that last one idea is truly horrific! I love it! though I think that there are cities like Ergo Proxy's, with supergenius GI leading, and with humans and robot living under a dome, herded by human and robotic agent oblivious of what had really happened ten years ago

King Shere wrote:

[b][u]The solitary skyscraper[/b][/u]

This has great potential. There is no obvious reason why it was spared or if it will be safe in the future. The remaining nasties could turn against it any moment, but so far it has not happened. It just stands there, an incongruous oasis of apparent safety surrounded by total devastation. The inhabitants have grown so used to the situation that they hardly worry any more. Their whole world is inside the building and anything reminding them of the outside is threatening and should be avoided or ejected - they do not want to rock the boat. I guess exactly how much the landscape has been changed depends on how much energy TITAN nanomachines could get - digging through the crust takes a lot of energy, and sunlight is not that dense (the chemical bonds of the crust contain about 10^29 J, rearranging them is going to take a least a fraction of that huge energy). But even if they did not go for dismantling the planet completely it is enough to set off a few flood basalts to make it a very nasty place. Imagine a huge lava lake, releasing massive amounts of sulphuric gases and toxic dust. Lava slowly melts through nearby landscape, making its way outward. Right in the middle an enormous structure resides, extending white-hot spires kilometres into the sky where hurricane-strength winds and a permanent volcanic thunderstorm cools them. The large part of the structure is under the lava, extending roots into the magma chamber to do whatever it is doing. Maybe it is a functional TITAN energy collector, maybe it is an overgrown remnant of the weapon that broke open the hotspot. In another place still functional (?) TITAN nodes extend into the sea near a coastline, their cooling boiling the water and creating a permanent rainstorm inland. Which incidentally provides moisture and cover, allowing a small tribe of survivors to exploit the node defences to protect them from other nasties: as long as they are no threats the defences will not strike. So they hide among the alien datacenters in the perpetual rain, growing meager crops and catching boiled fish. They do not speak of how the presence of the computing seems to intrude into their subconscious, almost as if their brains are slowly turning into resonators for the processing nodes.

Some people care, though I dont -unless GM alterations cause the story to suffer & then game becomes radically different. Even then its rare that I (or most people that I have played with) dislike canon off-rail alterations. I consider Personal touches something of good. @extra solar angel -regarding canon & artifical wilderness. Page 82, reclaimers. "the reclaimers are suspected of sponsoring perilous and high risk ventures onto the planets surface to gather scientific data or event to establish terraforming colonies. page 90 "Earth’s once-populous urban regions are massive sprawls ruined by war and heavy weather, infested with dangerous artificial life" "The pattern of life on earth, and the very face of the planet have been irrevocably rewritten". Doesn't this indicate presence of artificial, transformation & reforested/replanting of "wilderness". Or leave such doors open. [b]Lost contact[/b] Sentinels are asked to Inspect the (suicidal) reclaimers terraforming project's base at a Earth location- it has doesnt respond to hails". GM can rip the plot from that famous movie about another terraforming colony in dire straits. ... A text have often ambiguity; so its natural that even when reading "canon law", its readers read it different.

Extrasolar Angel wrote:

"Who cares about the official book?" Well I would believe most people care since the book defines the frames of the setting. There is nothing wrong with pursuing an interesting setting on your own, but making radical changes makes communication with other users of the setting difficult or impossible as your world will diverge completely from what is established cannon.

Sure. But how essential is it for the setting if there is a thriving bartertown and pristine wilderness down on Earth, or just a lethal smog of evolving nanomachines? I was (and am) a great fan of White Wolf's Mage: the Ascension. The philosophical and gaming possibilities were amazing. The second edition introduced some improvements in game system, but also a lot of assumptions about reality and magic that were unsuitable for the games I was running - basically it was backtracking from the strongly subjective position of the first edition. The third edition was mired not just in a metaplot I had no use for, but also went even further into a shallow realist view. During this time I was putting plenty of material on-line, not caring a whit whether it fit with the official version of the game. The feedback I got also suggested that people found it useful or interesting, despite the ever wider divergence from the "official" universe. Players of roleplaying games are not just passive recipients of sourcebooks, but active co-creators who select source material from different sources to create something new. Eclipse Phase is impressive in this regard by its explicit acknowledgement of this aspect of the hobby through the creative commons licence. It would seem odd if we could not allow ourselves to diverge in our interpretations of source material if we are allowed to translate it into Chinese.

