This document is meant to provide a short and concise primer on the universe of Eclipse Phase, by Posthuman Studios. As most information is extracted from Eclipse Phase books, this document likewise licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA. High-Level Overview =================== For decades, humankind has spread out into the solar system. With the advent of advanced brain scanning, simulation and imprint technologies, minds and bodies are no more intrinsically tethered to each other, and the ability to create backups of minds and imprinting them onto new bodies has made death a temporary affair. With humanity now having entered the phase of becoming transhumanity, an era of accelerated diversification of minds and bodies, now called egos and morphs, has begun. Simultaneously, new members have joined the transhuman family, when researchers created artificial general intelligences, and uplifted members of several animal species to humanlike levels of intellect. Still, ten years ago, extinction loomed over transhumanity, when a group of advanced warfare AIs called TITANs went rogue under the influence of the exsurgent virus, and started waging a genocidal war. Not too long after, though, they vanished. While some more or less dormant pockets of their presence do remain in the solar system, the Fall itself is now a memory. Shortly afterwards, transhumanity discovered several devices, which it dubbed Pandora gates, and which allow travel to other gates scattered over the galaxy. Also, it made contact with aliens that it called the Factors, when their ships appeared in the solar system. While they claim to represent a vast group of civilizations, transhumanity still has made no contact with any other, although they found artifacts and ruins beyond the Pandora gates. Primer: Transhumanism ===================== States of Being --------------- * Egos are states of neural networks. Even modern AGIs are based on simulations of brains. As they are, or map to, digital data, they can be manipulated in a myriad of ways, given the access and technology to do so. * Morphs are entities in which egos can be active. * Biomorphs are biological bodies. While typically that means genetically engineered variants of humans, there exists a wide variety of base organisms on which biomorphs have been based, in particular octopi, cetaceans (whales and dolphins), birds and shrimps. * Synthmorphs are robotic bodies around a cyberbrain, a specialized electronic device for running egos. Synthmorphs range from cases, which are cheap humanoid bodies, to flexbots, marvels of self-reconfiguring modular bodies, from loosely biomimetic dragonflies, arachnoids and snake-like slitheroids, to swarmanoids, large swarms of small microdrones, in which the ego runs in a brain distributed over dozens or hundreds of bodies. * Pods are a middle ground between biomorphs and synthmorphs. Assembled from force-grown organs and built around a cyberbrain augmenting a rudimentary biological brain, pods are a mixture of the best and the worst of both worlds. Their original purpuse, though, was to be a biological robot for artificial minds. * Infomorphs are wholly digital simulations of egos, a software emulation of cyberbrains, usually running on servers or other powerful computing devices. Parts of their senses have been rewired to map to variables in the computing environment, making them able to feel the datascape. Advanced versions of infomorphs are called eidolons, conferring advantages similar to those that morphs can bestow on the egos in them. * Simulmorphs are used in virtual reality simulspaces. They're subject to the arbitrary rules of the given simulspace, as they are part of it, a user's avatar. Improvements ------------ There are many ways in which technology has pushed egos and morphs beyond what humanity was able to achieve. * Bioware is enhancements made from living tissue, integrated into the body, improving it, and being kept alive by its support systems. Biomorphs and pods. * Cyberware comprises of electromechanical augmentations. Biomorphs, synthmorphs, and pods. * Nanoware consists of swarms of nanomachines that are continually being assembled in implanted hives. Biomorphs, synthmorphs, and pods. * Robotic Enhancements are similar to cyberware, but too radical to be implanted in biological bodies. Synthmorphs * Upgrades are individually cutomized modifications of an ego that improve its mental processes with bits of machine code as long as it is running on a mind-emulation software. Infomorphs, synthmorphs, and pods * Plug-ins are bits of code that improve the mind emulation software that infomorphs are running on. Infomorphs, synthmorphs, and pods | Bio | Pod | Synth | Info ---------------------|-------|-------|-------|------- Bioware | X | X | | Cyberware | X | X | X | Nanoware | X | X | X | Robotic Enhancements | | | X | Upgrades | | X | X | X Plugins | | X | X | X Digitalized Egos ---------------- As minds can be transformed into digital data, or increasingly exist in such a state while in action, they are also susceptible to being treated as data. This can take several forms. * Backups can be made, and resleeved into morphs in case that the backed-up individual dies. In fact, almost all morphs are equipped with a cortical stack which creates an incremental backup. Should the morph be unrecoverable, most people have backups of their egos stored with insurance providers, which will resleeve them if the original becomes incommunicado, or are informed of their demise. * People can create copies of their egos; in fact, people using cyberbrains can do so with ease and within seconds. Such forks can later be merged back into each other, although caution should be exercised, as individual forks start diverging from each other relatively quickly, making the merge a stressful experience. Additionally, in many polities, forks acquire individual personhood after some time. Moreover, forks that aren't meant to be merged later on can also be "pruned down" by the use of psychosurgery, making them more task-oriented entities. Obviously, the ethical implications of this are hotly debated topics. * Psychosurgery is the direct manipulation of digitized minds, usually with the intention of achieving therapeutic effects, or improving the mind's capabilities. Like more traditional psychological interventions, this has horrifying potential for abuse. * Cyberbrain hacking is the process of subverting the cyberbrain device that a