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On Asyncs

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Fri, 2011-08-26 14:11
#1
JMobius JMobius's picture
On Asyncs
I know that psi in EP is a bit of a divisive issue. Personally I fall on the side of finding its particular style quite interesting and appealing. Purely from my ancedotal experience however, async PCs seem quite rare... I'd like to open for discussion why this might be. What are your thoughts and experiences with asyncs like?
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Fri, 2011-08-26 20:46
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I'm not fond of psi (seems to be a throwback to vitalism and magic in an otherwise hard sf universe), but played right it can work. Low-key, creepy and always perhaps just barely some sort of post-singularity technology - that is how I like it. I am quite fond of how one of my players ran a seriously screwed up character who was clearly mentally disturbed (messages from the Evil hiding inside Orcus Patera, a wild attack on a soda can that was ogling him, fear of medichines since they were run by the Empress) and more than a little twisted (sleeving "guests" in a passive full sense experience slot of his pleasure pod with no ability to control its behaviour)... yet occasionally his insane flashes and misbehaviours made perfect sense or just worked. In short, to be an async in my games you better play a very disturbed character. Who might well be a ticking exsurgent time bomb.
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Fri, 2011-08-26 21:19
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I really like Psi-Chi, not quite as fond of Psi-Gamma. A lot of the Psi-Chi sleights are reasonably easy to explain (Grok being the only major exception). Psi-Gamma is much more difficult, and requires a bit more science fiction hand-waiving to have it fit in. I also find the Chi sleights to be much more useful for characters, so my inner munchkin is more accepting of it. Now, for my home games, I am extremely lax on my players when it comes to Psi. In my home universe Psi is supposed to be a gift of sorts from the ETI, designed to uplift transhumanity and lead them through the galaxy (Giving control of ETI technologies). So I have home ruled a whole bunch of extra stuff for them to play with. My players also seem to enjoy Psi quite a lot, so I have tried to integrate it into my game as much as I can.
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Fri, 2011-08-26 22:13
sinhound sinhound's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I'm actually quite fond of psi for the same reason Arenamontanus isn't. I mean, in a way it is magic that's been created by extremely advanced technology (the virus)... and as we all know... "To the primitive mind, any sufficiently advanced technology would be..." I'll let ya'll finish it because I know you know it. Edit: Yeah, I know where that specific quote comes from, I just think the beginning part of it really applies here. You gotta figure that compared to the ETI that made the virus, transhumans are infinitely primitive (and, by extension, we here in the real world are more so). As far as I'm concerned, there's a perfectly "logical" explanation for exactly how the psi abilities work, they just haven't advanced far enough to figure it out.
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Sat, 2011-08-27 08:30
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: On Asyncs
sinhound wrote:
I'm actually quite fond of psi for the same reason Arenamontanus isn't. I mean, in a way it is magic that's been created by extremely advanced technology (the virus)... and as we all know... "To the primitive mind, any sufficiently advanced technology would be..." I'll let ya'll finish it because I know you know it.
It is not the Clarke-tech aspect that annoys me, that is perfectly fine. My problem with psi is that it usually does exactly the same things you can achieve with ordinary technology, but at the price of invoking traditional dualism or vitalism. Much of telepathy can be done with cellphones and brainscans after all. Why stun people with your mind when there are tasers? The good parts of EP psi is the things that seem to hint at access to postsingularity intelligence or abilities (like grok). The distinction between biomorph brain and synthmorph brains in regards to psi annoys me. If it requires some aspect of a biological substrate (say microtubules to make Stuart Hameroff happy) to work, then there shouldn't be those non-biomorph psi things mentioned in the GM section. Or there should be certain morphs that accidentally lack psi ability. If it is substrate independent, then there should be psi for infomorphs or synthmorphs too. Sure, one can easily come up with handwaves to explain away the arbitrariness (the basic MW strain doesnt have the interface drivers for synths by default?) but to me it all sounds like the typical vitalist idea that living beings have something extra that non-living structures lack. Think of how the Force apparently isn't accessible to droids in Star Wars, and so on. But Eclipse Phase is aiming for a hard sf take on the world ("Your mind is software...") where there is no fundamental dividing line between humans and AGIs. ...Or, run with it to make the setting even creepier. Have the PCs discover that souls exist. But they are not moved by uploading or egocasting. Sure, the information pattern that has all your memory and identity is moved, but your soul remains in the original body until it dies. By now, the souls of the PCs are either lost or now belong to somebody else. Except for the AGIs and uplifts, who might not have had souls ever. Worse, souls actually *matter*, there are some hints that they indeed are immortal and maybe have karmic loads. Which might be why the TITANS collected them so avidly - *they* now have the total spiritual power of billions...
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Sat, 2011-08-27 10:22
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: On Asyncs
From a crunch perspective, I also agree. :) Most of the psi powers are available cheaper as tech. It doesn't exactly encourage taking something that makes you crazy, vulnerable, and locks you out of synths.
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Sat, 2011-08-27 10:46
Demonseed Elite Demonseed Elite's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I agree with that also. I like the presentation of Psi as creepy, post-singularity phenomena, but I don't think many of the abilities live up to that mood. The ones that do are great and I feel add something to the game, but the ones that don't just feel superfluous.
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Sat, 2011-08-27 12:22
Covariant Covariant's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Psi isn't so bad if you presume that the ETI has a complete theory of mind for sophonts at the transhuman level. All of the Psi-χ abilities make sense if you think of the Watts-Macleod strain as introducing a bootloader that allows the Async to treat some parts of their brains as FPGAs. They can basically reprogram neural assemblies on the fly; this leads to some mental instability. The Psi-Γ slights are somewhat harder to explain, as they all involve direct communication between the Async and the target's mind. The restriction to biological platforms is another part that is hard to explain, as the Exsurgent virus is supposed to be platform independent. I just take those as facts with large surprisal value, and use them to shed light in the ETI. Which means the following is all complete conjecture: The Watts-Mcleod strain doesn't work on synthetic architectures, because it isn't supposed to. The ETI dealt with the synthetic architectures with the Exsurgent virus, and the Watts-Mcleod strain is for data collection. The ETI may have a complete enough theory of mind that they can use social signals to devastating effect. Maybe string theory is correct, and they are manipulating some sympathetic resonances in dimensions that transhumanity hasn't found a way to observe yet; It only looks like black magic because we are restricted to the three space-like dimensions of matter, the two complex dimensions of light, and the vector of time. Maybe in addition to seeding the solar system with Pandora Gates they flooded the human-occupied lightcone with femto-scale versions of the same thing so their messaging is entirely unrestricted by distance, and the Watts-Mcleod strain changes the Async's permissions to the network. The amount of physics we don't know is (I believe but cannot prove) infinite.
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Sat, 2011-08-27 12:28
puke puke's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Only octomorphs should have psy, whith their whacky donought brains. I actually think the game would be better without wee-zards, but i guess it can add to the horror element if its played right. what bothers me is when it is pitched as some sort of heroic benefit, or something that can be wielded wisely or benignly. I think that sucks all the existential threat right out of it; removes the post-apocalyptic horror from the game, and leaves us with magical furries in spaaaace. but maybe i just haven't had my coffee.
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Sat, 2011-08-27 14:34
Re-Laborat Re-Laborat's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Arenamontanus wrote:
...Or, run with it to make the setting even creepier. Have the PCs discover that souls exist. But they are not moved by uploading or egocasting. Sure, the information pattern that has all your memory and identity is moved, but your soul remains in the original body until it dies. By now, the souls of the PCs are either lost or now belong to somebody else. Except for the AGIs and uplifts, who might not have had souls ever. Worse, souls actually *matter*, there are some hints that they indeed are immortal and maybe have karmic loads. Which might be why the TITANS collected them so avidly - *they* now have the total spiritual power of billions...
