Eclipse Phase

[Worldtree]

I'm guessing some on this forum are aware of Eclipse Phase by Posthuman publishing, but here's some cool images from their story game. It looks pretty OA relevent.


by Nathan Geppert


http://eclipsephase.com/category/tags/ar...ews?page=1

[stevebowers]

Yep, EP has many of the same tropes as OA, and much of the technology is the same. They do have some things we don't allow, such as FTL comms using quantum entanglement, cold fusion, and psionics; but we have a bunch of stuff they don't have, mostly godtech. Mostly the two universes are fairly intercompatible, however.

[Steel Accord]

Incompatible indeed and not just for the nitty gritty sci-fi of what is or isn't present. The overall tone between the two settings and community is as stark as day and night. Take just one aspect both settings treat radically differently: ascension.

Here, it's not only something that happens somewhat regularly, it's (rightfully) treated as a good thing. The ascendent's close friends would likely applaud and be happy for their now empowered peer. In EP not only is it something actively fought against in-setting, the sheer possibility of it is treated like the birth of the freakin' Anti-Christ!

Eclipse Phase can be fun in the right hands, but more often than not it's just depressing. It's the promise of a transhumanist future but with the all of the hopeful memes and amazing possibilities replaced or smothered under a shockingly bleak interpretation of mindkind's very soul and effective agency. An aspect that's mirrored by a large, but not unanimous, portion of it's player base.

The fact that Orion's Arm is significantly more advanced in technology as well as a more idealistic and optimistic setting, I think is actually quite natural.

[stevebowers]

Eclipse Phase doesn't have a precise date, if I understand it, but the date appears to be roughly the same as our own Nanodisaster. If we were to set a game during the Nanodisaster I'm sure that it would be very dark. However the state of uploading tech in EP is actually in advance of the OA equivalent; EP assumes full routine uploading by the time of the main scenario (whenever that is), whereas OA doesn't allow non-destructive uploading and/or resleeving until the First Federation era, at least a thousand years from today.

It seems that our scenario has a slower development curve, but a much longer timespan. This allows OA to reach levels of technology not possible in EP.

[Drashner1]

OA has its dark side (cough cough Queen of Pain, Amalgamation, etc.), but tends to mix it in with both positive and neutral stuff. I like to think that makes the setting more realistic, actually. The real world is not an unleavened continuous negative dystopia, nor is it nothing but sweetness and light. OA tries to be much the same.

Todd

[Steel Accord]

Agreed, but the overall tone of OA is that the universe is huge and life, in all it's various oddities and spin offs, is wonderful.

In EP, life is pain, with the extinction and loss of identity around every corner. For those who have seen both, perhaps you may articulate it better, but you can certainly see where I'm getting at I hope.

[CCostello]

Eclipse Phase is fairly comprehensive (I skimmed a huge encyclopedic document of theirs, so I'd have to say probably more so than OA), but doesn't really cover any topics that OA doesn't cover to some extent, so as far as relevancy goes, it isn't like there is a wealth of ideas we can derive from them.

Also, I don't like how they infuse a socio-political slant into their fiction. For instance, their encyclopedia's definition of "anarchism" is anarcho-socialism by default without even lending any degree of consideration to the other schools of anarchism, and then it goes to great lengths idealizing that system. Also, I remember reading that Posthuman Studios (the project moderators) take an active stance against "men's rights activists", which I suppose is understandable if the MRAs on the forum are promoting some form of mysogynist hate-speech, but thats fairly harsh because they appear to be a civil rights activist group with relevant arguments and concerns. EP and its community isn't as objective and unbiased as Orion's Arm's.

[Rynn]

Also, I don't like how they infuse a socio-political slant into their fiction. For instance, their encyclopedia's definition of "anarchism" is anarcho-socialism by default without even lending any degree of consideration to the other schools of anarchism, and then it goes to great lengths idealizing that system.

For the vast majority of its modern history anarchism has been a socialist school of thought. In fact other than anarcho capitalism (which many anarchists don't regard as anarchism at all) what kind of non socialist anarchism is there? What I'm getting at is that I don't think classifying anarchism as socialist is such a bad thing to do given both it's history and majority of current activism surrounding it.

