The Ultimates aren't really a cold war tier power. They're probably per population the most militarily capable of all the factions in EP, but they're small relative to everyone else and the spend a lot of time on pet projects (wargaming, TITAN hunting, and mercenary work) and relatively little on doing nationbuilding, if the Ultimates could even be said to desire such a thing. The Ultimates may not be a part of the AA, and they do control a Gate, but they're also way out in the butt-end of nowhere. The distance between Saturn and Uranus is as great as the distance between Saturn and the entirety of the inner system. They may have a small presence in places with competing interests, but their main threatening points are really not going to be anywhere near. Now, as a memetic threat, the Ultimates could be problematic for many factions, but they don't actually do information warfare as we know it. Sure, they recruit new members, but they don't do so in a way that is likely to turn their members against their original population (or, at least, make them more so than they were). Jovians do actually use a number of technologies, like cortical stacks; they're just much rarer and controlled more closely by the government—the same government that funds the military. They may not be technologically cutting-edge in terms of nanoscale architectures, but they certainly have an interest in some of the best military hardware, which doesn't necessarily involve nanotechnology. They also have a hostile political agenda and a meme war between pretty much them and everyone else, which is a great recipe for a cold war. In addition, Jovians mess with ComEx, and disruption of trade is always a great cause for war. The real cold war is most likely between the PC and the Morningstar, the PC and the Titanians, or the PC and everyone else, depending on who you ask. Jovians and Ultimates are somewhat of a factor, but both are either small enough or isolationist enough that they won't get in a full-on punching match with anyone; they may try to play kingmaker during a war, but they won't be the major parties. The PC has a ton of resources, their own intelligence apparatus, and certainly the ability to field soldiers. They run memes directly contrary to the Titanian and Morningstar memes, and generally don't have a whole lot of reason to like their neighbors; they have solid ground to back them up in the form of Mars, so they can wage war in a way that forces dependent on frail space stations cannot. Of course, more likely than not, every faction has WMD's that can destroy everyone else in a blink of an eye. Sleep tight.

Well, yea, ever faction does have WMDs. But thats not really like Nukes or the like that. Everyone has access to several hundred ton space rocks and the ability to accelerator them. ---- What about concerning the PC lack of navy or professional military in general? The Titanians have a professional military, that leans toward ex human for their special forces.

Well, my point, with the PC lack of a standing military, is that if its a cold war, then it can't really become a hot war. I'm not sure if you can call it a cold war, without it being able to turn hot.

SquireNed wrote:

The lack of a standing military is not the lack of an ability to project force. While not having a standing military means that the PC can't exert force right now, the fact remains that it has in the past (again, without a traditional standing military), and can easily do so again with relatively little provocation. Similarly, the PC has plenty of opportunity to wage warfare just because of their resources; they are able to field a fleet despite not officially having a fleet or centralized military. Imagine how scary they could get if having a fleet and standing army became one of their actual goals, rather than something they do off the books through proxies.

Except it is. Just look to history to see what happens when people who have a lot of money and no standing military look at those two facts and think "Hrm, I can just buy someone else's military and make them fight for me!" Invariably, it ends one of two ways: 1: If they're in a hopeless situation, they don't get enough mercenaries because priority #1 on a merc's agenda is "surviving to spend my money." In Eclipse Phase, this is somewhat less of a concern, since you can die in the line of duty and still "survive to spend your money," but not if the shit is coming down apocalyptically hard. It also requires confidence that they'll be paid. 2: The mercenaries roll in and realize "Hey, these guys are complete pushovers. Anyone with guns who rolls in can just take over, which is why they hired us to roll in here with all these guns, and [i]ohhhhhh waiiiiit![/i]" And that's how you end up with Vikings running the city of Rus.

One thing I've been thinking about lately is orbital position. Because people always talk about 'where planets are' in terms of some imaginary system where all the planets are in conjunction, all the time. The fact is, planetary neighbors will end up incredibly far away from each other in just a few years.

"Cold War," I think, refers to a really particular time and place that the setting of Eclipse Phase is too different from. There's really no bipolar power struggle between two forces, each marshaling allies and client states. It's more like political configurations from pre-industrial Europe. Look at the tumult between various factions in the Holy Roman Empire, or the conflicts between Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and I think the territory for analogies is better.

I think it's worth repeating: the PC doesn't have a standing military because it isn't a "government" as such - its a Coalition of Corporations. It has mercenaries companies. And that doesn't mean that "the PC pays mercenaries when they need an army", it means that the mercenaries are a part of the coalition, and they are a part of the decision making process. I get the impression that this is a trap we keep falling into. I know I have. Back to the Topic - the Titanian Commonwealth is a fantastic place if you want to runa campaign with a Cold-War aesthetic. Whilst the military buildup was a real-world element, the feel of the Cold-War in media leans very heavily towards intrigue and spycraft - the archetypal image is two men in coats trading dossiers next to a duckpond. I suggest running a campaign in the Espionage/Noir genre - the characters are a cell in the Commonwealth intelligence apparatus, and tend away from physical action and X-threats in favor of social manipulation and betrayal. Make them build up contact networks, search for Moles, seduce Agents from foreign states, and generally long for the good old days when all they had to deal with was Exsurgents trying to eat their precious facemeats.

boomzilla wrote:

I believe the *big* concern re: the Ultimates was not so much they'd try to attack, say, Titan or Mars, so much as they'd attempt to take over the gate network. Attempting to retake the gates would then have to go through the bottleneck of the gates themselves, like a SWAT team entering through a door: So you'd then have the Ultimates in control of transhumanity's entire access to the rest of the galaxy, trapping all other factions within the Solar System. Let me look through the material for a bit, and I can see if I see references to this scenario.

