New GM to this setting, currently giving the Quick Start game a go with my gaming group. Really loving the depth and feel of the transhuman future.
When it comes to coming up with NPCs and answering my players' questions, though. One thing keeps coming up.
"I wonder whereabouts my culture/nation/country factors into all this."
Obviously enough digging through the source material does reveal where the displaced citizens of certain areas ended up after the fall or which nations/ populations had already got a toe-hold before everything went Pete Tong, but never the ones which concern my players.
Chiefly these are the British Isles, The Netherlands & Eastern Europe.
It's entirely possible that there is barely any legacy of consequence from these areas and they've just become small ethnic groups (for whatever value that has) within the greater transhumanity, but it would be interesting to know if anyone knows anything more substantial.
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Dude, where's my culture?
Sat, 2017-03-04 14:58
#1
Hazelwolf
Dude, where's my culture?
Sat, 2017-03-04 19:35
#2
UnitOmega
This is not an uncommon
This is not an uncommon question for a lot of new people, I think. Strong diaspora always makes you wonder "hey, where did 'my people' end up?". Some are explicitly pointed out by the setting - such as the predominance of Indian colonies on Luna, and Chinese ones on Mars and Luna, or how Pan-american Colonies were placed around Jupiter - etc. Other data is less explicit, and you have to comb hab entries to learn about little pockets of cultures or languages here and there.
Recent history notwithstanding, I believe it is probably intended for some influence of Great Britain to be felt on Venus (and developers could of course clarify) as several aerostat projects were mentioned to have been funded by EU nations. This can help explain why some of them retain English as a primary language. I think there's some mention of Gaelic language enclaves out in the Saturnian sphere too. And also around saturn is the moon Tethys, whose settlement is said to have a core population of Indo-British autonomists. And of course, there are honest-to-god English pubs in Nytrondheim in VNS.
The Dutch are a little harder to track. The language primarily appears in several habitats associated with TerraGenesis (Elegua, Quartet and Caldwell itself - home of the Vulcanoid gate), which leads me to some assumption part of the corp must be drawn from that region - there doesn't seem like much reason else for the language to be prominent. Noctis-Qianjao is also noted as being designed by Dutch urban planners and has a noted population of German and Dutch speakers.
Eastern Europe is a bit of a harder diaspora to pin down - especially depending on what you want to mark in that region. Polish is a primary language of Gerlach, in orbit over Venus for instance. The Kron Kartelyei who operate on Titan and are backed in the Main Belt are said to have many operators of Russian and Ukrainian descent. Speakers of Estonian and Russian dominate the small mining community built around Pluto. The Saturnian moon of Atlas is settled by the Volkov corporation who mine gas from Saturn and speak predominantly Czech or Slovak, etc. Little pockets of this knowledge is hidden all over the book though one has to know what to look for.
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Sat, 2017-03-04 20:04
#3
Evaris
I think we USA midwesterners
I think we USA midwesterners ended up mainly in the LLA in the EP timeline.
My reasoning being largely secular but with enough of us having a religious background to have a mix of biocon/biochauv ideologies pop up in a setting like EP, ended up on Luna, given I don't see too many of us agreeing to the policies of the Junta. Or agreeing to give up our guns, so I'm not sure we'd be likely to fall into the PC's pocket, I just think the LLA's governance is a better fit for the culture around here than any of the others, save the belt, but the belt seems to be this and that mixed and jumbled from one spot to another than anything coherent. Even with extreme climate change, the core Mississippi basin would likely be a breadbasket, even if the more western parts of the midwest were to suffer a second dustbowl, hills, natural and artificial would start to break up most duststorms coming from the west as they hit the 93 degree longitude line and further east. So, traditionally close-knit farming communities are probably still doing their thing in parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky in BF1. There might not be too many spaceports readily available in the area during the fall, and I would assume that most that get off-planet will be infugees, but I still would expect persons from American heartland communities to maintain a cultural, nationalistic mindset, as seems common in the LLA moreso than elsewhere. Even the moderately sized cities in the area, barring the Metropolitan supercities, have highly nationalistic populations by percentage.
