Freedom Geek wrote:

So the Jovian Republic's cities are not dirty and overcrowd but instead gleaming and comfortable, they are not a banana republic but an actual democratic republic - albeit with bio-conservatism written into the constitution and thus very hard to change, they're still capitalist* but with a basic minimum income that ensures that no one goes hungry, they're still religious and catholic but the new nice face of Catholicism as represented by the new pope and his concern for the poor and the environment and while they're still suspicious of and heavily regulate biotechnology, internal nanotechnology and computer science they absolutely love high energy physics and physicists and engineers are highly respected in their society - hell, give them their own Pandora Gate and have them embark on their own missions of exploration to explore new worlds and maybe find new (hopefully bio-conservative) civilizations. At the end of the day however they want you to live to a fine old age and die. And if you ask why a kindly old man sipping an Earl Grey tea will explain to you that death is what gives life meaning, that by putting a definite ending on life your time here will be all the more valuable and you need to make room for new people who have just the same right to have a life as you do. All bullshit in my opinion of course but it wouldn't be too out of character for TNG to say.

A fun game might be playing members of a progressive political group in Jovian space trying to turn the Junta into something closer to what you describe. A small group of science fiction geeks and argonauts engage in a long term conspiracy to make the Federation a reality. Cast another faction of authoritarian socialists who believe in extensive cybernetic modification as the Borg and off you go.

Deus Ex is not Eclipse Phase, and the converse is also true. Nor should one attempt to be the other, because they are each their own unique things; I'm not one to fault an apple for not being an orange. I agree that the wonderful moral quagmire of EP lies in the fact that good and evil are very hard to distinguish, and I never said anything to the contrary. I just don't see any benefit to trying unnecessarily give things a whitewash just because you're uncomfortable with it. I [i]like[/i] the setting as-is, so it's my tendency (and prerogative) to resist attempt to change it "just because". Additionally, just because there are shades of grey doesn't mean there aren't occasional bits of stark white and black throw them into better contrast. Honestly, I'm getting a bit tired of the usual "villain but with the purest intentions" BS that's been done-to-death lately, and sometimes it's nice to have an outright evil that's honest and straightforward about it. A [i]human[/i] evil, I might add, since that's a lot more impactful than a nigh-unknowable entity or AI. Nine Lives is an option, but one that will get played out eventually if it's overused.

Lilith wrote:

Deus Ex is not Eclipse Phase, and the converse is also true. Nor should one attempt to be the other, because they are each their own unique things; I'm not one to fault an apple for not being an orange.

Deus Ex is not Eclipse Phase but you claimed that players making large scale changes was incompatible with scifi conspiracy; which Deus Ex disproves. More to the point I don't see individuals or small groups making large scale changes as incompatible with Eclipse Phase. One of the things that has occurred in the setting is that the individual has been empowered but this is a double edged sword. So while an individual might craft a new memeplex that achieves positive social change they might also hack a nanofab and blow up a habitat. A small group can invent a revolutionary new technology and blast it across the solar system or they could smash a relativistic kinetic kill vehicle into a planet or infect an entire city with the exsurgent virus.

Quote:

I agree that the wonderful moral quagmire of EP lies in the fact that good and evil are very hard to distinguish, and I never said anything to the contrary. I just don't see any benefit to trying unnecessarily give things a whitewash just because you're uncomfortable with it. I [i]like[/i] the setting as-is, so it's my tendency (and prerogative) to resist attempt to change it "just because". Additionally, just because there are shades of grey doesn't mean there aren't occasional bits of stark white and black throw them into better contrast. Honestly, I'm getting a bit tired of the usual "villain but with the purest intentions" BS that's been done-to-death lately, and sometimes it's nice to have an outright evil that's honest and straightforward about it. A [i]human[/i] evil, I might add, since that's a lot more impactful than a nigh-unknowable entity or AI. Nine Lives is an option, but one that will get played out eventually if it's overused.

