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.

Eclipse Phase, the webcomic?

13 posts / 0 new
Last post
Sat, 2015-06-06 12:31
#1
Kaworu Kaworu's picture
Eclipse Phase, the webcomic?
Hi! I think seriously about writing a webcomic in the Eclipse Phase universe. It would by queer, politics, sci-fi themed comic I think (cause the author is a queer fantasist interested in politics :P :P :P). So, I just wonder... what would you like to see in a webcomic like that? I'm kinda making research about what people like and dislike so I can put it down into a plot or something... ;-) For now I have the basic plot: there is a guy that was frozen after death and Titanian Commonwealth is using nanobots to resurrect him and he discovers the unknown world. There would be also unrelated chapters about other characters, some of them Firewall agents, but the main plot would be about the frozen guy. I also think that for sure there will be gatecrashing cuz gatecrashing is really awesome :D And I wanna make the frozen guy a xenobiology student too :P :P :P :P :P
—


☝️ click for my Polter-page! UwU ☝️

Top
Sat, 2015-06-06 14:24
Lazarus Lazarus's picture
That's an interesting idea
That's an interesting idea but I'm not quite sure how it fits into Eclipse Phase's mythology. It would seem to me that the expected response to someone frozen in EP would be to digitize their consciousness (it is possible to do this posthumously) so I would expect they would wake up either in a simulspace or else in a while new morph. Also, I'm not sure how much a xenobiologist could wake up in a 'whole new world'. The first Pandora gate was discovered at the end of the Fall so before that there weren't any 'real' xenobiologists (there are currently people who hold titles like that, but they are working theoretically). Please don't think I'm saying your idea is bad or anything. I wouldn't say a word of it was just 'I have an idea for a web comic'. I'm just staying that there are issues with how it fits into the Eclipse Phase continuity.
—
My artificially intelligent spaceship is psychic. Your argument it invalid.
Top
Sat, 2015-06-06 15:10
Kaworu Kaworu's picture
No no no, I was thinking
No no no, I was thinking about something like "Oooooh, I wake up and I'm in a different world - let's go to Titanian University and study xenobiology" ;-)
—