You can hide amazing things in 'hard' science fiction settings. One of the least-observed wonders of Niven's "Known Space" is a throwaway line by Nessus the Puppeteer in the early chapters of Ringworld who notes that one reason its race acts the way it does is that they have established proof positive that Puppeteers have no afterlife. It is pretty specific. Specific enough that I find it amazing that not only doesn't anyone ask 'How did you discover this?' but also noone asks 'How about our race?' As to Psi in EP, I'm a firm believer that it is tied into the beginnings of a form of exhumanism and it should muck tremendously with the perceptions of the owner. If a player at my table basically treated it like 'My mage has fireball.' I'd start tweaking the world around them. Hard. "The problem isn't necessarily that the walls are bleeding. The problem is that the rest of your companions are acting like it's normal. [i]Perhaps they are infected?![/i] (P.S. Start playing your mental disadvantages or they'll be NPCed for you.)" My take on 'how it works' does amount to 'It's BFM', but it's exsurgent BFM, part of a system of attacks meant to screw over an up-and-coming civilization whether it relies on biological or mechanical technologies of information. As such, it [i]does[/i] insert unreliable data and tweak the perceptions of biological systems. And there are plenty of things which attack mechanical constructs similarly. It's a combination of data corruption and unforeseen/undesigned abilities meant to make an intelligence (whether biological or machine) go rampant/aggressively sociopathic. So I don't worry about explaining the biology of it any more than I worry about explaining any other exsurgent/TITAN mechanism. It [i]is[/i] and it's [i]messing with you and the immediate universe[/i].
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Sat, 2011-08-27 23:28
Saerain Saerain's picture
Re: On Asyncs
puke wrote:
I actually think the game would be better without wee-zards, but i guess it can add to the horror element if its played right.
I almost discarded [i]Eclipse Phase[/i] before really reading the corebook simply when I saw the word 'psi' in the table of contents, so reflexively averse was I. But yes, the horror is the key. The effects of Watts-MacLeod are silly at face value, but just about every explanation for it (and the Exsurgent virus in general) hinted at is abjectly terrifying. Not just spooky. The double slit experiment is spooky. The Exsurgent virus is the stuff our nightmares should be made of. Not for what it does, but for what it can mean. One of my favorite ways of looking at psi-gamma sleights is that literally everyone is infected with an unidentified, undetectable strain of the Exsurgent virus (in true lower-case eclipse phase fashion) and Watts-MacLeod 'knows' what that strain is doing due to quantum entanglement. The implication being that the ETI might be privy to this information. Extending the same explanation into psi-epsilon sleights, it gets so much worse still, making the ETI very truly omniscient.
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Sun, 2011-08-28 21:33
Monican Monican's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I like psi being in this game because it leaves the door open to the unknown. In a game where transhumans can seem omniscient (one of my players is a synthmorph-sleeved researcher who runs dedicated AIs and beta forks to do Science, all inside his slitheroid body. I think that's far out) it's nice to have something which really emphasizes [i]we do not understand everything. We barely understand anything.[/i]
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Sun, 2011-08-28 22:30
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Arenamontanus wrote:
I'm not fond of psi (seems to be a throwback to vitalism and magic in an otherwise hard sf universe), but played right it can work. Low-key, creepy and always perhaps just barely some sort of post-singularity technology - that is how I like it. [ ... ] In short, to be an async in my games you better play a very disturbed character. Who might well be a ticking exsurgent time bomb.
I wasn't a big fan at first, either; it smacked of superhero gaming, which I hate. But the way you're talking about running it is bang on.
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Mon, 2011-08-29 13:21
JMobius JMobius's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Arenamontanus wrote:
It is not the Clarke-tech aspect that annoys me, that is perfectly fine. My problem with psi is that it usually does exactly the same things you can achieve with ordinary technology, but at the price of invoking traditional dualism or vitalism. Much of telepathy can be done with cellphones and brainscans after all. Why stun people with your mind when there are tasers? The good parts of EP psi is the things that seem to hint at access to postsingularity intelligence or abilities (like grok).
I had not previously considered the vitalism angle, but now that I think about it it is a bit odd given many of the other precepts of the setting. Interesting! I think this comment also, I think, is the crux of why I have seen so few async PCs. The 'entry cost' to being an async (both in terms of CP and mental stability) is quite high, and extremely difficult to justify given that the majority of the sleights can be duplicated with implants for a fraction of the cost, and without potentially injuring yourself in the process... in general, psi seems like an awful lot of drawbacks for very little gain. I dearly hope that future books might take a look at expanding (and hopefully reworking) it a bit.
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Mon, 2011-08-29 13:44
Yerameyahu Yerameyahu's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I'm not terribly against a weird thread of vitalism in EP. It's a big-tent setting full of multi-lateral tensions; I feel like a very small dose of 'spooky bio stuff' is a dash of spice. They're the tiny, tiny minority, after all.
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Mon, 2012-04-23 21:38
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: On Asyncs
puke wrote:
Only octomorphs should have psy, whith their whacky donought brains. I actually think the game would be better without wee-zards, but i guess it can add to the horror element if its played right. what bothers me is when it is pitched as some sort of heroic benefit, or something that can be wielded wisely or benignly. I think that sucks all the existential threat right out of it; removes the post-apocalyptic horror from the game, and leaves us with magical furries in spaaaace. but maybe i just haven't had my coffee.
The funny thing is that, unlike all the other strains of exurgent virus, the Watts Macaloid strain seems to be fairly benign (and even that makes you insane by default, mentally fragile, and vulnerable to other exsurgent strains). A sufficiently paranoid character should be frantically looking for the catch. (If your players aren't paranoid, shame on you! This is supposed to be a horror game!) The WM strain looks like a trap, and it very well could be. I'm sure there are factions with a sample experimenting with psychic super soldiers. (The Futura project might have been a cover for just that, and there exists a drug that gives temporary psi use, where do you think that came from!) Nobody knows how asyncs work, so who knows what other effects could come up later. It could be a very slow acting haunting varient designed for long lived transhuman-type societies. The infected are overlooked by many and certain factions try to exploit it for their own uses, intentionally spreading it. It is only later that they realize that several decades after infection the subjects quietly bloom into full exsurgents, their behavior change being so subtle that even their closest friends don't see it. Best case scenario, the infection just give makes insane people with mysterious, undetectable super-powers. The scariest and most dangerous monsters in human history have always been people. edit: While it says that AGI and uplifts can't start with psi, there isn't anything that says they can't get infected later,iirc.
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Mon, 2012-04-23 22:57
Aeroz Aeroz's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Granted this is more of a religious belief then a scientific one. But I believe the only thing separating us from God, is knowledge. You can do literally anything, if you know how. The human mind can reach a high level of this, things that would seem mystical, but ultimately we are not advanced enough to do much. The exurgent virus is still comparatively primitive, but to us its greatly advanced. It allows physics, or to be exact our understanding of it to be broken. Remember asnycs are just an example. Those infected often break the law of conservation of mass and energy. When it comes to violating our understanding of science asnycs are pretty mild compared to other examples of the virus. Its kind of silly to accept suddenly gaining 10 times your mass or phasing through walls but find reading minds to be too fanciful when there is tech that can accomplish it.
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Mon, 2012-04-23 23:54
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Aeroz wrote:
Granted this is more of a religious belief then a scientific one. But I believe the only thing separating us from God, is knowledge. You can do literally anything, if you know how. The human mind can reach a high level of this, things that would seem mystical, but ultimately we are not advanced enough to do much. The exurgent virus is still comparatively primitive, but to us its greatly advanced. It allows physics, or to be exact our understanding of it to be broken. Remember asnycs are just an example. Those infected often break the law of conservation of mass and energy. When it comes to violating our understanding of science asnycs are pretty mild compared to other examples of the virus. Its kind of silly to accept suddenly gaining 10 times your mass or phasing through walls but find reading minds to be too fanciful when there is tech that can accomplish it.
That is indeed a scary concept. Someone with those views, that knowledge is the only difference between man and diety, might seek out the Watts Macaloid strain, or the more powerful and dangerous strains of exsurgent virus, to become closer to God (similar in many ways to the singularity seekers). Unfortunately knowledge and power does not a loving god make, not necessarily at least. But some might not care about the motives of their "god" only their power.
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Tue, 2012-04-24 03:52
Aeroz Aeroz's picture
Re: On Asyncs
nerdnumber1 wrote:
Aeroz wrote:
Granted this is more of a religious belief then a scientific one. But I believe the only thing separating us from God, is knowledge. You can do literally anything, if you know how. The human mind can reach a high level of this, things that would seem mystical, but ultimately we are not advanced enough to do much. The exurgent virus is still comparatively primitive, but to us its greatly advanced. It allows physics, or to be exact our understanding of it to be broken. Remember asnycs are just an example. Those infected often break the law of conservation of mass and energy. When it comes to violating our understanding of science asnycs are pretty mild compared to other examples of the virus. Its kind of silly to accept suddenly gaining 10 times your mass or phasing through walls but find reading minds to be too fanciful when there is tech that can accomplish it.
