Sources of inspiration | Eclipse Phase

Sat, 2009-09-05 19:24

#2

HardSix

I need to go back through my

I need to go back through my John Varley sci-fi (especially Steel Beach, Golden Globe, and Ophiuchi Hotline) for more ideas, but right off the top of my cortical stack:

How about a transhuman enclave consisting entirely of morphs based upon a single transhuman ideal, ala The Barbie Murders?

Sat, 2009-09-05 19:27

#3

HardSix

Stross too

I also need to read Saturn's Children by Charles Stross, but based on what I saw in previews, there should be some hooks worth plundering (argh!) in there too.

Tue, 2009-09-08 12:21

#4

browwiw

I have to mention my very

I have to mention my very first experience with cyberpunk way back when I was 13: Ghost Rider 2099 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Rider_2099 It was my first introduction to the idea of digitized consciousness living on in a robotic body. Too bad the writing and art fell apart halfway through the run. I was kind of hyped to see "Iron Man: Hypervelocity" mentioned in EP's reading list, too. I loved that mini-series.

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"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Sun, 2010-01-03 03:22

#5

Young Freud Young Freud's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

I'm reading through the core book's listing of inspirations and references, and I'm notice a lot of absences. No works of James Tiptree nee Alice Sheldon, like [i]The Girl Who Plugged In[/i] and [i]The Screwfly Solution[/i], which, considering [b]Uzumaki[/b] and [b]District 9[/b] seemed to inspired some variants of the Exsurgent virus, a variant that transforms sexual urges into aggression wouldn't too far out of the realm of possibility). No Tsutomu Nihei works, like [i]Blame![/i], [i]NOiSE[/i], or [i]Biomega[/i], all of which have eerie posthuman creatures running around in them (that and the Silicon Creatures in [i]Blame![/i] and [i]NOiSE[/i] are straight up Ex-humans). Adam Warren's [i]Iron Man: Hypervelocity[/i] gets mentioned, but there's an even more apt book he did for Marvel called [i]Livewires[/i], which has nanoconstructed, role-optimized androids on suicide missions against super-science projects and using weapons confiscated from said projects, like mollywire guns and pyronanos clusters. Also, his [i]Dirty Pair[/i] run is also pretty well-known for it's transhuman and posthuman themes. A couple books deal with brainchips swapping bodies; [i]Dangerous Acquaintances[/i] has Shasti, a superagent who has 4 optimized personalities in her head; [i]Sim Hell[/i] has flashback simulations to the Nanoclysm, a Grey Goo scenario that forced the evacuation of Earth and rebellion in the outer worlds; [i]Run From The Future[/i] is probably the most transhuman, with a giant anarchist collective in a world tree planet, bioships, art terrorists, posthuman separatists, "living leather" suits, etc. Also, Posthuman Studios mention [i]Cybergeneration[/i], but no [i]Cyberpunk V3.0[/i]? Nice slight there, guys :stare:

Sun, 2010-01-03 16:26

#6

browwiw

Re: Sources of inspiration

I'm currently listening to Richard K Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs trilogy on audiobook (the only way I get to read anymore) and enjoying it a great deal. I'm still considering how to best represent Envoy conditioning in the EP rules...

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"Let’s face it: Most of us are just here to shoot stormtroopers." - Gary M. Sarli

Sun, 2010-01-03 18:08

#7

DelarnLeviathan DelarnLeviathan's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

The whole art of Tsutomu Nihei. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Nihei

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Wed, 2010-01-06 21:59

#8

Sepherim

Re: Sources of inspiration

I missed Solaris, the novel. The film was listed, but not the novel, and i find it a great inspiration about how to create really alien like thoughts and creatures.

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Sun, 2010-01-10 10:56

#9

Bloodwork

Re: Sources of inspiration

I use the body-hopping of Dollhouse as one of my inspirations. Surrogates is good too.

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That which doesn't kill you usually succeeds on the second attempt.

