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Earth: B.F. 1

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Wed, 2011-01-05 01:50
#1
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Earth: B.F. 1
What was Earth like, a year before the Fall began? Before the TITANs were even self-aware, yet alone a threat? What was the götterdämmerung like? We have a description in the core book, of course, and in Sunward, but that's not exactly complete. In the core book, Earth is described in terms of what was going on leading up to the Fall but only loosely in how it was already going to hell. Sunward, meanwhile, describes it in the aftermath, which makes sense. I'm happy for both descriptors, but it leaves something keenly missing. Namely, what life was like for the some-eight-billion souls on Earth prior to their mass consumption. Earth was dying before the Fall, but it can't have been all bad. It was still Earth, after all, and ultimately the cradle of transhumanity. It was the cultural centre of existence, and the most familiar place to our minds. So what was Earth like? What were the last days of decadence and hedonism like before the prejudices of biochauvenism took seat in earnest? What was life like before synthmorphs were considered distasteful and a sign of poverty? What did the final city spires of transhumanity look like as they pierced the skies?
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Wed, 2011-01-05 05:24
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Great question. I admit that I have a hard time imagining it. Maybe that is as it should be: by 10 AF this has become a golden age in most people's memory. In Tanzania things were really looking good. The beanstalk was bringing in lots of business, although there was the ongoing quarrels over how much influence the government should have over the Kimanjaro Economic Zone (and how much influence this hypercorp entity had over the government). The ecological restoration projects were going apace, and the nomenclatura inhabitants of Dodoma proudly pointed at the restored Bahi swamp and the Victoria Remediation Projects as great successes. Of course, keeping a lot of people busy in enormous ecology projects also kept employment up and prevented too many from joining the Equatorial Network gift economies. Standards of living were clearly increasing, making people forget about the nasty Rift Valley Conflict a generation before and who had been on what side. Meanwhile, on Svalbard, Longyearbyen had seen its best days. It had been a boom town in previous decades as ahead-of-the-curve investors had turned the tiny town to a centre for well-off telecommuters from across the northern hemisphere who wanted to live close to nature and away from major risks and sales taxes. It was a rich, clean, safe and green place. Russian, Scandinavian and American mild bioconservatives lived in the tastefully designed communities on the shores of Isfjorden. But as the economy changed it became less hip. Strict environmental regulations limited nanofacture, the local biosculpting facilities could not compete with what could be found elsewhere, and the demographic was increasingly shifting to conservative, uncompetitive oldsters while the new place to live if you were green was the new biotech cities in mainland Siberia. Longyearbyen's famous winter masquerades and lightshows were increasingly seen as oldfashioned and downright embarrassing. Still, this was the place to go to if you were to train for transfer to Europa or Titan - UNIS had some great outer system training programs. And Barentsburg University had some intriguing courses on existential risk management, if you were *really* paranoid and wanted to hang out with equally paranoid "argonauts".
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Extropian
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Wed, 2011-01-05 10:02
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
I could definitely see it as a golden age. We have a few factors: Cornucopia machines has moved manufacturing (mostly) out of the cities and has made it much cleaner. More people work at home, and more jobs are related to information services, especially designing objects, managing their distribution, managing the corporations that operate them and so on. People had an unparalleled level of luxury, including more luxury time (even with an 8 hour day, no commute is nice!) With fewer jobs anchored to the cities, people felt more free to move where they like. Cities got smaller, but catered to culture and the arts. Suburban sprawl pushed out, but more people had homes that fit in better with nature, at least giving the impression of a more natural setting. There's still a competition between agriculture and population growth, with lots of food being grown in factories. Organic food, unless grown at home in community gardens, is seen as snobby, rich, and anti-social (ten acres of 'organic' food produces as much as 5 (or less) of modified food - so that's 5 fewer acres of forest, homes, or food for starving people). Medical science has leapt forward. Of course, the wealthy still have the edge. They can literally replace bodies every ten years or so to remain eternally young, or for the sake of experimentation and so on. The poor have to make do with cheap cures for cancers and most major diseases. There may be some new diseases, a new plague, which is a serious threat, but people no longer die of malaria, for instance. Technology has permitted very small groups or individuals to make very big weapons. Government control and intervention has blossomed, both in reaction to these threats, and as surveillance technology gets smaller. Many people are still safe from most forms, and most obvious forms of sousveillance while in their homes, if they care to turn off all their peripheral equipment that tracks and orders their food, maintains their calendars, screens their calls and so on. But most people don't. The existence of the TITANs suggests some sort of significant politico-military threat. Perhaps another Cold War, or perhaps an active hot war against non-state actors such as Al Qaeda. Culturally I would expect it to be somewhat similar to 1950s America. Lots of wealth, lots of space, and perhaps, more kids.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 10:21
wint-R-mute wint-R-mute's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Golden age maybe, but only for the few privileged. The books paint a grimmer picture. If you are a re-instantiated, what is the future shock that you face once (or before) you realized, that good old earth is gone. The way around that I found was focusing on people who had their heads frozen in the late 20th century (bonitis guy, if you like). But that was only a cop-out, since I lacked a grasp of what life was like just before the fall. Watched 'Babylon AD' the other day. The movie is clearly thoroughly crippled, but some aspects are nice: The world fits pre-fall earth of eclipse phase pretty well, I think. The planet and society seem appropriately wasted in that one. How about Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan. But I am missing the destroyed ecosystem here. Have to re-watch strange days and nirvana.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 13:09
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
