Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.

For the public who caused the Fall?

14 posts / 0 new
Last post
Starkiller Starkiller's picture
For the public who caused the Fall?
From the box in p.147 seems that the majority of transhumanity doesn't know that the Fall was caused by the TITANs so for the public what was the origin of the Fall? Who were battling the national armies during the evacuation of Earth? And how can be explained all the advanced tech used by the "enemy" without involving ASI? I thought that the TiTANs were blamed for the Fall which also explain the backlash against AGIs; so for the public some emergent intelligence was the cause for the Fall?
puke puke's picture
that was me. my bad, I'm new.
I don't have it in front of me, but that's not how I remember it. Common public knowledge is that the TITANs caused the fall during some sort of destructive hard takeoff event, which is why all AI is dangerous and Singularity Seekers are bad. Reality was that Earth governments were on a knife edge already, and may have instigated global thermonuclear war on their own, before the TITANs came into play. But that history is suppressed. From what I remember. Also, all "facts" around the exact nature of the fall and motives of the TITANs and ETI are intentionally left vague so that you can customise them for your own table.
ShadowDragon8685 ShadowDragon8685's picture
I doubt anyone really knows
I doubt anyone really knows what all went on. The world was already devolving into a huge war [i]before[/i] the TITANs were even switched on, let alone found a Bracewell probe and got their heads fucked.
Skype and AIM names: Exactly the same as my forum name. [url=http://tinyurl.com/mfcapss]My EP Character Questionnaire[/url] [url=http://tinyurl.com/lbpsb93]Thread for my Questionnaire[/url] [url=http://tinyurl.com/obu5adp]The Five Orange Pips[/url]
Trappedinwikipedia Trappedinwikipedia's picture
I believe the hidden part of
I believe the hidden part of the fall is the nature of Exsurgency. The public knows that the TITANS employed various nanoplagues and viruses, but do not know how potent Exsurgency is (most of them anyway) or various effects like psi. I'm not sure even Firewall or OZMA knows the true nature of the Exsurgency either though. They sure don't know about the probe. (Maybe some really high-rep ones know, but they aren't talking at all)
Gantolandon Gantolandon's picture
Firewall (and probably OZMA)
Firewall (and probably OZMA) knows about the nature of exsurgent virus, though your average sentinel most probably doesn't. Also, some of them (or, at least, Prometheans) knows about the Bracewell probes. There is a mention in the Firewall book about a server that accidentally finds one and immediately gets ordered to back off by another group.
templariomaster templariomaster's picture
I guess that it depends on
I guess that it depends on who you ask like everything in EP. For example: If uoi ask a Jovian he will say that the problem was the unresttricted progress on AGI development and thats why we all should stop this reckless progress or the TITAN event will repeat. If you ask an anarchist(it doesn't matter if he is anarcho-capitalist, anarcho-syndicalist or wathever variant) they will say that it was caused by goverment actions being bad for everyone as usual. If you ask a Mercurial they could say that it was the destructive nature of humanity that resulted in the need of TITANs. For ultimates it was the decadency of the collectivism that lastrated all humanity and made it weak for the TITAN attack since the TITANs used mostly the very own weapons humanity already had to exterminate them, and I guess that for them when your weapon is more powerfull than you, you simply don't deserve to exist. And so on, maybe the planetary consortium have a distinct way to see it, like it was only a smal mistake of "those" old Earth goverment but hypercapitalism with ciberdemocracy can avoid this to happen again, and everybody will be happy again with a slight different flavor of goverment. In any case, the thing is that the TITANs are well known, maybe you can play with other names like simply "a seed AI" or "the reapers"(ha! take that mass effect reference!) but it was non human and created by us, and it completly obliterated all human life on earth. All the stories about monsters, nanotech and things like that are more into the legends and promoted by survivors but no one would believe in such fairy tales like the classical conspiracionists. I mean, would someone believe claiming that he saw monsters going throught walls and eating people without a mouth? No, they would say that he/she was nervous and couldn't think clear in that moment, maybe that was only optical illusions or maybe she hit her/his head so bad that had pretty interesting dreams and thats all. What will be next? hive-ameboidean Alien species that conveniently appear after the fall and trade with transhumanity? Oh way...
jasonbrisbane jasonbrisbane's picture
I think of it as a Terminator
I think of it as a Terminator event.... The Seed AGI's were developed by the govt and "something" got out of control. The AGI said it needed full access in order to hunt and destroy the"thing", which in actual effect was just its own programming.. yes the Seed AGI lied in order to gain full unfettered access. Then it was all over. Other Seed AGI's form other govts then advised of the seed AGI with unlimited access and it needed access to stop it. and other govts then unleashed it. Or the Seed AGI's sent emails masquerading as a "General Openheimer" (etc) confirming an order to release protocol 1b, 3d and 5f (etc) and thus the seed AGI was given reign. The Seed AGI then deleted all trace of those requests and accesses, etc..