I know this doesn't help you, but wanted to throw my own interpretation of my personal ethnocultural group's whereabouts out there for critique. I think Omega covered your question accurately.
Sun, 2017-03-05 13:30
#4
LuisCarlos17f
When you can create a morpho
When you can create a morpho with red hair and violet eyes, your identity is more about cuture you like (music, literature, movies...).
—
The Master Confucius said: “The noble man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony.” (Anaclet 13:23).
Sun, 2017-03-05 15:05
#5
ShadowDragon8685
I've had a GM headcanon on me
I've had a GM headcanon on me (and I see no reason not to use it,) that the Queen of England and her family wound up on Titan, and a lot of the survivors of the British Isles turned up in the Saturnine System, along with a most of the Scandanavians.
Of course, resleeving, genetic modifications, etc, kind of dynamite the entire concept of hereditary dynasties, don't they?
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Sun, 2017-03-05 15:37
#6
Evaris
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:I've
Yeah, but in AF10 you're still going to have a large number of people with a hereditary cultural identity. It kinda makes the point moot outside of the culture that forms from it modified by environmental constraints of their habitat for future generations, though.
Sun, 2017-03-05 18:48
#7
NotActuallyTim
Where do want them to go?
It's your solar system now! Close your eyes and pick a point, thaaaaaaat's your new hoooooooooooooooome!
The Netherlands, I think, semi officially wound up on Titan, along with most people from the frozen north (except Russia, which apparently vanished entirely during the apocalypse). I think a lot of Eastern Europeans are probably still in storage on Mars, (unless they got eaten by robots, like the Africans).
Sun, 2017-03-05 23:41
#8
Trappedinwikipedia
ShadowDragon8685 wrote:Of
Yeah, because the Queen is never going to die now, it's kind of similar to the immortal oligarchs I think.
Mon, 2017-03-06 00:42
#9
UnitOmega
I hate to burst anyone's
I hate to burst anyone's headcanon bubbles, but X-Risks is saying that the British and Saudi royal families were done in during the fall (specifically by TITAN Stalker teams).
(And that said I personally would disagree that Brits or Dutch would go running to Titan immediately, especially their Royalty. I don't think Janteloven would agree with them particularly well, and neither group are Skandis. Netherlands is a founding member of the EU - which the Morningstar Confederacy is explicitly inspired by, and a lot of Venusians were supposed to originally be of European descent... I'd wager many core European power players would probably have scarpered to that burgeoning landscape, and may be part of the backing forces who pushed for Venusian independance).
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Mon, 2017-03-06 09:51
#10
Hazelwolf
Thanks for all the input on
Thanks for all the input on this. It has already proven rather useful. At the moment we're still on the Ecstatic Metamorphosis, so everything goes. But there is still stuff for the future and believeable backstories for the random NPCs they meet as I string that particular plot out.
Mon, 2017-03-06 13:57
#11
LuisCarlos17f
Don't forget most of
Don't forget most of biomorphs are half-blood, most of them Asian with Caucasian mixture. Let's say culture is more urban tribes, like gothics, otakus (anime/manga fanboys), rapers, rockers, or neotribals.
Sometimes a ego have betas from diferent races, even fantasy races like little grays, elves or trolls.
Where are the uplifted canines and felines? The furries (antropormorphic animals) should be popular biomorphs.
—
The Master Confucius said: “The noble man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony.” (Anaclet 13:23).
Tue, 2017-03-07 07:25
#12
boomzilla
culture is deeper than skin
"When you can create a morpho with red hair and violet eyes, your identity is more about cuture you like"
Yes, your body may be radically mutable in EP, but your mind (IMO) would still show signs of the culture it developed in. Off the top of my head: language and accents.
People malign the uselessness of having a polyglot character in EP, but it's actually very good for social infiltration: difficult to, say, be an undercover cop spying on the Triads if you only speak English!
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Tue, 2017-03-07 07:38
#13
boomzilla
Hazelwolf wrote:
On one hand, EP seems to encourage a sort of creative anarchy with regard to canon: you are welcome to send their evacuees anywhere in the Solar System you find convenient!
