I like the Jovians. The narrator of the Jovian system, Tio, is the most interesting out of Rimward. He struggles between the ideals of Firewall and being patriotic to the Republic. The best part of the useless Secrets section in Rimward is their gloss on running the Republic as more sympathetic. It flat out states that they are supposed to be "bad guys" in the setting as written then deconstructs that statement quite well. A Proxy I am planning to use is a Jovian in a high level of government. My current gatecrashing character is a martian synthmorph (Barsoomian, indentured for Tharsis) who has a daughter in the Republic (separated during the Fall) and he is working his ass off—to take it farther, he has been leaking Pandora Corp info to Gateway for cred—to pay hackers to change his info, detectives to research, and a transportation service to take one of him (original or Alpha) to the Republic. After the last mindfuck session he is now sure that he wants at least one of him to be safe. A character I've wanted to play in EP is a Jovian splicer sleeper agent who is kitted out with numerous drug glands (he may need medichines). He would be so meek it would be wonderful.

The Jovian Junta is more of an American capitalist style representative fascism, if you can really imagine that. Bio-conservatism is still strong in the Republic but it is nowhere near the extreme level it is depicted in the books. Also, the Jovians actually care for their own, fielding the best radiation shielding, life support and medical technologies in the system. Augmentations are on a very strictly controlled basis, not unlike firearms in the United States, and licenses can be bought for a price along with annual taxation requirements. Also, with such a strong bond with conservatism and capitalism, there is a vast sense of relation with the Reclaimer movement, and indeed many Jovians identify as Reclaimers, with private and even government grants and donations being given to the cause.

Firstly, this is not to be a political comment in any way (odd, given the topic of a given polity), just a clarification by way of example. "Augmentations are on a very strictly controlled basis, not unlike firearms in the United States". In my home state, the control on firearms is, "Do you have money and are older than 16?" If yes, then you can have the firearm, with no further complication (Under 16 will need an adult to purchase it for them) . You do need a permit to carry it concealed, and none to carry it on your hip (visibly) or in your car (hidden or no - considered an extension of your home) Even fully automatic rifles are available, though you need a tax stamp for them - difficult, but not impossible to obtain. Should augmentations come, I imagine they will probably go the same way. Just my .02 (Actual value will vary)

I completely agree Alkahest with BOTH your posts! However, to the fairness of the writers they definitely did tone down the "anarchists rule, conservatives/capitalists drool" attitude in the supplements. In fact, this passage here pretty much puts the slam on the autonomists, at least the uninformed autonomists:

Quote:

A lot of wet-behind-the-ears autonomist types view the residents of the Consortium as exploited workers and slaves, blinded by their XP feeds and limited educations into believing that their lousy lives are the best they can do. Those naive anarchists think that if only these poor Consortium dupes knew better, if they could just escape and see the glories of the outer system, then they would abandon their ways, rise up against their masters, and topple the parasitic gerontocrats and hyperelites. The truth isn’t so black-and-white. While there is a sizable segment of the Consortium population with a class consciousness, or at least a recognition of indentured labor as slavery, the vast majority of Consortium citizens are content and favor their lifestyle over an outer system one. This is because the social control of the Consortium is more nuanced and fine-tuned than the outright repression of the Jovians. Life in the Consortium is by no means a harsh experience, and is for the most part privileged and secure. Most citizens can expect to have all of their basic needs met for minimal fees as long as they stay gainfully employed. The standard of living, even among the poor, is significantly more prosperous than life was on Earth under the old pre-Fall regimes.

And as people have pointed out, in Rimward the Republic is definitely portrayed in a much more human and sympathetic light, even if you might not agree with all of their views. But then I read the Autonomist Alliance chapter, and...meh, seemed more like a handout to "why anarchism/libertarianism is great!" Still, it was informative and did give me a much needed insight into life on the outer rim. A bit off topic, but I tend to make the Planetary Consortium and Jovian Republic less cardboard cutout villains and the anarchists less sympathetic without overdoing it for either. Basically balancing out the bias that's entrenched in the setting's writing. Yes, anarchist terrorists (ie insurrectionists) exist. They're a minority but they're not a small minority, and they don't give a damn if thousands of people die to further their aims. And yes, the Consortium can sometimes do good. Sometimes. And it's almost always for profit rather than true altruism. If I wanted to depict a sympathetic inner system hypercapitalist/democratic power I use the Morningstar Constellation or Lunar-Lagrange Alliance. I know the writers and developers frequent this forum and I want to say, I hope you guys don't take this as me saying I think you guys are bad writers. Otherwise I wouldn't have been sucked into the setting so damn fast the minute I picked up a copy!

