructing
   Content-description:  Dan Quayle, low-res version
   Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form
           height = 200; width = 60; depth=60; resolution=100000

   Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe  Fe
   Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe  Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 NO2 Fe
   Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe  Fe
   Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe Fe  Fe

Obviously, a real politician's skull is more complex than pure iron, as is its interior, but this simplified example should give the general flavor of the protocol.

(A caveat, however, in the reconstitution of Vice-Presidents of the United States: allegedly, some of the matter-reconstitution schemes currently under development are reputed to perform less than optimally while trying to reconstitute areas of relatively high vacuum; for instance, their skulls. A recommended acceptance test might be to experiment with subjects whose skulls are only at partial vacuum, such as Vice-Presidents of Marketing.)