I'm far from uncomfortable with biocons being portrayed as evil - if anything I'm overcompensating for my dire hatred of bio-conservatism. And there's certainly a valid place for enemies that are simply evil bad guys to be overcome by the righteous good guys. But sometimes you want moral ambiguity and in those times I find that I vastly prefer white vs grey over grey vs black or black vs black. A lot of the time I'm very happy playing with the canon Jovians (though I probably would tweak the PC to make them more rationally evil than cartoonishly evil if GMing...) but if you want to go that route or you want a change, or you're playing with someone who is a bioconservative and wants a faction they can get behind...

Undocking wrote:

Deus Ex is a video game that partakes in the vicarious avatar empowerment of the medium. And for all its conversation about transhumanism it is not horror. Even Deadspace, which balanced avatar empowerment and horror for the first game, devolved into a techo-thriller space opera. Eclipse Phase is explicitly a horror RPG that rejects the epic. Horror, as a genre, is not about empowerment. Your monomyth in horror is suffering the excoriation of empowerment, only stare back at the abyss and embody the fear. The fear may kill you, drive you insane, or pose a serious reminder of the darkness in the universe—but it is not empowering. Deus Ex operates in a different genre-space than Eclipse Phase, though they posses the theme of transhumanism.

Even though it says "The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Conspiracy and Horror" on the rule book, I'm pretty sure that if you play it as the "The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Conspiracy and Adventure" Rob Boyle won't walk up to you and tell you that are doing it wrong. As a matter of fact the game explicitly gives you permission to do whatever you want with it as long as you don't try to make money in the process. So if Freedom Geek's campaign is not your idea of a EP campaign ... well, then don't join his campaign.

Undocking wrote:

The PC is not evil, anymore than capitalist corporations are now. Definitely not cartoonish in the slightest. And the fact that no one has started a sympathy for the PC thread says a lot.

That odd. I could of have sworn that I had read at least a couple hundred post at this board about how EP anarchist are space elves and how the PC is portrayed as being mustache twirling, cartoon villains. Maybe I was just imagining those post.

Freedom Geek wrote:

Deus Ex is not Eclipse Phase but you claimed that players making large scale changes was incompatible with scifi conspiracy; which Deus Ex disproves.

Please don't put words in my mouth. Undocking pretty much stated my point eloquently, so I refer you to his posts regarding the differences in genre between EP and Deus Ex. In fact, he seems to have a pretty good grasp of why I like the EP setting as-is, so rather than say what's already been said I'll just leave things at that.

Ranxerox wrote:

Even though it says "The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Conspiracy and Horror" on the rule book, I'm pretty sure that if you play it as the "The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Conspiracy and Adventure" Rob Boyle won't walk up to you and tell you that are doing it wrong. As a matter of fact the game explicitly gives you permission to do whatever you want with it as long as you don't try to make money in the process. So if Freedom Geek's campaign is not your idea of a EP campaign ... well, then don't join his campaign.

No one is (or at least I'm not) trying to say that you're "doing it wrong". You don't need a CC license to homebrew the shit out of any RPG setting as much as you like, and as always, YMMV when it comes to aspects of a system/setting that you prefer. I'm just trying to provide a counterpoint ("if it ain't broke, don't fix it") that the things some people view as flaws or failings are essentially "working as intended" for others. Plus you know, there always comes that certain point where you've homebrewed something so much that you're basically no longer playing the original game anymore, and when it comes to that it point it's like ... why not just play something else? As regards "popular" opinion regarding the PC, I think that's mostly the result of the (rather heated) discussion threads regarding the depiction of capitalism in EP; some of the more vehement debaters in those threats pointed out that the ([i]very[/i] generalized) view of the PC is "PC = capitalist = evil by default", which was viewed as being unfair. The "cartoonishly evil" aspect comes in when you point out the whole thing regarding indenture contracts and general (if not extreme) biocon tendencies, which again seem to viewed as evil by default. I don't agree, of course; while I may not agree with biocon views (though I wouldn't go far as to say I hate them because I'm too mellow for that), I certainly am sympathetic enough to understand the PC (and Jovian) views and not outright dismiss them just because I don't agree with them.

