Eclipse Phase General - /epg/

>between the EMPs

Oh no, my radio range went from like 100 meters to 20 meters, whatever will I do....

Get disconnected from your unit and ripped apart by a coordinated force? That's what usually happens
Truth be known I was just listing the obvious downsides of synths in combat, but another factor is one you just hit on there; people get it into their heads they're Arnold in the cop shop in Terminator 1, when the truth is you're still going to get your shit wrecked if you act alone. Just because your metal not meat doesn't mean you're bulletproof, and in a setting where people can fab up anti-tank rockets as fast as they can fire them armor stacking isn't a guarantee of anything except being the priority target

Or you brought laser links or something the EMP doesn't fuck with. Or if you're actually in a combat situation you have a helmet with a Radio Booster so the range reduction for EMP only reasonably matters if you're wandering around in the Martian Outback.

But no, yeah, I agree with all your other points, just the EMP thing is REAL peanuts compared to the many other things people may have going on with Synths. Like being blinded by storebought anti-surveillance tech while for biomorphs you need some kind of diabolical deathtrap.

Personally I think they just need to work on the tone, maybe have a section written from the perspective of a loyal Jovian (as opposed to that Tio Silencio guy). Also, they should expand upon the technologies and subversion that the Jovian's use to keep up with the Titanian and PC militaries.

There's a difference between them being given aside glances from the other factions in universe (which I agree is completely realistic) and the way the writers treat Jove orbit as a dumping ground for all sorts of shit they don't like.

And you're right about the Jovians not going Swiss with it, which is probably more a social control thing then anything else. Pretty sure the Titanians don't either, but then you don't need a standing supply of rifles when you can just use field fabbers at militia rallying points

The feeling I get about Direct Action is it maps very closely to the US Army; perhaps not the largest force but certainly one of the best trained and most battle hardened ones that's cursed with a massive range of quality ranging from weekend warrior types who are just temping with the DA corporation to full time ex-state military lifers who've been in and out of warzones for decades thanks to upload technology

That's the problem with the books being written with Firewall in mind, from a certain perspective every character in the book is a traitor to their cause thanks to their willingness to work for a faction that will at some point help their allies.
Autonomists are joining a structured group they don't get to have an input on, Extropians aren't working cash in hand, Scum don't fight exsurgents for the thrill of it, and ultimates in Firewall directly contribute to the ongoing survival of genetrash that would have been cleared from the transhuman genepool without their intervention

Is there one for Titanians and Scum as well?

Working for Firewall is usually either coerced out of people or people just want to make sure the system doesn't go tits up again. Unless you're making a character that's so ideologically hardline that they'd rather see it all burn than help out their fellow man, then you've got more problems than just how they're working for Firewall.

Why is it that everyone just talks about how to fix the Junta but no one ever puts in the effort to write some expanded, homebrew lore for them?

I've got a lot of headcannon but I'm too lazy to write any of it down.

IIRC, every full citizen of the Commonwealth is required to keep a standard weapon and armor in their dwelling and regularly qualify for it. But much like the free education, when you're a complete socialist system this isn't a huge deal, when you as the government grant them their house, you make sure to stick the gun and armor in it, or make sure they have the blueprints. The glories of the State providing all things.

I will say, the Core book is definitely harsh on Jove, and on some levels contradictory - but this balances out better as time goes on. Especially in comparison to say, the Minervan Fleet who are basically the Battlestar/Starship Troopers jovian attitude "YES WE LOVE THIS - HFY" you get around here sometimes written as a clear potential risk to transhuman dudes just living their space-lives. There's been a bit of a shift to like, separate the Jovian government from the populace and while sometimes those values overlap, other times they are distinct, and this means you get stuff like "Resleeving isn't illegal, technically, but a resleeve clinic can get blown up by militant civs who think resleeving is suicide".

I'd also agree about DA. They're big, obviously, they're on the Hypercorp Council. They do all kinds of security business. But they're still a business, which means you're gonna get a lot of diverse focus, from armchair guys in suits who just know the money, to weekend warriors, to serious guys who have skills and just want to get paid. This means they aren't "bad" persay, but their efficiency and unity isn't as good as groups like the Jovians or Commonwealth who have a unity of purpose and identity. And don't have to pay you for the first tour of duty.