Thu, 2010-01-14 16:31

#10

terje

Re: Sources of inspiration

If you only read one book to get inspiration for your EP game read "Newton's Wake" by scottish sf writer Ken MacLeod (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_Wake:_A_Space_Opera) its got a backstory where military AI's aggressively upload unwilling humans and then create stargates in order to disapear out into the galaxy. The story features a lot of gate crashing, investigating weird post-singularity AI-tech, uploading copies of yourself before going on dangerous missions etc. If there was an EP novel it would be this book. Other nice reads with a transhumanist leaning are Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling and the Revelation Space trilogy by Alastair Reynolds.

Mon, 2010-03-08 16:59

#11

Wapa

Re: Sources of inspiration

Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix cannot be recommended enough. Gateway by Fred Pohl is also perfect for gatecrashers. Also to go in the horror direction, H.P. Lovecraft's everything, especially for doing Brinker and Outer System stories, since "Horrible Things in the middle of nowhere" are pretty much what Lovecraft's plots boil down to. For some reason, the Illuminatus! trilogy strikes me as being really easy to adapt into an Eclipse Phase campaign, but that makes no sense.

Tue, 2010-03-09 21:05

#12

nick012000 nick012000's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Wapa wrote:
Also to go in the horror direction, H.P. Lovecraft's everything, especially for doing Brinker and Outer System stories, since "Horrible Things in the middle of nowhere" are pretty much what Lovecraft's plots boil down to.

That and "the protagonist was the product of miscegenation all along". Translating that into Eclipse Phase would probably be a reveal at the end of the adventure that they'd been infected by the Exsurgent Virus all along.

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+1 r-Rep , +1 @-rep

Wed, 2010-03-10 14:45

#13

King Shere King Shere's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Animes made by Madhouse & in particular Satoshi Kon "Magnetic Rose" "Paranoia Agent" "Paprika" & the novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui The Tvtrope wiki, is one of my major inspiration places.

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Thu, 2010-03-11 04:47

#14

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Walter John William's "Aristoi" has some pretty good descriptions of the lifestyle of a seriously enhanced high society character. The Golden Age trilogy by John C. Wright ("The Golden Age", "The Phoenix Exultant" and "The Golden Transcendence") has plenty of details for a seriously advanced society. I think the anime Planetes might give a sense of the life among the original colonists.

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Mon, 2010-03-22 23:51

#15

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Moonlight Mile is a good inspiration, too. I just watched all 26 episodes of IG Productions' and Shirow Masamune's REAL DRIVE (RD Sennou Chousashitsu). the Metal is a good approach of Infolife, I'd say. or at least of the Mesh. Beside, (SPOILER ALERT!!) when the Professor Kushima chats with Minamo while she's waiting for her cyberbrain compatibility (episode 23) while using a borrowed synthetic body screamed EP to me (Synth morph, anyone?). They way the cyberbrain is implanted (a transchip plus a network of nanotubes) sounded a lot like cortical stack to me. AI like Holon (and her miscelanious twins based on Secretary of the small insular state) let's not forget Caprica, and the case of Zoe Graystone stuck in the U87 prototype, and Tamara Adama roaming New Cap City as infomorph (kinda, more like a posthume Fork, if you ask me. For a VERY cool exemple of toroid shaped habitat; MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM UNICORN (aka Gundam UC) The plot itself, with some twicking, could be attapted to EP replace Zion by the TITANs, and the One Year War (UC-1) by the Fall. At some time, they even mention sleeves! (aka our morphs) you'll just have to downsize the robot part, though. but it has really cool ideas to pick up episode 1 has been released world wide. Episode two will come in about six months (gosh, that means it'll take 3 frakking years to complete the entire mini-series!)

