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Settings and Lore Questions

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Thu, 2012-03-22 16:57
#1
Libertad Libertad's picture
Settings and Lore Questions
Greetings! I found out about Eclipse Phase from an RPG Net review, and I decided that I needed to delve further into this game! I'm currently reading the core rulebook, and I like what I see. I look forward to further participating in this community. I have a few questions regarding the setting and world: 1.) I understand that transhumanity hugely changed society, but why has the term "transhumanity" replaced "humanity?" Do most people view themselves as "more than human" despite many morphs having humanlike forms? Since many people still seem to have a fondness for human-shaped morphs, this indicates that the majority of society still sees the human form as the ideal. 2.) Why are most real-world religions except Buddhism on the decline? Many religions have a knack for adapting and changing with the times. The split between ego and morph can "prove" to the devout that there's a soul beyond the confines of a flesh-and-blood body. Theological doctrines have changed in order to attract and keep followers. With the exceptions of some reactionary bioconservative congregations, I can't see how Transhumanity would result in the decline of the Abrahamic faiths. 3.) Human rights: how much has this changed in society? How widespread are things like freedom of speech and religion in the setting? Is having access to a physical morph a right or a privilege? What about the ability to be resleeved upon death? 4.) On a related note, what rights and privileges do uplifted animals and AI have in comparison to conventional transhumans? 5.) How exactly do anarchist communities stay together without falling apart? What is preventing volunteer militias or the guys with the most weapons and combat experience from seizing power? How does the rest of society act when a potentially violent conflict arises between individuals and/or groups? How do anarchists react when members or adherents of oppressive groups (such as the Jovian Republic) enter their territory but do not engage in hostilities? 6.) Aside from bioconservative acceptance or infiltrating like-minded groups, is there any advantage or incentive for a person to enter a "flat" morph?
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[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Thu, 2012-03-22 17:48
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
1.) I understand that transhumanity hugely changed society, but why has the term "transhumanity" replaced "humanity?" Do most people view themselves as "more than human" despite many morphs having humanlike forms? Since many people still seem to have a fondness for human-shaped morphs, this indicates that the majority of society still sees the human form as the ideal.
I suspect most people still use humanity (or its linguistic counterpart). But transhumanity might also be more politically correct since it emphasizes the divergent clades... and at that point some AGIs and uplifts chime in and refuse to belong to whatever-humanity and want some other term...
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2.) Why are most real-world religions except Buddhism on the decline? Many religions have a knack for adapting and changing with the times.
This has been discussed in many threads. I think the writers were just too optimistic about religious decline. Religions are indeed adaptable. They tend to decline when what they provide is delivered through other means (like social safety nets or a very secure environment)... but EP has just been through the most wrenching decade of history. However, from a theological standpoint uploading doesn't prove anything. Worse, forking seriously messes up the concept of an indivisible soul. (if I fork myself ten times, the forks diverge in personality and state of sin/faith, who ends up in Heaven?)
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3.) Human rights: how much has this changed in society? How widespread are things like freedom of speech and religion in the setting? Is having access to a physical morph a right or a privilege? What about the ability to be resleeved upon death?
This is part of the big political struggles of the setting. Most big polities have freedom of speech and religion, but access to morphs and resleeving is a privilege (except on Titan, where it is a right with a long queue). Plenty of different takes on how it should be handled.
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4.) On a related note, what rights and privileges do uplifted animals and AI have in comparison to conventional transhumans?
Discussed in Panopticon. Ranges from full personhood to animal status (or outright banned) depending on polity.
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5.) How exactly do anarchist communities stay together without falling apart? What is preventing volunteer militias or the guys with the most weapons and combat experience from seizing power?
Rep economies likely help stabilize things a lot. But there are likely some nasty pathologies there...
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6.) Aside from bioconservative acceptance or infiltrating like-minded groups, is there any advantage or incentive for a person to enter a "flat" morph?
None whatsoever, unless you think it is "pure".
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Extropian
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Thu, 2012-03-22 18:24
Libertad Libertad's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
The Rep-based economy seems to be mostly based upon credibility and reliability. Guys with high rep have an easier time of things. It sounds very meritocratic in the sense that people need to prove themselves to others, but it creates a different set of haves and have-nots (high rep and low rep people). This can be especially problematic, as the effects of negative media coverage and rumor-mongering can be a huge asset in ruining people's lives (and humans as a group can be easily manipulated with fear and telling them what they want to believe).
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[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Thu, 2012-03-22 18:31
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
A lot of that is covered in a plethora of threads here, you'll need to dig deep to really find some fundamentals for your own flavor. Mostly, rep is a socially conscious animal, with spamming being akin to crime. The haves in a rep economy are likely those that work harder etc., while the have nots are those that are lazy. etc.
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"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
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Thu, 2012-03-22 21:20
King Shere King Shere's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
2.) Why are most real-world religions except Buddhism on the decline? Many religions have a knack for adapting and changing with the times.
My impression is that the TITANs made a special note to target the religious (perhaps exploiting/rewarding their beliefs ). 'And that's why most religions vanished together with the 95% of the population.
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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/tc_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/exh_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/argo_userbar.jpg[/img] [i]"To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult."[/i] Plutarch
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Thu, 2012-03-22 22:16
Libertad Libertad's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
7.) How easy is it for people to access spare morphs for the purposes of resleeving? I know that many morphs (such as the Furies) are restricted to a few, but what about a spare splicer or case? If resleeving is cheap and accessible, then this means that permanent "death" (in the sense of no trace being left behind) is significantly rare. 8.) If resleeving and spare morphs are easily accessible to the majority of people, then how does this affect how humanity deals with irreversible, permanent death? I'd assume that it would make it worse; more people would be in denial, hoping that a "spare" ego would be around in some data cache. Since the ego would not be attached to the body, how would this affect funerals? 9.) Overall, how hard is it for the average citizen (no military service, no Firewall connections) to gain access to weapons and firearms? I assume that the vast majority of people in anarchist and scum enclaves would have a personal firearm, while the Jovian Republic would have strict gun control laws. 10.) How much has the crime of murder changed? Is destroying the morph but leaving the ego intact count as property damage and assault? How about destroying a forked copy of a person? What about destroying the ego, but not the cortical stack (allowing for "revival")?
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[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Fri, 2012-03-23 00:26
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
7.) How easy is it for people to access spare morphs for the purposes of resleeving? I know that many morphs (such as the Furies) are restricted to a few, but what about a spare splicer or case? If resleeving is cheap and accessible, then this means that permanent "death" (in the sense of no trace being left behind) is significantly rare.
While synthmorphs could be feasibly made common, there is a large problem in the setting regarding people having a psychological attachment to meat bodies. Some people refuse to sleeve into anything but biomorphs (or at least pods, which are mostly meat). This is probably one of the major reasons that despite the possibility of sleeving everyone in synthmorphs, there aren't as many takers as one might expect. Biomorphs take time to grow and as a result are relatively rare or expensive. And when most people aren't willing to take the easy choice, it creates an odd market scenario.
Libertad wrote:
8.) If resleeving and spare morphs are easily accessible to the majority of people, then how does this affect how humanity deals with irreversible, permanent death? I'd assume that it would make it worse; more people would be in denial, hoping that a "spare" ego would be around in some data cache. Since the ego would not be attached to the body, how would this affect funerals?
