I think it is a bit like recognizing car brands today. Most people know the obvious ones, and people who take an interest can list more detail or recognize the tricky cases. So I would allow people to use a COG or Perception roll if they knew what they were looking for or to notice something odd, and maybe an Interest: Morphs or Kinetics if they are trying to figure out a "hidden" morph.

Body modification is exceptionally cheap. Morphs will look like what their owners want them to look like. Expect all the usual trappings of fashion, brand identification, trademarks, advertising, etc. that go with fashion clothing and accessories today, just for morphs and designer body modifications.

nerdnumber1 wrote:

I don't think furies are that ugly. Sure they are built with performance in mind, but so are many sports-cars. When you are paying this much anyway, anything which doesn't interfere with performance will be polished to showroom standards (sure if you don't like well toned women, then you're out of luck, but a pretty face can help sell a morph).

I disagree. A fury shouldn't be compared to a sports car. A sports car is built for style, class and elegance, on top of performance. A fury should be compared to a Humvee or Abrams... built for intimidation, endurance, destruction and battle. It's a war machine. The furies should be the closest thing to amazons that exist in 10 AF.

nerdnumber1 wrote:

Biosculpting is cheap, but a trained eye will probably notice the subtleties. I am reasonably sure that some models will be less subtle for those that are more concerned with flaunting their riches than subtlety (likely sporting identifying symbols or words in obvious spaces.

It's the hypercorps that will really be flaunting the product. Most morphs will likely come with some distinctive logo or marking denoting it's producer and model type. Another thing I think should be mentioned is that there probably isn't one name for every morph type. The fury might be the "Skinthetic Erinyes", the "Somatek Valkyrie", or the "Skineasthesia Harbinger". People will probably more easily recognize the brands and models they like the most. Today, I recognize Ferrari and Bugatti designs rather easily, but don't really know most other sports car brands, even when they are a competing model for one I'm accustomed to.

nerdnumber1 wrote:

I just remembered the existence of AR. Many morphs are probably tagged and it might be illegal to go without tags in some habs (security does not want to be surprised by a fury in a heavy coat). Obviously, there will be less strict habs and there is likely a way to remove or alter AR tags on a morph (though this could be illegal in some areas). Also, nano-tats likely include details on the morph, if the info is nowhere else.

Definitely. AR tags and model tattoos are probably very commonplace, to the point that even your clothes announce the brandname to anyone else who peers too closely. But besides security, there's the purpose of marketing; as hypercorps want everyone to know what people are wearing, so it'll draw in buyers.

Fury looks: they are good looking, check their entry (it states explicitely that since the model was so agressive only female morphs were controlable, the company made them as beautifull as possible). AR tags: welcome to the technological conundrum: if technology and skill can make it, technology and skill can change it. It is hard to disguise a Reaper, a Pod, or a Remade, for example (they have pertinent disadvantages listed on their entry, and/or an explicit, widely known shape), but frankly, if you can hack into the habitat's mesh, modify a Cornucopia Machine to produce some goods you designed and fool a poor bastard to get those goods to a location of your choice and then forget about it, then it is likely you can disable all AR emissions you want to. Specially on a ghost. Imagine that, the silent ghost-sleeved assassin crawling in the ceiling to get the executive in a risky move to get direct access to the ego, spotted because a child playing his latest game on his ectos looks up and sees a gigantic ADIDAS logo moving... Now if I need to sleeve into some morph temporarily, the first thing I'd do would be to print my face on AR over its head. Unless I don't want to be seenm of course, but the normal, non-agent salaryman will prefer some sort of familiarity when his job demands not a 9 hour car travel but an egocast from Venus to Pluto...

nerdnumber1 wrote:

And if someone asks for an amazon bodyguard, do you think they would prefer someone genuinely ugly, or at least presentable? I'm not saying that they are on the level of sylphs, but they can at least match a splicer for the most part.

No, I think they want something that will intimidate and inspire fear in your enemies. I'm not going to shit my pants if the cast of baywatch comes jiggling towards the frontline. War machines aren't built for beauty. They're built for shock and awe.

nerdnumber1 wrote:

I think that some customers (like bodyguards, paranoid businessmen, and firewall agents) might favor powerful morph types, like furies or ghosts, that don't advertise what they are. While many corps like the extra advertising, I'd think that at least a few manufacturers would cater to this niche market by selling morphs without clear logos.

