For my game, the LOST were infomorphs and the Futura morphs were developed as another wing of the project. There were multiple stations spread throughout the system; LOST survivors don't ask fellow crazies "Where you are from?" so much as "What server were you on?" I named each server after a pair of famous authors, and each of the Lost characters from that server has the name of one of that author's characters. So, in the Know Evil campaign, Bartelby and his "sister" Alice are from the Melville/Carol server. In my game, I made it canon that the time acceleration was generally under-reported. As sociopathy and psychosis became more prevalent in the population, the admins increasingly depended on server resets to handle the problem. By restoring the whole simulation to the previous back-up, no one remembered the mob of children hanging Qweequeg from the tether ball pole, and so on and so forth. However, reseting the server so many times meant time had to be accelerated further in order to meet developmental benchmarks. This meant the AGI caretakers were further stretched in processing power and less attentive, meaning more violent actions took place, which in turn led to more resets, which accelerated the time table more, thus the AGI were stretched even further and more misbehavior went unaddressed...well, you get the picture. The big mystery in my campaign is how the LOST kids got sleeved. When it happened, Cognite's failure and despicable attempts to cover it up had already been leaked to the mesh. Officials were in route to shut the projects down when the population of the servers got suddenly sleeved into the waiting Futuras, causing massive riots and escapes. In the Know Evil universe, some think the Exsurgent virus did this, figuring humanity had fucked this one up so bad the worst it could do was to let it go. Others believe it was the caretakers, unwilling to see their children deleted or put in cold storage for crimes they were essentially blameless in. The more conspiratorial believe Cognite planned it; if Lost were zooming about the solar system causing problems, the company would have to be allowed to survive at least long enough to take care of the problem. Or it could be any combination of those "Truths;" as is the case in any disaster, there's no one explanation that won't be contradicted by another person's account. I also never make it clear why the LOST are so damn crazy. I treat the Exsurgent infection as a possible cause, but I have other characters view it as a cop-out. As Firewall knows, other transhumans have been infected with Watts-MaCloud without getting a cadre of other mental disorders or becoming serial killers. I suggest that the madness may merely be the result of infomorph-only child-rearing; a childhood without the ability to feel real pain and physical emotions leads to a dangerous lack of empathy in most. I also suggest it might have been the server resets; imperfect deletions could leave junk data in the system, meaning each kid subconsciously felt and perpetrated thousands of atrocities before being resleeved. Or maybe the craziness is merely a lack of understanding on the neglected generations part; if you can kill people and just get a scolding from computer Mom before they are rezzed back in, is playing in their innards really so bad, or just a little harmless mischief? I even introduced crazy caretakers, suggesting that the psychopathy was programmed into the deep structure of the simulspace by project leads convinced transhumanity needed a harder edge to survive the return of the TITANS. Whatever you decide on, I don't suggest coming up with any single explanation and sticking to it. EP is set in post-post-modernism; the nature of reality itself is often highly suspect. Furthermore, it makes the plight of LOST characters that much more tragic. They have horrific memories of their childhood, but those memories may or may not be true. They could be the puppets of AI gods, or leftovers from a transhuman fuckup, or merely by-products of basic human nature accelerated by technology. Or perhaps, all their failings are personal failings and there is no one to blame but themselves. If they are Evil, maybe they were good in one distant instance of the server. If they are Good, maybe they were once monsters. The closest thing to a mother they ever had could have been the programmer that set them free, a good samaritan whose only reward was to have her throat torn out by the other children. It seems that all society hates them, but for different reasons. They hate each other but might not be able to say why. By my reading, LOST characters should live up to their name in every face of the word: lost as to what to do next, their identity, the nature of reality, their origins, etc. The description of the LOST in the book is muddled for the sake of offering the GM discretion, but I think the concept works much better without clarification.

In my opinion, Legacy is likely still in use. It's just a classified location. Think of it as Cognite's Area 51. It's probably even the home base for Project Psiclone.

Cthuluzord wrote:

I also never make it clear why the LOST are so damn crazy. I treat the Exsurgent infection as a possible cause, but I have other characters view it as a cop-out. As Firewall knows, other transhumans have been infected with Watts-MaCloud without getting a cadre of other mental disorders or becoming serial killers.

Lost are only a [i]little bit more crazy[/i] than the usual async. And while that does tend to make them more bent than most characters overall, I tend to work under the assumption that the largest majority of the Lost aren't complete sociopaths at all. Damaged, yes. Unstable, definitely. But there had to have been some that came out as least modestly functional. Otherwise, they make zero sense as a playable character background. For our tables, it has become an unwritten rule among Lost players that we [i]do not talk about what happened during Project Futura[/i]. Mostly because we think the mystery is half the fun, the idea that the events were so traumatic that none can speak about it is an interesting one. Also, it's become a standard trope for any Lost that meet to not get along. Mostly in just not wanting to be around one another, it has only once devolved into Highlander-esque attempted murder (with an NPC). But really, the Lost are what you make of them. They are intended to be the most recent conspiracy theory concept, built to have plenty of blanks for you to fill, if you even want to fill them at all.

Decivre wrote:

I doubt they were killed in that sense. They don't have vital processes, as everything is simulated. Rather, it seems like once a "murder" occurred within the simulspace, they were restored from a backup of their mind to erase all memories of the event. To be fair, I think they did the same to the murderers in question, and likely put them through therapy immediately afterwards.

And for all the good intentions the scientists probably had, this would have given the Lost more problems. [I]Dear diary, I woke up this morning like a normal day, same as every day. I got up, ate breakfast, ran into Jack and we made plans to do something after class. Suddenly I'm waking up in bed again, I've lost three days and Jack and I are being called to see the therapists.[/I] [I]What the hell is happening to me? To us?[/I]