There's definitely one for OZMA.

...

We tried that once, IIRC we came away with female a security tech with a man-on-man fixation
True, I was just making the point that every character in the books who's opinion we read are already flexible enough ideologically to join Firewall for the reasons you mentioned. We won't get a section written by a loyal anyone, due to the nature of the game. DESU I automatically suspect a lot of the autonomists in Firewall thanks to their biases shining through in the books. If they can't put their unwanted revolution aside long enough to give me the lay of the land on Mars, how can I trust them to keep an eye on x-threats?

Beyond Earth may have boring leaders and be an expensive reskin, but it does have an interesting conflict of transhumanist ideologies.

God but I love the art work of the Affinities from Beyond Earth. Its a shame the rest of the game didn't live up to that direction really
Anyway, for EP purposes, from left to right;
>Jovians
>Direct Action maybe? Really anyone who uses primarily synth soldiers
>More expensive Direct Action, or just your standard 'elite; guys
>ultimates or exhumans, because freaky but efficient combinations of biology and machinery is something I could see them doing
>Medusan Shield, because they've got to introduce a fresh angle for market share over DA. That and I could see Extropia going in for that Guyver style for some reason
>ultimates again, because trying to flesh craft yourself into a living god is pretty up their alley as well

Supremacy/Harmony is definitely Exhumans. It's just brute power at any cost. The body is a tool to achieve goals, nothing more.

>Humanity is limited. Human innovation is not.

It's also got neat ideas for random Sci-Fi stuff. I've always wanted my players to encounter Cynosure on some barren exoplanet.

I'm pretty sure a Cynosure in EP terms would be the same as the Oracle AI from Think Before Asking, aka a MASSIVE x-threat that doesn't even know its an x-threat. Honestly a barren exoplanet is the best place to encounter something like that

...

Naw, Supremacy seems to be pretty similar to the Rortians. Though I'm not sure the Rortians actually have foot soldiers like that.

Cynosure strikes me as too advanced to be an X-Threat, if that makes sense.

It's already freed itself from any kind of actual restraint and is pretty disinterested in humanity for the most part.

To be honest when you read the fluff for Supremacy its basically how Eclipse Phase was shaking out before the TITANs ended it all. Mass mental uploading, AI so powerful they invented a word to describe the embarrassment of mistaking an AI for a relative, massive fleets of nano drones that attend your every need. The Supremacy end game really isn't that far removed from where EP is now

So its the end state of whatever happened to the TITANs? I can dig that, and it would explain how the PCs could communicate with it, if they tried that

So are predator ex-humans just a bunch of furry vore fetishist LARPers?

Pretty much.

Yeah, this. And much like furries, they have no originality.

Jovians are trash tier when it comes to combat, their tech is completely ass backwards and gets beaten by thingamajigs built by anarkiddies in the rim in a cave

Honestly straight up combat is one of the few areas I would rate the Jovians highly in. Sure they might not have ready access to the high tier of e-warfare gubbins, but they don't use gear that's vulnerable to it either. They slip under your tech level and just really on dedicated battle hardened soldiers to do the heavy lifting. Against a human opponent that can be quite the advantage

And, something you can say about them you can only say the same about the Titanians, that every single jovian citizen who is actually a citizen went through basic, and knows how to use a rifle.

They also have tons of actual military hardware. Powersuits and heavy weapons. That kind of thing.

I'm trying to remember, who has more citizens; the Commonwealth in terms of citizens with shares who can vote and so on, and the Republic with its citizenship as a reward for service?
Because at a push (in a scenario where their militias are activated) I'd say the Commonwealth has more men under arms but the Republic has more experienced ones (most Titanians having only done basic and the subsequent brush up courses without seeing active duty)

Honestly not that hard to get in EP, assuming you're serious about pissing in the Junta's porridge you'd have a jail broken fabber with the blueprints and feed stock for a small army's worth of equipment

The real question though. Who has more antimatter?

