/epg/ - Eclipse Phase General

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>>53272987
>Discuss Posthuman's recent decision to drop Ultimates; "we pushed them more in the fascist/x-threat direction, and we don't want to be encouraging people to play fascists."
Feels like the wheels are starting to come off the wagon if I'm honest.

>>53272987
>>EP 1e
>Hey guys, here's this faction called the Ultimates. They believe in self-improvement, and represent an edge case in what defines posthuman (and by extension, human). They have a few internal factions with differing opinions, especially on how to interact with the less-augmented rest of the system.
>>EP 2e
>Ultimates = nazi. Fash git bashed ree.
Surely, nothing else will get fucked up in this edition change with regards to fluff.

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>>53272987
n00b GM here:
1. What happens if you have a skill of -say- 10 and you roll a -20 modifier. Is it an automatic fail?
2. Are there any combat stats for automechs or servitor bots? (with no weapons. just cc)

>>53273772
>1. What happens if you have a skill of -say- 10 and you roll a -20 modifier. Is it an automatic fail?
If your target number is negative, then yes it is mathematically impossible to roll less than it on d100. However, since 00 is always a critical success, you should roll anyway for that 1% chance of success.

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>>53273809
Oh, good one. Thanks!

>>53273772
>1
You can theoretically still get a 00 result and succeed, but I'd personally make it a normal success rather than the usual critical (since even just succeeding is doing the impossible).

>2
I'm pretty sure they would normally have default ALI SOM and possess no combat skills, so they'd be rolling a skill of 10, doing a damage of d10 + 1 (normal unarmed damage). It's not explicit anywhere I can find, though.

If you want a more fighty AI piloting it, it's possible to give it a higher SOM (for damage bonus) and a combat skill of up to 40. Most bots wouldn't have this, obviously.

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>Discuss Posthuman's recent decision to drop Ultimates; "we pushed them more in the fascist/x-threat direction, and we don't want to be encouraging people to play fascists."
>http://eclipsephase.com/comment/61134#comment-61134

Hahaha, wow, I was actually hoping that the writing would get less politicized and that they would've learned something from the whole jovian meme thing in 1st Ed., but apparently, they're doubling down on the retardation.

And of course it's "the fascist/x-threat direction", because you cannot possibly be fascistoid and *not* be an X-Risk. I guess they got really upset over the fact that people actually enjoyed playing something other than decentralized anarchists that are the saviors of basically everything.

Of course, if you try to bring this up on the official forums, you quite literally get banned, so there's literally zero chance of them actually listening to criticism - because they're not going to hear it.

Morphs not having aptitude mods is also quite possibly the dumbest shit ever, but I guess it fits their ridiculous idea of everyone being created equal.

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>>53273941
Hmm...That damage looks fine. Strange to not see it explicitly anywhere. (I'm preparing the Continuity quest) Thanks!

>>53274058
>>53272987

Well, they've decidedly been pushing the Ultimates to be an antagonist faction in the fiction since the 1E launch - kind of like an inverse of the Jovians who's more measured response on tech (reflected even in their short description in the 2E packet) got them a lot of positive rep. We'll have to see what exactly this rewrite looks like before getting critical.

That said, faction allegiance has basically no mechanical component other than I guess for Blacklisted now, so it seems like there's less emphasis on that end by the system. It's important and probably influences motivation decisions and roleplaying but is not so integral to the character as where they came from and what they do.

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CC document if anybody has missed it

I can't say I'm that surprised, 1E is fun but it already reeked of communist strawmanning. If they want to shoot themselves in the foot and slowly dismantle what I thought was a very interesting setting it is their choice. I'll just keep playing 1E and be happy with it.

>>53274058
>Morphs not having aptitude mods
Boy that is some low-tier bai-
>http://eclipsephase.com/comment/61137#comment-61137
>I've explained this elsewhere, but aptitude modifiers required recalculation of skills when you resleeved. That was easily one of our top complaints about EP1. It slowed things down. So aptitude modifiers had to go. We still wanted to keep the concept of morphs having an impact on your capabilities, though, so that's why we introduced pools.
...
...
...
And yet they have reintroduced Apt. Mods as TRAITS.

>>53274437

Only applies to x3 Aptitude Checks though, so you don't need to recalculate skills.

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Honestly 2nd Edition seems more and more shit by the day.

* Skill condensation, which almost always results in shallower characterizations.
* No currency/money in a system that already had an extremely handwave-y approach to the acquisition of goods & services.
* Morphs do not affect aptitudes and are apparently all created equal beyond traits and abilities that will still have to be tracked anyway, in a transhumanist setting; a flat is potentially as good as a fury at a glance, on average.
* Simplified character creation (jesus fuck, how easy can something get?).
* Increased and heavy-handed politicizing by people that clearly don't even understand politics beyond "fascism = bad!".
* Oh so edgy punk androgony, going by the new art, which just comes across as pathetic.

The only good thing I've seen so far is the Pool system, but ultimately the value of it is incredibly debatable, since it's basically a Luck/Fate Point/Moxie-type system, except with multiple pools for different things, all of which have to be independently tracked.

All-in-all, it seems like a dumbing down of the game, instigated by dumb people that cannot help but to politicize everything they touch and virtue-signal so hard that they suffer anal prolapse.

>>53274058

Extinction, Corruption, Regression, Stagnation.

>>53274553

>a flat is potentially as good as a fury at a glance, on average.

Apart from the 20 more health, the intrinsic armor, the way better total pool spread even if you max Ego Flex and you can recharge your entire pool in half as much time.

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>>53274619
>Apart from the 20 more health, the intrinsic armor, the way better total pool spread even if you max Ego Flex and you can recharge your entire pool in half as much time.

Yes, all which have to be tracked anyway, and doesn't change the fact that apparently, they are just as good at dodging things or carrying things.

There's still modifiers, but the idea of a Flat being as strong as a Fury or as smart as a Mentat is ridiculous. And that's before we even throw synthmorphs into the game, the differences of which - honestly - are already absurdly down-played in 1st Ed.

How often do people resleeve in a game, anyway? The fluff implies that it's not that damn common, that morphs are expensive, and that it's a potentially crippling and disorienting process, yet at the same time, the game keeps highlighting it as an important, integral part of the game.

I would've expected the mechanical aspects of it to be downplayed in a 2nd Ed., not that the core game would be simplified or dumbed down just to cater more to it. They seem to put a lot of emphasis on an aspect of the game that most people don't actually do that damn often and that the fluff suggests doesn't or shouldn't happen that often under normal circumstances.

Makes me wonder if they actually ever talk to anyone outside of their circlejerk.

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>>53274777
>There's still modifiers, but the idea of a Flat being as strong as a Fury or as smart as a Mentat is ridiculous.

Don't be retarded, you fucking fascist. Everyone knows that physical or cognitive ability has nothing to do with your genetics or the social construct of race. It's 2017.

>>53274777

I mean, I see no reason for them to lie so when they say in the nearly 10 years EP has been around and they have collected feedback from players (including running loads of con games directly) people most frequently complain about how resleeving - which is supposed to be a cool game concept you should be experimenting with and actually using even if infrequently - is a pain in the ass to do quickly (especially considering it's the respawn mechanic when you die) and easily, especially if you're some kind of dead-tree pleb.

I'd say feel free to tell them you don't think it's an issue but since, y'know, the KS is nearly over and they've been working on 2E for a while I'd say those of us who didn't really notice are outvoted.

Unless you want to claim you're such a unique and special snowflake that PS has to cater the game specifically to your wants and needs over 2100 backers at least who are excited for the new stuff.

>>53274777
>>53274884

On the subject of morph bonuses vs pools, I think this might just be like a paradigm thing?

To people familiar with 1E, there's a clear advantage of the Fury over the Flat besides just the higher DUR and even the higher aptitude cap (which I believe is also done away with because it hardly mattered due to implants), you can see that due to the aptitude bonuses, a Fury will always accel over a Flat in certain areas assuming they have the same level of training and basic talent.

With the morph pools - this is technically still correct. You can apply those pools into normal bonuses/effects as well as special ones, and because the Fury has more of them in a broader spread, this means that they can outspend a Flat 1v1 and will thus assuredly be "better" until the pools are exhausted and then the Fury can recharge quicker. Obviously this must be tracked in the moment, but morph bonuses need to be tracked and math'd too.

However, because the resource can now be expended, it's theoretically possible for a clever Flat to bide their time and resources and overcome an exhausted high-caliber morph with their more flexible advantages (though obviously, without ego Flex you're not going to get far so in a combat situation anyway the Fury can probably win via attrition) - which you think people would like given the usual levels of jovian shitposting.

>>53275024
I-I just need to see this system in action in order to understand how it FEELS. But fuck me for living in no-game land.

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>>53272987
>>53273410
>>53273568
What's interesting to me is that the Ultimates are frequently compared to Nietzche's Übermensch by the community, and even in some of the EP books. And yet, the Übermensch is supposed to reject asceticism/other-worldiness, and be satisfied with this world and this life. The Nazis co-opted the terminology, but anyone who's actually read Nietzche knows that the ideology of the Übermensch is fundamentally incompatible with notions of racial superiority; the Übermensch is a mindset, not a race.

In EP terms, an Übermensch would have more in common with the Scum than the Ultimates.

>>53275235
>Übermensch is fundamentally incompatible with notions of racial superiority; the Übermensch is a mindset, not a race.

Some mindsets are more common in some genetic groups. From kin selection to IQ, biology is...diverse.

That's what's beautiful about humanity.

>>53272987
>Discuss Posthuman's recent decision to drop Ultimates; "we pushed them more in the fascist/x-threat direction, and we don't want to be encouraging people to play fascists."
Ultimates were basically biocon exhumans anyway, as paradoxical as that may sound.

>>53275330
That might be a more acceptable way to turn Ultimates into X-risks.
Have a sect of Ults go full exhuman and decide that the Ubermensch can be made real and work on making the "Perfect" morph. Then they start work on the "Perfect" ego and Firewall becomes concerned.
Eventually they decide that this is an X-risk in the making. And so out the Ult's secret project, making sure to salt it with just enough lies to make it sound more dangerous than it is.
And so Ultimates are pursued by a witch-hunt to the point where they stop trying to explain themselves and commit themselves to the Ubermensch concept.

The Firewall fuckers who started this justify it as popping the boil before it festers.

Does this sound reasonable or autistic?

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>>53274820

>>53275841
Autistic, because the Übermensch describes a philosophy not a physical being.

>>53275994
Okay, let me rephrase that.
Do you think this is something PS would implement?

>>53275797
I'm fucking drunk right now but it makes sense to me. Always was kind of disappointed how EP portrays exhumans as goofy Star Trek monsters.

Portraying Ultimates as more of an x-threat and less of a character option makes sense too and I'd be more into it if EP was done by a different studio.

>>53276084
Probably, because it only makes sense if you've never read Nietzche and the dev clearly have not.

>>53275875
It's bait, you mongoloid.

>>53274252

So, here's something not being discussed a lot - sure Ultimates aren't an "official" player faction but that's also super meaningless now. Faction merely gives you a motivation and some Knowledge skill points, and you can even choose to have no factional allegiance.

>>53275235
>the ideology of the Übermensch is fundamentally incompatible with notions of racial superiority; the Übermensch is a mindset, not a race.

This is not true in the least, however; in simplest terms, the idea of biological superiority is analogous to the idea of spiritual superiority. In essence, the creation of physical Übermensch to match the philosophical Übermensch.

That said, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of national socialism to claim that national socialism was fundamentally about the belief of a pre-existing Übermensch (exemplified by germans/"aryans").

To think that ideologically aware intellectuals and philosophers within the national socialist movement and within fascism would not understand Nietzsche and the concept of Übermensch is absurd.

The idea of the Übermensch as used by national socialist thinkers was very much a philosophical one, applied to the ideology and the volk; eugenically, physically, the ideal was never pre-existing, but an ongoing process towards greater forms by means of evolutionary principles.

>>53275841
Autistic, because it goes against what we already know about the Ultimates, and moving the narrative forward in this setting just to make an established faction bad guys makes no sense.

There is no inherent reason why the Ultimates should be made into boogeymen. Your suggestion hinges on the value of making the Ultimates into NPC:s on principle, but in your suggestion, you've also removed the fundamental reasons the developers think that they shouldn't be playable - because they're "fascists".

Your idea is a post-hoc rationalization of something that shouldn't happen in the first place based on things as they are.

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>>53276445
>it only makes sense if you've never read Nietzche and the dev clearly have not.

I doubt that the developers have actually read any philosophical or political literature outside of marxist-leninist ideology. They've proved this countless times.

Let's not forget that the Jovian Republic is somehow "fascist", yet have no elements of corporativism, has a limited democracy á la Starship Troopers (citizenship for those that serve), and yet is controlled by lobbyism.

Like, it could be an interesting faction just on the basis of Starship Troopers alone, but they seem to just have watched the movie and disregarded the whole thing as fascist, and then thrown "everything I don't like about America" in there.

It's jarringly ignorant and inconsistent, really.

>>53276650
It's not so much that it matters - people that want to play Ultimates will continue to do so, rules or no rules - but it's telling that despite the obviousness of this and how the choice of faction now matters even less, they choose to remove the choice altogether, on political grounds.

God knows what they'll do to the writing, honestly. Ultimates rape babies when?

Biocon & ultimate vs anarchist and exhuman is seeing through a glass darkly, IMO.