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But having Earth completely eaten up by AI's that are in essence invincible, its crust changed into something different is a very radical change, and from point of view that I have, rather limiting. By doing so you cut many interesting prospects for adventures, factions, and political groups.

Fine. Don't use that. I am not using the fairly intact Earth. I am also not using the ETI except as the origin of the Pandora Gates (that incidentally do not work as described so far in EP), the exsurgent virus is of a completely different origin and various aspects of the history and economy works differently from the source material. I will no doubt discard plenty of things from other source material as it appears, just because I find it limiting or inconsistent with what I think. When selecting what exists in a setting it is a good idea to not only maximize possibilities but also add consistency and themes. The old World of Darkness games suffered because there was too many possibilities within the canon: there were vampires, were-anythings, mages, faeries, wraiths, mummies etc. and all possible mixtures and interactions - yes, any combination that struck your fancy could be used, but it also meant that everything felt a bit arbitrary and the sense of mystery disappeared. When creating a setting it might be good to have a lot of options for what could exist. But when gamemastering a setting the possibilities have to be cut down to a few, otherwise things just get silly. For example, Since the mood of my actual gaming sessions tend to be pretty light I prefer to have a very dark backdrop to balance it. I like having my transcendent threats planet-killingly *lethal* rather than mere big monsters - the mission of Firewall becomes much more desperate and urgent, and I like having some real tragedies in the setting. Having an almost totally off-limits Earth is much more chilling than a merely ravaged place. In my setting Reclaimers are radical dreamers or dangerous visionaries, and treasure hunters (and their customers) are downright crazy. The Moon colonies are literally overlooking a giant graveyard and cannot turn away. Getting back to the subject of the thread: the confusion about survivors and conditions is real. Different groups get wildly different estimates, no doubt biased by their agendas. But there are also systems down there that mess up measurements or even project illusions - that rainforest in Laos might actually be a nanoconstruct just waiting for a few juicy rescue teams. Worse, some Firewall analysts are now suspecting that there is an ongoing disinformation campaign going on in the solar system about the state of the Earth - one or more groups are very keen on keeping people guessing. What better way of preventing large-scale sterilization attempts than to hint at a few survivors, yet ensure people are uncertain enough that no consensus for any particular action can form. Meanwhile the hidden spore launchers and lysis devices are growing, awaiting the go signal...

I think they were all pretty fair about stating that those were their own personal views of post-Fall Earth and they are also some very interesting ideas, so I certainly don't have a problem with them. On the idea of survivor hold-outs, I recently read an article about the book Blind Descent, which made me think of Earth survivors living in some of the deepest or largest cave complexes on Earth. Of course, I can't really see how they could do this for long without some technological and biological adaptation, since the spelunkers in that book make it pretty clear that it's a very hostile environment for humans.

If you have a cornucopia machine, a disassembler and an energy source you can probably survive in some pretty nasty environments. The spelunkers or mine-dwellers could easily produce physical shelter, but they would likely have serious food shortages (tricky to get enough carbon and nitrogen compounds, unless you manage to build some sort of air fixation device). They also better have access to a good design library or have a good engineer. The big problem would be energy sources: no sunlight, geothermal requires deep piping, fission requires having a reactor and might produce detectable heat emissions. Maintaining the cornucopia machine would also be essential. But given that, hiding in a really deep cave might work as long as it got water and air.

In many countries there exists Speleological Survey organisations for safe exploration, survey and cartography of their countries caves. Its a whole industry supporting spelunkers & cave-divers. The Prefall speleunker industry might have added infrastructure (for safety) in even the deepest caves. Sort of like the climbers established base camps & fixed trails of Mount Everest. Such established supportive sites potential places for refuge hold outs. One emergency bauble (page 332, survival gear) (moderate cost) supporting four people with food, water and air seems to last a long long time (nuclear powered) . Having several such units at a survivor hold out would make many earlier improbable (but secure) places survivable. [b]Pearls on the bottom[/b] During the fall, many "emergency baubles" where used as escape capsules & liferafts. Even when escaping destroyed crafts in space; great majority of them survived reentry. Since earth is covered by roughly 70% sea, many of them sunk & some were built to withstand the expected sea pressure. Equipped with distress beacons. The onlookers, can still "hear" the distress signals scattered & submerged life rafts -though the "voices" become less & less. The emergency beacons was either turn off, or remain on. The remaining Survivors in them hasn't been meet with successful hostile attacks -yet.

