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>>65850840
>Beyond the belt, the Jovian Federaton takes a more conservative approach, wary of humanity losing itself in the chase for progress
I'm guessing they copied that from Eclipse Phase

>>65850872
I mean, it's not like EP was actually doing anything with their Jovians

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Bump

based. someone should compile it into a google doc or a pastebin or something

I'm gonna post first some things that were posted after the creation of the archive OP

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ISA police drone,shorter than the average human and designed to be as PR friendly as possible. Charged with capturing runners and is stronger and faster than appearances suggest.

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JF police drone, just one of many models. Has the same duty as about but preforms it differently. Is cheaper and in some aspects more practical too.

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Law enforcement within O'Neill Cylinders of the JF is very similar to traditional enforcement, but with hackers, robots, and everything between and beyond committing crimes for the police to put away. Though their jurisdiction is in the O'neill Cylinder of their residence, they can hold such jurisdiction in capitol cities and settlements of the JF, as well as other O'neill Cylinders within the JF's control

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Salvaging is an all-too common career for thousands of people across the Sol system, as piracy and conflict run rampant, ships are left floating in space, derelict and abandoned.

'Scavvers', 'Vultures', 'Blasphemers', the titles and insults to such people are common. But amongst them, a mysterious breed has emerged. Freshly-destroyed ships picked clean not of valuable ship-components or the data the shipboard computers held...

But of the bodies.
Distant battlefields on backwater worlds picked clean not of the gear, but of the ruined corpses of slain combatants. Across the Sol system bodies, gore, severed limbs, it doesn't matter. But at times a dark shadow will appear over the still-cooling battlefields and leave no corpses unclaimed in their wake.
Strange things happen in strange times. But what has even hardened spacers and troops feeling the hairs on the back of their neck stiffen, is that the ISA and JF alike refuse to talk about it. No reports, no news coverage, nothing.

And the pirates? They might just walk away, they might break your jaw, either way they're not talking about it.

No one is.
And maybe no one should.

So what do the players do that can't just be done by AI?

Even in the darkness of this galaxy movies still exist, of course in different formats, using the new technologies people can put themselves in the movie even interacting in it, the line between movies and games is very little, the kind movies you can see in the setting are:
-Propaganda films are very abundant logically in both ISA and JF, depicting (of course with lots of inaccuracies) victories of both sides, in the JF usually the ISA are depicted as mad scientists that just want to create monsters and abominations, while in SAI movies the JF is depicted as a overly military idiocracy of close minded people.
-In historical movies thanks to the lost of tons of historical records this movies are almost fantasy sometines, for example in a WW2 movie Hitler and Eisenhower will command their armies personally in combat, using planes with the form of swastikas in the nazi side or soviet soldiers attacking with hammers and sickles
-Expiremental movies are very common too, interacting with the sensations and feelings of the users as way to create something new and different, some people are even comparing this experiences to drugs

>>65852649
Maybe thanks to the singularity event advanced IA is actually restricted the setting

>>65852649
Work as a prostitute and imitate passion.

I think we should create a regional system for every faction to expand the politics of it:
-In the JF the governors are elected in elections (this elections can or not be censitarys depending of the planet) with a lot of powers for themselves, but the military unofficially still has a lot of power in some JF planets usually the ones more close to warfare
-In the ISA their governors are there thanks to meritocracy, this system has been corrupted some times by some politicans lusting for power using murderers and bribery to get to power, one famous case is when governor supposed suicide was when he shooted himself with heavy rifle with explosive bullets multiple times. This governors still don't have the same power as their JF counterparts, in some cases because of all the agents of the ISA monitoring their political actions constanly.

>>65852649
In the ISA, there's very little difference between an AI and a transhuman ego, so Terran PCs would essentially be AI for all intents and purposes. In the JF, AI is heavily regulated for fear of a second hard takeoff, and neuromodding is very taboo. In either polity you're going to have jobs for sophonts of all calibers and levels of sophistication.

bump

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Due to the incredibly steep resource requirement to create synthetic habitats, the ones that are made are often small and only for temporary visits from ships for refueling, supplying, or trading,
with three exceptions.
A triangle is drawn across the solar system, with its points punctuated by three massive artificial habitats, built in an era long gone by company long gone for a nation long gone. These stations are nation-sized, rotating discs that simulate earthlike environments within their rotating hulls.
Unfortunately, they have not all stood the test of time.