Okay, so let's rate the Jovian's combat effectiveness in different areas, to get a true idea of how they stand up to the various militaries. The categories are:

>Direct ground combat effectiveness: Basically infantry, tanks, and aircraft shooting each other up
>Direct space combat effectiveness: Fleet on fleet battles
>Espionage and intelligence: How good they are at spying and gathering intel on the enemy
>Subversive warfare: Hacking, electronic warfare, EMP, jamming, etc.
>Strategic ability: How good they are at planning at a strategic level

Definitely the Jovians, when you don't have to publicly publish your military budget its a lot easier to pour it into WMD production. Although I think the Commonwealth might have more facilities capable of making it, so it might be a situation where the Titanian arsenal can massively increase practically overnight if needed

I think it's like, 60 mil to 45 mil, favoring the Titanians. Don't forget to account for possible pound-for-pound advantages in morph bases.

>Direct ground combat effectiveness: Basically infantry, tanks, and aircraft shooting each other up
Pretty good, but the only things they have over others are experience and good chain of command. Get on upped in materials and actual soldiers by a couple other groups. Ultimates and other dedicated combat heavies would run roughshod over them in this respect.

>Direct space combat effectiveness: Fleet on fleet battles
Arguably the best in the system. Only the Titanians and some corp forces might come close. Stymied by lack of AIs to do some super complicated stuff.

>Espionage and intelligence: How good they are at spying and gathering intel on the enemy
Pretty good, though other groups are probably better. Their isolationism probably doesn't help them much, though it likely stops a certain amount of enemy Intel gathering. Fall behind compared to some transhuman groups because they simply aren't as adapted for a digital landscape.

>Subversive warfare: Hacking, electronic warfare, EMP, jamming, etc.
Good protection because of paranoia, but it's never detailed beyond being very good. So I can't really say. Their ability to offensively engage in that stuff is probably lower than other groups though.

>Strategic ability: How good they are at planning at a strategic level
Great, but impeded by paranoia. Though, that may be improved by depending on the genuine strategic outlook.

Overall, strong but lacking due to safeguards and fear. Probably up there as one of the best conventional militaries in the system, but that might not be worth as much as it seems.

>Ground to Ground
Slightly less effective than average due to e-warfare vulnerability, and a few well trained and Fall hardened units can't compensate for relatively under trained citizen soldiers. On a unit to unit basis they match up, but strategically they suffer
>Fleet to fleet
Ships were top of the line ten years ago, and that line hasn't moved much. Still not a long term advantage and without a strategic refit and restructure Jovian fleet assets are likely to suffer. For direct combat purposes safe to assume the Jove Fleet is, hull for hull and crew for crew, roughly equivalent to the best Direct Action/Planetary Consortium forces can offer. They might have been far from Earth but they saw their share of fighting
>Espionage and intelligence
"Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack." - Sun Tzu. Jovian space is almost legendarily difficult to infiltrate and subvert even for relatively short term low intensity surveillance operations. The Jovian intelligence agencies, descended from a variety of North and South American sources, are well steeped in defensive operations. However the Jovian outward eye is lacking, due in part to ideological refusal to adapt to system wide transhuman trends. Jove's extreme introversion is both our enemy and our friend in this arena
>subversive warfare
A similar story to espionage, defensively you will find few polities better equipped and more aware of the risks of cyber infiltration and electronic warfare, with a reliance on hardwired systems and human-AI decision interfaces preventing many of the staple tactics of the hacker-commando. Though no opponent is to be underestimated in any theatre, it is anticipated that the Jovian policy of tightly leashed AIs and a societal resistance to the use of cyberbrains will greatly reduce both the scale and intensity of the multifaceted network attacks that would be anticipated in a full scale warfare scenario

Personally, I think that in ground combat, they are average. They are probably one of the few militaries with the heavy equipment (artillery, tanks, air support, etc.) but they also don't have legions of AGI's to send into battle. While they can certainly remote control reapers and synthmorphs with no moral qualms (since it's no different than remote controlling a modern day drone) allowing them to avoid casualties, they still don't have the AGI's to have a ton of troopers, so they rely on quality over quantity.

Space combat is definitely their stronger suite. They may not have AGI's, but they have computers and calculators and their really isn't much of a difference when those computers can do everything except make a decision for you. They also, like with ground combat, have one of the only space fleets to have large amounts of heavy equipment. Dreadnoughts, carriers, battleships, etc.

Espionage is also on their side. Firewall mentions that they are being extensively infiltrated by the Jovian's (who aren't afraid to sleeve into morphs they consider non-human if the job calls for it). Whether the Jovian's are being extensively infiltrated themselves is unknown, although considering that would probably require sleeving into a flat with no cortical stack most of the time, it'd be hard to find people willing to take such risks.

