Hello, I apologize in advance for the esoteric nature of this post because it's as much a metagaming concern than it is an in-setting concern. As a gamemaster and writer I always try to make my player/reader's experience with the most verisimilitude possible. Details, scents, feelings and touch can transform a description from something flat and very machinal to something engaging and thought provoking. This is one of my basic conceits. I would much rather know what it feels like to have 4 Gs pressing down on my chest and be able to convey it to my players/readers than to know how many newtons of Delta V I need to get to 4 Gs in the first place. So that's the first authenticity I wish to talk about. The setting of Eclipse Phase is already very far flung and about things we understand in very abstract terms but to live them and *BE* them, to describe them in terms that we can understand therein lies some challenges facing Eclipse Phase game masters. I would like to know how you see or how you make your players experience things like re-integrating a fork, dealing with having no heartbeat as a synth..things like that. So that's it for the first part. The second part is actually about the importance of Authenticity itself IN the setting. This morning I was watching this very interesting talk on TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want.html And my mind just cross referenced it to the world of Eclipse Phase. The desire for authenticity as a driving consumer force would explain a lot of things including the insistence on biomophs as a superior alternative to synths and more to the point the bias against the case bodies and clanking masses. In my view people in the eclipse phase world would perhaps see the case and synth bodies as "fakes" making it easy to objectify the ego within. This would explain a large part of why these is such bias against synths and pods. Another side effect of this search for authenticity is the rise of XP as the primary means of entertainment. There a common basis between XP and in a way reality television, it's all about having first hand experience about something someone else has lived. A sort of voyeurism mixed with a shared consciousness because that same experience can have been a bonding agent for huge swathes of people. A third way for this authenticity to manifest itself is through earth artifacts. Elitism has always been a mixture of exclusivity and superiority: "I have something you don't and I have the only available copy, because of this I am unique". The Hyperelite are especially fond of this. But this authenticity also applies to items and trinkets. It's not a representation of the Mona Lisa in holographic format it IS the Mona Lisa. Hence authenticity has value not because of it's superiority but it's scarcity. This is even more true in a universe where cloning and mass produced bodies and goods make people even more cookie cutter than the one we live in today. This brings me to the conclusion that customization is going to be a huge part of individuality. Reconstructive surgery, body art, customized morphs, clothing, obvious cybernetic or bioware implants, unique eye or skin colors all of these things are going to be the key to setting yourself apart from other.