The disparity in size and capabilities between the entirety of transhuman civilization and the ETI is such that, yeah, unless we have allies we are damned.

Unless it's a collection of civilizations akin to the Council or the Covenant aligned with Transhumanity. Each with varying degrees of tech and with certain far reaching, if not specific, capabilities. This would be a very space opera style campaign not unlike Mass Effect.

If somebody wants to know how it would like I recommend reading Stephen Baxter's Xelee sequence of human war with Xelee.

I just gave a TEDx talk about the Fermi question (OK, I am boasting, but mainly due to adrenaline rush, forgive me) and one of my main points was this: even in the Milky Way most planets formed billions of years before Earth. So even alien civs from here could be a billion years ahead. And that doesn't count the *really* old ones: a civilization that started a 10 billion years ago could have expanded across the whole visible universe (it was a lot smaller then). I have sketches for how to emplace nano-equipment on every single large solid body *anywhere* indefinitely. So even a mere nanotech civilization not much more capable than transhumanity in EP could in principle dominate the *entire* universe if it started early enough. Suppose such a civilization really wanted transhumanity out of the way. It could literally throw entire planets of resources against transhumanity - how do you fight 10^24 kilograms of disassembler nanites arriving to cover every solid object in the solar system? Even a civ that merely had a few million years headstart would be tough. When the stats of your equipment could be measured in scientific notation rather 1-100, a fight will be uneven. The only way of ensuring that this kind of super tech discrepancy doesn't happen is to assume some kind of tech ceiling. No supertech, just something like what humans have. But the tech ceiling in EP is at least at TITAN level - gates through spacetime, maybe femtotech, psi and planetary dis/reassembly. A well functioning ETI civ will have these resources. Plus at least a few millions of years of experience of aliens trying to do sneaky stuff. One could try to explain things away, like saying the ETI are old and decadent. But that may not be true for all parts of ETI society (the Roman legions were pretty fearsome even during the decline), and a fragment would still be amazingly dangerous. So I am firmly of the opinion that proper "hard" ETI should be an existential risk and essentially unfightable. One can of course soften things to make them defeatable, but it is a bit like making Cthulhu vulnerable to holy symbols. It misses the point.

Just this afternoon in Toronto I was chatting with a friend who mentioned a [URL=http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?663840-Eclipse-Phase-Directly-fighti... thread[/URL] where the subject of resisting the ETI was raised. One insight John shared with me was that, galactic-scale though it might be, the physical processes of the ETI seem to be slow. (As a single example, the ship that's apparently fleeing the computronium dust-cloud near Corse is able to flee--it's survived long enough.) Among other things, that would imply that the ETI has no more exceptionally fine-grained control over the micro-level of its body than we do. The Bracewell probes are self-guiding white blood cells, basically. One strategy of resistance is metastasis, involving the rapid growth of transhumanity through space, whether through the gates and or via normal space (direct from Sol, as the Titanians are starting to do, or via exoplanet colonies like Just In Case). A sufficiently dispersed human civilization would be very difficult to get rid of. Another strategy might involve diversification. One of the big problems with an HIV vaccine involves the mutability of HIV--vaccines which might carry some protection against one strain at a particular time wouldn't necessarily protect against another contemporary strain, or against that same strain's immediate ancestors or descendants. Transhuman civilization would have to diversify, occupying multiple different niches and behaving in different ways. A third strategy might involve the subversion of ETI resources. HIV subtly alters the mechanics of the immune system, subverting it to do its bidding. Might transhumanity be in a position to do the same?

I'm wondering if a billion years of advancement post singularity is equivalent to a billion years of advancement pre singularity. In EP humanity has already produced 1 or 2 singularities, (depending on weather you count the Promethians) so the question might be how close is a singularity event to 'vertical' on the tech curve? Would it require a billion years to catch up to the capabilities of an ETI sufficient to decide our own destiny. Seems to me that post singularity species could find the hard limits of the universe relatively quickly. At that point we would, at least, be playing with a full deck of cards even if we havn't had time to build our hand. So the key to a favorable outcome in contact with ETI could be achieving healthy post singularity status. Transhumanity may have done that with the TITAN's had the ETI not intervened. Another thing that's been buzzing in the back of my brain is; "Why are there Two ETI techs in the solar system?" By that I mean the Bracewell Probe and the Pandora Gates. There's not much info on the Bracewell probe aside from the fact of its existence but it seems needlessly redundant in the presence of the gates. The fact of both of them make me wonder if there aren't multiple ETI or possibly a succession. If there are more than one ETI we may have a potential ally or multiple enemies.