OTOH, *canonically*, a few relevant details:
[*] Western Europe suffered *cooling* due to climate change--specifically, the breakdown of the Gulf Stream: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation
[*] due to the severe cooling, French people have started to migrate to French-speaking North African countries/former colonies, e.g. Algeria.
[*] British Isles would also suffer quite severely from Gulf Stream breakdown naturally
[*] many EU nationals ended up on Venus. Does that include the UK, now that Brexit has happened?
[*] what happened with Scotland? Break up from England, and re-join EU? Well, the books have mostly been written pre-Brexit, and, anyway, don't get into deep detail about Earth pre-Fall! (there is a brief mention of Scottish Galeic speakers living on Titan)
[*] Volkov, orbiting Saturn on the Moon Atlas, a Czech hypercorp
I'll post a few other points of canon in a bit.
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Tue, 2017-03-07 07:49
#14
boomzilla
Russian and Chinese fleets
Russian and Chinese fleets around Jupiter got nuked by the Americans (who then went on to found the Jovian Republic).
Actually, it looks like UnitOmega has already mostly covered everything I know or could find.
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Thu, 2017-03-09 02:33
#15
uwtartarus
Scottish prob joined
Scottish prob joined Titanians.
"Authentics" clades form on Mars due to population, these groups stress adherence to tradition practices and culture memes rather than blood/ancestry, mainly because everyone's an infugee or descended from terraformers who sold their bodies and indentured service to get off Earth. The Yazidi, a tiny ethnic pop from middle east end up what becomes TQZ, along with Sufi islam (which represents Muslims in the Caucaus mountains).
I once joked because #vexit, a Venus exit from the PC (to form the Morningstar Constellation), so that has definitely got to be a part of the ethnic/cultural elements of Venus.
I headcanon that, as per canon that Russia didn't join Titan since they were anti-transhuman/biocon, that a large portion of their population got left behind, and that their extant pop offworld were either criminal (Night Cartel), military (nuked in the Six Second War, the name of Jovian founding war iirc), or brinkers (Russian shows up in languages out in the dark/rimward).
Turkish as a language is represented by the Ringers.
Loads of interesting things to extricate from just the language comments in each area!
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
Fri, 2017-03-10 12:21
#16
CordialUltimate2
You can hunt for vague
You can hunt for vague references in the sourcebooks trying to get the tiny tidbit of info on your nationality.
OR you can do as my group does. When there is no canon and GM allows us we go around a table creating the object/place/person . Each player gives two details in order to make as much awesome as everyone wants. Or as much awfullne, sometimes mix of both. It is always fun.
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Fri, 2017-03-10 12:21
#17
CordialUltimate2
You can hunt for vague
You can hunt for vague references in the sourcebooks trying to get the tiny tidbit of info on your nationality.
OR you can do as my group does. When there is no canon and GM allows us, we go around a table creating the object/place/person . Each player gives two details in order to make as much awesome as everyone wants. Or as much awfullne, sometimes mix of both. It is always fun.
EDIT:
If we took on the royal family. The Queen would probably be Elizabeth. After revival from cryosleep, she took over UKs government in exile during the Fall. Because of Brexit UK was not participating in EU space program. That meant British citizens were in unfavorable situation during Earth evacuation. Destruction of usual government allowed the Queen to consolidate power. Now she is an absolute ruler of few stations consisting mostly of memory substrate storing evacuated British citizens. She is in state of paranoia due to egonapping criminals trying to take control of her stations.
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Fri, 2017-03-10 12:27
#18
Noble Pigeon
LuisCarlos17f wrote:Don't
Is that actually stated anyone or is it something the setting implies?
—
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Sun, 2017-03-12 00:20
#19
ShadowDragon8685
CordialUltimate2 wrote:If we
As awesome as she is, I don't think HM the Queen Elizabeth II is going to last long enough to cross the bridge-to-a-bridge stepping stones to the transhuman era.
We never got into it, but if I were to headcanon it, I'd say that the current nominal Monarch of England is probably a highly-insecure, neurotic wreck of a teenager. The monarch at the time would have Stiff Upper Lipped it, refused to evacuate until every last one of his/her subjects had evacuated before them, and probably snuffed it in Buckingham Palace. Hopefully with a rifle in hand. The survivor is some distant second-child-of-a-cousin thing, someone sufficiently divorced from all of that malarky that they were doing sciencey stuff on Titan at the time, and then got this whole mind-job dropped in her lap.