As Noble Pigeon, I just want to point up that criticizing parts of the setting doesn't mean that I think the people behind Eclipse Phase are bad writers, far from it! Eclipse Phase is possibly my favorite science fiction setting, all categories, and all books are entertaining, interesting and well-written. But hey, there's always room for complaining! :-)

Noble Pigeon wrote:

However, to the fairness of the writers they definitely did tone down the "anarchists rule, conservatives/capitalists drool" attitude in the supplements. In fact, this passage here pretty much puts the slam on the autonomists, at least the uninformed autonomists:

Sure, but that passage is accompanied by twenty pages explaining how their democracy is a sham, how upward mobility is a lie, how their economy requires an exploited underclass, how uplifts are treated like dirt, how infugees are de facto enslaved and how their antitrust agency has evolved into an anarchist-hunting Gestapo. I can't think of a single aspect of life in the PC that is superior to life in one of the wonderful anarchist habitats where everyone is nicer, freer, more tolerant, more egalitarian, wealthier, friendlier, more laid-back, more optimistic, more educated and where everyone works less, has more fun, has better sex, has cooler haircuts, etcetera etcetera etcetera than the people in the PC. And they accomplish all this while having even more open immigration practices than the PC. Think about it. They let literally anyone in (unless they are antisocial and evil, of course), give anyone who wants it a nice morph and yet, somehow, anarchist society is much more prosperous, harmonious and functional than PC society. There are no trade-offs. You can have your cake and eat it to, as long as you fly the red and black. Let's face it, anarchists are Eclipse Phase's elves, turned up to eleven. They are simply better at everything, except they don't even have that aloof snootiness that elves suffer from. Anarchists are better at everything and they are the guys you want to have a beer with. And let's not forget that there aren't actually any elves in real life, but there are anarchists. Basically, Eclipse Phase is Lord of the Rings if Tolkien was an elf and everyone wanted to hang out with Galadriel because she had the best drugs. And Lothlórien had a big "WELCOME DWARF FRIENDS" sign. I think one of the major saving graces of the books is that one can read them as being biased "in story", so to speak. The books are written for Firewall agents, and while Firewall recruits people from all over the System, people from the AA seem to dominate (presumably because roughly the same function is filled by Project Ozma in the Inner System). If the books were written for Ozma agents, one would presumably read about the chaos, instability, violence and poverty of the AA. I hope. LonesomeWanderer: I think Transhuman Space solved the religion-issue rather neatly when it came to Catholicism. The Catholic Church has simply split in two, a liberal one that welcomes SAIs (AGIs) as members (and has a lady-pope!) and a more conservative church that's much more similar to the Eclipse Phase-version.

LonesomeWanderer wrote:

By the way, another game, a miniature one called Infinity, has a trans-humanist faction that is made up of technocratic neo-muslims who specialize in the manufacture of the gear needed to upload minds. I am totally stealing that for a some what fringe religious group in my game.

Haqqislam is one of the cooler factions, along with Pan-O, who also have a religious bent to them with all of those Knightly Orders. I guess Yu-Ching has a neat take on buddism. Infinity treats religion quite well across the factions.

LonesomeWanderer wrote:

Like in Cthulhu tech were Christianity just can't take it, and Islam is marginalized because they hate progress or in Shadowrun where it is a hyper bigoted religion that hate non-human meta-humans and magic. Islam, historically has been a much more tolerant religion, both of other cultures and even of other religions than many people realize. For instance, when Islam came to places like Indonesia, they didn't just kill off all the non-Muslims, who were ethnic Chinese who lived there for centuries and were pretty much Buddhist; They gave them the same status as People of the Book (ie Jews and Christians), and left them alone. . This fundamentalist crap? Came about in the 19th century.