Funerals have always been a meaningful and impactful event in society, and it would be no different in 10 AF. But funerals would likely be reserved for people who have truly died for the last time with no backup, or have been lost in some way that makes them unrecoverable. You probably won't have a funeral for Aunt Ida, if you've got her cortical stack in your hands. Unless she has a "do not resurrect" request in her living will.
Libertad wrote:
9.) Overall, how hard is it for the average citizen (no military service, no Firewall connections) to gain access to weapons and firearms? I assume that the vast majority of people in anarchist and scum enclaves would have a personal firearm, while the Jovian Republic would have strict gun control laws.
It will definitely vary from region to region. Inner-system regions likely have strict gun control laws, as might the Jovian Republic (though admittedly, since its origins are with the South American Juntas and the conservative United States, gun laws may be fairly lax so long as you go with classic weaponry). Anarchists probably have very little with regards to gun control, except for "if you shoot someone with it, expect to get shot back". For the most part, I don't see why most places would disallow a personal sidearm. You'd only probably have an issue getting a beefier weapon.
Libertad wrote:
10.) How much has the crime of murder changed? Is destroying the morph but leaving the ego intact count as property damage and assault? How about destroying a forked copy of a person? What about destroying the ego, but not the cortical stack (allowing for "revival")?
The crime of murder has probably shifted to be something more akin to an extension of assault law, unless that person had no backup (or you are from a region where backups are more scarce... bioconserative habs and the Jovians probably all frown as heavily on murder as today). It is still a very serious crime though, because it shows a lack of empathy and a disregard for other people's property in a world where bodies can be scarce. Expect serious jailtime, or the potential of even forfeiting your own body.
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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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Fri, 2012-03-23 19:46
Libertad Libertad's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
11.) Were there any nation-states on Earth before the Fall? Have any of the Fall Evacuees tried to create new versions of their nation-states in space? 12.) There are many character concepts for Firewall operatives, united in their hopes of keeping transhumanity alive. But some concepts seem more problematic than others, especially with radically differing ideologies. Why would an anarchist, scum, or other autonomist work for an organization that justifies immoral actions "for the greater good" or "our continued existence?" Oppressive hierarchies like the Jovian Republic probably make the same arguments for their choices, and yet the autonomists oppose them. Back on the Jovians, why would a bioconservative work alongside transhumans? 13.) Where does the energy for nanofabrication come from? Beyond strict regulation, can somebody with a blueprint for rare materials mass-produce them using a cornucopia machine in a scum/anarchist ship and flood the market? What's preventing people from doing this to enemy nations?
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[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Fri, 2012-03-23 21:42
bRA1N-b0X bRA1N-b0X's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
King Shere wrote:
Libertad wrote:
2.) Why are most real-world religions except Buddhism on the decline? Many religions have a knack for adapting and changing with the times.
My impression is that the TITANs made a special note to target the religious (perhaps exploiting/rewarding their beliefs ). 'And that's why most religions vanished together with the 95% of the population.
That seems like a very unique type of "Rapture" event.
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Sat, 2012-03-24 00:16
NewAgeOfPower NewAgeOfPower's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
King Shere wrote:
My impression is that the TITANs made a special note to target the religious (perhaps exploiting/rewarding their beliefs ). 'And that's why most religions vanished together with the 95% of the population.
That description strangely seems full of WIN! +1 to you, sir.
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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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Sat, 2012-03-24 05:53
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
11.) Were there any nation-states on Earth before the Fall? Have any of the Fall Evacuees tried to create new versions of their nation-states in space?
The only canon mention is the government of East Timor, now hanging out in the bar at Phelan's Recourse. But obviously there were many nation states... it is just that they were on the ropes long before the Fall. I suspect there are plenty of attempts at recreate some of them (one of my current campaigns deal with the attempt of Tanzania to build a Hamilton Cylinder).
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12.) There are many character concepts for Firewall operatives, united in their hopes of keeping transhumanity alive. But some concepts seem more problematic than others, especially with radically differing ideologies. Why would an anarchist, scum, or other autonomist work for an organization that justifies immoral actions "for the greater good" or "our continued existence?" Oppressive hierarchies like the Jovian Republic probably make the same arguments for their choices, and yet the autonomists oppose them. Back on the Jovians, why would a bioconservative work alongside transhumans?
How would a racist work alongside people of different races? With plenty of friction, of course. The nice thing with Firewall as a framing device is that it gives an excuse to bring very different people together with a shared and important goal, yet allows them to have plenty of disagreement. This is good for exploring the setting and roleplaying. I suspect Firewall servers will at least try to get sentinels that fit each other, but given the limited resources they often have to make do with whoever is around.
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13.) Where does the energy for nanofabrication come from?
Solar and fusion, mainly. In the inner system solar collectors are cheap and effective. Further out you need fusion reactors.
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Beyond strict regulation, can somebody with a blueprint for rare materials mass-produce them using a cornucopia machine in a scum/anarchist ship and flood the market? What's preventing people from doing this to enemy nations?
If it can be mass produced it is not rare. What limits production is typically rare ingredients (radioactive elements, rare elements, nuclear isomers) or the need for special slow manufacturing (antimatter, biological growth). What limits *distribution* is 1) integration with the software infrastructure (sure you have a carbot, but does it have the authentication keys that shows the local mesh it is a legal carbot or allows it do download traffic information?), 2) import restrictions (hence the extropian smuggler), 3) the rapid change of fashion and systems (would you like to show up at a party in obvious open source clothes?) Still, autonomists are likely busy trying to flood especially the Junta with this, to show the supremacy of their system.
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Extropian
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Sat, 2012-03-24 17:19
Libertad Libertad's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
14.) Is there a significantly prominent memorial dedicated to the 7+ billion victims of the Fall? I'm sure that many of them exist, but I was looking for a canon example. 15.) Shouldn't the Titanium Commonwealth change the name of its faction and habitat in order to avoid confusion with the TITANs? I can see a lot of confusion in conversations about the two groups.
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[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Sat, 2012-03-24 18:50
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
14.) Is there a significantly prominent memorial dedicated to the 7+ billion victims of the Fall? I'm sure that many of them exist, but I was looking for a canon example.
The Earth itself is in many ways a massive memorial to all that was lost during the Fall. It's big enough to be seen from nearly anywhere in the system, and a grim reminder that we have lost the most important thing we once had: our homeworld.
Libertad wrote:
15.) Shouldn't the Titanium Commonwealth change the name of its faction and habitat in order to avoid confusion with the TITANs? I can see a lot of confusion in conversations about the two groups.
Titan has been called Titan for a very long time. It was named in the 17th century, which means it carried the name for at least 5 centuries before the fall. It's hard to change something that's been around that long. Look at all the alternative calendar proposals that get shut down, or the attempts to shift our clock standard to UTC. Besides, the TITANs aren't necessarily called the TITANs by the public. They are probably known by other names. TITAN was a project name created by the people who made them, and may have been kept largely secret... the players are only granted this information in the books by merit of the fact that they have access to Firewall information. The same reason that the books talk about Firewall or the Exsurgent virus, even though most people don't know what that is. It would be nice to know what the common name for the TITANs was though.
