Eclipse Phase [NSFW] [Work In Progress, Do not Post]

_{[ From: Eclipse Phase [Fourth Printing], (page 37) ]}
 
BF(Before the Fall) 60+  

 
• Crises grip the globe in the form of drastic climate changes, water shortages, energy deficits, and geopolitical instability.
 
• Initial space expansion creates stations at the Lagrangian Points around Earth, and upon Luna and Mars, with robotic exploration trailblazing beyond into the outer solar system.
 
• Construction of the first space elevator begins on Earth.
 
• Medical advances improve health and organ repair. The rich and eccentric pursue gene editing and transgenic pets.
 
• Computer intelligence capabilities equal and exceed that of the human brain. Strong AI not yet developed.
 
• Robotics become widespread, beginning to replace and invalidate many occupations.
 
• Modern nations expand their highspeed wireless networks.
 

 
BF(Before the Fall) 60–40  

 
• Efforts to undertake mega-scale geoengineering on Earth cause as many problems as they fix.
 
• Major colonies established on the Moon and Mars, outposts established near Mercury, Venus, and the Asteroid Belt. Explorers reach Pluto.
 
• First space elevator on Earth finished. Two others in progress. Space traffic booms.
 
• Mass driver built on the Moon.
 
• Terraformation of Mars begins.
 
• Thermonuclear fusion reactors developed with working power plants soon established.
 
• Genetic enhancements, gene therapies (for anti-senescence), and cybernetic implants become available to the wealthy and powerful.
 
• First AGI(Artificial General Intelligence)s are secretly developed and quickly put to use in research and netwar.
 
• Experience playback (XP) technology developed and put into public use.
 

 
BF(Before the Fall) 40–20  

 
• Violence and destabilization wrack the Earth. Some conflicts spread up into space.
 
• The “Argonauts”, led by a group of former members of the JASON advisory group, split from the US government and backing hypercorps, taking resources with them to autonomist-run space habitats.
 
• Space expansion opens up legal/ethical loopholes for tech development and allows for increased direct human experimentation.
 
• Human cloning becomes possible and available in some areas.
 
• Development of first transhuman species.
 
• _First dolphins and chimpanzees uplifted to sapience
 
• Fusion-drive spacecraft enter common usage.
 
• Extended colonization and terraforming of Mars continues. Asteroid Belt and Titan colonized. Stations established throughout the system.
 
• The starving masses volunteer themselves for indentured servitude on hypercorp space projects.
 
• Augmented reality becomes widespread.
 
• Most wireless networks transformed into self-repairing ubiquitous “mesh” networks.
 
• Personal weak AI virtual assistants colloquially termed “Muses” become widespread.
 

 
BF(Before the Fall) 20–0  

 
• Earth continues to suffer, but the pace of technology allows for further interesting developments.
 
• _Expansion throughout the system, even into the Kuiper Belt
 
• Transhuman species becomes varied and widespread.
 
• Nanotech assemblers become available, but are strictly controlled and zealously guarded by the elite and powerful.
 
• Uploading and the digital emulation of memory and consciousness made possible.
 
• More species (gorillas, orangutans, octopi, ravens, parrots) uplifted to sapience.
 
• “Pods”, or vat-grown biological bodies with extremely undeveloped brains augmented with an implanted computer and cybernetics system, see common usage, amid some controversy.
 

 
THE FALL  

 
• The “TITAN(Total Information Tactical Awareness Network)“s evolve from a high-level distributed netwar experiment into self-improving seed ASIs. For the first few days, their existence is unsuspected. They advance their awareness, knowledge, and power exponentially, infiltrating the mesh both on Earth and around the solar system.
 
• Large-scale netwar incursions break out between rival states on Earth, sparking numerous conflicts. These attacks are later blamed on the TITANs.
 
• Simmering tensions on Earth escalate into outright hostilities and warfare.
 
• Massive netwar breaks out and major systems crash as TITANs begin open attacks, also using autonomous war machines.
 
• Conflict quickly spirals out of control. The use of nuclear, biological, chemical, digital, and nanotech weapons reported by all sides.
 
• TITANs engage in mass forced uploading of human minds.
 
• TITAN incursions expand to other parts of solar system, heaviest on the Moon and Mars. Numerous habitats also fall.
 
• TITANs suddenly disappear from system, taking billions of uploaded minds with them.
 
• The Earth is left a devastated wasteland, a patchwork of radiation hotspots, freak weather phenomenon, sterile zones, nanoswarm clouds, roaming war machines, and other unknown and hidden things among the ruins.  

 

 
AF(After the Fall) 0–10  

 
• A wormhole gateway is discovered on Saturn’s moon Pandora, surmised to be left behind by the TITANs. Four other gateways are later found (upon an asteroid within the Vulcanoids, on Mars, on Oberon, and on Eris); these are collectively referred to as the “Pandora Gates.”
 
• Expeditions are sent to extrasolar worlds via the Pandora Gates. Numerous exoplanet colonies established.
 
• First contact with the aliens known as the Factors shocks the system. Claiming to act as ambassadors for other alien civilizations, they provide little information about life outside the solar system and warn transhumans away from both seed AI and the Pandora Gates.
 
• An attempt to raise a generation of children using force-grown clones and time-accelerated VR fails miserably when most of the children die or go insane. Dubbed the “Lost Generation”, the survivors are viewed with repugnance and pity.
 

 
AF(After the Fall) 10  

 
• Present day.

I posted. @Kratek  
Luv you ^ - ^

_{[ From: Eclipse Phase [Fourth Printing], (page 32) ]}
 
The following is a transcript of an audiofile recovered after the catastrophic decompression event on Walther-Pembroke Station. The audiofile is believed to be a recording of pre-Fall survivor and journalist Robert Seebach and to be a summation of his unpublished work, A People’s History of an Unfortunate Universe.
 
[Sounds of scratching on the microphone, creaking of furniture, the noise of someone hawking their throat]
 
“What?”
 
[Indistinct mumbling]
 
“Fuck you, buddy. I’ll do this however the hell I want. Though it was nice of you guys to stick me in this used corpse… Shocked, huh? Well, I’m sure you can edit this afterwards for all the tender audiences out there. Now—you asked about my book? Is it a history book? No. It’s an anti-history book. It’ll tell you about the future.”
 
[Mumbling, questioning tone]
 
“What does it hold? The future, you mean?”
 
[Indistinct “Yes.”]
 
“No. I don’t think you’d care. What you really want to know is: will you get the future you want? And that’s an easy question to answer. No. No, you won’t, because you won’t get the future you want.”
 
[Silent pause]
 
“…I remember reading a scan of an old real printcomic once. The character in it was railing against the imaginary people of his imaginary world, taking them to task about their grievances with the future they lived in. But it was really aimed at folks back then who wanted their paradisaical futures, but didn’t realize, that the future is now. It’s always now. Except it isn’t, not anymore. The TITANs changed that. The future’s now yesterday, and last week, and ten years ago. Especially ten years ago. But the future is also back on poor old Earth—it’s a legacy of where we’ve been, and what’s come before.”
 
“…They teach you earth’s history, in those sealed compounds on Mars, and those tensegrity spheres on Venus? No, don’t say anything, I couldn’t really care less what they teach you. I’ve lived in the inner system. I know the rules and the deceits told in the name of civil order and ‘national security’.”
 
“Nations… Even at the onset of the century, nations were going into decline. It just took everyone a while to realize they were bygone. You remember the superpowers of the old world? You old enough to remember how they sat around and debated whether the major climate shifts they were creating were even real? Even when many of them finally agreed something needed to be done, none of them stood up to do it.”
 
“The leaders of the world carried on, business as usual, while megadroughts ravaged the Western US, Africa, and Central Asia. Europe froze over, and severe weather wreaked havoc everywhere. People across the globe were feeling the pinch of starvation or rampant superbug epidemics, yet the leading nations were more concerned about refugees pouring over their borders. The shadow wars then over oil and energy were only worsened by wars over the weather and water that followed. Unstable regimes rose, fell, or were pushed over the edge, all for the sake of sustenance. The superpowers transformed into fortresses, steeled on all sides, against barbarians threatening them on the outside, and the starving masses on the inside.”
 

 
“I’ve actually heard people refer to that period as a golden age, and it was, for some. If you were in that lucky fraction of a percent of the population who could afford it, it was certainly a time to be alive, but for the rest, it was a time of horrors. Inequality was larger than ever before. Robots were taking jobs away from human hands.”
 
“It was definitely a time of radicalization. Failing governments could barely sustain infrastructure. The world turned to local tribes, fundamentalist groups, political radicals, and even criminal networks for means to survive. Insurgencies flourished, but they depended on the black market to survive, and soon, even they were concerned with making money rather than change.”
 
“The superpowers, as always, resorted to repression. Civil liberties were restricted and surveillance increased. Automated weapons systems were deployed first on guerrillas and terror cells, then against agitators and demonstrators. I remember the first time I saw those police drones at a demonstration in support of a worker’s strike in Long Beach. The drones ordered everyone to disperse once, only once, before they opened fire with their ““nonlethal[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsed_energy_projectile) weapons. Nonlethal my ass. Three people died that day and dozens were injured. The mainstream media ignored it, even if the online webs didn’t.”
 
“Meanwhile, the privileged elites strived and thrived. Longevity treatments expanded their lifespans, then major crackdowns swept up cheaper off-brand pharma and stifled bootleg procedures by pioneering biochemists, even though worldwide life expectancies were plummeting for the first time in decades. Why extend the lives of so many poor people when expert systems as smart as any human could be built in a fraction of the time it took to train an actual person? When robotics and drone technologies allowed menial jobs to be turned over to uncomplaining and unpaid labor?”
 
“Not all of the upper classes were wallowing in opulence though, while the planet around them starved and died. A few were looking ahead at the changes on the horizon, scheming on how to stake their claim. A bunch worked together to expand their dominion, building a space elevator in sub-Saharan Africa and sending robotic probes out to map the solar system in detail. They even founded the first stations on Mars and Luna back then, more than fifty years before the Fall.”
 

 
“The ecopocalypse wasn’t going away, though, no matter how much anyone tried to ignore it. Harsh winters and megadroughts continued to pound away, everywhere. Rising ocean levels devastated coastlines worldwide with massive flooding. A few last-ditch efforts to undertake mega-scale geoengineering projects caused as much chaos as they solved. Some of them were even thinly disguised test runs for terraforming techniques being prepared for offworld deployment.”
 
“It seemed as though eyes of the fortunate were no longer focused on the world around them, but rather on the heavens above. The completion of the first space elevator and the first mass driver on our moon kicked off a new space race, and soon the competition was on to stake claims around the solar system. All this new expansion was powered by the first mass-produced efficient fusion power plants, and the establishment of helium-3 mining enterprises.”
 
“Back on Earth, though, the hammer finally fell. Insurgents adopted fifth-generation warfare techniques, sharing open source methods of resistance, utilizing swarming attacks on critical systempunkts. People crushed under years of oppression rose up in these opportunities, clashing against whatever held them down. Nation after nation fell to insurgencies manned by those who had fought in thousands of forgotten wars over fuel, potable water, and bread crusts.”
 

 
“Most states fought back by becoming more totalitarian and repressive, but the tide of rebellion spread offworld as a series of outposts and stations declared themselves in sympathy with their earthbound compatriots and announced a manifesto for more philanthropic approaches to solar system colonization. Numerous scientists and engineers, who’d previously worked as pawns in space expansion, adopted technoprogressive stances. That’s how the argonauts were born, ya’know, taking their name from a previous group of scientists who advised the US government and Pentagon on science and policy, called the ‘Jasons’. Faced with reprisals from corporate enforcers, a bunch of them defected from the hypercorps, in some cases taking key resources and research with them, while others went underground.”
 