I disagree that it was only a Golden Age for the wealthy. Certainly, it's always good to be rich, but technology becomes more pervasive with time, and it's very easy to forget just how pervasive it is. Something like an iPhone is around 120 dollars and allows instantaneous communication anywhere on the planet, and many companies will give you it free if you sign on for a 3-5 year phone plan contract, which means that even the relatively low-income families in North America have access to a device with more computing power than the world had a scant few decades ago. Even if you want to go way, way out there, to the poorest parts of the world, modern medicine is available in much of Africa, as are modern fabrics, food production techniques, etc. The same can be said for even areas like China and Laos, which seem to have sections of their population still stuck in the Feudal era. As the economies of these countries develop, and the technology with them (especially food-production technology and things like the 100 dollar laptop project), it seems hard to imagine that their standard of living would be anything less than comparable with people in North America today, if not better. That said, the biggest dystopian hit that I can see is in the automation of manufacturing. The United States has something in the area of 40 million people employed in jobs easily replaced by automation, especially as AIs improve. It's hard to imagine what the shift will be like when fast food chains replace their employees with robots that won't steal from the till, won't get orders wrong, and won't spit in the food... The mass unemployment rates would be horrendous.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 13:54
Nathan Brazil Nathan Brazil's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
My best way is to find the sources in the books you will take as fact vs. those as opinion. As example, any information provided coming from a character's monologue or dialogue is suspect. In the main book p 32, the historical descripton found in "A People's History of an Unfortune Universe" is suspect as it was given by a character. The "Eclipse Phase Timeline" on p.37 I take as fact, as it was given directly by the author's of the book. The first thing I see is that nanotech assemblers are only around since around BF20. That means that until then production of material goods follows traditional means and all the ecological issues that they come with. I would see that in BF 1 that the nosedive for Earth and humanity's extinction to have been slowed or halted, but it is still bad and perhaps too late anyways. The imagery for Earth I think would be like the movie "Lost in Space", the few shots they show of anything on Earth. Everything looks cool, high tech and transformed, but the Earth is still toast. William Hurt's dialogue on how recycling technologies came too late to save the planet, thus the need for the mission. Brown sky in the lower atmosphere during launch, looking more blue as you go up. There is perhaps a lack of accepting sleeving by the older generation. Transhumans are created between BF 40 - BF 20 and become widespread during BF 20 - BF 1. So. In the course of 40 years everyone who can afford designer body goes and gets themselves sleeved? In BF 60+, medical advances are already advanced with regards to health and organ repair. Hmm. Just because you can do it, does that mean you want to do it? I look at wireless (cellphone) communications. I like their immediacy and use, but I do not have voicemail set up. Text my every activity to all others? Please. I am 46, getting older and cranky. With the advances in existing healthcare, I see in BF 1 a growing gerontocracy, with only the younger generation going for sleeving once they become independent of parental influence. Gorillas, Organutans, Octopi, Ravens and Parots are uplifted. The good question here is what is their function or status in a "dominantly human/transhuman" society. Overall as "species" they have not had more than a generation or so to adapt to sentience. Just because you can uplift, what was the motivating factor? More labor force?
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Wed, 2011-01-05 13:58
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Nathan Brazil wrote:
The first thing I see is that nanotech assemblers are only around since around BF20. That means that until then production of material goods follows traditional means and all the ecological issues that they come with.
There are two flaws with your arguments: 1) We don't know when BF20 was. If it's equivalent to 2050, we would have a difficult time crashing our planet to that level in that short time. 2) Lack of nanofabrication does not imply lack of future methods of fabrication. 3D prototypers are real things right now, and in another 20 years we will see cheap, consumer-ready versions - and large, industrial ones. When you have that, you don't need to ship McDonald's toys from China because it will be cheaper to build them here. All you need is plastic feedstock. The shift to decentralized manufacturing and industry has already begun, and it would take a serious leap to reverse that.
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I would see that in BF 1 that the nosedive for Earth and humanity's extinction to have been slowed or halted, but it is still bad and perhaps too late anyways.
If this is the case, why are so few people in space at the time of the Fall? If you want to make BF a dystopia, I think the best argument is that the increased use of automation and AIs + capitalist economy resulted in massive unemployment, a disappearance of the middle class, and a gaping class divide, or that the world was in a state of war. I have three broad reasons for postulating that BF was overall positive: 1) Look at the references in the main book. Most of the non-fiction books, when they speculate into the future, are ultimately positive. 2) Usually dips come following a rise. The Fall was a dip. Most likely it came from a rise. Similarly, technological advancement usually results in a global rise in health and luxuries. The TITANs are the result of technological advancement. Ergo, most likely immediately prior to them, the world was enjoying greater health and luxuries. (This can be temporarily depressed if the results are kept in the hands of a few, or in the case of war.) 3) It makes the setting, 10AF, more exciting. These people didn't walk away from a rotten life to a happy, new life. They LOST something. Their loving families, beautiful homes, dog named Spot, college degrees and frat parties all got left behind. If life sucked before and it sucks only slightly more or less now, there's no conflict. If humanity had everything and it just slipped out of their hands, THAT is a plot hook.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 14:50
Nathan Brazil Nathan Brazil's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Nathan Brazil wrote:
I would see that in BF 1 that the nosedive for Earth and humanity's extinction to have been slowed or halted, but it is still bad and perhaps too late anyways.
If this is the case, why are so few people in space at the time of the Fall? If you want to make BF a dystopia, I think the best argument is that the increased use of automation and AIs + capitalist economy resulted in massive unemployment, a disappearance of the middle class, and a gaping class divide, or that the world was in a state of war. I have three broad reasons for postulating that BF was overall positive: 1) Look at the references in the main book. Most of the non-fiction books, when they speculate into the future, are ultimately positive. 2) Usually dips come following a rise. The Fall was a dip. Most likely it came from a rise. Similarly, technological advancement usually results in a global rise in health and luxuries. The TITANs are the result of technological advancement. Ergo, most likely immediately prior to them, the world was enjoying greater health and luxuries. (This can be temporarily depressed if the results are kept in the hands of a few, or in the case of war.) 3) It makes the setting, 10AF, more exciting. These people didn't walk away from a rotten life to a happy, new life. They LOST something. Their loving families, beautiful homes, dog named Spot, college degrees and frat parties all got left behind. If life sucked before and it sucks only slightly more or less now, there's no conflict. If humanity had everything and it just slipped out of their hands, THAT is a plot hook.