That's a bit misleading though, since it's the fundamentalists that, if anything, are the most vocal and/or politically-active these days. It's a social trend that I can fully understand writers following to a logical conclusion, regardless of whether or not I like it. Secularism is on the rise, and fundamentalism is the reaction to it. And a lot of fundies do crazy shit, y'know? Just sayin'.

At the same time, we shouldn't just overlook the fact that there's a very strong correlation between religiosity and bioconservatism. The majority of modern transhumanists are non-believers, and I see no reason for that to change in the future. Sometimes I think people are so eager to subvert the cliché of the conservative Christian/Muslim that they forget that it's based on sound statistical data. I'm not sure why Catholicism tends to always be the reactionary religion du jour, though. Maybe it's because it's a big scary organization run by Emperor Palpatine and other religious denominations tend to be much more decentralized affairs.

Some time ago I saw an interpretation of Jovians I really liked: They're afraid. None of them - not even the top levels of government - are stirring up panic. They're genuinely fearful. Of the Titans, of Factors and other aliens, of being the last remnants of humanity in a solar system that's been taken over by sapient computer programs which occasionally download themselves into human-like bodies. If the Jovians are militaristic it's because they're well aware that a single guy with a self-replicating cornucopia machine and enough matter could eventually pose a serious military threat to them. If they restrict information it's because people in the outer systems have found ways to make information hurt their enemies. If they're skeptical of some scientific endeavors it's because they don't want to go down the same path that destroyed Earth. Essentially, the Jovians aren't hostile. They're in full-blown survivalist mode. They fully expect that transhumanity will either kill itself off or ascend somewhere they won't be the Jovians' problem anymore. Either way, the Jovians are just planning to ride the whole thing out and pick up the pieces afterwards. It's not so different from their canon description, but I feel it makes them feel more sympathetic.

Alkahest wrote:

As Noble Pigeon, I just want to point up that criticizing parts of the setting doesn't mean that I think the people behind Eclipse Phase are bad writers, far from it! Eclipse Phase is possibly my favorite science fiction setting, all categories, and all books are entertaining, interesting and well-written. But hey, there's always room for complaining! :-)

Noble Pigeon wrote:

However, to the fairness of the writers they definitely did tone down the "anarchists rule, conservatives/capitalists drool" attitude in the supplements. In fact, this passage here pretty much puts the slam on the autonomists, at least the uninformed autonomists:

Sure, but that passage is accompanied by twenty pages explaining how their democracy is a sham, how upward mobility is a lie, how their economy requires an exploited underclass, how uplifts are treated like dirt, how infugees are de facto enslaved and how their antitrust agency has evolved into an anarchist-hunting Gestapo. I can't think of a single aspect of life in the PC that is superior to life in one of the wonderful anarchist habitats where everyone is nicer, freer, more tolerant, more egalitarian, wealthier, friendlier, more laid-back, more optimistic, more educated and where everyone works less, has more fun, has better sex, has cooler haircuts, etcetera etcetera etcetera than the people in the PC. And they accomplish all this while having even more open immigration practices than the PC. Think about it. [b]They let literally anyone in (unless they are antisocial and evil, of course), give anyone who wants it a nice morph[/b] and yet, somehow, anarchist society is much more prosperous, harmonious and functional than PC society. There are no trade-offs. You can have your cake and eat it to, as long as you fly the red and black.

I don't think the bolded part is actually true. Sure, nearly anyone can get to Locus or other anarchist habitat. I doubt there are designated emigration offices or at least people, whose only function is to make visitors feel welcome. To live anywhere, you need to find yourself a collective that maintains this part of habitat and get accepted by it - no one wants to provide services for someone who might be a leech, an antisocial jerk or an Inner System spy. Actually living with anarchists can also be difficult for people taking Inner System luxuries for granted. It's much more difficult, for example, to hoard cash or items you don't use, as everyone will expect you to share. As your employer on Mars would, the collective you belong to will take interest in your life, so expect to be observed and, occasionally, judged by everybody who you work with. Also, credits are worthless there, so a major reputation loss can be devastating. It doesn't also seem they have a large number of infugees there, similar to the way Venus and Mars have. Most of them comes from databases in backup facilities owned by Earth governments and corporations, so there is simply no way anarchists could obtain them. It's easier to give everyone a decent morph when there are not many people that desperately need one.