☝️ click for my Polter-page! UwU ☝️

Top
Sat, 2015-06-06 22:57
MrWigggles MrWigggles's picture
Why exactly would queerness
Why exactly would queerness come in? You can tell a lot of interesting stories in Eclipse Phase, I personally don't see romance really as of them. I dont think folks go play Eclipse Phase for romance; they go play Eclipse Phase for gear, missions and some creepy pasta stuff. Ergo, they wouldnt go to an Eclipse Phase comic for romance either. The reason why I bring up romance, is thats generally how you actually express orientation through story telling. (You could bring it up with a series of casual encounters as well, but then you're stuck with it looking like the queerness aren't in for relationships.) You could just state they're Bi or Genderqueer or whatever in a status block, but honestly is that really going change how they fire a railgun or plot to infiltrate a space hab externally or get their mind melted from a basilisk hack? And if it doesn't then why does their orientation matter? You could make it a 'B' story line, but then you're face with being perceived as making it quote and unquote lip service, as the 'B' story line cant get as much depth or screen time as the 'A' storyline. And lip service is insulting. It doesn't matter what your intent is.
Top
Sun, 2015-06-07 01:56
jKaiser jKaiser's picture
MrWigggles wrote:Why exactly
MrWigggles wrote:
Why exactly would queerness come in? You can tell a lot of interesting stories in Eclipse Phase, I personally don't see romance really as of them. I dont think folks go play Eclipse Phase for romance; they go play Eclipse Phase for gear, missions and some creepy pasta stuff. Ergo, they wouldnt go to an Eclipse Phase comic for romance either. The reason why I bring up romance, is thats generally how you actually express orientation through story telling. (You could bring it up with a series of casual encounters as well, but then you're stuck with it looking like the queerness aren't in for relationships.) You could just state they're Bi or Genderqueer or whatever in a status block, but honestly is that really going change how they fire a railgun or plot to infiltrate a space hab externally or get their mind melted from a basilisk hack? And if it doesn't then why does their orientation matter? You could make it a 'B' story line, but then you're face with being perceived as making it quote and unquote lip service, as the 'B' story line cant get as much depth or screen time as the 'A' storyline. And lip service is insulting. It doesn't matter what your intent is.
Eh, speak for yourself. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of romantic EP stories, whether as a game focus, a major plot element, or something on the side. Never underestimate the benefit of so-inclined players' williness to invest in the world, and having their character form a bond with an NPC or other PC is an incredible asset for a GM. And the "intense relationship" flaw exists for a reason. The game does truly interesting things to the concept of gender and physical sex, to say nothing of the enormous changes wrought in areas like communication, lifespan, and identity, all of which would make for absolutely fascinating relationship-focused stories (Avoiding "romantic" because that rather pidgeonholes the opportunities.) Love, lust, curiosity, bonding, all of those things are powerful, primal aspects of humanity that haven't gone anywhere with the "trans-" prefix. Hell, it's not just humanity anymore. Interspecies relationships are a whole 'nother kettle of fish, even if you play it safe and have everyone sleeved into the same kind of morphs. Or morphs with no biological function. There's a lot there to explore. Honestly, the plot possibilities are endless if you have the right group. A polyamorous group who bond together through shared struggles to earn pods or biomorphs to replace their shit cases could be a hell of a "small picture" game, particularly if you play the soulless hypercapitalism trope to the hilt. Or a side thing where your players get entangled with a complex scandal involving a publically committed couple (political reasons for such a thing would probably still be around) involving simple cheating, or something to involve forks. Or what happens if two lovers end up "together," one riding in the other's skull as a ghostrider? That might seem a dream for some people, but in adverse situations that could prove disastrous for the relationship, or even their lucidity. As for how orientation matters with regards to firing a rifle, it doesn't. But it does as part of the character if their sexual identity is significant to their sense of self. Which, again, is a major theme in EP anyway. It doesn't have to be a focus in a game -- though a webcomic would allow for things a cooperative game wouldn't barring a very special group -- but just ignoring it because it doesn't help you blow shit up doesn't speak well. Besides. The authors dedicated pages of the books to gender and relationships post-singularity, and those and related topics have been at the heart of many, many, many major stories worth retelling. It has as much place in an EP story as anything else. Frankly, it would be conspicuous for its absence if it weren't mentioned at all.
Top
Sun, 2015-06-07 10:24
Kaworu Kaworu's picture
Well, I wanted to tell a
Well, I wanted to tell a queer kind of story because I am queer myself :P :P :P That's the mayor point. But also, I would like to go into "socio-political" layer of EP. You know, divisions between Outer and Inner solar system, Discrimination of pods, infomorphs and uplifts. The soullessness of hipercorps. Closet-mindness of Jovians. The "nazi" drive for perfection of Ultimates. Personally I see queerness as a good way to concentrate on these things. For example, current discrimination of LGBT persons and in-universe discrimination of Mercurials have very in common. Also, I do not know if there will be action in my comic. I saw it rather as a comic of dialogue, technology and society, not comic of fights and riffle shooting. Perhaps there will be some action if I will decide to use Firewall, but it will not be the main point.
—