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Tue, 2010-03-23 01:11

#16

Decivre

Re: Sources of inspiration

If I were to recommend any specific material, I might recommend Darker Than Black for inspiration on how to handle asyncs: it deals with people who acquire superhuman abilities, at the cost of their humanity. Blue Gender is a great anime that showcases how humanity might react to losing their homeworld. In it, the human race lives in space habitats and sends down people to salvage resources from Earth, while defending themselves from the seemingly alien beasts that have conquered it.

Spoiler: Highlight to view

Much like with the TITANs, we created them.

Lastly, while Avatar has great examples of transhuman technology like resleeving, Cameron's next work Battle Angel is a much more interesting and deeper dive into the world of transhumanity. It's inspiring manga, Battle Angel Alita, is considered a classic that I'd highly recommend.

Quincey Forder wrote:
let's not forget Caprica, and the case of Zoe Graystone stuck in the U87 prototype, and Tamara Adama roaming New Cap City as infomorph (kinda, more like a posthume Fork, if you ask me.

They are more like advanced search engines that base their personality and memories on internet data collected about a specific person they are trying to mimic... a sort of "doppelganger AGI system", rather than a fork.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Sat, 2010-03-27 19:25

#17

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

I just found another inspiration: Repomen. I could see this happening in moderate bioconservative habitats that forbids resleeving but allows cybernetic therapeutic replacement. but such implants are awfully expensive... The film was better than I had anticipated and filled with some humorous (if you like black, cynical humor).

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[center] Q U I N C E Y ^_*_^ F O R D E R [/center] Remember The Cant! [img]http://tinyurl.com/h8azy78[/img] [img]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg205/tachistarfire/theeye_fanzine_us...

Sun, 2010-03-28 04:26

#18

Decivre

Re: Sources of inspiration

Quincey Forder wrote:
I just found another inspiration: Repomen. I could see this happening in moderate bioconservative habitats that forbids resleeving but allows cybernetic therapeutic replacement. but such implants are awfully expensive... The film was better than I had anticipated and filled with some humorous (if you like black, cynical humor).

What I think would be more interesting would be a sort of "implant police", which would forcibly remove forbidden implants from people discovered to have them. They would be much like the repomen of the aforementioned movie, but without money being the issue. Combination body-mutilators and police officers, they would be especially feared in the most bioconservative locations, where all body modifications are seen as anathema.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Tue, 2010-03-30 23:26

#19

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

I'd hate to live in that Junta, for sure! I was always drooling in front of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex and 2nd Gig, wishing I could have a whole cyberbody of my own... Anyway I wonder if Firewall would try to recruit Forest Whitaker's or Jude Law's character loved the surgeon kid! LAw: "wait... SHE is going to do the surgery?!" *points at the girl* mother :"why, yeah. She's been doing that since she's five!" girl expertly slices the leg with scalpel, and spread the cut Neotenic medic anyone?

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Tue, 2010-04-20 08:46

#20

GJD

Re: Sources of inspiration

Just re-read Peter F Hamilton's Greg Mandel series (Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder and the Nano Flower). Very good reads. Mandel himself is an example of how to do Psi without being cheezy and some of the plot ideas and tech are very good, especially in the final book - great example of TITAN and.... other tech. G.

Thu, 2010-04-22 03:36

#21

Smokeskin

Re: Sources of inspiration

Meh, the Greg Mandel series are only soso. Ok reads, but a bit cheesy. Night's Dawn trilogy is awesome, as is Fallen Dragon. And whatever you do, however much you liked the above from Hamilton, don't ever, ever get any of his newer stuff. It is so downright awful you can't believe it. It reads like a cross between bad scifi shows and cheap porn scripts.

Thu, 2010-04-22 08:49

#22

GJD

Re: Sources of inspiration

Smokeskin wrote:
Meh, the Greg Mandel series are only soso. Ok reads, but a bit cheesy. Night's Dawn trilogy is awesome, as is Fallen Dragon. And whatever you do, however much you liked the above from Hamilton, don't ever, ever get any of his newer stuff. It is so downright awful you can't believe it. It reads like a cross between bad scifi shows and cheap porn scripts.