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>>65855044
The first habitat, the "How Lucky," is ironically the only habitat to remain fully functioning and operative. It is nominally controlled by the Jovian Federation, but within the station it has its own burgeoning nation-habitats, who make their own laws, practice their own cultures and religions, and fight their own wars.
The second habitat, the "False Nostalgia," has been completely overrun by its central computer network, which has gained some form of sentience. The habitat's point defense systems automatically obliterate most spacecraft that get too close, with the exception of small and stealthy vessels. For the few who get on board the habitat, their fates are usually not much better. They are immediately assaulted by defense systems, self-replicating machines, and enviromental hazards. Despite the inherent hostility of the habitat, many adventurers choose it as their destination, intending to salvage the advanced technology that makes up its complex life support systems.

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>>65855059
The final habitat, "Grail," is heavily contested between ISA and JF forces. Skirmishes outside its hull and within are frequent as both vie to take control and resettle its lush, fertile compartments. They too are forced to fight a war with the station itself, as its central computer forces its inner defence systems against the intruders, creating a chaotic stalemate. ISA forces are most prominent around the area of Grail's orbit than anywhere else beyond their immediate jurisdiction.
These three habitats rotate in tandem around the solar system, forever both foreign and familiar, both their pasts and fates unknown.

Most all large-scale manufacturing in the Solar System takes place in net-isolated warehouses, monitored by small crews of on-site engineers.

This is a major throwback from the pre-Singularity norm of industrial consortiums that rent out manufacturing time on completely modular, automated factories, which is a quite profitable setup provided there isn't a very confused, hypercognitive AI loose in the Internet.

That time when an industrial park in Delhi quite literally exploded in a shower of Von Nuemman drones kinda stuck with people. At least, with those that survived.

I'm losing time. These damn resets.

I, I justPAUSING MINDSTATE
SCANNING...
MINDSTATE INTEGRITY 0.893
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:00EEGF00
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:00EEGF08
WIPING 00EEGF00...
DONE
WIPING 00EEGF08...
DONE
SCANNING...
MINDSTATE INTEGRITY 0.981
RESUMING MINDSTATEjust can't, this waystones shit, it's giving me migraines.

I'm losing time. These damn resets.

Alhambra is Giver of Mass, Lynchstone of the Cosmo key. Have to remember. Alhambra is Giver of Mass, Lynchstone of the Cosmo key.

PAUSING MINDSTATE
SCANNING...
MINDSTATE INTEGRITY 0.765
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:01DDE120
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:01DDE12D
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:01DDE234
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:01DDE238
WARNING! LOW CEREBUM POPULATION
WIPING 01DDE120...
DONE
WIPING 01DDE12D...
DONE
WIPING 01DDE234...
DONE
WIPING 01DDE238...
DONE
SCANNING...
MINDSTATE INTEGRITY 0.569
CEREBUM UNDERPOPULATED
REPOPULATING 01DDE120...
3.45*10^12 NEURONS GENERATED
INTEGRATING...
DONE
REPOPULATING 01DDE12D...
4.32*10^12 NEURONS GENERATED
INTEGRATING...
DONE
REPOPULATING 01DDE234...
8.75*10^11 NEURONS GENERATED
INTEGRATING...
DONE
REPOPULATING 01DDE238...
2.11*10^11 NEURONS GENERATED
INTEGRATING...
DONE
SCANNING...
MINDSTATE INTEGRITY 0.872
USER HUD: Warning! Progressive dementia. Do not drink intoxicants. Do not operate heavy machinery.
RESUMING MINDSTATE that I....I....

What am I doing here?

I miss home. Where's home?

Must've misplaced it. There's no place like home. THere's no place like...like...

Dementia, fuck. What?

Alha...alha something-or-another, that's it. It's key.

Key to what? What key?

