Quote from: Spike on September 23, 2020, 04:01:48 PM
Simply to get it out of the way, the creators of Eclipse Phase are quite obviously very much pro-social justice and 'allies' and all of the other issues of the progressive left. This is not meant as an aspersion upon their collective characters, but a simple statement of fact, of where their beliefs lie.  This is relevant to the topic at hand, as presumably they are deeply concerned with being 'allies' if they themselves do not identify as some species of 'queer', and this informs their worldbuilding.

Don't support RPGs written by feminists.

I can't say the same, unfortunately. I am unable to ignore this sort of thing and use the setting without it. Probably because I would much rather use the settings as they are, or else create my own from scratch than to imvest time and work making adjustments. Lately that has become a problem, of course.

I bet the Albedo setting would make their heads explode then. A VERY regimented space faring civilization where mental screening is mandatory and medical screening is extensive. You arent going to get very far in the EDF if you cant pass the SPI exams, or much anywhere else important for that matter.
The ILR is so fucked up because aberrants disabled the protocols and took over.

Quote from: Omega on September 24, 2020, 05:22:38 AM
I bet the Albedo setting would make their heads explode then. A VERY regimented space faring civilization where mental screening is mandatory and medical screening is extensive. You arent going to get very far in the EDF if you cant pass the SPI exams, or much anywhere else important for that matter.
The ILR is so fucked up because aberrants disabled the protocols and took over.

Off-topic, but I just noticed Albedo on drivethru yesterday. Hard military scifi is a draw, furry element puts me off, but I think I will prob pick it up and see if I can just ignore the furriness. (Maybe I shd start another thread.)

In EP, sex is about one piece of software fucking another piece of software. Their point is to not to get caught up on what pieces of hardware those pieces of software are using when they interface.

I knew something was off with EP when all the major religions were on the decline except for Islam in the 1E version of their EP. So in a world where imo it is shown that not only is their no afterlife after a person dies, the same person can just awake in a new body. Yet somehow one of the more intolerant religions not only survives it thrives. No bias there or anything.


Too bad about 2E I might still take a look at the PDF as I bought it way before Spike post. It went from the top of the list to the bottom in terms of reading. I rather read non-errata SR6 before. If they put as much effort into including their politics as they do their releases well they would have more releases. Instead their next big product is USB Digital Archive of all their existing work for the small price of 125$. Already it took them forever to get 2E out their next product is an expensive rehash of their current material.


Another example of get woke go broke.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll on September 24, 2020, 02:00:53 AM
Don't support RPGs written by feminists.

An interesting idea, but not terribly practical, given the nature of gatekeeping and public discourse today.  Any author or creator with a belief system not based in modern progressivism (including feminism) is perforce going to keep their heads low, with rare exceptions.


You essentially are asking people to utterly absent themselves from modern pop culture, to... in effect... cede the high moral ground rather than participate in the public discussion. 


I, myself, take the rather Socratic view that the artists are not wise, in fact are mostly fools, but that the successful ones nevertheless manage to, if only accidentally, tap into a greater wisdom than they actually possess in their art.   As I've said before Eclipse Phase is very good at what it does, and in gaming terms occupies a unique space as even other transhuman themed games (Mindjammer comes to mind) don't attempt to pare the body of a character into a mere vehicle for their consciousness.   


Besides, how else can I mock their silly and ill formed opinions unless I read them?  I am constantly reminded that criticisms are invalid if you haven't endured the entire product, that I can't... for example... argue against anarchism unless I've read an entire bookshelf of the big anarchist thinkers.  Well, I've read Eclipse Phase, so I'm qualified to critique by their own rules.

Quote from: Marchand on September 24, 2020, 05:28:06 AM

Quote from: Omega on September 24, 2020, 05:22:38 AM
I bet the Albedo setting would make their heads explode then. A VERY regimented space faring civilization where mental screening is mandatory and medical screening is extensive. You arent going to get very far in the EDF if you cant pass the SPI exams, or much anywhere else important for that matter.
The ILR is so fucked up because aberrants disabled the protocols and took over.

Off-topic, but I just noticed Albedo on drivethru yesterday. Hard military scifi is a draw, furry element puts me off, but I think I will prob pick it up and see if I can just ignore the furriness. (Maybe I shd start another thread.)

If its the "platinum" edition then give it a hard pass.

I find our modern understanding of transhumanism in action is as accurate as 1900s understanding of space exploration.


People already struggle with identity and a sense of self. I see nothing but eugenics wars and complete sociatal collapse from something like eclipse phase.


What people fuck with is secondary.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 24, 2020, 03:00:26 PM
People already struggle with identity and a sense of self. I see nothing but eugenics wars and complete sociatal collapse from something like eclipse phase.


What people fuck with is secondary.

Respectfully disagree, with the corollary that your entire post is a refutation of the entire idea of speculative fiction.


People struggle with identity in modern society for a large number of reasons that, to be honest, aren't terribly hard to identify. Part of the issue is the relatively modern movement (150 years or so...) of attempting to build one's identity, one's sense of self, around who one fucks, and eventually adding in all sorts of deeply personal ideas about identity, such as forging an identity around a psychological diagnosis, or worse, a self diagnosis.


Simultaniously our society has slowly eroded every traditional marker of identity, often with cruel deliberation.  You are not allowed to identify with tribal groups, unless it is to claim a privileged status based on a loss of agency, of 'historical oppression'. You can't identify with a polity because Nationalism is bad and Globalism (eg: A lack of national identity) is good. You can't identify with your work, because efficiency experts have reduced us all to disposable, interchangeable cogs, and the average length of time at any given employment hovers around five years... and that is for the half of the population that works, as again, efficiency experts determine the best ways to reduce headcount to maximize short term destructive products. Men can't identify with their families, because that is patriarchal oppression, and even if they do no-fault divorce and an unacheivable idealized myth of romance, combined with legally enforced financial incentives means that they will probably lose their family within ten years... and if that was the source of your sense of self good luck not eating a bullet. Women can't identify with their families because that is seen as surrendering to patriarchal slavery, of betraying the feminist sisterhood and lacking 'ambition'...


