Would you mind telling everyone which concepts you're having trouble with? And, yes, you can tone it back. The mechanics can be used without the setting, as long as you ignore the names and descriptions in the character creation section.

Part of what I love Eclipse Phase, is its flexibility. You run Noires (Blade Runners though not explicitly stated must totally exist in EP. Especially for the Jovians.), you can run westerns, you can run merchants, you can run indian jones adventures, you can run hard sci high concept, you can run gritty sci fi, you can run Event Horizon, or Short Circuit or Ex Machina. What do you do in a nut shell? Well if you run it from the books default, then you're Agents of Firewall, a conspiracy, an illegal organization working for Transhumanity safety, continuance. This is ten years after the near genocide of Transhumanty from alien super intelegence group known as the TITANs. Transhumanty did not win. TITANs left. Why? The fuck if anyone knows. And they didnt pack a lot of stuff up. They left a lot of very dangerous 'genocide in a box' all over SOL. Firewall, contains, destroyers and sometime studies these 'genocide in a box'. And Firewall can do this like a Scalpel, or sometimes, just with more fire. Killing a hab of a hundred, to save whats left. The Exsurigent Virus, in all its forms seems to be sapient, seems to desire malice, and seems to be malevolent. It can transition from organic to software. It may not be evil. It may be operating on some alien ethics that we cant understand. You can run this with guns a blazing, you can run this as a spy game, you can this as a heist game. Generally groups do a mix. Are there normal humans? I assume like us today? No, not really. They're about. But they're a minority. Majority of the minority live in the Jovian Republic. Everyone else is de facto immortal, everyone else can have their mind digitizes like any computer file. The person, the persona, is no longer also defined by the body. The mind can be in the body it wants to be. In a lot of cases, its in the body it can afford. The internet is integrated into everyone body. Its nearly 'thought tect'. Your Muse, the personification of your exocortex, has been with you for nearly your entire life. Its your laptop, your smart phone, your personal assistant and confident, is your gateway to the Internet.

ok on the subject of travel: Transhumanity mostly uses fusion torch or orion type drives. We can not even approach the lightspeed barrier. The formers have an intertialess drive that know one ine setting knows how it works dominant interplanetary travel method is to upload or mind into a data from it and transmit it to the destination. These transmissions are at the speed of light. the only Known method of FTL travel are the pandora gates. Presumably the titans built these, and they are very very dangerous and we have no idea how they work. these are connected into some sort of galactic network

If you really want spaceships, doing space travel, then what I have done, is set the game in the Belt. The Belt is close enough with lots of little habs and big habs, that you can travel to different "planets" without it takes months and years. Part of Eclipse Phase, is that its a pretty firm Sci Fi setting. Probably the most approachable Hard Sci fi rpg there is right now. It doesnt require you to do calculus. There is some none sense. Like QE Comms, are able to send information faster then C. Pandora Gates. The Exsurigent virus. But yea. The mind has been digitized. Its a computer file. It can be edited like any computer file. So you can learn new skills, forget skills, and have your memories edited. Or be sent to a hab like Email. And like any computer file, it can be copied and you can have two or more of you running around. Sometime folks do this on purpose, other times, its not. Often time, folks will copy themselves, sent that to have a Hab for a meeting or consultation, that copy comes back then they merge the difference or just exchange the information orally then delete the copy.

Also, I'd be curious on people's thoughts about how to simplify nanotech from a conceptual standpoint. The more useful technology to players is nanofabrication, but it's also the more complex of the two. Nanoswarms are simpler (they're just statted like monsters) and more fun/cinematic in many ways. So they're simpler to leave in, but also the less plausible of the two technological applications. Finally, rep... One option is to replace it with something more like Shaowrun's Contacts system. Then you don't have to explain the whole concept of rep networks, scores, etc... Instead, the characters just know somebody, and maybe that somebody knows somebody else on whatever planet they're headed to, if you don't want to be tied down to one place.

Honestly, I highly recommend that the OP check out the Takeshi Kovacs series by Richard K. Morgan: there's a ton of core concept stuff that is clearly lifted straight from those books, and Altered Carbon in particular really helped me wrap my head around this stuff when I was teaching myself the setting a few years ago.

Doppelgangers.