History is written by the winners, er... survivors. And survivors on this scale have a much larger amount of survivor's guilt than most. Sorry that you think that my statements mean that BF is a dystopia. Humanity as who IS enjoying itself in BF overall as a species and working on saving the Earth. I think you might have taken the part about "too late anyways" too much in a negative light. I think that the environment will be in a terrible state, but not unsurvivable. I have not ignored the megascale projects, but those are not a clean fix, as the timeline notes. I will take your word on the issue of manufacturing as I do not work in manufacturing at all. I am a consumer, not a producer. :-) My experience concerning generations and technology I would stand by. I am in the computer industry and worked in telecommunication some time ago. First learned to program with punch cards and I see the reluctance of older individuals pshaw-ing newer technologies. Adapting the recognizable, and denying that which forces one into a different behavioral pattern. I see that in myself these days and I am only 46.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 15:29
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Quote:
2) Lack of nanofabrication does not imply lack of future methods of fabrication. 3D prototypers are real things right now, and in another 20 years we will see cheap, consumer-ready versions - and large, industrial ones. When you have that, you don't need to ship McDonald's toys from China because it will be cheaper to build them here. All you need is plastic feedstock. The shift to decentralized manufacturing and industry has already begun, and it would take a serious leap to reverse that.
The shift to mass decentralised production of weapons, chemical agents, biological warfare as well. Criminality and terrorism must have been quite widespread, with even smallest factions having access to means of using mass violence and destruction. The counterreaction was probably shift to more authoritarian and regulated society with heavy role of the state and corps. Of course this also means masses of unemployed, without prospects of having any meaningful life.However they cling on to existance, partly due to abundance of cheap food. Probably to divert their anger, some of the the political states at the time attempted to use nationalism and fascism to organise them into stable structures. The main political players at that time would be China, India, European Union and USA being the fourth one and in decline(hence its attempts to change the situation). USA I see as changed largely by demographics with Hispanic population having considerable influence and trying to forge a Pan-American bloc to regain status of America(a whole concept) compared to restored influence of old Asian powers (China and India). The BF I see as dystopia similiar to the ones painted in Blade Runner or Rifters cycle by Watts. Only superficially the situation of humanity is better-in reality it is during extinction time faced with universe that may very well destroy it within a couple of decades.
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More people work at home, and more jobs are related to information services, especially designing objects, managing their distribution, managing the corporations that operate them and so on.
Ugh. That's one meme that I really despise(apologies)-there never will be as much work in designing or in corporations as in old time manufacturing. Financial services or jewelry or made for people mostly making money from real down to earth business(in broad generalisation). In all likelyhood you would have like 800mln people living luxurious lives based on what their ancestors acquired while billions of others live in poverty(marginal exceptions excluded of course).
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Cities got smaller, but catered to culture and the arts.
Most people don't care about culture and art really...You never will have a nation of poets and pottery makers. And I don't really see cities getting smaller-why should people leave for boring rural areas where it smells of animal feces? To make pots out of clay and write songs about cows? Again most people don't have such desires. If anything cities will grow larger, since it will be there where they can be closer to that mythical upper class, drugs, clubs, prostitution, possible romance with somebody richer, easy sex with multiple partners, and all the other things that make cities grow...
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Suburban sprawl pushed out, but more people had homes that fit in better with nature, at least giving the impression of a more natural setting.
I think that is a country specific view-there are countries where A-you can't move out, since most of areas are either industrial or urban B-you don't own property rights to the area to build a home there(and you can't build land with nanofabricators). Some countries have all land owned by somebody and making buildings accessible won't change the availability of land where you can build real-estate C-I think you overestimate the desire of people to live outside cities. I certainly wouldn't want to live in boring rural setting, and know a lot of people that share the same attitude. It's rather a view shared in my countries society.
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Similarly, technological advancement usually results in a global rise in health and luxuries.
Very debatable: [i]Maybe being a serf wasn't so bad after all! Medieval Britons were twice as rich as the poor in the Third World today[/i] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336143/Medieval-Britons-twice-r... Also hunter-gatherers lived longer and healthier than farmers.
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Something like an iPhone is around 120 dollars and allows instantaneous communication anywhere on the planet, and many companies will give you it free if you sign on for a 3-5 year phone plan contract, which means that even the relatively low-income families
Oh I love Internet. It allows for such culture clash :) Never saw anybody with Iphone in my life in my country :) Nor anybody working for company with a phone contract :)
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Wed, 2011-01-05 15:24
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
I see BF Earth as bipolar world. Heavenly for some, hellish for others, with the two overlapping in more and more places. Look at the alternate prologue of Avatar, the big city. the Nature is going nuts, and the geoengineering sure didn't help. Ressources are getting fewer fewer, generating conflicts over what's left of them. Climate is Day-After-Tomorrowy Politically, I view as global cold war slowly warming up in more and more places. I've submitted an idea to Jack, a couple weeks ago, for the geopolitical scenery, that I plan to use in my graphic novel. I'll wait for his response before I explain what I came up with. While CM are being developped, they're expensive as shit, while fabbers are becoming like dishwashers, sold in stores like Best Buy or big market like Walmart or Sam's Club, depending on the size and capacity. Morphs are sold are sold in specialized stores (remember Surrogates? When Bruce Willis needs to get a new cybernetic self?) and galleria alike, like clothing stores. Hypercorps are becoming as big and rich as countries, often treated as such. Private polices are better trained, better paid and better geared than municipalities law enforcement, only topped by federal police and agencies. But they're biased by contract toward their employers and against their corporate rivals. Those police forces I think would either join Direct Action or Stellar Intelligence in the years following the Fall
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Wed, 2011-01-05 15:33
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
One more thing to consider-people often makes assumption that nanofabbers end poverty by producing everything. But there is problem in that, you still need energy and you still need land to live on. Neither can be produced by nanofabbers. And just because energy is cheap to [b]produce[/b] doesn't mean it is [b]sold[/b] cheaply. If the world developed into strictly controlled hypercorp divided monopolies then expect things like energy or real estate to be expensive.
