Eclipse Phase: Operation Splinter This is a Firewall campaign with a couple tweaks. 1. Hard SF: There are no Pandora Gates, no QE communication and no psi. 2. Forked Campaign: You will play (as least) two forks of your PC ego. Your original fork is a Firewall sentinel in the solar system, as per the default campaign. The other is a Firewall sentinel infiltrating the Athena Project, an interstellar colonization mission to Poseidon, an exoplanet in the Lambda Serpentis system just less than 40 light-years from Sol. Game sessions will alternate between the two forks. The Athena Project and Operation Splinter The Athena Project was conceived by an influential network of argonauts in the years immediately after the Fall. The project objective is to send an unmanned lighthugger to Lambda Serpentis, a solar-analog where an Earth-like planet has been identified. The AGI-piloted ship’s limited payload will include (highly-classified) self-replicating nanotechnology and approximately 10,000 carefully chosen forked ego uploads. When the Athena reaches its destination, nanofabricators will assemble vehicles, robots, modular habitats, morphs and other critical equipment to support the colonists in building and sustaining a permanent transhuman presence on Poseidon. Because the lighthugger will travel at an average velocity of .1c, the voyage from Sol to Lambda Serpentis will take about 400 years. The digitally stored egos of the colonists, of course, will not experience this passage of time. The subjective experience of every colonist who wakes up on the alien world will be that it is 10 AF, “the day after” they were uploaded. The Athena Project is a special priority of the backups within Firewall, though it is of at least some interest to most of the network. As such, the organization arranged to place an unknown (to you) number of servers, cells and sentinels within the colonization team. You are one of that number, a critical asset in the Firewall operation codenamed Splinter. About Me: I coauthored the Blue Planet RPG and developed the Blue Planet v2 line during its tenure at Fantasy Flight Games. I’ve been playing and GMing roleplaying games for 35 years, though this will be my first time running an Eclipse Phase game. It’s very similar in approach to BP, so I don’t anticipate any problems. Apart from the presumably universal goal of supporting a fun experience for everyone, my priorities as a GM are world-building, simulation and exploration/investigation. That is, I emphasize creating cool places, people, things and events, exposing the PCs to them, and then sitting back to see what the players will do. About the Campaign: The campaign has a couple main themes: • An Eclipse Phase/Blue Planet Crossover: Really, the only thing we’ll use from BP is Poseidon, but this richly detailed, scientifically sound alien waterworld has always been BP’s strength. Otherwise, we’ll use the default setting, history, factions, rules, tech, etc., from EP, with the hard-SF exceptions noted above. • An Exploration of Forking: I mean, a pretty radical exploration of forking with dramatic separation in space and time. You’re not just going to play two versions of your character; one will be in the Solar System in AF 10 and the other will be on an alien planet 40 light-years away in AF 410. As the game moves back and forth from one setting to the next, you as a player will of course know what both forks are experiencing, but your character(s) won’t. And because of the vast gulf of time and space between them, the probability that they ever will is exceptionally low. Because the environments in which they live and the challenges and opportunities they face are so different, the forks’ inevitable divergence through character advancement will be compelling and thought-provoking (and/or unsettling). Every game session, the PC forks will have fewer shared experiences, memories, goals, dreams, relationships, regrets, skills, achievements and setbacks. At what point can we no longer say they are the same person? The game will be played weekly, Tuesdays at 9:00 pm Eastern, roughly four-hour sessions, and we’ll use Roll20 and Skype. Here are the requirements if you want to apply: 1. You must be able to commit to the game long-term at the agreed upon time. Your PC’s forked ego might have some continuity issues to work through, but I don’t want our game to suffer the same fate. Apply only if you are ready, willing and able to show up on time and play every week. 2. You must have reliable access to Roll20 and Skype, with a decent computer and microphone. 3. You must post a response indicating your interest. In it, tell me about yourself – who you are, what you do, what games you’ve played and enjoyed, etc. – and also a brief description of the character you’d like to play. Honestly, I’m more interested in you than your character at this stage. As far your character goes, we can work with a wide range of concepts, but try to come up with a skill set that will make you a valuable and productive member of an exosolar colonization effort. Firewall will make sure you’re inserted into the Athena Project, but try to make it easy on them. Link to Roll20 listing: https://app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/27774/eclipse-phase-operation-splinter