Er, do you mean me? Freedom Geek? If so what precisely are you referring to? I'm not necessarily opposed to existential horror - horrible threats that may or may not come in the future, horrible threats that may or may not exist, wondering why everyone else in the galaxy besides the factors are dead, etc. All good stuff in the context of Eclipse Phase, so long as there's hope.

Sorry, yes, Freedom Greek. I misspell user names all the time, sorry. The issue has to do with the argonauts, and how "good" they are. I'll need to cogitate more on it, but I suspect you'll see the conclusion one way or another.

I'm glad people re-took up the discussion, because it means I can finally get this all off my chest. There's a phrase in Deus Ex: Human Revolution that sticks with me everytime I think about the Jovian Republic. "Of cource people will be left behind! It's evolution!" I think the reason the Jovian Republic sticks in most people's craw is because it basically amounts to a bunch of wasted page space. EP doesn't really need more factions to shoot at, but it does need more interesting places to run around and have adventures in, and I think Posthuman Studios dropped the ball when writing the JR out, instead using it as a pretty painful strawman platform. Those that were left behind? Those people too shit-poor to get in on the shiney transhuman future or in the worst hell-hole fighting of the Fall? THOSE are the ones that the JR should be about. You don't need to be religious or conservative in outlook to have a technophobic stance in EP when you have stuff like the Fall and the TITANS happening within recent memory. That's what my headcanon of the JR is; that roughly 60% of it's population has in thier mind the entire concept of transhuman advancement ending up roughly with the TITANS(Or the PC), which doesn't exactly paint a nice picture of transhuman advancement and/or technology, does it? You don't need religion or political strawmen to set this kind of circumstance up. And the best part? This can't last. The Jovian System is not the place you want to be an extreme technophobic and expect to last all that long. Which means it needs to CHANGE, or the entire thing is going to come apart at the seams in the next decade or so. Kinda like Mars, huh? Furthermore, the JR SHOULD be a force for good, in part, in EP. There should be a strong current of Anti-Planetary Consortium in the Jovian Republic due to the way they treat indentures, and I can't see anyone in the JR being very positive toward Psychosurgery due to the plethora of abuses it could generate. It can be used for good, yes, but consider the attitude of a population that survived the Fall and it's likely anti-psychosurgery attitude. Suddenly, all those mental derangements in EP don't look very appealing when they could be very, very close to home. Lastly, I think there was a big, big missed chance with the JR to make it transhuman-lite. One of the big criticisms I see about EP from others looking in is it's attitude toward transhumanism. EP isn't 'Let's go slow and wade into the shallow end of the transhuman pool', it's more akin to 'Strap some rocket motors on cause you're gonna feel some gs when you hit the water fuck yeah!'. Which I absolutely fucking adore, don't get me wrong, but it does put some peope off, and I've seen people applaude Nova Praxis becaue it's a more 'wade into the shallow end' approach toward transhumanism. The Jovian Republic, I think, is the perfect opportunity to make a setting/faction in EP that is 'wade into the shallow end of transhumanism' without going whole-hog, or let players hang onto some common features of thier 'present', such as mentioning remnants of nation-states and whatnot. And, having said ALL THAT... You're going to find that I actually LIKE anarchism as presented in the books. Honestly, that's the big, big thing that I adore about EP - the serious, non-subversive introduction of Anarchism as a thing that could work. It gives plenty of food for thought, and if I was in EP, you'd probably find me on Titan running a coffee shop and voting for all the Anarchist movements I could find and stuffed to the gills with enhancements. Mind, I do have a bit of headcanon as to why the Autonomist Alliance as a whole didn't have as many problems as the Inner System, but I also have some headcanon as to why living in the PC-controlled space doesn't make you an inherently bad person. Oh, and count me amoung those whom like having hope in my Eclipse Phase. I've seen elsewhere the attitude of 'You're doomed and there's nothing you can do about it!' expressed in regards to the EP setting, which is something I completely loathe. I don't mind horror or existential angst, but I dislike it people try to cram thier pointlessly nihilistic and/or caustic outlook into everything.

