The creation of closed timelike curves. Already Eclipse Phase supports FTL communication and travel. Strictly speaking, this means it also supports time travel in at least some limited degree, although obviously for real life running-the-game reasons it doesn't incorporate that. So they're a little behind there, and it's only a matter of time before they break it, introducing CTC computers and delightful discussions about paradoxes.

Want something very simple, achievable with current EP tech? Try the Epitome Augmentation! Consisting of a Protean-Swarm Hive/Maker and a feedstock reservoir, this augmentation automatically creates and installs any augmentation the inhabiting Ego possesses in Protean-Swarm-Blueprint form. Should the Ego leave the morph, then it returns all created augmentations to feedstock to prepare for the next inhabitant. Possible balance measures: 1. The feedstock reservoir has a fixed volume, and can only create X credit's worth of augmentations at once. 2. As a security measure, the Epitome will only create blueprints which have either (a) been encoded to the ego's brainprint, or (b) been psychosurgically implanted into the ego via the Hidden Knowledge or Awareness Block procedures. This renders the augment effectively immune to hacking, but means the blueprints are non-transferable. Moving on from that, we have the other half of the Posthuman sandwich: Synergy. Developments in genetics, biology and nanotech synergise, resulting in the development of cells which create thier own "natural" nanoware, disolving the boundry beween synthetic and biological orgasnisms. Morphs created with this technology have all the benefits of both synthmorphs and biomorphs, and thier brains can utilise both async powers and software/narcoalgorythms. ...I'm not an exhuman, I swear.

Fear itself. Literally, the hypercorps of the PC are using fear-sniffing drones to target those most likely to rebel and stamp them out.

or something like that, you mean? I think the more fundamental thing to be afraid of is good old fashioned accelerating change. Forget AGI for a moment. The things that can be done with uploaded minds, psychosurgery, and accelerated simulspace could be as disruptive as a hard takeoff event. Just start forking and pruning, selecting in an evolutionary fashion for the traits you want. A project manager first, perhaps. A sense of reward through achievement, a sense of pain from procrastination. Tune, optimize, repeat. create specialists. branch a single mind into an entire species of specialized minds, add more minds for diversity and repeat. Oh ho, but remember now we have AGIs? We can save lots of time by skipping the organic part and iterating and evolving even faster. Even the simplest mainframes could quickly produce transcendent level AI with the kinds of compute resources that are available in AF10. Some of the Infomorph only habs? expect them to start "taking off". The solar system should be boiling like a pot of water, tiny bubbles forming as little isolated communities decide that they need to be faster or better to compete, or that they want to taste the nature of the universe. Large bubbles erupting as major habs are swept up by the accelerating changes... maybe they upload and disappear, maybe they self destruct from the internal social strife. Maybe they are nuked by their neighbors who see it coming and act to prevent it from spreading. Sure, the industrial resources of Earth are not around, so something like the TITANs cant emerge all at once to wipe the solar system clean. But the pot should be beginning to simmer.

puke wrote:

Oh ho, but remember now we have AGIs? We can save lots of time by skipping the organic part and iterating and evolving even faster. Even the simplest mainframes could quickly produce transcendent level AI with the kinds of compute resources that are available in AF10. ...the pot should be beginning to simmer.

I agree that ultimates and trans-ultimates and meta-meta-trans-ultimates using aggressive overclocking and surgical and precision forking and merging on ultra-highspeed capacity mainframes should be able to advance human consciousness very, very quickly—frighteningly quickly. A few overclocked "generations" and that consciousness would have very little in common with transhumanism as we understand it in AF10.

ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:

I think you've gotten the wrong end of the stick apropos Cosmic Horror: It isn't about spooky space monsters, it's about Despair. In Cosmic Horror scenarios the base message is that human life/civilization isn't just meaningless, it's [i]irrelevant[/i]. Humans have a need for importance/meaning so strong it borders on psychosis, and Cosmic Horror provides proof to the contrary - that's where the spacemonsters come in. Resolving this conflict becomes the primary motivator behind the actions of the characters in such settings, including the villains. As such, the ETI isn't something that should ever be an active agent, because there are effectively only two outcomes – either Transhumanity is immediately wiped from existence, or transhumanity can provide some level of effective resistance... which implies relevance, [i]destroying[/i] the Cosmic Horror aspect. This isn't to say that the ETI should be avoided completely, but as a passive or secondary agent, as opposed to an active one, in the same way as Azathoth from Call of Cthulhu.

