So, there was a question open on the Facebook wall about children in EP, and with so few data provided by the game on this issue I thought it would interesting to open a discussion about that in here.
First, as "ways to have offspring":
Mars: it's been mentioned that, if you have ownership of your morphs DNA or pay a reproduction license, you can have a child the old way humanity was using thousands of years ago.
Infomorphs: I think I read somewhere that Infomorphs can exchange code and produce a third, mixed infomorph, kinda like how bacteria get together sometimes to mix DNA (but the 2 bacterias would end being 3 clones, while the Infomorphs should end being 3 different egos).
Forking: grab a backup of yourself years ago, effectively a child. This has been mentioned for really old Oligarchs...
Somehow produce a child ego, slap it into an accelerated simulspace: done by Cognite, say hello to the Lost Generation.
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So, about having children "the old way", it was mentioned how having high-end morphs from birth, even with most implants "growing", would surely change the child's ego (it's not the same for us to gain more senses, for example, than for an ego growing up inside a Remade morph to be forced to be sleeved into a splicer).
Anyway, this is the idea here, discuss about how children would show up, grow up and fare in AF10. Yes, it is true that there are millions of egos in cold storage, and that aside from oligarchs and barsoomians is hard to think about that, but...
The most important part of this is, "how does an ego comes to be?" Because if you programm it, how is that child different from an AGI?
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Transhumanity offspring on AF10
Sun, 2018-01-28 05:11
#1
Xagroth
Transhumanity offspring on AF10
Sun, 2018-01-28 20:37
#2
DivineWrath
Even if biomorphs are
Even if biomorphs are compatible with each other, I believe most children would be made using an exowomb. Few people except bioconservatives would want or need natural births any more.
I think there is value of having children in AF 10. Most people alive (or in cold storage) would have psychological scars from before the fall. Children would be one way to renew society. New children to be born in an age where transhumanity has no homeworld, mostly in space or on planets not yet tamed, to grow up an up in an age where most things can be made by nanofabricators.
Another consideration is, if people stopped having children, how would they start that up again? Being the only child of a generation (or several) would probably suck. No friends or the like. Parents and even the community might try to make some ALI friends, but that might only create a strange kind of introvert who can carry all their social needs in their head.
Mon, 2018-01-29 06:37
#3
Xagroth
Well, the exowombs are a
Well, the exowombs are a possibility (very likely in certain societies, unlikely when it comes to Barsoomians and low-income prospective parents, but yeah, morph compatibility needs to be taken into account; and very unlikely among the Jovians).
Having children always have value, they are "born with the times" instead of "adapting to the times". It has advantages (more intuitive use of tech) and disadvantages (trauma inflicted for not having the Ectos or the Muse at hand!), but to progress a degree of reproduction is needed.
However, I'd say that until all Infugees are reinstanced the EP society will be "frozen" to a degree, since there will be a constant influx of people with the mindset of AF0 + a few years of indenture. Tech might advance, new AGIs and Uplifts can be instanced, but transhumanity as a whole will be dragged down constantly by those"new-old" additions.
Mon, 2018-01-29 15:22
#4
Baribal
Aside from whatever rational
Aside from whatever rational reasons people may come up with for having children, it should not be forgotten that even after developing resleeving, and suffering through the Fall, transhumans are still humans at their core. Wanting to make children is not an uncommon urge, even in the absence of a rational basis.
As for the "how", exowomb and endowomb seem to cover all the possibilities of the biological route, and other approaches start to stretch the notion of "having children" rather heavily. As for the "merging infomorphs" bit, I'd like to see a source for that, 'cause from the general vibe that psychosurgery has given me in EP, that sounds like it should end up with a rather deeply disturbed person; Also, isn't that Goya machine territory?
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Morgan's Butchery | Body bank, morph individualization and upgrades | Psychotherapy and Psychosurgery, therapeutic and recreational | http://eclipsephase.com/comment/59484#comment-59484
Tue, 2018-01-30 03:19
#5
Xagroth
Baribal wrote: As for the
I mentioned it mostly because of Ghost it the Shell, and I was thinking more along the lines of base code merging, not full personality (regardless, I doubt it's widely used, if at all).
So we have cloning (alpha fork), merging (ADN, exo or endowomb), creation (digital), and uplifting (I assume the Uplifts don't "spawn" fully developed, but as "children").
No talk about how it would be for a developing ego to grow into a superhuman sleeve? We know part of the consequences of being raised in a different environment (AGIs, mostly, since The Lost had trouble with the Watts-McLeod infection rather than the simulspace...), and I think those have been donwplayed (just kinesis incompatibility and "real world Naiveté", with the "double cost for social active skills" being tied to the type of AGI).
Tue, 2018-01-30 12:02
#6
CordialUltimate2
I will source this excellent
I will source this excellent blog with a relevant entry on growing up in superhuman morphs.
http://www.seedwareblog.com/2015/03/90-agoge.html
And for those that don't know it:
http://ayearineclipse.blogspot.com
—
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Thu, 2018-02-01 17:00
#7
DivineWrath
Xagroth wrote:I mentioned it
From what I recall, the protagonist gained the ability to become an infomorph. Nothing all that extraordinary in Eclipse Phase.
In terms of exchanging code, there is addons, plugins, and eidolons. If there is no copy protection, people can share with their hearts content. Some people have even gone so far as to incorporate some of these software into their egos so they have it when they sleeve into a biomorph.
Could you explain the second one? I didn't quite get what you said there.
The way I would list the reproduction options is: natural, exowomb, forking, AGIs, and uplifting.