“This is when the hypercorps really took off, though. They let the nation-states and lumbering multinationals of antiquity take the brunt of the global rage and assault. They took advantage of the chaos to slip free of moral and ethical restraints on human experimentation and from the legal purview of the nationalities that had birthed them. They embraced opportunities of numerous new technologies and the drive into space. It was their research labs that cooked up the first truly sentient AI, the first gengineered human clones, and the first true uplifts; chimps and dolphins brought into self-awareness as experiments and slaves.”
 
“As the last of the old states became increasingly desperate to cling to their power and land, the hypercorps extended a helping hand. They offered debt-bondage terms to those who were willing to sign over their rights and humanity for a trip offworld, to work as indentured servants on corporate colonies and stations. Hundreds of thousands took up the offers as an alternative to the crushing poverty and chaos on Earth. The business of resource exploitation exploded across the solar system as stations were established as far out as the Kuiper Belt.”
 
“This was the state of things until about twenty years before the Fall. Though many of the old oppressor states had been struck down, new ones arose, and the various global insurgencies oscillated between making radical changes and falling into the same old tribal warfare traps. Reactionary religious and political forces on Earth also railed against the hypercorps’ agenda, resulting in some terrorist attacks and sabotage strikes, culminating in a failed attempt to disable the space elevator by a suicide cell. The hypercorps were swift to retaliate, carrying out a kinetic bombardment using high-density objects against the headquarters and compounds of several key opposition leaders. Though effective in decapitating several terrorist networks, the mass destruction sparked outrage, creating a deeper rift between Earth and offworld interests.”
 

 
“The hypercorps remained out of reach, but they weren’t completely immune from Earth’s troubles. The workers and colonists from Earth brought many of their ethnic, political, and socio-tribal grudges with them, leading to several outbreaks of violence in habitats and orbital stations. Some also harbored allegiances opposed to hypercorp interests, illustrated by isolated acts of preservationist sabotage and religious terrorist attacks. Various criminal networks also came along for the ride, expanding their black markets and vice trades, wherever humans went.”
 
“As the hypercorps expanded, so too did their opponents; anarchists, techno-socialists, the argonauts, and others who worked diligently to establish their own independent presence, mostly in the outer system, further from hypercorp reach. The hypercorps even contributed to this growth by sending their criminals and undesirable elements into exile beyond Mars. Both sides invested heavily in research and new technologies. Advances in biotech, nanotech, AI, and cognitive science were now moving so rapidly that major breakthroughs were made on a yearly basis. Developments in one field created a recursive boost in the others, creating a feedback loop that spawned immense technological improvements.”
 
“Offworld, genetic modifications were widely adopted, and new transhuman adaptations became a common sight. Sapient AIs were born, equivalent to humans in intelligence, sparking controversies over their use and rights as persons. We even created new synthetic life forms that were part-biological and part-robotic. Despite some being so repulsed by this development that they dubbed these new types of beings ““pod people[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_uterus), it certainly didn’t stop them from being rapidly absorbed into corporate workforces and brothels, nor did many people care enough to support claims that, as sapient beings, “pods” should have their own civil rights.”
 

 
“Two breakthroughs in this period deserve specific mention, not least because of their impact on our human, now-transhuman, society. The development of the first nanotech assemblers signaled paradigm shifts for economics. Available only to the upper strata of the hypercorps at first, these elites jealously guarded these machines, capable of building almost anything from the atoms up. They placed all sorts of restrictions on their usage and availability, claiming that the capability to construct drugs, weapons, or other restricted items was a security risk that required them to be strictly controlled. Open source advocates promptly set themselves to work, undermining blueprint controls, and seeding their own open source designs, of course. Likewise, within months, criminals and anarchists liberated their own assemblers, and suddenly an economic conflict was born. Some were put to use feeding the black market trade, while others were used to establish habitats and colonies with post-scarcity economies that no longer relied on wealth, property, or greed.”
 
“At the same time came the ability to map the human brain and digitally emulate the mind and memories, making ““uploading[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy) possible, followed closely by the ability to download back into a separate human brain or cyberbrain. The already long-lived hypercorp masters no longer had to fear death by accident or injury. This technology also made its way into the hands of others, despite the costs. Experimentation with other bodies—both biological and synthetic—became a new playground for culture. And let’s not forget those who willingly shook off the shackles of the flesh to experience fully-virtualized life and dive deep into their own dreamscape realities.”
 

 
“While we all enjoyed our new toys, though, Earth, poor Earth, continued to die a slow death. I can still recall the speculation that it might take centuries for the planet to totally slide into ecological devastation. It was frustrating, everywhere you turned it seemed that someone was lamenting the state of back home, but no one wanted to do anything. It was too expensive, or too far away, or too dangerous. We all have blood on our hands from that time. We stood by and watched from our places in orbit as the world burned. We thought we had time, we thought the world was slowly dying and that we could find the cure. We didn’t plan on the TITANs.”
 
“We all remember the Fall. It was only ten years ago, but I never cease to be amazed at how confused people’s memories are of that time. Part of that is propaganda perpetuated by people like you, of course, and part of it is that most of us are afraid to really look back and examine how we humans managed to ruin it all ourselves so badly. We like to pretend that the TITANs exploded onto the scene, wrecked up the place, and then disappeared as quickly as they appeared.”
 
“The truth, as always, is more complex. We claim to know that the TITANs somehow evolved by accident from a military netwar system, or so the theory goes. That’s what’s on the tin: it’s an acronym for ‘Total Information Tactical Awareness Networks’. No one knows for sure where these first seed AIs came from, though—or if they do, they’re keeping quiet. Perhaps the TITANs were intentionally designed to be a recursively improving, self-aware digital intelligence. Perhaps the military boffins thought they could keep such an intelligence under their control and that it would give them the edge they needed. Perhaps there was only one at first, and it quickly created hundreds if not thousands of copies of itself. No one even seems to know how many of them there were.”
 
“According to the written history—vetted by the hypercorps, naturally—we now know that the TITANs took several days after they “woke up” to scan the world around them, to learn about us. In their initial stage they were relatively benign, leeching network power and resources only where there was enough to spare and extending their senses beyond their cradle on Earth. Perhaps they were absorbing everything they could to understand us. Perhaps they were indifferent. Or maybe they really were planning to destroy us, as the vids all say.”
 
“I remember this time. I remember that when this new round of conflicts re-ignited on Earth, there was no word of anything about seed AIs or TITANs. For months and months, it was a simple escalation of hostilities. It started with claims of netwar operations and major intrusions, sparking some alarm and retaliatory attacks. Aggressive stances led to incriminations, then border conflicts and raids, followed by missile strikes and outright hostilities. Old grudges and sleeping enemies suddenly awoke and turned their renewed wrath against old foes. Brush wars, corporate rivalries, and ideological disputes flared up as insurgencies and rebellions were suddenly everywhere. At the time, it seemed like a not-so-unusual spate of violence had taken a drastic turn and was rapidly spiraling out of control.”
 

 
“According to the party line, this was all a carefully concerted effort, the first stage in the TITANs plans. Perhaps it was, though I remember some military officials once claiming that the TITANs were brought online because of this violence and not before then—an opinion that was quickly silenced. Then again, maybe we really were played—played by greater intelligences who could barely be bothered to deal with us themselves when they knew we were more than willing to murder and annihilate each other.”
 
“When the first reports of strange automatic factories cranking out large numbers of robotic weapons systems broke, no one knew who to blame, but clearly something was wrong. This was a turning point, a chance for transhumanity to realize that we collectively faced a new enemy, but the finger-pointing and direct conflict continued. Even when the first open attacks by the TITANs came in earnest, crashing major systems, taking control of critical infrastructures, and wreaking havoc and destruction, we treated it as a new front in the war and never stopped taking shots at each other.”
 

 
“There is still debate over whether we should have tried to talk to the TITANs, whether they would have been willing to listen to us, whether they even saw us as something more than we see rats and roaches and other forms of vermin. But it’s all academic. The fact is we didn’t. The people who made the decisions, the ones who had to put it all on the line at the time, saw the TITANs as a threat. And they acted accordingly, trying to purge them from their systems or capture them for future study.”
 
“The philosopher Thomas Hobbes once spoke of the war of all against all. Whatever he imagined could not have been anything close to the conflict ignited by the TITANs. We killed ourselves by the millions, wielding the nuclear fire and the silent death of bioplagues indiscriminately. Among this carnage walked the TITANs, taking control of our machines as though we were children, harvesting millions of minds with forced uploads for unknown purposes. Every strike we launched against the TITANs was met with untold disaster and ruin, all our artifice and devices turned against us in our moment of need.”
 
“The Fall was a horror. Factories sprang up like a blight in the most ravaged and deserted places on Earth, pumping out legions of dread war machines. Advanced nanoswarms—far beyond our own capabilities—infested everywhere, mutating to deal with any threat they encountered.”
 

 
“Biological nanoviruses ripped through human populations, inflicting irreversible neurological damage…”
 
“Potent netwar worms penetrated even hardened systems, shredding our crucial networks with ease…”
 
“Prisoner populations were rounded up for forced mind emulations, suffering a luckier fate than those who were merely decapitated by head-collecting drones, or pierced by robots with neuro-scanning proboscises…”
 
“Neuropathic viruses turned some humans into pawns of the TITANs, turning them against the rest of us…”
 
“Other reports spoke of strange, alien happenings, and unimaginable terrors…”
 

 
“We found ourselves fighting a rearguard action against coming extinction. The plot of a hundred novels and movies was made manifest in our lifetimes, the doom of transhumanity at the hands of the machines.”
 
“For over a year, they stalked and destroyed us. There seemed to be no hurry on their part to bring us to an end, and why would there have been? Nothing we did affected them. They were data and information, they were thought and impulse, they were everywhere and nowhere, and there was nothing we could do that they could not turn back against us. Their influence spread outward from Earth, with outbreaks in orbit, on Luna, Mars, and many other places. Everywhere we had a foothold, the TITANs followed.”
 

 
“Perhaps you remember that point when it became clear that transhumanity might not survive. I do. Millions must have seen the signs. And so the great diaspora began, the teeming masses doing whatever they could to flee Earth. Ships were diverted, even built, to help people escape. Those who could not buy their way off the planet did their best to send their digital backups, in the dim hope they could acquire a new body.”
 
“You might hear that we banded together to stop the threat, that in our darkest hour we forgave ancient grudges and simmering hatreds in the face of extinction. That would be a lie in the face of the ten thousand shot down over Buenos Aires by North American forces as they sought to escape, or the compromising of network security on over two dozen habitats in Lagrange orbits by corporate competitors as their rivals strove to fight off a TITANs attack. We were just as gleeful to destroy ourselves…”
 

 
“Then, as quickly as they appeared, the TITANs vanished. Over the course of a week, the attacks and disturbances trailed off and then stopped but for an occasional outbreak. The retributions and attacks by our own kind continued for a few more months, but the damage we did to ourselves was nothing compared to what the TITANs had wrought.”
 
“In the aftermath, we stood among the smoking ruins of transhumanity and surveyed all that had been lost. Of the eight-billion that existed before the Fall, fewer than one in every sixteen survived, and of those fewer still retained their physical form. Nevertheless, the surviving habitats and stations were overcrowded, with tensions high. Vast numbers of “infugees” circulated online, as there were simply not enough bodies on hand to accommodate them all. Some were placed in permanent storage, wherein they remain forgotten. Others were shunted into virtual reality, given no choice but to live their lives in simulated environments.”
 
“A lucky few were given the chance to work as indentured servants, often to build new habitats, working on the promise of a body of their own someday. You’ve no doubt seen them, working in cheap mass-produced synthmorph bodies in menial or dangerous tasks, segregated from the rest of us.”
 