Even this isn't entirely reasonable, because it lacks a real profit motive. The Ultimates would need a reason to want all the gates—security, perhaps, but they don't seem to be losing sleep over their presence quite that much, except for the fact that exhumans and lizard people (who may be exhumans) raid through Discord all the time. As far as taking over the gate network, it's not entirely sure that all the gates connect to each other, so the Ultimates would need to individually assault each gate. Likewise, there's a ton of possible connections, and the Ultimates don't seem willing to go through to the other side to spawn camp people coming through, unless they saw some reason they wanted to limit access to a particular gate. Sure, it's one of those threat things you throw in the big binder of things to plan for, but it's not something that I would let shape political affairs. The Ultimates don't really threaten any other faction; they may be ostentatious elites with some really undesirable elements, but they're also not really a power parallel for any of the major factions, at least from what we know.

Here is a useful URL for your potential scenario planning, UW: https://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/search/view/%22cold%20war%22 :)

When you think about it, the Ultimates don't necessarily need to control all of Sol's gateways to achieve ascendancy, they just need the other faction to to stop using them... Prelude: 3AF – The Ultimate faction begins Project Greyflag. This project targets members who leave the faction due to either personal issues or dissatisfaction rather than a conflict with the philosophy, and who meet certain psychological criteria. These members are unknowingly subjected to psychosurgical alteration when they leave, which can be activated later when exposed to a preprogrammed stimulus. When this occurs they (1) become aware they have been psychosurgically altered, (2) become absolutely loyal to the Ultimate Faction (Behavioral Control: Expunged – Disloyalty), and (3) believe that the events leading to them leaving the faction are fake memories that have been implanted. In short, they believe they were so loyal that they volunteered to become covert agents. 7AF – The Ultimate Faction begins Operation BlackFence. Three dedicated agents within the Titanian Commonwealth are activated, and a further nine from project Greyflag. Blackfence is tasked with subverting the Titanian Commonwealth's control over the Pandora Gate. It does this using the following pathways. A. Memetic elements are introduced into Titanian media with the purpose of increasing public awareness, or rather wariness, of Extrasolar travel. By promoting increased security, the frequency and variety of Expeditions through the Gate can be reduced significantly. As an incidental benefit, this also helps prevent the introduction of X-threats to the Solar System, which concern the Ultimates as much as anyone. B. Extending Ultimate influence into the Pandora Gate security networks through: i) the Subversion / recruitment of Officers in the Titanian Navy, particularly those tasked with organization of ships in Pandoran orbit. ii) Acquisition or Infiltration of local Gorgon Defense Systems assets. iii) The creation and promotion of a dedicated Titanian Microcorp tasked purely with the defense of the Pandora gate, but with Ultimate agents in control of the assets and dictating Policy. C. In support of (B), deliberately burning low-priority Ultimate operations within the Commonwealth to increase paranoia regarding the Gate's security. If B(i), B(ii), or B(iii) should be compromised, then those operations are to be burned to increase the effectiveness of the other two. If successful, Blackfence will result in the Pandora Gate being under defacto Ultimate control, if not in name, combined with a sharp drop in Titanian Exoplanet exploration. Moreover, Blackfence is largely Fail-Safe; the loss of any one branch of the operation can be used to increase the effectiveness of the others. The Operation can only be considered a failure if all branches are exposed. 10AF – The Kicker Elista Vancura is an Ex-Ultimate who became a subject of Greyflag, and an agent of Blackfence working in the Memetic Warfare branch. Over the years she has become very fond of the Commonwealth, but knows her loyalty to the Ultimates must take precedence. Or rather, she knew that. Her most recent assignment involved resleeving into a pleasure morph to seduce a graffiti artist, but the morph had developed the Memory Artifact trait which interfered with her Greyflag conditioning. She has realized that she's been duped and mind-raped into supporting a Faction she doesn't ascribe to... and now she is angry. Her first step will be to get clear of her "compatriots" – she will have to fake her death. The fact that this will mean a backup of her pre-revelation self will be instanced cannot be helped. Second, she needs to attract the attention of Titanian Intelligence without tipping of the Ultimates. She can't just leave – the Ultimates betrayed her in the most vile way imaginable, and they need to pay... So, manipulation, betrayal, bribery and corruption, and a Femme Fatal who is both completely loyal to the Ultimates and a double agent against them at the same time. Take that, legitimate helio-political reasons! :P