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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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Sun, 2012-03-25 01:49
Libertad Libertad's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
16.) What would you say are the most sought-after qualities that FIREWALL looks for in a potential agent? 17.) Do the Autonomist factions have Bill of Rights equivalents that can't be overturned by majority vote? Otherwise, what's preventing a fearmongering rabble-rouser from convincing the people to vote against their own principles (ex: Extropians get manipulated into restricting the free market to avoid some unforeseen disaster)? 18.) Since the Morphs favored by the Ultimates are costly, doesn't it mean that a disproportionate amount of people in their faction are high-income? If somebody wanted to join their faction but couldn't afford a good morph, would they be provided one or expected to get hold of it without the faction's assistance?
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[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Sun, 2012-03-25 05:19
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
16.) What would you say are the most sought-after qualities that FIREWALL looks for in a potential agent?
Probably a strong sense of willpower and the ability to keep secrets well. To be honest, the skillset for a Firewall sentinel is going to vary drastically depending on what purpose Firewall wants you for. If they want someone to infiltrate locales, they'll look for someone with stealth skills. If they want someone to integrate into a hypercorp to spy on them from the inside, they'll look for someone with business skills and a talent for bluffing. If they want someone who can use psi to extract information from someone's mind, they'll look for an async. The number of individual tasks that a sentinel might face is nigh-infinite, and it takes a varied skillset to handle all those sorts of jobs and missions.
Libertad wrote:
17.) Do the Autonomist factions have Bill of Rights equivalents that can't be overturned by majority vote? Otherwise, what's preventing a fearmongering rabble-rouser from convincing the people to vote against their own principles (ex: Extropians get manipulated into restricting the free market to avoid some unforeseen disaster)?
Perhaps. A large issue might be a serious amount of government transparency. One thing I've always discussed is that the best thing that a government could do to prevent corruption within office is to prevent politicians from hiding anything. Anyone who takes office has to forfeit the very rights of privacy that normal citizens cherish, as part and parcel to having expanded power and priveleges that a private citizen does not have. For politics, the gaining of power should be a tradeoff for many of the things that we take granted... when a politician gets power and keeps everything he already had, that's when you have a problem.
Libertad wrote:
18.) Since the Morphs favored by the Ultimates are costly, doesn't it mean that a disproportionate amount of people in their faction are high-income? If somebody wanted to join their faction but couldn't afford a good morph, would they be provided one or expected to get hold of it without the faction's assistance?
The Ultimates are all about proving oneself. The Ultimates do not want weak-willed individuals who will give up when they face a challenge. If you can't afford a good morph, then you should at least bring a strong mind and discipline to the table. If you have at least that, you just might earn the morph you want. Besides, I imagine that the Ultimates actually have more of a mixed economy. If anything, they probably only use currencies when dealing with outside factions; the Ultimates are a haughty group that doesn't seem to concern themselves with inferior outsiders. It's probable that they use reputation systems among themselves (perhaps using CivicNet, but with the caveat that they only trade with fellow Ultimates), while forcing outsiders to pay credit for services and products.
—
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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Sun, 2012-03-25 08:02
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
17.) Do the Autonomist factions have Bill of Rights equivalents that can't be overturned by majority vote?
Some might have it, but I suspect this is more what you get among the Titanians and Argonauts than the more anarchistic anarchists. They would instead argue that to defend their way of life is an ongoing activity that cannot be left to a piece of paper - you have just as much a duty to safeguard democracy as to keep the hull leak-proof.
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Extropian
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Sun, 2012-03-25 11:10
Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Quote:
18.) Since the Morphs favored by the Ultimates are costly, doesn't it mean that a disproportionate amount of people in their faction are high-income? If somebody wanted to join their faction but couldn't afford a good morph, would they be provided one or expected to get hold of it without the faction's assistance?
Consider the fact that the Ultimates are striving to be a pinaccle of transhuman perfection - if you want to join them and you can't afford even most basic commodities (ie. body) than maybe you are not so great with that "pinaccle of existance" thing after all? I think that self-reliance is highly valued among the Ultimates as only the being who can fight for their own existance and sustenance will be perceived as one that achieved perfection - human imago, the one who is trully grown-up. Newertheless I think that in certain circumstances, a person who's showing great promise or helped the faction in a major way might receive a gift of some sort - but remeber that giving somebody a Remade morph is like giving Porsche in our world - that must've been a _big_ favor you did for them.
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Sun, 2012-03-25 17:01
Libertad Libertad's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
This thread has been very informative. Thanks for the help! 19.) Who is the leader of the Jovian Republic?
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[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Sun, 2012-03-25 17:19
CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
This thread has been very informative. Thanks for the help! 19.) Who is the leader of the Jovian Republic?
Currently unknown. Presumably, if there is a leader, it will be revealed in Rimward. The Republic has at least some basis in a North American system, so I imagine that there is some kind of congress with a 'voted' President though.
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Mon, 2012-03-26 02:44
weaver95 weaver95's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
CodeBreaker wrote:
Libertad wrote:
This thread has been very informative. Thanks for the help! 19.) Who is the leader of the Jovian Republic?
Currently unknown. Presumably, if there is a leader, it will be revealed in Rimward. The Republic has at least some basis in a North American system, so I imagine that there is some kind of congress with a 'voted' President though.
Good question. Maybe it's more of an old skool 'corporate' fascist style government.
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Mon, 2012-03-26 07:52
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
The Jovian Republic has been described, up until now, with strong similarities to a classical "nation" founded around "war heroes" (in this case, heroes from The Fall), so I'd bet more on what we could call a military dictatorship, with strong meritocratical mechanisms, and an inner cadre of counselors/admiralty board.
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Mon, 2012-03-26 11:28
King Shere King Shere's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
I kinda viewed the Jovians as a military junta, but not a military dictatorship. No single leader. Perhaps a Nomocratic Stratocacy? Government under the sovereignty of rational laws and civic right in which the state and the military are the same thing and government positions are always occupied by military leaders. Nomocracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomocracy Stratocracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratocracy
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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/tc_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/exh_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/argo_userbar.jpg[/img] [i]"To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult."[/i] Plutarch
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Mon, 2012-03-26 13:44
weaver95 weaver95's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Xagroth wrote:
The Jovian Republic has been described, up until now, with strong similarities to a classical "nation" founded around "war heroes" (in this case, heroes from The Fall), so I'd bet more on what we could call a military dictatorship, with strong meritocratical mechanisms, and an inner cadre of counselors/admiralty board.
I know its a bit cliche, but....something along the lines of what happened to the humans in the Battlestar Galatica remake? they lost their homeworlds to the cylons and were on the run. everything was a mess, they sort of had a civilian government but military necessity took precedence. hmm.
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Tue, 2012-03-27 04:52
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
weaver95 wrote:
Xagroth wrote:
The Jovian Republic has been described, up until now, with strong similarities to a classical "nation" founded around "war heroes" (in this case, heroes from The Fall), so I'd bet more on what we could call a military dictatorship, with strong meritocratical mechanisms, and an inner cadre of counselors/admiralty board.
I know its a bit cliche, but....something along the lines of what happened to the humans in the Battlestar Galatica remake? they lost their homeworlds to the cylons and were on the run. everything was a mess, they sort of had a civilian government but military necessity took precedence. hmm.