The question in software format is formal verification vs bricolage; slow perfection vs fast utility and the risk of bugs.

If the devs could think that way instead of straw-nazi expies...

>>53276922

Jovians are still selectable and Ultimates are not.

>>53276951

Well, Exhumans and Singularity Seekers were included as explicit "factions" in Transhuman but are lost in 2E (several things are actually). Those are definitely an antagonist group - if perhaps the intent is more clearly that the Ultimates are not a positive force for transhumanity and should not be regarded as such in the default game setting than pulling them from the suggestion list is fine. This is a fluff concern which we can't really comment on now.

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>>53277053
> if perhaps the intent is more clearly that the Ultimates are not a positive force for transhumanity and should not be regarded as such in the default game setting than pulling them from the suggestion list is fine.

Except we know that's not the intent. The intent was clearly stated in no-nonsense terms. Ultimates are not available because they don't want to encourage people to play fascists.

To the developers, it is more of a problem that someone wants to play something "fascist" than it is to play someone that's a literal extinction risk.

>>53277154

Death of the Author. What they say they mean is pointless unless that's conveyed in the the text.

>>53276758
Are you saying that, to the thinkers of the national socialist movement, the ubermensch and the master race were separate things?

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>>53272987
>gets rid of one of the most interesting factions because "hurr fashies"
2nd edition is gonna suck isn't it?

>>53277457
It sounds like a whole lot of two steps forward, one step back to me.

I know I'm glad I'm not putting any money into it though.

>all these faggots triggered by the Ultimates

>>53277273
>Are you saying that, to the thinkers of the national socialist movement, the ubermensch and the master race were separate things?

Yes. But more importantly, you've probably misunderstood the concept of "master race" as well.

The terms in German would be "Übermensch" and "Herrenvolk". But "Herrenvolk" didn't refer to the concept of a pre-existing, present "master race", but rather the idea of rulership of one's own nation and country, in the same manner similar terms were used for someone whose house you were visiting.

Such as in Germany, Germans were the Herrenvolk. The conflation with race and volk or people was a common one in those days, in the same way the "British race" could easily be referenced by many British, despite being fundamentally similar to other Europeans. Hitler even references this in his testament, where he writes on "race" as a convenient phrase of the time rather than an intent of scientific accuracy.

The rest can largely be attributed to wartime and post-war propaganda relating the concepts to race (rather than volk) and supreme rulership of all things (claiming that the Germans wanted world domination, which is absurd, no matter who you blame the war on).

And either way, to suggest that some of the most intelligent people in Germany, large parts of German academia, and prominent political philosophers would somehow "misunderstand" Nietzsche regarding the meaning of his philosophies and the ideals of the Übermensch is absolutely preposterous, and if they sought to deliberately co-opt it, one must ask oneself why one would seek to do that, when those that knew and understood the term would challenge any such co-opting, while those with no knowledge of the term would simply not care.

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>>53277603
>the devs are among them
Why'd they even make them like that if they didn't like it?

>>53277519
>It sounds like a whole lot of two steps forward, one step back to me.

Haven't really seen any steps forward. Looks more like four steps back, no steps forward, honestly. Very little worthwile seems to be done.

>>53277722
Because in their minds, they need to have them, because if it was only anarchists in the setting, it would be literal utopia.

>>53274884
A few hundred said something negative. The thousands stayed silent. This is because the thousands were fine. By changing things to cater to the few it alienates the many.

>>53277877
for real though, where have people been this whole time? were you just ignoring who made this game? because they have always been like this.

If you're that ass-blasted, just don't buy the books at all and play it, or just keep playing your version of the game where you do whatever the fuck you want.

>>53277794
And already back then, such claims were absurd. We're not talking about a small group of nazis here, we're talking about a huge movement even within academia, in an age where people took a huge interest in politics and philosophy, and Nietzsche was practically a household name.

National socialist thinkers misunderstanding the term is ridiculous, because not only were many leaders far above average in intelligence, but many national socialists and politicals were extremely well-educated, and co-opting the term for the term in itself would be of literally zero value.

That being said, as stated earlier, there were absolutely people that saw a biological analogue to the philosophical Übermensch, and within national socialist philosophy, the imperative of self-improvement not only as an individual but as a volk could easily be considered a physical "overcoming" of the "self" (the volk).

But the distinction would've been clear to anyone that took an interest in such discussions.

>>53277725
I was giving them credit for trying to make resleeving less of a pain. Not that they're showing a great plan for that...

>>53277962
>it's absurd to say the terminology was co-opted. why didn't anyone call it out?
But they did.
>yeah and it was absurd

>>53277920
>>53277877

To further reinforce your point, this tweet is from 2014 nearly 3 years ago.

>>53278018
>why didn't anyone call it out?

Nice strawmanning there.

>>53277792

I'm not seeing a many here bro, vs the amount of backers (which included retailers who obviously think this product is marketable).

History is made by those who show up.

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>>53272987

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Ok guys, i just went through rolling up a character with the new play test and I have a couple questions.
1) Assuming it isnt the same as first ed, what is Moxie now and also what is Vigor, Flex and Insight.
2) Am I reading this right or do I not get a muse as an explorer? I thought everyone had those, even the Jovians.

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>>53278370

>>53277920
Transhuman Space is better anyway.

>>53278416
Thank you kindly friend. Seems I was missing half of it.

>>53278447
THS is great, but its a little out of date and the writing is dryer than your girlfriend's pussy. The books give you a ton of info about the world but it's not quite as obviously "adventure ready" as EP. Blending the two together would probably lead to good results. Maybe throw in some Infinity or something

>>53278447
Last year my FLGS had pretty much all the THS books for sale in their used section. I could only afford the corebook and High Frontier, which saddens me to this day.

>>53278548
>The books give you a ton of info about the world but it's not quite as obviously "adventure ready" as EP
I'm not too familiar with GURPs, but that seems their thing, right? Tons of tools and raw material but its up to you to figure out what to make with it.

And updated THS would be amazing though. Transhuman roleplaying without weirdly overt poltical shit getting in the way...

>>53273941
Strictly speaking bots can't attack without modified AI, because they can't default on their blades/clubs/etc. That's really restrictive though.

Does anyone find it kinda funny the Dreadnought in X-Risks is holding a bolt-action rifle?

Anyway - does anyone have a full list of what SkyArk "revives"?

>Ultimates aren't PCs now

That's pretty dumb. especially since in the earlier books a lot of them are just mercenaries and only one faction/core dudes have plans to remake the whole system. That being said it's just badwrongfun nothing to stop you from playing as an ultimate. And some of them definitely are building towards some kind of "seize the gates race war now!" so they've been an x-risk for awhile. Definitely a pinko myself but I've always liked that they included player options for exhumans, Jovians, ultimates etc.

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>>53280974
Your faction is literally just an interest skill at 30 and a motivation. Even if they aren't on the list it takes maybe 10 seconds to come up with an Ultimate Faction.
>>53279525
I'm pretty sure bolt action rifles don't usually have a box magazine, but I bet there's a horrible abortion of the gun someone made to prove me wrong.

>>53273410
>we don't want to be encouraging people to play fascists
Why not? It's a game. Hell, you might even learn something about how people come to favor fascism.

That said, Battacharya really didn't seem like he had much direct power previously.

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>>53276922
>anarcho-communist devs
>Marxist-Leninist

Bakunin would like some words with you

>>53281091
>It takes maybe 10 seconds

Good to know should be pretty easy to homebrew factions including some of the obscure ones. I'm also quite surprised that people on 4chan would overreact about something

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>>53281091
>I'm pretty sure bolt action rifles don't usually have a box magazine
What are you talking about?

>>53281146
I mean something like the big 500 round box that's apparently hanging off the side of the "rifle" the dreadnought has

>>53281255
Are we looking at the same dreadnought? That's maybe a 20 round magazine and there's no indication that the gun has a bolt action.

>>53281091

You can also chose not to pick a faction and either pick during play - or just be factionless and get free Knowledge skill points in something, y'know, relevant.

>>53281095
Because if you knew why people became fascists, you might become a fascist yourself.

>>53278060
>I'm not seeing a many here bro, vs the amount of backers (which included retailers who obviously think this product is marketable).

Eclipse Phase 2nd Edition is the second edition of a game that's already been established for close to 10 years, and it's got 14 hours left to go on Kickstarter, with just below 2300 backers.

Even Numenera and the Cypher System, games that are also pretty much dead in the water relative to many other RPG:s, who also have troubles keeping threads alive, let alone generals, with tons of dead forums dedicated to them, have gotten consistently a higher amount of backers over a lot more Kickstarters (which leads to backer fatigue).

There's a huge difference between the people that can consider backing a potential product and the number of people that invest time and effort into actually complaining. Most people just shrug and move on.

It's not like the people that have no interest or that has already been sufficiently put off by the product are going to bother "showing up". You can not, by the very nature of a negative, gauge how many could've considered backing but said "Nah, fuck 'em".

Is it "marketable"? Yes, sure, it is. They're not going to die, they're not going to starve, I'm sure. But could Eclipse Phase both be a better product and simultaneously appeal to more people? Yes, it absolutely could. They needlessly and ignorantly sabotage what could be a truly unique setting and system that fills a niche no other system really does, simply because they are ideologically myopic.

>History is made by those who show up.

Platitudes. The point, if anything, is that a lot of people aren't going to bother showing up.

Anyone that has the latest version of Singularity? I haven't played in a long time and I lost it.

>>53272987
>Ultimates are fascists

I don't even understand. They barely have a system of internal governance beyond basic meritocracy or military hierarchy.

Also, I'm salty as fuck about this. I love the overall philosophy of the Ultimates and their design/inspiration. Not to mention all they would have had to do was make it more clear that Overhumanists are a minority within the faction.

This is dogshit, confusing dogshit to boot because it's not like it's gonna stop anyone from playing them.

>>53282573
It actually does kinda look like a silly little robot arm is operating the action of the gun, but I don't think it's supposed to be bolt action at all.

>>53287308
>Even Numenera and ... who also have troubles keeping threads alive

EP's threads are quite strong. There is almost always an /epg/ alive. Nothing like Numenara. If anything it's deader now with the kickstarter going.

What are some good Motivations for a curious AGI that's working as a Firewall assistant? I'm primarily going to be a small floating drone based on the Rover synthmorph chassis, like a hovering BB-8, scanning things, built-in flashlights, a 3D-display; you all know the type.

I've already jotted down "Discovery", but I'm having trouble coming up with more. "Helpfulness" just feels odd as a motivation, somehow, like writing down "Not being an ass to party-members".

I'd upload a picture but I 4chan is shitting on me today for some reason, failing all uploads.

>>53287512
It's doing the same for pretty much everyone it seems.

Helpfulness isn't so bad, especially if it's more of a general thing. It struggles to not be friendly and helpful to people even if it knows it shouldn't be.

>>53287378
>basic meritocracy
>military hierarchy

Anon, we're talking about people that have the general political understanding of rocks, and whose idea of civil discourse consists of assaulting people for disagreeing with them.

Those two things are easily enough for them to label something fascist.

>>53287378
Why is military hierarchy not sufficient for fascism? Many fascist governments have been military states.

I would argue that, at least in first edition, Ultimates aren't as a rule part of a military hierarchy, outside of perhaps their local mercenary group.

>>53287512
+Mercurialism or whatever you want to call AGI rights would certainly fit. +Open Source would be another good one.

>>53287584
Basic was also meant to be attached to military hierarchy. They've got squads, and squad leaders, then some officer types that those leaders report to, and finally generals.

They're honestly structured like a school as much as they are a military. They're as fascistic as any loose group of militant individuals. Which is to say, not particularly.

>>53287584
>Why is military hierarchy not sufficient for fascism?

Because fascism is much more than a military hierarchy. Fascism doesn't even necessitate a military hierarchy of any kind, and fascism often espouse militaristic values and clear social hierarchies, but aren't organized in a military fashion at all (outside of the military, obviously).

If you want to get technical, no fascist government has been a military state. Military states are states that are controlled by the military, while fascism is a system of social, political and economical organization. If the military on it's own accord was just to rule through threat of violence, you have base despotism, not fascism.

>>53287602
I noticed that several sample player characters basically has organizations as their motivations, so I'm thinking +Discovery, +Firewall, -Violence.

>>53288010
>I noticed that several sample player characters basically has organizations as their motivations

Yeah, that's the Faction rule right now. You get a motivation and Interest: [Faction] 30.

>>53288010
>Because fascism is much more than a military hierarchy
No shit but you acted like you need more governance than that in order to be fascist.

>>53275797
I'm putting more thought into what's been said here and I need some feedback on how comprehensible it sounds.
Exhumans fall into the category of X-Risks not because of their morphs, but because of their Egos. Give me a chance to explain.
Exhumans are transhumans who no longer consider themselves human. Previously this condition was limited to psychopaths and people who underwent extreme isolatory stresses. Events which caused them to view themselves as separate from other "people".
If Earth still existed, if humanity was not spread so thinly across the void, then the Exhumans could be allowed to exist. They could be given a patch of land and allowed to be, as long as they did not infringe upon the rest of humanity.
But if humanity is to survive it must remain united. Threats which serve only to divide and turn humanity upon itself must be removed.

>>53289072
And as I explained, you do. Fascism is a system of social, political and economical organization. If all you've got is a military hierarchy, it cannot be fascist.