synthmorph's or pod's ego is running on, or the emulation program that an infomorph's ego is running on, which serves the same purpose. This basically puts the ego at the hackers mercy. Asyncs ------ Modern myth to many, and scary reality to a few, asyncs are individuals that have been infected and transformed by the Watts-MacLeod strain of the exsurgent virus, and thereafter have become capable of feats that range from apparently superhuman to defying the laws of nature. These abilities have collectively been dubbed psi, and individual feats are called sleights. There are a handful of drawback to having one's mind fundamentally rewired: * Asyncs are more susceptible to mental stress in general, and usually suffer from psychological derangements permanently. * They also have a harder time adjusting to new morphs, temporarily exhiting even more derangements. * As cyberbrains do not emulate async brain patterns properly, cutting them off from parts of their sensorium that they are nor accostumed to and reliant upon, asyncs suffer from an affliction called morph fever while in morphs other than biomorphs. This presents itself as mental stress that leads to further psychological derangements, usually within months. Furthermore, they require the use of a biological brain to access their powers. While sleeved into pods, they are still able to do so, but only with great difficulty. In synthmorphs or infomorphs, they can not access their async abilities at all. * Actually using their powers can also cause acute, debilitating mental stress. * Asyncs are also more susceptible to infection by other strains of the exsurgent virus than other persons. * Psi sleights that affect other individuals than the async also require them to have a biological brain as well. Pods are less susceptible than biomorphs, while synthmorphs and infomorphs are immune. How we got here, and where we are ================================= Recent History -------------- <60 BF * Drastic climate change, energy shortages, geopolitical instability. * Initial expansion into Earth-Mars system. * AI equals human intelligence. Robotics trash the job market. <40 BF * Geoengineering combats climate change with mixed results. * Colonies established on Luna and Mars, terraforming of Mars begins. * Genetic enhancement, gene therapy, and cybernetic implants become available to the wealthy. * Experience playback (XP) becomes available. <20 BF * Scientific consulting group JASON transform into Project Argonaut. * Human cloning becomes available. * First animals are uplifted to sapience, Neanderthals are reconstructed. * Fusion drive starships become common. * The Main Belt and Titan are colonized. * Personal AIs become widespread. * Indenture becomes popular in space expansion as a way to flee Earth. < 0 BF * Nanotech assemblers, uploading, infomorphs and pods come into use. 17 BF * Manu Bhattacharya publishes "Eternal Struggle, Eternal Growth", in which he expounds his life's philosophy, which becomes the cornerstone of the Ultimates faction, descending from Bhattacharya's company, Ultimate Security. 0 AF * The Fall: Tensions between nations turn into hostility, then netwar, then warfare. The TITANs emerge and enter the fray, both on Earth and offworld. Everything spirals out of control. Forced mass uploads are performed by the TITANs, weapons of mass destructions are unleashed. Those who can flee Earth in an event now called the Exodus. Then, suddenly, the TITANs vanish. Earth remains a devastated, hostile wasteland. * Project Futura commences; researchers attempt to raise children in simulspace, to a subjective age of 18 years within 3 years of real time. The project is plagued with widespread incidence of sociopathy and psychosis. ? AF * The first Pandora Gate is found on Saturn's moon Pandora. 2 AF * First Contact with the Factors 3 AF * Whistleblowers expose Project Futura, spelling the end of the project. Some of its subjects, now called "The Lost", are released. ? AF * Battle of Locus ? AF * Second Battle of Locus (a few months after the first) 6 AF * Venusian aerostats vote successfully on independence. 16 form the Morningstar Constellation, two remain with the Planetary Consortium, two are independent. 10 AF * Now Some Facts ---------- * 95% of transhumanity perished in the Fall. * Millions are still in cold storage ever since. * Indenture to earn a morph and housing lasts nominally 5-20 years, and practically 8-25 years due to hidden fees (like a backup plan). * 1/6th of transhumanity consist of the Clanking Masses, most of which desire a biomorph, or at the least a pod. * 40,000,000 infomorph refugees do not have a body. 1/3rd of infomorphs do not desire a physical morph. Whether the latter group is counted as part of the former is unknown. * 2/3rd of habitats were built within the seven years following the Fall. Most can hold 2,500 to 1,000,000 inhabitants. Some are built for hundreds of millions. * The terraforming of Mars is planned to reach "atmosphere is breathable to all biomorphs" in 60 years. * Ships used as scum barges can harbor 200 to 5,000 inhabitants, but some ships can be used to drag LaFrange nets (pyramidally organized structures of whatever the inhabitants can get their hands on), which can harbor around 30,000 inhabitants each. * Growing a biomorph takes 18-24 months, growing a pod 6-12 months. Building synthmorphs is a matter of hours. * Most people not only have a continuous backup of their ego, but also a digital record of their sensorium that stretches their entire life, and have an AI called a muse, which has served them as their digital assistant for nearly all their life. * Resleeving takes one hour for a biomorph, half an hour for a pod, and seconds for a synthmorph. Infomorphs can carry their mind emulation with them when egocasting, bypassing the resleeving process that other egos have to endure. * A biomorph with basic biomods can last a minute or more in a vacuum before losing consciousness, and one or two minutes more before dying. * Factor ships use reactionless drives. * The Pandora Gates are: Name | Location | Controlled by ---------------|--------------------------|------------------------------------- Vulcanoid Gate | Caldwell (Vulcanoid) | TerraGenesis (Hypercorp) Martian Gate | Mars | Pathfinder (Hypercorp) Pandora Gate | Pandora (Moon of Saturn) | Gatekeeper (Titanian Microcorp) Fissure Gate | Oberon (Moon of Uranus) | Love and Rage collective (Anarchist) Discord Gare | Eris (Kuiper Belt) | Go-nin (Hypercorp)