The lack of Social Stigma almost seems like a mechanical issue, or core design issue, because there are packages which as character Background options for point-buy have Social Stigma as a drawback (like Exhuman or Lost), but don't in Package creation. Probably the kind of thing to ask a Dev about the design goal intent there before reading too heavily into it as part of the fiction.

I've always been under the impression that the books are written with an openly Firewall-bias, so "exhuman" was, to me at least, more of a mission parameter term than anything else. You're going up against a Hypercorp threat? That defines one set of skills and procedure. Got a problem with Ultimates? That's a different set of tactics, possibly including a large wad of cash. Exhumans? Fuck if we know, so bring everything and two kitchen sinks to be safe. On the other hand, having read through this thread (and admittedly, I'm nervous about posting this), I get the impression that there are a couple different broad categories of "exhuman" that are termed that way because of the specific threat Firewall sees them all as. Namely, as a whole nebulously-defined potential runaway chain reaction. Exhumans can declare themselves exactly that, or whatever term they choose, as a self-defined urge to evolve past human limits in whatever way they see fit, or they can arise accidentally, being defined as exhumans because a poorly-coded petal twisted the minds of an entire long-range ship and suddenly you have Event Horizon crossed with Mass Effect's Project Overlord. Basically, it's about, untested, unpredictable technology being used recklessly and without being fully understood. Firewall's taking Ian Malcom's stance to the Exhumans' John Hammond in Jurassic Park. "Don't you see the danger...inherent in what you're doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun" etc. I'd say that exhumans are a category in the same sense that Exsurgents are an (overlapping) category, a potential threat due to factors beyond their control, with or without malice or intent. In a setting with psychosurgery, basilisk hacks, etc., you don't have to start out a psychopath to end up a Predator exhuman; like with the petal example, you might just end up unlucky. And that's the horror of exhumans, at least as I see them. The other option that I thought of is one that I haven't seen mentioned so far in the discussion, and is more or less the same as -- to pull from another IP -- the Bale Hounds from Werewolf the Forsaken. In brief for the uninitiated, Bale Hounds are loosely-allied third faction of werewolves, separate from the Player Character faction of the Forsaken and the primary antagonist faction, the Pure. They're opposed because while the other two factions rely mostly on natural spirits for allies and oppose the harmful, corrupted, downright nasty spirits, the Bale Hounds want to be on the winning side, and throw their lot in with the biggest, nastiest spirits they can find. There's really only two kinds of Bale Hounds, though; those that are stupid enough to get caught and ripped to shreds, and those that aren't, secretly biding their time and covertly corrupting and subverting their foes while very, very carefully hiding their natures. The thing is, being the horror setting that World of Darkness is, they may really have a point, and knowledge of the darkest, foulest spirits is a powerful weapon. Now replace spirits with TITANS, unknown seed AI, the ETI, and Bale Hounds with Exhumans (and, again, exsurgents) and you have what Firewall's so afraid of with the exhumans. There's real potential here that any given singularity seeker or exhuman, self-defined or not, knows something they don't. Any clade of Predators could be masquerading carefully timed assassinations with a facade of reckless slaughter and the hunt, destabilizing key places as part of a vast, long-reaching, nonhuman plan. Any singularity seeker could have a TITAN in their skull. ...I do not have the gift of brevity, apologies.

uwtartarus wrote:

But Firewall isn't monolithic. Some clades/cliches kill it all with fire while others study the containable for the benefit of future defense against extinction. As such, I imagine some proxies being curious about exhuman reports/intel.

I think that also has a lot to do with the exhuman in question. The book does mention that packs are very divergent in ideology and practice, and the Antagonists section likewise makes it clear that exhumans seem to be anything but easily categorized. A couple scenarios just off the top of my head: The Bodymod Addict The Corrupted Veteran And for the exhuman classic:

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

As an aside, does anyone else here want to see a book based around Ex-/Post-humanism, with lots of lovely psychosurgery options, weird traits and squick-y mods? … And I'm not just asking because I want neural augmentations & cyberbrain programs available as psychosurgery options. Honest!

The fun thing about designing exhumans is that you can literally come up with whatever crazy bullshit you want, without regards to rules, logic, or even common sense. Hell, I based one off one of Ben 10's alien forms.

hehe the classic sounds like someone i would cold storage until i need an erasure squad

jKaiser wrote:

Though on reflection, "paranoia over x-threats trumps other allegiances" is probably the single biggest desirable trait for a Firewall agent.

Oh, I can vouch for that.