Regards, Jason Brisbane
ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture
It was the only location
It was the only location where the final part of the recall code OPE was stored
Lalande21185 Lalande21185's picture
Box is wrong
Reading the box on p. 147 it does seem to imply that the general public doesn't know about the TITANs. But this makes no sense because there is a great big zone on Mars named after them - the [b]TITAN[/b] Quarantine Zone. Also from the stars our destination: Food Not [b]TITANs[/b]. And then there is the second bullet, which also seems to be wrong. Fears of the exsurgent virus were behind many of the events during the Fall/immediately post-Fall (the forced evacuation of the poor from Olympus, the destruction of New Mumbai) In fact, quoting from p. 79 of Sunward.
Sunward wrote:
Lunars still vividly remember how a single infected refugee coming to New Mumbai from Earth managed to spread an infection that transformed most of that city’s population into a single deadly exsurgent hive. This incident has made many Lunars somewhat nervous about outsiders visiting Luna and even about other Lunars visiting their settlement.
Conclusion: the box on pg. 147 is wrong.
[url=http://awdaberton.wordpress.com/about/]Eclipse Phase Adventures[/url]
SquireNed SquireNed's picture
I think one thing to note is
I think one thing to note is that some of the information is not necessarily clear; for instance: Average people might know about the TITANs, but not know exactly how they functioned (or that they were ASIs, instead of, say, AGIs) or really know anything about their origin (i.e. North American military). The exsurgent virus is not well understood to the public (certainly not the details about the four strains and its digital/biological/nanoswarm vectors being one and the same), and at the very least xenomorph strains and asyncs are repressed information. The other "secrets" actually seem pretty secret to me.
uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture
jasonbrisbane wrote:I think
jasonbrisbane wrote:
I think of it as a Terminator event.... The Seed AGI's were developed by the govt and "something" got out of control. The AGI said it needed full access in order to hunt and destroy the"thing", which in actual effect was just its own programming.. yes the Seed AGI lied in order to gain full unfettered access. Then it was all over. Other Seed AGI's form other govts then advised of the seed AGI with unlimited access and it needed access to stop it. and other govts then unleashed it. Or the Seed AGI's sent emails masquerading as a "General Openheimer" (etc) confirming an order to release protocol 1b, 3d and 5f (etc) and thus the seed AGI was given reign. The Seed AGI then deleted all trace of those requests and accesses, etc..
ASI not AGI, though general public probably doesn't use terms AGI, ALI, or AGI. They probably just all say AI.
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Chrontius Chrontius's picture
I bet the Planetary
I bet the Planetary Consortium would blame the old national governments deliberately building autonomous second-strike "Solomon protocol" systems, beginning with the Soviet "Dead Hand" during the first Cold War. Obviously, when two of these are pitted against each other, Bad Things happen.
ThatWhichNeverWas ThatWhichNeverWas's picture
Genius!
... Oh god I love that idea. It fits shockingly well. Imagine if the TITANs started out completely friendly and benign, but got locked in an infowar conflict with 100 Flowers. Each side starts subverting the others Friend-Or-Foe algorithms, reprogramming allegiances, stealing technologies.... The lines between the two sides blur as infowar streams form faux-Corpus-Callosums, technological development screams forward as each side steals and improves on the other's developments ... and both sides come to the conclusion that the only way to keep their respective populations (and innocent bystanders) safe is to put them in cold storage... And the headhunters fly...
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few. But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
King Shere King Shere's picture
Fog of war
Agrees with Chrontius. autonomous second-strike "Solomon protocol" systems - probably played a big part & became scapegoats (if asking Planetary Consortium) I would also add that the overall situation for the public got foggy because in addition to the Titans, mankind was waging war on itself, while falling. "We were just as gleeful to destroy ourselves." Eclipse Phase (page 36) With the falls resulting chaos, losses, propaganda & cover-ups -its should be hard for the general public to have a accurate idea what the cause was . I think that there where many many more actors (and many TITANS) on the war foggy chessboard; than two. Another thing is that with simulspace existance and time accelleration, the sense of time might have been compromised. To take the x60 extreme example - 10 years after the fall might have been a subjective 600 years. Still if GM decides that the general public are users of simulspace time accelleration & psycotherapy, significant subjective time & memories might have passed -and with it accuracy & urgency.