☝️ click for my Polter-page! UwU ☝️

Top
Sun, 2015-06-07 13:02
Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture
Honestly, and this is just me
Honestly, and this is just me, I'm not sure how I'd feel about a comic that sets up certain factions as political strawmen merely for the benefit of another, under-represented faction, especially when it comes to Eclipse Phase. The reason is that, with some exceptions like Nine Lives and others, I tend to see all of the factions, including the mercurials, as being much more than the sum of their parts, for better or for worse (sometimes both). Evil, soulless corporations (hypercorps), bigoted, right-wing fascists (Jovians), and smug Social Darwinists (ultimates) are boring, overused cliches, and the reason why those three factions work in Eclipse Phase so well is that they are much more than that. I'm not saying the only way to make them work is that you [i]have[/i] to make them sympathetic, but I like it when they're depicted as made up of real people, not one-dimensional people that stand on a soap box to spew stuff for the main characters to neatly shoot down. And at the end of the day I'd enjoy an Eclipse Phase comic that was much more focused on intrigue, horror and the moral and philosophical implications of transhuman technology rather than social commentary on real-life issues. Hope you don't let me dissuade you, though. I'm just one person :)
—
"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address
Top
Sun, 2015-06-07 15:08
Lazarus Lazarus's picture
Noble Pigeon wrote:. . .and
Noble Pigeon wrote:
. . .and smug Social Darwinists (ultimates) . . .
Ultimates are pretty much just Darwinists (or maybe neo-Darwinists if you feel the need to give them a title to separate them from scientists who believe in natural selection). Yes, they do believe that the biological concept survival of the fittest extend to politics and sociology, but that's because they believe it extends to everything. It is more arguable as to how they view natural selection considering their self modification as well as their sub-factions such as the Exemplars.
—
My artificially intelligent spaceship is psychic. Your argument it invalid.
Top
Sun, 2015-06-07 19:51
MrWigggles MrWigggles's picture
Lets not confuse Darwinism,
Lets not confuse Darwinism, and social darwinism.
Top
Sun, 2015-06-07 22:54
Chernoborg Chernoborg's picture
Go for it! If you've got a
Go for it! If you've got a story to tell and the skills to do so, we could always use more stories. Heck he could have been a pre-Fall xenobiologist heading to Europa or ( from an orbital mechanically more reasonable point of view) Tethys when his ship is disabled or damaged. The only survival option is cryogenic suspension so in he goes. More that a decade later the wreck swings by Saturn an is picked up by the Commonwealth fleet. He's revived and learns that the gates exist and he's a bit behind on his xenobiologist studies! Life ensues... That's a cracking set up and I look forward to reading more!
—
Current Status: Highly Distracted building Gatecrashing systems in Universe Sandbox!
Top
Mon, 2015-06-08 03:52
Urthdigger Urthdigger's picture
My personal preference? Make
My personal preference? Make good use of the weird. There's a million sci-fi stories of humans in space. There's relatively less where your mechanic's a six-limbed flying squirrel, your bartender's a neo-bonobo running a brothel in the back, and the habitat's head of security is a literal head on wheels (because his real body is the entire hab, the head's just to give people a thing to talk to). That said, make sure to use the familiar as well to provide contrast. When everything is bizarre and shocking, nothing is.
Top
Mon, 2015-06-08 11:11
ThatWhichNeverWas ThatWhichNeverWas's picture
Gender: Null.
Kaworu wrote:
Well, I wanted to tell a queer kind of story because I am queer myself :P :P :P That's the mayor point. But also, I would like to go into "socio-political" layer of EP. You know, divisions between Outer and Inner solar system, Discrimination of pods, infomorphs and uplifts. The soullessness of hipercorps. Closet-mindness of Jovians. The "nazi" drive for perfection of Ultimates. Personally I see queerness as a good way to concentrate on these things. For example, current discrimination of LGBT persons and in-universe discrimination of Mercurials have very in common.
If you're going to make sexuality an issue, you should keep in mind that in EP; A) There is no sexual prejudice, save in very specific circumstances. Being queer is about as controversial as being brunette. B) Physical gender and to a slightly lesser extent sexual orientation and gender identity are for all intents and purposes optional. What does it mean to be queer in such a world? Are you attracted to morphs of a specific gender, or morphs that are the same gender as the one you currently occupy, or only to egos which present a given identity or orientation regardless of morph gender, or... you get the idea. Take the opportunity to explore these concepts, or what prejudice means and where it comes from. Give reasons why the Jovians are conservative, or why the PC is so obsessed with capitalism.
