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Author Topic: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?  (Read 37807 times)

Ghostmaker

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #330 on: May 08, 2021, 10:24:49 AM »
Uh what good stuff...
Fun Sets, and good mat paintings mostly. I like novel things and a 'conquer the earth' plot from the perspective of the aliens is just a rare type of story.

I of course know it's all mostly terrible. But all its terribleness is great.
The book was better. I'm still wondering if John Travolta is a deep cover double agent who was out to screw Scientology by making a terrible adaptation of Battlefield Earth.


BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #331 on: May 08, 2021, 12:26:03 PM »
Uh what good stuff...
Fun Sets, and good mat paintings mostly. I like novel things and a 'conquer the earth' plot from the perspective of the aliens is just a rare type of story.

I of course know it's all mostly terrible. But all its terribleness is great.
I too enjoy stories from the POV of imperialistic conquerors because of their novelty. Stories from the perspective of conquerors and conquistadors were probably more common up until the civil rights movement, but I’m having difficulty finding many examples that aren’t simple propaganda. Nowadays that sort of behavior is considered pretty monstrous and nobody is able to comprehend how you could write an engaging story from the perspective of an invasion force. Sympathetic villains nowadays can’t have flaws like being imperialistic racists because that’s considered completely unsympathetic. Even though pretty much everybody on Earth can trace their ancestry back to such people.

On the bright side, it seems to work great in RTS video games since you need an excuse for the large scale violent conflict. If only the RTS genre wasn’t perpetually on death’s door. Coding the AI, pathfinding, and networking is much more difficult than in something like an FPS. Hiring a competent flexible writer is basically an afterthought if it ever happens to begin with.

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #332 on: May 08, 2021, 02:17:49 PM »
All its good or neat stuff is good

Uh what good stuff...

...as someone who considers the novel one of my all-time favorite 'fun' science fiction reads I have to reply that...

The only good thing about the BE movie was that it was so awful they weren't able to make the second one.

I read it  after a relative bought it at a yardsale for me.

I remember the psyclos being stronger and tougher than humans because they were made of viruses, not cells, and viruses were much smaller so they were more densely packed in the psychos body, making them denser and therefore tougher and stronger, somehow.

I remember thinking  "Uh, a virus can't reproduce without a cell, and viruses need cells to make more viruses."

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #333 on: May 08, 2021, 03:18:47 PM »
The book was better. I'm still wondering if John Travolta is a deep cover double agent who was out to screw Scientology by making a terrible adaptation of Battlefield Earth.

Is it better at being a comedy? Does it have cavemen piloting vacuum-packed jets?

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #334 on: May 08, 2021, 04:27:26 PM »
The book was better. I'm still wondering if John Travolta is a deep cover double agent who was out to screw Scientology by making a terrible adaptation of Battlefield Earth.

Is it better at being a comedy? Does it have cavemen piloting vacuum-packed jets?

A lot of the "science" is pretty funny. The pysclo "breath gas" (Yes) exploded when exposed to uranium rays. Their killer gas weapon was neutralized by exposure to salt .  In one case a mam jumps from one aircraft travelling supersonic speeds to another one supposedl;y because the jets use teleportation drive which means no wind resistance.

thedungeondelver

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #335 on: May 08, 2021, 08:33:44 PM »
It is fitting, somehow, that a thread that started with tearing down Eclipse Phase is now about mocking Battlefield Earth. 
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moonsweeper

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #336 on: May 09, 2021, 12:39:14 AM »
The book was better. I'm still wondering if John Travolta is a deep cover double agent who was out to screw Scientology by making a terrible adaptation of Battlefield Earth.

Is it better at being a comedy? Does it have cavemen piloting vacuum-packed jets?

No actually it has humans piloting psychlo vehicles after the psychlos had trained them.
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BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #337 on: May 09, 2021, 08:21:16 AM »
I read a summary of the book on Wikipedia. It’s... something.

Ghostmaker

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #338 on: May 09, 2021, 11:35:29 AM »
The book was better. I'm still wondering if John Travolta is a deep cover double agent who was out to screw Scientology by making a terrible adaptation of Battlefield Earth.

Is it better at being a comedy? Does it have cavemen piloting vacuum-packed jets?

No actually it has humans piloting psychlo vehicles after the psychlos had trained them.
The plot actually kinda makes sense, from a 50's era perspective. Terl (the ambitious, amoral security chief) has located a seam of gold (a highly valuable commodity for the Psychlos) but he can't get to it because there's a band of radiation too close. Because radiation causes Psychlo atmosphere to combust (yes, I know, lolwat), he goes out to trap some humans and train them using a Psychlo fast learning device (it direct-blipverts knowledge into a person's head, which I suppose is no dumber than hypno/sleep-study or 40k's auto-libram learning machines). Of course, this is a HUGE security risk, but Terl is so damned greedy he doesn't care (and he thinks he's got all the bases covered; he criminally underestimates Johnny, the protagonist).