Quote:

I think one of the major saving graces of the books is that one can read them as being biased "in story", so to speak. The books are written for Firewall agents, and while Firewall recruits people from all over the System, people from the AA seem to dominate (presumably because roughly the same function is filled by Project Ozma in the Inner System). If the books were written for Ozma agents, one would presumably read about the chaos, instability, violence and poverty of the AA. I hope.

I don't think this is the case - it wouldn't be so difficult to point out some problems in anarchist society even in a text written by an autonomist sympathizer. Given the emphasis on PC and Jovian crimes, they are clearly one of the designated antagonists. Which isn't bad per se - the system needed some transhuman enemies for the player, and corporations or oppressive governments are better in supplying conflict than a mostly passive and disorganized commune in Jovian Trojans.

Honestly, it is a bit sad to read that a number of players are disappointed by an RPG set in the next future with a point of view definitively more different, innovative and visionary than any other "mainstream" SF RPG setting now available. This is the first game background which is seriously paying attention to political, social and economic issues that could emerge in the next future and how these could mold societies, relationships and lifestyle. No Cyberpunk, Transhuman Space, Traveller or whatever non-indie RPG have been even barely capable to reach such depths of insight. The key point, and possibly the reason for such crawling criticism, is that EP setting resumed what latest SF writers thought about future and transhumanism and the final result is a stance, a clear and pervasive point of view. I noted that EP poses a threat to most of the people "bubble of confidence": it menaces their opinion of life and death, sexual habits, moral issues, macro and micreconomics and finally politics. No other RPG states as clearly as EP that the lack of fundamental freedoms with the presence of police and moral control leads directly to Fascism, that the complete exploiting of peoples work could become a form of slavery, that if an Executive Branch is not responsible, transparent and accountable it is not true democracy, and so on.... During almost 3 years of constant playing, I've found that this radical and direct attack to inner beliefs could be dramatically disturbing and irritating to some more or less conservative or right-wing players. I try to avoid conflicts and their discomfort trying to not push them too far, but if they face some problems with their opinions and the game background they have to manage them by themselves. Some of them hate AIs and try to not depend from them, some others dislike Immortality given by backups and avoid the backup etc. Yes, this could led to many complications but in my view it is a fantastic adventure generator: you don't have idea of what lenght payers will go to keep faith in their own beliefs! In my campaing (quite long at this stage), Jovians could be as good or as bad as any other transhuman but their remain basically paranoid fascists and inherently biocons. This does not mean stupid or blind, simply that it take quite a lot to change their point of view. More or less like the players...... Starship commanders motivated only by national pride and thirst for adventure abound in the pages of many others more "mainstream" SF RPGs..... However, in my humble opinion, changing EP in a more conservative setting with a neutral apporach is not giving any justice to Game, to the Authors and to the most innovative new SciFi Writers. Said this, I personally dislike elves. They are the natural aristocrats of any fantasy settings. "Kaloi k'Agathoi" or "Aristoi"said the Old Greeks: The Beautiful and the Good, The Best....... there is nothing beautiful or good in living in a Scum Barge, in an Asteroid Beehive or in the Frozen WasteLands of Titan. As in the Great North, back in the old Earth, you have to be tough, durable, ingenious and trust in the solidarity of others. ....nothing to do with individualism and inherited powers or resources.....

revengespc wrote:

Obviously, there's nothing intrinsically bad about conservatism - I think the problem lies within the setting's strong intrinsic correlation of conservatism with evil, when in a danger-filled post-apocalyptic setting, there's a case to be made for nearly the opposite.

Conservatism is diametrically opposed to transhumanism, so in a transhuman setting it's a natural "bad guy" ideology.

DamionW wrote:

Can you truly digitize love? Or happiness? Fulfillment? What if all those anarchists think they have a full complement of emotions and experiences, all backed up in XP files and shared around freely, but they're really in fact missing something?