As a general rule, you don't necessarily get that option. How many cars do you think are manufactured today without a company logo emblazoned on it? Hell, even shirts have gone towards that for the most part. Besides, there's little reason not to have the logo somewhere on it. Even for a morph like the ghost, which you might want the specific model masked, the actual company that created your model probably makes other morph types... there's no particular reason they'd probably leave that off. There aren't many scenarios where a company working on the table would want to hide the fact that they manufactured a body. If that information is hidden, you can almost be certain that the body is being used for illegal purposes (or it was made by a more amateur outfit).

nerdnumber1 wrote:

This doesn't mean that they would completely abandon a market for the privacy conscious. So 99.99% of morphs are AR tagged with their model and the other .01% are tagged as something else.

At no point did I ever imply that every single morph would have a logo plastered on them, and I don't know where you got the idea that I did.

Yeah I just checked the Fury's entry. However, I clearly remember to read somewhere (can't remember where exactly) a paragraph about the Fury morph development program, mentioning that when the corp that designed the morph concluded that male furies were a bad idea, they decided to capitalyze that disadvatage, turning it into a strong point by making the Furies as beautiful as they can. That, of course, does not mean they won't have any scar or battle damage, at least for those morphs that do not have time to stay in the bacta tanks...

When you said "flat chested with a bald head" to me doesn't really evoke Captain America cross-gendered, but rather everybody's favorite bad mouthed tatooed psycho Jack [url]http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/120/e/d/mass_effect_3___jack_by_p... if furies are as efficient as Jack even without her biotics, well, it's a really scary thought for those on the wrong end of their guns!

Well, the chest part is quite obvious but usually forgotten. I can only remember one mention in all the role playing books I ever read: in Werewolf the Apocalypse it is explicitely written that female werewolves will (in crinos, which is the half-human, half-beast battleshape) not have breasts unless pregnant/raising a metis (a werewolf/werewolf offspring, which will stay on crinos until his teens, is sterile and has some genetic problem. Werewolves are supposed to reproduce with wolves or humans in this setting. Which has its logic with wolf-born and human-born ones), and that the number/size of breasts is similar to the average number of offspring delivered per pregnancy (rounded). So, furies would not have reproductive functions (more than likely), but the chest is still there (just small) because of social imperative. So furies are the Tsundere/pettanko of the future, just instead of getting mad and being cute with their frustration play, they will mop the floor with you XD.

Breast size is easily modified with implants, and the low body fat is from dieting specifically for it - called cutting, where you drop fat and also a bit of muscle. The other part of the dieting cycle is called bulking, where you build muscle mass and also add some fat. Body builders cut because muscle definition is a competition factor. Fighters in capped weight classes do it to make weight with the maximum amount of muscle. If you look at weightlifting or heavyweight fighting, those athletes don't cut and often carry plenty of body fat. Strength and cardio is largely unrelated to body fat, except for the effects of the extra weight of course, and that is is much easier to build and maintain muscle mass if you allow fat building up.

Smokeskin wrote:

Breast size is easily modified with implants, and the low body fat is from dieting specifically for it - called cutting, where you drop fat and also a bit of muscle. The other part of the dieting cycle is called bulking, where you build muscle mass and also add some fat. Body builders cut because muscle definition is a competition factor. Fighters in capped weight classes do it to make weight with the maximum amount of muscle. If you look at weightlifting or heavyweight fighting, those athletes don't cut and often carry plenty of body fat. Strength and cardio is largely unrelated to body fat, except for the effects of the extra weight of course, and that is is much easier to build and maintain muscle mass if you allow fat building up.

Yes, but when you're dealing with transhumans with modified metabolisms, such issues might not even apply. Many morphs may simply be unable to maintain or produce enough body fat to fall outside optimal levels, and I imagine that furies and olympians would be included amongst such morphs.

King Shere wrote:

Based on that I would say that the "Decorative plumage" are a part of the gender identity & female ideal. Since the developer decided to create a morph with a vagina they also wanted the appearance of breasts. Its one of the legions of products that has extra features for marketing reasons.

Actually, I think that female bodies were used to prevent macho behavior and some of the unnecessary activities that soldiers try to do on their offtime. Or better yet, it prevents them from doing such activities while they are on duty. I don't think that they went with female bodies for show in combat.