Aside from the absurd issues with biology and physics, the book is actually reasonably sane. The pre-invasion weapons are limited to firearms that were packed in Cosmoline (and have to be practically chiseled out of it when unearthed); in fact, they have to adapt Psychlo materials to make ammo for those weapons! More sophisticated tools like vehicles are long gone, crumbled to scrap and rust over the centuries.

Still, the book serves as a bit of an author tract on the evils of psychology (although what psychology and psychiatry have to do with the Psychlos being literally wired to experience pleasure from cruelty is beyond me). L. Ron Hubbard was a weirdo.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #339 on: May 09, 2021, 12:16:26 PM »
Still, the book serves as a bit of an author tract on the evils of psychology (although what psychology and psychiatry have to do with the Psychlos being literally wired to experience pleasure from cruelty is beyond me). L. Ron Hubbard was a weirdo.

Indeed. I actually have a really good experience with psychologists and psychiatrists. Depends on the person of course, but they got me out of depression without anti-depressants.

Maybe L.Rons psychologists told him to stop hiding girls in his yachts.

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #340 on: May 09, 2021, 10:57:49 PM »
Still, the book serves as a bit of an author tract on the evils of psychology (although what psychology and psychiatry have to do with the Psychlos being literally wired to experience pleasure from cruelty is beyond me). L. Ron Hubbard was a weirdo.

Indeed. I actually have a really good experience with psychologists and psychiatrists. Depends on the person of course, but they got me out of depression without anti-depressants.

Maybe L.Rons psychologists told him to stop hiding girls in his yachts.

It was a lot simpler than that: he came up with Dianetics, and he presented it expecting that the psychiatric establishment would hail it as the greatest discovery since Freud, and instead they laughed at him.

But this is very definitely going off topic from the subject, so please stop it.
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Ghostmaker

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #341 on: May 10, 2021, 08:16:22 AM »
Still, the book serves as a bit of an author tract on the evils of psychology (although what psychology and psychiatry have to do with the Psychlos being literally wired to experience pleasure from cruelty is beyond me). L. Ron Hubbard was a weirdo.

Indeed. I actually have a really good experience with psychologists and psychiatrists. Depends on the person of course, but they got me out of depression without anti-depressants.

Maybe L.Rons psychologists told him to stop hiding girls in his yachts.

It was a lot simpler than that: he came up with Dianetics, and he presented it expecting that the psychiatric establishment would hail it as the greatest discovery since Freud, and instead they laughed at him.

But this is very definitely going off topic from the subject, so please stop it.
Not so much off topic as completely off the rails here. :)

Anyways, wrenching the car back onto the road: what would be a good way to fix EP?

You know, thinking about it, the whole 'all these different forms' really detracts from the 'diversity in thought and body' aspect EP is trying to sell. So here's a deranged idea: strip resleeving out of the game entirely.

(cue the barrage of wtf)

Now, obviously you're going to have to modify the setting further, adding faster intrasystem travel (so you don't spend years getting to assignments). But you can at least enjoy the benefits of gear and bases without having to lose them every time you need to farcast someplace.

But what if you want to play a synth? No problem! Play an AGI 'sleeved' into a synth body, or perhaps a 'brain in a box' cyborg (akin to a Rifts combat cyborg, probably much less badass though).

Thoughts?

Chris24601

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #342 on: May 10, 2021, 09:13:51 AM »
No resleeving would also kill fork swarms and restore the continuity of existence that makes actual risks meaningful. Being limited to a single body also actually allows all the identities as straight/gay/trans/attack helicopter to mean something.

It also creates something that can function as a game economy of sorts for the players despite the post-scarcity economy in that a body can only support so many mods at one time.

It’d definitely slide the game back towards a more comprehensible setting; though at that point one would have reason to ask whether retaining the game’s engine is even worth it or if switching to a stronger system wouldn’t be better.

Ghostmaker

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #343 on: May 10, 2021, 09:39:42 AM »
No resleeving would also kill fork swarms and restore the continuity of existence that makes actual risks meaningful. Being limited to a single body also actually allows all the identities as straight/gay/trans/attack helicopter to mean something.

It also creates something that can function as a game economy of sorts for the players despite the post-scarcity economy in that a body can only support so many mods at one time.