That is indeed a scary concept. Someone with those views, that knowledge is the only difference between man and diety, might seek out the Watts Macaloid strain, or the more powerful and dangerous strains of exsurgent virus, to become closer to God (similar in many ways to the singularity seekers). Unfortunately knowledge and power does not a loving god make, not necessarily at least. But some might not care about the motives of their "god" only their power.
Not necessarily. The religion also believes that suffering is the result of imperfect knowledge. Most importantly, I think it would be a group that desires a singularity event born from enhancing the human mind rather than creating something that is more intelligent. Granted that has dangers in and of itself too. I imagine a follower unknowingly contracting Watts-Macaloid and viewing himself a prophet. Hmm this might deserve some homebrew
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Tue, 2012-04-24 16:48
OrangeRequired OrangeRequired's picture
Re: On Asyncs
jackgraham wrote:
Arenamontanus wrote:
I'm not fond of psi (seems to be a throwback to vitalism and magic in an otherwise hard sf universe), but played right it can work. Low-key, creepy and always perhaps just barely some sort of post-singularity technology - that is how I like it. [ ... ] In short, to be an async in my games you better play a very disturbed character. Who might well be a ticking exsurgent time bomb.
I wasn't a big fan at first, either; it smacked of superhero gaming, which I hate. But the way you're talking about running it is bang on.
This is basically how I feel. Asyncs should feel like they're constantly on the knife-edge between transhuman and exsurgent, and any special knowledge or creepy visions they gain from being infected should also imply they may have just developed in an unsettling direction. You should play an Async because you're interested in playing a character who may have been seriously compromised in a very creepy way, not because you want fancy powers. That said, I am much more a fan of Psi-Chi than Psi-Gamma. Psi-Chi is genuinely interesting, but Psi-Gamma is where all the stuff we've seen before in other games sits. I can at least handwave Grok as a hyper-accelerated subconscious intuition, or if I'm being creepy, imply that it also draws on some dormant knowledge embedded in the exsurgent virus. I'm okay with psi being geared towards biological organisms; I just interpret the Watts-Macleod strain as being specifically engineered towards that end, since that's what the bulk of humanity was pre-Fall. That said, I would LOVE to see a synthetic strain emerge in a further book that has its own very unique flavour, differentiated from Watts-Macleod.
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Tue, 2012-04-24 19:04
750 750's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I wonder, what would happen if we developed the ability to manipulate individual atoms in our own body? Time and space as we know it would likely go out the window. That could be what this strain does, open up the mind to whole new vistas on the atomic level rather than the structural level that most of the others do (and wiping out the line between mind and implants in the process). There are a million and one events going on inside each of us at any given nanosecond. Being able to take conscious control of even a fraction of those could be impressive to say the least. Hell, most of what our brain does every second is unknown to us.
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Tue, 2012-04-24 19:31
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: On Asyncs
750 wrote:
I wonder, what would happen if we developed the ability to manipulate individual atoms in our own body? Time and space as we know it would likely go out the window. ... There are a million and one events going on inside each of us at any given nanosecond. Being able to take conscious control of even a fraction of those could be impressive to say the least. Hell, most of what our brain does every second is unknown to us.
How did you open your mitral heart valve? And how did you decide to fire off those neurons in the locus ceruleus? Or metabolize that citrate? Or deliver the antigens from the microfold cells in your ileum to the nearby APCs? You just did it. Now imagine having to consciously do it. It would be like when you deliberately breathe rather than letting it happen automatically... if you had to pay attention you would quickly die. Oops, forgot to maintain the pH in the blood! Super-psi giving this kind of control would require enhanced consciousness and regulation ability in order to work. Turning that ability outward to run attached systems like spacecraft or stockmarkets might have somewhat dramatic effects... I had a fun instance of what could have been psi (or demonic possession/alien passengers) in my game that allowed a character to interact with gates directly using his fractal limbs. It was potentially amazingly powerful, allowing him to do things beyond known gate capabilities... yet the character realized that he might be a walking xrisk. Fortunately for him he got stranded on a gateless exoplanet... except that there is a backup copy with the same mental pattern back in human space. He is not certain he wants that one to be reactivated.
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Extropian
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Tue, 2012-04-24 19:41
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I think the best way to sum up how asyncs fit into the setting is with a classic quote from Nietzsche, who perfectly stated the following: "Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster; and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes into you." This is no more perfectly portrayed in the setting than through the asyncs; they are the very monsters you fight to save the world from. And that can't be stressed enough. When I explain a new player the gist of the setting, I save the asyncs as the last thing to explain. I tell them about the Fall, I tell them about the TITANs, I tell them about the Exsurgent Virus (which as members of Firewall, they should know about), and I tell them about Exsurgents. Then when they ask what an async is, I simply say "you play as an exsurgent". That's what it comes down to. [i]You are playing as an exsurgent.[/i] You are but one of the breeds of monster that Firewall hunts. Sure, you are the most human-friendly, and socially-acceptable variant of exsurgent that could possibly exist, but that's like being the nicest guy on Death Row... completely relative. But that doesn't mean you're a villain. The only other person besides me that played an async in our groups ran it that way, but I told him it isn't the case. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that exsurgents in general aren't "evil" in the sense we call it. Exsurgents don't have an inherent morality. An exsurgent that infects a crowd of people then begins producing spores to migrate to another part of the planet is no more evil than a polar bear that stumbles across a human baby to snack on. Most exsurgents are driven by their instincts to do what they do (those that are vastly intelligent might not be, but might be operating on different moral standing; or they are possibly proof that intelligence and morality are not inexorably tied). As an async, you are an amalgam of humanity and exsurgency... simultaneously imbued with human thought and an alien mindset. And that's why I like playing them. You have a wide versatility with which to build a character concept. You run the gamut of human personalities, just like anyone else... but you also have an alien element to your thoughts and ideas. It's personified in your mental disorders, but I argue that they aren't mental disorders in the standard sense. They are fragments of alien instinct that have become programmed into that character's mind, which are most closely represented by those mental disorders. Treating them (as you can do with mental disorders) is not actually treating a mental problem so much as it is suppressing your natural alien urges. If there was one thing that disappoints me about asyncs in Eclipse Phase, it's the fact that they've gotten virtually no support. Other than mild references in Gatecrashing, they've been untouched by new rules and mechanics. That saddens me. I'd hate for them to be a setting gimmick that was simply made to be something interesting, only for them to get no support whatsoever. Don't tell me that Cognite hasn't prototyped cyberbrains that can at least emulate psi abilities on a limited scale by now (even if they haven't hit the market yet, they should already exist and have rules). Don't tell me that asyncs have failed to conceive of more varied sleights by this point. It's a real bummer.
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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]
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Tue, 2012-04-24 22:01
NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Decivre wrote:
If there was one thing that disappoints me about asyncs in Eclipse Phase, it's the fact that they've gotten virtually no support. Other than mild references in Gatecrashing, they've been untouched by new rules and mechanics. That saddens me. I'd hate for them to be a setting gimmick that was simply made to be something interesting, only for them to get no support whatsoever. Don't tell me that Cognite hasn't prototyped cyberbrains that can at least emulate psi abilities on a limited scale by now (even if they haven't hit the market yet, they should already exist and have rules). Don't tell me that asyncs have failed to conceive of more varied sleights by this point. It's a real bummer.
*turns on Arenamontanus's voice* Perhaps Posthuman Studios regrets its foray into vitalism. Perhaps they are ashamed of betraying their own principles. Of subverting the Hard SF bedrock of their game with a magical-doohickey. *turns off Arenamontanus voice* Then again, they could just be busy doing other stuff.
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As mind to body, so soul to spirit. As death to the mortal man, so failure to the immortal. Such is the price of all ambition.
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Wed, 2012-04-25 00:09
Aeroz Aeroz's picture
Re: On Asyncs
What about viewing mind reading as a process similar to quantum entanglement. Your mind is able to entangle itself with the chemical pathways and/or neurons related to thinking and memory in someones brain over a distance. Thus these same memories and thoughts appear in your own head as well. The opposite is also possible, using the process to forcibly alter what goes on in someone else's head. It only works in biological minds because its designed to alter those processes, and only against others because, well you cant really stimulate the neurons of something that lacks them.
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Wed, 2012-04-25 01:48
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I don't really see asyncs as being more of a problem than Pandora gates and alien tech like fixers. They very clearly show our current understanding of physics don't offer the whole picture. You can like that or not, but just because something works a bit like something from dumb superstition, that doesn't make it silly.
