One of my players had for a time not decided upon the details of his Muse and hence, played without one. After several adventures and the [abbr=Player Characters]PCs[/abbr] getting familiar with each other in the story arc, his PC asked Peter, my character, if he would be willing to provide this PC with a Fork of Peter for employment as a Muse.
I myself was very pleased upon hearing this, because we as a group have agreed upon using the alternate Muse rule, according to which each player roleplays the other's Muse for extra group bonding.
Of course there are some... impediments to executing his idea. After having gained knowledge about the [abbr=Different Ego Merging]DEM[/abbr] procedure, my character insists that the Fork will be merged with a Fork of the PC's Ego, in order to enhance the Fork's functioning as a Muse.
This brings up the question of how one could best portray the merger of two different Egos. And how one can be of assistance to the hapless fellow who has to play him and me slapped together, because of already existing Muse ties.
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Role-playing a Succesful Different Ego Merger
Fri, 2016-07-22 08:50
#1
Marijn
Role-playing a Succesful Different Ego Merger
Fri, 2016-07-22 10:25
#2
ORCACommander
I defiently think that
I defiently think that despite the rolls it should not be a perfectly merge. the new muse will need some rather odd foibles and eccentricities. Further if this muse is meant to be an alpha grade ego and not just the enhanced AI that a muse brings will require a gear upgrade to the ghost rider module.
Fri, 2016-07-22 10:51
#3
Marijn
Re: Role-playing a Successful Different Ego Merge
I want to thank you for your reply.
As stated in the rules, the resultant Ego will come with a plethora of trait and statistical changes, both positive and negative. So I shall surely incorporate that.
But I doubt modifications to a ghost rider module, in order to accommodate the resultant Ego will be necessary, as the size of the Ego will not change by the merger. The different(, emulated) synapses of the Ego will be overlaid, left alone, changed in strength, created newly or even erased in their entirety, but the amount of neurons won't be increased significantly.
Therefore one can assert that one can also upload the resultant Ego to their mesh inserts as their Muse.
The thing that is bothering me the most, is that once one gets rid of the Mental Disorder ([abbr=Multiple Personalities]Disassociative Personality[/abbr]) Trait, it gets incredibly difficult to predict how the resultant Ego will behave from that moment onwards, ergo making it difficult to role-play properly.
Here is a link with more information about merging. The part about DEM is at the bottom of the article. [url=https://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/User%27s+Guide+To+Forks]User's guide to Forks[/url]
Sun, 2016-07-24 13:31
#4
jackgraham
The roleplay part is way more
The roleplay part is way more complex than the mechs, and the mechs may feel a little arbitrary once you get into what's really going on with ego merging. (Disclaimer: YMMV, depending upon whose theories of mind you subscribe to).
Your personality and memories both rely in part on the strength of the connections between different neurons in your brain. Memory is associative, and there are clusters of associations. A smell or taste might remind you of a time in your past. The way someone behaves toward you in the present might involuntarily trigger associations with how others treated you in the past. What you plan and work for is driven by past positive and negative reinforcements. Et cetera.
So the quirks and downright disorders that stem from merging egos result in part from discord between the different egos' network of strong and weak associations. Say for example you love pickles because you used to have them on nice family picnics, and your ego gets merged with someone who suffered horrible, traumatic abuse in a pickle factory. This leads to an awful dissonance, wherein someone motivated to seek out pickles then has debilitating PTSD flashbacks when they open the jar and smell them. This is an extreme (and silly) example, but the point is, if you want to roleplay merged egos, one approach is to think about places where the life stories of the two characters who've been merged could lead to mixed good/bad memories under certain stimuli.
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
Thu, 2016-09-01 05:19
#5
Marijn
Re: Role-playing a Successful Different Ego Merge
I am back from vacation. Sorry for the long wait.
Anyhow, that sounds like a very viable means to playing a [acronym=Different Ego Merged]DEMed[/acronym] character(s). And I presume some stress and disorders could result from these contradicting memories as well.
But for a succesful DEM, one needs a succesful (or unlikely lucky) neurosurgeon. This surgeon could later on pick the memories he wants the DEM'ed person to be conscious of and select which ones he will let hibernate in the recesses of the mind, in order to end the memory conflicts from happening.
There could always bubble up a different pair of conflicting memories, triggered by a certain event, but the ones that are treated shouldn't cause problems any longer.
This would make the two separate Ego's converge even more and make the very well thought out and quite brilliant method above, unusuble.
Since I know my [acronym=Player Character]PC[/acronym] will try to attain this dream of homeostasis of a DEMed person, how could one best approach this curiousity?
Sun, 2016-09-11 07:01
#6
Marijn
Re: Role-playing a Successful Different Ego Merge
Does anyone have an opinion on it?
Fri, 2016-09-23 10:53
#7
jackgraham
Interesting.
Interesting.
Yes, a lot of what a psychosurgeon is doing during a merge is trying to smooth out clashing memories/associations... hence the skill point loss, because excising dissonant memories has the unfortunate side effect of reducing life experience!
—
J A C K G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!
http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
Mon, 2016-10-03 14:14
#8
Marijn
Re: Role-playing a Successful Different Ego Merge
Does this indicate that when having removed the Disorders, I'd better let the [acronym=RE]Resultant Ego[/acronym] be played as if it were a Beta Fork?