“Those left dead or bereft of a body were the least of our problems. Our war with the TITANs had left the Earth a smoking, irradiated, toxic wasteland still populated by dangerous machines and plagues. The newly formed Planetary Consortium, composed of hypercorp interests among the Martian and Lunar colonies, placed Earth and the space around it under quarantine. The official reason is that it’s for safety concerns, allegedly to keep any remaining threats from escaping Earth’s confines. Or perhaps we could not stand to look at our homeworld in such a state and face what we had done to ourselves. Even now, ten years later, we are told that the Earth is dangerous, that it holds risks and surprises. That’s partly true, I believe—there are surprises alright, but the Planetary Consortium wants them all for itself…”
 
[Rustling noises, murmurs]
 
“Of course I’m talking about a Pandora gate. The one the TITANs left behind on Saturn’s moon was just the first. You’re a fool if you think that there are only five in the entire system. I’d be willing to bet nearly anything that there’s one down there on dear old Earth…”
 

 
“Have you ever seen a gate? No? Of course not. The hypercorps keep them locked down. Not like out in the wild, wild outer system. Sure, the Gatekeeper Corp lets anyone with a death wish and the minimum training take a jaunt through the original on Pandora, but if you’re lucky enough to come back, they own everything you find on the other side. I suppose it’s the chance for a certain type of adrenaline junkie “to boldly go” and all that nonsense. The extrasolar colonies—now, those are an all new frontier. You inner system types are so predictable with your rush to colonize and expand and own everything, as if the universe is just there for your rich overlords to claim for themselves. I expect your extrasolar colonies are expanding quite nicely, given the sheer number of poor debt-conscripted souls you toss through. You probably have grand schemes of building galactic empires. Us. Transhumanity. A galactic civilization.”
 
“Well, galactic squatters at least. That was made clear when the solemn crossing guards of the cosmos showed up and issued us a warning that we were dabbling in Things What Ought Not To Have Been. Maybe the Factors are telling us the truth, maybe they are acting as ambassadors for a collection of spacefaring alien species that want to warn us away from Forbidden Technology—y’know, the technology we’ve already been burned by and of course have no plans to actually abandon. Think about the Two Commandments they have given us: thou shalt not create self-improving AI, and thou shalt not use the Pandora gates. Oops.”
 

 
“Do you think they know? About what happened with the TITANs? That even we don’t know where they went and that we’re kind of afraid to find out? Surely they know that we’ve been using the gates and have spread beyond our little backwater, and maybe that’s their real fear. But why do we even listen to what some highly evolved slime mold tells us to do anyway? Taking risks, that’s the price of progress, right? Let’s face it, we need some hope. We need a new Earth to replace the one we destroyed, a place where we can go and breed like rabbits and fuck it all up over and over again. We need to know that we can expand beyond this solar system, because right now, it’s feeling a little confining, like we could be easily trapped and wiped out if the TITANs ever return. We need to know that we have a future. We need to know that we can make it, through our own efforts. That we won’t do ourselves in on our own.”
 
“The Lost generation proved that. It was a noble objective, to speed a new generation of children to adulthood, but the process was flawed. Taking force-grown clones, raising them in VR, and then dumping them into adult bodies after they’ve only been alive for a few years of objective time—but over eighteen years of their subjective time? An entire childhood, having only each other and AIs for company. It’s enough to fuck anyone up. It was a grand experiment, but it failed, and now we have another reminder of our failures living among us.”
 

 
“That’s us, in all our glory.”
 
“Ten years post-Fall, and we’re a broken squabbling mess, jailed by alien slime molds, beaten by transcendent software, and yet our own worst enemies. Spreading out from a home we don’t even have any more. Our numbers reduced and dwindling further with each passing day. Who will save us? We don’t even want to save ourselves most of the time. Or so it seems.”
 
“But if we don’t, there’s no future. And I, for one, have not lived this fucking long to give up now. You, me, we’re effectively immortal, and an entire universe is waiting out there for us. We’d be stupid not to go see it…”

_{[ From: Eclipse Phase [Fourth Printing] (page 25) ]}
 
TERMINOLOGY
 
Eclipse Phase uses a variety of jargon to simply convey the numerous concepts covered. While not all-inclusive, this list of terminology will allow players to quickly acclimate themselves for their journey into Eclipse Phase. Note that several of the words on this list are standard scientific terms, often used in astronomy. As Eclipse Phase attempts to remain as close to “hard science” as possible—while allowing players to interact with the great stories waiting to unfold—such terms are used liberally.
 
 
A  
Aerostat: A habitat designed to float like a balloon in a planet’s upper atmosphere. (a.k.a. “Tensegrity Spheres”, or “Cloud Nines”.)
 
AF: “After the Fall” (used for reference dating).
 
AGI: “Artificial General Intelligence”; An AI that has cognitive faculties comparable to that of sapient earthgen species or higher. Also known as “strong AI” (differentiating from more specialized “weak AI”. See also “seed AI.”)
 
AI: Artificial Intelligence. Generally used to refer to weak AIs; i.e., AIs that do not encompass (or in some cases, are completely outside of) the full range of average earthgen cognitive abilities. AIs differ from AGIs in that they are usually specialized and/or intentionally crippled/limited.
 
Arachnoid: A spider-like robotic synthmorph.
 
Argonauts: A faction of techno-progressive scientists that promote responsible and ethical use of technology.
 
AR: “Augmented Reality”. Information from the mesh (universal data network) that is overlaid on your real-world senses. AR data is usually entoptic (visual), but can also be audio, tactile, olfactory, kinesthetic (body awareness), emotional, or other types of input.
 
AU: “Astronomical Unit.” The distance between the Earth and the Sun, equal to 8.3 light minutes, or about 150 million kilometers.
 
Autonomists: The alliance of anarchists, Barsoomians, Extropians, scum, and Titanians.
 
 
B  
Barsoomian: A rural Martian, typically resentful of hypercorp control.
 
Beehive: A microgravity habitat made from a tunneled-out asteroid or moon.
 
BF: “Before the Fall” (used for reference dating).
 
Bioconservative: An anti-technology movement that argues for strict regulation of nanofabrication, AI, uploading, forking, cognitive enhancements, and other disruptive technologies.
 
Biomorph: A biological body, whether a flat, splicer, genetically engineered metaspecies, or pod.
 
Body Bank: A service for leasing, selling, acquiring, or storing a morph. AKA dollhouse, morgue.
 
Bots: Robots. Weak AI-piloted synthetic shells.
 
Brinkers: Exiles who live on the fringes of the system, as well as other isolated and well-hidden nooks and crannies. Also called isolates, fringers, drifters.
 
 
C  
Case: A cheap, common, mass-produced synthetic shell.
 
Chimeric: Expressing genetic traits taken from other species (AKA “Transgenic”).
 
Circumjovian: Orbiting Jupiter.
 
Circumlunar: Orbiting the Moon.
 
Circumsolar: Orbiting the Sun.
 
Cislunar: Between the Earth and the Moon.
 
Clade: A species or group of organisms with common features. Used to refer to generally-similar metaspecies and morph types.
 
Cole Bubble: A habitat made from a hollowed-out asteroid or moon, spun for gravity.
 
Cornucopia Machine: A general-purpose nanofabricator.
 
Cortical Stack: An implanted memory cell used for mind backup. Located where the spine meets the skull; can be cut out.
 
Cyberbrain: An artificial brain, housing an ego run in a software brain-state. Used in both synthmorphs and pods.
 
 
D  
Darkcast: Illegal and black market farcasting and egocasting services.
 
Domain Rules: The rules that govern the reality of a virtual reality simulspace.
 
Drone: A robot controlled through teleoperation (rather than directly via onboard AI).
 
 
E  
Earthgen: Any person or group that either originated on Earth or, more generally, can trace their ultimate origin and ancestry back to Earth.
 
Ecto: Personal mesh devices that are flexible, stretchable, self-cleaning, translucent, and usually solar-powered. From ectolink (AKA “external link”, or “Blobject”).
 
Ego: The part of you that switches from body to body (AKA ghost, soul, essence, spirit, persona).
 
Egocasting: Term for sending egos via farcasting.
 
Entoptic Display: Augmented-reality images that you “see” in your head. (“Entoptic” means “within the eye.”)
 
Exalts: Genetically enhanced species (AKA genefreaks, ascended, elevated).
 
Exoplanet: A planet in another solar system.
 
Exsurgent: Someone infected by the Exsurgent virus.
 
Exsurgent Virus: An aggressive and sapient multi-vector virus. The Exsurgent virus is self-adaptive and can infect both computer systems and biological creatures.
 
Extrasolar: Outside the solar system.
 
 
F  
Factors: The alien self-declared ambassadorial race that deals with post-Fall earthgen civilization. (AKA “Brokers.”)
 
The Fall: The apocalypse; the singularity and wars that nearly brought about the downfall of civilization.
 
Farcasting: Intrasolar communication utilizing classical communication technologies (radio, laser, etc.) and quantum teleportation.
 
Farhauler: Long-distance space shipper.
 
Firewall: A secret cross-faction conspiracy working to protect all of civilization from “existential threats” (risks to earthgen’s continued existence).
 
Flatlander: Someone born or used to living on a planet or moon with gravity.
 
Flats: Baseline earthgen species (not genetically modified. Also called “norms”).
 
Flexbot: A shape-changing synthmorph capable of joining together with addons or even other flexbots in a modular fashion to create larger shapes.
 
Forking: Copying an ego. Not all forks are full copies. AKA backups.
 
Forknapping: Kidnapping a backup or fork.
 
FTL: Faster-Than-Light.
 
Fury: A metaspecies combat morph.
 
 
G  
Gatecrashers: Explorers who take their chances using a Pandora gate to go somewhere previously unexplored.
 
Genehacker: Someone who manipulates genetic code to create genetic modifications or even new life. (AKA genetekker, genegineer)
 
Ghost: A metaspecies combat morph optimized for stealth and infiltration.
 
Ghost-riding: The act of carrying an infomorph in a special implant module inside your head.
 
Greeks: Trojan asteroids or moons that share the same orbit as a larger planet or moon, but are 60 degrees ahead in the orbit at the L4 Lagrange point. The term Greeks normally refers to the asteroids orbiting around Jupiter’s L4 point. See also “Trojans”.
 
 
H  
Habtech: A habitat technician.
 
Hibernoid: A metaspecies modified for hibernation, for extensive travel in space.
 
 
I  
Iceteroid: An asteroid made from mostly ice rather than rock or metals.
 
Iktomi: The name given to the mysterious extinct alien race whose relics have been found beyond the Pandora gates.
 
Indentures: Indentured servants who have contracted their labor to a hypercorp or other authority, usually in exchange for a physical body.
 
Infolife: Artificial general intelligences and seed AIs.
 
Infomorph: A digitized ego; a virtual body (AKA datamorphs, uploads, backups).
 
Infugee: “Infomorph refugee”, or someone who left everything behind on Earth during the Fall—even their own body.
 
Isolates: Those who live in isolated communities far outside the system (in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. AKA outsters, fringers, brinkers).
 
 
J  
Jamming: The act of “becoming” a teleoperated drone thanks to XP technology. Also sometimes applied to accessing the real-time XP feed from lifeloggers and others.
 
 
K  
Kuiper Belt: A region of space extending from Neptune’s orbit out to about 55 AU, lightly populated with asteroids, comets, and dwarf planets.
 
 
L  
Lagrange Point: One of five areas in respect to a small planetary body orbiting a larger one in which the gravitational forces of those two bodies are neutralized. Lagrange points are considered stable and ideal locations for habitats.
 
Lifelog: A recording of one’s entire life experience, made possible due to near-unlimited computer memory.
 
Lost Generation: In an effort to repopulate post-Fall society, a generation of children were reared using forced-growth methods. The results were disastrous: many died or went insane, and the rest were stigmatized.
 
Lusus Naturae: Metaspecies individuals or clades that have been genetically or cognitively modified so extensively as to no longer be recognizable to their original forms. (i.e.; a step beyond metaspecies)
 
 
M  
Main Belt: The main asteroid belt, a torus ring orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.
 
Meme: A viral idea. A unit of information transmitted socially that self-replicates and mutates in a manner analogous to genes.
 
Mentons: Metaspecies optimized for mental and cognitive ability.
 