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There's still a competition between agriculture and population growth, with lots of food being grown in factories. Organic food, unless grown at home in community gardens, is seen as snobby, rich, and anti-social (ten acres of 'organic' food produces as much as 5 (or less) of modified food - so that's 5 fewer acres of forest, homes, or food for starving people).
Factory food? Considering how many people in poor countries are involved in agriculture in family structures, don't see that happening on wide world scale. Especially since they are often voters, who will vote on customs or bans regarding factory produced food. It might be seen as snobby by elitist pro-transhuman folks, but the common man will trust the small farmer rather then the machine. Also since most of EU existance is based on protecting its farmers and their existance, for that to change would require a major upheaval.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Wed, 2011-01-05 15:59
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Extrasolar, it sounds like you're talking more from a third-world perspective, especially outside of BRIC. Is that correct?
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Wed, 2011-01-05 16:17
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Quote:
Extrasolar, it sounds like you're talking more from a third-world perspective, especially outside of BRIC. Is that correct?
I think the future will be global, without division between first and third world countries mostly(perhaps with some small states being exception). You will have third and first world conditions in every country-this would apply to EP as well.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Wed, 2011-01-05 16:25
Nathan Brazil Nathan Brazil's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Earth BF1, major intersts are not respectful toward each other. Various isms (factional-, national-, what have you) had sufficient animosity towards each other to cause the US to invest in TITANs. Regardless of the actual US motivation (paranoia/attack/defense), "major expediture" was focused on them to make TITANs work. That doesn't just happen overnight, without impetus from the "world powers" not getting along. You had to have a major fear or need, the ability to recognize the solution, making the political or bugetary changes to fund it, and they progressed to the point of actual implementation.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 18:02
Demonseed Elite Demonseed Elite's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
If you want to make BF a dystopia, I think the best argument is that the increased use of automation and AIs + capitalist economy resulted in massive unemployment, a disappearance of the middle class, and a gaping class divide, or that the world was in a state of war.
That's pretty much how I look at Earth before the Fall. A very good time to live, if you were one of the haves, not so much for the have-nots. No more middle class, just those fortunate enough to be productive in a transhuman society and those unfortunate future-shocked souls who have little means in a world that doesn't need them. Some disaffected poor are driven by frustration into fifth-generation warfare philosophies that make Al Qaeda look monolithic and bureaucratic. Nano-fabrication makes these individuals and small groups exceptionally dangerous, which leads to draconian attempts to control nano-fabrication, dimming its prospects for freeing mankind from production and capital. Resources are even more rare and unfortunately still necessary, meaning nation-state and hypercorporate players fight cold and hot wars over commodities while individuals and networks wage war over ideas. This is the world into which the TITANs were born.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 18:11
root root's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
root@Earth BF 1 [hr] Wasn't the Fall caused by the bracewell probes and the Exsurgent virus? The Earth wouldn't need to be teetering on the edge of destruction in that case, it could be a togas and crystal spire sort of paradise brought low by meddling god machines corrupting the peaceful war programs of various nations and political entities. It certainly wasn't described that way, but the major influence still seems to have come from outside the human sphere.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 18:26
red_eric red_eric's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
My understanding of the setting's history is that humanity was well on its way to global catastrophe without any help from the ETI. A new cold war or the start of World War III leads to the TITANS being activated, and then they became infected and subverted their original programming. The first stages of the Fall were unnoticed because of the general climate of chaos and war. I actually think this is one of the major themes the authors intended for Eclipse Phase: sure, there's that whole cosmic horror thing, but the real tragedy is the fact that even in the face of terrible external threats much of transhumanity's suffering is self-inflicted.
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Wed, 2011-01-05 19:10
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Quote:
Overall as "species" they have not had more than a generation or so to adapt to sentience. Just because you can uplift, what was the motivating factor? More labor force?
The most obvious-military/security applications. Possibly also entertainment.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Thu, 2011-01-06 09:19
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
One thing to consider is that the Sol System is made up from a fraction of what constituted the Earth society. Re-reading the background, the hypercorps made a leap from the planet and left most of the others behind early. They weren't even the old corporations as we know.Only a small part of space exploration was undertaken by governments-for example India on the Moon, China on Mars, EU on Titan, and it seems Pan-American alliance in Jovian system. But the majority of infrastructure and population was under the newly created entities known as hypercorporations. The chaos and decentralization of the world beneath probably meant that many governments had little influence on their territories beyond that which could be enforced by force. Individual groups now had access to force equivalent to government's powers and I would guess that whole lot of areas were under control of informal criminal, religious or ideological groups. In this scenario it makes sense for war to happen, as states would turn to nationalism and ideological motivation to unite their subjects. Another thing-the nanofabbers and uploading happened only near the Fall, so it couldn't most likely calm the social upheaval. So what you see today is mostly a small part of human society that existed before the Fall, mainly the hypercorps-not much remains of the old governmental structures that clinged on to power-some in Jovian Republic, isolated remains of governments like the one of Israel, a bit of EU on Titan. Ah, I also got an idea what were the uplifts for-a much darker possibility-to develop uploading you needed test subjects that were sentient-perhaps uplifts served to test and experiment uploading technology.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Thu, 2011-01-06 09:24
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Personally I prefer to view the pre-Fall Earth as neither utopia nor a dystopia, just a big messy complex world. Yes, there were widening gulfs between haves and have nots. And everybody were getting a better deal. There was horrific superterrorism, and amazing medical advances. Autonomist network nations were getting into their own side by side with remaining national states, megacorps, hypercorps and failed states. The environment was crashing, but also being rebuilt. In short, business as usual but amped up to 11. Then things *really* went wrong. Afterwards, the world of course became a simple utopia or dystopia depending on who you asked.