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Wed, 2012-04-25 09:26
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: On Asyncs
NewAgeOfPower wrote:
Decivre wrote:
If there was one thing that disappoints me about asyncs in Eclipse Phase, it's the fact that they've gotten virtually no support. Other than mild references in Gatecrashing, they've been untouched by new rules and mechanics. That saddens me. I'd hate for them to be a setting gimmick that was simply made to be something interesting, only for them to get no support whatsoever. Don't tell me that Cognite hasn't prototyped cyberbrains that can at least emulate psi abilities on a limited scale by now (even if they haven't hit the market yet, they should already exist and have rules). Don't tell me that asyncs have failed to conceive of more varied sleights by this point. It's a real bummer.
*turns on Arenamontanus's voice* Perhaps Posthuman Studios regrets its foray into vitalism. Perhaps they are ashamed of betraying their own principles. Of subverting the Hard SF bedrock of their game with a magical-doohickey. *turns off Arenamontanus voice* Then again, they could just be busy doing other stuff.
I doubt they need more rules or background. Sure, we could get like a list of famous asyncs... but nothing prevents us to do it ourselves, for a more particular list. What would you expect for asyncs in new suplements? New powers? Why? Asyncs are rare individuals in the game that, for what I have read thus far, won't try to get together into isolated communities (it would call the atention of other factions, after all, with the slightest mistake). Unless they are brinkers, avoding any contact with transhumanity, living in a lost section of space. In which case, writing about them is wasting ink, time and space...
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Wed, 2012-04-25 16:47
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Xagroth wrote:
NewAgeOfPower wrote:
Decivre wrote:
If there was one thing that disappoints me about asyncs in Eclipse Phase, it's the fact that they've gotten virtually no support. Other than mild references in Gatecrashing, they've been untouched by new rules and mechanics. That saddens me. I'd hate for them to be a setting gimmick that was simply made to be something interesting, only for them to get no support whatsoever. Don't tell me that Cognite hasn't prototyped cyberbrains that can at least emulate psi abilities on a limited scale by now (even if they haven't hit the market yet, they should already exist and have rules). Don't tell me that asyncs have failed to conceive of more varied sleights by this point. It's a real bummer.
*turns on Arenamontanus's voice* Perhaps Posthuman Studios regrets its foray into vitalism. Perhaps they are ashamed of betraying their own principles. Of subverting the Hard SF bedrock of their game with a magical-doohickey. *turns off Arenamontanus voice* Then again, they could just be busy doing other stuff.
I doubt they need more rules or background. Sure, we could get like a list of famous asyncs... but nothing prevents us to do it ourselves, for a more particular list. What would you expect for asyncs in new suplements? New powers? Why? Asyncs are rare individuals in the game that, for what I have read thus far, won't try to get together into isolated communities (it would call the atention of other factions, after all, with the slightest mistake). Unless they are brinkers, avoding any contact with transhumanity, living in a lost section of space. In which case, writing about them is wasting ink, time and space...
I am curious about learning more about asyncs and the Lost Generation, but a good deal of the information has been intentionally limited to keep things secret to players and give the GM blank spots to develop. The psi drugs are one big curiousity of mine, especially this one from the EP rulebook:
Quote:
Psi-Opener: Psi-opener drugs are [B]variants of the Watts-MacLeod strain[/B] with a temporary effect and which do not permanently alter the user’s brain. Psiopener temporarily imbues the user with the ability to use one particular sleight, regardless of whether or not they have the Psi trait. Each type of Psi-opener is customized for a particular sleight. While primarily intended for non-asyncs, non-asyncs may not possess Psi skills, so they must default to WIL. For this reason, Psi-Opener is often doubled up with Psike-out. Using Psi-opener is a mind-wrenching experience. Users are occasionally subject to hallucinations (gamemaster discretion). When the drug wears off, it inflicts 1d10 points of mental stress, +2 if the drug imbues a psi-gamma sleight. [Expensive]
Who the heck has the cappability to make safer varients of the Watts-MacLeod strain, and how is that even possible? What else are these people trying? Are they looking into making stains that could give someone psi level 3 without turning them into a monster (a task sure to have catastrophic results even if some progress is made)?
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Wed, 2012-04-25 19:10
Aeroz Aeroz's picture
Re: On Asyncs
nerdnumber1 wrote:
Who the heck has the cappability to make safer varients of the Watts-MacLeod strain, and how is that even possible? What else are these people trying? Are they looking into making stains that could give someone psi level 3 without turning them into a monster (a task sure to have catastrophic results even if some progress is made)?
I have to agree, you shouldn't be able to "buy" powers developed by beings incomprehensibly smarter than us. Also, all asyncs should realize there is the very real possibility the only difference between you and that level 3 monster, is time.
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Wed, 2012-04-25 21:31
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Aeroz wrote:
nerdnumber1 wrote:
Who the heck has the cappability to make safer varients of the Watts-MacLeod strain, and how is that even possible? What else are these people trying? Are they looking into making stains that could give someone psi level 3 without turning them into a monster (a task sure to have catastrophic results even if some progress is made)?
I have to agree, you shouldn't be able to "buy" powers developed by beings incomprehensibly smarter than us. Also, all asyncs should realize there is the very real possibility the only difference between you and that level 3 monster, is time.
The psi drug section says that secret organizations such as Firewall were the ones to develop these types of drugs. Most drug-induced sleights aren't all that powerful compared to other, cheaper drugs (with less side effects), so this isn't much of a game balance issue, and it does use a modified version of the MW strain. I'm guessing a non-human inteligence or inspiration was involved in its development (maybe an async with enhanced creativity, though would you take a drug created by a mad async from a strain of exsurgent virus).
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Thu, 2012-04-26 03:00
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: On Asyncs
NewAgeOfPower wrote:
*turns on Arenamontanus's voice* Perhaps Posthuman Studios regrets its foray into vitalism. Perhaps they are ashamed of betraying their own principles. Of subverting the Hard SF bedrock of their game with a magical-doohickey. *turns off Arenamontanus voice* Then again, they could just be busy doing other stuff.
I'm hoping we'll see more material for them soon. They are probably one of my favorite elements of the setting. And for quite the opposite reasons that Arenamontanus dislikes them... I think they fit perfectly in a setting that deals with the horror of encountering sufficiently-advanced aliens.
Xagroth wrote:
I doubt they need more rules or background. Sure, we could get like a list of famous asyncs... but nothing prevents us to do it ourselves, for a more particular list. What would you expect for asyncs in new suplements? New powers? Why? Asyncs are rare individuals in the game that, for what I have read thus far, won't try to get together into isolated communities (it would call the atention of other factions, after all, with the slightest mistake). Unless they are brinkers, avoding any contact with transhumanity, living in a lost section of space. In which case, writing about them is wasting ink, time and space...
Yes, but there are plenty of rare elements in the Eclipse Phase setting. Certain groups, exhumans, and the hyperelite probably make up much smaller fractions of the population than asyncs. That doesn't mean there should be minimal rules and information dealing with them. Besides, why couldn't asyncs form communities? The books already referenced a group of criminal asyncs, so I can only imagine that there would be legitimate async collaborations as well. Plus, psi is a new field to research. It is a new frontier to study, learn and master. Why would there [b]not[/b] be anyone trying to push that envelope and further develop psi abilities and technologies? We know already that cognite does psi research. It would be insane if groups like Firewall weren't doing psi research. At some point, something's gotta give, and there has to be some new breakthroughs.
Aeroz wrote:
Also, all asyncs should realize there is the very real possibility the only difference between you and that level 3 monster, is time.
Hey, we all have our problems. Some run the risk of getting alzheimers, while others run the risk of evolving vast mental abilities combined with sociopathic tendencies. Don't judge us.
—
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]
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Thu, 2012-04-26 05:15
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Well, I wouldn't put the hyperelite as a "small group"... Certainly the biggest group of all the setting are the Indeturees, of course, but consider that no matter how small the elite is, Eclipse Phase removes "death"... thus that kind of groups whith members than can alwasy afford backups and new bodies are only going to grow. Which will be very frustrating and unstable for its members, because... well, you can look into the old World of Darkness' game Vampire: The Masquerade for a term called "the crystal roof" (or something similar). It is essentially the consequence of removing death from the equation of political power: the younger members find no place, no purpose, no goal. Back into topic, however, I think it is easy to understand that placing a lot of asyncs in a group that works together and relates with normal transhumans increases the risk of exposure a lot. We need to keep in mind that most asyncs never wanted those powers, and a huge number of them just want to live normal and peaceful lives, which becomes impossible if you are labeled as an exurgent threat. As I said before, I don't think we need more powers or rules for the Asyncs in Eclipse Phase. Background, groups, characters and settlements (be it habitats in the Solar System or colonies on exoplanets) would be nice, but I prefer that to be a fan-made project rather than an oficial one, and let Transhuman Studios to focus in more juicy areas.