Xagroth wrote:

The good thing of the biomonitoring part of the mesh implants is that it becomes possible to keep a morph "in shape" without the need for exercise, so while it is possible to find biomorphs with very defined muscles, the norm might be to have more fat. However, it is not fat, but a highly advanced compound that provides the same use (energy storage) but better. While a nuclear reactor (Gatecrashing gear) can keep you feed, it is not a good idea to go into habitats with nuclear isotopes inside you). Personally, I see the baseline Fury morph as a wiry woman with chiseled features that can be described as "noble" (to increase command capabilities: people react better to good looking people, and obey better to people who look like leaders).

No, I think fat is still probably on these bodies, but better distributed and with a metabolism that uses it more often. The inherent problem for the obese is that the body rarely uses its fat stores, and in fact starts with muscle mass when it decides what to consume first... hence the reason for protein supplements during exercise. A fury's body is likely optimized so that muscle mass is retained at nearly all times, and fat is probably mixed with protein-storing structures to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Xagroth wrote:

As for why keep breasts, essentially, custom. Custom is one of the things we can find in everything human, and it is a safe bet to assume it still is in AF10. However, for combat morphs I doubt more than 95 cm would be a good idea (please consider that you might have to add up to 3 cm in body armor to that! And exosqueletons are made on "standard size"). Anyway, biosculpting and biofunction control allows for very good customization of the morph, with time being the more pressing issue.

Maybe, but I imagine that a key reason you might want a transhuman soldier-woman to have breasts is so that most equipment fitted for men would already be able to be used by them. Compatibility is a key ingredient to good weapon design... and the fury is a weapon more than anything. That said, it would be interesting to see how the fury would change the future of warfare. I imagine that only a few decades after its distribution, the fury would be so prominent that most equipment would be built with a womanly figure in mind. Perhaps not, though... it all depends on how common the fury actually is.

Xagroth wrote:

Yes and more: the female choice was because a male "fury" was impossible to control, impossible to keep working in a group, and essentially too alpha, too independent. Too "testosterone hero".

I think it was a number of factors that went into the decision for the fury design. The genetic expression decisions were intended to curb bravado and encourage cooperation and troop unity. The female decision could be a part of this, but might have also been done as a preventative measure to reduce the occurrence of battlefield rape.

Smokeskin wrote:

It seems like a bad trade off, since I assume you get stereotypical female behavoriam traits instead? Seriously, who wants to deal with all that passive-aggressiveness during tactics briefings, soldiers pouting for weeks over some imagined slight, and who care more about making that bitch from C squad look bad than completing the objective.

Weeeeell... here we have to tread carefully, because it might be that those "female traits" you mention are less a byproduct of hormone influence and more a consequence of social upbringing. I think the base of the game developers is much simpler: evolutioonary, men have been hunters in the need to prove themselves (to themselves and to others!), warriors and "lone heros". Women, on the other hand, have been gatherers, and more importantly, prone to social structures. This has a biological reason: the male needs to prove that his genes are good, while the female needs a safe enviroment where to give birth safely and protect the child. This being said, passive-agressiveness and pouting over imaginary slights are stuff that I think can't be found on soldiers (on duty) as much as on civilians: while men usually go for strength and intimidation, women tend to use less direct tactics to determine their hierarchy, but in a military unit, where the leadership and positions are already clearly decided, women might be less prone to endanger the unit by rebellious behaviour than men. Again, because the male needs to prove something, while women do not. If you prefer a mathematician approach, men try to ADD (themselves over others), while women try to SUBSTRACT (others from the competition). On another line, Furies don't really change the battleground: while female and high-performance, they offer no real advantage against a rightly improved Olympian. The Reaper, on the other hand, is a hover tank the size of a man (more or less) with several weapons and heavy armor...

