Eclipse Phase Concepts in OA

[Drashner1]

JSo lately I’ve been getting very into the less-than-hard sci-fi RPG universe Eclipse Phase. For the most part it has a very good and cohesive story and universe design, and is hard science fiction for all but a handful of things, such as the way in which their wormholes work, possible FTL travel, quantum entangled communications, and psionics that apparently come from aliens. 

I have a vague memory that back in the day, when EP first came out, someone mentioned that they had said some nice things about OA and even indicated that we had provided some inspiration for some of their concepts. A nice compliment, if accurate. We include them on our page of links to similar projects and rather consider them a 'cousin' worldbuilding project or the like.

There are some concepts that I was wondering translate over to OA or am just wondering how they’re handled by OA. First and foremost is the concept of the Ego and the Morph. So in OA I know morphology is very important, but I’m not sure how malleable it is for most sophonts. In EP the morph is seen more like a suit than anything, and gradual and destructive uploading to transfer bodies and become infolife are commonplace, so how does OA approach this concept?

I'm not really familiar with EP, and had to look up these terms, so apologies in advance if I'm misunderstanding them or got a page with the wrong definition. That said:

Ego - In OA terms this would be the Mind-State. OA mind-states can be uploaded into a computer (initially this process was destructive, in later centuries they figured out how to do it non-destructively. Both methods are still used in Y11k), copied (to be in multiple places at once), backed up (either to devices implanted in the person's body or to remote locations), transmitted over interplanetary or interstellar distances and downloaded into a new body, either identical to the original or drastically different from it. The vast majority of Terragens (as many as 3000 quintillion) exist as mind-states operating inside virtual environments (singular = cybercosm, plural = cybercosmoi, collectively called The Cybercosm) running on large banks of computronium scattered all over colonized space. Only a comparatively tiny minority (a mere 389 quadrillion or so) choose to live in an embodied state either all of the time or as their primary mode of existence. Although they are by far the minority, the majority of what you see of Terragen civilization in the EG is about the life of the embodied population (so far).

People can use 'psychoware', their internal nanotech medical systems, and their 'exoself' (a somewhat superhuman 'superconsciousness' that runs on their exocortex - a sort of cybernetic brain lobe) to rewrite their minds and personalities in a variety of ways. More complicated changes may require the assistance of a trained specialist, either modosophont or transapient. But simple things like increasing patience, feeling happy or energized, tuning down grief, etc. are considered simple and generally just done by the individual.

Morph - In OA terms this would just be 'the body'. Thousands of years of genetic engineering have produced a huge number of races and clades, most derived from humans, but many derived from 'provolved' animals and plants and such. While the earlier parts of the timeline treated the different races and clades as very distinct species with an inherent nature each their own, by Y11k technology has reached the point where belonging to a particular races or clade is more a state of mind and a choice than anything else. People can (and do) use medical tech to alter nearly every aspect of their brain and body, including changing themselves from one clade or race into another. For the last 3000-5000 years or so (at a guess) it has been completely routine (and seen as completely normal - with about the same level of social meaning as we might assign to changing ones socks) to change ones sexual orientation, gender, species, and substrate multiple times throughout ones life (which can run for somewhere between thousands of years and potentially forever with proper medical support). Note that for the 'sophtware' entities of the setting (uploads, ais, a-lifes, etc.) such changes can be completed in a fraction of a second to a few seconds and make happen multiple times per day or even per hour as the sophtware chooses. For embodied sophonts such changes can take anywhere from a couple of days or less (using external medical support) to weeks or months (if relying solely on ones internal medical tech or a form changing ability genetically engineered into your ancestors thousands of years ago - or possibly added by you the last time you got a new body because you felt like it). In addition to changing into the forms of other existing races or clades, it is also perfectly possible, trivial, and routine to create an entirely unique form from scratch and load into it or be body modded to become it. Imagination and physics are really the only limits - and in the cybercosm physics is really just a polite convention rather than any kind of hard rule set.

The Right of Morphological Freedom is generally seen as fundamental to all 'civilized' cultures across Terragen space.

There is also the seeming rarity of true Vecs in EP, with, apparently, all of them being AGIs which sleeve into a synth body to live an embodied existence, so I was wondering if this is commonplace in OA, or if Vecs always just come from their specific bit of computronium.

Disembodied sophtware (Ais, uploads, a-life, etc.) is hugely common and makes up the majority of the population. They can download into a body if they wish, but this is comparatively rare (since the embodied world is generally unimportant to them). Vecs are notable for keeping to a specific bit of computronium and this can be seen as distinguishing the entire species. That said, vecs can also upload or copy their mind-states and do the same things biological sophonts do such as change bodies or transmit their minds across interstellar space via the Lightways. Some vec clades may stay in their brain/computronium, but physically move the unit from one body to another for various reasons, such as moving from a human type body to a bulldozer type body or the like.