At the very least you need elements of meritocracy, integralism and corporativism. I can go so far as to give some leeway in the interpretation of that (national syndicalism comes to mind, technocracy, etc.) but you cannot have fascism through military despotism.

>>53289016
>Yeah, that's the Faction rule right now. You get a motivation and Interest: [Faction] 30.

What? You don't get Motivations through anything, you come up with your own.

>>53289582

>>53274252
>Each choice provides a motivation (p. XX) and a Knowledge skill of Interest: [Faction] 30.

reeeee stop picking apart my anarcho communist utopia!

>>53289365
>Threats which serve only to divide and turn humanity upon itself must be removed.
Better unite the entire species under a monoculture then.

>>53289365
All I'm hearing is that everyone needs to be exhumans, not no one.

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>>53278548
If Transhuman Space isn't your thing, there's always Hc Svnt Dracones.

So, official state from PS - you can totally be an Ultimate if technically you want to, along with any other sort of smaller or less detailed faction by picking the appropriate Interest skill and Motivation, but because of their more threat/antagonistic push they have decided against putting them in the short list as a primary choice - which kind of puts them on par with Exhumans and Singularity Seekers.

>>53274820
>From each according to their imagination
I don't want to be in the same Universe as people who'll bring this slogan to life. As an RPG player I know exactly how bad it could be. AM has nothing on the shit that gonna happen with 'imagination' in play.

>>53290891
I wouldn't worry about it. The people who want to do that will never have the technical ability to actually pull it off.

The latest from Rob Boyle:
>FYI we've included some in-combat uses for social skills in the Combat chapter
...this could actually be cool, depending on what exactly they've added.

>>53289550
Are you seriously trying to claim that a military dictatorship, or indeed militaries in general, have no social, political, or economic organization?

>At the very least you need elements of meritocracy, integralism and corporativism.

You could have all of those in a military dictatorship. It happens that the ultimates don't, but that's not due to military hierarchy.

>>53291434
Not that guy, but I think the point anon is trying to make is that the ultimates are not a state, and that fascism describes the governing and administration of a state.

>>53291474
Yes, he's (correctly) saying that now that it has been pointed out that his original point was wrong.

>>53291381

Well, guidelines are good anyway. Concrete examples is better than no examples, because people are retards who don't get creative when you tell them to.

I'm gonna guess it'll probably just be stuff like roll Provoke or Deceive to distract or bluff an opponent so they take penalties or something (at the cost of obviously you're gonna probably draw some aggro if you do that). EP doesn't really seem like outright "social conflict" game, but definitely some ideas of what you can do with social skills is alright.

>>53289658
>the Faction rule right now
>Characters Playtest

Confused much?

>>53291434
>Are you seriously trying to claim that a military dictatorship, or indeed militaries in general, have no social, political, or economic organization?

No, I'm saying that something simply being a military dictatorship doesn't make it fascist. The fact that a military dictatorship can have some form of social, political and economical organization doesn't make that military dictatorship fascist, either. Fascism is a *specific* form of social, political and economical organization, and while it's possible to have a military dictatorship present which aims to bring such organization about, a military dictatorship in itself cannot be fascist.

C'mon, anon, I think I've been pretty clear here, it's not that hard to grasp.

>>53291434
>You could have all of those in a military dictatorship.
No, you couldn't. A military state is by definition ruled solely by the military. It excludes both elements of meritocracy and all forms of corporativism.

>>53291624
>Yes, he's (correctly) saying that now that it has been pointed out that his original point was wrong.
Not sure which "original point" you're referring to that has been pointed out to be wrong.

You might be confusing anons here; I always said that the Ultimates weren't nazi or fascist in themselves, and that military hierarchy in itself doesn't make them so, and that military hierarchies actually have little to do with fascism, past the militarism itself.

So what are the devs next major fuck-up going to be?

>>53293370

Your mom.

>>53293370
Remove ancaps because libertarianism is also fascism.

>>53277704
Found the holocaust denier

If Barsoomians weren't fighting slavery, the "Martian nationalist" component would put them closer to fascists than Jovians.

Jovians are more like a biker gang than nazis.

>>53295218
Do you mean Ultimates? Jovians are pretty close to being "properly" fascistic, where the Ultimates are closer to what you're describing.

Also, I think we're finally going to see Jovianposting toppled from its spot. I look forward to Ultimateposting in the coming weeks.

>>53295274
I did indeed mean Ultimates. The Jovianposting will be a difficult disease to purge from my system.

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Decided to dig into the playtest document a bit more. Anyone else getting some weird vibes from this particular part of the skill that's mostly about intimidation and threats, especially in light of PHS' (((feminism)))?

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>>53295274
Man, I've been trying to push ultimate posting for a while. I welcome the change.

I am extremely ready to purge all genetrash, especially the Jovians.

>>53292202
>No, I'm saying that something simply being a military dictatorship doesn't make it fascist.
Well congratulations on refuting the claim no one made then.

Fascism is an authoritarian society marked by a nationalist monoculture. Ultimates are authoritarian in that those of higher rank have absolute authority over those that don't. Ultimates have a nationalist monoculture that espouses the philosophies of its founder and demands adherence to the cause.

They are very obviously fascistic, that's not a lie.

But that's not an excuse to ban them. Otherwise we should ban any faction in any setting with a king for promoting feudalism, or ban any story with traditional marriage for promoting a sexist heirarchy.

This is fucking crazy. Would people be okay with Wizards banning Drow from D&D entirely? Or banning Tieflings?

>>53296332

Except they aren't actually banning them. They're just not in the short list - to use your example are Drow usually a core race right in the main book?

>>53296332
Not to mention they haven't banned exhumans or Jovians, even though those are both clearly more fascistic or bigger x-risks than the Ultimates.

Unless they're doing something with the Ultimates in the coming story updates?

>>53292202
>No, you couldn't. A military state is by definition ruled solely by the military. It excludes both elements of meritocracy and all forms of corporativism.

That doesn't mean it can't be heavily influenced by corporate groups

Classical military state with strong meritocratic elements: Sparta

>>53296350
>They're just not in the short list - to use your example are Drow usually a core race right in the main book?
Actually, them AND Tieflings were in the most recent edition.

>>53295720

I mean, the phrasing is a little weird, but it's not really that weird, it's the skill to emotionally manipulate people (as opposed to manipulate them via information and discussion true or false) you'll note under specializations it has a fairly broad set of topics.

Scaring and banging (or fearbanging) are probably the most common applications in normal human life, though.

>>53296363
>Not to mention they haven't banned exhumans or Jovians, even though those are both clearly more fascistic or bigger x-risks than the Ultimates.
Actually the Exhumans aren't in the faction list.

>>53296363

Jovians aren't really a bigger x-risk than the ultimates. Despite joveposters actually expanding in some kind of damned fool idealistic crusade has never been strongly promoted as the Jovian MO - they'd more likely bone people by staying isolationist in another major X-risk scenario.

And Exhumans ALSO are not on the short list of Factions.

Here's a way I think to look at it.

In addition to still wanting the open possibility of people supporting Bioconservatism to be available (even if PS themselves to not agree with the stance), groups like JR and the PC while having strong authoritarian vibes and socioeconomic systems with what some might consider flaws even today (let alone from the more autonomy leaning groups in EP) - they're still both ostensibly democracies and have elements of a populace in their governments. You can argue on their efficacy, but ultimately as a faction they still are made up of individual actors.

The Ultimates are a meritocracy in the worst way, where those with no "merit" are described as trash, and they are solely guided by authoritarian elements by those of the highest rank. If you want to have a say in the Ultimates, you have to "get gud". If the push in the writing is to put them much more strongly as an antagonistic bloc, it's very possible that their more strongly aggressive, even fascistic branches will have assumed the lead in the faction as a whole. So running a "by the book" Ultimate would be like running a "by-the-book" Exhuman, the party line is generally not to the benefit of transhumanity and probably falls under Firewall's classification of X-Risk. If you wanted to play a more nuanced Ultimate, say one from the other internal political groups who focus more on the individualism, enlightenment etc that's still technically possible - but that's not exactly something you encourage players out of the box who may have read nothing of the setting.

All of this is with the grain of salt that obviously we can't see the fluff chapters yet.

>>53296640
I'm not really seeing it. A player can run against the grain of any party if they choose to take the interests of any group to an extreme. Obviously Ultimates that wouldn't do this in the updated canon would be more common than those that don't, but if a player is at all sensible they would be able to figure that out and state that their character is not that hostile. Hell, even if they didn't know they would just play the faction wrong because only the most brain dead autists intentionally start PVP.

Also, individual Ultimates have a reasonable degree of autonomy. Enough that one working as a bodyguard or otherwise isn't too far fetched according to the fluff for the Remade body.

That's a wrap

>2,533 backers pledged $187,307 to help bring this project to life.

>>53293734
Speaking of the Main Belt and Extorpia etc. How will they fuck this political block up?

anybody got that scum captain picture?

>>53297945
Full on criminalization. Everyone who is not a slaver is mafioso or a druggy. All the ancap memes will be put forth with people dropping recreational nukes on each other.

Thought of a scenario and can't be bothered to read through the books to see if it's already been answered.

Imagine a Infomorph who has had some permanent software added. Now imagine that it was sleeved into a fully organic morph. What happens to the software it melded with itself?

>>53298943
Can't use it

>>53298943
>Imagine a Infomorph who has had some permanent software added. Now imagine that it was sleeved into a fully organic morph. What happens to the software it melded with itself?
If it has mesh inserts, that software is installed on those (or stored, if it only runs on emulations).

If you're a zero and don't have that, it's stored in your cortical stack. If you lack even that, it's fucking gone.

>>53299040
Oh yeah, they could also install it in ectos. You get that free as a firewall agent.

>>53297628
>£45 for the book

I didn't back it, I presume they'll still print the books or is that it?

>>53300342
If you for some reason want to buy the books and pay these people later, you can do so, yeah.

>>53296364
>That doesn't mean it can't be heavily influenced by corporate groups
As is the USA, but a corporatocracy is not the same thing as corporativism. It is not about corporate groups having influence over the state, but about the establishment of corporatives, a form of state-integrated unions, having control over the state and over aspects of it that relates to the specific corporative (i.e. the medical corporative consists of medical professionals that exerts control over that aspect of society).

Sparta wasn't just a military state, however, it was just militaristic. In many ways, however, Sparta really was proto-Fascist or proto-National-Socialist. There's no denying that.

>>53303106
That actually sounds a lot like the Ultimates.

Corporative isn't a noun though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism

>>53289952
you and I both know that skill and stat system in that is bananas. Personally if I had to play furfaggotry, it would be Hc's setting with Myriad song's mechanics.

at then I can play as a raptor man

>>53303470
"Corporatives" or "Corporates" are sometimes used to differentiate it from "Corporations", which carry the modern-day connotation of business corporations. A lot gets lost in translation, sadly. Even the article on "Corporation" makes it evident that a modern-day "corporation" has extremely little to do with a fascist or corporativist/corporatist corporative/corporate; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation

Most languages (that I know of; Scandinavian, German, Italian, at the very least) differentiate more clearly between the terms, whereas English Wikipedia seem to refer to it either as Corporation or Corporate Group; both of which are inadequate and confusing - the article on "Corporation" only refers to Corporations as a business enitity in modern-day capitalism, whereas the articles of "Corporate Group" either refers to a business Concern or the sociological term.

>>53303776
Nope.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/corporative?s=t
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/corporate?s=t

You're looking for "corporate groups"

>>53303809
>Nope.
Yes. I thought I explained why, too.

>You're looking for "corporate groups"
I covered that and explained the problem with that, as well, and it's conflation both with what is often referred to as a Concern and the more general sociological term.

It's apples and oranges, and there's no reason to spread further confusion when one has had the difference explained.

I mean, the Ultimates aren't even a state. They're an organization. They have no homeland, and tacitly reject the idea of such a thing. Anyone could theoretically become a member if they so chose, even the overhumanists actively seek recruits.

>>53304032
I'm sorry that you can't be bothered to look up words you don't know.

Now how about addressing my comment that this actually sounds a lot like the Ultimates?

>>53304243
>I'm sorry that you can't be bothered to look up words you don't know.
I didn't need to look them up, because I already know these words. I apologize if any of this was confusing to you, but labeling corporativist corporates as "corporations" is incredibly confusing to most people today, since it almost exclusively refers to business corporations, which clearly includes Wikipedia, going by the article on "Corporation" which I linked (but that you clearly didn't bother checking).

I'm not sure how else to help you understand the difference here, I think I've been more than clear.

>Now how about addressing my comment that this actually sounds a lot like the Ultimates?
I'm unsure if you're even reading the posts in the thread. But no, not really. I don't think much has been said at all on how the Ultimates handle social, economical or political organization.

But they could absolutely go in that direction, of course, but in terms of political development there's some notable hurdles, such as the matter of electing a leader (which we know they don't do). There's some notable opposition between the factions, and they consider their philosophy to still be under development, which is honestly a pretty "fascistoid" viewpoint as well; the Ultimates does not seem to have a final "Utopian" vision, but believe in continual self-improvement, which, again, is extremely fascistoid.

>>53304514
Porting words from Italian into English isn't "knowing them"

What do elections have to do with anything? The Ultimates are described as having distinct divisions between groups with different kinds of skills who run different aspects of things.