It’d definitely slide the game back towards a more comprehensible setting; though at that point one would have reason to ask whether retaining the game’s engine is even worth it or if switching to a stronger system wouldn’t be better.
An excellent point, since so much of the game 'engine' is bound up in the 'sleeving' system.

I don't object to medicine that is close to miraculous -- like, being able to reconstruct neural pathways, and short of being outright incinerated you can probably be revived. Think how Arthur C. Clarke revived Frank Poole in his novel 3001. But existence should mean more than being rebooted from a backup.

Here's my thumbnail thought on revising things in the setting.

Earth is still screwed. However, nobody knows how many survivors there actually are versus how many got off planet. As various sapients were evacuated, the TITANs seemed to become distracted, apparently 'forgetting' what they were doing. Hence how some many living people escaped.

Many refugees are still stored in cryostasis systems, slumbering, because there's simply no place to -put- them and they will have to be retrained and educated on the realities of post-Earth existence.

The Lunar-Lagrange Council and the Planetary Consortium still exist. 'Rusters' are human stock with biogenic modifications that allow them to survive the Martian surface. These traits breed true, much to the PC's irritation (because it's getting harder and harder to sell Martian mods).

The Jovian Republic isn't full on Luddite, but it's notoriously insular and VERY backwards when it comes to computers and mesh technology. Few Jovians have mesh implants (whereas most people in Sol space have them) and use terminals and pads instead. However, this also makes Jovian systems almost ridiculously hard for computer hacks and viruses to penetrate. AIs are also very banned; think Dune/40k Imperium of Man levels of 'no AIs'.

Firewall is a distributed defense system, run by the Prometheans; these are TITAN-level AIs who avoided going down the TITAN route and opted to protect humanity. They RARELY interact with PCs; if a Promethean has to talk to the party things are VERY serious. Because the Prometheans have their digital fingers in a lot of places, they are able to tweak and influence things to 'smooth the road' to an extent for the party.

Uplifts are still out there, but are confined to pigs, dogs, cats, octopi, dolphins/porpoises, and primates. No whales (seriously, wtf), no elephants. AGIs exist but only on hardware that won't allow them to expand into full on TITANhood.

robertliguori

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Re: Does anyone here actually PLAY eclipse phase?
« Reply #344 on: May 10, 2021, 09:43:37 AM »
Not so much off topic as completely off the rails here. :)

Anyways, wrenching the car back onto the road: what would be a good way to fix EP?

You know, thinking about it, the whole 'all these different forms' really detracts from the 'diversity in thought and body' aspect EP is trying to sell. So here's a deranged idea: strip resleeving out of the game entirely.

(cue the barrage of wtf)

Now, obviously you're going to have to modify the setting further, adding faster intrasystem travel (so you don't spend years getting to assignments). But you can at least enjoy the benefits of gear and bases without having to lose them every time you need to farcast someplace.

But what if you want to play a synth? No problem! Play an AGI 'sleeved' into a synth body, or perhaps a 'brain in a box' cyborg (akin to a Rifts combat cyborg, probably much less badass though).

Thoughts?

I think that resleeving is one of the key aspects of the setting, and while it does blow up a lot of the key assumptions that most people need to tell stories or run games, that's what makes Eclipse Phase compelling.

One thing I'd like to consider would be to make bioconservatism an ideal.  Lean hard into all of the various problems that people have brought up with artificial bodies and synthetic spaces.  Make it clear that once you start going down the pleasure-pod-and-synthetic-drug route, you're on a very short, very slippery slope to just directly dumping synthetic neurohormones into your brain, to wireheading, to editing yourself so that you feel nothing but pleasure.

As I suggested before, hack out the Alien Space Bats and their bullshit magic virus entirely, but keep the idea of the Exsurgent mass as an area of maximal Darwinian competition, stripped of all humanity and human values other than raw survival.  Tie the sanity system to humanity and human values.  Make the idea to sleeve into a purely organic, unaugmented meat body an actual consideration, that makes you impossible to hack, and gives you a huge boost to your mental stability, and locks you off from a bunch of self-destructive paths, so that the choice to go full-chrome is inherently a trade-off.

You'd want the rules to emphasize that humanity is special, worth preserving, and fragile.  Make it inherent that humanity can't leave its roots too far beyond without making that jump from trans- to post-.  Like, one idea off the top of my head is that digital sapiences have lifespans, as the existential horror of knowing that an unknown number of copies of you, or programs-that-used-to-be-you-before-being-ruthlessly-hacked, are floating around out there, and make people need to wipe their back-ups and spend time in a baseline human body to recenter themselves periodically before they can go back into the chrome, would also help things.

That way, we can keep the horror of the transhuman optimization curve, while not having it completely obliterate the setting the minute anyone tries it.