Lilith wrote:

I don't think of EP as nihilistic at all, and I think it's a little insulting to assume that people are "forcing" nihilistic views into what is already a relatively grimdark setting. That said, there's plenty of hope; just because you're not going to change the cold, uncaring face of the universe doesn't lessen the struggle of those valiant souls that give their lives (again and again) in order to keep transhumanity going one more day. Just because I wouldn't let my players do something insane like overthrow the PC or collapse the Jovian Republic doesn't mean I want the setting to be utterly hopeless. But hope is a fragile thing, and what makes for great horror is those moments when you, as a character, have to make that tough choice between giving up all hope and eating your gun, or holding on a little longer no matter how bleak the odds get.

^^^[b]THIS[/b]^^^ I tend to follow an intensely nihilistic train of thought through my GM plotting, but that's just the backdrop. I'm not a novelist writing a really boring novel about the inherent meaninglessness of everything with no characters, I'm engaging in a collaborative storytelling process. The characters get to challenge me on that, they get to try and fulfil their goals, they get to be who they are and have that be their meaning, or they get to debate whether meaning exists or not with the caveat that they'd at least like transhumanity (or their own selfish ass) to live to see a tomorrow where those questions can still be posed. Side note: all of that's one of the big reasons I like the Moxie rewards for character Motivation stuff that EP has going mechanically, because although my players need no goading to immerse me in their creations to the hilt, I sure as heck like to reward them for makin' my day when they do it! And rewarding them with opportunities to spend points to spit defiantly in the face of the cold, meaningless undead deity in which we all spend the incredibly brief joy/pain rollercoaster suspended precariously between two eternal voids where we didn't/won't exist? That's that [i]rebel magic flavour[/i] after which I [i]thirst[/i].

DrewDavis wrote:

A fun game might be playing members of a progressive political group in Jovian space trying to turn the Junta into something closer to what you describe. A small group of science fiction geeks and argonauts engage in a long term conspiracy to make the Federation a reality.

Eclipse Phase meets Fenspace... I like it.

I'd chalk it up to romanticizing the past. Many popular political figures( even ones I admire)don't stand up so tall when you honestly look at all their accomplishments. Besides, I was going to propose making Nixon the party habitat of the Jovian Republic. A carrot to Maui Patera's stick if you will. After all, what happens in Nixon....

But then you will reread this thread, and see it again for the 'first' time... going through all that fresh trauma a second time.

Why not? Presumably some figures from our time are figures of world-historical importance, and it's not unimaginable that for reactionaries of the American/Latin American cultures who led the colonization of the Jovian system, these could be some of their favoured figures.

rfmcdonald wrote:

Why not? Presumably some figures from our time are figures of world-historical importance, and it's not unimaginable that for reactionaries of the American/Latin American cultures who led the colonization of the Jovian system, these could be some of their favoured figures.

Well it's certainly unimaginable for me. Hence why I'd be re-naming them after people who weren't strictly neocons. If players ever have to go to the Republic and land on a habitat named after George Bush (or even learn that such a place exists), that's basically setting up the Jovians as unsympathetic villains, something I'm not keen on doing. If I want to use unsympathetic villains in the setting it's going to be either the TITANS/exsurgents, posthumans, the Nine Lives, or certain scum factions.

