Two words: [b]THE CHAOS[/b] Seriously, that's all I need to make an Orion's Arm campaign [i]very[/i] interesting. I'd love to have my EP campaign evolve over time into the beginnings of a sort of alternate universe Mindjammer/OA kinda dealy, but honestly there is so much to milk just with what's in EP that I'd probably be a decade into the campaign ideas I have now and we'd still only be in the first century or two AF, even with different parties and some time jumps. I prefer the slow crawl of history through the personal experiences and struggles of PCs (and new struggles of PCs who can witness the impacts of past PCs as boons/curses on their future struggle) than the massive time gaps between, say, most Culture novels (or tumbling down eternally into the dizzying lagomorpharchailect wormholes through galactic history that is the OA Universe Project's chronology). I think an EP-into-Mindjammer kind of campaign with liberal content grabs from OA would be an ideal simulspace/VR for me if I was ever to jack into a futuresensorium and never leave its seductive clutches. That's how hypercapitalism could neutralize my anti-capitalist resistance if I survive into their future of ever-widening inequalities to that point in tech.

Have you read the entry on The Chaos? I like it because it's a S:5-S:6 kind of problem to solve, and they are currently a bit consternated about how to solve it. In terms of a Mindjammer-esque AO game, I'd love to run a group of players who essentially run a group of S:1 avatars of some S:4s, where the S:4 is basically just them as players metagaming the crap out of potential solutions to The Chaos.

Orion's Arm feels to me like a child that has grown up. I might now always agree with it, but ever so often it amazes me. The infinite improvement part is a sentiment I like some factions of EP to show, whether for good or bad reasons (everybody gets so *nervous* when the singularity seeker has an epiphany and starts hacking away...) Another part I like is how there can be games between vast minds on many levels, each using the others as pawns while likely being a pawn (or art object) to something bigger.

Steel Accord wrote:

What problems do you sometime have with OA?

Space vikings. I don't remember if they are still there, but there is a lot of crazy stuff hidden in the setting that does not make any sense. Also, and this is the reason I kind of decided to no longer directly participate, the setting is so huge that it is hard to keep track of - even when you helped create it. Some drastic changes in timeline and geography necessitated retconning whole chunks of spacetime. There are deep contradictions in there. Which does not necessarily mean it is wrong to have it. A history as big as this is bound to have internal contradictions and strange errors: just consider how wrong we likely are about what was going on in Roman and Egyptian politics or how little we know of the pre-Columbian citystates of North America. Maybe we are going to discover that Fomenko actually is right and we need to revise dating a lot (not very likely, but still not impossible... a lot of ancient history is built on surprisingly rickety and self-referential archeological grounds).

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And actually, in your opinion, why is the approach to transhumanism and singularity so schizophrenic in this setting? If immortality, augmentation, post-scarcity are all treated as good and acceptable, why is there a glass ceiling from going any further?

It is not a glass ceiling, it is more like the Buddhist heavens. In theory you can ascend there just by thinking the right thing. But most beings actually do not want to do it, or do not understand what they must do to do it. We borrowed a lot from Stanislaw Lem's "Golem XIV", were the eponymous AGI explained that ascending to higher levels both involves restructuring your own mind - something a lot of beings instinctively do not want - and is irreversible - you might find yourself trapped in a 'bad' mentality with no way out *ever*.

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To use your analogy, is Eclipse Phase the angsty teenager to Orion's mature adult and content to stay that way? If so, why?

The *setting* in EP is the young, angsty terragen civilization that has turned into an accomplished adult in OA. The *game* is different: in EP you are dealing with things that are more current and real - issues of social justice, transhumanism, risk management, the horrors of loss and dehumanization - while in OA most such things *in principle* can be fixed by the Powers That Be. In a sense that makes it more adult than the more utopian OA. As I wrote in my old review of EP, the EP world needs saving and that makes for a good story. Saving the OA world is up to superminds, and you cannot participate on that scale (you can still save a frontier solar system or two, but you will know there are entities out there whose screensavers could have done it better). Maybe theodicy is the big shadow in OA.

Steel Accord wrote:

I guess being religious, a minority on this forum, lends myself to trusting "the Powers that Be" a bit more. I mean, when you already believe there is an all powerful hyper-intelligence that is benign to life in the first place, believing any Singularity bound being may become something similar isn't that much of a stretch.