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>>53304207
>I mean, the Ultimates aren't even a state. They're an organization.
What is a "state" but an organization that claims sovereign? The fact that they lack a "homeland" isn't really that much of an issue, both because a landmass isn't strictly necessary for organizing yourself, and because they're actively trying to establish a homeland.

Pre-WW2 jewish fascist supported the creation of a jewish state and homeland, and the World Jewish Congress and Zionism were basically homeless states and national identities, respectively. So it's not that weird.

>Anyone could theoretically become a member if they so chose
In a world where basically everyone is genetically engineered and when your group actively supports the creation of a overhuman shell, it's hard to not be inclusive in practice, even from an eugenicist perspective. It's all philosophy; as long as you subscribe to the Ultimates' doctrine, it wouldn't make any sense to be exlusivist, unless you subscribe to some tenet of divine consciousness or spiritual dogma tied to your original body or the bodies of your forebears.

Which I guess could actually be a pretty cool idea, as in "You're not truly an Ultimate unless your consciousness was born from the creative font of the Eskimos", but I think that'd clash with the materialist nature of the Ultimates. You can't even claim a real ideal of racial superiority in the Ultimates, because their morphs are - I think - completely custom. Whereas many other biomorphs are basically just modified versions of pre-existing templates (meaning you could argue that racial characteristics are intrinsically preserved and carries a fundamental bond of heritage).

There could theoretically be entire groups of Neo-Aryans, all which are Exalts, Furies, Crashers, Ghosts, Mentons, Olympians and Observers, but that only pick members that were of aryan stock and where the morphs are all based on fundamentally aryan stock, But the Ultimates don't seem to be like that at all, no.

>>53304863
I've always been a bit confused about the term genetrash as used by ultimates. Isn't being an ultimate about your attitude and practices? Can't better genes be earned?

>>53304923
I think it's ultimately tied to Posthuman being confused about how they want to portray them. They like the idea of a quasi-exhuman fascist state that advocates eugenics, but I've also never seen them properly reconcile the idea with a world were your genes are about as important to you as the color of your car.

When I played an ex-Ultimate once I had a talk with my GM beforehand and convinced him that memetrash makes a lot more sense for a derogatory term. It's not about genes, it's about idea. They want to eliminate everyone who's ideas they think are wrong. It's also usable for both people and institutions or concepts. A biocon is memetrash, bioconservatism is also memetrash.

Post interesting ideas for Ultimate splinter groups

Inclusivists- see no reason that AGIs and uplifts cannot pursue the same ideals, and think that humans proper can potentially learn much from their participation

Protectionists- Think that non-Ultimate transhumanity should be protected as a source of more Ultimates, since the desire to achieve more without being born to the Ultimates inherently shows more devotion. Essentially, they believe that many legacy Ultimates aren't pulling their weight.

An interesting divide would be between those who do lots of cybernetic augmentation and those who believe biological improvement to be ideologically superior.

Also, in my headcannon Bhattacharya rarely speaks anymore, hence the divergence in the faction.

>>53304970
>a world were your genes are about as important to you as the color of your car
Well your genes are considerably more important than that, but they're replaceable.

>memetrash
Love it

>ex-Ultimate
Why ex?

>>53304620
>Porting words from Italian into English isn't "knowing them"
Stating the obvious here, now, are we? If it makes you sleep better at night, it's all "ported" from the Latin "Corpus", meaning "Body" or "Flesh". The concept of corporativism is basically an social, economical and political form of organization based on the ideas of integralism, which views the entirety of the nation and state as a singular living entity - thus "to make body".

Honestly, what a modern-day corporation actually is is basically a complete betrayal of the term. Too late to rectify now, unfortunately. All we can do now is to try to avoid conflation of terms, and clarify the differences.

>What do elections have to do with anything?
Corporatives are involved in the ratification of new leaders. You cannot have a corporate state in which the corporate organizations themselves are essentially powerless or meaningless.

But yes, they clearly have different groups with different specializations, but the same could be said about a lot of organizations, both states and megacorps, or medieval guilds. It doesn't have to mean that much. But like I said, they could absolutely go in an increasingly fascist and corporativist direction.

The biggest issue here is really one of size - it's hard to make any concrete judgements based on what we know, and the Ultimates simply aren't big enough for these things to crystallize. They need means of production, an economy, and social structures. The reason we haven't seen more on this might simply be that the Ultimates haven't had a need to organize an entire society yet.

>>53305082
>Also, in my headcannon Bhattacharya rarely speaks anymore, hence the divergence in the faction

I haven't checked recently, but isn't this basically true? The only stuff he says is philosophy that is largely left to the interpretation of the autarchs.

I've always felt like the Ultimates could do with more expanding, partly because I like them as a concept and partly because they feel like a pretty significant part of the setting that's often snubbed. They could be as important/varied as the Argonauts, but instead their awkwardly pigeonholed as villains.

>Why ex?

He left a few years after the fall because he came to the realization that he no longer felt like relentless self-improvement was time well spent. He decided to seek ataraxia instead and became a Solarian Epicurean of sorts because he wanted to live a quiet life of simple pleasures. Ended up getting roped into some Firewall shenanigans on Venus though.

>>53305093
>Corporatives are involved in the ratification of new leaders. You cannot have a corporate state in which the corporate organizations themselves are essentially powerless or meaningless.
False dichotomy. They can have great power without selecting a new leader. Plus, if Bhattacharya was to be replaced they presumably would participate.

>>53305208
>Bhattacharya was to be replaced

Well, that's never going to happen. Or if it did, it would tear the Ultimates apart in the worst religious schism in human history.

>>53304923
>I've always been a bit confused about the term genetrash as used by ultimates. Isn't being an ultimate about your attitude and practices? Can't better genes be earned?

Yes, but this makes it even more frustrating; that so many CHOOSES to remain genetrash, or that those that cannot afford to not be genetrash don't pull themselves up by the bootstraps. They're just genetic trash, lingering there, shitting up the corridors and the habs and the factories, wallowing in their own erections, procreating seemingly randomly, uncontrollably, inevitably creating just more genetrash.

They don't hate you because you're genetrash. You're genetrash because your genes are trash. Stop being genetrash, and they'll stop hating you.

That said, I'm sure they have a very special insult for people that sleeve into a Remade but don't subscribe to the Ultimates' philosophies. They're not genetrash. They're far worse. I think memetrash (as mentioned earlier) is a pretty fitting term, but I also don't think that that is harsh enough in this case.

Imagine the prospect of someone being born into a Remade and then rejecting the philosophy, or that don't seek to self-improve by implants or further genetic engineering. Fucking yikes, I wouldn't want to be part of that family.

>>53304970

Honestly, genetrash is probably an archaic term, from when the Ultimates were fucking around in Central Asia before the Fall and resleeving didn't peak. It's just kind of ended up in the cultural identity of their most extreme (read: shitty) members.

It's still a valid concept, though as the game moves to say explicitly "Flats are dwindling, Splicers are most common" it's getting less so. Almost like humans don't have to be rational or logical actors and prejudice is irrational bullshit.

>>53305364
>prejudice is irrational bullshit

Prejudice is merely a rational extrapolation of shallow information. Contrary to early 20th century superstition, it doesn't impede decision making once deeper information becomes available.

>>53305208
>False dichotomy. They can have great power without selecting a new leader. Plus, if Bhattacharya was to be replaced they presumably would participate.

That's not false dichotomy, but props for knowing the term. My point was that it's not corporativism simply because the organizations are there, nor simply because they're powerful, and we don't actually know exactly how these are supposed to be governed or how they interact with any power structures.

Or, at least I haven't seen anything on it; I could be wrong.

Presuming that they would participate is a pretty big assumption, really. Has anything been written on that at all? It's entirely possible that the Autarchs duke everything out between themselves - and that assumes that one of the Autarchs are not already the cause of death, in which case they'll likely become Demiurge, barring a major schism.

>>53305438
It prevents absorption of deeper information. It's irrational to come to conclusions about something as important as the majority of the rest of humanity without a depth of knowledge about them.

>>53304923
>I've always been a bit confused about the term genetrash as used by ultimates. Isn't being an ultimate about your attitude and practices? Can't better genes be earned?
I hated that too. When I played an Ultimate, I preferred to use "mortal" as an epithet.

>>53305364
>resleeving didn't peak
Honestly, when did resleeving "peak"? I've commented on this before, that resleeving comes across as a costly, disorienting and relatively unpleasant as well as largely unnecessary process for most people. Even post-Earth, I simply can't imagine that it's that common, despite the emphasis the game puts on it in rules terms.

Most people likely prefer "their own" bodies, excepting perhaps AGI:s sleeving in and out of synthmorphs, and the most common by far are splicers, which are more commonly genetically modified flats, rather than built-for-purpose biomorphs that people have then sleeved into.

Or at least that's the impression I have.

Most flats and basic splicers were wiped out when Earth bit it, though, so I suppose you could say that there's a "resleeving peak" now, if we consider re-instantiation (which I wasn't considering when I started writing this). I didn't consider reinstatiation as resleeving, and obviously they don't have the choice of coming back as "themselves", even if their genetic data is on file (because it's expensive and it takes a lot of time to grow a clone).

Which actually raises a completely unrelated question to me - is your (at least original) genetic information kept on your cortical stack and your backups? It would make sense, I think, even if you cannot afford to get even a basic Splicer clone of yourself right away, you could get it later.

>>53305650
I would wager that resleeving probably peaked just before the Fall actually, with corporations and governments encouraging people to do it for both space colonization and readying for war on Earth. There were still a lot of people sleaved into flats, but the technology existed and the reasons existed for people to really not want to be that way anymore,

>>53305501
> It's irrational to come to conclusions about something as important as the majority of the rest of humanity without a depth of knowledge about them.

Drawing simple generalized predictions from poor information is basic inductive logic - rational by mathematical definition. It can't harm any Bayesian reasoner, since new evidence automatically updates vs older evidence and priors.

Calling it irrational is innumerate.

People used to believe your hypothesis before neural net weighting was understood. It's understandable as a social defense trait; many people prefer to avoid social conflict by pretending evidence spreads don't exist when they are scarce, but it's not scientific.

>>53305703
>rational by mathematical definition.

Not rational, or ethical, by social definition.

>>53305501
"Irrational" suggests that it's not rational, but prejudices are often completely rational based on available processed information. It is no more irrational than being careful when you cross a street, or knowing that you shouldn't go running around a bull pen.

The knowledge that the incoming car just as well could have amazing breaks, and that the overwhelmingly vast majority of times roads are crossed there is no accident, doesn't stop the prejudice that you shouldn't blindly cross the road; and the knowledge that bulls can be perfectly fine creatures and need not be violent at all doesn't stop you from not going into that bull pen, which is also a form of prejudice.

You make decisions of the *general* nature of things and events and people based on experience and available information, and make a judgement based on that, prior to taking action in relation to that judgement. Prejudice tends to be completely, completely rational.

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>Was really curious to start playing Eclipse phase with my group
>Where even talking about investing for the real books
>Second edition is now ultra trash with the depth removed and the political landscape made too boring to make the setting interesting

Really sucks, anyone know any other good transhumanist/similar systems?

>>53305766
Math doesn't care about your feelings.

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>>53305845
GURPS Transhuman space apparently has very good fluff, say what you will of the system though. There's also Nova Praxis and Orion's Arm. Though I know less about them.

>>53305766
Society does not define rationality.

The reason that it is irrational to act on prejudice is not that it is bad a prediction on an individual basis, but that it creates bad outcomes over time on a large scale.

>>53305692
>I would wager that resleeving probably peaked just before the Fall actually, with corporations and governments encouraging people to do it for both space colonization and readying for war on Earth. There were still a lot of people sleaved into flats, but the technology existed and the reasons existed for people to really not want to be that way anymore,

But like I said, I don't think that most people that went from Flats to Splicers actually resleeved. A Splicer is basically just a flat with basic biomods.

In concrete numbers, you're probably right, though - there were likely a lot more people actually resleeving just before The Fall, not just because of the impending war (most people weren't combatants, and for many, becoming a Fury or a Menton and so on was likely a matter of biomods, not resleeving) but a lot due to colonization and ego-casting.

But relatively speaking, I have a hard time imagining that. There were a whole lot more people, regular joes, pre-Fall, whether Flats or Splicers or anything, and most likely never contemplated or had the opportunity to resleeve. Post-Fall, resleeving is likely more common, again, relatively speaking, especially if we consider re-instantiation as resleeving, nevermind those that have been re-instantiated and want to reclaim "their own" bodies or not be locked into an emotionless robot for the rest of existence.

I would also imagine that bionconservatism was a lot stronger on Earth than anywhere else. A lot of people, even those that were biomodded into splicers or similar, would likely never consider resleeving unless necessary (death, etc.), whereas post-Fall, it's probably not that common, but it's not actively upsetting if you do so, to most people.

Again, personal impressions here, nothing else.

>>53305888
Yeah, it's irrational and unethical. Acting on incomplete, or farther from complete, data is becomes progressively more and more irrational the larger the possible outcomes. Not crossing the street when a car is coming is rational. Exterminating a bunch of people because you've been told they don't work as much as you do is not rational.

Also, just to be clear, I'm not talking about a mathematical definition of rationality. I'm just using the conversational English definition. So there are shades of rationality and irrationality.

>>53305650

Reinstantiation is literally resleeving - anything other than being "born" is a re-sleeve, because the sleeve is not your original.