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Sun, 2017-03-12 00:50
#20
UnitOmega
Honestly, that's like 90% of
Honestly, that's like 90% of the way to a good PC concept right there.
"Yeah, so technically by virtue of everybody in front of me being dead or otherwise unrecoverable at this time, I'm technically the monarch of a European country." Because it's really meaningless to most people in the Solar System but makes a great driving force for a PC to combat X-Risks and maybe try and recover the Earth. Combine with traits like Allies and "You're That Guy!"
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Mon, 2017-03-13 18:06
#21
eaton
My new dream is a fan
My new dream is a fan-published NPC Prime: 02. Half NPCs, half pregens, all drawn from the crazy stuff this forum comes up with.
Mon, 2017-03-13 23:38
#22
MrWigggles
One of the wiki have wiki
One of the wiki have wiki have a smattering of stuff like that. Nothing too complete though.
Tue, 2017-03-14 10:16
#23
CordialUltimate2
There are a few ready
There are a few ready characters in the homebrew section IIRC.You would have to look for them though.
EDIT:
Old but Gold:
http://eclipsephase.com/characters-basedimported-booksgamesmovies
This forum needs reddit structure.
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Tue, 2017-03-14 11:33
#24
Hazelwolf
UnitOmega wrote:"Yeah, so
Already kind of stole that idea for an NPC. An RAF pilot sent off on a sleeper ship mission to an exo-planet long before the fall finds themselves back in the solar system via a Pandora gate and will not cooperate beyond name, rank and number with the Titanian authorities...
That is until they ego-cast a rather confused Diana Elizabeth Windsor (fashion designer, Queen of England and de-facto Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty's Armed Forces) to relieve them of duty.
Tue, 2017-03-14 15:59
#25
CordialUltimate2
Hazelwolf wrote:
Sent on the sleeper ship and back through Pandora Gate is my default solution to ease new player into the setting. They can have useful and professional characters (they are the elite few, chosen to be the new seed for prefall humanity) and at the same time be outsiders with point of view similiar to ours.
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Wed, 2017-03-15 14:04
#26
MDFification
Regarding the fate of the
Regarding the fate of the British & Dutch, IIRC there's some evidence that there *might* still be significant populations of them on Earth. Namely, despite all of Europe having frozen over the North Sea still managed to flood the Netherlands, and long-range scans have revealed what *might* be underwater habitats in what used to be the Low Countries. If there are in fact transhuman survivors down there (which is up to the GM) the isolation they've been in since the fall could mean they're anything from a bunch of inventive English deep-sea fishermen to a full-blown continuity government of the Netherlands royally pissed off that the Consortium deliberately abandoned them to the TITANs. Or they're exsurgents, or there's nothing, or it's an easter egg left by the programmers of the simulation we're living in and its just bunkers full of Geert Wilders clones, who knows.
Off-Earth, the LLA is probably the best bet for transhumans who still cling to their cultural identity rather than succumb to the 'the history is dead, forget everything tangentially related to the Earth and pretend the Fall happened centuries ago instead of one measly decade' memetics that the majority of the system adheres to. There might even be surviving or recreated institutions specific to whichever cultures you want to focus on in some of the near-Earth orbit habs - for example, there's a canonical Israeli goverment-in-exile. Second best bet would be enclaves in the Jovian Republic and Brinker habs, although those communities would likely be smaller and less accessible to the majority of PCs.
Outside of what I've mentioned though, most polities (or distinct-groups-who-insist-they're-not-a-polity) are, intentionally or not, undergoing a process of erasing or radically transforming old cultural identities. That's on top of an undisclosed amount of time between the present day and the fall (implied to be a century or more, or less, or who knows) in which cultures followed their own distinct evolution with regards to radical shifts in their environments, economics, politics and technologies. The past is a foreign country, and 'modern' transhumanity is more foreign to us IRL than any currently discovered human society, regardless of which society you belong to.
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