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Thu, 2011-01-06 09:25
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Nathan Brazil wrote:
That doesn't just happen overnight, without impetus from the "world powers" not getting along.
I don't see any reason to assume the 'enemy' the TITANs were guarding against were other world powers. Thanks to 5GW and 6GW in fact, it most likely was not. The economics haven't favored state vs. state war since Vietnam.
Demonseed Elite wrote:
Fall. A very good time to live, if you were one of the haves, not so much for the have-nots. No more middle class, just those fortunate enough to be productive in a transhuman society and those unfortunate future-shocked souls who have little means in a world that doesn't need them.
My issue with this is... why were people as tolerant as they were of the Consortium setting up shop? Why isn't Venus more... different from what came before? Did the Consortium set up contrary to the will of the 90% of the population who actually held the ground the Consortium was claiming? Is popular unrest really that powerful right now? Or is it an active strategy of only rescuing the people who were happy, wealthy citizens - if you were poor and dissatisfied, you get eaten by TITANs.
red_eric wrote:
My understanding of the setting's history is that humanity was well on its way to global catastrophe without any help from the ETI.
Why do people keep getting this sense? I don't recall anything in the books which suggested so much conflict, muchless an impending extinction event.
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Thu, 2011-01-06 10:22
Entropy Entropy's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
red_eric wrote:
My understanding of the setting's history is that humanity was well on its way to global catastrophe without any help from the ETI.
Why do people keep getting this sense? I don't recall anything in the books which suggested so much conflict, muchless an impending extinction event.
It's right there in the core book, alright. Read about the origins of the Fall in the 'GM Spoilers' section (or whatever it's called). Global chaos & war broke out before the TITANS discovered the first Pandora Gates or Bracewell Probes. The TITANS were infected with the Exsurgent virus & turned on (trans)humanity, but even then it was some time before we noticed, as transhumanity were so busily involved in their wars against each other. The fall started without any external influence. It clearly wouldn't have been as bad without the Exsurgent virus (the First AIs, the Protheans may have actively fought against the infected titans & the Exsugent virus in an attempt to preserve transhumanity), but it was already baaaaaad.
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Thu, 2011-01-06 10:22
Rhyx Rhyx's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Page 356, the first line about the Fall.
Quote:
While history fully blames the TITANs for the Fall, there are other factors that played their parts. Human conflicts spurred the crisis, driven by global inequalities in wealth and resources and an inability to embrace emerging technologies in a mature and enlightened manner. The TITANs, corrupted by alien programming, stepped into this conflagration with an unknown but devastating agenda.
It's clear that things were already boiling over when the TITANs stepped in. As for Venus, there are usually two forms revolution: those in which the pie changes hands and those who the people who partake in the pie fundamentally change. In this case it was just a change in administration not a change in doctrine. Happens all the time, in fact I would say that most revolutions are like that, only a few (French revolution, Bolshevik revolution and in some ways the American revolution) have fundamental changes. Others are just a change in figurehead as things go on as usual. Scariest thing is, often the change of administration types of revolution pose as the world changing ones simply to get extra man power from the downtrodden.
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Thu, 2011-01-06 11:43
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
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And everybody were getting a better deal.
Massive unemployment, orbital strikes by greedy hypercorps, worldwide terrorism using biological agents, rich immune to death thanks to uploading-that's not a really good deal to anyone besides the elites.
Quote:
why were people as tolerant as they were of the Consortium setting up shop?
It was the only functioning entity that allowed them to survive extermination of most of humanity. Helped of course by hypercorps eliminating governmental remnants... Also immense meme-engineering of society. Look how the only remaining governmental institution Jovian Republic is demonized in the setting.
Quote:
Is popular unrest really that powerful right now? Or is it an active strategy of only rescuing the people who were happy, wealthy citizens - if you were poor and dissatisfied, you get eaten by TITANs.
Yup, I can see that happening. Of course in all the chaos you can't weed out everybody, and it seems places like Europe or India were a bit outside the control of hypercorps. Similiar to USA and its Pan-American allies which managed to upload/evacuate a lot of people to Jovian system. It's also a good idea which I use in my take on JR-where most of population was transfered based on list of loyal and useful citizens(engineers, military, scientists, political supporters).
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Thu, 2011-01-06 11:57
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Rhyx wrote:
Page 356, the first line about the Fall.
Quote:
While history fully blames the TITANs for the Fall, there are other factors that played their parts. Human conflicts spurred the crisis, driven by global inequalities in wealth and resources and an inability to embrace emerging technologies in a mature and enlightened manner. The TITANs, corrupted by alien programming, stepped into this conflagration with an unknown but devastating agenda.
It's clear that things were already boiling over when the TITANs stepped in.
I don't know... I feel like you're taking two lines which could be applied to any time period since Sargon the Great. Taking the line 'humans had conflicts, driven by global inequalities of weath and resources, and an inability to embrace emerging technologies' and assuming then that everything was a giant toilet seems like a leap I'm just not willing to make.
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Thu, 2011-01-06 12:17
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Quote:
I don't know... I feel like you're taking two lines which could be applied to any time period since Sargon the Great. Taking the line 'humans had conflicts, driven by global inequalities of weath and resources, and an inability to embrace emerging technologies' and assuming then that everything was a giant toilet seems like a leap I'm just not willing to make.
Well to be fair, I guess hunter gatherers had the best life and most fulfilling. Since then it has been a downward spiral, only with more advanced toys to torture human life with. And never before had there been more occassions to exterminate human life than during Before Fall period(even during Cold War, there were chances of isolated groups of humans surviving). Not to mention that previous wars usually just screwed human civilization not the whole planet.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Thu, 2011-01-06 13:43
Demonseed Elite Demonseed Elite's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
My issue with this is... why were people as tolerant as they were of the Consortium setting up shop?