That does sound like typical biocon rhetoric. Doesn't make me like the Jovians more, rather the opposite in fact, but it does make them believable.

Gantolandon wrote:

I don't think the bolded part is actually true.

Rimward, page 155: "When the Fall came, these anarchists embraced everyone, turning no infugees away. Unlike the inner system polities, which are always seeking ways to control their populations, the anarchists promised new lives and new bodies to everyone—and they delivered."

Noble Pigeon wrote:

Titan? Non-violent crimes. A long-dead, frozen over TITAN pet project. Ice....ice....more ice...and thats about it.

Welcome to Sweden! Be sure to collect your free hug on the way out.

DamionW wrote:

The ego programming was originally done by humans before they achieved the status of transhuman and humans are fallible. So what if along the way of mapping the ego genome, the researchers achieved a 95% capture rate of the entire human consciousness before hitting exponentially diminishing returns trying to chase down all the more nuanced personality traits. Now magnify that 5% loss rate a million-fold as the transhuman movement explodes.

That's a bit of an assumption to make on behalf of the Jovians (or anyone else), but for my dime, I'm not even sure what that would mean.

Lilith wrote:

That's a bit of an assumption to make on behalf of the Jovians (or anyone else), but for my dime, I'm not even sure what that would mean.

Given that the entire setting is theoretical at this point of human development, the whole game is conjecture. So if you want to play it differently, play it differently. If you like it as-is and Jovians make great black hat antagonists, go for it. As for what it means, I'm implying that transhuman ego-profiles could fall flat in terms of rendering actual emotion as it was known to original humanity. The same real-world naivete that AGIs have could extend to some degree to all non-flat transhumans. They don't quite process what other individuals are feeling and how it relates to them. You don't have to take it that way, but its an alternative play on things.

DamionW wrote:

Given that the entire setting is theoretical at this point of human development, the whole game is conjecture. So if you want to play it differently, play it differently. If you like it as-is and Jovians make great black hat antagonists, go for it.

The whole "well it's all made-up anyway" argument is never satisfying. There's a thing called "suspension of disbelief", and you can only push it so far before someone finally throws up their hands and says "Whoa, hold on a sec there, now you're talking crazy". That said, I never viewed Jovians as "black hat antagonists" in the first place.

DamionW wrote:

As for what it means, I'm implying that transhuman ego-profiles could fall flat in terms of rendering actual emotion as it was known to original humanity. The same real-world naivete that AGIs have could extend to some degree to all non-flat transhumans. They don't quite process what other individuals are feeling and how it relates to them. You don't have to take it that way, but its an alternative play on things.

So you're basically saying the whole of transhumanity has Asperger's?

Alkahest wrote:

The funny thing is that I dislike these fearful, conservative humanist people you are describing as more sympathetic Jovians more than I dislike "vanilla" Jovians. Which just goes to show that villainy really is in the eye of the beholder.

I gotta go with Al here. The Jovians as-written never seemed "bad" to me in any respect. Backwards, maybe (from both a social and technological standpoint), but I never thought of them as evil. The guys being labeled "sympathetic" here just sound paranoid to the point of egomania.

I dunno, EP as-is has always seemed pretty morally-grey to me. There's no faction that doesn't have dirt on its face, blood on its hands/limbs, and skeletons/synth-shells in the closet. I don't really mesh with the notion that there really [i]are[/i] "designated antagonists" for that reason, but then again, I tend to see both sides of things more often than not. Sure, some might lean one way or another, but everything has its own reasons. Hell, when I first read about the Ultimates in the main rulebook, I didn't care for them one iota; after reading more about them in Rimward, however, I have to admit that some of their aims are almost noble, if not twisted in a way that I, personally, do not condone.

Ilmarinen wrote:

Despite allowing things considered too dangerous by the Inner System or even the techo-socialists, they never face any repercussions of these dangers.

