Basically, there's two ways of looking at things. One: Humanity has weathered a tremendous disaster, but the danger is largely over. Folks who adhere to this theory feel relatively safe from existential risks. Sure, a big one hit transhumanity not long ago at all, but they survived it, and the things which in everybody's minds caused it (TITANs) have fucked off. Thus, things are looking up. This theory isn't without merit, mind you. Between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, something Big happened, and hammered humanity down to between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs, which could well be a number of people fewer than 10,000 total. When your species population hits four digits, you're in deep shit. But we bounced back. Compared to humanity at that point, transhumanity in Eclipse Phase is in good condition. The total population of transhumanity in Eclipse Phase is four to five orders of magnitude larger than it was at that time. It's not [i]great[/i], mind you; at 400m people, we're only slightly better off than we were in the mid-14th-century, after the Great Famine and Black Death, so in terms of population, the Fall knocked Transhumanity back eight hundred years. That's not the whole story, though. EP is a setting replete with miracletech. In EP, transhumanity can conjure up new bodies basically [i]ex nihilo[/i], as long as they have the nessessary infrastructure. Adult full-biomorph bodies can be grown in a mere three solar years; figure you can cut that down to about 2 years if your new body-inhabitants are okay with getting a 14-year-old body and having it grow in the rest of the way the normal way, or 1 year if they're okay with getting a neotenic. A pod body can be grown in about a year, too, whilst if you're okay going chrome, you can have a body as soon as it can be manufactured. If the Planetary Consortium gave up their ridiculous money fetish and actually socialized everything within their grasp and set about the task of industriously reinstantiating everyone; or if they collapsed and the Titanian Commonwealth moved in - you could probably see every unique ego who wants a physical body instantiated within another ten years. The real problem, then, is where do you put them all. Making more habitable space isn't easy, but if you're willing to play with fire and trust the Pandora Gates, that's a matter of finding a planet with a breathable atmosphere that isn't insanely inimical to transhuman life. Several such exoplanets have already been located, mind you, but they're almost all under the control of the Planetary Consortium or other hypercorps, and instead of setting about the task of vigorously colonizing, they fuck about and make them resorts for the super-wealthy and other such shit. Alternatively, of course, you continue to expand as the powers have been doing - building pressurized habitats in-system in places that are not innately capable of supporting transhuman life but which can be made to do so - places like Titan, Mars, etc. Again, it becomes a matter of infrastructure and dedication, but you can (a) hold off on biomorph instantiating everyone, focusing more on building places for them to inhabit, or (b) grow biomorphs which are capable of inhabitating the native environments of those places (like Hulder on Titan.) Two: Humanity is fucked no matter what it does. This is the theory that humanity has already been infected with something that's going to rise up and swallow it sooner or later, the thinking that humanity is in the [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TitleDrop]eclipse phase[/url] of a fatal infection which is beyond its ability to cure. This is a very nihilistic way of thinking. If you believe this to be the case, you might as well go full scum and party up until the very end. Me, I lean towards View 1, both as a player and as a GM. Is there a purpose for Firewall, yes. Firewall steps on exsurgent outbreaks before they flare up and nessessitate whole habitats being nuked; Firewall steps in when some idiot starts researching things they ought not be researching, like basilisk hacks or grey goo or whatever. But as long as nothing Major happens [i]again[/i], transhumanity will survive. I don't buy into nihilistic, Call of Cthuluan bullshit that says that no matter what you do, you're all doomed.

The problem isn't +Survival per se, rather the idea of survival at any cost. It's a long standing trope that there are some things worth dying for (family, friends, a good lay, moms apple pie and so forth), or that life without certain things isn't worth living... and the societies we're talking about don't necessarily agree with that. An example: Imagine yourself in a room with another individual. You are hungry, but they are starving to the point of death. You have in your hand a pill which will provide nourishment... do you take the pill to restore your strength, or give it to the other to save their life? The sort of society we're considering wouldn't even see it as a moral conundrum - they would take the pill. This is at it's most extreme with the ultimates, who have based their morality on survival/personal development... only those to act to maximize their survival deserve survival. Seen with those eyes, every non-ultimate in the system is a threat, even if it's through something as mundane as using up resources which could otherwise be used to enhance ultimates. That's not to say other societies are better. Any group that prioritizes one element over all others can be dangerous, but +survival is more overt. To be a little more Meta, this discussion is essentially the heart of all post-apocalyptic settings. How much of ourselves are we willing to sacrifice in order to survive, and how much can we sacrifice and remain ourselves?

mellonbread wrote:

If survival is the absolutely the only thing you're concerned with, your best bet is probably to let the TITANs upload you. Seed AI data storage media is going to last much longer than anything transhumans come up with.

... You and I have different definitions of "Survival" I think.