In short the very modern problem of people struggling with identity has everything to do with current societal trends and very little to do with Transhumanism. Beyond that, Eclipse Phase actually does offer a speculative evolution, a solution to that problem, ironically because of the very progressive world view that leads them to making otherwise mock-worthy statements about sex... group identity formed around your political ideology, and very often your collective and the culture that grows... presumptively organically... from that ideology and collective becomes a real cornerstone to your Identity.  I think 1ed did this marginally better, but it remains a core feature of the game. It doesn't matter that you come from Mars, what matters is if you identify yourself as a Barsoomian, or a Hypercorp... or perhaps an Exhuman seeking to leave humanities failings behind. 


Honestly I think that is a pretty natural source of Identity for a lot of people, whether they know it or not.




Though I do want to comment on your rather incoherent idea that our current loss of Identity will somehow lead to eugenics wars.  One might very well argue that Eugenics Wars comes from too strong a sense of Identity, at least at the group level, and that a completely atomized society with no sense of personal, much less collective, identities can not organize itself well enough to conduct full scale wars, much less wars over demographics and generational improvement of their group. 

Quote from: Spike on September 24, 2020, 04:57:40 PMRespectfully disagree, with the corollary that your entire post is a refutation of the entire idea of speculative fiction.

Im not refuting I'm largely counter speculating.

QuoteIn short the very modern problem of people struggling with identity has everything to do with current societal trends and very little to do with Transhumanism.

I didn't say it was right now. I'm saying that in a situation LIKE eclipse phase society would largely implode on itself. How sense of identity is threatened by just social level changes. How catastrophic would be if it where genetic and technological changes to the human being.

QuoteThough I do want to comment on your rather incoherent idea that our current loss of Identity will somehow lead to eugenics wars.

No-I said that our lack of reading comprehension would lead to eugenics wars. Or I guess yours.
Or more accurately I said a scenario like in eclipse phase would lead to eugenic wars. Because if you can just decide what people can be on a genetic level its a race to decide what humans SHOULD be on a genetic level. If you can transfer & control thought then it becomes a race of what thoughts SHOULD be transferred and what thoughts you should be able to think at all.


What I mean is that the view of a mind as something you can just stimulate with a brain in a jar is largely pulp fiction. The brain and mind is just as much the product of the body it inhabits.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 24, 2020, 05:12:32 PM

Quote from: Spike on September 24, 2020, 04:57:40 PMRespectfully disagree, with the corollary that your entire post is a refutation of the entire idea of speculative fiction.

Im not refuting I'm largely counter speculating.

QuoteIn short the very modern problem of people struggling with identity has everything to do with current societal trends and very little to do with Transhumanism.

I didn't say it was right now. I'm saying that in a situation LIKE eclipse phase society would largely implode on itself. How sense of identity is threatened by just social level changes. How catastrophic would be if it where genetic and technological changes to the human being.

QuoteThough I do want to comment on your rather incoherent idea that our current loss of Identity will somehow lead to eugenics wars.

No-I said that our lack of reading comprehension would lead to eugenics wars. Or I guess yours.
Or more accurately I said a scenario like in eclipse phase would lead to eugenic wars. Because if you can just decide what people can be on a genetic level its a race to decide what humans SHOULD be on a genetic level. If you can transfer & control thought then it becomes a race of what thoughts SHOULD be transferred and what thoughts you should be able to think at all.


What I mean is that the view of a mind as something you can just stimulate with a brain in a jar is largely pulp fiction. The brain and mind is just as much the product of the body it inhabits.

There wouldn't be eugenics of the body you wear anymore than there are eugenics of what car you drive. Sure, those with the high-end fancy sleeves have better toys, but there's no "perfect" toy that everyone agrees is best. However, tinkering with the ego (i.e., the "software" of transhumans) can lead to something along the lines of eugenics--even if eugenics is technically the accurate term. Super-egos that eventually become the type of intelligences that almost destroyed transhumanity. I think that some ex-human faction is already going that way.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 24, 2020, 07:09:44 PMThere wouldn't be eugenics of the body you wear anymore than there are eugenics of what car you drive.

As I pointed out: The belief that the body you "Drive" is akin to a car is the equivalent to saying a rocketship is just a fancy bullet. We have millennia of wars over these "Cars" we drive, and that's before the cars and minds can be altered in a factory.

Quote[size=78%] Sure, those with the high-end fancy sleeves have better toys, but there's no "perfect" toy that everyone agrees is best.[/size]

Because its pulpy sci-fi and there aint nothing wrong with that. But I was discussing this on a more "realistic" level. Eclipse Phase is Gattaca taken to a horrific extreme and Gattaca was already oppressive.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 24, 2020, 07:36:12 PM
Because its pulpy sci-fi and there aint nothing wrong with that. But I was discussing this on a more "realistic" level. Eclipse Phase is Gattaca taken to a horrific extreme and Gattaca was already oppressive.

The setting has (artificially created/grown) space whales that "swim" through the sun's corona and space habitats made of meat. I can't really discuss EP on a more "realistic" level.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 24, 2020, 10:18:07 PMThe setting has (artificially created/grown) space whales that "swim" through the sun's corona and space habitats made of meat. I can't really discuss EP on a more "realistic" level.

Then its a shame sex took priority in such whackiness. Still if I want Space Wahales Il go for spelljammer.