The actual "peak" of resleeving isn't exact information, while transhuman tech could be even more extreme and unusual for people in power pre-Fall, huge resource disparity meant this wasn't most people - with loads of people who are infugees or even egocast off Earth to get directly into bodies - this is the time period from post-Fall on where most people in the setting encounter their first (and sometimes only) resleeve.

Resleeving for purposes of an "upgrade" is probably still relatively uncommon (not that this hurts the genetrash perpetuation), you mostly temporarily resleeve for work or as a recovery from some injury - this is still technically relseeving. People also may resleeve to exit an indenture contract if they were provided with a cheap temp body to work in and their payout is in something biological and more advanced.

>>53305963

No, if people are no longer counted as Flats but as Splicers, they resleeved. Even in 2E with simpler morphs, the Flat can't make up that extra point of Flex - it lacks a stronger inherent flexibility and adaptability, nor does Biomods do anything to shed genetic defects which are common to Flats. Flats are Flats, Splicers are Splicers.

We should throw lesswrong readers out of helicopters, that weapons grade autism shouldn't be tolerated by society.

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>>53305845

>Second edition is now ultra trash with the depth removed and the political landscape made too boring to make the setting interesting
>Second edition has two preview docs out, neither of which are fluff

>>53305845

Newsflash, though I'm sure this will make any /tg/-poster's mind explode - if you don't like a new edition of an RPG, you don't have to move to it.

>>53306173
>Flex
Now that you bring that up, does anyone else think it's exceptionally stupid that the narrative control pool can be added to by morphs, meaning that you can become more metaphysically important via reseleeving?

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>>53306209
>Hey guys i haven't kept myself up to news in regards to what they have been saying.so you must be wrong le epig meme XD bait

I honestly don't get why people like you troll here, go to /b/ or something.

>>53306229
But i don't feel like investing time in learning a system that's dead/dying.

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>>53305845
Eclipse Phase 2nd Ed. isn't coming out until October, and honestly, 1st Ed. is already incredibly shallow in the political department, and it's very clear that the developers never studied any ideologies past their own, nor have any interest in portraying themselves as anything other than right, and anyone else as anything other than wrong.

Hence hilarious situations where the Jovian Republic are ridiculously regressive and reactionary, yet are somehow the pre-eminent and technologically superior military force in the solar system, and is somehow a limited democracy (must serve for full citizenship), a fascist dictatorship (despite no elements of integralism, corporativism, etc.), but also ruled by lobbyism and, for some reason, the catholic church, of all things.

Really, don't buy it, because everything is available online and there's a great Wiki (Chuck's Eclipse Phase Wiki) and the .pdf:s are free, and just use the system, take inspiration for the setting, and ignore/adapt the things that are blatantly stupid (the inconsistent portrayal of resleeving, the more ridiculously insane morphs, the Jovian Republic basically being a meme, and now how the Ultimates are totally, like, so fascist it's "problematic" that people choose to play them).

It's what we do. It's fairly obvious that the developers are straight-up retarded, I don't think they ever really knew what they had.

To us, for example, the Jovian Republic is basically the government from Starship Troopers, and not at all as regressively bioconservative as Eclipse Phase originally try to portray them as, and definitely allow at least basic biomods, depending on your function in the government during your service (meaning there's a slow, conservative program for most people to at least become Splicers over time).

Small alterations like that go a long way to wash away the more condensed nuggets of stupid.

>>53306304
A system is never dead so long as people play it.

Go never gets updated with new rules or splat books, but people still play that.

>>53306248

I mean, on paper it's weird - but supposedly it's because of playtesting (guess what, even for 0 CP nobody wants to take a morph that does nothing) so I'd have to actually see it in action before I got really objectionable.

Simple houserule to say you can only use Ego Flex for the special ability if it doesn't float your boat. Otherwise it just replaces "+5 in aptitude of your choice".

>>53306309
>To us, for example, the Jovian Republic is basically the government from Starship Troopers, and not at all as regressively bioconservative as Eclipse Phase originally try to portray them as, and definitely allow at least basic biomods, depending on your function in the government during your service (meaning there's a slow, conservative program for most people to at least become Splicers over time).


Hey now, don't go making sweeping generalizations like that. I have them presented as regressive as the books, but also have their military and overall strategic outlook weakened as a result.

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>>53306309
Still makes me sad though, i don't mind investing in systems that i enjoy even though i don't NEED it. A good example is ANR (which is a card game to be fair), you can easily play it fully fledged online with all cards, but i LOVE the setting and playing irl, so i don't mind investing.

>>53306320
I think you as well as me understand that you are oversimplifying it for some strange reason.

>>53306248
>does anyone else think it's exceptionally stupid that the narrative control pool can be added to by morphs, meaning that you can become more metaphysically important via reseleeving?

Yes.

I understand what they're trying to do, but trying to move away from morph aptitudes and characteristics is a terrible idea. Recalculating skills isn't even that hard, nevermind that resleeving isn't that common.

>>53306405
>Still makes me sad though

Yeah, nah, I get it. I'm a huge fan of WFRP2, a game that never even got the Elf and Dwarf sourcebooks it should've gotten, and where the next edition was an unmitigated disaster, with the developers not even attempting to capture the setting and rules that fans liked in the first place.

So I get it.

I'm genuinely considering ripping Chuck's Wiki wholesale, and just start homebrewing shit like a motherfucker, both in terms of fluff as well as rules, and simply steal any potential aspects I'll like (if any) from 2nd Edition, such as new Morphs or interesting setting material, etc.

>>53306148
Mathematically, rationality entails scaling your beliefs based on the weight of the evidence, which is always incomplete. Crossing the street because a stranger looks sketchy is rational, preemptively murdering them isn't.

>>53306309
Unlike land war, full of complexity and uncertainty, space war is brutally simple. Mass and energy rule the day, not computing power.

So what you might interpret as hilarious comes off to me as a sobering correction to techno-optimism (perhaps unintended, given the designers). The IQ 100 human with a slide rule at the top of a gravity well or at the console of an anti-matter fueled dreadnaught is going to crush the smarter but energy-poorer faction every time.

The Jovians know this, and building high-energy tech doesn't take anything more complicated than what they have. As long as they restrict their conflicts to peace and total war, instead of subversion and sabotage like other transhumans, they can get what they want on their terms because they invested in it.

>>53306369
>Hey now, don't go making sweeping generalizations like that. I have them presented as regressive as the books, but also have their military and overall strategic outlook weakened as a result.

This also works, but makes them less important in a setting where things are already lopsided. Point was more that the way the developers wrote it is nonsense either way; you cannot make them "hurr durr reagan cylinders pinochet lobbyism hurr durr" and still attempt to make them a credible power-player or expect people to actually want to play as them or take them seriously.

I think that might be the issue for the developers here; they want to make the Ultimates, the Jovians, etc., out to be a credible faction, and a major player, but they also don't want to make people want to play them. And you just can't have all of those things at once.

If they're a credible, believable faction and a major player, they also can't be boogeymen that nobody would want to play. It doesn't work that way. So they prioritize, and since the writers are what they are, it is more important to them that they send the right signals than it is to write something that doesn't come across as trite, dehumanizing or uninspiring garbage.

Fuck, they even tried to do that to the Jovians from the onset, and all people did was reinterpret them until they were actually more reasonable and believable than the developers ever intended, without becoming Sues. Is there such a thing as an Anti-Sue? Because that's basically what the writers try to make their "bad guise".

>>53304923
Being genetrash is like being a ricer: you could buy a racing car, but you don't because you're poor and/or a faggot.

>>53306148
>Not crossing the street when a car is coming is rational.
In terms of analogy, I would say "looking both ways when crossing", because that is due to prejudice, but sure. However;

>Exterminating a bunch of people because you've been told they don't work as much as you do is not rational.
Correct, but this is also not mere prejudice, nor is it what the vast majority of prejudice entails.

Again, Prejudice is usually completely rational. It doesn't mean that a premeditated genocide based on prejudice is; although it totally could be. If everything you knew informed you that wolves eat sheep, and you have a large herd of sheep, and there was a large of wolfpack in the region, pre-emptively culling the wolfpack would be a completely rational thing to do, and it would be entirely based on prejudice, since there is no guarantee that that wolfpack will attack your - or anyone elses - sheep.

>>53307095
Being an ultimate is like being a redneck bootstrapped to the upper middle class. Blowing your money on a fast car while the exhumans work on their 401ks.

>>53307185
>Again, Prejudice is usually completely rational.
That depends on one's definition of rational. Flipping out in a panic can be a response to a prejudice, but it's hardly a rational response.

Prejudice is based on past information. Memory is a big factor in it. But those memories and thoughts don't necessarily have to be based on logic and rationale. Just what is remembered and believed.

>>53306173
>No, if people are no longer counted as Flats but as Splicers, they resleeved.
That's not true. You can be genemodded in a pre-existing body. Resleeving implies that you are moved from one morph to another, which isn't a necessity.

Flats can be made into Splicers, and Splicers can be made it Exalts, or Furies, or Olympians, and so on. You don't have to resleeve for that. Most basic Splicers, at least pre-Fall, weren't cloned bodies, but simply genetically enhanced flats.

>>53307267
>Flats can be made into Splicers, and Splicers can be made it Exalts, or Furies, or Olympians, and so on.
This is absolutely untrue.

If you're born one morph, you'll stay that morph forever. You can change the implants, but the morph is the same.

>>53307267

Prove it.

>>53307298
Unless you resleeve, of course.

>>53307185
>Prejudice is usually completely rational
No. It's usually based on imaginings and hearsay rather than real evidence. Rational prejudice can exist if it is subject to counterevidence (particularly on an individual basis), but even this is likely to cause poor societal outcomes.

>>53307260
>That depends on one's definition of rational. Flipping out in a panic can be a response to a prejudice, but it's hardly a rational response.

If it's based on prejudice, it's absolutely rational. Otherwise it's based on something else.

>Prejudice is based on past information. Memory is a big factor in it. But those memories and thoughts don't necessarily have to be based on logic and rationale. Just what is remembered and believed.

Yes, available information. That available information dictates the rational response. Vulcan logic has no place when it comes to rationality. We can only operate upon the information which we have available and act upon that, and it is almost always prejudice based on previous experiences, whether it's "gypsies steal", "don't eat yellow snow", "don't run red lights", or "kill the wolves before they eat the sheep".

>>53307298
>If you're born one morph, you'll stay that morph forever.
What ever made you think that? Splicers are common even in the Jovian Republic, where it's largely thought that resleeving is suicide, and most people don't have cortical stacks.

Have you been going around thinking that every single person that isn't a flat was grown in a vat?

>>53307437
>Yes, available information.
And emotion. You like to forget the emotional element of prejudice.

Emotions are not rational by definition.

>>53307392
>No. It's usually based on imaginings and hearsay rather than real evidence.

Doesn't make it any less real or any less rational. Most have never been hit by a car or witnessed a death in traffic, yet operate rationally based on prejudice. This is true for most contexts.

Nobody said that available information has to be true; it could be wrong. But it doesn't make the prejudice in question irrational, it simply means that it is based on a faulty assumption, which is a huge difference.

>>53307485
>Splicers are common even in the Jovian Republic, where it's largely thought that resleeving is suicide, and most people don't have cortical stacks.
You do realize you can be BORN in any body, not just Flats, right? AGIs are born as infomorphs or synthmorphs, uplifts are generally born as uplift morphs.

While true humans are born flats, transhumans can be born as any biomorph in that book.

>>53307485

You can be a splicer without being cloned, you idiot. It's prenatal proceedure to screen for genetic errors and remove them in utero. Basic designer babies shit. Splicers are Gattaca humans.

>>53307525
It's already been stipulated that we're not all talking about rational in the strict mathematical sense.

You're irrationally assuming we all are.

>>53307518
>Emotions are not rational by definition.
Untrue. Most (but not all) emotions are also rational, and emotions are often founded on prejudice, not the other way around.

For example, I fear cars because based on available information, I've made the rational assumption that they are dangerous. There's a reason phobias are specifically considered irrational fears, and not the mere emotion of fear.

>>53307437
>If it's based on prejudice, it's absolutely rational. Otherwise it's based on something else.
This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Scenario: I know that Canadians are less likely to commit violent crimes. I see an American, and conclude that this person is more likely than average to commit a violent crime against me. So I kick him in the balls.

This was not a rational action.

>>53307543
>You do realize you can be BORN in any body, not just Flats, right?
Yes, I think it's explicitly stated somewhere that people born from different human biomorphs (other than flats) are usually born as some variant of Splicer. You can presumably be genemodded in-utero, too, meaning that your parents can decide whether they want an Olympian or an Exalt, if they've got the money/tech/permissions/whatever is required in your hab.

>>53307525
>Doesn't make it any less real or any less rational.
It certainly doesn't make it any less real in the sense that prejudice happens, but it absolutely makes it less rational.

>>53307239
Being an exhuman is like being that kid who built a nuclear reactor in his mom's garden shed. We're not saying it's not impressive, but did you really have to do it in a residential area?

>>53307655
>You can presumably be genemodded in-utero, too, meaning that your parents can decide whether they want an Olympian or an Exalt, if they've got the money/tech/permissions/whatever is required in your hab.
The setting largely implies that post-splicer transhumans tend to be born in an exowomb. Old fashion is mostly only in style for old fashion bodies.