What can Furies do that Reapers can not? I can only think of tasks that involve a less transhuman look and design of the morph, like the social aspect of being a bodyguard, undercover work that requires social stealth or the quality of the inhabiting ego's private life. If you don't care about the look and feel of the morph and want the optimum for combat use a Reaper which has no other purpose than combat. If a Fury is designed in a way that takes away the advantages of biomorphs, but also falls short of other combat morphs, it makes not much sense to use one. What you are describing sounds more like a Remade. The fact that Furies tend to be female because of certain beneficial female behaviors seems to go against the EP theme of seperation of ego and morph. I don't recall anything about the effects of uplifted octomorphs on the ego, although these are totaly different in physiology. (Independent arms for example)

Jaberwo wrote:

What can Furies do that Reapers can not? I can only think of tasks that involve a less transhuman look and design of the morph, like the social aspect of being a bodyguard, undercover work that requires social stealth or the quality of the inhabiting ego's private life. If you don't care about the look and feel of the morph and want the optimum for combat use a Reaper which has no other purpose than combat.

There are a multitude of factors that would allow the fury to be more useful in combat. For one thing, there are a number of missions for which a reaper is too much firepower. Infiltration, extraction, and any number of tactical operations requiring precision over force would do better utilizing furies than it would with reapers. A reaper is a tank, and has all the advantages and disadvantages that largely entails. If the fury is a combat scalpel, the reaper is a chainsaw.

Sepherim wrote:

I believe the view on Furies being only a warmachine is wrong. Sure, they are a warmachine, not denying that, but beyond that they are the body of a person. Which means that the person has to live in it probably every day, be there combat, social meetings, vacations or whatever. Beyond that, the body is a very important part of self-esteem and identity, so probably the Fury is perfectly feminine as long as those feminities don't interfere with her battle effort (sure, big breast are not in her frame, but why not some nice short hair? The Scum Enforcer has some quite long, plus some long legs, nice face... and is a Fury). Being pretty or ugly doesn't interfere that much with intimidation, intimidation is actually more a matter of how you develop yourself. And even in case of combat,you wouldn't know if they were beautiful or not because they'd probably be wearing heavy armor, complete helmets, etc. Beyond that, taking a look at their statistics in the book they have no kind of "ugly" drawback, and no mention to any sort of bonuses to intimidation. They don't say anywhere thay they can't buy the Good Looks perk. They have a Sav maximum of 30 (like all the rest) and can even alocate a +5 there if they wish, and though Sav is not beauty, it is the closest thing to it in stats as beauty does a lot in social interactions. So, to sum it up, the book gives no hint anywhere that they are neither specially beautiful, nor that they aren't. Probably they are average, maybe a rough skin (they have an armor under it afterall), but that's all.

I had a hard time buying the illustration for the fury. For one thing, the fury is the hardiest biomorph in the entire book, rivaled only by the reaper in terms of durability. It seems absolutely ludicrous to me that you can get a body built for withstanding heavy fire tucked into an hourglass figure, especially since it is hardier than the built-for perfection, 6-foot-plus muscle-bound Remade. Moreso than many of the other illustrations (the AGI with tits, the unarticulated guns on the reaper in Sunward, and the smoking monkey in particular), I found this one to be somewhat implausible. As for the mechanical benefits of being (un)attractive, let's look at the pleasure pod. Here is a body built for sex... if there's any body that would be designed with a degree of physical attractiveness, that one would be. Yet it does not have any mechanical benefits for being attractive. A morph can be attractive or unattractive to a degree, yet receive no benefit for it. That's not implausible. Furthermore, no one ever said the fury was ugly as sin. No one ever mentioned her being a cthulhoid horror that encites mass vomiting upon gazing her visage. But she can still be ugly. And I imagine that a female body honed and perfected for warfare probably won't be attractive according to the usual female standards for that. Does that mean no one could be attracted to someone in a fury? Hell no. It just means you probably wouldn't see a fury-esque body in Playboy, or dancing on stage at a hip-hop concert.

Sepherim wrote:

As for identifying morphs in general, I don't think it'd be an easy task. You are all considering the body as an object, while it is not, or it is a very special object. Even in a world were you can swap bodies, they are still valued very importantly, to the extent that infomorphs often sell themselves as slaves to hypercorps in order to get a body. Thus, bodies are a central part of the identity, of the self, the self-steem, the individual, the auto-perception, etc. Some people would have theirs branded because they like to show off the brand, sure (afterall, according to Naomi Klein, Nike is one of the most common tattoos in the US), but not because of the brand but what that brand implies to the individual. And even though they could all come with a brand, going to surgery to remove it is very easy and cheap. Beyond that, morphs rarely remain in their "basic form", many people use additional implants in order to be able to carry out additional functions, thus making it even harder to really draw the boundaries between ones and others.

