While it is a movie and not a TV show, I thought that the movie The Prestige did an excellent job of exploring one concept which relates to this game. Other then that it's not really transhumanist. What follows is a spoiler, don't read it if you plan on seeing the movie. It's a story about a magician who desires about all else to have the adoration of the crowd. His obsession is so deep that it drives him to go speak to Nicola Tesla and convince him to build him a machine that will allow him to perform the ultimate magic trick, teleportation. The problem is, it doesn't teleport... it copies. It makes a copy of anyone or anything standing in a certain place, and makes a copy elsewhere. In order to make the trick work, he drops the man standing in front of the crowd into a tank of water, where he drowns, but another magician appears elsewhere and takes a bow to an impressed audience. If you think about it, this really encapsulates what is going on with egocasting. What they are doing is making an exact copy of someone's brain and sending it elsewhere, and erasing the original. That's certainly how the Jovians would look at it anyway. People try to convince themselves they are making a great leap through space, but some would say it's more like a form of suicide.

For me, Book of Bantorra is much more inspiring for Mage than EP for me, as inspiration, I'd say Armitage III and Armitage: Dual Matrix, Bubblegum Crisis 2040, Zone of the Enders, Jyu Oh Sei

one that didn't last long: My own worst enemy. Hard to put into an EP game but essentially two disparate egos in the same morph who have a problem with random changes in control. Eureka does handle some concepts about how humanity deals with super-science but isn't very H+ most of the time. Read or Die has some background items that are H+ like the resurrection of people who were previously famous for their achievements and what they are capable of when they are given free reign of modern/H+ level technology. I could certianly see an intresting EP game where the players are all cloned and sleeved famous people from the 20th century.

killj0y wrote:

I could certianly see an intresting EP game where the players are all cloned and sleeved famous people from the 20th century.

Maybe someone reconstructed few celebrities? Imagine taking all data and footage from a celebrity (and some may have left a lot) and using it to program an AGI. The result might not believe it is the original, but would be acting similarly and have the same mannerisms. For a fictional example, see the Keats cybrid in Simmon's Hyperion novels. During the Fall the Britney, Hitler or Obama simuloids end up abandoned and have to fend for themselves. The players find a habitat inhabited by multiple copies of them, forming a very odd society.

The Doctor wrote:

Or AGIs of fictional characters, for that matter. I have been resisting posting my writeup of Spider Jerusalem as an EP character to keep my players from seeing it too early.

I think it's more likely that those fictional characters will be portrayed by narrow AI scripted to act correctly. May we be so lucky to never know how the fans would react if those characters were portrayed by an AGI who could develop a unique personality all its own and deviate from how they want the story to unfold. :D

Decivre wrote:

The Doctor wrote:

Or AGIs of fictional characters, for that matter. I have been resisting posting my writeup of Spider Jerusalem as an EP character to keep my players from seeing it too early.

I think it's more likely that those fictional characters will be portrayed by narrow AI scripted to act correctly. May we be so lucky to never know how the fans would react if those characters were portrayed by an AGI who could develop a unique personality all its own and deviate from how they want the story to unfold. :D

I dunno. It's probably entirely possible to train an AGI to act and reason in a similar fashion to that of a fictional character; just run it through the source material as input into its optimization routine, delete the data it has about the past, and then repeat until the decisions it makes and the words it speaks are the same as those made by the original character.

nick012000 wrote:

I dunno. It's probably entirely possible to train an AGI to act and reason in a similar fashion to that of a fictional character; just run it through the source material as input into its optimization routine, delete the data it has about the past, and then repeat until the decisions it makes and the words it speaks are the same as those made by the original character.

Yet an AGI can still develop in ways that the director or fanbase do not want. Think about The Truman Show, where a child was raised for the purpose of being the star of a TV show. He eventually rebelled, and the show was ruined because of it. This potential may very well exist with an AGI, but is far less likely for a narrow AI... who's very functions can be restricted to acting the part, and has no chance of developing in an unexpected way.