Eclipse Phase
| Eclipse Phase | ||
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| RPG published by Posthuman Studios |
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| Rule System | Custom d100 (roll under) |
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| Authors | Rob Boyle, Brian Cross. |
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| First Publication | 2009 | |
Your mind is software. Program it.
Your body is a shell. Change it.
Death is a disease. Cure it.
Extinction is approaching. Fight it.
Eclipse phase is a Transhumanist RPG published by Posthuman Studios. It was released in 2009 and all Eclipse Phase products (including printed rulebooks/sourcebooks and PDFs) by Posthuman Studios are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. This means it's actually legal to go out and download it and share it with whoever you want. The game is set around 10 years after the singularity (called the Fall in the game) renders earth a nano-technological wasteland, and trans-humanity lives scattered around the solar system. Characters typically work for a shadowy organization called 'Firewall', who are attempting to ensure the survival of the solar system.
The game was originally published by Catalyst Game Labs but is now published by Posthuman Studios.
Setting
In the not too distant future...
There was a massive war between first world nations and corporations, then the singularity happened, and a bunch of AIs went crazy, Earth had to be evacuated. Now everybody lives elsewhere- on the half terraformed surface of Mars, on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, floating above the clouds of Venus, space stations and hollowed out asteroids across the solar system. Nanotech is readily available, people can upload their minds to computers, and humans uplifted a couple of species (chimps and octopuses).
There are several Wormholes left behind by the AIs that link to various other solar systems- these are called the Pandora gates. Also, there are some aliens calling themselves 'The Factors' who claim to represent the rest of galactic civilization, but they are very mysterious.
Also there are space-whales living in the sun, and all kinds of weird ass fucking to be had.
Characters
One of the more unique things about Eclipise Phase is the differentiation between a character's Ego (mind) and Morph (body). Given the ability to upload a character's brain to a digital repository, characters can make back-ups of their personality and if one body dies, simply swap into a new one. This allows combat to be highly lethal without having to introduce new characters constantly, similar to the 6-pack system of Paranoia.
Morphs are also more varied than many standard RPGs, ranging from unaltered humans to robotic "shells" to swarms of nanotech to genetically engineered octopi.
Notable Factions (roughly Sunward to Rimward)
Morningstar Constellation: An alliance of floating city-states of Venus that used to be ruled by the Planetary Consortium, but decided to say fuck you to Mars and decided to form their own nation. Essentially a "neutral" version of the "Evil" Mars, or at least that is what the biased narrators all say. Decided to prevent their world being terraformed because they liked clouds.
Lunar-Lagrange Alliance:: The former colonies on the Moon and nearby space that house the remnants of Old Earth Governments. This decaying state is the most conservative transhuman, non-jovian state in the system, and has the largest amount of people wanting to reclaim Earth.
Mars: As the closest place that need only minimal technological aid for humans to live, the bulk of Fall refugees naturally came here first, after ten years two distinct faction live on Mars:
- Inter-Planetary Consortium: PROFITPROFITPROFIT...profit? PROFIT! All the wealthiest and coolest bastards got together on Mars after The Fall and formed this super-club. They don't use slaves for menial labor jobs. They employ indentured infuegees in tasks they wouldn't trust a self-aware AI to do. Sure, they sometimes extend a persons contract for arbitrary reasons like "Letting anti-corporate terrorists damage valuable property." But can you blame them? they're trying to run a business here, not some charity. There are various interesting corporations within the Consortium.
- Barsoomians: The blue collar working class of the planet Mars. I guess they should called red-collared since they have to deal with the rusty dust storm. Anyways, their needs aren't always met by the Consortium, who they share Mars with. Besides being Populists, most Barsoomians don't have much in common with each other than speaking like Texans and having Korean names. Some of them are actually Islamic Terraforming Engineers, who roam the planet and, in a role reversal, dodge giant explosions thrown at them by corporations.
Jovian Republic: Take a South American Junta republic (secret police, Elected Dictators), combine it with the worst aspects of McCarthy-era North 'Murrica politics (Red Scare-style Paranoia, Lobbyists, Military Dominance) and put all that in orbit around the planet Jupiter. What do you get? This faction. The biggest reason you should respect these luddites is that they'll never be eaten by a swarm of self replicating nanobots of their own design. Another reason they deserve respect is that in combat they employ the equivalent of Imperial Guardsmen: Unaugmented human fodder armed with simple robust weapons and balls of steel, though recently this shifted to just-as-augmented Jovians who think that they sold their souls to the devil for the sake of their country. Politically, these guys are a "republic" in the Classical Age Greek sense of the word, as in: If you have fulfilled mandatory military service or are the offspring of a politician, then you get to vote. If not, NO VOTE FOR YOU BECAUSE YOU AREN'T A CITIZEN, YOU'RE A USELESS CIVILIAN. What are you voting on? You're voting for a Senator who will hopefully vote yes on the bill to give your space station some radiation shielding. Seriously. Unfortunately, they'll never be expanded on - the designers have noted in the forums that they like to keep a 'big bad guy' faction for Space Sweden to face off against despite all the interesting possibilities inherent in the idea.
Autonomist Alliance: The loose bloc of anarshists, whose main stated ideal is to restart progress of knowledge and humanity by taking off the shackles of entranched traditions enforced by old governments, thought in practice in most cases it amounts to people just wanting to get away from Earth. Obviously, they got a substantional membership boost after the fall. Notable members of the Alliance are:
- Extropians: The First Autonomists living in the space station Extropia orbiting close to the asteroid belt, who unlike the rest of anarshists who have communists leanings, these are the followers of extreme free market with no standardtization or regulation whatsoever.
- Titanian Commonwealth: Scandinavia IN SPACE! This communist-technocratic nation is the only autonomist faction large enough to qualify as an actual nation. Follows (or tries to) the principles of direct democracy, the currency outside of the new economic model is the krones that can only be invested in research projects.
- Argonauts: Essentially a loose cooperation of scientists doing whatever they want. Something they go a little to far and have to rescued and/or purged.
- Space Station Anarchists: Anarchy only works as a viable system of government under specific conditions like aboard a self-sufficient space station. Even then, things don't always work out. However, Post-Fall, most space station inhabitants have a vested interest in each others well being.
- Scum Barge Nomads: Similar to the anarchists but way more hedonist and cray-cray. Seriously, they have ships called "Lick me, I'm Delicious" and "Rule 34," and that's just to fuck with the poor gal who's giving them permission to dock. Okay some of them aren't totally crazy but a lot of them are. Before I tell you anything, consider this: about 2/3rds of transhumanity got killed (or worse) by the TITANs and deep down the scum are a little tiny bit traumatized. That's why they have their yiffing futa rave pit orgies in a zero-g recreational drug lab. It takes their minds off the horrors of The Fall, which they probably didn't see personally. But perma-death is a scary possibility no matter how far from Earth you fly, whether it's by the guns of the corporations or by the blades of TITAN spawned horrors. The important thing is to enjoy life which is what the Scum try to do every artificial day cycle.
The Ultimates: Buddhist modified super soldier merceneries who live around Uranus, who seek perfection by pushing the ever changing limits of mind and swappable bodies. While many of them actually follow that philosophy, many of them are also your garden variety "master-race supremascists".
Mass Effect-Eclipse Phase
/tg/, in its infinte wisdom, decided to combine the setting of Eclipse phase with the Galaxy of Mass Effect. The result was some very good threads and some high quality writefaggotry. Now if only someone who knew where it is could show the rest of us plebs...
For plebs: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Eclipse%20Phase
Start here: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/8224490/