/epg/ - Eclipse Phase General

Exhumans attack Legba to try and retrieve one of their leaders' stolen egos/cortical stacks. Your team fights/stealths their way through vicious criminals and vicious not-aliens murdering each other on a third-world hellhole coming apart.

Ah, a targeted limited-collateral Erasure Squad.
I suggest a game of hot potato with Nine Lives, the ID Crew, and grenades disguised as cortical stacks. Or is it cortical stacks disguised as grenades?

Not quite. Their cover is that they're derelict scavengers in the belt (their home hab is Extropia). Their real purpose is to seek out potential exsurgents and other shit in suspected ships and cleanse them.

Why would you in an exsurgent ship?

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>Why would you in an exsurgent ship?
How do they know what's on it without checking?

They're working with a pragmatist server, so the secondary objective is collecting samples when safe. Full destruction isn't an option unless infestation is confirmed, or identity has been compromised.

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You guys like weird fringe governments, right? What do you think of this?

ephrep.blogspot.com/2017/01/500-bushels.html

Seems pretty nonsensical

What government isn't?

Well all of them are better than low-scarcity space feudalism

>ephrep.blogspot.com/2017/01/500-bushels.html
So it's effectively feudalism in space

Actually, this came up recently, and apparently feudalism is pretty poorly defined as far as specific scholarly purposes go. It does not just mean "space farming with wealthy people do fighting and stuff".

However the fact that technically all classes have rights and can vote, positions are elected or randomly allotted, and the write is unclear on any exact specifications as to required "military and legal obligations", I'm not sure it actually meets any of those definitions anyway. Not to mention it's actually a pretty big crib on Selonian Athens which quite predates classical Feudalism.

It's ruled by landowners. In a space habitat. With fabbers.

Well, you can own as much land as you want, if you don't produce any product off it or other equivalent income you're unlikely to rule anything. Timocracy does generally translate to "rule by owning land" though.

Also feudalism is not actually rule by land-owners. See above.

Elites asleep, post space farms

Every government but lolbertarianism.

They own resources basically. No asteroids under your ass - no materials for fabbers.

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Enjoy

youtube.com/watch?v=yo0EvcU_9TY

youtube.com/watch?v=oazFe2jbMxw

There are various anarchist factions in Eclipse Phase but for some reason there are no national anarchists or right wing anarchists, why is that?

Because left-wing anarchy is the writers' fetish.

What about intellectual resources? Industrial systems? Labor capacity? Are these not equally or more important?

Because national anarchism is made up bullshit and it does feature right-wing anarchists

National anarchism is essentially just racist anarchism, which makes little sense in a setting with resleeving. There are those bug head guys on Locus though.

Right-wing anarchism refers to either that or anarchocapitalism, which is 100% a very big deal in the game.

Implemented correctly, the rep system ensures that a hab won't let people in unless they fit in with the local culture. They don't call it nationalism, but that's what it leads to.

Because the EP devs are leftists and don't consider Anarcho Nationalism, or indeed any form of Nationalism, to be legitimate

Yeah, I think it would make more sense for example for the Jovian System to be more about American Government in Exile along with its South American allies, and Titan being mostly Western EU.

I don't buy this mantra "nations are dead".

I am pretty sure national governments and nationalist sentiment would prevail.

In fairness to the devs, most nationalists don't consider anarcho nationalism to be legitimate,

Most nationalists don't consider other nationalists to be legitimate.

>I'm running Transhumanity's Fate tonight. Been running it as a zero-G dungeon crawl
Huh. I like FATE but it seems like a very weird fit for a dungeon crawl.

I want to run EP for my group but there's a problem. My friends are lazy fucks who're bad at englando so they won't be reading the books and would have problems learning the systems. The system situation can be remedied with the FATE conversion and they're familiar with FATE.

I'd like to start couple of adventures that highlight the cool stuff in the game not too out there to help them familiarize themselves with the setting. I want something intrigue-based because the group isn't very much into combat and it's FATE for God's sake. I've been thinking about some cyberpunk stuff about smuggling egos or something.

Then I'd like to move on to crazy off the wall shit, like titan tech, exhumans and various post-singularity shenanigans.

Any suggestions? I could use ready-made adventures that fit the bill too...

Well, there's no published adventures for FATE so unless you want to do a conversion, that's out.

Otherwise, the usual. Drop them on Mars because it's a decent "starter town" setting - the corporate backed city states and space western outback are good touchstones for most people - and then the gate and the TQZ are there so things can get weird.

>Anarcho Nationalism

>National anarchism

>National

>Anarchism

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>Well, there's no published adventures for FATE so unless you want to do a conversion, that's out.

Making up stats for NPCs in FATE is pretty easy, so it would be all-right.

>Drop them on Mars
That's what I'll probably do. I'm not that knowledgeable about the setting so I would appreciate any "business as usual plots" I can run on Mars. I'd love to do the zone but that's not something you start the game for people who don't know anything about the setting.

So, add that to the list of random tables we need - random plots/jobs.

Well, Mars is an alliance of city states under a loose federal government with strong corporate ties. Corporate espionage and warfare goes on there, along with R&D occasionally going rogue. There's been a huge population influx since the Fall, so there are still refugees, ex-indentures and just generally poor people in crowded neighborhoods - so there are street gangs and big-time groups like the Triads all over the place. Martian independance is a hot-button issue, so protest, terrorism and subversion exist - especially among a rural class. And clans of nomads wander the outback from post to post, avoiding desperadoes, corp troubleshooter teams and blood feuds.