Well, horses for courses. Fallen Dragon I agree, but I just can't get on with the Nights Dawn stuff. I've tried two or three times and it just hasn't taken. I have Pandora's Star, but not started on it yet. G.

Sun, 2010-06-13 17:20

#23

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

I just discovered a new anime that would make a really great inspiration for EP GENESHAFT it's about transhumanism. Set in the early 23rd Century. Humanity's reproduction is tightly controlled through genetics. Only one male for nine females, discarding greed and love emotions. An alien artifact has shown up, a huge 500 kilometers wide ring, an a team has been asigned to inspect it and acert its threat level [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clx14854PlU&feature=related[/url]

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[center] Q U I N C E Y ^_*_^ F O R D E R [/center] Remember The Cant! [img]http://tinyurl.com/h8azy78[/img] [img]http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg205/tachistarfire/theeye_fanzine_us...

Sun, 2010-07-04 22:45

#24

Dredj

Re: Sources of inspiration

I'm watching an anime right now called Ergo Proxy. I'm not too far into it, but it seems it could have some ideas for EP. This is an interesting Hard SF site that could apply to many thing in EP: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/ And there's some interesting art at this site for some visual inspiration: http://www.deviantart.com/

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Mon, 2010-07-05 03:15

#25

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

A visual source of inspiration: http://vimeo.com/10531753 , http://vimeo.com/8534127 and http://vimeo.com/11070249 This is how I imagine a TITAN or exsurgent device to look. Another good inspiration is Alastair Reynold's novelette "Diamond Dogs". Actually, most of his writings are crammed with ideas that can be reused in EP.

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Mon, 2010-07-05 13:40

#26

nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

The movie Alien. I seem to recollect Event Horizon and Pandorum were good, if only for 'awesome ship design and crazy and space' (which both seem to be staples here). The game Dead Space. The book the Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson. edit: I'll also add, Dr McNinja's latest adventure, 'An Army of One' (and debatably, most of the other ones as well). Quality speculative fiction, there. Post Edit: I'll also add, in the non-fiction section, John Robb's work. You can read a lot of it at his blog, here: http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/ A lot of work, especially about the transition to 5GW, decentralization of the economy, 3D prototyping, etc.

Wed, 2010-07-14 21:12

#27

Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Works by Peter Watts(Starfish, Blindsight).

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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]

Sat, 2010-07-17 16:14

#28

Kirk Quasar Kirk Quasar's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Chello! Nothing by Norman Spinrad listed. I find that interesting. He has had a bit of an influence on the dark future genre.

—

“As a base of operations, you cannot beat a f---ing saloon.” Al Swearengen, Deadwood "Two lessons, my son. First, watch behind you. Second, count your shots - four bullets for one man, that's a waste." Lee Van Cleef, “Death Rides a Horse”

Wed, 2010-07-21 16:34

#29

The Doctor The Doctor's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

A couple of music videos by the Cruxshadows have given me ideas for adventures (in particular, [u]Immortal[/u] and [u]Cruelty[/u]). The movie [u]Revenge of the Nerds[/u] makes me want to run an adventure with a Firewall team comprised of students at the Titanian Autonomous University with far too much time on their hands. Also, and I'm not sure why, the book [u]Grey Hat Python[/u] by Justin Seitz makes me think of mercurial AGI hackers plugging away inside the Mesh. Going to a hacker con (I was at The Next HOPE last weekend) is great for story ideas. The panel done by some pentesters who also run with [url=http://toool.nl]TOOOL[/url] had some great black op-type stories. I highly recommend keeping an eye out for footage of their presentation (Extreme Lockpicking) and watching it for ideas.