It is pretty unlikely two billion years of post-singularity development is equivalent to two billion years pre-singularity. Assuming there is an upper limit to what is knowable about the universe (essentially, physics and technology are limited) then that level might be reached fairly shortly in external time and any civilization a short while after the singularity will have roughly identical technological capabilities. (Some *deep* questions here about whether there are important techs depending on solving NP hard problems that just requires endless trial and error, and of course the core assumption - I have heard local geniuses give arguments for or against it) If postsingularity civs are all alike in capabilities, what makes them different? One aspect is of course culture and goals: it is not clear that they want the same thing (again, this is a *deep* question: if there is some universal moral good, it might be that all sufficiently advanced civs act completely alike). But there is also the matter of resources: old civs can gather *much* more resources than young ones. Not only can they pre-empt young civs by taking over the universe before the youngsters come about, but thanks to the expansion they could send Bracewell probes far more widely than we could (this is a factor of at least a few million, quite possibly billions or more - paper forthcoming). Now, who will win in a conflict? If two civs have the same capabilities and same resources, they would be evenly matched and presumably at most have 50% chance of winning. Most likely they could produce a stalemate or threaten to burn any coveted resources if they were attacked: there is no reason to quarrel. So if the powerful civilizations were localized - stuff would have to be moved at finite velocity - they would have a fairly stable situation. Near the border they would be identical, even if one was much larger than the other. But if it is easy to move resources to bear on an enemy, now the big one has an advantage. If there are gates, then that seems to move things towards this more volatile scenario. In military theory there are two simple models of attrition warfare, the Lanchester equations. The "linear law" describes mano-a-mano local fighting where each unit engages another unit: it predicts that the strength (enemies killed per second) times the number of troops is the deciding factor, and the side with the biggest factor wins. This is reasonable for non-ranged warfare, perhaps including nanomachine fighting. The "square law" is for ranged combat, and predicts that it is the strength times the square of the number: a huge army can theoretically focus its firepower and do a lot of damage. This model suggests that numbers matter a lot. In reality things are messier, and it is debatable how well the equations fit real warfare: hundreds of papers from West Point and elsewhere debate this. But if we believe the situation is somewhere in between these, we should expect the stregth of post-singularity civs to be identical, but the bigger ones have a correspondingly big advantage. If things are truly square, then the old ones are extremely potent. Going back to making ETI fightable: note when this become doable given the above. Transhumans are likely screwed in most cases, because their "troop strength" is far below the TITANs (roughly singularity level). Sometimes they win simply by pitting huge numbers and losses against them. TITANs and other post-singularity entities like Prometheans, big Seed AGIs etc. might actually have a chance against the ETI if the ETI is isolated from the rest of the resources of the "empire" and cannot easily get more. So this suggests a scenario where a lone ETI entity can be defeated with the help of some post-singularity help. It is going to be bloody and nasty, but it might be doable if the entity cannot communicate with a nearby gate. "OK, let me get this straight: the... thing over there wants to have the root certificate keys of this entire colony so that it can turn every single person, every piece of equipment, even our bloody biotech into weaponry. Then it is going to throw all of it at the Ship, hoping it will not be able to call on backup to the gate until we have dealt with it. Meanwhile it will try to *spam* the gate with *black holes*. If we succeed we will likely be stranded in this system, and if we fail God will show up and personally smite us all. " "That is a succinct summary, human. We hope you noticed that we asked first." (Ob SF reference: Scratch Monkey by Charles Stross: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/monkey/ )

In a purely relativistic universe, blow up the gates, and the ETI can only fight with the resources it has on hand. That pits humanity against the titan leftovers, which given the way the titans were rolling humanity is probably still enough to wipe us out. If the ETI has gates set up in Proxima Centauri, that will buy humanity 4 years, and the further the nearest gate is the more time humanity will have. Truth be told though, the ETI is probably the wrong enemy for humans to fight, an intelligence billions of years old with unfathomable resources at it's disposal could snuff humanity out like a candle in a hurricane. The Titans are a terrifying and overwhelming force in their own right, but one within the scope of transhumanities ability to understand. The fiction claims that if humanity had teamed up and worked together against the titans, it's possible that they could have saved earth. That's the kind of enemy where heroism is relevant,

Arenamontanus wrote:

I just gave a TEDx talk about the Fermi question (OK, I am boasting, but mainly due to adrenaline rush, forgive me) ...

OK, you have been Adequately Modest. :) Now... is there video you can link us to? I googled around a bit but didn't find it.

My solution to this is to not make the conflict intentionally antagonistic. If instead, the ETI is just bulldozing Sol and all of the planets to make its interplanetary superhighway, humans have a chance to survive. We can't keep Sol, and we can't stop the project, but we can survive. Similarly, if the ETI decides to capture us like a subject of a butterfly collection, SOME of us can survive. As a GM for this story, I wouldn't try to figure out how we can stop the ETI. Instead, I'd assume what the ETI wants will come to pass, but try to figure out how humans can escape to the dark crevices and live for another day.