So it's a valuable object. Sure it [i]can[/i] be a central element of someone's identity. But so can a boat, a nice car, a house or any other item. But in that same vein, there are probably many people that don't need their body to be a central part of their identity. Because in the end, it is still just a meat-vehicle for the lightning to ride in.

Sepherim wrote:

And yet, it is a cannon portrayal of a Fury morph. And why wouldn't an AGI have an image programmed to have tits? Humans expect people they interact with to be either male or female, being completely neutral would reinforce the Uncanny Valley and other human-machine problems.

Perhaps it is. I say it was artistic license. Considering that the writers of the setting are not the artists, there is always the possibility that art will not match the setting exactly. As for the AGI picture? It's an infomorph AGI. Bodiless. there's no particular need for a holographic representation in any real way. Most people that talk to an infomorph will do so over the mesh, via texts and voice transmissions rather than a face-to-face encounter... so a body is irrelevant. I acknowledge that it was probably a necessary touch for artistically representing someone who is bodiless, but I still found it odd. Like looking at a paper plate of steamed rice sitting in the middle of a snowstorm. Or the invisible man while he's naked.

Sepherim wrote:

Indeed, it's not, that's exactly how the canon rules work. Being attractive or not depends on the Striking Looks quality, thus a Fury can be exactly as beautiful as any other morph. And, by default, isn't any uglier than any of the others.

Um, no it doesn't. Attractiveness isn't a statistic in the game. The Striking Looks and Unattractive traits do not denote miniscule levels of beauty or ugliness... they represent characters that have an exceptional level of either. Just as the eidetic memory trait isn't necessary to represent people that have a good or decent level of memory recall... only the exceptional few that can recall things with perfect clarity. I explicitly stated that I don't think the fury is exceptionally ugly, and it doesn't require a trait to represent being a little bit so.

Sepherim wrote:

I don't think you meant terrifying to see, but I still find no point in anywhere in the book that could end up with the idea the Furies are necessarily less attractive. They are strong, tough and all that, yes, but that doesn't imply that they look worse to the eye. And the book doesn't seem to support that either.

Again, you are misrepresenting my statement. I say the fury is unattractive in reference to the usual norms and customs involved with the western sense of attractiveness. Large breasts, wide hips, thin frame, relative shortness, maintained hair... these things don't lend themselves well to a honed military body. I see the fury as being tall muscular women with a dense body structure that can take a hit, built more like a bodybuilder than a sorority girl or clothing model; ugly only in the sense that the western world defines beauty within the context of media, not actually ugly in the sense of grotesqueness or overall opinion.

Sepherim wrote:

Actually not. The distinction body (vehicle) versus mind (us) is fake, except in Men in Black. In the real world, we are our body just as much as we are our mind, it is not something external to us that we can disregard like any other item. And because of that, it is source to lots of psychological elements of our personality: from self-steem (think of the classical idea of the ugly fat boy with self-steem problems, or the diverse alimentation mental diseases that exist because girls want to be pretty), to how we interact with others and how they perceive us. There is a study in social psychology, for example, that proves that beautiful people get lower sentences in court than ugly ones because people naturally link beautiful with good unconsciously (wonderfully portrayed in the film Chicago, by the way). Etc. There's a lot of work done in sociology and psychology, specially by feminist and gender specialists, about the impact of the body in society and the self-identity. And it is not a small impact at all, much more than a car even for people who may love their car and consider it very important to themselves.

I agree. The distinction between body and mind [i]in our world[/i] is fake. Primarily because the two are completely inseparable... [i]in our world[/i]. If this conversation had anything to do with our world, I would be backing you in every way. Do I hope the two will become separable in the future? Definitely. But when we're talking about Eclipse Phase, there is a distinction between ego and morph both in the setting and in the mechanics. So I will emphasize that distinction in topics where it is relevant.