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Sun, 2010-07-25 22:07

#30

Duke Rollo Duke Rollo's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

A bit of an unconventional source... I'm a second life player. If you're not familiar with second life, you should check it out... if for no other reason than to think of it as one of the very first simulspaces. www.secondlife.com There is an area in SL called "Insilico". Insilico is a role-play area where the back story is that humanity defiled earth and now lives in giant orbital space stations. Sound familiar? If you don't want to go to the trouble of creating a SL avatar and looking at it, there are a few youtube vids for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU35StGqxN4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72qMj0qqa_4 If you look at this and think that it's not impressive (which I doubt you will) just remember that everything in second life is created by users. And when I say "created by" I mean from basic geometic shapes. Everything you see in the vid was once a simple cube appearing to made made of wood (or was hammered into another shape in photoshop). And honestly, the vid doesn't do it justice. If you create an av and go check it out... just walking around the place can be pretty amazing. VERY Eclipse Phase in it's feeling... especially with avatars that can look like nearly anything.

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-Duke Rollo

Mon, 2010-07-26 12:16

#31

GreyBrother GreyBrother's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Jeez, and now i thought nothing will ever get me into Second Life... though, this won't do it too, but at least i considered it for a minute. But it looks really better than the "other" things i've seen on SL.

Tue, 2010-07-27 16:52

#32

Duke Rollo Duke Rollo's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Without going too off topic to talk about SL... Insilico (the area I posted above) is five regions out of a few hundred thousand. I've been playing SL for a long time and I've yet to see anything that compares to it. The closest is when someone creates a replica of something in the real world. But that doesn't help us with Eclipse Phase. The only other cool thing about SL that pertains to Eclipse Phase is that you can think of it as a very crude simulspace... Sometimes when I've been reading EP and go into SL, I can't help but thinking of the other people I see there as infomorphs. I could easily see people in the EP world referring to WoW and SL as the precursors to modern simulspace.... in the same way that a horse and buggy is the precursor to a porche sports car.

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-Duke Rollo

Wed, 2010-07-28 01:48

#33

Decivre

Re: Sources of inspiration

Duke Rollo wrote:
Without going too off topic to talk about SL... Insilico (the area I posted above) is five regions out of a few hundred thousand. I've been playing SL for a long time and I've yet to see anything that compares to it. The closest is when someone creates a replica of something in the real world. But that doesn't help us with Eclipse Phase. The only other cool thing about SL that pertains to Eclipse Phase is that you can think of it as a very crude simulspace... Sometimes when I've been reading EP and go into SL, I can't help but thinking of the other people I see there as infomorphs. I could easily see people in the EP world referring to WoW and SL as the precursors to modern simulspace.... in the same way that a horse and buggy is the precursor to a porche sports car.

To an extent. Simulspace borrows a multitude of technologies: persistent shared worlds, virtual reality playback, and even messaging systems are likely key factors in the design of simulspaces. Hell, I think if there's any one thing that might be key to the birth of simulspace, it may very well be tabletop roleplay like EP itself, as well as LARP and casual roleplay.

—

Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]

Wed, 2010-07-28 02:39

#34

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Apropos simulspaces and inspiration, I think Inception has plenty of material. The whole idea of "dream hacking" seems to be right up the alley for EP - not to mention the idea of subconscious security. Maybe a new positive trait? Militarized subconscious, 10 CP: through training and psychosurgery the character has a subconscious that tends to detect and react to any outside influences. This makes attempts of infiltration, psychosurgery, suggestion or hyponosis harder (-20 to rolls). The downside is that if infiltration manages a critical success it can turn parts of the subconscious against the character, for example triggering paranoia or internal conflicts. The film also has some gorgeous visuals of how simulspaces could look, nested simulspaces, as well as a demonstration of how a 60x realtime simulspace might behave relative to the real world.