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Thu, 2012-04-26 10:29
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Xagroth wrote:
Well, I wouldn't put the hyperelite as a "small group"... Certainly the biggest group of all the setting are the Indeturees, of course, but consider that no matter how small the elite is, Eclipse Phase removes "death"... thus that kind of groups whith members than can alwasy afford backups and new bodies are only going to grow. Which will be very frustrating and unstable for its members, because... well, you can look into the old World of Darkness' game Vampire: The Masquerade for a term called "the crystal roof" (or something similar). It is essentially the consequence of removing death from the equation of political power: the younger members find no place, no purpose, no goal. Back into topic, however, I think it is easy to understand that placing a lot of asyncs in a group that works together and relates with normal transhumans increases the risk of exposure a lot. We need to keep in mind that most asyncs never wanted those powers, and a huge number of them just want to live normal and peaceful lives, which becomes impossible if you are labeled as an exurgent threat. As I said before, I don't think we need more powers or rules for the Asyncs in Eclipse Phase. Background, groups, characters and settlements (be it habitats in the Solar System or colonies on exoplanets) would be nice, but I prefer that to be a fan-made project rather than an oficial one, and let Transhuman Studios to focus in more juicy areas.
This is why I think async groups would be small and secret. A sociopathic, manipulative Lost async (who may or may not be a dragon) might start a small cult of his old childhood friends to take down Cognite, or at least steal any possible WM strain samples to expand their group. Point being, a varied group of 3~6 asyncs can be a significant threat (especially when members possess other useful skills) without too much exposure risk.
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Thu, 2012-04-26 15:45
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: On Asyncs
nerdnumber1 wrote:
This is why I think async groups would be small and secret. A sociopathic, manipulative Lost async (who may or may not be a dragon) might start a small cult of his old childhood friends to take down Cognite, or at least steal any possible WM strain samples to expand their group. Point being, a varied group of 3~6 asyncs can be a significant threat (especially when members possess other useful skills) without too much exposure risk.
Oh, that... I'd be inclined to call those "conspiracies" or "cell-organized terrorists" (at least, from the PC's point of view). I thought you were talking about groups of at least a dozen asyncs trying to just live like normal people. Again, I think we can cook good ideas around asyncs ourselves, maybe even an special edition of The Eye, and free the Posthuman staff to do Rimward, and maybe even a chronicle of AF10 that lets you go up to AF11 without having to worry about how the bigger players have changed, and how some of the adventure seeds mentioned in the currently published books have developed (assuming player characters were not involved, of course).
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Thu, 2012-04-26 17:28
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Xagroth wrote:
nerdnumber1 wrote:
This is why I think async groups would be small and secret. A sociopathic, manipulative Lost async (who may or may not be a dragon) might start a small cult of his old childhood friends to take down Cognite, or at least steal any possible WM strain samples to expand their group. Point being, a varied group of 3~6 asyncs can be a significant threat (especially when members possess other useful skills) without too much exposure risk.
Oh, that... I'd be inclined to call those "conspiracies" or "cell-organized terrorists" (at least, from the PC's point of view). I thought you were talking about groups of at least a dozen asyncs trying to just live like normal people. Again, I think we can cook good ideas around asyncs ourselves, maybe even an special edition of The Eye, and free the Posthuman staff to do Rimward, and maybe even a chronicle of AF10 that lets you go up to AF11 without having to worry about how the bigger players have changed, and how some of the adventure seeds mentioned in the currently published books have developed (assuming player characters were not involved, of course).
Some of the Lost Generation might want to re-connect with some of their fellows. Crazy or not, the other lost are the only ones who understand the difficulties of their upbringing and the burden of async abilities. Also, they are the closest thing to childhood friends that a lost has. Whether they can connect or not would be a big question especially if they want to stay hidden (the few openly Lost individuals might have a support group, if for no other reason than safety in numbers). In jokes and secret references from childhood could form a code withwhich to contact each other anonymously on forums to set up meets, though such an organization might stick to digital communication to keep touch without causing too much risk.
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Thu, 2012-04-26 19:10
750 750's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Arenamontanus wrote:
750 wrote:
I wonder, what would happen if we developed the ability to manipulate individual atoms in our own body? Time and space as we know it would likely go out the window. ... There are a million and one events going on inside each of us at any given nanosecond. Being able to take conscious control of even a fraction of those could be impressive to say the least. Hell, most of what our brain does every second is unknown to us.
How did you open your mitral heart valve? And how did you decide to fire off those neurons in the locus ceruleus? Or metabolize that citrate? Or deliver the antigens from the microfold cells in your ileum to the nearby APCs? You just did it. Now imagine having to consciously do it. It would be like when you deliberately breathe rather than letting it happen automatically... if you had to pay attention you would quickly die. Oops, forgot to maintain the pH in the blood! Super-psi giving this kind of control would require enhanced consciousness and regulation ability in order to work. Turning that ability outward to run attached systems like spacecraft or stockmarkets might have somewhat dramatic effects... I had a fun instance of what could have been psi (or demonic possession/alien passengers) in my game that allowed a character to interact with gates directly using his fractal limbs. It was potentially amazingly powerful, allowing him to do things beyond known gate capabilities... yet the character realized that he might be a walking xrisk. Fortunately for him he got stranded on a gateless exoplanet... except that there is a backup copy with the same mental pattern back in human space. He is not certain he wants that one to be reactivated.
That one could affect it would mean that one need to, in the same way that breathing fall back to a unconscious rhythm when one stop thinking about it. As for the enhanced conciousness needed, that could be what is bringing on the mental issues of the asyncs.
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Fri, 2012-04-27 04:35
NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Double post, apologies.
—
As mind to body, so soul to spirit. As death to the mortal man, so failure to the immortal. Such is the price of all ambition.
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Fri, 2012-04-27 04:35
NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Decivre wrote:
Why would there [b]not[/b] be anyone trying to push that envelope and further develop psi abilities and technologies? We know already that cognite does psi research. It would be insane if groups like Firewall weren't doing psi research. At some point, [b]something's gotta give, and there has to be some new breakthroughs.[/b]
Or massive explosions. Or Extinction of humanity. I must state my position- on my first, second, and third reads of EP, I found Asyncs to be odd, and definitely a betrayal of the hard SF system our developers seemed to be aiming for. However, in the game information section, where exsurgent asyncs don't have to be in biological brains helped increase (somewhat) the plausibility of this... Async mechanic... I still find it odd that you can use XYZ powers which seem to defy the laws of Physics as we know it, with no ideal how it works- [b]but I could say the same about Pandora Gates or FTL Factor ships[/b] (which were hinted at in the core books). Plus, I'm going to use this opportunity to make an Async that has near-zero combat ability... My entire group is kind of sick and tired of my 'OP' (TBH... just optimized. Not even maximized for combat) Super-Solder-Hacker Infolife, and we're taking a short break from our Firewall Campaign to play a Gatecrashing Campaign. But oh man, I am going to have FUN with Subliminal Messaging! And Grok!
—
As mind to body, so soul to spirit. As death to the mortal man, so failure to the immortal. Such is the price of all ambition.
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Fri, 2012-04-27 05:35
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: On Asyncs
AGIs are quite overpowered for hacking, in exchange for being a little... naive. Now that I think about it... are they inmunne to the async infection? Imagine an AGI sleeved in a biomorph (squishy!) with psi powers... and not able to understand what the hell is she reading from other people's "mesh" XD. You know, there has been developments in the exurgent virus field. And attempts (look at certain space station near a pulsar, with a buddhist congregation meditating...), at least by Ozma. It's just that they are listed as "exurgent experiments", not "attempts to develop new psi powers". Consider that egos are as sacred in the future as life is today, while morphs are seen like expensive cars (and most equipment like gizmos).
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Fri, 2012-04-27 13:31
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Xagroth wrote:
AGIs are quite overpowered for hacking, in exchange for being a little... naive. Now that I think about it... are they inmunne to the async infection? Imagine an AGI sleeved in a biomorph (squishy!) with psi powers... and not able to understand what the hell is she reading from other people's "mesh" XD.