The Quarian Admiralty from Mass Effect, as described in ME2, seems to me a little better and more stable than BSG's one, but that's to be expected considering BSG went from one crisis to the next and they were in that situation less than a decade...
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Tue, 2012-04-03 00:26
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
11.) Were there any nation-states on Earth before the Fall? Have any of the Fall Evacuees tried to create new versions of their nation-states in space?
There were some Nations on earth before the fall, but likely weaker than at present. A sense of post-nationalism is definitely prevelent in Eclipse Phase, but there are likely some odd-balls that made habs in the name of dead countries out of a sense of nationalism and nostalgia (this is the exception more than the rule.
Libertad wrote:
12.) There are many character concepts for Firewall operatives, united in their hopes of keeping transhumanity alive. But some concepts seem more problematic than others, especially with radically differing ideologies. Why would an anarchist, scum, or other autonomist work for an organization that justifies immoral actions "for the greater good" or "our continued existence?" Oppressive hierarchies like the Jovian Republic probably make the same arguments for their choices, and yet the autonomists oppose them. Back on the Jovians, why would a bioconservative work alongside transhumans?
Firewall is trying to keep transhumanity alive, so basically every faction can agree on that goal. Beyond that though, yes there is going to be interparty friction. The hope is that the Firewall agents can put their differences aside long enough to stop the species' extinction. The Bio-con will cringe at the uplift-octopus' handshake and they will argue endlessly, but when the exurgent monster pops up, both will start unloading bullets into it. Maybe they will then go back to fighting maybe the bio-con will change, either way, hopefully the threat will be neutralized.
Libertad wrote:
13.) Where does the energy for nanofabrication come from? Beyond strict regulation, can somebody with a blueprint for rare materials mass-produce them using a cornucopia machine in a scum/anarchist ship and flood the market? What's preventing people from doing this to enemy nations?
Besides the possible need for certain rarer elements to feed the fabber, logistics makes things difficult. First, it takes time to fab complex items, time that could be used for things YOU need, since everyone have a limit number of nanofabrication devices on hand. And once you made a truckload of, say, plasma cannons, how do you plan to get them to restricted habs? With the cost of fuel and transport time between points in space, you will probably be losing money transporting goods any real distance. Also, if you are smuggling something illegal, you have to worry about customs. If you just have a local illegal fabber, then you should be fine, until authorities bust in. I'm not saying its impossible. On the countrary, illegal nano-fabrication is likely a big criminal enterprise in areas of restrinctive legislation, but it is not without risks.
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Tue, 2012-04-03 00:26
nerdnumber1 nerdnumber1's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
11.) Were there any nation-states on Earth before the Fall? Have any of the Fall Evacuees tried to create new versions of their nation-states in space?
There were some Nations on earth before the fall, but likely weaker than at present. A sense of post-nationalism is definitely prevelent in Eclipse Phase, but there are likely some odd-balls that made habs in the name of dead countries out of a sense of nationalism and nostalgia (this is the exception more than the rule.
Libertad wrote:
12.) There are many character concepts for Firewall operatives, united in their hopes of keeping transhumanity alive. But some concepts seem more problematic than others, especially with radically differing ideologies. Why would an anarchist, scum, or other autonomist work for an organization that justifies immoral actions "for the greater good" or "our continued existence?" Oppressive hierarchies like the Jovian Republic probably make the same arguments for their choices, and yet the autonomists oppose them. Back on the Jovians, why would a bioconservative work alongside transhumans?
Firewall is trying to keep transhumanity alive, so basically every faction can agree on that goal. Beyond that though, yes there is going to be interparty friction. The hope is that the Firewall agents can put their differences aside long enough to stop the species' extinction. The Bio-con will cringe at the uplift-octopus' handshake and they will argue endlessly, but when the exurgent monster pops up, both will start unloading bullets into it. Maybe they will then go back to fighting maybe the bio-con will change, either way, hopefully the threat will be neutralized.
Libertad wrote:
13.) Where does the energy for nanofabrication come from? Beyond strict regulation, can somebody with a blueprint for rare materials mass-produce them using a cornucopia machine in a scum/anarchist ship and flood the market? What's preventing people from doing this to enemy nations?
Besides the possible need for certain rarer elements to feed the fabber, logistics makes things difficult. First, it takes time to fab complex items, time that could be used for things YOU need, since everyone have a limit number of nanofabrication devices on hand. And once you made a truckload of, say, plasma cannons, how do you plan to get them to restricted habs? With the cost of fuel and transport time between points in space, you will probably be losing money transporting goods any real distance. Also, if you are smuggling something illegal, you have to worry about customs. If you just have a local illegal fabber, then you should be fine, until authorities bust in. I'm not saying its impossible. On the countrary, illegal nano-fabrication is likely a big criminal enterprise in areas of restrinctive legislation, but it is not without risks.
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Sun, 2012-04-08 14:37
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
17.) Do the Autonomist factions have Bill of Rights equivalents that can't be overturned by majority vote? Otherwise, what's preventing a fearmongering rabble-rouser from convincing the people to vote against their own principles (ex: Extropians get manipulated into restricting the free market to avoid some unforeseen disaster)?
You don't vote on Extropia. You enter contracts. There are plenty of restrictions on the free market, but they're all voluntary. Some might just buy products based on the sales contract and warranties that come with it, but others might subscribe to Consumer NadeRights and when they buy products ask the seller to accept their terms, making the seller liable for damages for such things as false advertising. You also might do something that causes damage to me or my property, and in this case there obviously won't be any contract entered. However, I subscribe to the arbitration company Open Sky Courts, and my security provider Monopoly Violence is obliged to enforce its decisions. OSC will then decide that you're liable for the damages, and if you don't pay up (and provided some other arrangement isn't made with your arbitrations provider of course), Monopoly Violence will send some muscular morphs by your place to make sure you do, or collect some of your property, or force you to work off your debt. This is without you entering into any contract, but most courts will recognize torts. Could several big arbitration companies on Extropia decide to rule against someone or something based on manipulation? Perhaps. That's life on Extropia. They're doing it under risk of getting counter-sued, losing reputation, customers and income, losing recogniction by security providers and other courts, etc. They better not screw something like that up...
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Sat, 2012-04-21 16:22
Libertad Libertad's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
20.) Are kinetic weapons or beam weapons more common among transhumanity's military bodies? 21.) Are there any clear pictures of TITAN machines in the books? 22.) What do nanofabricators and cornucopia machines look like? 23.) On page 64 of the Core Rulebook, it mentions that there's high demand for original, non-duplicated pre-Fall Earth items. Under the discussion of hand-grown wine, it also mentions that duplicated goods are nearly indistinguishable from their original copies. Aside from one-of-a-kind priceless artifacts, how can someone tell if a pre-Fall item hasn't been duplicated by nanofabricators or cornucopia machines?
—
[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Sat, 2012-04-21 16:44
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
20.- Kinetic are more common, Beam weapons count as support/antitank, also kinetic weapons are easier to mantain, more robust, and more intutive, plus they are not affected by light fraction and other stuff. 21.- Yes, can't tell right now from my mind, but some minor stuff has been drawn. 22.- Depends, you can find them in all shapes according to the user's wim. I suppose that in the Planetary Consortium's area they look like ovens, with most of the stuff hidden, and in the rimward habitats they can even look like ancient iron ovens, or huge photocopiers. It's a matter of making a case to your liking. I usually depict them as solid cubes mor or less rectangular. 23.- There is no difference. A good enough copy is as good as an original for the buyer, because it is all "in the mind". Of course, the phalse stuff is recent enough you can't carbon-data it, so we are talking about stuff that is no older than, say, 20 years. But really, people is willing to pay huge amounts of money/rep for things like a baseball, a piece of wood, a bonsai, a printed version of The Lord of the Rings, etc...