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Fri, 2011-09-02 16:01

#35

Herbo

Re: Sources of inspiration

Sorry for the thread necro...er...I mean resleeving. I just figured I'd reduce, re-use, and recycle a useful thread for people like me that are just now getting into EP. For my nascent EP campaign, I have mined a few ideas from the Avery Cates books by Jeff Somers. They trend much more closely to the cyberpunk genre than transhumanism but there are visual depictions, and themes I have decided to import for my version of EP. The writing style is action oriented, pulpy and fun to read (from my point of view of course, and your mileage is sure to vary). Additionally there are some plot scenarios relevant to the EP universe featuring cyborg bodies, uploaded human minds, future tech jargon that can be of use to a GM, weaponry descriptions, "techie" equipment and some 1st person depictions of a grim earth future through the eyes of a baseline human.

Fri, 2011-09-02 16:23

#36

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Isn't that young adult books? If you go into that vein, for Earth survivors, the excellent Hunger Games. At first, I read (or rather listened to the audio book of) it to humor a friend of mine who was continuously gushing about Peeta, Gayle, the 12 District, and so on... Well, I was surprised, and in a good way. I was expecting some Twilight-esque crap, and I found myself reading my way into that post-apo, dystopian future where kids are forced to fight in those games part reality show part Battle Royale. For me, the potential for an Earth survivor theme was obvious It's brutal, twisted (well as much as a YA rated book can be!) and will rivet you to the pages The movie of the first book is being shot as we speak, and features some big names like Donald Sutherland (as the President, I presume). What really pleases me is the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. Lawrence did a bang up job as Mystique in X-Men First Class, so she can play that juvenile tough cookie girl and make it great.

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Fri, 2011-09-02 16:48

#37

BlackJaw

Re: Sources of inspiration

I'm running a entire Firewall arc based on this: Skin horse goes to mars, Escape Pod 212 http://escapepod.org/2009/08/20/ep212-skinhorse-goes-to-mars/ I did a one off mission based on this, and I'm considering a follow up His Master's Voice, Escape Pod 227 http://escapepod.org/2009/12/03/ep227-his-masters-voice/

Fri, 2011-09-02 17:35

#38

Herbo

Re: Sources of inspiration

Quincey Forder wrote:
Isn't that young adult books?

Not that I know of? They aren't shelved therein. The sheer volume of exploding heads, and f-bombs don't strike me as YA, but I am by no means the final authority on the matter. The plots are certainly simple enough that they could be read and understood by a 7 year old though :). At any rate the titles are: Electric Church, Digital Plague, Eternal Prison, Terminal State and Final Evolution. Of the bunch I'd say Digital Plague is my favorite. Albeit somewhat necessary to get a wikipedia style overview of Electric Church beforehand. Supposedly Columbia Pictures has the rights to a movie adaptation for Mr. Cates, but who knows if anything decent will ever come from that.

Fri, 2011-09-02 18:15

#39

bakho

Re: Sources of inspiration

Also, Richard Morgan's Black Man. Covers themes like genefixed humans (and prejudice toward them), the political future of the world (a fracture of the US of A, a more powerful UN, even more closed up China, etc.), a corp funded colonization of Mars (we could draw parallels between COLIN, the corp doing the colonization, and EP's hypercoprs BF). All in all, I like it so far. The only thing that chaps my ass about it is such a focus on genetics. It's like everybody's and their mothers actions are influenced and dictated by genetics and nothing else. I guess the author wanted to build on the nature vs. nurture debate in a transhumanist setting, but he sometimes takes it overboard for me.

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The only principle t

Wed, 2011-09-28 11:07

#40

The_Ren

Re: Sources of inspiration

Laugh those that will but I find that I'm inspired partly by Schlock Mercenary and partly Ian Douglas's Heritage, Legacy and Inheritance trilogies. Especially the way Heritage Utilizes space travel and how it does so, as well as the way that nano-technology is utilized in the latter half of the series of trilogies (Inheritance). I love the use of nani-bags and powered fullerene clothing in Schlock...the Ominous Hummm doesn't go wrong either. ^_^ If you get the reference +1 Rez for you.