I'm sure you could have a transhuman implanted in your womb, but I imagine that the end-product won't be as good as being born in an exowomb. Human vaginas weren't designed to birth transhumans, and likely don't have the right hormone and chemical balances for them.

>>53307682
Exhumans try it in the solar system, get shot for doing it close to home. Exhumans migrate to extrasolar systems, they get hunted down and shot for doing it in secret.

What do you people want?

>>53307561
>It's already been stipulated that we're not all talking about rational in the strict mathematical sense.
Yes, and I never was.

>You're irrationally assuming we all are.
No, I've made no other assumption other than that I'm surrounded by idiots.

You, however, was so prejudiced that you simply assumed that you were talking to a single Anon, despite the clear and present evidence to the contrary in terms of writing style, choice of wording, etc.

This assumption was completely rational, since it is likely uncommon that you're challenged on this nonsense in your daily life, and simply think of "prejudice" as a pejorative that's ascribed those that differ from yourself and are therefore "irrational".

>>53307714
To stop scaring the children.

Honestly, it seems like a vocal minority of exhumans are ruining it for the rest of them. The dipshits who run around the Martian outback in predator morphs are, as the book even mentions, not real Exhumans but more often than not just people doing it as a weird fad thing.

>>53307734
>This assumption was completely rational, since it is likely uncommon that you're challenged on this nonsense in your daily life, and simply think of "prejudice" as a pejorative that's ascribed those that differ from yourself and are therefore "irrational".
It sounds to me that the bigger issue is that you consider "irrational" to be a pejorative, and that's why you're getting triggered by it's association with prejudice.

It's okay, anon. Love is irrational, and everyone loves love. You can calm your fee fees.

Merriam-Webster defines prejudice in three ways

>a: preconceived judgment or opinion : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge
>b : an instance of such judgment or opinion
>c : an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics

Prejudice is, by definition, irrational and without enough evidence to make an assessment. If you have enough information to make an informed and rational decision, it's not prejudiced.

>>53307606
>Scenario: I know that Canadians are less likely to commit violent crimes. I see an American, and conclude that this person is more likely than average to commit a violent crime against me. So I kick him in the balls.
>This was not a rational action.

No, it was not a rational action, which is why you wouldn't do that. Your entire example is a strawman. There are other considerations to make, including whether or not you should act upon this prejudice in such a violent manner; most likely, you would not, since you have no difficulties coming to the prejudiced decision that this would get you into trouble.

But if the only available information you had was that Americans commit crimes, like, all the time, then yes, it could be considered rational to kick him in the balls before he commits crime.

It's a pretty absurd analogy, though, because already by the prejudice of what defines an "American", we know that this is not the full extent of your knowledge.

>>53307660
>It certainly doesn't make it any less real in the sense that prejudice happens, but it absolutely makes it less rational.

How? It really doesn't. You're still operating on available information, and by it's very nature, there is no way for you to judge that information as anything other than true (because if there was, there would be information to the contrary, to be taken into account as available information).

It's like calling Newton irrational in his conclusions simply because he didn't have all the available facts. It doesn't work that way just because you want it to. There's a clear difference between being prejudiced, being irrational, and being wrong.

>>53307905
>There's a clear difference between being prejudiced, being irrational

See >>53307820

To be prejudiced, one must be irrational. If one is irrational, they are not necessarily prejudiced.

Also, every human being is supplied with enough information to not be rationally prejudiced against other human beings, at lest within reason. It's called being self-aware.

>>53307820
"Just grounds or before sufficient knowledge" are practically weasel words. Prejudice is at it's base definition merely a preconceived judgement or opinion. Anything else is just semantics.

>>53307759
>It sounds to me that the bigger issue is that you consider "irrational" to be a pejorative, and that's why you're getting triggered by it's association with prejudice.
Nope.

>It's okay, anon. Love is irrational, and everyone loves love.
Love isn't irrational at all. Love is, like most things, perfectly rational. Not knowing the basis of love and the reasons behind it, judging it irrational, isn't irrational in itself, but it is prejudiced.

>>53307840
Bitch you literally said
>If it's based on prejudice, it's absolutely rational.

>>53307957
>To be prejudiced, one must be irrational.
As has been covered extensively, this simply isn't true. I'm not sure how else to explain it to you.

>Also, every human being is supplied with enough information to not be rationally prejudiced against other human beings, at lest within reason. It's called being self-aware.
"Within reason" is by itself arbitrary, to be within reason is to be rational, yet prejudices happen all the time, as they have to, in order for us to stay sane, whether we're talking about groups of people or cars or the weather.

>>53308015
>"Just grounds or before sufficient knowledge" are practically weasel words. Prejudice is at it's base definition merely a preconceived judgement or opinion. Anything else is just semantics.

>"The dictionary definition doesn't suit my personal definition of a word."

Now, I don't want to get into an argument about whether or not language should be descriptive or prescriptive, but at the very least this is enlightening about the nature of your position in this argument.

>>53308021
In relation to
>Flipping out in a panic can be a response to a prejudice, but it's hardly a rational response.

Also, I explained that the entire example was a strawman; it wouldn't actually be based on prejudice, unless that was literally everything you had to go on, in which case it could be considered completely rational.

I'm pretty sure by now that you only read half the posts.

>>53308106
Yes, yes, no true scotsman in the face of definitions which directly oppose your claim.

Maybe if you say it again it will be true this time.

>>53308084
More silly strawmanning. The meaning of prejudice doesn't change just because of your fee-fees, snowflake.

>>53308015
>Love is, like most things, perfectly rational.
You are clearly working with some bizarre definition of the words "rational" and "irrational". This conversation is going nowhere.

>>53308139
>Yes, yes, no true scotsman in the face of definitions which directly oppose your claim.

I don't think you actually know what No True Scotsman entails. What I described was not a No True Scotsman, but an example of why your example was a strawman and not a legitimate example of prejudice, and thus irrational. If, theoretically speaking, it was actually a legitimate prejudice, then yes, it could be considered rational.

Which part of that is it that you're having trouble understanding?

>>53308173
Right. Only your feelings define the word.

>>53308173
Why do people use the word snowflake when they've been triggered?

Honestly, it's an interesting pattern.

>>53308229
>>53307437
>If it's based on prejudice, it's absolutely rational. Otherwise it's based on something else.

This would be a textbook No True Scotsman were it not for the word irrational appearing in the definition, which makes it just stupid.

>>53308223
What, you thought that love just occurred for no reason? It's a common meme, but pretty much everything that has to do with love is pretty damn rational, it's just that it's easily mistaken for irrational because people don't recognize the reasons why it's rational.

But they're all there. The actions related to love aren't random, nor are the feelings associated with love. They tend to do exactly what they're meant to do, whether we like it or not.

>>53308278
>What is context?

Also, here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

It's not that complicated, really.

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>>53308325

>>53308288
>What, you thought that love just occurred for no reason?
Rational and irrational have nothing to do with reason, but conscious decision. A rational decision is one made in full control of one's faculties. An irrational decision is one you made to some degree without your consent... no one wants to be sad or scared.

A rational act of murder is premeditated and planned. An irrational act of murder is a crime of passion.

Use the same definitions as everyone else, and these conversations will go better. Or inform people of the wacky definitions you want to use so we better understand it, and the conversation will still go better. Communication, mang.

>>53308426
>no one wants to be sad or scared
Horror movies suggest otherwise.

>>53308507
No one wants to be actually sad or scared. More evidence that human emotions are irrational.

>>53308507
>Horror movies suggest otherwise.
Quite the opposite. If people wanted to actually be sad and scared, they'd be actively looking for people to murder and rape them.

In reality, people look for safe fantasy. Roleplay for one example, but even bungie jumping is basically just a safe fantasy of falling to one's death. Horror movies are another form of safe fantasy. You know the terror won't jump out of the screen.

We're always in a race to get closer to that edge. Trying to feel more unsafe, while still trying to always be safe.

>>53308593
>If people wanted to actually be sad and scared, they'd be actively looking for people to murder and rape them.
If someone is dumb enough to reply to this I'm going to get mad.

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>>53308593

>>53306952
>The Jovians know this, and building high-energy tech doesn't take anything more complicated than what they have. As long as they restrict their conflicts to peace and total war, instead of subversion and sabotage like other transhumans, they can get what they want on their terms because they invested in it.

Well it is mentioned in Rimward that Security Council approaches technology from position of practicality. And considering that they more or less control Jupiter doubling down on high energy tech is the most effective choice.

>>53307077
>This also works, but makes them less important in a setting where things are already lopsided. Point was more that the way the developers wrote it is nonsense either way; you cannot make them "hurr durr reagan cylinders pinochet lobbyism hurr durr" and still attempt to make them a credible power-player or expect people to actually want to play as them or take them seriously.

I made it so they do still have Reagan cylinders and problems with them because they pour most of their production power into weapon, spaceship and orbital control programs. They never allow living conditions to drop below certain point but their betterment is much lower in the priorities. Population also mostly supports that route due to certain encounters with exsurgent threat.

>>53308426
>Rational and irrational have nothing to do with reason, but conscious decision.
Rational or irrational in this context has nothing to do with decisions at all, and definitely nothing to do with consent. No-one wants to be sad or scared, but there's rational reasons for those emotions, there's a reason they exist, and they can be observed and measured. It's not irrational or senseless.

>>53308342
Well, I guess I swallowed that one hook, line and sinker. Goddammit. You got me. In my defense, most people wouldn't know a No True Scotsman even if the proverbial scotsman showed up and shoved money down their pockets.

>>53309138
>No-one wants to be sad or scared, but there's rational reasons for those emotions, there's a reason they exist, and they can be observed and measured. It's not irrational or senseless.
You are using nonsensical definitions of those terms. It's like trying to redefine cat and dog as "not real" and "real", then making the argument that everything is dogs.

No duh. What's your point.

>>53309379
Fear has its reasons to exist and benefits human survival as such it is a rational emotion.

Compare to "irrational fear" that arises due to phobias and other disorders when fear is either unwarranted or is out of proportion to the threat.

>>53307309
>Prove it.
https://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/Jovian+Republic

Specifically, the section on "Jovian Transhumanism", which refers to genefixing into splicers and how some people refuse it. I remember other things, such as 80% of Jovians being in their birth bodies, but much less than 80% of Jovians are considered Flats, and some people getting biomodification beyond splicers, but it's a long time since I was flipping through the books and I can't find the specific passages anymore.

Also, the Jovian Republic makes use of specialized combat morphs, which is only really feasible either by resleeving or - more reasonably be Jovian standards - genehacking/gene-therapy/genefixing/biomods.

I realize that that is shaky and circumstantial at best, but it's the first example that came to mind. I'm more surprised that this would be considered something odd or out of place by anyone. Retroviral gene-therapy isn't even that strange in the world of Eclipse Phase, and although obviously a slower process, I always considered it a given that you could use it to genefix Flats into Splicers, or Splicers into Exalts, Olympians or Furies and so on.

I'm trying to find something more concrete, but it's all in the background and inferred by the setting as presented, obviously, because it's never presented as a mechanical player option, for obvious reasons.

>>53309772
So Jovians are like they guy who puts spinner rims on a Ford Fiesta?

>>53309772
I think it's one of those things that makes perfect sense in fluff, but isn't reconciled with the crunch. Really, you should be able to stick a flat in a tank and have them come out the other end a remade. But you can't do that by RAW.

>>53309914
>I think it's one of those things that makes perfect sense in fluff

Does it?

Explain the process to me.

>>53309772

>for obvious reasons

For no obvious reasons? If it was possible, there shouldn't be any mechanical "balance" component to stop it - the restriction would all entirely be on resources and time scale. I mean, nothing stops you from actually upgrading anyway. Buy a cheap ass morph, dump all your CP into cash, buy a better body off the bat. Technically this was a complaint that you could min-max that way.

Just, then you have to deal with market forces, resleeving rolls and their results and the unending ire of the GM and players for bogging things down when you could have just coughed up the CP for a Fury in the first place.

>>53310024
Nanomachines, son.

Nothing stops you from sticking a man in a healing vat and rebuilding him from ground up. Problem is it takes much more time and energy than resleeving.

If you want to go really hardcore you can use genetherapy instead of nanomahines but it even slower and probably will take years to complete. It's also underdeveloped and almost no one except Jovians would even look at it.

>>53309876
In a way, yeah.

It's pretty reasonable, though, I mean, it's never explicitly stated, but I can't imagine that the reservations of the people of the Jovian Republic are extremely uncommon (even outside the Republic), such as an unwillingness to resleeve unless necessary (whether they consider it a form of death or just consider it unpleasant), and I also have troubles imagining that you cannot genefix people in their present bodies.

Also, imagine the implications of the genefixed upper class of Jove, even if they're all wearing their birthday suits; if all forms of genefixing from one type of basic morph to another would require resleeving, it means that every last one of them were at the very least born of someone that, by jovian metrics, were essentially "dead", a simulacra of a "real person" who, as per the religious dogma of many in the Jovian Republic, lacks a soul - and now their offspring lords over Flats, the only "true" and "real people".

I think that's just a tad unreasonable, honestly, even if the writers would write it out in no uncertain terms that you cannot genefix a pre-existing Flat into a Splicer (and so on). But I don't think it's ever said that a basic/human biomorph absolutely has to be vat-grown and then sleeved into, while I think that there's plenty of at least circumstantial evidence that it's possible to mod morphs by means of retroviral gene-therapy.