Says who? I would think you don't hear about scum fleets and anarchist habs that didn't have a measure for dealing with this exactly problem because [i]they don't exist anymore[/i]. Just because you can theoretically fab a suitcase nuke in a public fabber doesn't necessarily mean that an anarchist group is just going to let you without batting an eye. These are people that believe in the right of individuals to self-govern as a group. They might be idealistic to an extent, but they're not stupid. I don't see anything that says anarchists are somehow "immune to all societal problems". If anything, the inherent disorder and constant need to put things to a direct popular vote are probably some of the biggest issues at play, since it makes them as a whole slow to respond to issues and threats of concern to the entire fleet/hab. Nothing is ideal, and I've certainly not of the view that anarchists as presented in EP are any exception.

Alkahest wrote:

Recognizing the flaws in something you love isn't the same as being disappointed by it.

I could agree on general terms but on this specific subject, correct me if I misunderstood, it seems that some of you are irritated by the fact that the authors decided that the autonomist utopia, at least partially, works. Instead the traditional capitalist or conservative ideology still seems to keep the usual old flaws. This, in your opinion, generate too much two-dimensional bad guys and a sort of manicheism more typical of fantasy or childish games than the adult hard-SF RPG that EP claims to be.... Am I correct? This probably has less to do with the flaw finding and more with personal taste, I suppose. Ideology or cultural values are only a part of the personality traits of the antagonists and surely they don't define their degree of stupidity or vacuity! Furtherly, we are not talking of the Tables of Law. EP is a game setting, the authors propose their ideas and vision and you are free to modify, alter or discard them as you like. You want a shadier Commonwealth, let's add some hidden less philantropic agendas like Arenamontanus and me do. You want an happier Inner System population, let's assume that some Enterpreneurs are enlightened and are happy to share their profits with the workers/employees as well the benefits with the consumers.... it is a Science Fiction setting after all.... ;) In my opinion, unless the authors unveil something different, the reasons why some Political and Idelogical Blocs looks more evil than the rest are the result of a conscious decision. They are not a "flaw".

Alkahest wrote:

For example, the Transhuman Space writers discussed the conflicts that widespread fabricators in combination with non-scarcity of information would lead to (see: infosocialism and nanosocialism), though their vision was more "conservative" in that the pro-copyright faction is more dominant in their setting than it is in Eclipse Phase.

The point remains, that Transhuman Space is "conservative" in every aspect of the game, super powers are more or less the same of today (China the dominant and EU / USA as most advanced and wealthiest). Powerful memes (Mechanism, Nanosocialism, Pantropy or Anarchocapitalism) only add colour to the setting without any real impact on character creation. Instead, in EP, memes as well as cultural rising is of critical importance in player character generation and they remain a key factor for the rest of protagonists development.

Alkahest wrote:

Reading Eclipse Phase doesn't make me more sympathetic towards anarchism, on a pure emotional level it in facts does the very opposite. I don't think the kind of anti-authoritarian people who are likely to embrace anarchist thought respond well to being told by the ultimate authority of a setting (the writers) that one faction is better than all other factions in every possible way.

Probably it is a matter of sensibility, I don't perceive the same level of manicheism you feel in the game. Some factions are more modern and open and it is simply that. This does not automatically means that they are better on "any other way". Inner System citizens are normally richer and live in nicer habitats than Autonomists. They simply traded some of their freedom with some material wealth.... nothing new under the sun.... Players choose a faction or a meme because they like it, they want to test it or only because it is very close to their beliefs. They surely not sympathize because the game says that it is better.... if not everybody would choose Elves in Fantasy or Romulans in Star Trek. In Star Wars, on the other side, you are perfectly aware of where the Good side is, as well as in any game set in WWII .... or not?

Alkahest wrote:

As a vegan transhumanist who votes for (and has campaigned for) the Swedish Pirate Party and who is disgustingly liberal on all social issues, I don't think I exactly have to prove my non-conservative, non-right-wing credentials.

My compliments! Anyway, you don't have to prove anything to anyone. I as simply saying that in my limited experience (statistical?) the doubts most of you rised are the same of some my conservative, right-wing (veeeeery right-wing) players. Again, you don't need any kind of licence or pedigree to give credibility to your opinions. I ask your forgiveness if my words led you think otherwise.

