My GM will lead a Eclipse Phase campaign and i'm not a fan of transhumanism. Is it possible to play a "normal" human?

>Why? Not accusing you of anything just interested.

Loss of human identity. Sounds probably very cheesy, but I'm really worried about it. Nothing against stuff for blind and disabled, people who lost their legs etc. Just not replace healthy bodies with other stuff because it is "better". Or commit suicide to upload your mind.

Have you ever thought about the tools you use right now (Like the very computers you used to make that post) making you "less human"? Because that's the equivalence you're using here. Don't believe me? Read up on how tools affect the mind of the user, particularly new electronics. There are babies who don't know how to flip a book because they're used to ipad-style reading.

Rev up that luddism.

>commit suicide to upload your mind
They just scan your mind, no death requireed

And I think a general theme of Eclipse Phase is that the definition of 'human' has moved from biology to psychology. AGIs and uplifts can also legally count as human depending on where you go, and one of the more dangerous groups is made up of people who willingly modify their neural structures and memories and sleeve themselves inside monstrous bodies to be 'better' than human, becoming so different and dangerous that even the people of the transhumanist future label them 'exhuman'.

>Just not replace healthy bodies with other stuff because it is "better"

But when it is better? Having the ability to see like an eagle or being immortal would be pretty neat.

Playing a normal human would have grave disadvantages but when accept only a bit of transhumanist technology in your body that would help immensly. You could play as an 150 year old that is not convinced about all this tech. He would only use medical transhumanist-technology.

Well, in most cases in EP, it is strictly better and it's a question of survival.

Then you're not going to enjoy EP. That kind of thing is central to the themes and the horror of the game. If it skeeves you out a bit, good, it's supposed to raise that kind of question. If you refuse to engage in it at all because you don't like it in any context, it might not be the game for you.

The short answer is "Yes."
The long answer is "Yes, but make sure you compensate." By that I mean you are going to be the Batman in a team of superheroes. That normal guy who makes good use of every little advantage he can scrape together. A flat morph is going to set some limits on your base attributes, but you'll have points free to spend that otherwise would be going into nanotech/better morph purchases or gene mods. Make good use of those points to get you the training and equipment you need to succeed, and find a good niche in your party that you can do well.

>If you refuse to engage in it at all because you don't like it in any context, it might not be the game for you.

No, it is not so extreme.

K, I do it less extreme. Flat with a bit transhumanist technology in the body because of an accident. Would this work better? I don't want to become the load of the party.

Can I still have a moderate bioconservative character that does not seem hypocritical? is moderate bioconservativism even a thing?

It certainly is. I had a Jovian character who was augged to the gills, following all chargen rules; she was a Jesuit nun and a former member of the Jovian Space Marine Corps, so on top of her huge number of cybernetic augmentations, she was a skilled battlesuit pilot (and had a doctor's in psychology). And that was without touching anything banned or illegal in the Jovian Republic, the most bioconservative part of the setting.

A more general question. How the fuck does psychosurgery work, what gear would I need for it? There's very little in the book on this.

Psychosurgery isn't really something you can do on the fly. You need the time, skill, and equipment to map a person's brain and then start messing with it without them absolutely losing their marbles.

Better to go to the most above board clinic you can find, or make a fork of yourself to learn how to do it for you. Otherwise you're risking permanent psychosis or ego-napping.

What gear would I need to do basic psychosurgery, would I need an ego bridge or could I just make a fork of someone and edit that in simulspace, then merge the two?

Moderate bioconservatism is pretty common a lot of places like Titan (biomorph hazers everywhere), and most of the inner system (except Mercury, but the population there is tiny).

The big places where it's hard to avoid transhuman stuff in the game is travel, are travel which is usually done by transferring an ego through broadcast, but actually doesn't interrupt continuity, so it's less of a big deal than some people make it out to be

The other is dying in combat and resleeving, which is likely to happen because getting OHKO'd isn't that hard in EP combat. Avoiding fights or spending big on defensive gear, but being monstrous in combat really requires some serious augs.

Specialized Servers like a Lockbox are important, but what else you need depends on how the GM handles time acceleration.

If all you need for 60x acceleration is a 2 slot server (never seen someone allow this) then it's very cheap, but most GMs that I know use a rule where each point of time acceletation costs a server slot, so the costs for a 60x time acceleration lockbox are pretty huge.
You'll want an ego bridge if you want to get someone in and out of a biomorph, otherwise a server is what you really need.

the superhuman AIs weren't the problem, nor were the superhuman cyborg intelligences. The brain scanners already existed before the TITANs, and though their nanotech is the most overwhelming its not the first or only nanotech in the setting.

It was the recursively self improving superintelligent war AIs tainted by a bracewell probe that gave them access to extragalactic /b/. The recursively self improving research assistants never became malevolent per se, nor did OZMA's recursive stockbroker, they just got ideological.

Ehh, as long as you load up on moxie and have some niche skills that no one in the party has you should be alright.

In combat you will either need to use your head a lot or outright stomp on everyone with your power armored boots.

> But then, you know, you don't have mesh implants.
Ecto. Maybe even ecto with some exotic access ports to authorize use.

>Also cancer is a thing.
Not if you have money and healing vats. Even Jovians have problems with it only because they restrict number of healing vats on habitats.

>You can even get a robot assistant with a limited AI to do things like keep an eye out for threats. It's not efficient as having tacnet software, but you can still do it.
Multiple-muse copies with slaved turret weapons slapped on top of power armor. On all sides.

>people who willingly modify their neural structures and memories and sleeve themselves inside monstrous bodies to be 'better' than human
if you read the X-risks section the standard Exhuman monster comes off as the horrific cultural evolution of otherkin vore fetishists, fursecution and all, or wackos that identify as attack helicopters and aren't satisfied with a cushy job in Direct Action's upper management. It's actually pretty funny, because stuff like eraser squads are probably even more inhuman than the monologuing predator cults they'll gladly liquify, but the exhumans think aimless cannibalism is itself enlightenment.

Jovians only really have a problem with it due to the insane radiation. They can cure cancer just as well as everyone else, except it comes back fast and aggressive.

I'm not much of a crunch guy, so i don't know how viable this would be, but maybe you could play the anime smart kid. Play two characters, one as a squishy flat morph without a scrap of biotech in his bod, and the other being the same guy in a tailor-made mecha-style battle body built up from outdated, recalled, reclaimed or otherwise unsound biotech and piloted via a bog-standard cockpit. Think more Ripleys than Gurrenn Lagann.

Assuming it's possible to function like that in EP. As i said, i'm no crunch guy, and even the fluff sometimes escapes me.

Not unless your GM does nothing in the way of travel.

Or you're willing to spend a few thousand times as much time and money getting anywhere.

And that's generous: I'm pretty sure that the fastest in-system courier ships in the setting top out before 0.01c.

You can get from Jupiter to Earth in around 2-3 months. Which is of course much worse than a single day with egocasting.

Especially if you're doing a standard type of campaign as firewall agents and you need to respond to emerging x-threats.

True, but even those games can be pretty localized.