Yes I would have the large majority (if not all) of the escape capsules plundered & their crews dead -its been 10 years. However due to active beacons, Schrödinger, wishful relatives & rescue activists -its still believed that escape rafts from the fall contain living survivors. [b]Escape rafts distress beacon.[/b] regular transmitters might have survived despite the rest of its capsule been blown to smithereens -and keep broadcasting emergency calls. Not discounting bait transmitter tactics. Their distress beacon is probably bundled together with a emergency Black Box/Flight recorder & the battery. Likely as a pre-fall battery theft prevention & safety measure.. Battery plunderers would risk painting a big bullseye upon themselves, unless the plundered prize isn't silenced. If its common that life-rafts have nuclear powered batteries- I think they would be hunted, regardless of the risks. [i]"Reconnaissance have picked up beacon transmissions from 50 escape rafts of the model "Munimentum" & they are all in the same spot..." "So its either a large marina of escape rafts, a colony of survivors or its something else down there that has a large quantity of plundered nuclear batteries"[/i]

Decivre wrote:

Personally, I agree with Arenamontanus. You have to remember that the TITAN war machines are intelligent, self-aware, and programmed to hunt us down. I'd find it absolutely ludicrous that they wouldn't be searching for us on Earth in all but the most obscure and difficult-to-access places. They have technology beyond our means, and have had complete control of Earth for a full decade. The fact that there is any humans left upon it is nothing short of a miracle.

Yes & even If/When the Titans & their war-machines - ceased hunting after one year - One year is plenty. I think of damage caused by termites, fungus & microbes when I thinking of minor damages caused by Nanomachines. A one year planetary war with self-replicating nano-machines?=crust of the Earth eaten down outer mantle; if the nano-machines are constructed with silicon. For that not to happen -harvesting crust eating nano-machine hordes was either disrupted, twarted, less keen or wasn't used. Perhaps self-replicating nano-machines was constructed with something else that isn't common in bedrock. Then their desire to use the entire bedrock as feedstuff would be considerable less. Or they were slow & gentle when eating bedrock & the crust. I have read that: One Termite colony; given a year only eats one quarter of a full grown tree. Externally some infested dead trees, still have their identifying features.

King Shere wrote:

@Arenamontanus Thanks for the science dump, how much percentage would be more realistic, given plausible energy & 10 years of time.

I would assume max 1% of total insolation (otherwise the planet would start heating up strongly or there ought to be mentions about how Earth was looking black), producing about 25 meters of nanomachines by AF10. That is of course assuming an even spread: due to different levels of "nutrients" some places would have more or less. Extrasolar Angel points out that it all depends on willingness to devote resources to the project. However, with the kind of technology there is in EP the amount of resources you need in order to launch a replicator that can eat a planet is not terribly big anymore (and this is one reason Firewall is needed!), and TITAN-spawn know of even better methods. It is enough that one of the entities on Earth thinks (for some reason) that the crust ought to be converted into silica goo and the others do not care enough to stop it for it to happen. However, I doubt any crust-eaters have gone unchallenged. More likely there are plenty of replicators and immune systems fighting, adding to the wonderfully toxic environment. Given this I would predict that any survivors would have some form of nanoimmune system that keeps them alive. Maybe one possibility is TITAN-derived medichines: some operatives of whatever agencies launched them were designated important and the TITANs felt or were programmed to keep them alive. That was pretty trivial compared to other tasks, so just tiny subsystems were set on the job. As things got seriously pearshaped these pointless legacy systems were discarded by the main TITANs, but some may have remained functional with their charges. So as the world collapsed around them a few chosen ones were protected by weakly godlike intelligences - not necessarily in the way the people even wanted. Keeping somebody safe can of course involve locking them up, lobotomizing them if they try to escape and upgrading them as needed if the environment changes...

Extrasolar Angel wrote:

Quote:

Where does it say that? And does it say where the urban sprawls are located, or that they exist at the surface?