—
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?
Top
Tue, 2015-06-09 12:00
jKaiser jKaiser's picture
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
If you're going to make sexuality an issue, you should keep in mind that in EP; A) There is no sexual prejudice, save in very specific circumstances. Being queer is about as controversial as being brunette. B) Physical gender and to a slightly lesser extent sexual orientation and gender identity are for all intents and purposes optional. What does it mean to be queer in such a world? Are you attracted to morphs of a specific gender, or morphs that are the same gender as the one you currently occupy, or only to egos which present a given identity or orientation regardless of morph gender, or... you get the idea. Take the opportunity to explore these concepts, or what prejudice means and where it comes from. Give reasons why the Jovians are conservative, or why the PC is so obsessed with capitalism.
My take on the New Queer (tm) is that it would be things outside the specifically human range. This would obviously vary tremendously from habitat to habitat (protip: if you want your characters to endure prejudice for the story, give scum barges the miss for main settings). I came up with a list of a few things that are likely to face discrimination, though I ran out of actual sexuality-related ones pretty quickly, so it's more a list of likely taboos you'd find reasonably commonly find.* [list] [*]Biomorph hermaphrodism; [*]Interspecies dating, especially with a nonhuman biomorph involved (prepare to be accused of bestiality a lot); [*]Sleeving into a pleasure pod by choice; [*]Nonhuman genital design (Bad Dragon probably makes a killing in this era); [*]Roboeroticism, particularly involving clanking masses and/or synthmorphs without a synthetic mask but with functional sex organs; [*]Infosensualism/exclusively Mesh pleasure seeking ("that's something AGIs do, not a healthy human..."); [*]Lifestyles akin to the one mentioned in the MRG, where males sleeved into Ayahs and females in to Furies, or where children were raised in Pleasure Pods, to experiment with sexuality; [*]Really, anything involving sleeving into a pleasure pod and being open about it; [*]Getting the sex switch implant (seen as hedonistic, perhaps?); [*]Traditional, sex-for-procreation-only views (seen as old fashioned or even socially damaging/disruptive if loudly voiced) [*]Actually...traditional marriage might be viewed with a slant if it still involves a lot of social/legal bindings in an immortal society; [*]Fork fucking; [*]BDSM practices, particularly the millions of new ones different body types and gravities allow (I'm a practitioner myself, and while it might go somewhat mainstream, in a completely monitored society with lifelogs and it being such an intensely personally variant thing, I doubt it'll ever be completely non-controversial); [*]Snuff sex/mortisexuality or being aroused by death (this probably unnerves a lot of people, and even if it doesn't, with all the body shortages, it's going to be seen as a least decadent and wasteful) [/list] Again, this is by no means just sexuality/identity-related things, though I tried to keep at least one foot in the "can't help that this makes me horny" as opposed to the "I'm bored and need a new thrill." Traditional LGBT, you're probably right that that's seen as perfectly normal now, though I think between immortality, XP, psychosurgery, resleeving, and so on, even those identities will fade away. Less "I am X" and more "I've tried X." From our viewpoint, most of the population in EP is what you might call "Queer with a preference or three," but I doubt they think of themselves as such anymore. And since you're rarely more than a few hours from changing your plumbing, the physical aspect is going to be even more diminished. If anything, those who identify as exclusively one thing or another might face some minor discrimination for being quaint and old fashioned, though that's conjecture on my part. *I'm as pro-Anarchism as anyone, but given the autonomist tendency for collective independence and...well, autonomy, and the realities of direct democracy, they can be just as prejudiced as a group as any inner system groups depending on the hab. The bigger cosmopolitan hubs, like Locus, the scum barges, and probably Titan and similar large polities based on active democracy are the all-inclusive locales now; the rest of the system is going to be a crapshoot in one way or another, pick your poison, etc.
Top