If you have the time and opportunity, skim the Mars chapter in Sunward (or just hit up Mars on the wiki) should cover anything you need to know in basic.

You do realize that National anarchism actually does exist ?
national-anarchist.net/

There is anarcho-capitalism in the setting. It's actually shown in a pretty fair light, it's as good as any of the anarchist societies to live in at least.

>be space peddler
>have my own small trade ship
>be traveling with qt friend
>keep insisting that she gets "wolf cosmetics" mod
>so close to anime being real

anarcho capitalism is not national anarchism
>we must secure galactic future for our white fork children

Whiteness is meaningless. As is brown, black, red or purpleness.

But not those dirty blues!

Well you did say "right wing anarchism" which I'd say anarcho-capitalism qualifies, and how does race make any sense in a setting where most of the population consistently switches bodies anyways?

The closest thing I can think of that you'd want is probably the Ultimates.

Also not tanness. The more tan you are, the more energy you have. That's how vampires kill you, they suck out your tan.

You can switch your body but the matrix of your racial origin is copied from your original self.
Hence no matter if somebody switches his body, his mind is still belonging to his racial group

The setting has psychosurgery too. You're memories and identity can be rewritten with a little time and effort.

Do we need to go over the basics again? It's like four lines guys.

I mean, the Extropians arguably allow for the greatest diversity of lifestyles and freedom, so there's that.

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But mars is so boring.... Give everyone a secret goal like "you now work for ozma or that girl from your resleeving party will have some problems with her indenture" and make a plot about a derelict starship in a close orbit around the sun. The fun part? Everyone will be resleeved into a surya morph ( sun whale)for this session.
Yup. Just like Paranoia. In Space. WITH SUNWHALES

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Somebody say space whale?

So on a scale of 1-10, how freaky is a gas giant exoplanet with viable life in it's upper atmosphere which probably did not evolve their naturally?

Note to self, put the wiki in the opening paste.

>you will never hunt for robobeasts on verdant exoplanets

Why exist, aside from singing the immortality blues?

3

That sounds cool and that's the kind of shit I really want to run, but I wanted to start the campaign with a more subdued plot for players to get the feel of the baseline of the setting. Still, what other crazy stuff should I drop on them later? I'm thinking wacky exhumans, hilarious TITAN tech, maybe some strange exoplanets.

IMPROVE SURYA

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NO.

Honestly, Surya are alright. They're really weird, but so are lots of other things - and they're one of many examples of hyper-focused morphs. Plus there's like, what, 3k TOPS in the entire solar system?

A game so bad literally the developer of fucking Ironclaw laughed at it.

Link?

Hc Svnt Dracones I think.

I mean to the dev of Ironclaw laughing at it.

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Can someone explain me what's the point of uplifts? I get it that octopus morphs are cool and all not but why would you decide that you need bunch of dudes who think like octopuses running around? Is there a reason for this outside of "not because it easy but because it's hard"?

Different minds/mindsets can be useful for different problems and utility - especially if you can empathize or reason with the subject.

Corporations can use them for product testing or labors without issue (originally) as they are wholly owned and created beings who do not exist without their R&D, which was simpler prior to the wealth of infugees.

>get a signal
>ignore it because you don't have the propellant to spare.

>you now work for OZMA or threat to person you care about will be carried out
Except that's what Firewall does, depending on the server. OZMA just gives you a fat paycheck and a purpose.

How you liking EP FATE so far? I've been meaning to try it out, but very few people seem to have actually played it around here.l

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It's different. The playgroup doesn't need to track items found, so it's less about taking knick knacks and supplies, and more about the impact of what the group finds.

It's not a great fit for classic EP. Rather, the game plays like transhuman James Bond or Indiana Jones.

>Implying an anarchist with everything he needs in his life and who works for firewall because he wants to save muh comrades needs money for a long obsolete economic system

>the game plays like transhuman James Bond or Indiana Jones.

That's pretty much what I want out of it.

>That's pretty much what I want out of it.
You'll get it in spades. I would recommend something to justify the run and gun nature of what we'll play out. In my game, filters utilize memory-editing basilisk hacks created by the Prometheans to mass-alter memories.

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>Using ships in EP
>Having physical goods to trade in EP
>Not using magical nanofabrication printers to create everything you could possibly need with unlimited power supply and resources

What do you think this setting is, science FICTION?!?

>Mars is boring

Martian city-state rivalry and corporate intrigue. Desert nomads. Stargate located in Space Las Vegas. A giant TITAN playground. The only place in the solar system where you can still rob (or defend) trains.

How the fuck is Mars boring to you? Is it not ~weird~ enough? Also, Mars is great to start for people new or unfamiliar with both the setting and transhumanism in general. I don't know why you'd throw people into the deep end of the proverbial pool with the setting's more bizarre shit like sun whales.

You want crazy stuff to drop on them? This book's full of stuff like that: part monster manual, part plot hooks.

robboyle.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/ps21203_eclipsephase_x-risks.pdf

Also it has Space Hollywood, and a City which is almost literally like Shanghai, New York and Paris had a baby.

Red Five Heuristics sits poorly with me. Always has. I mean, I get that eventually Transhumanity could theoretically become a TITAN-fucking ETI grade menace, but playing with Basilisk hacks seems a bit funky for current tech levels.

No, because that'd be Veeky Forums. I know what you're talking about, but the most dominant trait those three share is that they're an ocean of hobo piss. The city would drown if it were a true scion.

No, see, it's a les enfants terrible situation. One twin has all the dominant cool, artistic genes, and then the other twin is JUST little shanghai and the souks around it.