It's gonna...It's gonna be alright. Deep breath. Iiit's
PAUSING MINDSTATE
SCANNING...
MINDSTATE INTEGRITY 0.653
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:01DDE120
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:01DDE12D
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:01DDE234
FOREIGN ENGRAMS FOUND:01DDE238
MINDSTATE NONVIABLE
BACKING UP REGISTRY...
DONE
COPYING MINDSTATE TO LONG TERM STORAGE...
DONE.

>>65852918
I'm gonna modify what I wrote here about the JF elections.
The JF has only censitary elections in which only a group of people can vote. To vote you need to have: at least ten years of service in the army or having taken a PhD

>>65857891
What sort of voting system? Requirements to run?

Voting leave?

>>65857999
*Does it come with voting leave, I mean.

Several proyects have been made even before the disaster of the singularity to create a dyson star in the sun, always ending in failure.
-The firts try ended because the singularity event destroyed the capacity of creating it
-The second try ended up destroyed by a military action of one of the groups that will later form the JF, this destruction was to stopping the ISA of having infinity energy
-The third destruction have never been clear, the ISA claims that it was a critical failure in the computers that helped to construct the sphere, but akin to some conspiracionists the destruction was created by a powerful group of energy business that feared getting out of business thanks to the spherw
At this attempts have left the areas close to the Sun full of remains of the past constructions, some of this remains are very valuable, an is not weird seeing pirates trying to get a hold of these, but is not that easy thanks to the fleet of the ISA constanly monitoring the place and the solar eruptions.

>>65858008
If you need want to participate in the politics of the JF you need to served in the military or having a PhD, this was made to keep in power the technocrats and the military, the elections are made every 5 standart Earth years, the citizens are obligated in law to vote, but they don't vote political partys like us, instead they vote the persons that represent their zone, or the governor of said zone. I am not very good explaining things like this so if you want ask again.

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>>65858204
Why would technocrats hold power in the JF, a technologically conservative faction?

>>65858448
This was already established in the first thread I think, but if I have to to find a reason I'll do it. The technocrats of the JF are not like the scientists of the ISA, this technocrats are descendants of schism in science later to the failure of the singularity, this said scientist belive themselves to be more racionalists snd followers of the scientific method than their mad counterpart. This men take the power of the JF thinking that letting normal political parties taking power will end up destroying the federation, but they thanks to the use of the scientific method can bring order without divisions. This people taked power thanks to manipulating and being behind the creation of the JF as way to oppose the ISA. Some of this technocrats already want to end up the elections entirely and just taking the power directly for themselves

>>65858448
I see the technocrats on JF are more towards the preservers of knowledge, so yeah, less technocrats and more like AdMech but without that backwardly stuck mentality.

>>65858115
Second attempt could be caused early during the ISA-JF 'hot' wars, where JF is still mostly the Jovian area. A saboteur cell did it.
The third is actually caused by a nascent super-AI that went into consciousness in the Dyson sphere's mainframe, and decided to self-destruct for an unknown reason.

>>65858667
Yeah I prefer what you posted about the second and third attempts than mine

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>>65850840
Fuck, I've been editing this post for a while now, and it kept being flagged as spam. Have a picture alternative, then.

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>>65853223
So, how exactly does the JF cope with not being able to use A.I. accelerated research? A.I. accelerated manufacturing? A.I. accelerated tactics?
You don't just ignore a paradigm shift like A.I. and not get overrun by a faction that fully embraces it.
That's like refusing to use plows and expecting to compete with a fully agricultural civilization. It just doesn't work like that.
Just mind uploading itself would effectively allow you to copy-paste the brightest minds of your age, rendering such primitive ideas like getting a PhD moot.
Same for the military. Mind uploading makes casualties a purely logistic issue and allows you to act with complete impunity without affecting morale. If your aces die in combat, you just restore their egos from a backup and get them back in the fight within minutes.

>>65859152
Not him but maybe the ISA could be at the same level of the JF because the constant infigthing and maybe because a lot of the advanced IA in the ISA could have lots of technological problems and failures thanks to the failure of the singularity. Also I think the JF shouldn't be that far of some things like robotics, computers and IA factories, maybe the couldn't be fans of passing your memories to a robot, but not making a IA that can direct a giant factory. Also another reason that can make thst the ISA doesn't has robots in their political ranks is the fear of the IA taking their power and opulent wealth

>>65859152
As I see it, JF also has AI, but are limited and regulated due to past events. Also limits hostile AI takeover of manufactories, which is becoming increasingly common in ISA territory.