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Wed, 2011-09-28 12:10

#41

Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Terra Nova is a true blessing for GM and players who want to play the Gatecrashing angle. There are lots of stuff to pick up for lots of aspect of the game like a Pandora Gate room, a crasher settlement, Autonomists and plot hooks and some great lines one sounded so much like Gatecrasher's mishapping Taylor: "Most people know I was the first man through the portal. What people don't know is that the men who came behind me didn't show on this end right away. For them, it was just the blink of an eye. For me, one hundred and eighteen days (...)" Does it sound familiar to anybody who played with Pandora Gates?

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Sat, 2011-10-01 06:57

#42

Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

And now, a contrary view: The SF listed so far in this thread all serves very nicely to reinforce or supply the imaginations of players. Once your group now longer goes glassy-eyed at the idea of forking into an accelerated time simulspace of your local area to practice different maneuvers before trying them out in reality--anything from high dives to pick-up lines, to trick shots in combat, I suggest you start pulling inspiration from something other than the science fiction ghetto of your library. In particular, pick fiction that has very strong characters that drive complicated plots. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler serve you best. Read the source material, and if you can get it, read Ron Edwards's "The Sorcerer's Soul." Ignore a lot of the system-specific material and the self-congratulatory sections, and just read on how to use a relationship map. This technique works for William Gibson (Neuromancer), Richard Morgan (Altered Carbon), and Walter Jon Williams (Voice of the Whirlwind). It will work for you too. If you need a metaplot for your campaign, hie thyself to Wikipedia and start reading history articles. Pick a conflict of any kind: military, economic, ideological, religious, academic, or even biological. Pick your Eclipse Phase setting. Map a party from Wikipedia's article to your Eclipse Phase setting. Repeat until all meaningful parties have counterparts. Voila! You now have a campaign arc, proofed out by human history. This technique works for David Weber (Honor Harrington) and Harry Turtledove (everything he writes), among many many others. It will work for you too.

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Sometimes the delete key serves best.

Sun, 2011-10-02 06:56

#43

Rada Ion

Re: Sources of inspiration

Wapa wrote:
Gateway by Fred Pohl is also perfect for gatecrashers.

Agreed. I just finished reading this one, great novel and a great concept for a really tragic ending to a gate crashing episode if someone should want to adapt it for EP.

Wapa wrote:
For some reason, the Illuminatus! trilogy strikes me as being really easy to adapt into an Eclipse Phase campaign, but that makes no sense.

You don't know how many times I have tried to adapt this for a roleplaying game. I think my last attempt was for a Delta Green and or Esoterrorists games, but the project seemed a bit too large to handle with my present gaming group. Should I attempt it again....hmmmm.

Sun, 2011-10-02 08:18

#44

Rada Ion

Re: Sources of inspiration

Duke Rollo wrote:
A bit of an unconventional source... I'm a second life player. If you're not familiar with second life, you should check it out... if for no other reason than to think of it as one of the very first simulspaces. www.secondlife.com There is an area in SL called "Insilico". Insilico is a role-play area where the back story is that humanity defiled earth and now lives in giant orbital space stations. Sound familiar? If you don't want to go to the trouble of creating a SL avatar and looking at it, there are a few youtube vids for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU35StGqxN4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72qMj0qqa_4 If you look at this and think that it's not impressive (which I doubt you will) just remember that everything in second life is created by users. And when I say "created by" I mean from basic geometic shapes. Everything you see in the vid was once a simple cube appearing to made made of wood (or was hammered into another shape in photoshop). And honestly, the vid doesn't do it justice. If you create an av and go check it out... just walking around the place can be pretty amazing. VERY Eclipse Phase in it's feeling... especially with avatars that can look like nearly anything.

I really always had issues with SL because it's graphics have always been quite frankly crap, and a couple years behind everything else, once again IMHO...but this looks pretty good I have to admit. I wonder if anyone has tried a live action (live action in a simulated game?) style EP game that takes place in this SL environment. Could be worth looking into, hell I might even sign on for a SL account if someone were hosting a Firewall game in there. Is the Insilico area large?