Ah, then that clarifies why I don't like it. I have no interest in the despair aspect of cosmic horror since it just sounds boring. The exact same reason why I don't like call of Cthulhu: despair and humanity's irrelevance in the grand scheme of things are uninteresting as both player and GM, at least for me. "There's an extremely powerful alien intelligence hundreds of light years from us! Are you spooked yet?" "No." "But they shot probes into every star system! They were active since before the Earth was forming! They use star clusters for energy like we do batteries! We are INSECTS to them!" "Why do I care?" "SPOOKY" On the other hand I can appreciate the eerie revelation that something is out there that is a much bigger fish than we are and we should be worried for it noticing us. That's why I liked the Reapers in Mass Effect up until they began speaking about evil plots and their origin stories were completely revealed, losing any sense of mystery.

I think the difference of fear and horror is shown here, despair is horror, but despair isn't scary or something to elicit fear, which "spooky" implies scary and fear. Existential despair isn't supposed to scare, it's a backdrop against which flavors the action of heroes. Being chosen ones or self-made awesome people makes great deeds a requirement, while the meaninglessness and existential despair backdrop makes those actions brighter in comparison. Like a match in a dark room shines bright while in a brightly lit room, it is less meaningful. I am not much of a lit major or expert, just an idea, regarding the cosmic horror stuff. EDIT: on topic, the Pandora Gates hint at our insignificance via the long dead civilizations, and thus we should fear the possibility that we will fail and become just as long dead and irrelevant.

jKaiser wrote:

I'm with Noble Pigeon in that cosmic horror is better as a setting background than an actual plot in a game most of the time. Anyone who's played Call of Cthulhu knows that if the big C himself shows up, it's time to start a new game.

This. Pure cosmic horror is pretty soulcrushing stuff, and kinda runs counter to the whole draw of RPGs, where you're by definition someone special. This is one of the reasons I like EP so much more than CoC; in Cthulhu, the cosmic horror is the defining feature. Take it away, and it basically turns into a historical re-enactment. In EP the cosmic horror is 95% optional - you never have to touch upon the ETI, or have the players go up against an actual TITAN, if you don't want too. Sure, you can have your players run around the ruins of civilizations that died before the earth cooled, or you can do action-adventure against evil exhumans, or explore social concepts, or run a Film-Noire detective campaign, or a Telenovella... Damn it, I really need to get a group together.

uwtartarus wrote:

I think the difference of fear and horror is shown here, despair is horror, but despair isn't scary or something to elicit fear, which "spooky" implies scary and fear. Existential despair isn't supposed to scare, it's a backdrop against which flavors the action of heroes.

It's more the difference between psychological and physical horror. All horror requires fear/terror through the use of some immediate threat to give it relevance and urgency, otherwise we just ignore it. A real world example is the Heat Death of the universe; it's there, we know it's there, but because it's so distant we simply ignore it – but when we concentrate on it, and what it means, we begin to feel the stirrings of cosmic horror. I think this is essentially Noble Pigeon's problem – the ETI cannot itself be an immediate threat. It only gets interesting when the plot is centred around the consequences of the ETI's existence: “So this species was more advanced than transhumanity? “Vastly so. They had teleporters, could build non-euclidean structures, reactionless drives...” “And they're all dead?” “Yes. For aeons”. “How did they die?” “Your research says that the entire species was wiped out within 24 hours. You also found signs that, in the days before their end, whole planets committed mass suicide.” “That's... not good”. “By the way, perimeter sensor 16b just registered something big moving in the ruins.” “Uhh... I connect to the sensor to get a better look at what it is.” “Sensor 16b just stopped responding...”

For my money I'd say that the direct manipulation of the fundamental nature of space-time is going to b the next big thing for transhumanity. With the insights that can be gleaned from such things as the gates or fixors, research could advance much further simply by knowing that such technologies are possible. The flip side of this is that we'd be messing around with forces that we haven't any idea how to control. Opening up a singularity or accidentally jumpstarting the Big Rip are possible consequences, there's no end of terrible ideas to be gleaned from science fiction. Things could work out as well, and a Star Trek-esque future could be the case with FTL travel and teleportation available for all. It's the bumps on that road I'd be concerned with!

A complete bio-ship or at least a space creature that can actually survive by himself in space, since in EP biotech can create whatever proteins they like(yay! They solved the mistery) I don't think there are limits about what you can create with biotech and completly explore the advantages and disadvantages of biological structures. We could have something like evolva, biomorphs that can actually modify themselves in seconds adapting to the situation accordingly, for example: If you are about to enter combat the skeleton can harden itself or if you prefer you can give your muscles more volume and if you're leaving combat your skeleton can become more soft so you can gain flexibility... or why not? You could instantly make you arm explode into a cloud of hot biological components, and all of this because you have optimiced all you biochemistry routes and took off that stupid and energy consuming thing called "reproductive system" I mean, who needs that? I want to shoot acid with my mouth! I think EP could do a lot more with bioengineering that it actually does.

More NPC files! But not super useful, generate rough estimate of skills on the fly, and use morph recognition guide for stats.