Aren't Q-morphs sleeved into, not teleoperated, by indentures? Thus they endure a hellish existence as a giant crystalline tank for months before returning to the aerostats in some form? Not sure what the teleoperation bandwidth situation is like. Electrical storms in the atmosphere prevent teleoperation?

uwtartarus wrote:

Aren't Q-morphs sleeved into, not teleoperated, by indentures? Thus they endure a hellish existence as a giant crystalline tank for months before returning to the aerostats in some form? Not sure what the teleoperation bandwidth situation is like. Electrical storms in the atmosphere prevent teleoperation?

Some of them are sleeved into, some of them are teleoperated. The sleeved indentures have better terms for their indenture contracts (which is not saying much,) but of course they take the risk that their Q-Morph will be destroyed and their stack won't be recovered. Also, if the company reinstantiates you from backup, your indenture time is likely to be completely reset (after all, [i]this[/i] you hasn't given them any work,) and its time added to for the replacement value of the (heinously expensive) Q-Morph. Teleoperators have longer, suckier indenture contract terms, but they aren't risking their stacks. I imagine they still get zinged all to fuck if their morph gets destroyed, though.

jKaiser wrote:

I like the idea of the cramped modules, even though I'm still not sure how big these facilities would be. Presumably the majority of the staff are infomorphs, but neither of the characters are, so I'm trying to figure out that element in case I can come up with an excuse for a brawl in the workplace or something. Maybe it's a flaw in my own imagination, but it's just hard to swallow hundreds of people at work apparently doing nothing, sitting there as if in a trance. But then again, I don't have mesh inserts...yet.

They probably don't have facilities like that. Most of the teleoperators/office workers/etc will be indentured infomorphs. They won't need much physical space at all. You won't have hundreds of people at work. You won't have hardly anybody [i]at[/i] the so-called "workplace." The main office is likely to be a simulspace environment/mesh chat area with various officework utilities pre-loaded. If there is a physical office, it's likely to be the personal residence of the owner(s). Even if the company is large, the physical footprint will be small unless they're so ridiculously huge that they're intentionally eating up space to hearken back to the office-buildings of pre-Fall Earth, but even then, most free workers won't be physically present. They'll connect from their homes, or their capsule motel pods, or their little synthmorph garages, or their infomorph server space, and work by teleoperation. The guys that [i]do[/i] show up physically are likely to be executives and power players, maybe instantiated secretaries if those executives feel like showing off their wealth, and the odd security goon. The office itself is likely to be small, footprint wise, compared to the cubicle farms you're imagining, even for a wealthy company that's showing off. Whenever you're imagining a hypercorporate business venture, ask yourself, "can this be done more cheaply by someone telecommuting from their own mesh inserts?" If the answer is yes, then ask yourself "would having a person, even in a synthmorph, do this job in-person, be sufficiently show-offy of the company's wealth to be worth the additional expense to whomever runs this department/area/company." If the answer is no, then [i]you do not need that place to be a place, you do not need that physical job position to be there.[/i] Welcome to the year 2143.

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I wonder how much they pay out for chiropractic care. That would do a number even on a remade's back after a few months, I'd wager.

> Implying that hypercorps in Eclipse Phase offer medical benefits. Bwahahahahahahaaaah. Yeah, right. They're not going to offer you jack shit. Don't like it? Fuck off, they can indenture some bastard and make him do it for free. Also, come the time of Eclipse Phase, Basic Biomods would cover most of that, and the rest of it would be covered by smart material furnishings that would prevent you from fucking your back up by being reclined for long periods at a time. Or, better yet, if the "job" entails cramming people into a place and having them go virtually comatose because they're all in simulspace, they don't need to be physically present at all. They can do the job just as well from their own homes, or whatever passes for a home.