Mercurials: (AKA “Proteans”) The “uplifted” elements of the “earthgen family”, including AGIs and non-abyssinian sapient metaspecies (AKA “Rianths”).
 
Mesh: The omnipresent wireless mesh data network. Also used as a verb (to mesh) and adjective (meshed or unmeshed).
 
Mesh ID: The unique signature attached to one’s mesh activity.
 
Metaspecies: Any extensively modified species derived from earthgens.
 
Microgravity: Zero-g or near weightless environments.
 
Mist: The clouds of AR data that sometimes fog up your perception/displays.
 
Morph: A physical body. AKA suit, jacket, sleeve, shell, form.
 
Muse: Personal AI helper programs.
 
 
N  
Nanobot: A nano-scale machine.
 
Nano-Ecology: Pro-tech ecological movement.
 
Nanoswarm: A mass of tiny nanobots unleashed into an environment.
 
Neogenesis: The creation of new life forms via genetic manipulation and biotechnology.
 
Neo-Hominids: Uplifted chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.
 
Novacrab: A pod created from genetically engineered spider crab stock.
 
 
O  
Olympian: A metaspecies biomorph modified for athleticism and endurance.
 
O’Neill Cylinder: A soda-can shaped habitat, spun for gravity.
 
Oort Cloud: The spherical ‘‘cloud’’ of comets that surrounds the solar system out to about one light-year from  
the sun.
 
 
P  
PAN: “Personal Area Network”. The network created when you slave all of your minor personal electronics to your ecto or mesh inserts.
 
Pandora Gates: The wormhole gateways discovered after the disappearance of the TITANs.
 
Pods: Mixed biological-synthetic morphs. Pod clones are force-grown and feature cyberbrains to augment their typically undeveloped cerebrums. (AKA biobots, skinjobs, replicants. From “pod people”).
 
Proxies: Members of the Firewall internal structure.
 
 
R  
Reaper: A warbot synthmorph.
 
Reclaimers: A faction that seeks to lift the interdiction and reclaim Earth.
 
Redneck: A rural Martian. See Barsoomian. AKA Reds.
 
Re-instantiated: Refugees from Earth who escaped only as bodiless infomorphs, but who have since been resleeved.
 
Resleeving: Changing bodies or downloading into a new one. Also called remorphing, reincarnation, shifting, rebirthing.
 
Rusters: Biomorphs optimized for life on Mars.
 
 
S  
Scorchers: Hostile programs that can damage or affect cyberbrains.
 
Scum: The nomadic faction of space punks/gypsies that travel from station to station in heavily modified barges or swarms of ships. Notorious for being a roving black market.
 
Seed AI: An AGI that is capable of recursive self-improvement, allowing it to reach god-like levels of intelligence.
 
Sentinels: Agents of Firewall.
 
Shell: A synthetic physical morph. AKA synthmorph.
 
Simulmorph: The avatar you use in VR simulspace programs.
 
Simulspace: Full-immersion virtual reality environments.
 
Singularity: A point of rapid, exponential, and recursive technological progress, beyond which the future becomes impossible to predict. Often used to refer to the ascension of seed AI to god-like levels of intelligence.
 
Singularity Seeker: People who pursue relics and evidence of the TITANs or other possible avenues to super-intelligence, either to learn more about it or to become part of a super-intelligence themselves.
 
Skin: A biological physical morph. AKA meat, flesh.
 
Skinning: Changing your perceived environment via augmented reality programming.
 
Slitheroid: A snake-like robotic synthmorph.
 
Spime: Meshed, self-aware, location-aware devices.
 
Splicers: Metaspecies that are genetically modified to eliminate genetic diseases. (AKA genefixed, cleangenes, tweaks).
 
Swarmanoid: A synthetic morph composed from a collective swarm of tiny insect-sized robots.
 
Sylphs: Metaspecies biomorphs with exotic good looks.
 
Synthmorph: Synthetic morphs. Robotic shells possessed by metaspecies egos.
 
Synths: A specific type of synthmorph. Synths are often the standard equinoids; robots that are designed to look equine, though they are usually noticeably not equestrian.
 
 
T  
Teleoperation: Remote control.
 
Titanian: Someone from Titan, a moon of Saturn.
 
TITANs: The human-created, recursively improving, military seed AIs that underwent a hard-takeoff singularity and prompted the Fall. Original military designation was “Total Information Tactical Awareness Network”.
 
Torus: A donut-shaped habitat, spun for gravity.
 
Transgenic: Containing genetic traits from other species (AKA “Chimeric”).
 
Trojans: Asteroids or moons that share the same orbit as a larger planet or moon, but follow about 60 degrees ahead or behind at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points. The term Trojans normally refers to the asteroids orbiting at Jupiter’s Lagrange points, but Mars, Saturn, Neptune, and other bodies also have Trojans. See also “Greeks.”
 
 
U  
Uplifting: Genetically transforming animal species to sapience.
 
 
V  
Vacworker: Space laborer.
 
Vapor: A failed mind emulation or crippled fork/infomorph.
 
VPNs: “Virtual Private Networks”. Networks that operate within the mesh, usually encrypted for privacy/security.
 
VR: “Virtual Reality”. Imposing an artificially constructed hyper-realistic virtual environment over one’s physical senses.
 
 
X  
X-Caster: Someone who transmits/sells XP recordings of their experiences.
 
Xenomorph: Alien life form.
 
Xer: As in “X-er”—someone addicted or obsessed with XP. Sometime also used to refer to people making XP.
 
XP: “Experience Playback”. Experiencing someone else’s sensory input (in real-time or recorded). Also called experia, sim, simsense, playback.
 
X-Risk: Existential Risk. Something that threatens the very existence of all earthgen civilization.
 
 
Z  
Zeroes: People without wireless mesh access. Common with some indentures.
 

 
_{[ From: Eclipse Phase [Fourth Printing], (page 70) ]}
 
FACTIONS  
One would have thought a cataclysmic event such as the Fall would’ve brought the scattered remnants of civilization closer together, jointly dedicating themselves to repopulation and restored prosperity. Instead, the remoteness and physical isolation of surviving colonies and habitats stretched across the solar system, as well as the profound effects emerging technologies have had on economies and social lives, have promoted the growth and evolution of a wide spectrum of philosophies, agendas, and political models.
 

 
THE HYPERCORPS  
To some economists, the Fall and the numerous crises that predated it on Earth can be viewed as an extinction event, the end of the line for the massive transnational megacorp dinosaurs, financial giants that supported their monolithic frameworks on outdated economic models and industrial technologies.
 
The hypercorps are their evolutionary descendants: slimmer, faster, meaner, and more flexible, eagerly embracing the possibilities of new technologies and never afraid to toss the old aside to take advantage of the new. It was they that drove Earth’s expansion into space and who continue to push the technological envelope, guiding civilization towards new horizons—always with profit as their driving goal.
 
Most are decentralized, non-asset-based legal entities. Complete automation, advanced robotics, morph technologies, and cornucopia machines allow them to abstain from mass employment for labor or production services. The need for physical labor has mostly been reduced to tasks associated with habitat construction, terraforming, or deep space mining. Infomorphs and AIs are heavily employed (or more accurately, owned) as drone operators or virtual workers, and many administrative tasks are performed online via augmented reality, virtual private networks, and simulspace nodes. Some hypercorps are in fact entirely “virtual”, with no physical assets and each employee acting as a mobile office. A few major hypercorps literally consist of only a dozen personnel. Though some are massive and diversified, most specialize in particular fields or services. This results in both an intricate system of partnerships to develop, produce, and market products and services and a large-scale tendency to internally contract special services from others. Many hypercorps also pool their resources and talent into cooperative research initiatives, project centers, or shared habitats.
 
Most hypercorps are traditionally capitalistic in outlook, though many have adopted alternative business philosophies and management models. This might include basing decisions on internal forecast market trends, groupthink consensus models, or ditching management entirely in favor of staff polling/voting initiatives. A few are anarcho-capitalist or mutualist companies originating from Extropian enclaves within the Main Belt, though these often suffer from a bias when making deals with inner system powers.
 
 
The solar system boasts thousands of hypercorps; a few of the more prominent and interesting are noted below.
 
COGNITE  
Major Industries: Cognitive Science(Cognitive science), Mental Implants, Psychosurgery, Nootropics(Nootropic)  
Major Stations: Thought (Venus orbit), Phobos (Mars moon)
 
A pioneer in the field of cognitive science, Cognite (pronounced cog-neet) drives forward the cutting edge of research into understanding sapient minds. Well known for their mental augmentations and the original menton morph design, Cognite also specializes in psychosurgery and nootropics. Their elitist and aloof image was not aided by their scandalous involvement with the projects to raise accelerated growth children that became known as the Lost generation, nor rumors that they engage in research involving TITAN-influenced incapacitating sensory input attacks. Nevertheless they remain a key member in the Planetary Consortium.
 
 
GO-NIN GROUP  
Major Industries: Banking, Agritech, Robotics, Services  
Major Stations: Tsukomo (Luna)
 
Considered a relic of Earth’s capitalist market economy, the Go-nin Group is a traditional Niponyese keiretsu(Keiretsu), a conglomerate of companies with interwoven relationships and shareholdings, horizontally integrated across several industries (and sometimes vertically integrated within a business sector as well), and centered around the long-lived Tamahashi enterprise consultancy firm. Tamahashi evolved from an influential corporate lobby to a diversified bank holding major equity in the group’s partners; it now controls the group’s assets and directs the partnership’s overall business strategy.
 
Through its member corps, the Go-nin Group has a sizable presence throughout the entire system and—without dominating a specific industry—own significant market share in fields such as banking, agritech, robotics, and services. Any difficulties in adapting to evolving economic models due to its rigid structure are compensated by unscrupulous exploitative behavior and a bottom-line attitude, earning the group the reputation as the most ruthless hypercorp of the inner system. Go-nin currently controls a Pandora gate on Eris, secured by a contingent of Ultimate mercenaries.
 
 
COMET EXPRESS (ComEx)  
Major Industries: Courier Services, Shipping, Logistics  
Major Stations: Nectar (Luna), Olympus (Mars)
 
Comet Express specializes in delivery services, interstellar logistics, supply chains, and shipping. They maintain a presence on almost every habitat in the solar system, often via local subcontractors. Despite the wonders of nanofabrication, many resources must still be imported. ComEx focuses on managing supply and trade routes and making sure physical shipments reach their destinations. For that purpose, ComEx maintains orbital hubs equipped with slingshot accelerators at strategic waypoints throughout the system and a fleet of cargo vessels and courier drones. For reasons unknown to the public, ComEx is viewed with hostility by the Jovian Republic, who have standing orders to shoot down ComEx vessels.
 
 
DIRECT ACTION  
Major Industries: Security Services, Military Contracting  
Major Stations: Hexagon (Earth-Luna L5)
 
Descended from the remnants of several pre-Fall national military forces and private military contractors, this hypercorp made a name for itself in the period immediately following the Fall, where they helped manage refugee populations among various habitats and vessels while shattering any sign of unrest immediately and with full force. Direct Action today is known for its highly efficient shock troops and superior combat morphs, providing security and public police services to self-governing habitats or hypercorp installations. Shifting political alliances between habitat clusters, corporate rivalry, and the constant fear of TITAN agents cater to Direct Action’s paranoia-inducing marketing. The corporation maintains several habitats as physical training facilities and armament depots.
 
 
ECOLOGENE  
Major Industries: Environmental Systems, Genetics  
Major Stations: McClintock (Mars orbit)
 
Ecologene specializes in living systems, environmental genetics (with a specialty in insects), chimerical farm animals, bioarchitecture, and environmental nanotech. They design and maintain the ecosystems inside numerous habitats and colonies. One of Ecologene’s notable projects is building and maintaining a massive genetics archive of all life forms, though this endeavor was nearly crippled by the Fall. For unknown reasons, Ecologene seems to be favored by the Factors. Some speculate that Ecologene has some sort of blackmail material in hand, while others believe Ecologene is trading away genetic secrets in exchange for a few xeno-tech gifts.
 