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Sat, 2012-04-21 16:51
Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
21.) Are there any clear pictures of TITAN machines in the books?
There's head-hunter drone at the page 12; something that's possibly a scout at page 314; a nano-swarm at page 363 (in the previous version of that picture the canister clearly said ‘TITAN’). There’s also a fractal at the back of GM Screen.
Libertad wrote:
22.) What do nanofabricators and cornucopia machines look like?
For some reason I always assumed that those are just… boxes. Probably without any windows, as the light might interfere with the assembly process. Maybe some kind of screen, and definitely an entoptic interface.
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Sat, 2012-04-21 17:04
Marek Krysiak Marek Krysiak's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Xagroth wrote:
23.- There is no difference. A good enough copy is as good as an original for the buyer, because it is all "in the mind". Of course, the phalse stuff is recent enough you can't carbon-data it, so we are talking about stuff that is no older than, say, 20 years. But really, people is willing to pay huge amounts of money/rep for things like a baseball, a piece of wood, a bonsai, a printed version of The Lord of the Rings, etc...
There was some discussion about item authenticity in an older thread. It was about a treasure stash in Arenamontanus’ scenario “Armstrong’s Gold”: http://www.eclipsephase.com/armstrongs-gold
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Sat, 2012-04-21 17:45
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
20.) Are kinetic weapons or beam weapons more common among transhumanity's military bodies?
It's pretty much kinetic only. Civilians might like beam weapons for their ammo convenience and less lethal options, but they don't have the range and power needed for actual combat. Plasma rifles might see use for very specialized roles, but the cost and short range remain problematic, and the only thing it really brings is versus extremely well-armored targets, where it is sloghtly better than a HEAP missile.
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Sun, 2012-04-22 06:53
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Marek Krysiak wrote:
There was some discussion about item authenticity in an older thread. It was about a treasure stash in Arenamontanus’ scenario “Armstrong’s Gold”: http://www.eclipsephase.com/armstrongs-gold
I know the pdf, never looked for a thread in the forum... anyway, I was thinking into "low-end" mementos, things like the ones people buys nowadays when they are tourists into a new place (keyholders, postcards, etc...). Small stuff more affordable that, lets say, the Mona Lisa XD. I assumed it would be like that because I see the traffic and collectionism of old Earth stuff like that, something more pathethic than really glamourous, because we are talking about a lost home, stuff you would keep close to your chest instead of showing it to others to boast about your wealth. Of course, gerontocrats will have both! But they will really invest themselves emotionally into the small mementos that remind them of the lost planet they left behind (maybe even a lost loved one that died there, without backups).
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Wed, 2012-04-25 18:52
WooMod WooMod's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
17.) Do the Autonomist factions have Bill of Rights equivalents that can't be overturned by majority vote? Otherwise, what's preventing a fearmongering rabble-rouser from convincing the people to vote against their own principles (ex: Extropians get manipulated into restricting the free market to avoid some unforeseen disaster)?
No, but remember a piece of paper claiming your government supports universal rights, does absolutely nothing to stop people from abridging those rights. De jure does not mean de facto.
—
[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/social_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/scumb_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/hyper_userbar.jpg[/img]
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Tue, 2012-05-01 16:01
Libertad Libertad's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
24.) How densely populated are Mars and Luna? 25.) Are nuclear missiles still in use, or are they outdated in favor of newer technologies? 26.) Some forms of state-sanctioned executions include the destruction of a cortical stack and all back-ups. What happens when a criminal has back-ups in a location outside the authority's jurisdiction? Is there a form of "back-up extradition" between the various habitats? If not, could this mean that terrorists and war criminals in favored territories effectively get revived again and again to carry out future crimes? Or is this what ego hunters are primarily used for: to search for all remaining copies and seize/destroy them?
—
[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Tue, 2012-05-01 17:12
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
24.) How densely populated are Mars and Luna?
Very sparsely. Luna has just 6 major centres marked on the sunwards map, and page 85 states: "There are several hundred Lunar settlements. The three largest settlements—Erato, Nectar, and Shackle—are home to half of the Lunar population, and the next three largest contain another quarter." "The largest of these smaller habitats have populations of around 100,000, while the smallest are home to less than 1,000. Most of these settlements are located along the skyhook track that encircles Luna, and the few that are not are especially isolated and generally do not welcome visitors." Now, given that Erato has 5 million inhabitants, even if the other big three are equally large the total population would be just 30 million. And most likely it is far less. So most of Luna is very empty. Same thing for Mars. Big population concentration in cities, a smattering of outposts, and vast tracts that are only home to nomads, TITAN machines or nothing at all.
Quote:
25.) Are nuclear missiles still in use, or are they outdated in favor of newer technologies?
They are useful against targets on or in planets, but not too good against ships (the energy dissipates surprisingly fast in vacuum as per the inverse square law; you need an atmosphere or surface to get real destructive effects without a pinpoint hit).
Quote:
26.) Some forms of state-sanctioned executions include the destruction of a cortical stack and all back-ups. What happens when a criminal has back-ups in a location outside the authority's jurisdiction? Is there a form of "back-up extradition" between the various habitats? If not, could this mean that terrorists and war criminals in favored territories effectively get revived again and again to carry out future crimes? Or is this what ego hunters are primarily used for: to search for all remaining copies and seize/destroy them?
Yup, this is what keeps ego hunters busy. No doubt many polities have extradition treaties, but they are not naive enough to think that real bad guys stay within their system. Sometimes they might be able to pressure other governments into giving up sufficiently nasty characters, but often it is cheaper and easier to send ego hunters to whack-a-mole them.
—
Extropian
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Tue, 2012-05-01 17:20
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
24.) How densely populated are Mars and Luna?
Luna has 40 million people on an area 7.4% of Earth - density equivalent to Earth having 540 million people. Mars has 200 million people on an area 28.4% of Earth - density equivalent to Earth having 705 million people. However, the hostile enviroments outside of Earth makes things quite different. Luna is very overcrowded, and it is expensive to create more living space and supplies. On Mars, you can create new living space much more cheaply, resources are easier to get - but the PC is squeezing everyone for their last drop with artificial market restrictions.
Libertad wrote:
25.) Are nuclear missiles still in use, or are they outdated in favor of newer technologies?
Very much so. There is also anti-matter, but due to its cost I see that as more of an option when you REALLY need to pack a big punch in a small package.
Libertad wrote:
26.) Some forms of state-sanctioned executions include the destruction of a cortical stack and all back-ups. What happens when a criminal has back-ups in a location outside the authority's jurisdiction? Is there a form of "back-up extradition" between the various habitats? If not, could this mean that terrorists and war criminals in favored territories effectively get revived again and again to carry out future crimes? Or is this what ego hunters are primarily used for: to search for all remaining copies and seize/destroy them?