It's also worth mentioning that we have and have had similar definitions for things on OA that need updating. A year or so ago our definition of socialism still described it as a command economy, our communism page still does even though that communism requires a stateless, moneyless and classless society. All communist nations IRL are called such because the communist parties that run them at some point had the goal of bringing about a communist society. In reality all any have managed to do is create oligarchic state capitalist systems.

Also, I remember reading that Posthuman Studios (the project moderators) take an active stance against "men's rights activists", which I suppose is understandable if the MRAs on the forum are promoting some form of mysogynist hate-speech, but thats fairly harsh because they appear to be a civil rights activist group with relevant arguments and concerns. EP and its community isn't as objective and unbiased as Orion's Arm's.

As an admin here I would oppose any MRM influence. I've read a lot of MRM articles and engaged with proponents online and nothing has indicated to me that they are a civil rights group. They may offer up examples of situations when men suffer for being men (such as prison sentencing) but the majority of the time it is as an attempt to discredit feminism. On top of that the amount of mysogynistic bilge that comes from them discredits any claim to being a civil rights proponent. If someone was serious as to wanting to be an activist to correct injustices against men I have no reason why they would align themselves with MRM groups of all groups.

[Steel Accord]

Eclipse Phase is fairly comprehensive (I skimmed a huge encyclopedic document of theirs, so I'd have to say probably more so than OA), but doesn't really cover any topics that OA doesn't cover to some extent, so as far as relevancy goes, it isn't like there is a wealth of ideas we can derive from them.

Also, I don't like how they infuse a socio-political slant into their fiction. For instance, their encyclopedia's definition of "anarchism" is anarcho-socialism by default without even lending any degree of consideration to the other schools of anarchism, and then it goes to great lengths idealizing that system. Also, I remember reading that Posthuman Studios (the project moderators) take an active stance against "men's rights activists", which I suppose is understandable if the MRAs on the forum are promoting some form of mysogynist hate-speech, but thats fairly harsh because they appear to be a civil rights activist group with relevant arguments and concerns. EP and its community isn't as objective and unbiased as Orion's Arm's.

A-fricken'-MEN!

As a frequent contributor to the forums before I discovered OA, I can tell you first hand that is absolutely correct.

They give the Luddite, blatantly fascist regime, more sympathy than they do the Planetary Consortium. Why? Because the Consortium consists of Corporations. I guess while our ultimate "bad guy" is either a construct measurable in lightyears that is on a collision course for our galaxy, or the eventual entropic decay of the universe itself; their collective image of the Devil is a board of old, white guys.

How utterly terrifying. (Sarcasm, set to maximum.)

For comparison, you know how Tylansia is viewed by the rest of the galaxy with a kind of soft chuckle and a pat on the head? In EP the Jovian Junta is still a considerable threat if they were ever so inclined to declare war on the transhuman populace.

I've all but been singular in my opinion that, that should be bullshit. Why? Because, again, Singularity is "things man was not meant to know" territory.

Eclipse Phase is diet Transhumanism, no bones about it. With a serious serving of radical hatred and disgust with people sprinkled all over it.

I just want to take a moment to say how appreciative I am of this entire forum's tolerance and academic demeanor. Ironically, I think most of you are, what those on the EP forums think they are.

[iancampbell]

Steel Accord: Speaking only for myself, the reason why people (mostly!) probably get the idea that I'm tolerant is that I choose to project that way here. I am far from tolerant on some subjects, but most of them aren't going to be an issue in ten thousand years' time.

It might also help that the very subject of this board is one that requires a flexible and intelligent mind to work with it. Which doesn't usually go with mindless xenophobia or slogan-chanting on either extreme of the political spectrum.

Fun story (ish): I was putting forward a technophilic, transhuman and Singularitarian viewpoint on another board, regarding an issue I don't actually remember. To illustrate the argument I was making, I linked to the EG page on toposophic levels. The response to that was basically "OW! My head hurts."