SquireNed wrote:

Big changes I've seen so far (I'm about 140 pages in) mostly have to do with the exsurgent virus being much more common knowledge.

Hi! Care to elaborate a little more? I mean, more or less the level and detail, since it's not the same thing if only key personnel in organizations knows about it, if only a few know how to mitigate its assaults, or if everyone knows it exists and can hack you in a moment without you noticing anything... That last possibility points to a lot more isolated survivalists, I think, than in 1st Ed.

Ah, I see. I find interesting, however, that we went up from 90% of humanity to 95% in casualties... Maybe they adjusted for overpopulation?

People are going to... people- uhh repopulate. When crap like 95% of the their known species is dead, or taken. So yeah noticably- the millions(?) in cold storage will have to wait. Which is an interesting plot development. I mean having children in EP is simple, though keeping them alive, and grown to maturity is still difficult. But bodies take up space, and bodies were the reason that there are still million s in cold stoage. (That and hypercorp imposed debt.).

I've noticed quite a few changes, many of which I like. [list=1][*]Big one for me is the reconfiguration of the Ultimates. Instead of having the subfactions, the former Overhumanists have become the entirety of the faction, while a new offshoot faction called Shugyōsha now exists for those who identified with the Iconists or like the Ultimates' ascetic philosophies but not their fascist views. [*]Psi got quite a bit of changes. Watts-Macleod sub-strains exist, you cannot use psi while sleeved in a pod anymore, and morph fever is no longer a thing. [*]Eco-wave no longer exists. X-rep took their spot as the 7th rep network in the core book. [*]There is a greater amount of tension in the new setting. The old setting set 10 AF in a state of relative political stability. The new setting is more like a cold war, with tensions hot and conflict happening as late as the very year the game sets off in. [*]There is now a stigma around the use of basic needs nanofabrication in the inner system, so people who are just getting by on feedstock food and clothing are shunned as the poor are today, even if they don't look like the poor of today. [*]People in the inner system are no longer usually contracted to a single business all the time like they were in the first edition. The new edition explains that temp contracts that last perhaps a few hours exist to get wages, so it's likely common for people to switch jobs constantly. [*]Reproduction is now a thing that happens, and is pretty common. Biomods now have at-will contraceptives. [*]Adding to the last point, there is now a stigma about AGI having sex or being in biomorph bodies. [*]"Mercurial" is, in many ways, now treated similarly to how the word "trans" is today. In that it is both a broad label used to refer to AGIs and Uplifts and a political label for a movement focused on their civil rights. [*]While Sava, Berk and Pivo along with other characters have returned, their situations have changed somewhat.[/list] Also, much of the expanded flavor they added in later texts to existing factions has been better blended into the new setting. It feels less like an alteration to old text and more like it was already there. Thanks for the heads up on psi, branford. Clearly I haven't finished the book yet.

Shugyōsha sounds to me like the "Musha Shugyo" or "warrior's peregrination"... In Legend of the Five Rings it was a way to play a Ronin without being one (a Samurai with permission from his master to travel around and improve in the Way of the Warrior). In fact, Wikipedia describes a Shugyōsha as a Samurai who roams the land practicing and honoring his skills without protection from family or school... and are equated to occidental "errant knights"...