Fri, 2018-02-02 02:25
#8
Xagroth
DivineWrath wrote:Xagroth
No, Kusanagi fully merges with the rests of the puppeteer at the end of Ghost in the Shell, however there are discrepancies between the manga, the movie, and the reshoots (Shirow is a fan of self-recylcing the situations). On the manga, she uses her body as a decoy with dummy brain matter and remote programs so people think of her as dead, while having her brain inside a portable tank with simulation software (wo she won't get mad with "brain with no body" SANity loss so common in CoC's braincases), and while Batou finds a replacement body the puppeteer merges with her (and we don't get to see the changed Kusanagi, IF she really changes).
In the original anime movie she merges with a vapour, more or less, of the puppeteer, more akin to swallowing his digital remains.
As for the Infomorph state, it is never shown or even stated, and subsequent mangas suggest she just got multitasking skills far over what anything could achieve. I think that your mention to infomorph state refers to her "diving" sequences, where we see her as a person while everything else are just icons... I'd bet it's just bandwith saving: like tuning down resolution to bare minimuns to save microseconds of connection, but her "avatar" is not represented in the net (she sees herself in first person while net diving), I'd say that if we were to say her diving from another character's PoV she'd also be an icon, while that character would be fully shown.
Merging (ADN, exo/endowomb): I refer to gene splicing from ADN donors. What we use atm is ADN mix endowomb: a man and a woman merge their ADN (in EP it's been done with several ADN donors, but I struggle to see a practical advantage from this), and the woman takes the baby to term (endowomb, or "internal" womb).
In EP you have the option of using an exowomb (external womb) to carry the pregnancy instead of the mother, so... (and I won't enter into gender definition. gives birth == mother. Yes, in the Junior movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be the "mother". For simplicity's sake, yeah I'm aware of the sea horses).
Sat, 2018-02-03 09:37
#9
o11o1
what is ADN?
what is ADN?
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A slight smell of ions....
Mon, 2018-02-05 03:13
#10
Xagroth
o11o1 wrote:what is ADN?
A mistake with the soup letter... it's DNA in english, I was using the spanish acronym ^^U
Incidentally, I hope the Ultimates get a review/expansion... that bit about "gene supremacy" is a little... strange, when you can change to a body with designer genes, and while explanations can be found, it can be confusing for newcomers.
Tue, 2018-02-06 23:37
#11
ORCACommander
incidentally with the biotech
incidentally with the biotech available in ep, you just need gene stock. you don't biologically need parents. you can just grow a generation to 9 months and have them taken care of communally. basically the lost generation but without the shortcut
Wed, 2018-02-07 01:27
#12
DivineWrath
My impression, or my
My impression, or my assumption, is that when two individuals in splicers decide to have a child, they hire the services of a hypercorp (or some equivalent). Being good parents, they opt to give their child a better morph then they have, such as an exalt. They may donate their genes to affect the appearance of the child or maybe they select some celebrity template to give their child good looks or distinct appearance. They then opt to grow the child in an exowomb, as neither wants to be terribly troubled by the experience of pregnancy.
Once the child is born, the parents might hire the services of a nanny (possibly an AI) or give their servitor new duties. They take care of the messy business and contacts the parents when important events happens, such as when the child takes their first steps or speaks their first words.
At least, that what I think would be normal. I don't think the books have gone into much detail about child raising. I'm making educated guesses based upon what I know is available in the setting, and factoring in that Eclipse Phase takes place in the far future (possibly a century or more).
Wed, 2018-02-07 03:36
#13
Xagroth
DivineWrath wrote:My
So Solarian! Maybe there is live in the future aside from Asimov's idea? XD
There is a morph designed to act as a nanny (Aya biomorph... or pod, can't remember right now) and I think one of the stories in the "novel" had a Firewall agent infiltrated as a nanny for an oligarch's baby.
What I'm most interested on is, essentially, how a non-AGI ego comes to sentience, frankly, which is a complicated issue I'm not surprised was left out because it's pure guesswork.
I also think, btw, that family has less to do with "blood" than with relationships. Tons of orphans after the Fall, after all.
Wed, 2018-02-07 21:57
#14
DivineWrath
Solarian? Asimov's idea?
Solarian? Asimov's idea?
Anyways, it seems that I pretty much wrote a hypercorp propaganda ad in my previous post.
I wonder if there has been any other efforts to try to raise children in synthmorphs or infomorphs. Everyone has heard the tales of the lost generation. There doesn't appear to be any other efforts to raise children in exotic ways. The lost generation may have caused a lot of taboo in non-traditional fields, but it took at least 3 years before it was completed. There could have been other attempts to raise children in exotic ways.
Thu, 2018-02-08 02:58
#15
Xagroth
DivineWrath wrote: They then
This was the norm in Solaria, the last of the first 50 colonies settled by humanity in the Foundation universe written by Isaac Asimov. The Solarians had the whole planet for less people that you would find in a rural town, and during the books where we thread its soil there are several taboos there, ingrained by the extreme space available... essentially, even husband and wife would almost never meet in person, and robot retainers (with the famous Three Laws) were ubiquitous.
Fastforward to the last Foundation books, where Daneel Olivaw makes the last appearance on Earth's Moon, and a Solarian is an hermaphroditic being that self-clones once in its lifetime, leaving the baby to the care of robots for its entire life, with no physical contact whatsoever.
Back to EP, I'd say that leaving the children to be cared by retainers (sleeved human egos in high-end biomorphs) is what the hyperelite does, while the rank and file of Transhumanity goes the old fashioned way, with some particulars getting help from robotic retainers because their work is both on isolated places and time-demanding.