Page 90 Earth’s once-populous urban regions [b]are massive sprawls[/b] ruined by war and heavy weather, [b]infested with[/b] dangerous artificial life and the [b]occasional survivalist gang[/b] Later page 91 [b]Though the Planetary Consortium claims that no survivors remain on Earth, reclaimer estimates guess that between 20,000 and 100,000 free humans remain.[/b] But that is not all-those numbers are suggested to come from surface. The book also mentions: [b] it is also possible that certain underground and undersea settlements survive.[/b]

Those sprals are described as [b]ruined[/b]. But yes according to the book, occasional survivalist gang do exists. Not necessarily on the scale of the wishful reclaimers [b]guess estimates[/b] (perhaps the reclaimers count active distress beacons -on crafts with long dead crews). Those Survivalist gangs could also be TITAN servitors and no longer human (though once-humans) that also need to survive on the now uninhabitable earth. Planetary consortium will claim that, at least -since according to them there exist no human survivors. Its also possible that the certain underground & undersea settlements [b]didn't survive[/b] -otherwise possible would not have been used to describe that eventuality. [b]In summary.[/b] No mentioning of prosperous survival hold outs, just speculations. Only a few vague things to contradict a GM interpretation that the EP Earth is toxic, uninhabitable & 90% devoid (or more) of its pre-Fall lifeforms, or that its crust is in the process of becoming eaten (or has been eaten) Until Sunward module, perhaps. Despite the bleaker pictures there would be Plenty (if not more) of reasons to send teams down to investigate. For example to verify whether the reclaimers guess estimates have any factual value. @Arenamontanus Thanks for the estimate. Yes - I also think successful survivors; would have something that shields them from nanomachines. An additional eventuality is that they are unexpectedly benefited from rogue saboteurs -perhaps the "gremlins", "gnats" & "rats" you envisioned in another thread.

Extrasolar Angel wrote:

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Those Survivalist gangs could also be TITAN servitors and no longer human (though once-humans) that also need to survive on the now uninhabitable earth

They wouldn't be named as surivior gang then. And actually TITAN servitors are listed with numbers in seperate section.

Sure they can. It is very possible that a large number of the survivors on Earth are infected with the Exsurgent virus, and may only be in the early stages of a slow-progressing strain. This may even be the reason that they go unmolested by the TITAN war machines.

Extrasolar Angel wrote:

Just from briefing, few good hooks, mostly general information, it seems that details about Earth will be in some future sourcebook.

Yep, but that should not be a reason not to go there *now*. I am having far too fun fleshing out the Saturn system to wait for a sourcebook (or rather, I'm ending up making my own mini-sourcebook about the Rings of Saturn). As for other weirdness on Earth: nanosurvivalist monsters. As things got really out of hand, some people ensconed themselves with the best medichines and nanoweapons they could get. That might have held off some nanoweapons, but not things like the exsurgent virus. So they got infected and started to turn into alien monstrosities. But some of them noticed and used an escape trick: they froze themselves. After all, if current tech can't save you, maybe, just maybe, Reclaimers will come and save you. So in a few places in the Antarctic there are survivalists frozen in the ice (or in automated cryochambers). The only problem is that they are infected with nasty exsurgent strains *and* equipped with nanotech implants. So anybody unwise enough to thaw one of them up will get a nasty The Thing experience...

And are you implying that this Randomness is bad? IRL Wilderness, Nature, Disrepair & Decay also looks random & confusing to someone thats unfamiliar & new to it. Explorers can be new and unfamiliar with the sites & sights they find or seek.

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[i]That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.[/i] John A. Locke

Hmm, describing my view of Earth as random is an interesting take. I would rather say "high entropy" rather than random - this is not a patchwork world where anything is possible, but more like a major city after a nuclear war.

Oh, just like me then. When Im GM, I also have been quite lazy & use dice (or cards) to reduce the various workload. Its frequent that I roll dice to determine; weather, ground level topographics. & other story/session "irrelevant" data. But I had conversation with another GM and he used the internet wayback machine at real world suitable spots & a certain year. Then he followed that locations events -weather forecasts & outcome reports. If the players stayed there for a week, he would check that spot week of weather -and use that. Quite ingenious& simplistic, but for me- a bit overambitious.

Thunderwave wrote:

I'm in the "The weather and locale should fit the drama of the story" camp of GMing. It's a lot of work, it's neat, but what if you need a thunderstorm for awesome storytelling, but it was sunny that day?

Do you have the weather "predetermined" or suitable made up on the spot. Cemetaries are always foggy at night or depressingly rainy daytime -sort of thing?