c'mon guys! a whole fantastic game to play, an universe to explore, a vision to enjoy and some of you are still debating on this.... subject? still complaining about fate Posthuman Studios have foreseen for our right-wing/conservative friends? Still uncomfortable with the "unimaginable"? It's a game! It is not an essay of Political Science where we have to debate about pros and cons of different Economic and Socio-Political Systems! Not even a match between political parties or an university dialectic dispute! .... just a game, a visionary game miles and years ahead of prosaic mainstream clone "products" like Nova Praxis. My opinion? rename the Jovian Habitats how do you prefer (Wolfowitz? Megiddo? Adams? Mussolini?)! play the Junta paranoia how do you think it is more appropriate to make them insular and "different" from the rest of Transhumanity! swap the villain role of Republican Fascists with Anarchist Stalinist Regimes if it makes you feel more confortable! and please....let you players overturn governaments and habitats if they have adequate capabilities, skills, resources, support and..... luck! be fluid and ready to change just as real life is. just my opinion..... again

nothing wrong in keeping criticizing the "poor" image of neo/biocons in EP. Luckily we are not living under censure.... ;-) it is just....., pardon me, boring. Repeating "ad infinitum" how cartoonish/unsympathetic/unrealistic are the Jovians for someone won't really contribute the forum. It is my opinion and I think I can express it exactly in the same way you criticize the default setting. My very personal understanding is simply that Ep has a very special flavour thanks exactly to small details like these. You can appreciate them, finally using them in your game sessions. Or you will not accept them, replacing them with your own paradigm. Since this is absolutely autonomous AND arbitrary, discussing on the philosopical reasons why you could not resist to make those "adjustments" is probably a little bit..... pointless? P.S. I'm happy you liked Nova Praxis, I've found it dramatically clichéd..... but I'd keep from debating on this in their forum. I will simply abstain from playing it. Probably I did not properly understood it yet.

amv451 wrote:

c'mon guys! a whole fantastic game to play, an universe to explore, a vision to enjoy and some of you are still debating on this.... subject? still complaining about fate Posthuman Studios have foreseen for our right-wing/conservative friends? [...] It's a game! It is not an essay of Political Science where we have to debate about pros and cons of different Economic and Socio-Political Systems! Not even a match between political parties or an university dialectic dispute! .... just a game

New forum members join and comment to previous posts, as they were not there during the initial discussion. While there is an entire universe to explore with Eclipse Phase, the interplay that RPGs provide in their autonomy as fundementally Open Source on the group level means that players will react and change the setting. Posthuman Studios is made up of a small group with their own ideas, but when the game contacts a wider audience their own ideas confront it. No one will love every part of the setting. The same interplay means that no RPG is ever 'just a game'. GMs and players express themselves through their campaigns or characters. How a GM runs the Jovians, on some level, reflects their own thoughts about religion, biocons, contemporary analogs, humanity, censorship and the right-wing. And that is important, at least to them if not you.

amv451 wrote:

and please....let you players overturn governaments and habitats if they have adequate capabilities, skills, resources, support and..... luck! be fluid and ready to change just as real life is.

GMs and run any type of game they like, but posting about it on the forum opens it up to the criticism and discussion of the community. Not every GM or player interprets Eclipse Phase the same way. No one on the forum is stopping a GM from running the game she wants.

amv451 wrote:

nothing wrong in keeping criticizing the "poor" image of neo/biocons in EP. Luckily we are not living under censure.... ;-) it is just....., pardon me, boring. Repeating "ad infinitum" how cartoonish/unsympathetic/unrealistic are the Jovians for someone won't really contribute the forum. It is my opinion and I think I can express it exactly in the same way you criticize the default setting. My very personal understanding is simply that Ep has a very special flavour thanks exactly to small details like these. You can appreciate them, finally using them in your game sessions. Or you will not accept them, replacing them with your own paradigm. Since this is absolutely autonomous AND arbitrary, discussing on the philosopical reasons why you could not resist to make those "adjustments" is probably a little bit..... pointless?