Some jurisdictions have extradition agreements. Most will probably only allow punishment equal to the local law (ie. a Real Death conviction won't be enforced in a jurisdiction that doesn't allow it, but instead put you through full psychosurgical personality reconstruction). Other places won't care. Compare it to fugitives today. Some countries you can hide in, some countries you can't. Some countries you can hide in - unless someone wants you bad enough to really put on the diplomatic thumb screws, in which case you might soon find yourself on a plane going back. If you're running from Israel for something terror or holocaust related, Mossad will try to capture or assassinate you, from Norway to Brazil. If you piss of the US enough, they'll wage war on the country you're hiding in if that's what it takes.
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Wed, 2012-05-02 04:46
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Libertad wrote:
25.) Are nuclear missiles still in use, or are they outdated in favor of newer technologies?
As usual, old technology might be outdated, but that only makes it more accesible to everybody. As a naval weapon in space? Not really good. Against planetary targets? Cheap and fast, but usually it is better to launch a couple of big rocks (or if there are the means, carbon-based bars that will get speed with some rotations around the planet before going down... Interesting idea from a comic whose protagonist was called Miranda Zero...). I think it is interesting to note, however, the following details: First, the nuclear isotopes have much more uses in AF10 than just weapons: there are nuclear-powered energy plants, "morph batteries" (see Gatecrashing, they can sustain a biomorph for a year without food... and I suppose there is a version for synthmorphs too), special weaponry (like railguns), etc... And of course, the standard operation procedure for the gates in Earth includes sending a nuke to the other side when something nasty is found (like TITAN active tech with a compulsion for making collections of heads). Gates can, by the way, self-repair after being nuked, and I bet that they have one ready to be detonated at hand (not to mention a couple of spaceships in orbit ready to blast the gate's compound to smithereens if needed).
Libertad wrote:
26.) Some forms of state-sanctioned executions include the destruction of a cortical stack and all back-ups. What happens when a criminal has back-ups in a location outside the authority's jurisdiction? Is there a form of "back-up extradition" between the various habitats? If not, could this mean that terrorists and war criminals in favored territories effectively get revived again and again to carry out future crimes? Or is this what ego hunters are primarily used for: to search for all remaining copies and seize/destroy them?
This issue has been laterally adressed in Panopticon, with the "identification nanochip" presented there. Essentially, Ego Hunters exists not because of extradition treaties not being as effective as you might want, but because, in the end, it is cheap to get your hands on a CM (or a Hive), place it in an asteroid with some raw materials, and instruct it to create a farcaster receiver (and a regular receiver), a small habitat (with energy generation, and some tools), and a synthmorph able to work on vacuum (extra points for making a small ship also, but I wouldn't count with that), and a backup of your ego. Then, make the system work your own small darkcast and, if in a year it does not receive your update, activate the backup (or if it receives your farcasted ego, then sleeve you in the morph). Then you only need to reach a place from where you can get inside of the system again. The idea is not mine, by the way, but from John Varley's "The Ophiuchi Hotline" ("Y mañana serán clones" in spanish). That means the best way to get an ego is to wait for it to come back into "civilization", so I bet Ego Hunters are not usually payed to get a single ego no matter how much time does it takes (at least, freelancing ego hunters!), but there is a list of egos with a price tag attached, on a permanent basis. And I bet one or two ego hunters have sold at least twice the same ego (capture, sell an alpha fork, wait, sleeve the bastard, "capture" it again, sell it again...). Greedy ego hunters who tried to sell three or four times the same ego discovered themselves resleeved when the client compared the ego's contents, discovering they were exceedingly similar XD
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Wed, 2012-05-02 06:20
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Xagroth wrote:
usually it is better to launch a couple of big rocks (or if there are the means, carbon-based bars that will get speed with some rotations around the planet before going down... Interesting idea from a comic whose protagonist was called Miranda Zero...).
To expand a bit: Nukes work by delivering something energetic to a destination, but in space almost everything moving is already full of dangerous energy. Anything moving faster than 3 km/s - and that is a very modest relative velocity, maybe typical for two satellites in intersecting orbits - has a kinetic energy larger than its own weight in TNT. However, big rocks are tough to accelerate (you need to put all that kinetic energy into them using a rocket engine or a mass driver), so unless you have a big installation it is easier to tweak existing rock orbits to hit something - but they will still be relatively slow and easy to detect (unless you stealth them...) Kinetic impactor bars are more convenient. I would not use carbon but something with high density like osmium or tungsten in order to get deeper penetration (but carbon is good for stealth). Also, it is not easy to just drop them out of orbit: in order to deorbit you need to change their velocity enough to produce a ground-intersecting orbit. This again requires supplying a lot of energy to a rocket or driver somewhere. So I would use nukes (whether fission, fusion or antimatter) when there is not much velocity differences, or where I need high enough temperatures to be sure nothing based on molecular bonds survives. Adding a nuke to a missile in space is often overkill.
—
Extropian
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Wed, 2012-05-02 10:26
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
If you have time, you can simply let the gravity do its job, accelerating the rock. This means you don't really need much energy, specially if you are in no hurry and not expecting anybody to want to stop (or be able to, big is big after all) your rock. Of course, you need to expend some energy to reach the rock you wanna move, but its a nice way to "cheat" (while the energy conservation law would be intact from an absolute point of view, for the relative one we are indeed cheating it). Also, it is something quite known in AF10, because it more than likely is the way bicg chunks of ice are crashed into Mars (select a suitable candidate, give it a small push, let gravity and the absence of friction do the rest for you). An advantage of kinetic bombardment Vs nuking is, of course, absence of radioactivity. F=m*a, and P=F/s Therefore, long rods of a dense material place into a decaying orbit (calculated to get the maximun speed and hit the desired target) is ideal. The choice of Carbon as a constitutient material might came from how abundant is it and how resilient to atmosferical insertion. Also, I forgot to mention that the launching platform of those bars in the Global Frequency comic were old satellites fitted with a CATAPULT (damn, I want cursive here! XD). Of course, we have to remember that gravity would provide most of the necessary acceleration for the weapon to cause damage. Of course, nukes are more quick and convenient, but there are other options out there. And it is good to have the right tool for the right job, isn't it? ^^
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Wed, 2012-05-02 11:50
Decimator Decimator's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Due to the inverse-square law, nukes in space would likely be [url=http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#id--Nukes_In_Space-... or [url=http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#id--Laser_Cannon--B... Lasers[/url]. Both of these get around the range issue in their own way.
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Wed, 2012-05-02 14:02
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Arenamontanus wrote:
To expand a bit: Nukes work by delivering something energetic to a destination, but in space almost everything moving is already full of dangerous energy. Anything moving faster than 3 km/s - and that is a very modest relative velocity, maybe typical for two satellites in intersecting orbits - has a kinetic energy larger than its own weight in TNT. However, big rocks are tough to accelerate (you need to put all that kinetic energy into them using a rocket engine or a mass driver), so unless you have a big installation it is easier to tweak existing rock orbits to hit something - but they will still be relatively slow and easy to detect (unless you stealth them...) [...] So I would use nukes (whether fission, fusion or antimatter) when there is not much velocity differences, or where I need high enough temperatures to be sure nothing based on molecular bonds survives. Adding a nuke to a missile in space is often overkill.