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I see the logic to a mesh commute, even though these are characters sleeved into physical morphs, but aside from the fact that it limits the sort of interactions I'd like to have, I can see some issues that would benefit a physical op center (though this is where problems of scale come in again, as in I've never been able to get a clear impression on just how many people are involved in these projects, and not just the Q-morphs, of course.) Especially since the political turmoil on Venus means that I can't imagine a corp being relaxed enough to have a "work at home" policy for operators controlling massively expensive equipment during a time when the Constellation is facing (potential) infiltration and rival agendas. I like to play up the vaguely Cold War vibe I've picked up from the books, hypercorp paranoia being a wonderful story seed. This goes double if the mining corps have any stake in resleeving their employees as an incentive/pay, and while I don't recall if it's illegal in Venusian space or not, but wouldn't they want some sort of assurance that they aren't just getting people's forks working for them?

re: security. A dedicated sabotuer can sabotage you just as well if they're physically present as if they aren't; possibly moreso. If they're being funded by another corp to sabotage you, they're funded well enough to buy a throwaway morph and pack it with explosives, or at least a deadman switch, so they can sabotage your mining operations from their teleoperation chair. And then they can take out a knife or a gun and start killing your other teleoperators before your physical security gets them, which would potentially make [i]you[/i] liable for the morph deaths of your other teleoperators. re: hypercorp paranoia. Sure. You want to work here? That's fine, we're glad to have you on the team. Do note that as part of our WorkFromHome program, you will be required to allow a company security specialist admin-level access to your mesh inserts for spot checks at all time. We understand how this can make some people nervous, so please take the time to have your muse, lawyer-bot, or other legal representation read over the fine details of our company employee privacy policy. re: Someone's fork doing the work. What the hell does the company care? The work's getting done, they're only paying you for one employee's worth of work, and you're providing one employee's worth of work. They don't give a fuck if you send a fork who gets reintegrated/deleted at the end of the work-day, and if you're down with forking yourself like that, that's your business. They will, of course, be upset if you only send a [i]beta[/i] to do an alpha's job, as if they wanted beta-fork levels of skill, they could just get any AI to do it.

The Vileness of a hypercorp is N+1 where N is the upper boundary of the human rights horrors your can think of

Your Welcome JK But ya I sympathize with neither anarchist nor capitalist but damned do the corps get tarred and feathered. Might i suggest you watch the movie Moon (2009)? Kinda hard to go into detail about it without spoilers but you could Up the scale

If the corps you're going to be using aren't the big-ones like cognite, then they're probably going to be a lot more reasonable and pleasant to work for, if only because they don't have the money/clout to flaunt the laws that larger corps can, and so can never grow to a level of profitability that would threaten them. So a lot of stuff is going to be covered, and iirc Transhuman even says that the majority of PC workers/indentures actually have a pretty decent quality of life. Consider healthcare. Full health coverage sounds pretty fancy, but all it actually entails is the company having their own Healing Vat which employees can use. Not that they'll need to use it much thanks to their Smart-fabric ergonomic chairs, and the office AR is set up to be light, airy and generally pleasant to be in. Want to get psychosurgery or mental augmentations? Sure! They'll give you a loan, and even pay off part of the cost, because you're making yourself more profitable for them and it looks fantastic to the public, which attracts customers. Truly villainous depravity is a luxury which only the wealthiest can afford. The rest have to settle for making you wear a tie.

You know I'd really like a splat book or something to talk about stuff like this: normal, everyday life in the transhuman future for us people who can't quite wrap their head around that. The books keep talking about "business offices" and stuff like that, but what exactly are they used for if virtual office spaces are a thing? And I'm not buying the "because hypercorps want to show off their wealth" reason, especially if it's on a non-terrestrial habitat where space means everything.

Bursting Eagerness Soul wrote:

Noble Pigeon wrote:

You know I'd really like a splat book or something to talk about stuff like this: normal, everyday life in the transhuman future for us people who can't quite wrap their head around that. The books keep talking about "business offices" and stuff like that, but what exactly are they used for if virtual office spaces are a thing? And I'm not buying the "because hypercorps want to show off their wealth" reason, especially if it's on a non-terrestrial habitat where space means everything.

Wasn't that partially the point of Panopticon?

Yes. And it gave me some good insight of transhuman society, but it didn't give me the nitty gritty, down to Earth details. What are the typical buildings that would be see in a habitat "downtown", assuming they have the space of course? What is the point of having physical administrative and business offices with the rise of virtual space?