I think they are just banned from starting with it (they are probably generally younger than most other characters and are more comfortable outside biomorphs so there is a reduced chance of Watts MacLeod infection). If an AGI was exposed in one of my games while sleeved in a biomorph, I would totally make him/her/it an async. As to how it would experience the thoughts of others... well that depends on the AGI. Certain alien transhuman thoughts might even cause mental strain in rare cases...
Quote:
You know, there has been developments in the exurgent virus field. And attempts (look at certain space station near a pulsar, with a buddhist congregation meditating...), at least by Ozma. It's just that they are listed as "exurgent experiments", not "attempts to develop new psi powers". Consider that egos are as sacred in the future as life is today, while morphs are seen like expensive cars (and most equipment like gizmos).
I would not say egos are off limits to experimentation (I'm guessing that is kind of what you meant by saying they are "sacred"). If one is unhindered by morality, one can get free copies through forking without anyone noticing. A deal with Nine Lives can get access to bulk shipments of illegally forks. If you have any sort of access to egocasting, back-up services, or prison ego servers, then you have plenty of egos to secretly fork. If you are really despirate, you can even spend a few years growing egos like the futura project. If you want a semi-legitimate source, offer some infugees case morphs as payment for participation in a short term experiment. There are plenty of ways to get egos secretly without destroying existing ones. Sure, you couldn't let anyone know because most such methods are ridiculously immoral, but that didn't stop Cognite from going through with project Futura and it won't stop other corps and factions from trying their own schemes.
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Sat, 2012-04-28 02:57
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Xagroth wrote:
Well, I wouldn't put the hyperelite as a "small group"... Certainly the biggest group of all the setting are the Indeturees, of course, but consider that no matter how small the elite is, Eclipse Phase removes "death"... thus that kind of groups whith members than can alwasy afford backups and new bodies are only going to grow. Which will be very frustrating and unstable for its members, because... well, you can look into the old World of Darkness' game Vampire: The Masquerade for a term called "the crystal roof" (or something similar). It is essentially the consequence of removing death from the equation of political power: the younger members find no place, no purpose, no goal.
The "hyperelite" class of the modern world consists of a population total around 1-2% of the population, and it has thinned out over time. If I had to make a guess, this thinning out will continue into the future, with the hyperelite class being an extremely small portion of the populous by 10 AF. I have no doubt that it would be comparable to the population of asyncs within the same time period.
Xagroth wrote:
Back into topic, however, I think it is easy to understand that placing a lot of asyncs in a group that works together and relates with normal transhumans increases the risk of exposure a lot. We need to keep in mind that most asyncs never wanted those powers, and a huge number of them just want to live normal and peaceful lives, which becomes impossible if you are labeled as an exurgent threat. As I said before, I don't think we need more powers or rules for the Asyncs in Eclipse Phase. Background, groups, characters and settlements (be it habitats in the Solar System or colonies on exoplanets) would be nice, but I prefer that to be a fan-made project rather than an oficial one, and let Transhuman Studios to focus in more juicy areas.
In the fringes of the outer system, asyncs have little to fear. Plus, they are an asset to groups like Firewall. I'd imagine that so long as they don't prove themselves to be an x-threat, they could find a home somewhere in the system. Even if it's a secret home (a community of asyncs could very easily form a community without outsiders ever finding out about them).
NewAgeOfPower wrote:
Or massive explosions. Or Extinction of humanity. I must state my position- on my first, second, and third reads of EP, I found Asyncs to be odd, and definitely a betrayal of the hard SF system our developers seemed to be aiming for.
No more so than the exsurgent virus, factors, pandora gates and other horror elements of the setting do. People tend to have varying definitions of what constitutes "hard" sci-fi. I find people with the ability to enter your mind with a touch no more shocking than computer viruses that can infect people, zergmind slug-aliens and stargates.
NewAgeOfPower wrote:
However, in the game information section, where exsurgent asyncs don't have to be in biological brains helped increase (somewhat) the plausibility of this... Async mechanic... I still find it odd that you can use XYZ powers which seem to defy the laws of Physics as we know it, with no ideal how it works- [b]but I could say the same about Pandora Gates or FTL Factor ships[/b] (which were hinted at in the core books). Plus, I'm going to use this opportunity to make an Async that has near-zero combat ability... My entire group is kind of sick and tired of my 'OP' (TBH... just optimized. Not even maximized for combat) Super-Solder-Hacker Infolife, and we're taking a short break from our Firewall Campaign to play a Gatecrashing Campaign. But oh man, I am going to have FUN with Subliminal Messaging! And Grok!
My async character's codename is sleeper. He got it due to his signature use of psi... using subliminal to push people into falling unconscious. When that fails, he can always trigger his eelware and knock you out. One way or another, he can take you down. And that's about all the combat capability he has. I find that asyncs are most interesting simply because evading combat is so much more possible for them. They are practically perfect as social animals... an irony considering how their madness pushes them closer to total sociopathy. My infolife character has been called broken as well. But to be fair, the infolife background is potentially worth hundred of points, whereas most other backgrounds are worth about 40. Calling it broken within that context is rather astute.
—
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]
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Sat, 2012-04-28 06:32
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: On Asyncs
About more exurgent virus experimentation, it is noted in one of the last exocolonies listed in gatecrashing that experimentation has been started (totally black, by the way) to make a mix between uplifts and project futura (even using a lot of the scientist involved in the Futura project!). Yeah, I know I am a little slowpoke in here, but I've been reading the books without any kind of hurry since I don't have a playing group. Number1, I was refering to the "public version" and general feelings. There is a reason behind those researchs being secret: they are widely considered as "evil". I was trying to make it analog to nowadays' human trafficking, slavery, etc...: wrong only if you are caught with it, sadly. Decivre: Yeah, I know the hyperelite class should reduce its numbers in the future. But consider which groups survived the Fall better: space workers who were outside Earth and people with enough money or power to be out too... or bribe their path to salvation. That culled most of the population inbetween, and then made the indeturee class the bigger. Add to that equation the removal of death, and you can see that those who can buy morphs and their generic code are, usually, the hyperlite. Of course, I am talking mostly about Sunward, but even cosidering transhumanity as a whole, I bet the % of hyperelite people (specially bored ones who are too old to enjoy life or too young to want to do anything but "have fun") is much higher than we could think. As for the "Hard sci-fi" vs "soft sci-fi", it is impossible to make a pure "hard" one, because remember, sufficiently advanced science is like magic to those that don't know or understand it. Introducing "magical items" in the game (essentially, stuff that seems to break the laws of the universe as we know them) points to the fact that transhumanity is not the top dog and has a lot to walk. However, there is a problem with almost all sci-fi RPGs, at least those that go more for the "hard" side than the "soft" one: computers tend to be exceedingly important not for the economy, but for really critical things like crime prevention and survival. For example, in Star Wars d20 a player character with at least 15 ranks on computers (for a total of 19 or so in the skill) can hack a Star Destroyer's computer core with a 5+ in 1d20 (75% chance of success!), since 24 was staed as "incredibly difficult tasks" (and the crew of any unnamed Star Destroyer would not include NPC's of more than level 5, 7-8 if we consider the captain). In one of the Honorverse novels by David Weber, a heavy cruiser is taken down by a single character with time, computer access and charming skills with the guards who were watching him, against the clock and using that as a distraction to organize a jailbreak (from a spaceship...). What I mean with this is how unbalanced is for the infolife background to be the way it is: by not paying social skills (more than the networking skill you need to be a believable character) you can save like 60 or even 100 character/rez points! Because you can, at the start of the game, pay all the computer-related skills (infosec, interface, etc...) at half the price... meaning you can start with 90 in infosec by spending 10 points (for the advantage that allows you to reach 90 in one skill, instead of being capped at 80), plus 30 (for the points between 60 and 90), plus a 1:1 investment to reach 60 (considering you add your COG and you get some background skill points in those skills...). So 40 points to reach 90 over 60, while a normal character would need to spend 10 (for the advantage) plus 60 points (from 60 to 90), meaning a 70 point investment... and there were like 4 or 5 skills like that! The only drawback for the only background that allows you to save creation/rez points in the whole game? (Because any other way of making/developing a character doesn't allow you to save any points at any given time by changing your expending tactic.) You get a disadvantage that a GM might allow you to "cure" (social naïvetè). Were in any book a background option of similar characteristics (like a social animal, a born soldier, a gifted scientist...), I wouldn't mind it, but since there is only one background that allows a player to start with, effectively speaking, nearly 1400 points compared to the 1200 of the other players... well... And I'm sorry for kidnapping the thread... I'll give it back now ^^U
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Mon, 2012-04-30 11:39
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Xagroth wrote:
Decivre: Yeah, I know the hyperelite class should reduce its numbers in the future. But consider which groups survived the Fall better: space workers who were outside Earth and people with enough money or power to be out too... or bribe their path to salvation. That culled most of the population inbetween, and then made the indeturee class the bigger. Add to that equation the removal of death, and you can see that those who can buy morphs and their generic code are, usually, the hyperlite. Of course, I am talking mostly about Sunward, but even cosidering transhumanity as a whole, I bet the % of hyperelite people (specially bored ones who are too old to enjoy life or too young to want to do anything but "have fun") is much higher than we could think.