It does contribute to the forum and creates commuinty between those who constructively participate. The point of the thread is not to repeat the 'Core' interpretation of the Jovians, but explore other possibilities for their expression. Once autonomous and isolated groups of gamers (before the internet) can now share their interpretations and inform the community. This type of interaction is not pointless, as each member contributing is invested in their own representation of the Jovians and wants to show why. It is really cool when people with different interpretations of a text can discuss them in an open space—and discover novel interpretations. There are those who may not have thought the Jovians to be unsympathetic, or never considered the value of Jovians as they are presented. And that line of thought runs for the entire setting.

amv451 wrote:

a visionary game miles and years ahead of prosaic mainstream clone "products" like Nova Praxis. [...] P.S. I'm happy you liked Nova Praxis, I've found it dramatically clichéd..... but I'd keep from debating on this in their forum.

Why bring it up? Don't neg something blantently then refuse to refute it with the 'not my thing' defense.

amv451 wrote:

My remark was and is only that there is a dedicated space in the forum for alternative settings, modifications, hints and suggestion which is the "Homebrew" section. My personal understanding is that it should be there, in that forum section, that you can propose your own ideas on possible variations of default background and/or rules.

It was not stated or made clear that you believed this to be in the wrong sub-forum. The Homebrew forum is for new content invented by players and, since the Jovians are not new content and only the interpretation of them is being discussed there is no need to post this thread in Homebrew. And please, if you would find it useful, make a Sympathy for the Ultimates thread.

amv451 wrote:

A neverending debate over Jovians perspective here hides (and becomes) automatically a political statement. Therefore, my simple suggestion is to keep it aside.

My misgivings are aimed at your criticism of the opinions expressed in this thread and the thread's continuation as 'boring', 'pointless', and 'worthless'. If you do not have any investment in the discussion or a positive conribution, why bother posting?

Undocking wrote:

My misgivings are aimed at your criticism of the opinions expressed in this thread and the thread's continuation as 'boring', 'pointless', and 'worthless'. If you do not have any investment in the discussion or a positive conribution, why bother posting?

aehm.... there is a technical and an emotional answer for this, I think you would immediately understand. The technical one is simply that, since I've already answered and debated over this subject more than one year ago, the system is keeping me updated of ANY single post on this subject, thus informing me that the issue is still discussed. The emotional one is that it seems that no matter what we answer, how we argue, what we prove there are still legions of players unsatisfied by the portrait Posthuman Studios made of a possible neo/teo/bioconservative authoritarian society in the EP setting. Therefore, after debating any single criticism for such a long time, I made a simple proposal, call it a truce if you want. Given that I don't think anybody here would like to convince the rest of the members of the superiority of its own political values, why don't we consider only the narrative/gaming side of the issue? Why don't we simply propose alternative ways of interpretation in the same manner we propose alternative game rules, character generation and equipment mods? Hope to have answered to Kremlin K.o.A as well.

amv451 wrote:

there is a technical and an emotional answer for this, I think you would immediately understand. The technical one is simply that, since I've already answered and debated over this subject more than one year ago, the system is keeping me updated of ANY single post on this subject, thus informing me that the issue is still discussed.

At least on the technical end I can offer some help here: *In your account, a link is in the left hand menu under "My account". A direct link is here: http://www.eclipsephase.com/user * Click on the "Subscriptions" tab. This will give you an overview of threads and topics subscribed to as well as your notification threads. * Click on "Pages / Threads" * Scan for the thread you don't want to receive notices from anymore and uncheck the checkbox beside it. * Then scroll all the way down and click "Save" You may also consider checking your settings on the Subscription tab if you would rather receive emails in a digest rather than on individual posts.