I've had this problem about the game for a long time. I still have some problems with it. One thing that helps are the liberal use of skeumorphs. If you don't know that that is: a skeumorph in science fiction is usually something usually obsolete that is used to bring familiarity to new things. It helps people have more familiarity to the fiction they're being wrapped in. Like the save icon for some programs being a floppy disk, for example. Printed books are still a thing, because reasons. Physical buttons and computer screens still exist despite the fact that most people have smart phones in their brain, because reasons. (Good reasons I'd imagine: why forsake physical interface controls that don't rely on wireless signals to function?) I've always been a much bigger fan of the aesthetic of Dead Space or Alien rather than the squeaky clean, "everything is an iPod" feel of Star Trek, so that's partly another reason why I do that. Also, spaceship travel is more common in my version of EP, far more than egocasting. This is for the simple reason that I like spaceships as a ubiquitous sci-fi trope, way more than just faxing your mind across space. Egocasting's a cool concept don't get me wrong, but it's just not as used for various reasons. You could say I run a version of EP that is more bioconservative but I don't think that's the case. As I've said before on here, I think the books need to have more of everyday, down-to-earth viewpoints of your average Joe or Jane. A lot of viewpoints are from Firewall agents that regularly partake in high stakes, high risk espionage and missions where the survival of thousands or millions rests on their actions, where enemies are around every corner, where morphs are seen as equipment. But does your average transhuman view morphs as merely equipment, or as something like a car, or clothes? I would say no. Dying still sucks. Resleeving is never taken lightly or done casually, unless you're someone who can afford to do so or has to do so for whatever reason. If your average transhuman's stats are anywhere from 10-15, and assuming they don't have a lot of bonuses to their Integration and Alienation tests, they can rack up SV and suffer some nasty modifiers to their actions pretty easily. And since you have to do integration/alienation tests every time you egocast, it's not something that's done regularly. People here have cited Altered Carbon for reading on EP, and I also recommend it 100%. It's important to note that your average person in Altered Carbon likes sticking with a specific morph with specific looks. For example, when a person in the books is resleeved into a body that looks different from her original, it's not something she passes off lightly. It's not just "equipment" or "like a car", it's her *body* that she lost, and it's being used by someone that isn't her. This fact is stressful at best, both for her and her family. The main character has a much more adaptable mind and is specifically trained to be able to quickly adopt to new bodies, but for most people in that book it's not the case. Also, while your mind is software, it's not changed or edited liberally. Skillware augmentations aren't cheap and can only get you so skilled in something. Psychosurgery is not a flawless process, and not everyone likes people mucking about with their ego, even if it's for beneficial purposes. Forking is still very controversial and using alpha forks are frowned upon at best, even in more liberal polities. Note that I'm only still talking about your average person. I'm aware that there's going to be folks whose identity isn't tied to a specific morph or its looks and doesn't mind egocasting everywhere and body hopping at every chance they get,whether it be a robot centaur (whoever thought of that morph, by the way, deserves a goddamn pat on the back) or a sun whale. They might have no problems with regular forking or psychosurgery. Examples: Oversight/Firewall agents, people whose jobs require them to regularly use these technologies (cough takeshi kovacs cough), etc. And since the books often take the view of Firewall agents... Basically, I think it's fair to say that "normal" humans still exist in the setting outside the Jovian Republic/Luna/etc., and the majority of them are in regular splicer morphs, who physically speaking wouldn't be out of place from 21st century Earth, for the most part. Cultural mores have changed, new ideologies have sprung up, and people have the ability to inhabit a body they want to be in. But they're still recognizable as human beans. Uplifts and AGIs might have characteristics or mindsets that mark them as distinctly non-human, but both aren't aliens. You want those, look at the Factors. YMMV, of course. Again this is just how I run it. Which is ironic considering my current character in a game is an AGI who is the lead singer of a Titanian rock band all sleeved in robo-centaurs. And yes, I stole that idea from the Morph Recognition Guide, it was too metal not to! /incoherent rant

I believe the comment in the book of "the majority of transhumanity being sleeved in cases" was a throwaway line from some Firewall sentinel trying to be poetic. I don't recall where it was said, though. According to the Morph Recognition Guide, "splicers make up the majority of transhumanity".