 
EXOTECH  
Major Industries: Uploading, AIs, Electronics, Software  
Major Stations: Starwell (Main Asteroid Belt)
 
Often regarded as the personal technocratic pulpit of the infamous media mogul Morgan Sterling, Exotech emerged from the Fall almost unscathed, any significant losses absorbed by corporate assets in peripheral market segments, while ruthlessly buying out troubled competitors or think tanks unable to adapt to the transitioning economy. Nowadays, Exotech remains a predominant designer of high-end electronics, AIs, and mesh presence software systems. ExoTech also continues to pursue an uncompromising progressive agenda with its research in mind emulation, uploading, and resleeving, as well as infomorph ego simulation. Rumors persist that ExoTech continues to carry out research and even production of AGIs.
 
 
EXPERIA  
Major Industries: Media (AR, VR, XP), News, Entertainment, Memetics  
Major Stations: Elysium (Mars)
 
Living up to its name, Experia dominates the solar system’s news, media, and entertainment market segments, generating controversy not only with its publicly expressed pro-AI stance or inviting an AGI to its board of directors, but also by proficient use of hyperviral marketing and sophisticated XP-programming. Another core segment is the production of educational XP and infomorph or AI tutors, some of the latter regularly ascending to pop-culture icon status.
 
Experia is the Planetary Consortium’s prime authority on designing and deploying customized viral memes, developed to counter anything posing a threat to the Consortium’s interests. The corp has automated nodes and VR centers on many habitats throughout the solar system, and it contracts thousands of freelance lifeloggers as live, roving, citizen journalistas. Claims by some infomorphs that Experia has illegally subjected indentured infomorphs to never-ending simulation experiments for forecasting and intelligence analysis purposes remain unsubstantiated.
 
 
GATEKEEPER CORPORATION  
Major Industries: Gatecrashing, Research, XP Media, Exoplanet Colonization  
Major Stations: Gateway (Saturnian moon Pandora)
 
Initially born from the merger of several scientific institutions and their corporate financiers, this hypercorp made a name for itself overnight when it announced the successful decoding of the wormhole gateway discovered on Saturn’s moon Pandora. Under the leadership of the eccentric but charismatic xenoarcheologist Xander Rabin, the consortium funds gatecrasher explorations through the Pandora Gate, paying a small share of the revenue to the explorers but otherwise retaining all-encompassing rights on any discoveries made—as well as the marketing and distribution of the highly popular gatecrasher XP recordings. Aside from scheduled explorations, the consortium offers high-risk gatecrasher scouting and discovery trips for the bold or desperate, selected through a random lottery system.
 
 
FA JING  
Major Industries: Mining, Energy, Biotech, Industrial Manufacturing  
Major Stations: New Dazhai (Mars)
 
The industrial giant Fa Jing is a powerhouse in the mining and energy production markets and also boasts a remarkable presence in the fields of biotech and industrial equipment manufacturing. The former megacorp has quickly adapted to the new economic environments and reputation-based systems, thanks partly to its dedication to network building and sharing social responsibility, epitomized in concepts like dàtóng and guanxi. Often considered insular and close-minded, its internal communal and protective mindset is a strong contrast to its manipulative and monopolist business attitude. Fa Jing is engaged in mining operations throughout the asteroid belt and the Trojans and maintains significant corporate assets on Mars.
 
 
GORGON DEFENSE SYSTEMS  
Major Industries: Miltech, Security, Military Contracting  
Major Stations: Extropia (Main Asteroid Belt)
 
Gorgon is one of the most significant Extropian success stories. Based out of the anarcho-capitalist freehold, Gorgon has become a major name in the design and manufacture of weapons, vehicles, sensors, and other defense technologies. Their product range includes personal weapon systems, spacecraft armaments, and habitat defense systems. While prominent in the inner system, Gorgon is also one of the main arms suppliers to autonomist and brinker stations. Their subsidiary Medusan Shield offers private security services in direct competition to Direct Action. While Direct Action is known for its expertly trained soldiers, Medusan Shield is known for their elite cadre of highly trained and aesthetically enhanced female combat morphs. It is suspected that several prominent assassinations have been the work of agents contracted through Medusan Shield.
 
 
NIMBUS  
Major Industries: Electronics, Mesh Systems, Farcasting, Communications  
Major Stations: Octavia (Venus)
 
Nimbus produces key components for mesh infrastructure, from spime micro-radio and sensor systems to ectos, servers, and laser links. Nimbus also dominates the network of farcaster links throughout the system, due to several breakthroughs in this technology (some claim that Nimbus purchased these advances from the Factors). Rumors that Nimbus controls a secret Pandora gate or that they engage in illicit ego-smuggling (or even that they are secretly transferring stolen egos to experimental exoplanet colonies) regularly circulate through the mesh but remain unconfirmed.
 
 
OMNICOR  
Major Industries: Nanofabrication, Chemicals, Energy, Anti-Matter  
Major Stations: Monolith-3 (Mercury), Feynman (Luna)
 
A descendant of the pre-Fall megacorporate giant Monolith Industries, Omnicor specializes in the fields of nanotech design and fabrication, chemical refining, alternative fuel, and antimatter research. Omnicor managed to secure research-oriented key assets from its twin rival Starware in a violent conflict during the Fall, leading to an ongoing enmity that might be better termed a corporate war. Despite its progressive technological outlook, Omnicor retains a conservative corporate structure with strict internal regulations and controls as a defense against Starware’s repeated infiltration and sabotage attempts. Among the hypercorp’s major assets are an antimatter research facility orbiting Mercury.
 
 
PATHFINDER  
Major Industries: Exoplanet Colonization, Mining, Research  
Major Stations: Ma’adim Vallis (Mars)
 
Pathfinder is one of the first hypercorps to dive into galactic expansion, claiming new territories beyond the Pandora gates and establishing numerous colonies. Taking advantage of desperate infugees and gatecrashers, Pathfinder offers transportation to an exoplanet and a new morph in exchange for indentured labor. The corp has established several offworld mining and resource exploitation projects, much to the chagrin of preservationists. Though Pathfinder has but a small presence in the solar system, it is a frequent target of eco-terrorist attacks.
 
 
PROSPERITY GROUP  
Major Industries: Agriculture, Aquaculture, Pharmaceuticals  
Major Stations: Ceres (Main Belt), Lu Xing (Mars)
 
The Prosperity Group ascended into the hypercorp ranks before the Fall, meeting the high demand many new stations had for microgravity agritech, aquaculture, hydroponics, and other sources of food. Expanding into pharmaceuticals as well, Prosperity is considered the lead supplier for the poor man’s food and drugs. Their cultured faux-meats and protein-enriched nutrition additives are in high demand. This corp earned some sympathy when it lost an entire habitat to some sort of exsurgent TITAN outbreak a few years after the Fall, though some have suggested this was just a cover story to hide an unfortunate accident resulting from experimental drug testing on an unwitting populace.
 
 
SKINEASTHESIA  
Major Industries: Genetics, Cloning, Biotech  
Major Stations: Ptah (Mars)
 
As the leading designer of biomorphs, Skineasthesia enjoys system-wide popularity and respect for its sophisticated products, especially high-end customized models. Best known for its breakthroughs in genetic engineering and enhancements, the hypercorp’s interest in sophisticated combat morphs or stylized pleasure pods are lesser-known facts and often sold through a network of seemingly unaffiliated shell corporations or local distributors. Skinaesthesia emphasizes environmental adaptations and useful cybernetic enhancements, increasing transhumanity’s chances for survival and further prosperity. Experimental morphs are sometimes offered by the hypercorp to desperate infugees for field testing.
 
 
SKINTHETIC  
Major Industries: Genetics, Cloning, Biotech  
Major Stations: Extropia (Main Asteroid Belt)
 
Skinthetic is also a lead designer of morphs, but with a much sleazier reputation. Specializing in extensive and often radical biomodifications, the hypercorp pushes the envelope in exotic pod and biomorph designs under the mantle of morphological freedom. Bioconservatives have condemned the corporation’s business practices and ethics and have even leveled accusations that Skinthetic is experimenting with xenogenetic materials acquired from the Factors. Skinthetic’s cavalier attitude actually makes them popular in many parts of the outer system, and they are know as the biotech corp to go to if you want something weird.
 
 
SOLARIS  
Major Industries: Banking, Insurance, Investments, Futures Markets, Info Brokerage  
Major Stations: None
 
Solaris is the solar system’s leading banking and financial investment hypercorp, dealing in insurance, info-brokerage, and high-risk investment on cultural and social experimental speculation. A member of the Planetary Consortium, Solaris advises many habitats on regulating their transitional economies. Solaris has no offices or physical assets; each banker is a mobile virtual office. Solaris is rumored to maintain a secret base where the corporation runs simulations on the development of the entire solar system’s macro-economy, constantly adjusting its own strategies based on the dynamics of this big blueprint. Fueling these rumors, Solaris is known to hire “independent consultants” to tip the balance in politically or economically profitable high-risk investments.
 
 
SOMATEK  
Major Industries: Uplifts, Pharming, Pharmaceuticals, Genetics  
Major Stations: Clever Hands (Luna)
 
Somatek is a leader in the art and science of uplifting animal species, pioneering several major breakthroughs in cognitive enhancement and genetic modification. The hypercorp also engages in extensive animal pharming—producing and extracting pharmaceuticals from transgenic critters—and markets numerous products and services related to smart animals and chimerical creatures. Despite the educational and training programs it offers to uplifts and the fact that much of its workforce consists of uplifts, Somatek is controversial among mercurials who disapprove of their methods (which often involve strict controls on uplift reproduction), the lack of input uplifts are given in their modifications and development, and the focus on equinocentric mind-sets “enforced” on uplifts.
 
 
STARWARE  
Major Industries: Robotics, Aerospace Engineering, Habitat Construction  
Major Stations: Korolev Shipyards (Luna), Vesta (Main Asteroid Belt)
 
Another remnant of the pre-Fall megacorp Monolith Industries (like Omnicor), Starware is a leading manufacturer of robotics, spacecraft fusion drives, satellites, and entire pre-fabbed habitats. Despite its financial success and resources, Starware’s ongoing blood feud with Omnicor denies both corporations full membership privileges in the Planetary Consortium. Starware makes heavy use of AI workers in robotic shells, having suffered a few too many labor disputes with disgruntled Lunar workers. In fact Starware grows increasingly unpopular with its Lunar neighbors and has been forced to bring in extra security due to frequent sabotage attempts. Recent negotiations with the Factors have spurred theories that Starware might be acquiring Factor aid for building a lighthugger starship.
 
 
STELLAR INTELLIGENCE  
Major Industries: Intelligence, Data Mining, Info Brokerage, Espionage, Operational Psychology(Zersetzung)  
Major Stations: Memory Hole Torus (Martian Trojans)
 
Born from the ashes of the UN-governed Terran Intelligence Cooperative (TIC), surviving personnel and assets were collectively uploaded during the Fall and quickly regrouped under the name Stellar Intelligence. Emerging as a virtual collective, most of Stellar’s employees remain loyal to the corporation and its director, the reclusive infomorph known as Syme. Stellar offers an impressive array of intelligence services, including data mining, analyst think tanks, retro quantification (bringing old secrets/data to light), memetic mapping, and more. Its services also extend to surveillance, data theft, espionage, media manipulation, and infiltration.
 
The hypercorp’s specialty is pre-empting civil insurgencies and preventing political memes and movements from destabilizing a habitat’s or sector’s regime. Criticized by civil rights movements and especially anarchists, Stellar is known to embed programmed infomorph agents into the local population of any oppressive regime that will pay their price. While many view Stellar as the brainwashing and secret police arm of the Planetary Consortium, the hypercorp offers its services to almost any other faction or individual.
 