Smokeskin wrote:

A morph with +10 SOM will have need some muscle mass, there can't really be doubt about that. But SOM isn't just brute strength, it is also endurance. What does a morph with extreme endurance look like? Certainly not a bodybuilder. The EP attribute system doesn't have the resolution needed to distinguish, so imo high SOM doesn't have to be mean bodybuilder size at all. It can just as easily be a marathon runner, though either extreme exposes the low resolution of the attribute system and can result in some unrealistic situations. The very high DUR could largely be explained by circulatory and respiratory system upgrades (you die from either central nerveous system hits or oxygen starvation of the brain, and that comes from blood loss, lung/heart damage or pneumothorax), and I'm not sure size helps here - unless you increase size to the point where bullets and shrapnel can't reliably penetrate to vital organs and blood vessels, all you're doing is giving the enemy a larger target and larger vitals to shoot at. Size is a trade off that helps against weakly penetrating damage and maybe gives room for more redundancy features, but gets you hit more and increases your risk from strongly penetrating damage.

The collision rules utilize durability as a gauge for how much one object can damage another simply by ramming into it. While biomorphs do only half damage during a collision to whatever they hit, there is at least one hint in there that durability is, to some degree, tied to the mass and density of a morph. A cursory glance at the biggest morphs in the setting will also show you that bigger things usually have bigger durability scores. That's one of the reasons I felt that the fury likely had to be a larger than normal morph. Granted, most of the attributes in the game are broad and open to interpretation. It's possible that there are other reasons why the fury has a high durability. But I should think that efficient design wouldn't account for the fact that it is hardier than every single man-sized biomorph in the game. Even the Remade, engineered to be the pinnacle of human biological engineering, bordering on alien in form, does not hold a candle to the fury's sheer ability to withstand a punishment. And all this is completely ignoring the fact that they come stock with nigh-bulletproof skin.

Smokeskin wrote:

Overall, I wouldn't have much problem with the Scum Enforcer picture of a fury morph. Do a picture seach for high jump and look at the body composition of the men and women.

The taste of art always varies from person to person. I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me, as it is my opinion. But I just can't seem to picture a woman with such a small lithe figure jumping atop a frag grenade while naked and surviving (and staying conscious, for that matter) to tell the tale. The fury can do that.

There are several considerations we are not taking into account with the Fury "problem" here, which might account for its edge against the Remade when it comes to certain stuff. First, there is no written "rule" that says that all biomorphs will use the same muscle design, not only in the muscle shape and distribution, but also in the composition. The same way that we can find "transhuman fat" plausible, we should be able to find "transhuman muscles" plausible, of variable performance. Personally, I think the Remade can eat a much wider array of stuff and digest it, while the fury might be usually limited to high-performance food (which is not a disadvantage per se, just some fluff). Also, the Remade optimizes performance, not "tanking capabilities": a true "superhuman" dodges damage instead of endure it, I think ^^U. Second, the grenades have never been a "fun" mechanic on role-playing games, at least outside computers, because of the areas, distance-related damage mitigation, etc..., and I think the EP grenades are designed to be used in space habitats or similar places without blowing up really important stuff, thus explaining the "low damage". Also, remember the fury has some subdermal armor... Third, ego and morph are separated in EP only at first glance. Integration tests are there for reasons aside mechanical limitations in the rules, and one can be the process of the ego adapting to the new morph (explaining why you get bonuses for getting into "your" body, or a clone of that one, for example). That being said, looks matter and they need to stay on a "common reference chart" so people can get the non-verbal clues, which is another reason for the biochauvinism and the depreciation of beauty on morphs (striking looks explicitely says that morph is a damn work of art, a diamond shining among pearls, if you want). Finally, I suggest to have a look at the Dvergr Morph (Gatecrashing, pg 150) and its High Gravity implant (+5 Durability, +5 SOM, pg 152). You can see on pg 153 of Gatecrashing a drawing of that morph, and while it is the most muscular of all morphs seens thus far that I can think of, it doesn't look like, for example, Arnold Schwatzenegger when he was all bloated with muscles. Strength and damage-soaking capabilities are not all that important for your morph when you have body armor and firearms, after all. And as I said before, you don't need to stay using "flat muscles", limited to a meager 20 attribute top against the 40 of the Remade... As for how easy is to recognize a Fury as such a morph, assuming the owner disguises the "morph ID" (usually accesible to law and customs agents), I'd say a morph as specialized as the fury (and with such a degree of fame) could be recognized with a good Kinesics test, which is one step lower than the easy to recognize Reaper or the strangeness of the Remade.