All of you might be very interested to read Sunward. The information they give for Earth is very enjoyable, and makes for a threatening and horrific backdrop for missions and plots. To the weather topic, Earth supposedly has clouds of TITAN nanobots, which actually control the weather by altering their own makeup on the fly (becoming more reflective to freeze over the area below them, or ionizing themselves to create lightning, or carrying water or other molecules about to produce rain of varying sorts, or even swirling the air to produce windstorms and tornadoes). There are other interesting tidbits, like massive TITAN forests, where ecosystems of artificial robotic animals lives amongst fast-growing robotic trees, all of which become hyper-active and hostile whenever an organic presence comes about (the trees do this too). Moscow has been renovated, having massive geometric structures that have been built over the ruins of the once-beautiful Russian city. Weirder still, Mount St. Helens and Hawaii have zero activity... nothing happens there, and we can't even supposedly detect geothermal activity or even regular surface heat in either region. It's almost as if the TITANs (or the servants they left) are using the Earth as a test lab for their technologies, biding their time while they prepare for something perhaps even worse than the Fall.

Decivre wrote:

Personally, I agree with Arenamontanus. You have to remember that the TITAN war machines are intelligent, self-aware, and programmed to hunt us down. I'd find it absolutely ludicrous that they wouldn't be searching for us on Earth in all but the most obscure and difficult-to-access places. They have technology beyond our means, and have had complete control of Earth for a full decade. The fact that there is any humans left upon it is nothing short of a miracle.

Intelligent and sapient... and capable, one might think, of changing their minds. Something I am considering throwing at my players is a TITAN warmech - big, bad, and heavily armed. Still heavily armed.. because it never used its weapons during the Fall. In essence, it would be considered a renegade by the other machines because it did not agree with the TITAN's actions, and thus roams the countryside just like the other survivors. The battle scars were sustained from attacks by other machines. It would definitely be a corner case for such a consciousness to break free, but it would certainly be possible, especially if the players do not gauge its motivations exactly.

JediSoth wrote:

Maybe survivors live in computer-run domed cities. The most prominent of which is called "Alpha Complex." People are vat-grown in clone lots of 6, raised to serve The Computer and ignorant of anything outside, or anything their friend The Computer deems irrelevant. The Computer acts paranoid, encourages the development of secret societies, fosters conspiracies and generally gives citizens conflicting information and instructions as a TITAN experiment to test the limits of the human psyche.

Beat me to it! I had a similer idea today at work, albeit a bit darker. Friend Computer was a control system for a self-sustaining emergency bunker complex for the military-industrial complex. During a TITAN attack the survivors inside the bunker tried to shut down, re-install, and shield the complex and something went wrong. Friend Computer got all garbled up, one part TITAN and one part benevolent control computer. Unfortunitly the back-up tapes where destroyed before history could be fully restored, locking Alpha Complex in the 50's during the height of McCarthyism. TITAN war machines leave the bunker alone. When pinged, it responds with the proper TITAN code even though the computer inside is not a whole convert, but rather a mixed up hybrid. The poor people inside are biological clones of the original survivors, their egos long gone from the initial attack. Friend Computer gave their biology life again in a mixed up attempt to fix what it had broken.

The Doctor wrote:

Intelligent and sapient... and capable, one might think, of changing their minds. Something I am considering throwing at my players is a TITAN warmech - big, bad, and heavily armed. Still heavily armed.. because it never used its weapons during the Fall. In essence, it would be considered a renegade by the other machines because it did not agree with the TITAN's actions, and thus roams the countryside just like the other survivors. The battle scars were sustained from attacks by other machines. It would definitely be a corner case for such a consciousness to break free, but it would certainly be possible, especially if the players do not gauge its motivations exactly.

Perhaps, but that depends on whether and to what degree their minds are being influenced by the exsurgent virus. A strain more similar to the Watts-Macleod virus might allow an infected TITAN war machine to grow a conscience.

CodeBreaker wrote:

Slightly off topic, but does the Core ever actually state how long the Fall took? I imagine it was a fairly lengthy affair, and Sunward seems to hint that it was an actual war instead of an all out blitz on all transhuman kind.

From what I've read, the Fall was probably the tail-end of some longer human conflict that probably took years. The Fall itself, however, was a massive devastating short-term conflict that likely took less than a year to play out (which is why people can set their calendars to it). Because of the technological capabilities of the TITANs, it really doesn't seem all that implausible that they could, with the assistance of humans who are still unable to work together in the face of extinction, wipe out so much of humanity within such a short span of time.