babayaga wrote:

Basically, the Ultimates seem to be a faction of singularity seekers. Their whole philosophy of evolution at all costs towards something better, smarter, fitter -- and if that mean less human, so be it -- makes them bound to become ex-humans pretty soon. Now, what strains believability is why such a large, organized group that's been dedicated to the task for so long has failed to reach its objective yet, while many individual crackpots out there have managed it; and why pretty much every other faction out there, Firewall and the Jovians first of all, isn't just itching to wipe them out with some weapon of mass destruction before the inevitable takes place.

CodeBreaker wrote:

It honestly didn't change my opinion of the Jovians at all. However I think that that is because the Republic as presented in Rimward is almost exactly the Republic I took away from the Core rulebook. I never bought into the 'Jovians are comically terrible silver-age Space Nazis' trope. I just didn't see it from the material we had already seen.

babayaga wrote:

Decivre wrote:

There is a significant difference between the Ultimates and the Exhumans. While the exhumans focus on physical enhancement and modification, the Ultimates are built around the philosophy of physical and mental perfection. This does not simply mean "modify the shit out of yourself until you are some super-being". It means that Ultimates strive not just for perfect bodies, but disciplined minds, honed talents, a strong will and sense of purpose. Xagroth has it best when he compares them to the Greeks. The Ultimates philosophy in many ways is uncannily similar (if not straight ripped-off from) the ancient Greek concept of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arete]Arete[/url].

Actually, I disagree. The notion of *evolution* is crucial to the Ultimates. The Remade morph (I read somewhere that the Ultimates were the main backers of the project) is the epitome of this notion: redesign the human body and mind and leave behind humanity's weaknesses. Is the result "alien" (think the Uncanny Valley trait)? Well, so be it. The comparison with Arete is fundamentally misleading because in ancient Greek culture you were, to a great extent, immutable and fated for great things (or not) from the beginning, post-mortem deification notwithstanding. Hercules strangled two snakes in his baby cradle. You could *not* become a hero, you were born a hero, and the one issue was how you'd prove it through your deeds. Greek heroes did not gain experience points. The concept of evolution into perfection cannot be found in "classical" literature/philosophy (with a very few specific exceptions) outside oriental mysticism -- and indeed the depiction of the Ultimates seemed far more influenced by these philosophies than by western heroism (including the focus on *inner* excellence -- on being rather than doing, which is quite the opposite of what the Greek heroes looked for). But the fundamental tenet behind these philosophies is that humanity is a shackle, and that to achieve divinity a man should *transcend*. Let me quote from Rimward, p.118:

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Bhattacharya viewed the benefits of new technology uncolored by any religious morality and saw it as an unalloyed good. If one can improve, one must ... Manu used his visibility to argue what would become the core tenets of ultimate ideology: informed, voluntary, and consensual editing of the human genome and mind, no matter how radical, was ethical so long as it made positive changes in capability... Traits that could be enhanced, should be enhanced."

Thus, I still think that the depiction of the Ultimates is fundamentally non-consistent with the rest of the setting: they want to become posthuman, but despite ample resources and opportunities to do so, they have not managed it yet (and nobody is worried about them trying).

CodeBreaker wrote:

Edit: Anecdotal, I know, but something I think may be forgotten in the echo chamber that are these forums. The majority of the people I speak to about Eclipse Phase react negatively to the tropes and memes that it supports. They are, in EP lingo, very much bioconservative. I think that the only reason I don't mind bioconservatism being even more prevalent in the EP universe is because of the culling of the Fall. The Jovians were just lucky enough to be far enough out that it didn't matter, the TITANs couldn't really reach them anyways.

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ATTACKING VEHICLE PASSENGERS During combat, passengers within a vehicle may be targeted separately from the vehicle itself. Attacks made against passengers this way do not harm the vehicle itself (unless an area effect weapon is used). Targeted passengers benefit both from cover (usually Major, –30) and from the vehicle’s structure, adding the vehicle’s Armor Value to their own. Passengers within a vehicle are generally not harmed by attacks made against the vehicle itself. Area effect weapons are an exception to this rule, but in this case the passengers also benefit from the vehicle Armor Value

Acatalepsy wrote:

It's not about media presenting transhumans in a positive light, it's trying to maintain what amounts to North Korea IN SPACE in an era of easy access to electronics that circumvent that.

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And again, I'm trying to imagine the path of an "average" citizen of the Junta. Who were they before the Fall? The average Jupiter resident, pre-Fall, isn't any more likely to be bio-conservative than the rest of the system. Then the Fall happens, and suddenly everyone's entire metaphysical beliefs have done a 180? As I said, I could definitely buy the paranoia and conservatism regarding new tech. But the religion thing? The bio-conservative thing? Not buying it at all. It seems like an entire planetary system got handed the idiot ball.

