How would you react if you met somebody who you knew was a sociopath? Yes, Lost are not sociopaths, but the media image of them as pretty disturbed is not inaccurate. Yes, they were the innocent victims of corporate misbehavior, but would you like one of them dating your child? And what about those disturbing rumors that there is something... else... in their brains? I would say that "out" Lost are treated as potential risks, especially by authorities who know a bit about the exsurgent virus. They might have rights, but they are not just sick but potentially infectious. (How do you *know* Watts-Macleod is safe?) You don't have to be Jovian to want to keep close tabs on them. And less enlightened neighbors might be less sensible about it. If people are creeped out, do you think they will hesitate to assign good rep scores? Just consider the impact of revealing someone to be Lost in the fiction at the start of Sunward. Plus, there might be a citizenship issue. Presumably the Lost are formally citizens of some Cognite-owned habitat in the PC, but they are unlikely to want to be there. Some have likely legally migrated to the PC, but a lot of the others are likely illegal immigrants.

How well known are asyncs, as a phenomenon? I got the impression that very few people fully comprehend what Watts-Mcleod exsurgent infection actually does, hence my understanding that Lost are scary by association, but not necessarily considered an abnormal security risk.

Prophet710 wrote:

I keep with the Shadowrun theme about magic on this one. There are plenty of XPs and academic dissertations out there but, the average transhuman probably has no idea what asyncs can really do or who they really are.

I might go a skosh more uneducated on this one. Even at the start of the Shadowrun setting (2050), magic had been established for 38 years, and 1% of the population was awakened. In Eclipse Phase, asyncs and psi have only been around for a decade, and their numbers make up less than one percent of one percent. So there may be even less information out there.

Trekkin wrote:

And yet probably known to more people with a reason to pursue it. I mean, transhumanity comes across as very good at research through its existing archive using extraordinarily sophisticated search methodologies. I suspect basic information on asyncs, if not actively hidden, probably comes up for the more speculative habitat security data trawls fairly regularly, simply because the search engines are sufficiently sophisticated to process it and determine it's a sufficient threat for further consideration without it being explicitly tagged as such. That asyncs are in fact a security concern could only expedite this process. I just have a hard time justifying the information being out there, but unknown to the concerned, with all the processing power your average transhuman organization can bring to bear. Assuming this is valid, the question of how much is known is a question of how much is actively sequestered by the discovering organization. Like, say, PSICLONE.

I'm not disagreeing that the scientific community knows of it's existence. I'm disagreeing that it's understood as well as magic within the same timeframe. Much of the magic theory in Shadowrun existed prior to the awakening, and was simply rediscovered (or taught traditionally and never forgotten). This meant that magic already had an established understanding among humanity. By 2022, there were already colleges that taught arcane studies. Magic was a very mature science by the start of the setting. Asyncs have none of these luxuries in Eclipse Phase. Psi is a brand new biotechnology discovered in the Fall, when we first faced the exsurgent virus. There are no ancient beings that can inform us of its properties (at least none that [i]don't[/i] want to kill us), nor is there any ancient documentation or traditions laying it out. The processes by which psi functions are a complete unknown, unlike mana. And we have no real understanding of its long-term effects on people. While plenty [i]know[/i] of psi (at least among government and scientific officials), very little is [i]known[/i] about psi. It's still a large X-factor. We may find out one day that asyncs have been doing it wrong the whole time. We may find out that our human (and uplift) asyncs are more powerful than even they think they are. But right now, it's a brand new frontier. In Shadowrun, metahumanity is balls deep down the rabbit hole; in Eclipse Phase, transhumanity is just barely starting to peek into its depths.

Trekkin wrote:

Going by page 233 of Core, it appears that the connection between Lost egos and Watts-MacLeod infection has become general knowledge, so I can certainly see them being treated with far more suspicion than the average lab runaway. There are also apparently sympathetic authorities, although going public apparently implies psychotherapy.

I don't know if their async abilities are publicly known, but the suspicion probably has more to do with the murders and violence that occurred in Project Futura. They know that the Lost went batshit insane and went Thunderdome on one another. Most people probably don't know why, however. The Watts-Macleod strain might still be a relative secret. Remember that the core books are treated as a reference for a Firewall operative, so they let the reader in on more secrets than the average person would know.

Trekkin wrote:

Given all that, I'd say the only reason they're not too scary to allow on habs is the panopticon; I can only imagine people are at least marginally more trusting in an age of omnipresent sousveillance, assuming the Lost stay observable. Then again, they are very good liars... Social Stigma clearly means more for these guys than it does for a synthmorph. This bodes ill for a player of mine who wanted to try playing the vocalist in an all-Lost rock band. Or not, in the right hab.

One thing that helps them hide from the panopticon is the fact that async abilities are pretty damn subtle. There are no overt sleights like telekinesis or pyrokinesis. And how are you going to detect that one of those people shaking hands is influencing the mind of the other? One thing unique about the Lost is that because of their violent genesis, it's very likely that the Lost don't even trust one another. How could they? If they meet another, do they trust that this one isn't one of the ones that were complete monsters? What if they are lying, or even using sleights to deceive them?

I'd assume that there is some public knowledge of Asyncs, if for no other reason than they make drugs that give you Psi abilities.