I highly doubt this. All things considered, the population of the hyperelite cannot be a very high sum [i]by definition[/i], because they are a social class that is defined as being well above even the elite. Unless you are telling me that trillionaires are a dime a dozen, I don't see a large population (and by large, I mean a percent of a percent) of hyperelite being even remotely possible.
Xagroth wrote:
As for the "Hard sci-fi" vs "soft sci-fi", it is impossible to make a pure "hard" one, because remember, sufficiently advanced science is like magic to those that don't know or understand it. Introducing "magical items" in the game (essentially, stuff that seems to break the laws of the universe as we know them) points to the fact that transhumanity is not the top dog and has a lot to walk.
Worse than that, "hard" and "soft" sci-fi tends to be a very subjective concept. Their definitions tend to be less like "realistic versus unrealistic", and more like "what I think is possible versus what I think is impossible".
Xagroth wrote:
However, there is a problem with almost all sci-fi RPGs, at least those that go more for the "hard" side than the "soft" one: computers tend to be exceedingly important not for the economy, but for really critical things like crime prevention and survival. For example, in Star Wars d20 a player character with at least 15 ranks on computers (for a total of 19 or so in the skill) can hack a Star Destroyer's computer core with a 5+ in 1d20 (75% chance of success!), since 24 was staed as "incredibly difficult tasks" (and the crew of any unnamed Star Destroyer would not include NPC's of more than level 5, 7-8 if we consider the captain). In one of the Honorverse novels by David Weber, a heavy cruiser is taken down by a single character with time, computer access and charming skills with the guards who were watching him, against the clock and using that as a distraction to organize a jailbreak (from a spaceship...). What I mean with this is how unbalanced is for the infolife background to be the way it is: by not paying social skills (more than the networking skill you need to be a believable character) you can save like 60 or even 100 character/rez points! Because you can, at the start of the game, pay all the computer-related skills (infosec, interface, etc...) at half the price... meaning you can start with 90 in infosec by spending 10 points (for the advantage that allows you to reach 90 in one skill, instead of being capped at 80), plus 30 (for the points between 60 and 90), plus a 1:1 investment to reach 60 (considering you add your COG and you get some background skill points in those skills...). So 40 points to reach 90 over 60, while a normal character would need to spend 10 (for the advantage) plus 60 points (from 60 to 90), meaning a 70 point investment... and there were like 4 or 5 skills like that! The only drawback for the only background that allows you to save creation/rez points in the whole game? (Because any other way of making/developing a character doesn't allow you to save any points at any given time by changing your expending tactic.) You get a disadvantage that a GM might allow you to "cure" (social naïvetè). Were in any book a background option of similar characteristics (like a social animal, a born soldier, a gifted scientist...), I wouldn't mind it, but since there is only one background that allows a player to start with, effectively speaking, nearly 1400 points compared to the 1200 of the other players... well...
I actually mathed out the point value of all the backgrounds, because I have a fetish for math (possibly sexual, not gonna lie to you). While most backgrounds are worth 40 points or so, the infolife background can be valued at a maximum of 228 points. It's a very potent background indeed. I've voiced my opinion that they should have that property replaced with another skill bonus (and remove the social skill thing as well... just because they didn't live in the real world much doesn't mean they necessarily had no social training). Because damn.
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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]
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Mon, 2012-04-30 18:03
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Decivre wrote:
I actually mathed out the point value of all the backgrounds, because I have a fetish for math (possibly sexual, not gonna lie to you). While most backgrounds are worth 40 points or so, the infolife background can be valued at a maximum of 228 points. It's a very potent background indeed. I've voiced my opinion that they should have that property replaced with another skill bonus (and remove the social skill thing as well... just because they didn't live in the real world much doesn't mean they necessarily had no social training). Because damn.
Out of curiousity, did you try to factor in the less explicit advantages/disadvantages of being an AGI? -10 to integration/alienation whenever you sleeve in a physical body (so basically any non-infomorph form). The penalty to psychosurgical meddling with your mind can be either a plus or a minus depending on your situation (a skill imprint can be a nice option sometimes). Really though, infolife is a REALLY powerful background if you want to minimize social skill in character creation and maximize computer skills and have no desire to start as an async and social stigma isn't a problem for you. It turns out that computers are good at computing, this is how it should be, balance be damned. If I had a specialist hacker AGI shown up by a specialist hacker human, I'd think things were a little off. But this tangent will be the death of us, so back to, what were we talking about.... oh yeah, asyncs.
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Mon, 2012-04-30 19:04
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: On Asyncs
nerdnumber1 wrote:
Out of curiousity, did you try to factor in the less explicit advantages/disadvantages of being an AGI? -10 to integration/alienation whenever you sleeve in a physical body (so basically any non-infomorph form). The penalty to psychosurgical meddling with your mind can be either a plus or a minus depending on your situation (a skill imprint can be a nice option sometimes). Really though, infolife is a REALLY powerful background if you want to minimize social skill in character creation and maximize computer skills and have no desire to start as an async and social stigma isn't a problem for you. It turns out that computers are good at computing, this is how it should be, balance be damned. If I had a specialist hacker AGI shown up by a specialist hacker human, I'd think things were a little off.
It's hard to quantify their penalty in taking physical bodies considering that they have a bonus to sleeving within any computer that can house their ego. That gives them a lot of potential bodies, all relatively cheap (the infomorph is the cheapest "body" in the book). If you plan to never take a physical form (or just plan to jam your bodies), it has virtually no effect at all. The other aspect is, as you have already shown, a mixed bag and therefore pretty much a stalemate with regards to benefits versus penalties. The problem isn't that they are the best hackers. Had that been the only case, we probably wouldn't have any complaints. The problem is that they are the best hacker [i]multiclasser[/i]. Their discount means that they only need invest half their skillpoints to basically max out all hacker skills, allowing them to take on nearly any other role with damn decent competency (effectively perfect another role if you spend your bonus points into it). The Infolife background makes the best hacker-snipers, hacker-spies, hacker-soldiers, hacker-doctors... pretty much any role save for social ones and asyncs can be done by infolife alongside flawless hacking skills (and even those are only barred [i]at creation[/i], I probably wouldn't be saying this was a problem if they had double cost to social skills forever). And that's not a good structure for the game.
nerdnumber1 wrote:
But this tangent will be the death of us, so back to, what were we talking about.... oh yeah, asyncs.
Aww, man.... But yeah, asyncs are awesome.
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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]
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Tue, 2012-05-01 04:38
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Ok... remember nothing prevents an AGI to buy the advantage that gives a +20 to resleeving rolls... or the one that allows you to ignore them altogether with a single type of morph! (for extreme GM's frustration and trolling time against the PC, choose "cases" and start making alpha forks... enjoy the madness! XD). Now, Async + AGI could be a feasible combination, and I have no doubt that it is being researched. However, correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I can tell, the exurgent virus will mutate only biomorphs? Sure, it can "hack" the mind of any ego regardless of the morph, but for what I can tell, those who are infected try then to use a CM or nanohive to make the physical virus and then try to sleeve into a biomorph. This suggests me that, while several organizations must be trying to research into synthmorph-based async powers, I'd bet they are unable to reproduce any power whatsoever... then again, controlling an exurgent sleeved into a case must be easier than some bloated biomass... or so they think... I looooove how much ideas for adventures I can get just by reading the forums. Now I only need some guinea pi... I mean, players ^^.
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Tue, 2012-05-01 13:03
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Xagroth wrote:
Ok... remember nothing prevents an AGI to buy the advantage that gives a +20 to resleeving rolls... or the one that allows you to ignore them altogether with a single type of morph! (for extreme GM's frustration and trolling time against the PC, choose "cases" and start making alpha forks... enjoy the madness! XD).