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And again, I'm trying to imagine the path of an "average" citizen of the Junta. Who were they before the Fall? The average Jupiter resident, pre-Fall, isn't any more likely to be bio-conservative than the rest of the system

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Then the Fall happens, and suddenly everyone's entire metaphysical beliefs have done a 180?

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It seems like an entire planetary system got handed the idiot ball.

Re-Laborat wrote:

Namely, that there must be ONLY ONE. I don't agree. I imagine that there are several competing core memes among what the rest of the System calls "The Ultimates". I have seen Ultimate characters based around permutations/evolutions of "transhumanism meets samurai philosophy", and even one (which character I wrote a story about in the Eye, with the player's permission) whose belief system was based around ancient Hindu warrior/noble-caste beliefs (which place a great deal of responsibility on the noble's shoulders because they ARE a noble and a capable warrior). Both are equally threatening to the rest of TH: the samurai contempt for anything less than a samurai, and the Kshatrya demand that responsibility and authority should be recognized in accord with power (I.E., a powerful enough Kshatriya SHOULD be acknowledged as god-king/whatever, and will aspire towards that position of rule over others). I understand that there is a constant tendency in RPG forums to try to find affirmation for one's own interpretation of a given fictitious culture/political system (or, worst yet, rules interpretation) but in the case of EP, with its tremendous distances and tiny isolated cultural pockets in the wake of a system-crashing event, I think the potential for diverse and conflicting clades ([i]a la Schismatrix[/i]) is something that shouldn't be sidelined by saying 'There is only one true X.' Anders Sandberg has a great little essay/background idea riffing on the idea of Jovian bioconservatism crossing over into Ultimates territory [url=http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Thermopylae.pdf]here[/url]. Similarly, different corporations will have different mentalities about approaching certain problems...Some will be subtle, others will not. It depends on their goals, and their goals should all diverge.

Xagroth wrote:

Finally, the difference between a Fenrir and a police car is that the car only needs its wheels and engine to work (you can, however, blow the wheels with a lot of ease!), while the Fenrir is a cube filled with circuitry and ammo. So the police car has a lot of empty air inside, while the Fenrir is as solid as it can be. Also, you don't need to destroy a police car to stop it (kill/stun the crew, blow the wheels, hack the onboard computer...), while the Fenrir requires utter annihilation to be stopped.

jackgraham wrote:

On a rational level, though, Titan emerged from discussions early in the design process about factions. I wanted to explore what a power evolving from the current Nordic economic model would look like in a transhuman setting. To an external observer, the Nordic model appears inextricably bound with Scandinavian culture, so it followed that Norse in Spaaaaace would be a good starting point.

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The linguistic stuff, then. The use of Icelandic terms is meant to be a compromise between the other three major Nordic nationalities about whose language you use, not to imply that Iceland was a major player.

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Another commenter pointed out that there were some odd place names, like "Old Nyhavn." My thought was that by the time that name is in use, "Nyhavn" has become just a place name that Titanians (now a melting pot of different cultures) don't break down etymologically or really think about. But maybe it still sounds weird.

Arenamontanus wrote:

It sounds mildly amusing, but I have seen enough examples of this kind of naming to think they are plausible. Many places have names that are "wrong" in some way - New College here in Oxford has been new since 1379 and Old Newton is a village in Suffolk - or are tautological.

I like the Titanian Commonwealth. I'm trying not to like them too much, but it's hard for me. They've been written to embody ever so many of my favorite things. A social safety net, academics, cooperation, Scandinavian humanism, it's all just so cuddly.

This might actually be a problem for me. I think my players are going to start giving me dirty looks the moment my players land there. I'm not sure I can include Titan in my game without them rolling their eyes and grumbling that I've inserted my own personal fantasy into the game. I could point to the book and say "No really, this is what's written," but...

...I'm not sure that the Titan section of rimward wasn't written by some sort of doppelganger, evil twin or forknapped alpha of me. It sounds farfetched, but there's the bit that goes...

"The interests of my university students are illustrative. When I was young, it was sexy to be an artist, a musician, or a game designer. Today, it’s the students of history whose beds are never empty on a weekend night—"

This is serious, I can't face my players if they point to this and say "You had our characters farcast 9 AU just so you can rub it in our faces that there's a place in Eclipse Phase where you would have gotten laid in college."

kylleran wrote:

Oh the Argonauts. I think I'd initially intended to add them to the Autonomist Alliance chapter but after the first half of the first draft was way over word count (I wrote half and Rob wrote half) they got left behind. There was a lot of stuff we'd have liked to include but just ran out of space (and the book was already way past schedule). So I think for groups like the Argonauts, or groups we didn't spend as much time detailing, trying to get them into a pdf would be good and something I think we'll be shooting for.