Subversive warfare is mixed. It is mentioned that the Jovian's specialize in taking advantage of the transhumans weakpoints, and I imagine hacking, viruses, and other subversion might come into play. However, they don't have the AGI's that might be really good at such tasks. On the defensive, however, they are fantastic. Their ships and defenses are designed specifically to prevent such subversion, and if they will hold up to TITAN subversion, then they can surely hold up to transhuman subversion.

Strategic warfare is mixed again. They have one of the few actual militaries, and many of their members are veterans of various wars, giving them experience in warfare that others just don't have. They also seem to have an extensive "simulation" system of some kind, given that they constantly run simulations against TITANs, and I'm assuming against transhumans as well. However, the lack of AGI's (again) to determine the best course of action and run with it instantly might hurt them against some of the other factions.

>everyone has a problem with the Jovian's

everyone-1

>Strategic Assessment
Excellent long term planning, if considered purely from a Jovian perspective. Even before the Republic was created the officer cadre that would found Jove picked an excellent strategic location to build their new nation in Jupiters orbit. All those seeking to cut months off their journey or zeroes off their fuel bill must go through their gravity well, while the Jovians may pick and choose how much contact they have with the wider system. Also the sheer scale and complexity of the orbital system of Jupiter makes it much easier to hide defensive stations, research operations and other nasty surprises of which the Jovians are so fond.
Goal wise, this strategic brilliance falters. From little we have gleamed of the inner workings of the Republic, the prevailing opinion at this time seems to be "leave them be and let them burn themselves out". The Republic has adopted a siege mentality against an enemy that has not even presented itself at the gates, a major cause for concern going forward. Simply put the Republic currently believes in a historical dialogue that ends with the transhuman barbarians at the gates of their new Rome simply fading away, and without harder intelligence on how deep that theory runs questions must be asked about how Jove will respond when that dialogue fails to come to fruition

I know people have gone to earth post fall to scavenge shit, but have they ever brought people back? Has anyone escaped without getting killed by TITANS or kill sats?

Earth Survivor is both a sample character AND a background package.

Yes and yes.

It happens. Very rarely but as points out often enough for that to be a valid background for your character, and for their existence to be a major source of hope for the reclaimer movement. Tends to get hushed up the PC for obvious reasons, or presented as "incredibly brave and very lucky survivor escapes the hell that is now the Earth" sort of headlines

Actually, how respected would an Ultimate Earth Survivor be?

As in they escaped Earth and joined up?
Or an ultimate that survived the Fall and managed to get off Earth ten years later?
Either way, HUGE respect from the ultimates for surviving that hell and the interdiction. Such a character would be the stuff of legends and camp fire ghost stories with the rep score to back it up

They are an appropriate human response to a catastrophic technological disaster, in terms of their stance towards the exploits and weaknesses of technology spreading WMD's in short order.

Of course, that doesn't mean I think their idea is the right thing, but that their response is understandable, and shouldn't be the issue in the fiction that gets vilified.

In my opinion, the authors really need to tone down the mustache twirling villains.

You mean the best is the one with the floating brain in a synth body right?

>modify body like a synth w/ synth upgrades, including awesome weapon ports and innate armor under your worn armor
>can't be taken over with hacks
>be psychic

Brain Box, Transhuman P. 198

Sometimes I take the Brasilia faction, rename them and their leader to match the Jovian's, and play them as Purity. Their methods of operating are basically point for point the same.

Which reminds me, one thing that I think people often forget is that the Jovian's would have almost no moral qualms about remote controlling a reaper synthmorph into battle, sense it's basically no different than a modern day drone, and can't be hacked if there's no AI to hack. Plus it saves on the limited quantity of soldiers they have.

True, there's a few references to Jovians buying up military grade synthmorphs so they can remote pilot them. Bugger is they can still be hacked and the remote control turned against you. In fact its easier really, with no AI to put up a defence you have to hope the operator is fast enough to alert e-warfare specialists to fight off the intrusion or shut the drone down

>Direct ground combat effectiveness: Basically infantry, tanks, and aircraft shooting each other up

Decent, reliable. Heavy armor will always save your ass, and hard hitting weapons will always hurt. Downside is less expendable assets like drone armies, and no homing rounds if their combat doctrine doesn't rely on tac-net weapon links. Laser-guided munitions might be more prevalent though.