Next there is also the apparent attitude that mostly everyone in-universe seems to adhere to pattern identity theory, as they’re all okay with uploading their mindstate as code and having it shit across the system to them be placed within a new body at the destination, which, to me, appears to be suicide for the sake of easier travel, so I was wondering if individuals in OA do this, as apparently pattern identity theory is popular in your universe as well

Pattern Identity Theory vs Continuity Identity Theory represents one of the major philosophic conflicts within OA (comparatively speaking - its widespread, but generally mild - not something to have a war over or the like). While a majority subscribes to PIT, the CIT folks are still quite numerous and within both groups there are variations of belief and intensity of belief. Leaving out the sophtware population (which all follow PIT rather by definition), even most PIT followers in the embodied population prefer to be embodied and use mind-state transmitting or copying or the like for specific things around an embodied existence (travel, recovery from death, being in several places at once, etc.).

There is also the speed at which their nanoassemblers build things. I don’t know the math behind them but I have seen that they build things incredibly fast for the tech level EP is at, so I was curious if the way they’re portrayed in that universe it consistent with how they could realistically exist, and if they could actually print what they can in EP.

Can you provide some specific examples or numbers? Without that as some kind of starting point, it's hard to provide any kind of comparison to OA.

That said - In one of the stories in our fiction section (written by a physicist) there is a scene in which a solar system spanning megastructure is being constructed at a rate of one Earth area every 11 days. We also have a thread from some time back that talks about Y11k manufacturing speed and capacity.

From the thread we came up with the following (quoting here) :

We had determined that a 'standard' modosophont nanoforge could operate in the range of 14.6 to 4.4kg per hour. Just to be conservative, and work with a nice round number, let's assume a forge producing 10kg/hr of product.

Now, imagine a cubical frame 100m on a side, floating in space. A total of 12 struts. Each strut is 50% nanoforges, and 50% support structure (in this context support structure = feedstock lines, power cables, radiators for waste heat, and actual physical support structure). Each nanoforge is 1m on a side and can produce 10kg/hr of finished product. So a total of 50 forges per strut x 12 struts =

600 nanoforges producing

6000kg/hr (6 metric tons) per hour. We shall assume that the associated robot assembly systems can keep up with this level of production.

What does this get us?

One of the largest class of 747 jet aircraft has an operating empty weight of 214,503kg. It apparently takes about 3-4 months to build one, although a new one actually rolls off the assembly line every couple of days.

Using the construction frame described above, it would take only about 36hrs to construct a 747 or craft/device of the same mass (since you probably don't actually need a 747 in deep spaceWink

Ok - let's scale up a bit.

Let's increase the size of our frame/system to 400m on a side. This gives us 200 forges on a side and a total of 2400 forges and 24,000 kg/hr production.

A Nimitz class aircraft carrier masses a bit over 100,000 tons - let's call it 105,000 as a working number or 105,000,000 kg.

At 24,000 kg/hr it will take 4375 hrs to construct something like an aircraft carrier (or equivalent) - 182 days or 6 mos. In RL, it actually takes around 7 yrs.

The larger system can produce a 747 in just under 9hrs btw.

Now, let's scale up a bit more.

Instead of an open framework, let's enclose things so we have solid walls all around. To be conservative, let's say that only 10% of the total surface area is given over to nanoforges, while support systems and structure take up the rest.

For the first forge system, this gives us a total of 60,000 m2 of surface area or 6000 forges, producing a total of 60,000 kg/hr of product.

This system could produced a 747 every 3.6 hours

For the second forge system, we get a total of 960,000 m2 of surface area or 96000 forges, producing a total of 960,000 kg/hr of product.

This system could produce an aircraft carrier every 109 and a bit hours - call it 4.6 days. Or it could produce 4.5 747s in about an hour.

Ok, now let's scale up even larger.

Take our forge system up to 1km on a side. This gets us 600,000 forges producing 6 million kg per hour. This is sufficient to produce a million metric ton spacecraft in just under 167 hours. Call it 7 days.

OA also uses 'bioforges' which create living things and 'engenerators' which is something of a forge that makes bodies for people traveling as data and re-embodying on arrival. Or when they change bodies, this is an option. Both work significantly slower than a 'standard' nanoforge since they have to work with living tissue.

Finally, we have the Pods. Pod people, at least to me, seem to be bionoids, and are people grown in pods which have non-sophont AI inhabit them in order to cut through the uncanny valley but also be service providers while simultaneously allowing the nearbaselines of EP to sleeve easily into things that would otherwise be very hard to create with their technology level. I was wondering if this depiction of Bionoids is consistent with how they’re portrayed in the OA setting, and if this is how they’re created.

To anyone taking the time to read or reply I appreciate it, and am looking forward to seeing any responses!

Not sure on this one. We don't describe bionoids that often in the EG and so I don't have a really clear picture of them. Will leave this for others to weigh in on for now.

Hope this helps,

Todd