Well, it is easier to doubt the niceness of an emergent god (you knew it when it was a toaster) than a "proper" supernatural god. And while many hope that any sufficiently smart entity will be a moral one, I think we have some evidence that not all superintelligences are going to be nice.

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Maybe it's just the player group or people I talk to, but whenever I discuss world saving arcs or themes, most don't seem interested. My own group somewhat derisively referred to my character as "the Paladin" because I was the only one trying to be a straight hero (though with character flaws I tried to RP), everyone else were varying degrees of criminal and possible exsurgent infectees. The GM was placing more heavy emphasis on the horror of the Nine Lives Cartel, the implications of fork-napping, and the corruption within many factions.

It is tricky to get a game that everybody wants to play, especially when the players have different goals with the setting. My current campaign has a PC who is a designated hero - at least by the player and his character sheet. Externally, he is a fun example of a borderline sociopath Captain Kirk who is setting himself up for some nasty things due to his crazy management policies... except that he might indeed get a chance to be a real hero down the line. Or crash and burn horribly due to his character flaws. As a GM intending to run a mildly dark campaign I am pretty happy with it, but it is tricky to give the other players space for the more exploration oriented parts of the game when Kirk mainly wants to find the green skinned alien princesses. Right now I am saved by the differing perceptions of the players, but if the different styles conflict in actual action running the campaign is tricky. In EP, I think Richard Morgan-style lighter shade of grey heroes work better than paladins. But trying for a high moral ideal is an interesting challenge, especially in a complex mess like EP.

I remember OA from years ago...it did change a bit and they rewrote whole sections..still there are a lot contradictions remaining.Some parts have the late 90s/early 00s SF vibe in them(not necessarily bad, just something you can feel)-Gaia, "furry" bionts. I think you can find references to some resurrected Dinosaur empire as well ;) One contradiction that bugs me is that they have Argus Array http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/45f97a51dbf24 Which allows them to literally see things in other galaxies but there is no information at all about High Energy Emissions Civilizations seen here http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48028a7f74e6d

Here's the Dinosaur empire, reminds me of some campaigns I made for RPG's when I was young and enthusiastic: http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48f7ffc7c1000 In addition, millions of presapient dinosaurs were bred, uplifted to sapience, supersapience and occasionally transapience. In rarer instances, some transcended higher, to become united with ArchSaur herself, adding to the richness and diversity of her mind with their unique ascension/transcension chains of their personal experiences. In 6939 AT, ArchSaur was still the youngest godling in the Archaipelago Cluster. She also became the first within the cluster to breach the fourth toposophic barrier, sixty-seven years before UrchinStar. The year 7388 AT provided an early warning sign of ArchSaur's aggressive memetic prowess and fierce protectiveness of her citizens. A dreadnought from the Vanguard Alliance had arrived in the system's outer orbit, programmed to cause as much damage as possible and to wound the pride of the emerging local superpower. The 3 km dreadnought was annihilated within hours by a much smaller Dominator cruiser. Within the space of a single day, thousands of Archosaurian Archangel corvettes - led by a single Metathrone (minor godling) - emerged through the Vanguard Domain's wormhole. Without causing a single civilian casualty, the fleet launched a concerted viral attack on the mind of the insane Vanguard godling, converting em into a willing ally, and destroying the very foundation of the polity's fanatical religion. After being badly shaken by the Archaipelago Attacks of 8400 AT (depicted in the novelette "Under the Looking Glass"), Archsaur led the region in boosting local security. Little did the other world guardians know that she was also sowing the seeds of domination .

Steel Accord wrote:

Standard Superhero Settings are surprisingly scarce with transhuman concepts and themes despite their medium being predicated on the existence of being with greater than human powers.

Well, depends on the setting. For example, Captain America from Marvel is a transhuman—but the vast majority around him are baselines. If Captain America showed up in Eclipse Phase, an Ultimate merc would see him as an early adopter, but would wipe the floor with the Captain. In transhuman focused settings, being a 'superhero' requires an ego to be much more than transhuman. Becoming what Captain America is to humans in a transhuman setting would be straddling the posthuman/exhuman barrier. An ego can be a benevolent posthuman or exhuman who farcasts across transhuman space and fighting obvious criminals, but who would let someone do that if they were not under control? And in hardish science fiction, nobody survives a direct hit antimatter warhead.