>Direct space combat effectiveness: Fleet on fleet battles

Very certain by legacy alone, and facilities, they have the largest fleet, and the gulf between the various factions on any tech gap is the smallest here.

>Espionage and intelligence: How good they are at spying and gathering intel on the enemy

Their special agents aren't actually tech restricted like their populace is, they still require permission for things like nanos. For the run of the mill military unit though, nope.

>Subversive warfare: Hacking, electronic warfare, EMP, jamming, etc.

As good as any other when it comes to offense, the upside is they're less vulnerable to it from others.

>Strategic ability: How good they are at planning at a strategic level

Just as good as any other faction, upside is a high concentration of talent pool from military legacy connections.

To be frank, there is probably very little gap between the major militaries of the 3 largest faction, PC, Jovian, and Titanians. The heaviest weighing difference imo, is probably how many warships they have, and how much anti-matter they got.

Piloting over long distances is never going to be as comfortable or fluid as actually being the machine.

Oh, really? Still, sense there's no AI inside to preserve, there could be a self-destruct set to go off if a hack is detected.

>remote controlling a reaper synthmorph into battle, sense it's basically no different than a modern day drone, and can't be hacked if there's no AI to hack

If you can remote pilot the drone, some wizard class hacker can spoof their signal and ride yours and take control of it also.

I doubt Jovians rely on remote drones as any backbone to their military force for offense, other than for expendible recon drones to tag enemies for seeker missiles.

That would either be the first thing to subvert, or the first thing to target. As a rule its a bad idea to rig a bundle of well armoured ordinance like a Reaper to self destruct. You do not want one of those igniting and cooking off in the middle of your line.
A shutdown shortcut would be the ideal solution, sure it sucks to have to slag the control circuits but its better than leaving it in enemy hands

I think they reference them using Fighting Kites in the Recognition Guide for recon. And I remember some stuff about them using drones outfitted with less than lethal weaponry for riot suppression, but considered that story implied that everywhere else uses lethal rounds to break up riots because lolstacks I'm not sure how canon I want that to be. Sure people are immortal but cops open firing into the crowd has never played well

Again, they'll use drones for recon, but it won't be masses of rank and file drone infantry, or drone tanks for instance.

A drone with non-lethal weaponry for civie crowd control isn't going to be much of a concern if it gets subverted.

2-5. I'm not really interested in talking about them yet again, though. Maybe in a few days.

Who would you rather talk about then?

>he bought into the optical computing meme
That's adorable.

I remember it being mentioned that Firewall has been unable to get anyone on the inside of Jovian intelligence.

Celebrity status.

>smart manipulators holding shields with shaped super thermite charges

Better hope your armor for energy is 25 or greater.

If that's true, then the Jovian's got some seriously tight security. Easy to see why though.

"Oh, I see you are in a slicer. We will have to take your cortical stack before you enter the habitat, I hope you understand."
>"What? I'm not so sure about that..."
"You will also not be allowed to leave except in very special circumstances. Are you ready to go through the process?"
>"On second though, I think I'll pass..."

Lets talk about the Titanians. Are they good or evil or what?

They're socialists, and therefore evil.

This desu senpai.

Don't forget about Janteloven.

They do the scariest shit in the nicest way possible. Don't get on their bad side and you're cool.

They're national socialists.

All about the superiority of their moral and just system, and how evil the barbarity of others are.

They're an evil country run by mob mentality, that get's away with their actions because "democracy can't be wrong".

Janteloven abiding national socialists run by ASI, highly-compromised bureaucrats, and people who vote for shit that they know nothing about. If you say the wrong thing, they'll take your morph and give it to someone they think deserves it more than you.

>Direct ground combat effectiveness: Basically infantry, tanks, and aircraft shooting each other up

Not really that relevant IMO. In terms of a tier list I'd do something like:
>Rorties/Ultimates/similar
>High end PMCs (Direct Action et al)
>Titan/mid end PMCs (TC special forces are up with tier 1 though)
>Jovian forces/anarchist militias (which isn't really a knock against the Jovians, the anarchists which are left are pretty hardcore).
>Security forces (NQPD etc)

The Jovians have a lot of institutional power from inherited earth militaries, but they fall below the top three due to lack of willingness to fork, use psychosurgically augmented forces, and potentially time accelerated simspaces depending on their requirements. Gear is easy to get a hold of thanks to nanofabrication, so only stuff like nukes and antimatter could be limited.