You're of course correct in what you write, but IMHO there are very few instances where a nuclear missile could be effectively replaced with a kinetic kill weapon. For military applications, you want things that aren't possible with kinetic kill weapons at nuclear yield levels: acceleration, response time, maneuverability, stealth, delta v, etc. Whether you want a 10 ton, 10 kiloton or 10 megaton explosion, finding a suitable rock and accelerating and/or nudging it towards your target is going to be difficult and time and energy consuming. If you're on a warship and need to able to apply lots of destructive energy to a target very quickly, only a nuclear or AM missile will do the job. You can carry a lot of destructive power around with you in nuclear missiles, without it affecting your ship's acceleration or total delta v much. You can guide a nuclear missile, while a 100,000 ton rock won't be chasing after targets. With kinetic weapons, you have to score a direct hit, while a nuclear missile can be detonated at will and catch targets in its blast (directed or not). I don't see kinetic kill weapons replacing nukes as your WMD of choice.
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Wed, 2012-05-02 14:39
Aeroz Aeroz's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
I dont think nukes or mass drivers will be used much. After the Fall WMDs are rather frowned upon but just about every faction. No faction wants to thin human numbers by the hundreds of thousands. They will probably be used the same as they are today, as deterrents. No one actually intends to use them in war, but it does discourage open conflict.
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Wed, 2012-05-02 15:54
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Smokeskin wrote:
You can carry a lot of destructive power around with you in nuclear missiles, without it affecting your ship's acceleration or total delta v much. You can guide a nuclear missile, while a 100,000 ton rock won't be chasing after targets. With kinetic weapons, you have to score a direct hit, while a nuclear missile can be detonated at will and catch targets in its blast (directed or not).
Yes, but as I have pointed out in excruciating detail in my naval analysis, blasts in space have such a short range that they are not much better than direct hits (if you miss by a few *tens* of meters, the enemy will survive pretty well). Steerability and speed is the important part. Because kinetic energy goes up with the square of velocity, a 10 times faster missile has 100 times more energy. So instead of sending a 100,000 ton rock at 1 km/s, you could send a 1 ton rock at 1000 km/s and do more damage. Make it lighter but with a bit of navigation (or launch it linearly from a disposable launcher sent in the vicinity of the enemy) and the amount of expected damage goes up even more. Note that this is not a WMD application but a point attack application. For WMD you want to mess up a sizeable volume or area: on planets this is doable because existing matter conducts the energy you apply, delivering it well on all targets in the range. In space the only way is to either propel a *lot* of projectiles or dissipate a *lot* of energy to saturate the volume - and enemies usually have an easy time to disperse. The exception is big things like habitats, which are unfortunately easy to destroy since they cannot get out of the way. Space WMDs might be more like mine fields, where lots of mass-produced autonomous devices lurk waiting to attack.
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Extropian
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Wed, 2012-05-02 16:22
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Smokeskin wrote:
You're of course correct in what you write, but IMHO there are very few instances where a nuclear missile could be effectively replaced with a kinetic kill weapon. For military applications, you want things that aren't possible with kinetic kill weapons at nuclear yield levels: acceleration, response time, maneuverability, stealth, delta v, etc. Whether you want a 10 ton, 10 kiloton or 10 megaton explosion, finding a suitable rock and accelerating and/or nudging it towards your target is going to be difficult and time and energy consuming. If you're on a warship and need to able to apply lots of destructive energy to a target very quickly, only a nuclear or AM missile will do the job. You can carry a lot of destructive power around with you in nuclear missiles, without it affecting your ship's acceleration or total delta v much. You can guide a nuclear missile, while a 100,000 ton rock won't be chasing after targets. With kinetic weapons, you have to score a direct hit, while a nuclear missile can be detonated at will and catch targets in its blast (directed or not). I don't see kinetic kill weapons replacing nukes as your WMD of choice.
A WMD is largely unnecessary in space warfare. In ship-to-ship combat, you only need to deal enough damage to your target to make in uninhabitable or unable to maneuver. Nukes and antimatter warheads work perfectly fine for this purpose, and will likely replace the capital class of weapons we use in naval warfare today once we get to space. But WMDs will still have a purpose in warfare, especially when the destruction of a habitat or planetary location is required. For that, a kinetic kill weapon serves as a far better weapon than a nuke or antimatter warhead ever could. A 1-ton rock accelerated to 190 miles per second (0.1% of the speed of light) could do an unfathomable amount of damage to a wide swath of area. This only goes up in magnitude with an object of greater mass, or simply greater speed. In fact, for the purpose of dealing damage to a stationary or orbiting object, the best way to use an antimatter warhead would be to armor it until it is heavy as hell, then spend the entire fuel reserve simply to accelerate it to disgusting speeds. The mass will deal far more damage at impact velocity than the antimatter store could ever hope to do.
—
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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Wed, 2012-05-02 16:41
Aeroz Aeroz's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Decivre wrote:
In fact, for the purpose of dealing damage to a stationary or orbiting object, the best way to use an antimatter warhead would be to armor it until it is heavy as hell, then spend the entire fuel reserve simply to accelerate it to disgusting speeds. The mass will deal far more damage at impact velocity than the antimatter store could ever hope to do.
well probably not more than antimatter. 1kg of antimatter (and equal matter) produces energy equal to the the entire energy imparted on the earth by the sun at any given second, to put into perspective that is hundreds of times more energy than nuclear fusion. Antimatter bombs make nukes look like capguns
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Wed, 2012-05-02 17:16
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Antimatter has the little handicap of being expensive as hell (AKA it takes lots of time to make it, and the only big facility is on Mercury... Talk about logistics bottleneck). Anybody can make a nuke today if they get their hands on the nuclear part, imagine in AF10 with all those Cornucopia Machines...
Aeroz wrote:
I dont think nukes or mass drivers will be used much. After the Fall WMDs are rather frowned upon but just about every faction. No faction wants to thin human numbers by the hundreds of thousands. They will probably be used the same as they are today, as deterrents. No one actually intends to use them in war, but it does discourage open conflict.
Either on the core book or in Sunward it is mentioned that huge rocks being thrown against Earth is a usual event: they are launched from Luna with a mass driver against concentrations of active TITAN technology, and are explicitely mentioned as one of the few ways to get to Earth. Frankly, I bet the more "trigger happy" of all the factions in EP when it comes to WMD will be the autonomists, because they don't have any kind of central government. The PC and Morningstar will be quite reluctant to destroy valuable assets (capture is better than destruction, unless the target is a real threat that will cause more damage than the potential beneficts of its study), the Titanian Commonwealth will prefer other options, Firewall only goes against X threats (and when heavy ordnance is needed, I think they "borrow" it from others), and the Jovians need them as a "cold war" mechanism to protect themselves against transhumanity. So WMD are used usually against threats crossing a Pandora Gate, or by terrorists.
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Wed, 2012-05-02 18:23
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Xagroth wrote:
Antimatter has the little handicap of being expensive as hell (AKA it takes lots of time to make it, and the only big facility is on Mercury... Talk about logistics bottleneck). Anybody can make a nuke today if they get their hands on the nuclear part, imagine in AF10 with all those Cornucopia Machines...