Sun, 2011-10-02 08:29

#45

Rada Ion

Re: Sources of inspiration

Duke Rollo wrote:
Without going too off topic to talk about SL... Insilico (the area I posted above) is five regions out of a few hundred thousand. I've been playing SL for a long time and I've yet to see anything that compares to it.

Well when Incarna is fully deployed on Eve Online you will see something that can compete with it and will no doubt look allot better IMO. Walking inside stations and possible later on planet side colonies in over 5000 solar systems, almost photo realistic avatars and the ability to personalize corporate offices, CQ's and all manner of establishments in stations will make it a very unique environment (that is if they don't completely ruin the game with the new microtransaction trend/scourge that no game companies seem to be able to ignore as of late). I should have mentioned Eve Online as inspiration earlier, there are many EP related themes in that game as well. Jump clones, backup clones, sleeper and rogue drone AI, worm holes into unexplored areas of the universe, jump gates (FTL isn't present so each solar system has gates that ships pass through, probably some sort of worm hole tech I guess) and tons of people acting like the worst of the worst in humanity-corporate shills, pirates and many many players who just want to blow your ship up to see it blow up. The only thing that approaches exurgent type threats would be the Sansha incursions (or rogue drones in theory) that have been plaguing New Eden for the last year or so. For anyone in the MMO know the Sansha Incursions are sort of similar to Rifts or the things that go on in WoW's most recent expansion cataclysm.

Thu, 2011-10-06 17:04

#46

OpenInsurgency OpenInsurgency's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Daft Punk's song Robot Rock inspired me to hit on the idea of a nightclub specifically for a synthmorph clientele. And since synthetic morphs are so darned cheap and ubiquitous, it would probably be an ideal meeting place for the seedier elements of a Lunar/Martian/Venusian society.

Fri, 2011-10-07 05:55

#47

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Instructions for a help can be quite inspirational. "A fruit is red. This is good. This is energy for a strong man from above like you. Put it into your body. This is very good. Be a friend to a fruit and it will not find a time to hurt you." I can imagine PCs coming across a colony like this while gatecrashing, maybe on Brak Kodel.

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Fri, 2011-10-07 16:29

#48

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Livewires by Adam Warren (Marvel) might be an interesting inspiration for an action Firewall game. Especially if one takes the idea of a souped-up, renegade AGI team programmed for putting a stop to all secret xrisk-causing projects, including Firewall's own.

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Sat, 2011-10-08 12:24

#49

Tyrnis

Re: Sources of inspiration

Arenamontanus wrote:
Livewires by Adam Warren (Marvel) might be an interesting inspiration for an action Firewall game. Especially if one takes the idea of a souped-up, renegade AGI team programmed for putting a stop to all secret xrisk-causing projects, including Firewall's own.

Thanks for the recc on this series; reading it now. For those that are also fans of Marvel Comics in general, Livewires is available on Marvel's Digital Comics Online (annual fee for access to Marvel's archive of online comics, as opposed to pay per issue.)

Mon, 2012-04-23 16:41

#50

Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

I've found this interesting list of transhumanist books. Some of them are somewhat controversial choices, but the rest is a interesting addition to the list from the core EP: http://www.nanotech-now.com/transhuman-books.htm (I wish the upcoming EP books contained new lists of inspirations the same way the core did. There's so much great stuff we miss...)

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Tue, 2012-05-15 11:43

#51

Gorkamorka Gorkamorka's picture

Re: Sources of inspiration

Here is a good one. Webcomic called Crimson Dark http://www.davidcsimon.com/crimsondark/index.php?view=comic&strip_id=1 It's not really Transhuman, but has lots of good ideas on Space Mobsters, Hypercorp governments and lots and lots of cool sci-fi art.