After all, an Exalt or an Olympian are really just genetically modified Flats, and even a basic Splicer has full regenerative capabilities. I'm not saying it's not usually easier or faster to grow one from scratch and sleeve into them, depending on circumstance, but all you really need to do is to tell the body to regenerate according to a slightly different base template; outside of Jove, it would likely be nanobot-assisted, too. On Jove, we're probably talking bonemarrow transplants or some shit, with nanobot assistance only for the procedure itself.

>>53310187
>I also have troubles imagining that you cannot genefix people in their present bodies.
That's actually much harder IRL than germline modification in most cases.

>>53310187

>But I don't think it's ever said that a basic/human biomorph absolutely has to be vat-grown and then sleeved into

Yeah, it's not, because it's not true. I'm not sure where you get this idea that all biomorphs are pod people or something (That would be Pods - who do have those kinds of restrictions). You can be naturally, natively born as a Fury. With exowombs and growth acceleration it's pretty easy, but most biomorphs are non-sterile, you could grow one the old fashioned way. Babies are a thing.

Christ, seriously, has NOBODY in this thread seen Gattaca?

>>53309914
>I think it's one of those things that makes perfect sense in fluff, but isn't reconciled with the crunch. Really, you should be able to stick a flat in a tank and have them come out the other end a remade. But you can't do that by RAW.

Oh, yeah, no, I agree completely. In my head on how this "makes sense", this is because I wasn't thinking of sticking anyone in a tank and then just have them come out as something else. I imagine this, even assisted, takes upwards a year or more, and is a gradual change. Remades would probably take even longer.

I think rules for it would be odd, and there'd be several issues with it, such as how the gradual change is presented. Resleeving is already problematic for many, imagine if they had to track time and partial changes. Fuck that. Only time it'd work was for a timeskip.

>>53310069
>For no obvious reasons?
Yes, I think that it'd cause a lot of issues to have it presented as an option, and it's not something that I think could be covered in most cases. You can theoretically resleeve two times during a single session, whereas retroviral gene-therapy from one morph to another would take a lot of time, and you'd also have to define what biomorphs could turn into which, and over what time period (turning a Flat into an Exalt would almost have to pass through a regular Splicer first, and what about turning a Menton straight into a Fury, nevermind the separate genemods, would they remain?).

Also, the procedure may still be prohibitively expensive, and not everyone has access to everything. I think it's just a fucking mess. As a GM, I would allow such things on a case-by-case basis, and then just sorta wing it over time, and you'd basically have to pay for the procedure, and possibly at least some of the implants/biomods/augments separately.

But I'm not sure I'd even *want* clear rules for it. But if you ask me if it exists in the universe, I can't imagine that it doesn't.

>>53310409
>But if you ask me if it exists in the universe, I can't imagine that it doesn't.

I can easily imagine that it's more common for "the common man" than resleeving, tbqh.

>>53310426

It would probably be mentioned if it was.

Plus, if it takes longer than the 1-2 years it takes to grow a biomorph, there would be very little point in it since it would probably seriously impact your productivity in the meantime, where as usual "sleeve sickness" is like 24 hours. The economy wouldn't support it.

>>53310409
Yeah as a game mechanic it is a waste of space. You actually should have penalties to stats on some stages of therapy. But a couple of lines about how it is a thing (even if only for Jovians and Co.) would be nice.

>>53310234
>That's actually much harder IRL than germline modification in most cases.

Well, yeah, but we also don't live in the world of Eclipse Phase. Biomods to pre-existing bodies are obviously a thing, as are nanomachines and full body regeneration.

Germline modification is definitely the safest route, but the choice is between biomodding or resleeving, and if the biomodding somehow goes wrong for some reason (I'm imagining the horrific scenario of your entire body going through organ rejection.. of your entire body) well then you're SOL and can always resleeve anyway.

>>53310350
>Yeah, it's not, because it's not true. I'm not sure where you get this idea that all biomorphs are pod people or something
I don't, and I never implied that.

>You can be naturally, natively born as a Fury.
I know. In fact, I made it very clear that that is a thing, did you read what I wrote, like, at all? About without genefixing of pre-existing bodies, it would mean that non-flat jovians have all either resleeved (and are thus non-people) or are the children of non-flats (and thus the children of soulless people).

My point was in the context of someone being a Flat, and becoming a Splicer, or being a Splicer, and becoming a Fury. Obviously, there are people that are born as Furies, and there's people that are born as Splicers.

But if you're a Splicer and are to become a Fury, you're going to need to either find yourself an empty Fury to sleeve into, or take your present body and have it genefixed and biomodded. Presumably, most people that were born as furies want to keep their own bodies (at least in some capacity, even if just as a backup or as a tactical choice).

>>53310642

> (and thus the children of soulless people).

Well, pretty sure they still have souls.

>>53310642
>About without genefixing of pre-existing bodies, it would mean that non-flat jovians have all either resleeved (and are thus non-people) or are the children of non-flats (and thus the children of soulless people).
Splicers are generally not considered soulless. Only full transhumans.

>>53310469
>Plus, if it takes longer than the 1-2 years it takes to grow a biomorph, there would be very little point in it since it would probably seriously impact your productivity in the meantime, where as usual "sleeve sickness" is like 24 hours. The economy wouldn't support it.

Other way around. It takes 1-2 years to grow an adult biomorph. It would take time to change, but there's no reason to think that it would seriously impact your productivity in the meantime. If anything, the economical choice would be to change in your present meatsuit over time, instead of taking resources to grow a biomorph and then sleeve into it.

Growing an adult biomorph is more than just 24 hours of sleeve sickness. It's a full process that takes technicians and monitoring, the morph being grown in a facility.

To say that it would be more costly and that "the economy wouldn't support it" (as if that's even relevant here; even resleeving isn't that common) to have someone regenerate their body into something mildly different while still being a functional human being is odd.

If we're talking pure economics, every grown morph should go to someone being reinstantiated, while all flats should just go through basic genefixing and biomodification, and become splicers. That's obviously not the issue.

>>53310732

I mean, again see >>53310732 I'm pretty sure anybody "born" has a soul regardless of level of transhumanism. Your parents having souls is not a requirement for you to have a soul - people who resleeve are soulless because their original body has died, they're just a mind-clone meat-robot.

>>53310642
>Biomods to pre-existing bodies are obviously a thing
In many cases that's surgically implanted tissue/organs. Modifying adult cells also gets way easier if you only want a small fraction of the cells to be modified, which may be fine in some cases. This means that a given cell getting hit twice is very unlikely.

>(I'm imagining the horrific scenario of your entire body going through organ rejection.. of your entire body)
Unless new membrane proteins are getting involved it should be fine.

>Germline modification is definitely the safest route
Not always. Certain genetic sequences will interfere with embryonic development but be just fine in an adult.

>>53310791
>I'm pretty sure anybody "born" has a soul regardless of level of transhumanism.
To bioconservatives, most transhumans are monsters regardless of whether they've resleeved. Remember, these guys distrust AGI and uplifts as well. Why would they have any more trust for transgenic hybrids and cyborgs?

Splicers are literally just humans improved mostly in health. Exalts are humans tweaked by engineers to human excellence... to bioconservatives, that's too artificial.

A fury is an artificial human remolded into a living weapon. That's gotta be downright terrifying to a bioconservative.

>>53310758
>If anything, the economical choice would be to change in your present meatsuit over time, instead of taking resources to grow a biomorph and then sleeve into it.
Probably not, thanks to compatibility issues.

Could the society of EP design a process for turning you into a different morph? Sure. But it would be expensive, and probably incompatible with every other morph in existence and potentially (particularly in the case of flats) even other individuals of the same morph.

Think of it as upgrading to a new OS version versus new a clean install and moving some files over.

Plus, someone wants to buy your old morph.

>>53310682
>Well, pretty sure they still have souls.
Not according to the majority on Jove. When you resleeve or when you're resurrected, you're dead. Your soul has moved on. You're not human. You're something *else*, a program dancing in a machine of flesh.

I know people have played by this concept, and it's been discussed many times, but I think it's sad that there's nothing on the books about people that actually think that when you die, you die, but that the next "person" that your "consciousness" (in this context considered pure data) is endowed with a "new" soul. Would make for an interesting religious viewpoint for Jovians, I think.

I know some Jovians consider the use of a Cortical Stack a great sacrifice, and that many that have died and been resleeved consider themselves soulless, and that they have sacrificed their soul for the greater good.

>>53310732
>Splicers are generally not considered soulless. Only full transhumans.

>"After all, from their point of view, the moment you first resleeved, you died and transformed into something that wasn't a person anymore. To the average Jovian, you are a soulless software replica with a human face.
Sound frightening? It is."

There's not just basic Splicers on Jove, either, there's Exalts, Mentons and Furies, at the very least. Everything, to me, implies that you can get genefixed and genemodded without resleeving. Not just because of the implausibility of it not being possible, but because of the absurdity of Jove consisting of 80% birthday suits, yet not nearly as many Flats, and an upper class of Splicers-or-higher stemming from what would be considered non-humans and the soulless.

>>53310941
>There's not just basic Splicers on Jove, either, there's Exalts, Mentons and Furies, at the very least. Everything, to me, implies that you can get genefixed and genemodded without resleeving.
Not quite. You also fail to notice that resleeving is legal in the Jovian Republic. Some people do so. It's an issue akin to abortion in 70s America than a simple always evil thing. Some people are warming to resleeving, many still object for religious reasons.

>>53310897

>Exalts are humans tweaked by engineers to human excellence... to bioconservatives, that's too artificial.

Well, for starters gonna need a citation on that vis a vis bioconservatives.

Then more importantly since we're talking specifically about souls this has specifically to do with theology than the broad political concept of bioconservatism. I have not seen anything in the setting which says that on principle a transhuman morph lacks a soul if one is born into it on the outset. At least from the Catholic leaning perspective of the Jovians.

>>53310941

Talking about the children, chief. The children still have souls - again the soulless state only applies to the parents if they resleeve, and has no impact on the metaphysical state of the children. If it has a social impact then we're back to an earlier topic.

Also you know the Jovian government is totally all over transhuman tech at the higher levels in secret, right? It's for national security.

>>53311026
>Well, for starters gonna need a citation on that vis a vis bioconservatives.
It'll vary from group to group, but the Jovians require licenses for anything above a splicer. See Rimward.

>Then more importantly since we're talking specifically about souls this has specifically to do with theology than the broad political concept of bioconservatism. I have not seen anything in the setting which says that on principle a transhuman morph lacks a soul if one is born into it on the outset. At least from the Catholic leaning perspective of the Jovians.
Again, Rimward discusses it. It's a torn issue in-setting. Not everyone is unified in how they see it. There are even resleeving facilities in the Republic.

>>53310918
>Could the society of EP design a process for turning you into a different morph? Sure.
By all accounts, it already seems to exist. Genefixing into a Splicer from a Flat is no different to being genefixed from a Splicer into an Exalt.

>But it would be expensive, and probably incompatible with every other morph in existence and potentially (particularly in the case of flats) even other individuals of the same morph.
Other than it being expensive, which is true for all morphs and no doubt a reason why commoners don't resleeve much, I have seen literally no reason why this would be true. There'd be no genetic difference between a vat-grown Menton and a genefixed Menton.

>>53310897
>to bioconservatives, that's too artificial.
Depends on the level of biocon. The Jovian Republic as a whole doesn't appear to be above it at all, even though the technology becomes increasingly restricted. Flats are Threat Scale 1, Splicers are Threat Scale 2, in terms of resleeving. I would expect more advanced to be Threat Scale 4 and above, meaning that access would be more and more restricted.

If you're on Jove, I would not expect to be allowed genefixing into Exalts to be permitted for people outside of important government positions, and Furies or Olympians would only ever be a thing for high-level spec-ops or elite soldiers respectively, and I imagine that there's the odd Menton working for science divisions, and so on.

But those are just my own loose guesses.

>>53311018
>Not quite. You also fail to notice that resleeving is legal in the Jovian Republic.
Source? I haven't seen anything about this other than that it's done by high-level operatives and officials, for obvious reasons.

Anything above Splicer is restricted, so with genefixing being a socially accepted option, what would you even resleeve into?

>>53311111
>By all accounts, it already seems to exist. Genefixing into a Splicer from a Flat is no different to being genefixed from a Splicer into an Exalt.
It's completely different. Splicers are born when simple prenatal tweaks are provided to a flat fetus. That's the only "convertible" morph in the setting. Anything past splicer requires such a unique embryonic cocktail that the womb of a different transhuman clade probably wouldn't be able to carry it to term.

These aren't just bodies. Everything past splicer is a precision instrument. Not really nature, mostly design.

>There'd be no genetic difference between a vat-grown Menton and a genefixed Menton.
Genefixes are simple patches to the human genome. Only splicers can be made via genefixes. Other morphs aren't necessarily limited to natural human DNA, and the human womb probably couldn't handle transgenics.

>>53311026
>Talking about the children, chief.
Oh, yeah, well, of course they'd probably be considered as having souls, but imagine the social stigma of having born to soulless parents, is what I meant. And yet they'd generally occupy high positions in government. It all gets pretty silly; I find it a lot more plausible and reasonable that genefixing is a thing, than that every non-flat non-splicer in Jove was born that way, yet still maintain the general consensus that people like their parents are literally soulless.

>>53311150
>Source? I haven't seen anything about this other than that it's done by high-level operatives and officials, for obvious reasons.
Rimward, page 36.