There are a few reasons for that. Like someone said above, the hypercorps of Eclipse Phase aren't the same entities as the megacorps of pre-Fall Earth. It says in the core book that the hypercorps were more nimble and were already operating off-world, which is why they survived and the traditional Earth megacorps did not. It's fairly likely that people didn't have much experience with these hypercorps before the Fall and what the Consortium offered was survival and a livelihood in an environment which is otherwise very hostile to humanity. Very few people could choose to live on Venus or Mars or anywhere else for that matter without the help of the hypercorps. I imagine even more so in the chaotic first few years after the Fall.
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
Or is it an active strategy of only rescuing the people who were happy, wealthy citizens - if you were poor and dissatisfied, you get eaten by TITANs.
Well, it's no secret that the entities that had the ability to evacuate people from Earth, whether by ship or by egocast, played favorites in very many cases. If a hypercorp was footing the bill to evacuate people, they probably chose people they saw some value in. Nations did the same thing. Sadly, quite a few "undesirables" were left to the TITANs. And I do agree with Arenamontanus to an extent. I don't see pre-Fall Earth as a terrible, dark place. No more so than I see 2011 Earth as a terrible, dark place. There are certainly dark aspects to it, and life was harsh to many pre-Fall people in the same way life is harsh to many people today. But there were certainly amazing things happening also; huge advances in medical and manufacturing technology, for instance. I just don't think those developments fundamentally made life happy and easy for everyone. One thing that does occupy a lot of my thoughts about pre-Fall Earth is the speed and depth of change. People around us today, in 2011 Earth, are amazed at the speed of changes that befall us now, for ill or good. There's a definite feeling that we're having trouble keeping up. Our kids are connected online all the time and we don't know what effect that has on them. Terrorists are able to take advantage of our own infrastructure and technology to kill large numbers of people, right in their home towns. The global economy takes a nosedive as a reaction to complex financial processes most people don't even understand. When I think about the Earth just before the Fall, I imagine it wrestling with similar problems, but on a bigger, faster scale.
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"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards." --The White Queen, [i]Through The Looking-Glass[/i] [img]https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_zGgz13n3uzE/TWWPdvGig-I/AAAAAAAACI8/y...
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Thu, 2011-01-06 16:09
Nathan Brazil Nathan Brazil's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
BF1 was not the green world we live in now.. In Sunward "Game Information" p. 161, it clearly states the types of environmental collapse occurring throughout the planet: Elevated sea levels Coastal Flooding Melted Glaciers Drought Desertification and the big one Biosphere Collapse Some are easier to envision, like elevated sea levels permantly putting portions of Florida and other lowlands underwater, existing desertification accellerating the size of the Sahara. Those change the map. What megascale projects could "mitigate" this, and what sort of side effects could come it?
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Fri, 2011-01-07 10:19
Nathan Brazil Nathan Brazil's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
BF1 had certain cultures having dominance. The core book p181 states the top 10 languages spoken post Fall by number of speakers are Arabic Cantonese English French Hindi Japanese Mandarin Portuguese Russian Spanish It can be inferred to some extent these are the most powerful cultures by region either as a national origin or as a hypercorp origin, as you had to have the resources and power to get into space in the first place.
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Fri, 2011-01-07 12:25
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
I previously went through Sunward to calculate approximate distributions of language. Covering only the populations explictly counted in Sunward, my top ten were: (Population in order of first language, in thousands): English 31,582.5 (Also the language that appears in the most locations. It's numbers are extremely well represented on Luna and Mars, and appears to be the dominant language associated with uplifts.) Mandarin 16,616.5 (Strongest on Progress and New Shanghai) Hindi 13,660.1 (Primarily Noctis and Shackle) Arabic 10,642.1 (Primarily Mercury and Mars) Wu 10,120 Bahasa Indonesian 6,258.33 (Almost exclusively on Mars, in Elysium and Noctis) Spanish 5,386.79 (Primarily Nectar and Progress, although we can expect a lot more representation around Jupiter) Cantonese 3,131.67 Portuguese 2,060.83 (Primarily Venus and New Shanghai) Urdu 2,048.33 (Primarily New Shanghai) A number of these are explicitly described as worker languages, others implied because of their proximity to the bean stalks. (Compared to real life numbers, 2011, English jumped up tremendously, Mandarin, Spanish, Bengali, Russian and Japanese all dropped, Wu, Cantonese and Indonesian all jumped significantly.)
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Fri, 2011-01-07 14:02
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Extrasolar Angel wrote:
The most obvious-military/security applications. Possibly also entertainment.
There are people alive today who have stated the opinion that the human race must uplift animal species because it is the ethical thing to do.
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Fri, 2011-01-07 14:15
Quincey Forder Quincey Forder's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
as it is written in the corebook, page 34:
Quote:
We like to pretend that the TITANs exploded on the scene, wrecked up the place, and then disappeared as quickly as they appeared. The truth, as always, is more complex. We claim to know that the TITANs somehow evolved by accident from a military netwar system, or so the theory goes. That is what their name means: an acronym for Total Information Tactical Awareness Networks. No one knows for sure where these first seed AIs came from, though—or if they do, they’re keeping quiet. Perhaps the TITANs were intentionally designed to be a recursively improving, selfaware digital intelligence. Perhaps the military boffins thought they could keep such an intelligence under their control, and that it would give them the edge they needed. Perhaps there was only one at first, and it quickly created hundreds if not thousands of copies of itself. No one even seems to know how many of them there were.
it seems the TITANs took advantage of an existing situation and fueled the fire and then took over, fighting everybody, while the (trans)humans kept on fighting on each other. From what I see, the TITANs were built as digital weapons of mass destruction, a doomsday weapon like the anti-matter warhead that leveled Chicago 200 miles radius. by the way, who detonated it?
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Fri, 2011-01-07 15:38
Nathan Brazil Nathan Brazil's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
nezumi.hebereke wrote:
(Compared to real life numbers, 2011, English jumped up tremendously, Mandarin, Spanish, Bengali, Russian and Japanese all dropped, Wu, Cantonese and Indonesian all jumped significantly.)