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but given that the Jovian system contains more mass than the entire rest of the solar system put together (excluding the sun), AND that jovians reject downloading etc., they seem to be the natural group to build spaceships, generation ships, very large and ambitious habitats, and research FTL. If there's going to be one group of people in the solar system who develop expertise in how to keep a human body alive and comfortable while moving about in space, it's going to be these guys, because they have no other body choices. Regardless of their politics, making them "the folks who build cool spaceships and maybe even generation ships to send to other stars" would make them a lot more interesting in my opinion. They've got the resources. They've got the motivation. Make them the solar system's Scottie's. Give them the biggest ass shipyard in the entire solar system and impress on the PCs that that police frigate orbiting mars, shooting down pirates and keeping Mars safe? Yeah, that's Jovian. You want a 50,000 person spinning hab? Go to the Jovians. And so on.

easl wrote:

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but given that the Jovian system contains more mass than the entire rest of the solar system put together (excluding the sun), AND that jovians reject downloading etc., they seem to be the natural group to build spaceships, generation ships, very large and ambitious habitats, and research FTL.

Most of that mass is tied up in Jupiter, which has been quite the hassle due to its magnetosphere. But I see where you are going with this and I do like it. They have a bunch of natural satellites (moons and moonlets) to carve up for their spaceship needs. However, this would argueably make their current radiation shielding a bit better than the old Reagan cylinders. I don't know if the Jovians would be willing to sell their ships to many other factions, but those who want them built well without nanotech, Jovians would be it. So, my current EP group was just wrecked by a group of Jovian Tahi, due to their own bad rolling and venting half of their own team. The players, super tweaked bio-liberal sociopaths that have been psychosurgeried to 'preform a mission or else' (a takko, neotenic jamming pleasure/war pods, gargoyle, the whiniest ultimate, and an 'immortal' async thesus), are convinced that the Tahi are like themselves (tweaked sociopaths)—but hypocrites for representing the biocon Jovians. Team Warcrimes—that is what they call themselves—has decided to become real conspiracy agents for a change (not Firewall, they figured that out a while ago) and has made reasonable plans to trap and kidnap a Tahi, so they can attempt to fork him without accidently setting off any contingency wipes. The session may involve a firefight. From reading Rimward's sidebar, I thought that I would go along with the idea that the Tahi had to be amped to be competitive... but then I thought: why not make these very competent Jovian splicers taking a couple combat drugs? Just talented humans with honed skills enhanced by combat drugs and subtle async powers.

very nice hint Kremlin. Don't know the reference but it goes in the direction I was exploring. It is damned difficult to roleplay credible and not too much stereotypical uberhumanist soldier-philosophers..... thanks anyway. Yesterday evening I confronted a Ductus with a bunch of anarchist gatecrashers pledging for support.... goosh, it was really hard to play the drama without falling in the clichè of a racist survivalist! Back on the Jovian starfleet mentioned above, I remember there are some mentions of it in Rimward. However, I recall something regarding the fact that they are not alone in this space race, infact Titanian Commonwhealth is investing a lot in FTL spacetravel development and exploration (there is even an hidden starbase somewhere among Saturn asteroids). Possibly Jovians hold the largest remains of some nation-states military fleets but they are rapidly threatened by growing regional powers. There is also a third interesting faction developing Fast and Furious custom spaceships near Locus. A determined flotilla capable to deflect the first aggression of Locus by Planetary Consortium if I remember correctly.

amv451 wrote:

Back on the Jovian starfleet mentioned above, I remember there are some mentions of it in Rimward. However, I recall something regarding the fact that they are not alone in this space race, infact Titanian Commonwhealth is investing a lot in FTL spacetravel development and exploration (there is even an hidden starbase somewhere among Saturn asteroids). Possibly Jovians hold the largest remains of some nation-states military fleets but they are rapidly threatened by growing regional powers.

We debated this before in couple of topics. Jovians have access to easily accessible anti-matter and enormous source of energy in form Io Flux Tube and Jupiter's magnetic field(I believe someone proposed lowering one of the smaller moons or asteroids to generate Kardashev levels of energy) and they have one of the best military researchers in the system as well(it's actually from core rulebook), including RAND scientists and those who made the TITANS. If somebody's interested, here's a long paper how to generate antiparticles from magnetospheres of gas giants, it has section on Jupiter: http://www.centauri-dreams.org/wp-content/Bickford_Phase_II.pdf