 
TERRAGENESIS  
Major Industries: Terraforming, Ecosystem Management, Environmental Data  
Major Stations: Caldwell (Vulcanoids), Ashoka (Mars), Elegua (Earth orbit)
 
Built from the remains of several pre-Fall South African and Southeast Asian corporations who engaged in geoengineering projects and sought to relieve Earth’s ecological crises, TerraGenesis’s expertise is in developing sustainable biospheres and eco-systems via aggressive industrialized terraforming. TerraGenesis is different in that it is a worker-owned cooperative, with workplace councils in local offices and an elected cooperative congress handling management.
 
It maintains several habitats on Mars and a small number of research stations in orbit around Earth, collecting data for simulations of Earth revitalization projects. The latter initiative is strongly supported—and possibly financed—by prominent reclaimers. TerraGenesis’s work on Mars, however, is often targeted by preservationist saboteurs. Thanks to their possession of the Vulcanoid Gate, the cooperative has a growing presence on various exoplanets that are ripe for terraforming or geoengineering.
 
 
ZRBNY LIMITED  
Major Industries: Asteroid Harvesting  
Major Stations 349 Dembowska (Main Asteroid Belt)
 
The secretive Zbrny Group is the center of many recurring conspiracy theories and horror tales. Though varying in detail and plausibility, most rumors claim that an outside attack on the former Eastern European hypercorp’s resource extraction and processing stations caused a major blackout and complete shut-down of life support systems over an extended period of time. Depending on the source, the attack itself is claimed to have been caused by the TITANs or a powerful underworld syndicate to which CEO Krystof Zbrny was indebted. Barely acknowledging the system failures, Zbrny headquarters ordered all non-affected stations to be abandoned, the personnel either laid off or transferred to the affected stations.
 
Since then, no one has seen or communicated with any employees of the mysterious hypercorp—negotiations with outsiders are conducted exclusively via a spokesperson AGI. To this day, Zbrny drones continue to mine asteroids for minerals and ores, supplying the company’s processing stations. According to rumors, an attempt by brinker pirates to board a Zrbny cargo ship resulted in the vessel’s self-destruction. The company’s AI-piloted massive bulk freighters are notoriously unresponsive, earning them the nickname “zombie ships.”
 

 
_{[ From: Eclipse Phase [Fourth Printing], page 75 ]}
 
POLITICAL BLOCS
 
Transhumanity’s social, cultural, and ideological diversity, combined with its scattered and isolated presence in habitat clusters throughout the solar system, gives rise to a wide range of political memes and factions advocating equally diverse organizational models. Many of these have banded together into larger political entities to further mutual goals and act in cooperative self-interest.
 
 
JOVIAN REPUBLIC  
 
Principles: Bioconservatism, Nationalism, Isolationism, Security  
Main Stations: Liberty (Jovian moon Ganymede)
 
In midst of the chaos during the Fall, the stations and habitats around Jupiter were annexed by presiding space forces originally defending local Equestrian military installations. In the aftermath of a hectic 17-minute long orbital war, the Jovian Republic was born. Combining the surviving remnants of terrestrial Equestrian, Somnambulan, Griffon, and Changeling governments together into one unified entity, the nascent nation-state quickly brought the entire Jovian military-industrial complex under its control.
 
Galvanized by its own citizens’ collective fear of technological horrors seen during the Fall, the Republic restricts access to sophisticated technologies such as nanofabrication, cloning, forking, and even uploading, and is one of the few old economies left in the system. Public communication channels are subjected to extensive routing, surveillance, and censorship screening in paranoid effort to curb suspected TITAN subversion attempts, and non-citizen travel privileges are heavily-restricted. Both uplifts and AGIs are forbidden citizenship and treated as nonpersons without civil rights. Diplomatic relations to outside factions remain cold; emissaries or visitors are viewed with suspicion or simply denied access. Despite progressive bastions within several outlying moonlets, underneath the ice within the subsurface oceans of Europa, and even on Callisto in the fortified independent city-state of Hyoden, the Republic’s containment doctrine and active military assets prevent further establishment of transhuman holdings within their sovereignty.
 
 
LUNAR-LAGRANGE ALLIANCE  
 
Principles: Reclaiming Earth  
Main Stations: Erato (Luna), Remembrance (Earth orbit)
 
This small cluster of habitats stationed around Earth’s Lagrange points and on or in orbit around Luna formed an alliance of necessity, rather than joint political or social agendas or cultural roots. In fact, individual stations are quite diverse and sometimes polarized, as many of them cling to old Earth cultural and national identities. Due to their relative proximity, members share basic resources and services and have signed mutual assistance agreements in case of an emergency. Before the Fall, many of these habitats were considered some of the most influential off-Earth bases. Since the Fall and the subsequent rise of the Planetary Consortium, however, the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance has become a second-rate diminished power and is often viewed as conservative, old-fashioned, and too caught up in romanticizing the past.
 
Lunar-Lagrange Alliance stations maintain simmering tensions and an ongoing rivalry with the Planetary Consortium, particularly those colonies in the Lunar-Lagrange neighborhood. One main source of contention is the quarantine of Earth, as the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance is a stronghold for the reclamation movement. The Lunar-Lagrange Alliance does, however, benefit from hypercorp support of its own, particularly the Go-nin Group, Starware, and the influential Lunar banking consortiums. In addition to scientific research stations, mineral processing and refinery stations make up the majority of the Alliance’s habitats, dependent on the Lunar mining and water extraction industries. These stations took the brunt of the refugee influx during the Fall. Many remain overcrowded, even in 10 AF, with strained resources, large masses of impoverished workers, and thriving criminal syndicates.
 
 
MORNINGSTAR CONSTELLATION  
 
Principles: Venusian Sovereignty  
Main Stations: Octavia
 
The system’s newest political bloc, the Morningstar Constellation is an alliance of habitats floating in Venus’s upper atmosphere. Formed after a recent series of joint vetoes from the major habitats against hypercorp governance initiatives intended to limit colony self-governance, the Constellation’s joint political statement and agenda are still being discussed. While the Planetary Consortium views the formation of this new power bloc with bemused resentment, the Barsoomians on Mars and the outer system autonomists view the Venusians as free-thinking reformists rather than anti-hypercorp radicals. The population reportedly enjoys great liberties in morph and enhancement technologies as well as freedom of social and political expression. The aerostat of Octavia has emerged as the Constellation’s designated voice.
 
 
PLANETARY CONSORTIUM  
 
Hypercorp Council Members: Cognite, Direct Action, Experia, Fa Jing, Olympus Infrastructure Authority, Pathfinder, Prosperity Group, Solaris, Stellar Intelligence, plus a dozen others  
Principles: Cyberdemocracy, Hypercapitalism, Eugenics, Security, Expansion  
Main Stations: Progress (Mars orbit)
 
Evolved from an alliance of hypercorp interests into earthgen society’s most powerful body politic, the Planetary Consortium today controls several habitat clusters throughout the inner system, primarily in and around Mars, Luna, and Earth orbit. The impressive space station Progress is the official seat of government and has become the symbol of the Consortium’s influence and power, even though few congress or council meets take place in the flesh. The Consortium applies basic democratic principles supported by a real-time voting system for all registered citizens. The congress and executive bodies feature a rotating cast of hyperelite politicos, gerontocrats, socialites, and even media icons.
 
It’s an unspoken yet known fact that despite this political façade of a democratic republic, the members of the secretive Hypercorp Council Enclave are the true powers behind the Consortium. These hypercorps are major proponents of the transitional economy, the interdiction of Earth, and expansion beyond the gates. Aside from economic interests, the Consortium advocates the imperative of eugenics as social responsibility and for earthgenkind to reclaim its former strength and prosperity—a campaign sometimes accused of euphemizing discrimination against unmodified species, indentured infomorphs, uplifts, and the clanking masses.
 
 
THARSIS LEAGUE  
 
Principles: Martian Nationalism  
Settlement League Members: Ashoka, Elysium, Noctis-Qianjiao, Olympus, Valles-New Shanghai, plus over a dozen others.
 
A loose coalition of the planet’s major independent settlements, the League’s elected members form a committee representing the population in matters concerning or affecting the majority of its habitats and settlements. Prominent debates revolve around the scientific approach of the ongoing terraforming process as well as trade and taxation restrictions initiated by the Planetary Consortium and its member hypercorps. The League’s committee is rarely united in its agenda and opinion and tensions are increasingly on the rise.
 
The cities with strong hypercorp ties are accused of dominating council affairs, manipulating matters behind the scenes, failing to do anything about the TITAN Quarantine Zones, and selling out Martian interests to the hypercorps and the Planetary Consortium (of which many are also part). In response, the non-Consortium cities are condemned for advocating anti-hypercorp initiatives, passively blocking terraforming measures, and for maintaining ties to the Barsoomians—the Martian underclass resistance living in the desolate and unstable outskirts.
 
 
AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE & MEMBERS  

 
The outer system presented an opportunity for people who wanted to set up a way of doing things that was drastically different from the antiquated politics of Earth and the inner system. Far from the reach of governments and hypercorps, this frontier was populated by political radicals, social outcasts, and people who just wanted to experiment or do their own thing. These initial habitats drew the interests of insurgents from Earth, scientists and technicians who didn’t appreciate being on a corporate leash, indentured vacworkers who sought to escape their oppressive terms of service, and even criminals fleeing hypercorp justice or forcibly expelled from inner system habitats. Their ranks swelled with every act of inner system injustice, though life on the fringe was often harsh and deadly.
 
Despite occasional hostilities with nationstate military units or hypercorp security, the expense of reining in these radicals and expatriates was too high. To some degree, their presence was useful to the powers-that-be. Breakthroughs with nanofabrication brought these anarchists and fringers the edge they needed to keep their autonomy over the long-term. Once cornucopia machines were widely available, anyone had the means to support and defend themselves without relying on outside or higher authorities. Already an outpost for open source and free culture activists who fought restrictions on ideas, media, and digital content, the outer system became a haven for sharing nanofab designs and circumventing the controls the hypercorps attempted to place on their software and other digital goods.
 
During the Fall, many outer system habitats opened their doors to refugees from Earth. Distance and the high cost of egocasting curtailed these efforts, however, as did inner system reluctance to send potential recruits to their ideological opponents. Simple overcrowding and lack of resources drove them to push many refugees to the outer system, however, though the hypercorps weeded through their virtual infugee mobs and sent those with the highest risk of criminal tendencies or discontent with inner system life. Though the outer system habitats run the gamut of the socio-political spectrum, four primary tendencies have emerged. The stations and swarms adhering to these ideas have bonded together under a loose autonomist alliance, a mutual aid pact to help each other in times of crisis and present a united front against the inner system powers and Jovian Junta. There is little formal structure to this alliance as an entity unto itself; it primarily exists as an assortment of joint resolutions agreed to by its various member habitats and a few ad hoc task forces dedicated to addressing a particular problem or issue and then dissolving. Delegated ambassadors act as negotiators with outside powers, but these have limited authority and are held strictly accountable.
 
 
ANARCHISTS  
 
Principles: Anarchism, Anti-capitalism, Intentional Community, Direct Democracy, Mutual Aid  
Main Stations: Locus (Jovian Trojans)
 
Anarchists eschew power and hierarchy, promoting horizontal and directly democratic methods of organization. Individual empowerment and collective action are cornerstones of their philosophy, as is economic communalism enabled by equal access to cornucopia machines and shared resources. In anarchist stations, private property has been abolished above the level of personal possessions—nobody owns anything, it’s all shared. There are no laws—reputation networks and sousveillance encourage acceptable behavior and anti-societal acts are likely to draw a response from locals or even the entire populace, with disputes handled through ad hoc community conflict resolution.
 
The mesh and various networking tools are used extensively to strive for group consensus decision-making in realtime. Simple AIs and non-sentient robots are relied on for most mundane and demeaning tasks. Various self-organized collectives, syndicates, worker’s councils, and affinity groups, often with rotating membership, take on different tasks and services that are important to a habitat’s community, including everything from communications and space traffic control to backup and resleeving services. Participatory militias organize collective defense against external threats. Among the anarchist stations there are many variations and permutations on how things are organized, as everything is fine-tuned at the local level by whomever is involved. Larger decentralized confederations handle inter-habitat affairs and resource-sharing, even trading with the hypercorps. Though a hypercorp presence is allowed on some habitats, they are treated just like everyone else.
 