My AGI character, codenamed Breaker, does something similar but with flexbots. He has the blueprints for them, the means for producing them, and essentially manufactures them whenever he has the chance. Currently, his body is a massive amalgam of 26. He has "bigger" plans.
Xagroth wrote:
Now, Async + AGI could be a feasible combination, and I have no doubt that it is being researched. However, correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I can tell, the exurgent virus will mutate only biomorphs? Sure, it can "hack" the mind of any ego regardless of the morph, but for what I can tell, those who are infected try then to use a CM or nanohive to make the physical virus and then try to sleeve into a biomorph. This suggests me that, while several organizations must be trying to research into synthmorph-based async powers, I'd bet they are unable to reproduce any power whatsoever... then again, controlling an exurgent sleeved into a case must be easier than some bloated biomass... or so they think...
It depends on the strain. Some strains of the exsurgent virus (nano strains, generally) [i]can[/i] mutate synthmorphs (and vehicles for that matter). In fact, the core book makes reference to async synthmorph exsurgents (in the GM-only section), meaning that the tech for async synthmorphs [i]is possible[/i]. I have no doubt that certain factions and hypercorps (*cough* Cognite *cough*) are currently trying to replicate synthmorph psi capabilities for human consumption. It's not a question of "if", but "when".
Xagroth wrote:
I looooove how much ideas for adventures I can get just by reading the forums. Now I only need some guinea pi... I mean, players ^^.
Woe be to those that volunteer for such sadistic pleasures. :D
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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]
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Tue, 2012-05-01 16:10
OrangeRequired OrangeRequired's picture
Re: On Asyncs
Decivre wrote:
Xagroth wrote:
Now, Async + AGI could be a feasible combination, and I have no doubt that it is being researched. However, correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I can tell, the exurgent virus will mutate only biomorphs? Sure, it can "hack" the mind of any ego regardless of the morph, but for what I can tell, those who are infected try then to use a CM or nanohive to make the physical virus and then try to sleeve into a biomorph. This suggests me that, while several organizations must be trying to research into synthmorph-based async powers, I'd bet they are unable to reproduce any power whatsoever... then again, controlling an exurgent sleeved into a case must be easier than some bloated biomass... or so they think...
It depends on the strain. Some strains of the exsurgent virus (nano strains, generally) [i]can[/i] mutate synthmorphs (and vehicles for that matter). In fact, the core book makes reference to async synthmorph exsurgents (in the GM-only section), meaning that the tech for async synthmorphs [i]is possible[/i]. I have no doubt that certain factions and hypercorps (*cough* Cognite *cough*) are currently trying to replicate synthmorph psi capabilities for human consumption. It's not a question of "if", but "when".
As I said earlier, I would really love to see rules for a variant synth strain of the Watts-Macleod virus with a really distinct flavour, to differentiate it from the original strain. I've been thinking on it quite a lot since I made that post. Actually, I'd really like to hear what ideas others might have for interesting ways to differentiate the synthetic psi, give it an entirely separate feel from the bio psi. What powers would they have? Would there be other drawbacks in addition to the sanity loss, perhaps circuitry corruption and co-option by the exsurgent strain leading to occasional malfunctions? What would make the powers tangibly, viscerally different from the biological strain? Perhaps something focused more around forking, or electronics manipulation in the same way biological psi can affect biological brains (i.e. creepy and not well understood)? Perhaps something that does indeed rely on a complete rewiring of nanocircuitry throughout the synth body to generate bizarre effects? Because I really wanna create this; I think it's got potential to be really interesting. And I do share some of Arenamontanus's concerns around the arbitrary bio/synth divide.
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Tue, 2012-05-01 17:59
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: On Asyncs
OrangeRequired wrote:
As I said earlier, I would really love to see rules for a variant synth strain of the Watts-Macleod virus with a really distinct flavour, to differentiate it from the original strain. I've been thinking on it quite a lot since I made that post. Actually, I'd really like to hear what ideas others might have for interesting ways to differentiate the synthetic psi, give it an entirely separate feel from the bio psi. What powers would they have? Would there be other drawbacks in addition to the sanity loss, perhaps circuitry corruption and co-option by the exsurgent strain leading to occasional malfunctions? What would make the powers tangibly, viscerally different from the biological strain? Perhaps something focused more around forking, or electronics manipulation in the same way biological psi can affect biological brains (i.e. creepy and not well understood)? Perhaps something that does indeed rely on a complete rewiring of nanocircuitry throughout the synth body to generate bizarre effects? Because I really wanna create this; I think it's got potential to be really interesting. And I do share some of Arenamontanus's concerns around the arbitrary bio/synth divide.
In my campaigns, the first generation of psi cyberbrains have already been produced. They cost one category more than a normal cyberbrain, cannot use activated sleights without already having the siphon sleight, a homebrew sleight that allows an async to use stress instead of durability to power sleights; and continue to produce mental instability. They are also under heavy watch by Cognite, require registration with the Consortium as an async to acquire, and need maintenance (they effectively have planned obsolescence). Mechanically they aren't different per se, but they have some different mechanics, including the option to disable psi and become immune to sleights at will. And they are definitely an interesting option for async players.
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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]
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Thu, 2012-05-10 14:55
Phlebotinum Phlebotinum's picture
Re: On Asyncs
First. Reality dose not obey human logic. this cannot be stressed strongly enough. Many of the discoveries of modern science are at odds with human logic and commonsense. The human mind has developed the frame work necessary to grasp the phenomena that we commonly experience. And this frame work becomes increasingly inadequate the further a phenomenon falls outside the range of collective human experience. Whenever somebody says that they demand "a logical explanation". What they are really asking for is an explanation that will fit neatly into their mental paradigm. Sometimes a phenomenon will occur or be discovered that falls outside human experience and thus outside the frame work that we use to understand reality. At least until we expand our frame work to incorporate the new phenomenon. This process of expanding the human frame work is not an easy one. Humans are stubborn prideful and resistant to change. We would rather reject the phenomenon, especially if it's existence calls into question facts previously held to be true. Than to change ourselves and our way of seeing reality so that we incorporate the new phenomenon into our mental paradigm. Despite PSI being presented as something so far beyond Transhuman science as to be both inexplicable and incomprehensible. An explanation for PSI could found quite easily, in fact such explanations already exist. One concept that both Mysticism and Physics share is the idea that we live in an interconnected universe. That some omnipresent phenomenon connects all things regardless of apparent distance. "We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings." This was said by Doctor Manhattan, he neglected to mention that he can pull the strings as well as perceive them. To explain PSI abilities simply assume that following is true:Human beings can perceive and interact with the Universal Inter-connectivity. Remote vision,Pre/Retrocognition,Psychometry,Telepathy. Are all the result of the Human mind crudely harnessing the Universal Inter-connectivity for Information. Psychokinesis it's sub-phenomenon are likewise the result of the Human mind crudely harnessing the Universal Inter-connectivity to influence their environment. My personal twist on the Watts-MacLeod strain of Exurgent virus is that it didn't give humanity PSI. The Virus merely activated it. Psi you see is the penultimate evolutionary trump card;right along with Intelligence. Because it give the species that evolves it complete awareness of their environment and the Ability to "Assume Direct Control" of everything with in it. Unfortunately Sh*t happens and PSI capability atrophied in humanity. Though it would occasionally manifest fully in individuals or small groups over the millennial. The activities of these prehistoric Asyncs, may be the source for of our legends of Gods,Demigods,Heroes,Prophets. The reason that Asyncs are insane is that the virus opens a persons mind to the Universal Inter-connectivity. Without giving them the ability cope with or tune down/out the vast quantities of information that PSI awareness provides. The more stable Asyncs eventually how to some what regulate and cope with the info-saturation. And remember that "Sufficiently Analyzed Magic Is Indistinguishable From Science". A phenomenon no matter how fantastic once understood cease to be supernatural.
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Agatha's law: Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science.
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Fri, 2012-05-18 13:34
Quigs Quigs's picture
Re: On Asyncs
I almost exclusively play with people that I know well. A pleasant consequence of this, is that I know which players can handle playing an async, and I know which can't. I've got a friend/player who loves hacking. Loves exploring advanced concepts, but he also hates being singled out for bad consequences. As such, I don't allow him to play an async. It's not worth the headache and the game slowdown. I've got another player who constantly sits his character out if he believes the character doesn't have a reason to be somewhere, who'll accept negative consequences for his actions, and that player is free to play an async if they wish. Its all how you roll. It's a great addition to the game.
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"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my
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