Alkahest wrote:

My problem with anarchists in Eclipse Phase is that their strengths, and the weaknesses of their enemies, do not follow naturally from their different social and economic systems or environmental factors. The main strengths of the anarchists are that they are nicer, more rational, more tolerant and so forth, while the weaknesses of the hypercapitalists are that they are meaner, more irrational, less tolerant and so on. The anarchists are pretty much perfect, while the hypercapitalists are like bad stereotypes of eeevil CEOs and the easily fooled sheeple who believe that their votes matter. That's not arguing for anarchism, it's cheerleading.

I absolute don't think anarchist are nicer, the have more freedom and care more about other people, this is true. Is this a strenght? maybe. First not all autonomists are the same and some of them are absolutely not rationale. Second, they are more tolerant. Possibly true, but again there are so many variations that you will never be 100% sure that your status, or origin or beliefs will be automatically tolerated. For example, I don't think they will be very tolerant with biocon activists.... In order to reach an agreement most of them agreed on the Four Points of Unity (or whatever they call them) where the starting ground is the acceptance of any kind of Sapient being. This make them more tolerant. Why Inner Blocs don't have the same Statement of Rights? simply for economic (Planetary Consortium) and political (Jovians) control reasons. It is definitively more convenient to have intelligent beings that are property (or slaves) because they lack physical body (infomorphs), they are of digital (AGI) or entirely non-human origin (uplifts). It is again convenient to have the people PAY for their physical/biological existence. etc etc.... Do their citizen miss this tolerance? Who knows? Probably for some Mars citizen a mass of exploited slaves or second-class citizens is a blessing because it keeps low the costs of living. Possibly some others are resenting for this. It is up to you as a game master. On the other side, hypercapitalists only cares what has value for them.... is this so different from what is happening now? Is there a way capitalism can evolve benefiting everybody and not only the shareholders? Do you see any other option for capitalism other then exploit other men labour for profit? I don't know. Howevers, in my opinion, the authors decided not to. Back to the Jovians, is there any other way to keep the power in a fluid socio-polical environment such as EP without authoritarism, closed-society and ignorance? Again, I don't know. The original backers of the golpe in the Jovian habitats (as characters of the authors) probably decided that a kind of neo-fascism with strong religious tenets could work and therefore acted accordingly. Nobody is cheerleading, from my point of view. Everybody is behaving according to the presuppositions. I start thinking that the problem with anarchists in EP lies in shared presuppositions....

Alkahest wrote:

How could the anarchists take in all infugees that showed up on their doorstep and give them new bodies while the PC is still struggling with their infugee problem?

C'mon, PC is NOT struggling! PC simply don't care! Planetary Consortium elites find more profitable exploiting cheap labour force with the indentured servitude system! Only the people with limited skills remain "dead" in infomorph stasis, PC don't need them as long as a cobbler is required in a Physics Laboratory.

Alkahest wrote:

How come the anarchists have no problem with discrimination against AGIs, uplifts and other minorities while the PC treats them like dirt?

That is simply because Autonomists need to unite the disparity and need every single resource to stay alive!

Alkahest wrote:

Why do we never see any serious problems caused by the new reputation economy, while all the problems of a money-based economy are on full display?

In Rimward there are many examples of the problems generated by reputational economis and how criminal factions use them to prosper (for not talking of potential sabotage from PC or Jovians)

Alkahest wrote:

Why is it assumed that all anarchists share the same opinions about treatment of forks and that sapient rights are respected and enforced?

You assume wrongly, among my players the autonomists have different opinions of how to relate with AGIs and uplifts, or even with the Backup insurance concept. there are many shades of grey even among anarchists and they are very interesting to explore as a Game Master.

Alkahest wrote:

Why are people more sexually open in anarchist habs? And so on and so forth.

In the case of Jovians the answer is simple, there is an higher moral authority which decide what is wrong and what is good. the answer is more complex for PC habitats, but could be related to inherent moral conservatorism of capitalism practice. However, this is definitively not true for Venus and Parvarti in particular. Anyway, you are right, there is no particular reason for this opennes problem apart the usual exploitation issues (service or crime you decide). Again, this proves only that there more nuances of habits and behaviour than supposed among any factions in EP. It is up to us, game master, to decide how to stress and explore them. ciao

DamionW wrote:

A strange sensation hit my gut with that soft utterance.