The difficulty on the task of differentiating biomorphs with unmodified sight, depends where one is. It might also hard to determine by pure sight if a painted wall is actually made of concrete, steel or wood or just a Hologram. A person has clothes, gear and perhaps holographic overlays, privacy screens, possibly nano-defences and bodyguards - all of which might throw a wrench into investigations for the correct classification. The difficulty of Masquerading as another type of morph is also location dependent. Eclipse phase is heavily augmented, so there are many more ways of detecting the morph than a eyewitness account from a naked voyeuristic flat . Under false morph label: Getting past a security checkpoint might be extremely hard. Getting into a nightclub past a morph discriminating doorman, perhaps somewhat easier. It might also be extremly easy, as eclipse phase citizens might have turned their eyes away from nonaugmented reality, and now watch it through a reality diminishing lens. Then it might simply be able to access & swap electronic labels.

Jaberwo wrote:

You can only have too much firepower if your smallest weapon is still too big and/or not versatile enough for a job. That may be true when comparing a tank with a soldier, but a reaper can carry the same weapons as a fury, even more. So he has a greater range of weapons to choose from, which means he can adress a wider variety of threats. I fail to see why a reaper needs to be less precise than a fury, just because he can carry and use four missile launchers at a time doesn't mean he has to us them all at once.

Not the sort of precision I'm talking about. A modern tank has better aim than a human sniper thanks to computer-aided aiming... but that's not the precision I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ability to handle a scenario with the smallest footprint. A tank (and a reaper, for that matter) would not be a good choice of sleeve when you are dealing with a hostage crisis. Furthermore, the reaper is a large sideways disc, so I imagine that it is too tall for smaller entryways. That means no crawling into small niches (like a cockpit, crawlspace or ventilation duct). It was designed for a battlefield, but not every combat scenario is going to have a battlefield. To that end, the articulated weapon mounts on a reaper are designed for emplaced weapons. While a reaper could theoretically hold anything in its arms and use it, there probably aren't mount-designed small arms like pistols and submachine guns. (inb4 "it doesn't have limitations in the rules")

Jaberwo wrote:

A soldier is smaller and more agile than a tank so he can go where the vehicle can't, but a reaper is almost the same size as a fury and with the thrust-vector movement system he is even more agile. A soldier can engage a traget without causing too much collateral damage because his weapon is more precise and its effect limited to a small area. Like I said furies and reapers use the same weapons. While a tank may only crash through a wall, a soldier can manipulate the objects around him like cutting wires or carrying people away from the battlefield. A reaper has two extra arms for manipulating things which are even more flexible and you don't have to use two of your arms for using your weapon, because they are mounted on the shell.

Agreed. A reaper would serve better disarming explosives, providing cover to injured soldiers, and plenty of other tasks. It works great as heavy support, and I imagine that reapers are quite popular amongst every military force out there. But you cannot deny that there are definitely going to be a number of scenarios where a fury is a better choice. This is especially true since most soldiers probably aren't willing to sleeve into a reaper. The average transhuman prefers a meaty body, so synthmorph bodies like the reaper are relegated to AI, teleoperators and the adventurous. Granted, in a more perfect world where biochauvinism wasn't rampant, the reaper (or a future model based on it) would probably be the better choice. But the fury is likely more common.

Jaberwo wrote:

Tanks are loud and big, but soldiers can sneak from cover to cover. Reapers can be just as silent, invisible and hidden as furies, as long as they don't try to hide in plain sight, like in a crowd.

Agreed. 10AF Stealth technology makes the actual size of the reaper irrelevant when defining its stealth capability. An invisibility cloak will render nearly anything invisible. But there are stealth scenarios where a reaper cannot serve so easily. Infiltrating a building through a ventilation duct, for example. A big floating disc does not do that so easily.

Jaberwo wrote:

Every military task that is not related to social interaction can be done by a reaper at least as good as a fury could, if not better.

Which means there are a lot of combat scenarios where a reaper would be a poor choice. Urban combat being a major one where the reaper would have a disadvantage.

Jaberwo wrote:

I'd say a Reaper is a swiss army knife with a combat scalpel as well as a chainsaw.

[img]http://zedomax.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/giant_swiss.jpg[/img] I agree.