You can't make a nuke with a CM unless you feed it the right isotopes. While CMs make nuke-building much easier (there are no doubt open source laser-separation blueprints out there, courtesy of your local "the right to arm bears with WMDs" people) the ingredients are still cumbersome. Uranium is not ultra-plentiful, plutonium requires a reactor plus uranium, deuterium requires filtering a lot of hydrogen-containing material... I also think antimatter production can be done nearly anywhere. It is just *convenient* on Mercury. As long as you have lots of energy and space to put the equipment you can make it - I would be surprised if the Junta did not exploit the energetic Jupiter system to make buckets of it.
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Either on the core book or in Sunward it is mentioned that huge rocks being thrown against Earth is a usual event: they are launched from Luna with a mass driver against concentrations of active TITAN technology, and are explicitely mentioned as one of the few ways to get to Earth.
But this is because they have existing mass drivers. Such systems were essential for early stages of space industrialisation but are likely not too important when there is a skyhook. Railguns are great if you have good cooling opportunities and plenty of energy like on the Lunar surface, but less convenient if you are in space where you have to deal with recoil and radiative cooling. A 30 mile long railgun on Luna is easy to build and maintain, a 30 mile long railgun on your spaceship is just trouble.
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So WMD are used usually against threats crossing a Pandora Gate, or by terrorists.
Remember that spacecraft are excellent WMDs. A spaceship moving a few klicks per second is equivalent to a rock of the same mass. And the output from the faster ship engines are particle beams able to slice through habitats. Cornucopia machines can run blueprints producing dangerous autonomous weaponry, like attack robots. Protean nanoswarms can be designed to build protean nanoswarms. There are biohackers everywhere, and practically any object can house replicating malware. Habitats are protected by AI-controlled point defences against asteroids and out-of-control ships that can be turned into an active prison or attack weapon. The problem in EP is that most people are dependent on technologies for their survival that are also potential WMDs. It only takes one disgruntled person to cause disaster... and many of the anti-disaster systems are themselves just as dangerous. Who needs terrorists?
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Extropian
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Wed, 2012-05-02 19:57
Xagroth Xagroth's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
How forgetful of me, yes, the Junta has AM production facilities thanks to Jupiter's EM field. And yes, kamikaze "ships" are really good weapons for space warfare, I think I mentioned it in that thread (suicide forks piloting missiles with some ammo). And yes, you do need te materials to create a nuke, I was pointing out that the only prooblem would be that... but consider a lot mor Uranium goes around in AF10, Railguns tend to use it after all... scrape enough... TERRORist. The Fall included nuclear weaponry being used. Radiation. Accesibility. Hacking a habitat's systems is not as definite or quick as detonating a nuke, and can be silenced easily with gear failure. Plus you only need to get the cortical stacks to resleeve the population, turning it from terrorism to just vandalism... However, with a nuke you also render a lot of resources useless, and a place (if its on a planer) irradiated for years. Please, consider I am talking from several points of view at the same time, so try to see the bigger picture (I know I'm not really helful with that, it's just that I'm a little KO with a persistent flu, and right now it is 2am here ^^)
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Wed, 2012-05-02 21:25
Aeroz Aeroz's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Xagroth wrote:
TERRORist. The Fall included nuclear weaponry being used. Radiation. Accesibility. Hacking a habitat's systems is not as definite or quick as detonating a nuke, and can be silenced easily with gear failure. Plus you only need to get the cortical stacks to resleeve the population, turning it from terrorism to just vandalism... However, with a nuke you also render a lot of resources useless, and a place (if its on a planer) irradiated for years.
its still terrorism. Terrorism is using fear as a method to create social change. Besides it would lead to destruction of cortical stack thanks to radiation, EMP, heat, and raw kinetic energy. Even if it didn't there are bound to be a few just flung into deep space. The core book even lists examples of this. Its why habitat destruction is one of the few things that warrant death of an ego
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Thu, 2012-05-03 04:47
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Re: Settings and Lore Questions
Arenamontanus wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
You can carry a lot of destructive power around with you in nuclear missiles, without it affecting your ship's acceleration or total delta v much. You can guide a nuclear missile, while a 100,000 ton rock won't be chasing after targets. With kinetic weapons, you have to score a direct hit, while a nuclear missile can be detonated at will and catch targets in its blast (directed or not).
Yes, but as I have pointed out in excruciating detail in my naval analysis, blasts in space have such a short range that they are not much better than direct hits (if you miss by a few *tens* of meters, the enemy will survive pretty well).
In your document, you list the kill distance d = 5.77 * sqrt(x), where x is the yield in kilotons. So a small 100 kiloton warhead (which would today weigh around 100kg, EP level tech might make it lighter) would kill at 57 meters. That's a HUGE step up in in my book compared to a kinetic kill weapon which in space can't even miss by an inch - and the sort of projectile you need to provide WMD level destruction isn't easy or fast to get up to speed, and carries a lot of momentum which will make course corrections very difficult. And there are places like Mars, Venus, and Titan where you have atmosphere that work quite well with nukes.
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Steerability and speed is the important part. Because kinetic energy goes up with the square of velocity, a 10 times faster missile has 100 times more energy. So instead of sending a 100,000 ton rock at 1 km/s, you could send a 1 ton rock at 1000 km/s and do more damage. Make it lighter but with a bit of navigation (or launch it linearly from a disposable launcher sent in the vicinity of the enemy) and the amount of expected damage goes up even more.
Getting a 1 ton projectile up to 1,000 km/s is very difficult though, and it will be require lots of effort to alter its course. But you do get a 100 megaton blast at impact if something stops it :)
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Note that this is not a WMD application but a point attack application. For WMD you want to mess up a sizeable volume or area: on planets this is doable because existing matter conducts the energy you apply, delivering it well on all targets in the range. In space the only way is to either propel a *lot* of projectiles or dissipate a *lot* of energy to saturate the volume - and enemies usually have an easy time to disperse. The exception is big things like habitats, which are unfortunately easy to destroy since they cannot get out of the way. Space WMDs might be more like mine fields, where lots of mass-produced autonomous devices lurk waiting to attack.
Point attack in space is a different game, I agree. However, IMHO that is a new role for nukes, and not a case of kinetic kill weapons replacing nukes (and that is what was asked about, if new weapons had replaced nukes). I wouldn't call nukes worthless though. If we take the 100 kt nuke warhead with a 57 meter kill radius, that's a big volume where you're knocking out everything from ships to fighters to enemey missiles to mines. Its roughly a 10,000 sqm cross section, to saturate that with impactors 2 meters apart, you'd need 2,500 of them, which would be a lot more weight than the nuke, and at 2 meters apart you can't expect 100% kills. Of course they'd traverse a cone-shaped area, but the nuke would do some damage outside its kill radius. You also list directed blasts in your paper, with Casaba-Howitzers having over 100 times the kill range. The main thing nukes have going against them is point defenses of course, and that they can't be launched from rail cannons so their speed is limited. If this can be overcome with decoys, jamming, stealthed/armored/dodging missiles, nuke trains where the leading nukes blind the point defense sensors, to such a degree that they have a major role over rail guns, I don't know. But nukes seem likely to have advantages in some areas, and at the very least I suspect you would also want to bring nukes to the fight to force your opponent to take them into account (not just in strategy, but also what you bring to the fight - any biomorphs would need radiation shielding, flimsy ships and small missiles might be a good choice against rail guns but terrible against nuclear blasts, etc.).
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