>>Direct space combat effectiveness: Fleet on fleet battles
Similar to the rest. They have the biggest fleet, and most people are probably still using 10+ year old ships. They're likely a little "dumber" tactically because of the lack of specialized Egos or AGI support. This is a small difference. They are likely more cautious tactically, because they aren't as willing to desleeve/die. They have the most powerful fleet though, that's known. I don't think they have a huge edge, but enough to not get fucked it.

>>Espionage and intelligence: How good they are at spying and gathering intel on the enemy
Low. The panopticon doesn't favor them, because they don't have armies of data-sifting AI picking through it. They're probably good at HUMINT stuff, but are ideologically inflexible enough that forking your agents a dozen times, sleeving them into worker bots and getting eyes on that way won't be as easy.

Cont.

Cont

>Subversive warfare: Hacking, electronic warfare, EMP, jamming, etc.
Hacking: They're really the only major faction which is adverse to sapient Exploit AGIs as agents. That'll hurt. EW they should be ok at, but EW is hard to figure in AF10. (I don't really know). EMP and jamming is the same generally, its all about pure electronic tech, and the Jovians don't lag there.

>Strategic ability: How good they are at planning at a strategic level
Worse than the Argonauts, Firewall, and maybe OZMA (the ASI factions). Lack of forking and, AI, and ego alteration can hold them back here, but they have a lot of experienced people as a potential edge. This is probably where they are weakest.

They sound nice and democracy is cool, but the Orchestra and anything state secret related is spooky as fuck. They're a weird mix between idealistic democracy and hardcore 5 EYES shit.

>Rorties/Ultimates

Rorties and Ultimates in the same tier?

A Rortie spider-tank to your average Ultimate is not exactly an equal comparison, so much so, the ultimate, or rather any non-rortie military force won't bother trying to make a rortie knockoff to counter rorties.

They'll spend their resources on WMDs.

I think an Ultimate would just take the spider tank as a challenge.

He would, but would need to rely on environmental factors and better tactics to reliably take down a Rortie spider-tank.

Such as softening it up with seeker missiles from far away, and get in close with plasma guns to look cool while finishing it off.

An aspirant maybe, an Autarch would come at that bitch with a sword.

That's dumb, you're dumb. An Autarch would slap your shit for suggesting something so stupid.

You come rushing at the fucker with 4 swords, while charging, and they had best be plasma swords. Otherwise you have no chance of getting through its fuck huge armor rating.

Actually, I'm interested in it statistically now. How would you stat an Autarch? I'm not sure there's a set for one in the books.

autarch just spends a moxie to get through armor to hit the giant enemy spiderbotcrab's weak point for massive damage

Whatever they are, they likely have 80+ in their relevant combat abilities not counting specialties and equipment bonuses, and being significant NPC's, have moxie.

Alright, you got one fucking sword and, generously, 10 moxie.

Can you statistically take out the fucker in 10 shots?

The bare minimum for consideration as an autarch is
>one skill at 90+, twelve or more at 70+.
so I'd basically just make them excellent at whatever they wanted to do.

I think the "best" battlearmor in the game is really the construction loader.

More durability, harder to wound, and no limit to the armor you can wear while piloting it, so if the battlearmor does get trashed, you won't be vulnerable when you exit it.

The baby just needs an upgrade on its armor however many weapon mounts and weapons you can afford, and shape-adjusting, and flight and you got yourself a veritech fighter.

2 swords x 4 speed x 2d10+6 armor ignoring damage

So this was in the last thread right before it was archived, but the Jovian's have five political "factions" within the republic. There is:

>Determinist: Wait for everybody else to die or leave
>Expansionist: Conquer space around Jupiter then isolate ourselves
>Hawks: Conquer everyone else before they can develop too much tech
>Reclaimers: Reclaim Earth
>Reformist: Become more like everybody else

Which faction do you think would be the best for the Jovian's to follow? I'm personally inclined towards the expansionists.