Unless you intend to have a team of Gate Crashers travel to an alien world where they find the remains of Gunmen. And then Transhumanity uses the knowledge acquired on that world to unlock the secrets of Spiral Energy . And with it's new found knowledge and Transhumanity and their allies(The Factors,The Iktomi remnant, the various Aliens who communicate through the Ansible pyramids ) embark on a glorious campaign to free the milkyway from the control ETI. And then at last above super massive blackhole at galactic center,the seat of the ETI Empire. The members of the alliance forces that have made it that far. Stare(even the Factors who have no eyes) down the last and greatest War-machine of the ETI Empire. They cross arms and flipper and pseudopods and tentacles. These brave and indomitable warriors proceed to grow the most bitchin sunglasses ever through pure concentrated force of will in complete defiance of the law of Conservation of Mass. These Warriors then fuse their Gunnmen together. Forming the one machine that shall shatter the heavens with power exceeding that of the Gods! They ask that last War-Machine one question? "Who The Hell Do You think we are"?!! And then final battle begins. Unless the above or something equivalent happens. Transhumanity and any other aliens at a similar tech level stand no chance of confronting the ETI.

If that happened, part of me would be curious to discover what monstrous threat from beyond the galaxy the ETI was keeping out.

The ETI had been devoting it's resources to stonewall the The Anti-Spirals invasion of Milky Galaxy.

Just to fulfill my promise: http://www.tedxuhasselt.eu/content.php?page=videos_2012 There I am.

rfmcdonald wrote:

If that happened, part of me would be curious to discover what monstrous threat from beyond the galaxy the ETI was keeping out.

Maybe dark matter entities?

Open pandora gates next to everywhere humans settle, fling rocks at $big_velocity at stuff. Should be a piece of cake for the uberpowered ETI.

Unless I've missed something, "open pandora gates next to everywhere" needn't be a capability.

Maybe hidding is the best strategy. Or there is a civil war in the ETI. Maybe TITANs have found another superAIS and they are "healed" or reprogrammed to rebel againts the ETI. Why a super alien civilation would help others? Because we are like beatiful butterflys in a garden. Maybe they love worlds with own culture(music, books, movies). We are a "Jurrasic Park" too cool to be allowed our destruction. We don't need to defeat all ETI, but only to save transhumanity. If they think we have extingued and forget us, and they don't bother us again, it will be enough.

I can think of one way to 'fight' the ETI, but not one that involves transhumanity or a universe capable of sustaining transhumanity being around afterwards. Basically, suppose transhumanity finds a way to start vacuum decay. There, we now have a weapon that the ETI would actually have to acknowledge as significant, seeing as it will (eventually) destroy the entirety of the universe unless the universe starts to expand faster than light does. Even gods have limits. The ETI would *not* survive indefinitely if a vacuum decay event occurred unless; a) Multiverse theory is true in a way that allows them to move their civilization over to a universe where the vacuum decay didn't happen, but doesn't allow the vacuum decay to follow them. However, even the ETI shouldn't be able know if this is true or not unless their cognition is so unfathomable that it doesn't need observation to actually know the truth about any potential multiverse system. b) The ETI has FTL, the universe is truly infinite, and they can just relocate far enough away that it will never be a problem for them. Presuming neither of the above scenarios is true, though, we have a problem. The ETI will, beyond a doubt, know about the development of such a weapon. Transhumanity also does not and will not possess the capability to resist the ETI if it decides to act to prevent the weapon from existing. So in this MAD scenario, either we lose (we don't get rid of ETI interference with transhumanity) or we lose (we somehow trigger the weapon and now never existed at all, because existence isn't a thing anymore). Don't fight the ETI. It is a Very Dumb Thing To Do. If you want more ETI in your campaigns, the best avenue is probably exploring how they've interacted with other civilizations, or explore their motivations for creating the exsurgent virus, or other deep looks into their history.

Throw a big star through one of the Pandora Gates.

Maybe you can destroy a planet or a solar system, but not all interplanetary alien civilitation with only a hit. The spaceships from other stars would strike back. The key, the question is why an alien civilitation would want destroy races from other planets, but they keep enough good sense to not destroy themself. Other matter is to invade distnat planets and create an interestellar empire is too empesive. When you have got enough mining resources from relatively near planet without byosphere, to go remote solar systems doesn't worth. When a supreme power is too hostile againt its neighbours, usually the rest of nations become allies againts the common enemy. If the social elite is too busy with the game of thrones and fights for the power, ther risks of civil war are too high, and that in a high-tech civilitation may be the apocalypse. Le'ts remember Andreas Lubits and the Germanwings' tragedy. Have you thought about a kamikaze attack with a interestellar spaceship? It would be like the meteor what killed the dinosaurs. And if ETI could be defeated, then its strategy would to hide, or to go another place out reach, maybe an alternate space-time continuum, their own artificial parallel universe created by themself, like a virtual reality, but it doesn't stop to work because the server to be unplugged. Or the exurgent strain would be its perfect match, a biological weapon created by another alien civilitation..(or maybe a mutation?), and the infected are inmune to exurgent virus, but then transhumanity would be in the middle fire in a monsters' war like an human in a movie of werewolvers vs vampires.