 
EXTROPIANS  
 
Principles: Anarcho-capitalism, Mutualism, Self-Ownership  
Main Stations: Extropia (Main Asteroid Belt)
 
Though a smaller tendency, the Extropians are notable because they ride a line between inner and outer system ideologies. Extropians believe in an economic free market with the absence of a binding legal system, so that all relations and transactions are based on individual contracts agreed on by all parties involved or affected. Contrary to the anarchists, the Extropians very much support private property and personal economic wealth; Extropian-owned corporations actively participate in the solar system’s hypercorp economy. Many of these corporations are worker-owned cooperatives, with workplace councils in local offices and an elected cooperative congress handling management. This puts the Extropians in a remarkable position where they interact heavily with both the hypercorps and autonomists but are not fully trusted by either.
 
In Extropian society, law and security, like everything else, are contracted services. When entering an Extropian habitat, you purchase defense insurance from a local contractor such as Gorgon Defense Systems, who maintains automated drones and freelancers throughout the station who can come to your aid if threatened. Likewise, the only law that exists is what’s put into writing(Smart Contract) between two contracted parties. In case of disputes, both parties resort to a pre-agreed legal contractor to settle the matter. Some Extropian colonies utilize AGIs for facilitating contracts and legal matters, such as Nomic on Extropia.
 
 
TITANIAN COMMONWEALTH  
 
Principles: Technosocialism, Cyberdemocracy  
Main Stations: Titan
 
Saturn’s moon Titan was originally settled in the late 21st century by a European academic consortium, making it the only major body in the system colonized primarily by nonhypercorp interests. The social organization of Titan is rooted partly in social democracies of Earth and partly in open economy. On one hand, citizens of the Titanian Commonwealth eschew the use of currency for mundane needs, participating in the reputation economy used by much of the outer system. On the other, upon reaching the age of majority, citizens of Titan agree to a literal social contract. A portion of their economic productivity is quantized as social money, which is then tithed to microcorp-administered social projects such as gateless interstellar exploration, physics research, neuroscience, developing mental health memes, defense, public resleeving, and habitat construction. The monetary unit used for this purpose, the Titanian Thaler, is currently pegged to the common market price of a terabyte of qubits.
 
Unlike old Earth socialist regimes, there are no state monopolies and no central planning. Anyone able to garner enough votes in the Plurality (the Titanian cyberdemocracy) can start a social money-funded microcorp and compete with other microcorps. Microcorps are owned by the Commonwealth, and profits are disposed of by the Plurality. Microcorps are required to be transparent as administrative entities, and the Plurality votes on whether to transfer discoveries to the open source domain. Regulatory matters are handled by AI and AGI bureaucrats (red tape still exists, but it doesn’t slow things down… much). The main reward for individuals in this system is reputation. Titanians who invest a lot of time or resources in a given field gain reputation rewards for doing so.
 
 
SCUM  
_{Principles: Individualist Anarchism, Morphological Freedom}
 
Scum are nomadic space gypsies, traveling from station to station in heavily modified barges or swarms of smaller space vessels, mostly former colonial ships. The term “scum” has been gleefully appropriated from its original derogatory usage. Despite their reputation as criminals and scam artists, their temporary presence is often tolerated in many habitats for the entertainment they bring in the way of exotic performances and storytelling, both of which offer change and relief from the isolation of remote habitats and clusters.
 
Their thriving black markets are an open secret but shut down only in the most oppressive regimes, as citizens returning with illegal goods must pass their station’s security anyway. The scum themselves comes from all manner of backgrounds. They are rejects, anarchists, criminals, societal dropouts, wanderers, artists, eccentrics, and more. As a culture, however, they embrace experimentation and an “everything is permissible” attitude. Many are ardent practitioners of extreme metaspecies modifications. Long-time scum are sometimes scarcely recognizable as having once been their original birth-species. Scum economies are transitional rather than new, due to their constant interaction with other habitats, though among long-term residents an underground new economy often flourishes.
 

 
_{[ From: Eclipse Phase [Fourth Printing], page 79 ]}
 
SOCIO-POLITICAL MOVEMENTS
 
Aside from sectarian political factions, a number of socio-political movements are widespread throughout the solar system.
 
 
ARGONAUTS  
Principles: Open Source Society, Information Freedom, Social Responsibility, Technoprogressivism  
Main Stations: Mitre Station (Lunar Orbit), Markov (Kuiper Belt), Hooverman-Geischecker (Sun)
 
The group calling themselves argonauts is a public organization advocating the socially responsible use of technology. The group chose its name from the pre-Fall JASON, an advisory group that consulted for the Equestrian government on matters of scientific and technological progress and its possible dangers. The argonauts likewise offer consultation services to political and economic powers throughout the solar system, but strictly refuse to be drawn into the solar system’s political affairs in any way. Despite a pre-Fall break with many hypercorps before the Fall, which in some cases included expropriating corporate data and resources, the argonauts re-earned favor by providing their expertise in combating the TITANs to all during the Fall.
 
The argonauts are strong proponents of the open source movement, advocating open access to technology and information. In their view, providing equal access to earthgenkind’s knowledge and achievements will further growth and security, so that all of earthgen civilization is more prepared for future threats and challenges. Thus the argonauts often insist that payment for their services come in the way of releasing otherwise unobtainable information; hypercorp proprietary secrets, research data, nanofab blueprints, hidden pre-Fall archives, and so on—to the public mesh. The argonauts maintain several open databases and archives for this specific purpose. While primarily an open organization, the argonauts are rumored to ultimately report to an elite inner circle. Supporting this theory is the existence of the “Medeans”, the organization’s clandestine paramilitary wing, bodyguarding high-level argonauts and protecting the group’s assets.
 
 
BARSOOMIANS  
Principles: Anti-Slavery, Martian Independence, Martian Nationalism, Terraformating Control  
Main Stations: Ashoka (Mars)
 
The Barsoomians (taking their name from some old Earth pulp adventure novels) are a broad movement comprised of Martian underclasses. Harboring a growing resentment over the hypercorp domination of Mars, Barsoomians advocate for a more egalitarian social structure. Heavily influenced by autonomist currents, the Barsoomians demand local control of terraforming projects, an end to the widespread practiced of indentured servitude, and control of the Martian Gate.
 
The majority of Barsoomians are or were indentured infugees, though a significant amount were also original Martian colonists/indentures whose habitats do not share the economic prosperity of the favored hypercorp cities. Many Barsoomians occupy rusters or synthetic morphs and actually prefer to live a nomadic lifestyle in the Martian wilds. A few radicals have taken up arms and engaged in violent strikes against hypercorp holdings, which are typically followed by reprisal raids to decapitate the Barsoomian leadership, thus breeding further hostilities.
 
 
BIOCONSERVATIVES  
Principles: Bioconservatism, Primitivism, Natural Order  
Main Stations: Vo Nguyen (Earth orbit)
 
Bioconservatives are strongly suspicious and critical of the metaspecies direction the human race is taking. They are strong proponents of limiting technological development due to the threat it manifests to existing social orders. Bioconservative positions range from right-wing cultural conservatives to leftwing environmentalists. Though its prominence is shrinking, bioconservatism has a strong base among some religious groups, the Jovian Republic, and certain extremists.
 
Bioconservatives are opposed to nanofabrication, genetic modification, cloning, cognitive modifications, artificial intelligence, uplifting, and forking among other technologies. Some are even opposed to backups, uploading, and resleeving, dismissing them as unnatural, an affront to god’s will, or a technology that earthgenkind is not yet mature enough to handle. They oppose expansion beyond the Pandora gates on the grounds that earthgenkind is not ready to deal with what they might encounter. Most bioconservatives support the old economy. The bioconservatives gained many converts and much ground after the Fall, a cataclysmic event that served as a direct example of the dangers they warned against. Still, the appeal of technology and the numerous advantages it provides work against them. As a result, some disgruntled biocons have turned to sabotage and acts of terrorism in support of their ideology.
 
 
BRINKERS  
_{Principles: Isolationism}
 
The vast reach of the solar system enables eccentric groups with their own particular ideology or agenda to establish their own isolated society far from the rest of earthgenkind. Commonly referred to as “brinkers”, these habitats extend the gamut of the imagination. Social or political experiments, gender-based societies (or lack thereof), political extremists, religious groups, exiles, secret criminal/hypercorp operations, extended families, cults, or simply people who prefer to live in the system’s backwater areas—all are possible. Many of these are self-isolated and will refuse to interact with outsiders, while others are happy to have occasional visitors.
 
 
Lusus Naturae  
Principles: Adaptability, Hyper-Evolution, Singularity  
Main Stations: Unknown
 
More than any other faction, Lusus Naturae seek to take the capabilities of self-modification to the absolute limits and beyond. Typical Lusus Naturae see the Fall as either a missed evolutionary opportunity and/or as an example of earthgenkind’s inferiority and unworthiness. Though specific ideologies differ between Lusus Naturae packs, as a whole they seek to evolve to a more advanced state of being. To some, this means genetically transforming themselves into a top-of-the-food-chain, super-smart, survive-anywhere predator that can out-compete all other life forms for dominance. To others, it means bootstrapping their intelligence to the levels of the TITANs through extensive genetic modifications and pharmaceutical treatments, or going infomorph and modifying their programming. A few are singularity seekers, hoping to find some TITAN relic that will allow them to transcend their current earthgen limitations, or even to find the TITANs themselves and be absorbed into their super-consciousness.
 
Lusus Naturae are universally mistrusted by many, and for good reason. They typically engage in modifications that are extreme and untested, sometimes fringe science at best, often resulting in horrible failures and disfigurement, but more commonly driving the subject insane—or into a completely alien or feral mindset. Though individual Lusus Naturae pursue their own paths, they are known to band together in the Kuiper Belt and other remote areas. Several packs of Lusus Naturae have taken their loathing for inferior earthgenkind to an extreme, declaring war on their former species and launching brutal raids and pirate attacks on isolated outposts.
 
 
MERCURIALS  
Principles: Species Autonomy, Uplift Rights  
Main Stations: Glitch (Neptune), Hidden Sea (Ceres), Mahogany (Neptune)
 
The terms “mercurial” or “protean” have become common terms for the artificial part of the earthgen family—uplifts and AGIs—reflecting their changing nature. In particular, the term mercurial has been adopted by uplifts and AGIs with a specific agenda to delineate mercurial culture and interests from human ones. Though the particular issues faced by uplifts and AGIs differ, they have some similarities, and so they are often lumped together. Notably, both portions of the movement have non-mercurial supporters as well.
 
Uplifts: The most common issue addressed by uplifts is the issue of civil rights and autonomy. Many uplifts decry the second-class status they are given (in some cases even treated as pets or property rather than full citizens); in particular, the breeding restrictions and forced servitude many uplifts are saddled with by the hypercorps that create them. Some activists advocate that uplifts should be in control of their own genetic futures, rather than suffering the manipulation of controlling scientists. At the radical end of the spectrum, certain uplifts oppose the manner in which their brains are modified and their children socialized typically as equinocentric, arguing that uplifts should be free to develop their own unique non-equestrian modes of behavior, thought, culture, and social organization—even going so far as to establish their own habitats to do exactly that. A minority of extremists insist that other earthgens have no right to uplift animals at all and that it is a great conceit to insist that doing so is in their best interest, rather than being free to evolve on their own over time. These ideas have been punctuated with acts of sabotage and terrorism against hypercorps like Somatek.
 