There are only four forbidden technologies in the Jovian Republic. Infomorphs, AGI, ASI and forking. Everything else is permitted under controlled circumstances.

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>>53311192
>It's completely different. Splicers are born when simple prenatal tweaks are provided to a flat fetus. That's the only "convertible" morph in the setting. Anything past splicer requires such a unique embryonic cocktail that the womb of a different transhuman clade probably wouldn't be able to carry it to term.

All of that sounds awfully concrete and specific, rather than reasonable argument based on available information, and in the interest of hashing this out, I'm going to have to ask for a source, because I haven't read anything suggesting anything near that, whereas there's a lot of circumstantial evidence to the contrary.

>>53311192
>Only splicers can be made via genefixes.
Again, very specific claims. Source?

>Other morphs aren't necessarily limited to natural human DNA, and the human womb probably couldn't handle transgenics.
Depends a lot on the morph. I've only ever argued for human morphs here. Again, I'm going to want a source, because it sounds very specific and clear-cut, whereas I've seen nothing to suggest it. This line of arguing would also suggest that individual human morphs are incompatible, such as an Olympian procreating with a Menton, but I've seen nothing to suggest that.

>>53311318
>Again, very specific claims. Source?
The books. The only morph ever mentioned to be a genefixed human is splicers.

Name any other mention of genefixes making morphs from flats outside of splicers. Please.

>>53311219
>Rimward, page 36.
>These tools typically require high priced licenses or special government dispensation, which generally limit them to the wealthy, specialist labs, and high-ranking government and military officials. These tech privileges are usually laden with monitoring provisions, regular check-ups, and limited period renewal clauses, to ensure that no one goes off the radar with anything.

This seems to be perfectly in line with what I'm saying. Sure, you can resleeve if you've got a permit for it, but since you can be genefixed into a splicer and that's the only thing you're going to be able to resleeve into without additional permits, what are you going to resleeve into?

It's not at all like abortion in the 70's. The only ones allowed to resleeve are people with the permits to do so, under special circumstances. Saying that it would be merely amoral to do so implies that people would be issued a resleeve permit and permission to resleeve into a biomorph relevant to their field of expertise, but then use it or refuse it based on morality alone. Can you imagine Jovian officials that would actively resleeve and attend functions as literally another body?

No, I find it a lot more plausible that they're allowed to be gradually genefixed as befitting their station, and resleeving being a potential backup option for such individuals that have the permits to do so, into biomorphs relative to the biomorphs the have been genefixed into, or, under special circumstances, people that simply need more than one biomorph to resleeve into - special operatives comes to mind, rather than officials and functionaries, in that regard, making what would be considered the ultimate sacrifice (by many).

>>53311318
>Depends a lot on the morph. I've only ever argued for human morphs here.
Wrong. You've been arguing for transhuman morphs. The only human morphs are flats and splicers.

Transhuman ≠ human

>This line of arguing would also suggest that individual human morphs are incompatible, such as an Olympian procreating with a Menton, but I've seen nothing to suggest that.
Not necessarily, but it also doesn't suggest that the procreation will work naturally either. I doubt that the designers of furies, mentons or exalts were all that focused on their procreation capabilities (those organs make engineering sacrifices, you know).

>>53311523
>This seems to be perfectly in line with what I'm saying. Sure, you can resleeve if you've got a permit for it, but since you can be genefixed into a splicer and that's the only thing you're going to be able to resleeve into without additional permits, what are you going to resleeve into?
Genefixes happen prenatally. If your parents are flats, the only way you can be born a splicer is if they can afford the genefixes while you're in the womb. Otherwise, you're a flat.

That said, that same page mentions that uplifts and even synths dot the populace of the Republic. They just have to deal with a lot of bullshit and abuse. I think you're conflating the rarity of resleeving with the social backlash against it. Resleeving is uncommon, but more than anything it's persecuted socially.

>>53311467
>The books. The only morph ever mentioned to be a genefixed human is splicers.
So you have absolutely nothing else from the books that suggests that you can't, or anything that supports the very specific claims you made, such as "Splicers are born when simple prenatal tweaks are provided to a flat fetus" or that "That is the ONLY 'convertible' morph in the setting", etc?

>Name any other mention of genefixes making morphs from flats outside of splicers. Please.
My arguments have always built on what is reasonable and what can be inferred based on what's described in the books. You were the one making concrete claims.

I know of no specific mention of genefixes from splicers to other human morphs, which was always what I was referring to - not morphs from flats outside of splicers. This doesn't mean that it's not a thing; it is just that based on what we know, I find it ridiculous that it wouldn't be.

>>53311608

The only morphs explicitly regarded as infertile are pods.

>>53311663
>So you have absolutely nothing else from the books that suggests that you can't, or anything that supports the very specific claims you made, such as "Splicers are born when simple prenatal tweaks are provided to a flat fetus" or that "That is the ONLY 'convertible' morph in the setting", etc?
That's right in the core book, page 139:

"Splicers are genefixed humans. Their genome has been cleansed of hereditary diseases and optimized for looks and health, but has not otherwise been substantially upgraded."
That's all a genefix is, yo. They give you the definition right there.

>My arguments have always built on what is reasonable and what can be inferred based on what's described in the books.
So was I, but you were demanding I prove a negative.

You can't prove something doesn't exist. What evidence would I show you of something's absence?

>I know of no specific mention of genefixes from splicers to other human morphs
Then there's your evidence that it doesn't happen.

>>53311752
>The only morphs explicitly regarded as infertile are pods.
Yes, other morphs are fertile. That does not mean that they are capable of crossbreeding. And even if they are, the child could very well be a sterile hybrid or suffer from incompatibilities.

I think people really underestimate the amount of differences that must exist between two transhuman morphs. They aren't just slightly different humans. They are performance bodies engineered for their roles.

The engineering in a ghost is vastly different from the engineering in a fury, even if both of them have two arms, two legs, a nose and tits.

>>53311219
>. Infomorphs, AGI, ASI and forking. Everything else is permitted under controlled circumstances.

And even AGI and forking are allowed in "black ops". One of Jovian leaders is a fork.

>>53311810
Hell, it's not even like breeding two different kinds of dogs. The changes that have occurred are decidedly unnatural and probably less suited for easy blending than the natural kind of genetic engineering.

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>>53311608
>Wrong. You've been arguing for transhuman morphs. The only human morphs are flats and splicers.

Semantics. I thought it extremely obvious that I was referring to all "human-type" morphs, since I always attempted to clarify this by referring to morphs such as Olympians and Furies. If there's a level of granularity to biomorphs that I wasn't aware of, I apologize.

But since you're again so concrete in your claim, source?

>Not necessarily

Yes, necessarily. If you say that they become incompatible from advanced genefixing, they would also become incompatible if vat-grown, yet I've seen nothing to suggest this.

>but it also doesn't suggest that the procreation will work naturally either. I doubt that the designers of furies, mentons or exalts were all that focused on their procreation capabilities (those organs make engineering sacrifices, you know).

Possible, but again, I haven't seen anything suggesting that. As far as I'm aware, all human-type biomorphs are compatible. This may very well be wrong, but it seems like something that would've been covered somewhere.

>Genefixes happen prenatally. If your parents are flats, the only way you can be born a splicer is if they can afford the genefixes while you're in the womb. Otherwise, you're a flat.
Again, more and more concrete claims with no leeway, with no backing that I know of. Source?

>That said, that same page mentions that uplifts and even synths dot the populace of the Republic.
Fair point, but one has to ask oneself how the fuck someone gets a permit to sleeve into a synth or an uplift, and why one would use it. But fair point, there would be different things than a Splicer to sleeve into, I'll concede that - but not the higher-class restricted biomorphs that were actually relevant.

>>53307077
> ...since the writers are what they are, it is more important to them that they send the right signals than it is to write something that doesn't come across as trite, dehumanizing or uninspiring garbage.

You just summed up everything wrong with a lot of modern fiction.

>>53311908
>But since you're again so concrete in your claim, source?
Terminology guide in the core book.

That said, I will correct myself. The exalt is defined as "Genetically enhanced humans (between genefixed and transhumans). AKA genefreaks, ascended, elevated." So technically they are also human, albeit beyond natural by that point.

Every other biomorph in that glossary is labeled a transhuman. That's more than human, to the point that genetic compatibility starts to wane (and to be honest, you wouldn't want a flat donor organ if you were in an exalt, even if it is human; it's practically a downgrade).

>If you say that they become incompatible from advanced genefixing, they would also become incompatible if vat-grown, yet I've seen nothing to suggest this.
Procreation is a largely untouched subject in the setting, and almost everything is left to speculation. But if I were to make my statement I'd agree... I doubt a natural birth would work for any transhuman hybrid. An exowombed hybrid might be carried to full term (thanks to the controlled environment and precise hormone control), but whether the offspring will be healthy will likely vary wildly from hybrid to hybrid.

tl;dr: no clue, but I'm guessing it's a gamble.

>Fair point, but one has to ask oneself how the fuck someone gets a permit to sleeve into a synth or an uplift, and why one would use it.
Dysmorphia, silly. They'd rather face the persecution than not be in their own skin.

Alternately, because it's all they can afford.

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>>53311758
>"Splicers are genefixed humans. Their genome has been cleansed of hereditary diseases and optimized for looks and health, but has not otherwise been substantially upgraded."

That's.. that has nothing to do with what you said or what I wanted sourced.

>you were demanding I prove a negative.

No I wasn't. You were making very adamant claims as fact. I never claimed fact, I was making reasonable extrapolation based on available evidence, arguing what was possible or likely. I never said that something was explicit, at any point.

>Then there's your evidence that it doesn't happen.
You say this immediately after arguing regarding evidence of absence. Have I been unwittingly pulled into the world championship of mental gymnastics? Seriously, what the fuck?

>>53311834
Everything is legal in the Jovian Republic, as long as you have the right permits. Some of these permits are basically isolated exceptions, but still. I think that it's mentioned somewhere that Firewall considers the Jovian Republic relatively safe, but that they keep stuff around in top-secret labs and facilities that should be destroyed, and that that presents X-Risks.

>>53311837
Depends on which morphs we're talking about, and what changes. Most of the human-like morphs do not appear to be substantially different to the point where breeding would be unlikely, certainly not more than a Pug and a Wolf.

Mentons, Neanderthals, Furies and Hibernoids are probably all fine, but if we're talking Hulders, Remade and Greys, we're in a different territory altogether.

>>53312128
>That's.. that has nothing to do with what you said or what I wanted sourced.
I told you that genefixes couldn't turn you into anything but a splicer from a flat. You claimed you could be "genefixed into a menton". This source proves that wrong.

>You say this immediately after arguing regarding evidence of absence.
There are no joke emojies. And no emojis on 4chan.

>>53312128
>Have I been unwittingly pulled into the world championship of mental gymnastics?

Welcome to 4chan my dude

How do I play as an infomorph??

I like the setting, and this updated rules might make me try running it again, but there was a problem for me back in the old days when I tried it. I, as a GM felt that there was too much to plan for, and too many options that players could act upon. It was like the reverse of choice anxiety. How have others dealt with that in there games?

>>53314690

I mean, that's mostly just getting better at improv, which just comes from practice and familiarity.

If I had to put it in words, try maybe more coming up with problems more than solutions? Obviously, you will probably naturally think of some ways to solve issues, but it may be easier if you just come up with an obstacle and then let players try and solve it through their own knowledge and methodology and just try to respond to their input with verisimilitude.

Instead of plotting out the entire layout of cameras, security guards, locks, w/e for them to like, get something they need out of an apartment and what happens when they do this or that - just hand them the problem, let them figure out how to attack it and respond based on the internal logic of the game.

>>53314690
Worst case scenario is players come up with a solution you didn't think of. Solution? Maybe throw in a wrench, but let them have the win. Try harder next time.

>>53277704
>when those that knew and understood the term would challenge any such co-opting
they would not, since doing so would end up with either a bullet in the back of their head or with them in a labor camp.

>>53305886
>Orion's Arm
Space magic furfag setting.

>>53315952
At least Orion's Arm makes some attempt and maintaining causality, unlike EP.

People say that genes aren't important in the setting, but isn't that untrue? Aren't genetics supposed to be a big deal?

>>53316057
Genes are like the parts of your car, or the plumbing in your house. They're important in that you need them to live your life, but theoretically you could get them fixed or replaced at any time.

>>53316165
>They're important in that you need them to live your life, but theoretically you could get them fixed or replaced at any time.
Nah, that's organs.

Genes are your microcode, the data underlying your hardware. It's coded at birth, and tailors your body through the growth process. In order for changing genes to be useful, you'd need to start the growth process again.

>>53316214
You can switch bodies. You can do it over radio. Your objection is invalid.

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>>53316260
Hell, you can get genemods without switching morphs if you hop in a tank for a couple weeks can't you?

>>53316260
>You can switch bodies. You can do it over radio. Your objection is invalid.
It's encoded in DNA, dork. Just because tech is impressive doesn't mean it's miraculous. You can't restore a morph-turned-corpse (and before you say it, no you aren't a corpse if you're a severed head with medichines).

>>53316665
The radio sends DNA?

>>53316782
Oh, I thought you were saying that you can change genes with radio waves.

>>53317056
Please read the setting.

>>53317105
Be more clear. Your statement about switching bodies had nothing to do with gene-editing.