I have combined the top 25 from wikipedia and the languages in the core book. The most interesting finding is Dutch and Swedish, which have relatively low rankings now and in the post-Fall rise to dominace, say in comparison to Ukrainian which is 29th on the list or Pashto which is 23rd currently. Ranking Post Fall Status 2011 Language My Notes Top 10 1 Mandarin Top 10 2 Spanish Top 10 3 English Top 10/Remains Strong 4 Hindi/Urdu (Combined in Wikipedia) Top 10 5 Arabic Remains Strong 6 Bengali Top 10 7 Portuguese Top 10 8 Russian Top 10 9 Japanese Remains Strong 10 German Remains Strong 11 Javanese Remains Strong 12 Punjabi Remains Strong 13 Wu Not Mentiond 14 Telugu India (Andhra Pradesh state) Not Mentiond 15 Marathi India (Maharashtra state) Remains Strong 16 French Remains Strong 17 Vietnamese Remains Strong 18 Korean Remains Strong 19 Tamil Remains Strong 20 Italian Remains Strong 21 Turkish Remains Strong 22 Cantonese/Yue Not Mentiond 23 Pashto Afghanistan/Pakistan Not Mentiond 24 Tagalog Philipines Not Mentiond 25 Gujarati India (Gujurat state) Remains Strong 28 Polish Remains Strong 38 Persian Remains Strong 45 Dutch Remains Strong 78 Swedish
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Fri, 2011-01-07 15:56
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
The Doctor wrote:
There are people alive today who have stated the opinion that the human race must uplift animal species because it is the ethical thing to do.
Oh my, they want them to work and be conscious of their flaws and desires. What villains want to inflict such torture on these blissful ignorant creatures?
—
[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Fri, 2011-01-07 16:20
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Nathan Brazil wrote:
I have combined the top 25 from wikipedia and the languages in the core book. The most interesting finding is Dutch and Swedish, which have relatively low rankings now and in the post-Fall rise to dominace, say in comparison to Ukrainian which is 29th on the list or Pashto which is 23rd currently.
I guess it is a founder effect. Imagine that there is a sizeable bunch of Swedes on Titan when the Fall occurs - suddenly Swedish becomes a much more common language. Similarly if Sweden happens to have a pretty good evacuation program compared to other nations (or just happens to be lucky their transmitter is destroyed later than other transmitters). The same is true for groups. If there was a conference on Cowboy Poetry in the outer system during the Fall, a surprising number of cowboy poetry scholars survived and the discipline suddenly became a much bigger part of literature studies. In my game I decided the Mormons, having a long policy of encourage tribulation-readiness, survived the Fall unusually well (despite Deseret Habitat being destroyed in HEO) and are around in force (with a bit of a split between the Tabernacle on Mars and the Extropian Mormons).
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Extropian
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Sat, 2011-01-08 06:27
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Extrasolar Angel wrote:
Oh my, they want them to work and be conscious of their flaws and desires. What villains want to inflict such torture on these blissful ignorant creatures?
Because a lot of those animals are suffering right now, either as lab rats or bush meat? Another possible reason? Because we can. We've done stupider stuff for that much justification.
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Sat, 2011-01-08 10:26
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Quote:
Because a lot of those animals are suffering right now, either as lab rats or bush meat?
So making them aware of their suffering is going to help? Sorry, but self-awarness brings many more problems. It's ignorance that is bliss.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Sat, 2011-01-08 12:13
Ataraxzy Ataraxzy's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Extrasolar Angel wrote:
Quote:
Because a lot of those animals are suffering right now, either as lab rats or bush meat?
So making them aware of their suffering is going to help? Sorry, but self-awarness brings many more problems. It's ignorance that is bliss.
I think the idea is to bring them to self-awareness so that they inherit the same right to self-determination that we do. I.e. you have to treat them as human in regards to experimentation.
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Sat, 2011-01-08 13:10
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Quote:
think the idea is to bring them to self-awareness so that they inherit the same right to self-determination that we do. I.e. you have to treat them as human in regards to experimentation.
If I were an ape I would prefer to stay in jungle and eat banans , rather than worry about what corp to work for, in addition to existential crises.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Sat, 2011-01-08 17:17
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Back to the topic:
Quote:
Well, it's no secret that the entities that had the ability to evacuate people from Earth, whether by ship or by egocast, played favorites in very many cases. If a hypercorp was footing the bill to evacuate people, they probably chose people they saw some value in. Nations did the same thing. Sadly, quite a few "undesirables" were left to the TITANs.
Exactly, page 143 of Sunward even mentions this openly. Interestingly there is mention of former government leaders and politicians frozen by PC in storage so as to not disturb their reign. Might be good plot hook to have players to fight through PC agents to an old orbital near Earth, only to discover it contains some backups of old Earth politicians. Since PC is mainly made of business people, some factions might be of the idea that people with more leadership experience could be more fitting to lead humanity. Of course it is also a good idea for some very famous and respected politician to come back-or perhaps a perfect simulation...
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Tue, 2011-01-11 11:17
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Ataraxzy wrote:
I think the idea is to bring them to self-awareness so that they inherit the same right to self-determination that we do. I.e. you have to treat them as human in regards to experimentation.
Humans have enough trouble treating people as other humans, and allowing them the right to self-determination. I do not think that uplifting projects would go well at all. However (bringing thing back around to EP), I just had an idea for a pre-Fall game. Eco-warriors are on a mission to break into a laboratory where animal research is being done to let the test subjects loose, and suddenly discover that they are dealing with a laboratory full of uplifted animals, none of which are particularly happy that their home has been broken into...
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Tue, 2011-01-11 11:18
The Doctor The Doctor's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Extrasolar Angel wrote:
If I were an ape I would prefer to stay in jungle and eat banans , rather than worry about what corp to work for, in addition to existential crises.
The [u]Illuminatus![/u] answer. Not a bad one, actually...