The story breaks down for me right around here. If her morph is meant to filter out emotions, it should have caught this too. She should ask for a refund once she gets back to civilized space.

The story actually breaks down right at the implication that the Jovians don't use exowombs (potential qualifier: this may be an erroneous assumption on Cassandra's part, but it's just that, erroneous), but it does provide an opportunity to increase sympathy for the Jovians rather than decrease it: Rimward page 37 specifically confirms that the Jovians use exowomb technology (and that they consider their exowombs to be "top of the line"). Not even the Jovian Junta is so backwards and barbaric as to ban a technology that frees women from the high costs of pregnancy and childbirth and the assumption that they are defined by baby-make. That said, there are subfactions among the Jovians that are much more bioconservative than even the Junta's policies which may believe that exowombs are immoral and that a woman who doesn't love babies is a monster, but those are by no means baked into Jovian Junta policy. Also, I don't believe that purging particular emotions or instincts are part of the standard transhuman (or even menton) package. That can be done with psychosurgery, and certain mods like emotional dampers and endocrine control (the story did mention Cassandra had endocrine control mods, granted) can grant the ability to toggle emotions on and off or to selectively suppress particular responses. The former, however, really is honest-to-goodness mind horror and not part and parcel of being transhuman per se; the latter is not as invasive as modifying someone's motivations--while the user can regulate responses on the fly, their motivations are still there. That, and a woman can lack "maternal" feelings naturally and without any modifications involved, so it seems a bit odd to pin that one on transhumanism. Apologies for being so critical, and I could be misinterpreting the intent of the work, but it actually portrays the Jovians in a [i]less[/i] sympathetic light, both because they do in fact use exowombs and because the woman = loves babies meme is odious, not sympathetic.

Ilmarinen wrote:

DamionW wrote:

A strange sensation hit my gut with that soft utterance.

The story breaks down for me right around here. If her morph is meant to filter out emotions, it should have caught this too. She should ask for a refund once she gets back to civilized space.

Maybe not the best ending, granted. Sorry for its flaws. But the idea is not that the morph is filtering out all emotions. The social development of her ego has created the emotional state she's in. She just thinks it's the faulty flat of her Jovian counterpart that could produce tears of joy. The closing line implies even with her social development, certain interactions trigger calls to the empathy she might have had. Again, is this how transhumans operate in the canon setting? No. Is it how I'm running the game I'm in? No. Just providing a different way the game could be played.

DamionW wrote:

Ilmarinen wrote:

DamionW wrote:

A strange sensation hit my gut with that soft utterance.

The story breaks down for me right around here. If her morph is meant to filter out emotions, it should have caught this too. She should ask for a refund once she gets back to civilized space.

Maybe not the best ending, granted. Sorry for its flaws. But the idea is not that the morph is filtering out all emotions. The social development of her ego has created the emotional state she's in. She just thinks it's the faulty flat of her Jovian counterpart that could produce tears of joy. The closing line implies even with her social development, certain interactions trigger calls to the empathy she might have had. Again, is this how transhumans operate in the canon setting? No. Is it how I'm running the game I'm in? No. Just providing a different way the game could be played.

Hm. I guess I read that totally differently. For most humans today finding babies and babylike things cute is a biological instinct. It's wired into our brains. I assumed that Cassandra's morph simply had that particular wire disconnected because she didn't feel like finding babies cute at that time. That's the sort of freedom available to you when you're a transhuman. So on the one hand Cassandra is able to look at the whole experience while being completely immune to the various hormones that float around a flat body. And from her viewpoint celebrating giving birth is a little bit silly. She could create a baby in tenth of the time and about one hundredth of the drama. On the other hand the hormone-addled new parents find her lack of reaction totally alien. To them the idea that someone can simply decide not to feel anything special about babies (or to feel it ten times as strongly if she chose that instead) is freaky. People who turn emotions and instinct on and off as they please are hard to communicate with. A perfect example of transhumans and Jovians running into the wall that separates them. Or at least that's how I read it. On the lighter side, I loved the 'cookie' line.