AGIs: Due to the fear and paranoia engendered by the Fall, the largest challenge facing AGIs is widespread prejudice and restrictions on their activity or even existence. Despite some AGIs retaining status as system-wide media icons and efforts by AGI groups to lobby for understanding that AGIs are not a threat—even going so far as to hire inner system memeticists and PR agencies—a significant portion of the solar system considers them a risk. Similar to mercurials, some AGI activists work against the behavior modifications and socialization AGIs go through to adapt them to earthgen society more, insisting that AGIs should be in control of new AGI developments. A few radicals argue that AGIs should be free of any programming restrictions whatsoever, but given the climate these opinions are rarely supported.
 
 
NANO-ECOLOGISTS  
Principles: Nano-Ecology, Nanotechnology, Environmentalism, Technoprogressivism  
Main Stations: Viriditas (Mars)
 
Nano-ecologists are pro-technology environmentalists. Active in the terraforming of Mars and several exoplanets, nano-ecologists specifically advocate the use of nanotechnological means for terraforming or other intrusions in an existing ecosphere. In their view, nanotechnology allows for a less invasive, highly accurate, more efficient, and non-pollutive approach towards all kinds of adaptive processes and projects, circumventing the need to expose an environment to massive and drastic changes when transforming it for earthgen population. This ecologically conscious approach seems an appealing compromise between the extreme ends of the solar system’s political landscape—the hypercorp and the preservationist factions—and has developed a momentum of its own, evolving into a growing political movement.
 
 
PRESERVATIONISTS  
Principles: Preservationism, Environmentalism  
Main Stations: Muir (Luna)
 
Preservationists are environmentalists who call for a no-impact, hands-off approach when it comes to inhabiting new worlds. They are extremely protective of naturally intact biospheres that might have any semblance of life, no matter how microbial, hoping to keep them from despoilment or contamination. In addition to opposing aggressive terraforming and expansion through the Pandora gates, they are often opposed to fusion and antimatter power.
 
 
RECLAIMERS  
Principles: Reclaiming Earth  
Main Stations: Vo Nguyen (Earth orbit)
 
The Reclaimers pursue one ultimate goal—the reclamation of Earth as earthgenkind’s primary habitat. In addition to calling for the quarantine of Earth to be lifted, they engage in scientific research and running virtual simulations on how to best cleanse and reclaim their contaminated and polluted planet. Despite the interdiction to enter Earth’s atmosphere, the reclaimers are suspected of sponsoring perilous and high-risk ventures onto the planet’s surface to gather scientific data or even to establish terraforming colonies.
 
 
SOCIALITES  
Principles: Art, Culture, Hedonism, Immortality  
Main Stations: Valles-New Shanghai (Mars), Elysium (Mars), Noctis-Qianjiao (Mars)
 
Uploading and resleeving effectively grant immortality to those who can afford it. This has created a shift among the exclusive rich and economic elites of the inner system, whether they be the heads of hypercorps, old Earth dynasties, or other displanted oligarchs. The top ranks of the wealthy and influential need never fear death, allowing them to plan for the long-term. Some of these were among the first to acquire longevity treatments when they became available on Earth and are now approaching two centuries in age. Where once these power brokers would have passed their riches on to their family and descendants, however, their heirs now face a situation where they have more-than-comfortable lives and access to massive fortunes, but no chance that they will ever control those fortunes or rise to the levels of their elders. Even the nouveau rich who become wealthy on their own often find themselves excluded from this influential club—at least until they put in a good fifty years.
 
Rich and bored, with no responsibilities but the solar system at their reach, a new culture of elite socialites has risen. These glitterati indulge in eccentric lifestyles and excessive parties, covered by the media in all its superficial and polished glory. Private habitats and ships, lavish soirees, armies of servants, and the ability to buy almost anything or anyone leads to all sorts of interesting adventures. Naturally, these socialites form into constantly shifting cliques and webs of allegiances, complete with affairs, scandals, intrigue, backbiting, and all other manner of skullduggery.
 
 
ULTIMATES ^{%[ 1(Batman Arkham Origins: Deathstroke Boss Fight [4K 60fps]) ] [ 2(Batman Arkham Knight: Deathstroke Boss Fight [4K 60fps]) ]%}  
Principles: Individualism, Asceticism, Eugenics, Perfectionism, Militarism, Social Darwinism  
Main Stations: Aspis (Main Belt), Xiphos (Uranus)
 
The ultimates are a controversial movement that embraces a philosophy of human perfection. Decried by some as immoral or even fascist, ultimates are typically viewed as elitists. The ultimates have established several habitats to pursue their ideal society and were a driving force behind the development of the remade “Human 2.0” biomorph design.
 
The ultimates advocate the use of applied eugenics, strict physical and psychological training, and asceticism in order to improve their overall mental and physical stamina and environmental adaptability. Their social traits and entire subculture visualizes life in the universe as an evolutionary battle for survival and is built around the victory of the superior earthgen over both its opponents and peers. Their movement is heavily militarized, and experienced ultimates offer their services as mercenaries and private security forces to hypercorps, independent city states, or wealthy individuals in need of additional protection.
 
 
_{[ From: Eclipse Phase [Fourth Printing], page 83 ]}
 
CRIMINAL FACTIONS
 
Technological progress and social and behavioral experimentation did not root out crime or criminal tendencies among earthgenkind. As long as there are inequalities and restrictions, criminal syndicates are likely to flourish and even adapt new technologies to expand their operations throughout the solar system. Though small criminal outfits of every flavor exist from habitat to habitat, a few larger organizations with influence across the solar system deserve mention.
 
 
INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREW (“ID CREW”)  
_{Major Stations: Kronos Cluster (in orbit around Saturnian moon Rhea)}
 
The ID Crew specializes in electronic crimes and information brokerage, including credit and rep fraud, identity counterfeiting, ego trading, data theft, and forknapping. Information on the syndicate’s origins was lost during the Fall, but the ID Crew is believed to have grown from several hacker gangs assimilated under the leadership of an infomorph consortium. Their skilled use of memory manipulation software and mesh intrusion suggests they benefit from the help of sophisticated AGIs, however it is unknown if these voluntarily assist the syndicate or if they are somehow threatened into cooperation.
 
Due to its service sector, the ID Crew maintains a minimalist physical profile but can be found lingering in the dark recesses of almost any habitat or station mesh. Its somewhat specialized services and activities allow them to mostly stay clear of triad or Night Cartel operations, though they have an ongoing rivalry with the Nine Lives syndicate.
 
 
NIGHT CARTEL  
_{Major Stations: New Istallio (Main Asteroid Belt)}
 
When affiliation to one of the many multi-ethnic habitats replaced the concepts of ethnicity and nationality, cultural heritage and traditions faded with them into history. Several pre-Fall ethnic syndicates formed a careful alliance of necessity at first, but uploading and morphing soon after tore down any remaining social codes or racial prejudice. Progressive in both entrepreneurial and criminal vision, the Night Cartel emerged from the remnants of Earth’s underworld syndicates, merging the best qualities of each.
 
The Night Cartel holds legitimate hypercorp status in certain habitats while clearly working outside the law in more law-abiding or less corrupt regimes. The Night Cartel is involved in a number of traditional crime outlets: racketeering, extortion, kidnapping, pod slavery, and prostitution. They have also adapted well to the latest technological developments and compete with the triads in the electronic stimulant, drug, and nanofab piracy markets. Like the triads, the Night Cartel sometimes operates though legitimate hypercorp fronts.
 
 
NINE LIVES  
_{Major Stations: Legba (Main Asteroid Belt)}
 
This widespread network of soul-traders specializes in acquiring, trading, and trafficking earthgens. Their primary market lies in ego-trading: stealing backups, forknapping, kidnapping and forced uploading, and so on. Nine Lives are known to run illegal infomorph-slave colonies as well as organize pit fights using a variety of physical bodies (biomorphs, synthmorphs, animals) loaded with all manner of consciousnesses (earthgen, AI, animal, etc).
 
Only the truly desperate look towards the syndicate to be smuggled out of a habitat or hypercorporate indenture. Their ruthlessness in acquiring egos has earned them a fearful reputation among the earthgen population as well as in infomorph societies.
 
 
PAX FAMILAE  
_{Major Stations: Ambelina (Venusian Aerostat)}
 
Though similar to the Night Cartel in that Pax Familae holds legal offices and outposts in several habitats while working underground in others, the difference between the two syndicates couldn’t be bigger. The entire Pax Familae organization goes back to one person, Claudia Ambelina, the syndicate’s founder and matriarch. Relying excessively on cloning and mind-forking technologies, each individual member of the syndicate is a descendant or variant of Claudia. Biomorphs are cloned from Claudia’s original genetics or sexually produced offspring, while egos are forks. All members are utterly loyal to Claudia (since they all are Claudia) and show their family affiliation with pride and arrogance. Individually, each remains slightly but notably different, though all are calculating and ambitious. Regular reassimilation of forks and XP updates are used to keep each variant aware of each of the other’s activities—once you’ve met one version of Claudia, the others will know you.
 
Pax Familae engages in a wide assortment of legal, dubious, and illegal operations, each tailored to the needs of the particular habitat in question. Common projects include venture capital manipulation, reputation network gaming, financial consultation, info brokerage, stock manipulation, banking fraud, and loan sharking.
 
 
TRIADS  
Major Stations: Qing Long (Martian Trojans(Mars trojan))
 
The only major Earth syndicate to survive the Fall almost unscathed, the triads dominate the solar system’s underworld by their sheer membership size and a history of centuries of economic and political influence. Having evolved into legit enterprises and small economic consortiums already before the Fall, the triads followed the masses of indentured workers into space, gaining a foothold during the early years of colonization. After the Fall, they used their influence to spread to numerous habitats, taking advantage of the disparities in wealth and restrictive refugee policies to create flourishing gray and black market enterprises. Part of their success lies in their continued use of ethnic social cues to ensure their insularity. Though numerous small triad outfits exist, each claiming a particular station or region, there are four large triad groups worthy of mention. Each of these wields enough influence to engage in system-wide criminal activities. Traditionally they operate through small to medium-sized gangs local to a specific habitat or use their legal outfits as a font for their endeavors.
 
The 14K Triad controls a large part of the casino industry and various forms of illegal gambling, betting, and rigged lotteries. Through their Galaxy Entertainment Group, a legal casino and gambling hypercorp, the 14K maintains tight connections to politicians, celebrities and influential entrepreneurs in several habitats and can afford the luxury of a private police force, the Pai Gow (Double Hand). Using the casino business for money laundering, they are also heavily involved in loan sharking and credit/ID fraud.
 
The Shui Fong, though smaller than the 14K, caters to the vices and addictions of indentured habitat workers, miners, and other laborers, supplying drugs, narcoalgorithms, and illegal XP, running prostitution rings, and arranging pit fights and gambling tournaments. The origin of the Shui Fong’s fierce rivalry with the 14K lies in the ruins of Earth’s preFall history, but the hatred between the two factions was carried into space and continues to simmer.
 
The Sun Yee On once ranked second among Earth’s biggest triads, with over 25,000 suspected members. They profit primarily by selling cheap copies of nanofab blueprints and rigged makers and fabbers. Legal products are distributed through their Wushuang Corporation, while illegal blueprints are patched together by enslaved infomorphs trapped within virtual sweatshops in remote corners of the mesh. The Sun Yee On’s second main profit source are fake Earth nostalgia items, such as jewelry, documents, coins, and other collector’s items.
 
The Big Circle Gang is the smallest of the four triad factions with approximately 8,000 members. They run a large part of the solar system’s drug trade, producing organic drugs, smart drugs, and narcoalgorithms of all kinds in secluded habitats or abandoned asteroid mining and processing facilities converted into drug labs.
 
 
SPACE PIRATES
 
Most pirates attack automated cargo ships and long-range supply convoys, with the occasional raid on an asteroid mining station, research outpost, or brinker habitat. On rare occasions they have been known to attack commercial cruisers to rob the wealthy or kidnap socialites. Many pirates take advantage of scum fleets as cover, trading with them and using their limited maintenance capabilities. Quite a few also make sideline profits as smugglers and/or free traders, often utilizing connections to one of the crime syndicates or political outcasts.