My impression is that the default appearance for most biomorphs lacking an exceptional appearance attribute or Uncanny Valley is basically attractive. This typical image can, of course, vary widely by make or owner preference. I suspect many Furies look relatively normal, whether beautiful or not, because one of their most valuable security functions is to be able to offer meaningful defense even when apparently a non-factor. For example, you walk into a situation where you are told "No weapons." Or in which any heavy weapons -- anything beyond the most basic degree of personal protection -- would be viewed as unacceptable, a sign of open distrust, disrespect or hostility, or simply irrational. Would be assassins, after all, will probably not be planning to kill you at the most convenient time on your schedule. And showing up with a dozen Reapers and a small battalion of Ultimates in power armor may not be conducive to the "trust-building" aspect of your diplomatic mission -- even if the people you are working with may not prove trustworthy. So... Furies. A morph which, with the right advantages, may at least be able to give you a fighting chance despite limited weapons or an exposed position. One which might even be able to turn the tables on your adversaries. If you look at the standard augmentations, enhanced speed and internal armor already give you an edge even when you do not have much if any external armor or armaments. Throw in additional augmentations, hidden devices, sleights and/or other advantages and one or more Furies may offer an element of surprise few other morphs could readily provide. (And your rivals might be actively looking for Ghosts.) Granted, a single Fury might not turn the tide, but elite espionage units, Firewall teams, and other unusual people are apt to have a range of resources on hand, not to mention multiple operatives (for stealth, hacking, combat, etc). To continue with the original question -- I suspect a fair number of Furies have actually been either designed or modified to look very normal... since having an accountant, programmer or engineer who is actually key to your physical security can be a useful surprise. And even more so if they are replacing someone *known* to have few if any combat abilities. In other words, some Furies are no doubt made to look like known, hapless bystanders... or in some cases, even the intended target. In fact, of all the morphs who can "pass" for a more common Splice or Flat, Furies are probably more frequently disguised and hidden in plain sight. Such an effort would be futile with Reapers, large Synths and Ultimates, after all, and Ghosts are intended for other forms of stealth. But concealment of a Fury in harm's way is like slipping in a Sylph in a social situation -- the element of surprise or invisibility enhances their "natural" advantages.

Xagroth wrote:

Bad news, a biomorph CAN be hacked. It is incredibly difficult, and requires much more work (mesh inserts, comms, the muse, etc, etc...), but on the plus side, the poor bastard cannot leave the sinking ship like people riding synthmorphs (where "resleeving" as an infomorph is a matter of a turn or two, against the ego bridge and all those endless minutes for a squishy biobrain!), not to mention you can fool the guy into shooting the people "in his side"... Just hack a tacnet and mess with the IFF codes. Hilarity ensues! XD

Escaping a biomorph isn't necessarily hard, it's expensive. Emergency farcasters are damn handy, though. My async almost never leaves home without them.

Xagroth wrote:

Decivre wrote:

Escaping a biomorph isn't necessarily hard, it's expensive. Emergency farcasters are damn handy, though. My async almost never leaves home without them.

Were I your devious GM, I'd let you run away a couple of times, and then enjoy your face when I tell you that it seems like the Farcaster was disabled. Or never installed in that morph... Because the operator of the body shop had been hacked to not give you a body with a farcaster :p

Actually, we lucked out on that. One of the characters in our group got a patron in the form of a hypercorp that manufactures antimatter. Because of that, we almost [i]always[/i] gets free emergency farcaster access (we have the blueprints for them), simply by merit of the extreme paranoia of our characters. It's actually an inversion. It's not that our GM will eventually get devious and let us have farcasters for now. It's because our GM was a devious bastard from the get-go that we sought permanent access to farcasters. As a general rule, most of the GMs for Eclipse Phase in this area have a sadistic streak (me included).

Smokeskin wrote:

I always wondered why you couldn't just have a simple radio farcaster without the anti-matter anyway. Sure there are instances where you'd really like your ego going out as an unblockable neutrinosignal, but a poor man's radio-only farcaster would be great a lot of the time.

Beyond a certain point, the risk of signal degradation becomes such that quality becomes less and less likely. This is especially true now that we've bypassed the analog age... an analog signal is less affected by signal degradation, but sends significantly less data in a similar amount of time. So "far"casting is only really done by neutrino signal. I'm sure that plenty of places use a radio signal for most purposes... like short-range egocasting. That said, the emergency farcaster actually is also a radio transmitter, sending backups to a fairly nearby location intermittently. It only farcasts with neutrinos in an emergency, simultaneously destroying the morph.