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Tue, 2011-01-11 17:41
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
The Doctor wrote:
Extrasolar Angel wrote:
If I were an ape I would prefer to stay in jungle and eat banans , rather than worry about what corp to work for, in addition to existential crises.
The [u]Illuminatus![/u] answer. Not a bad one, actually...
That's actually why I like synthmorphs; they're one step closer to the pure individualism of being able to tell the rest of the world to slag off when you've had enough of it. Just charge up your batteries, load up some medichines, and go on sebaticle. Spend six months out in the woods, doing nothing but being at one with the wilderness. Somehow, I see Earth having a number of tree huggers who do that sort of thing as a lifestyle.
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Wed, 2011-01-12 09:26
Extrasolar Angel Extrasolar Angel's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
This whole discussion gave me a great idea about having an alternate vision of EP where there was no Fall and there were no TITANs, but a world war of epic proportions instead, leading to collapse of Earth infrastructure and environment, and remnants of world factions fleeing to space instead.
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[I]Raise your hands to the sky and break the chains. With transhumanism we can smash the matriarchy together.[/i]
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Fri, 2011-01-14 02:06
Nathan Brazil Nathan Brazil's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Axel the Chimeric wrote:
That's actually why I like synthmorphs; they're one step closer to the pure individualism of being able to tell the rest of the world to slag off when you've had enough of it. Just charge up your batteries, load up some medichines, and go on sebaticle.
I'm sure the Kelvans of Altair were all feeling the same way too when they activated their great machine and allowed all their thoughts become reality without instrumentality.
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Fri, 2011-01-14 15:03
King Shere King Shere's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
A passage in The core book (page 36)
Quote:
"You might think that we banded together to stop the threat, that in our darkest hour we forgave ancient grudges and simmering hatreds in the face of extinction. That would be a lie in the face of tens of thousands that was shot down over Buenos Aires by North American forces as they sought to escape, or the compromising of network security on over two dozen habitats in Lagrange orbits by corporate competitors as their rivals strove to fight off a TITAN attack. We were just as gleeful to destroy ourselves." Eclipse Phase (page 36)
Those lines gave me the impression that there were A lot of pent up aggressions, envy and simmering hatreds prior to the fall.
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Fri, 2011-03-18 14:01
Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Quote:
In my game I decided the Mormons, having a long policy of encourage tribulation-readiness, survived the Fall unusually well (despite Deseret Habitat being destroyed in HEO) and are around in force (with a bit of a split between the Tabernacle on Mars and the Extropian Mormons).
As both an Extropian and an ex-Mormon, I'll vouch for the "tribulation-readiness" part. Even now I have months of food stored in the closet. You'd be amazed how little volume a year's supply of food takes, if you eat mostly spirulina and chlorella. Yes, the microalgae taste like fish food. You get used to it. Two questions, Arenamontanus. 1) Why include Mormons? Is that a nod to Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth? 2) Have you published a write-up for them?
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Fri, 2011-03-18 17:51
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Jay Dugger wrote:
Two questions, Arenamontanus. 1) Why include Mormons? Is that a nod to Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth?
Partially it is just because I happen to know a number of transhumanist Mormons. :-)
Quote:
2) Have you published a write-up for them?
No, but would love to. The above details are about the only things I have settled in my campaign world; I would love to come up with more ideas (especially since a particular Mormon preacher NPC might become important soon).
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Extropian
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Fri, 2011-03-18 21:44
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Respectfully, how can a Mormon be transhumanist? If you can't even have caffeine or alcohol, how can you have radical augmentation or machine transcendence?
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Sat, 2011-03-19 00:49
Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Quote:
No, but would love to. The above details are about the only things I have settled in my campaign world; I would love to come up with more ideas (especially since a particular Mormon preacher NPC might become important soon).
Mormons lack "preachers" per se, but unless you play with Mormons, that won't bother anyone. Perhaps jargon and doctrine changed significantly after the Fall. The Mormon Church's doctrine changed significantly at politically convenient times in its history. It also suffered multiple schisms. It had substantial missionary work in surprising places such as Hawai'i, England, Canada, Mexico, and among various Native American tribes. Different waves of missionaries might end up founding offshoots of the main Church in different habitats in the Eclipse Phase setting. (Egocasting sets up an obvious point of doctrinal contention.) I'll write up a few ideas on this theme, and I'll post them in the EP Homebrew forum. Until then, the Wikipedia articles on LDS denominations, the Articles of Faith, the history of Utah, the Salamander Letter, and on Mark Hoffman should give you plenty of raw material. The history of Mormon persecution in America might also translate nicely into Eclipse Phase.
Quote:
Respectfully, how can a Mormon be transhumanist? If you can't even have caffeine or alcohol, how can you have radical augmentation or machine transcendence?
Yerameyahu, you refer to point of Mormon doctrine called the "Word of Wisdom." Wikipedia's article explains it well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_Wisdom) Nothing in it prevents one from having organ transplants, prostheses of any kind, nor does it forbid elective surgery. The Mormon Transhumanist Association (http://transfigurism.org) might discuss the contradiction you mention in more detail. The Mormon Church made significant changes to doctrine when politically convenient, which their doctrine of faith in continuing revelation nicely covers. Crudely but clearly, "we do something different now because God told us he changed his mind." They gave up polygamy for statehood, and I think that sets a precedent for accepting cortical stacks and all their implications. A very literal survivorship bias applies in Eclipse Phase as well. The population of Mormons in 10 A.F. likely has many more members with cortical stacks or radical augmentation than did the Mormon population in 1 B.F. The ones without such tools probably died in the Fall.
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Sat, 2011-03-19 00:55
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: Earth: B.F. 1
Oh. Well, again respectfully, that just sounds pretty insane. :) It's not the arbitrariness, it's the inconsistency, as you say. I'll read that, thanks. I certainly agree about the 'evolution effect' of the Fall. Labels are funny things, hard-to-kill; I can see how 'Mormon' in EP could be radically different. It always makes me think of the Dune 'Zensunni wanderers'.
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