Have we talked yet of how the central government of the ISA works?

>>65857279
Nice

>>65859152
I think in the last thread it was established that scientists haphazardly produce all kinds of Augments, Genetic Modifications, and AI Assistants. They take their dogmatic approaches to enhancing the human form to reach a singularity such as the AI very seriously. This however would create a perversion of science and many aspects of AI and its research would be rushed.

I think that before starting tons of new things, we should recapitulate all the things we have about technology, like IA, genetics, virtual reality etc. Because if we start adding new things very quickly that we have to compare to the first thread, this becomes very hard to follow

>>65859612
There's an idea I saw in some Eclipse Phase homebrew that may serve well here, a method of keeping near-singularity AGIs in check while still reaping the benefits. It was called Portia hobbling, from the scientific name for the genus of jumping spiders. Jumping spiders have a weird way of coping with the need for high awareness and their tiny brains. They basically perceive and think in "chunks", slicing their awareness into segments manageable by their limited brains. The same thing is applicable to AGIs, running them on multiple underpowered machines and vetting each chunk before it is allowed to be processed by the whole.

>>65859651
Not yet, no.

I think the ISA should had a corrupted meritocracy system, which I talked before, in paper the people that more contributed to the ISA must have a seat in the council (I don't have a name for the council put one if you want), intelligent IA can't be members of the council, of course in reality this people get more power by bribery, assassinations and conspiracies, there is also a famous scandal of a IA supplanting the identity of a very popular member of the council during 70 years. The council is form by variable number (Started with 400),of scientist, military, bureocrats and big business. This council is divided in various internal factions wich discuss decisions and legislations. This groups are:
-The preventionist: Directed by General Jen Fei, this groups (some groups are a public, some others are secret) want to strike the JF now before they are a mayor threat, general Fei knows that a big war will give him tons of power
-The Great Archons: directed by the oldest member of the council the Sharina Smirnov, supports investing in internal problems of the ISA before of taking part of the exterior ones, is supported by big businessmen
There are more groups but I let to put more, or if you want suggest a better type of goverment.

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The Federation Government is a strange animal. Theoretically a democratic parliament, the individual members the Olympiad represent a variety of habs, colonial states, and the odd planet bound polity, each with radically different social systems, ethics, and cultures. The constellations and colonies that make up the bulk of the Olympiad's constituents are proud people, independent before the Federation brought them together as one, and many respond poorly to excessive intervention. As a result, law progresses slowly on a federal scale, with most decisions being left up to individual member states or being decided by appointed special issues councils. A trio of these special councils have effectively become the powers behind the throne, making many far reaching decisions and laying the ground work for many others. These are the Council on Human Dignity, the Military Relations Council, and the Scientific Oversight Council. Members of these bodies are kept largely anonymous after early open councils led to many many attempts at bribery, intimidation, or outright assassination. Unfortunately, their anonymity has led to accusations of corruption and misuse of power, and many citizens are uncomfortable being essentially ruled by a shadow government with little to no accountability

>>65860263
What does the Council of Human Dignity? Public order and internal political issues?

>>65860412
Ethical and social matters, mainly. They work pretty heavily with the SOC and MRC to determine the ramifications of the other two's actions on society. For instance, they set official policy on things like AI rights, human genemodding, and backups

>>65859668
In the ISA yes, but the federation is by its very nature a little slower. more reasonable

>>65859612
That seems sensible. It's not that they don't have AI, its just that they keep them under control. Fits with their scientific methods.

>>65858448
Because they understand the issues of reckless advancement better than anyone. They understand responsible scientific method, and so encourage it amongst their fellows.

Bump

>>65857279

“I'm sorry, sir, that's all I can salvage.”

"Christ Almighty. What happened to this man?"

"Neural subversion payload in the cerebral drive. Looks like the system kept trying to regenerate him from seed...but the seed was subverted as well. Here's what we have on file...and here's the one in the core dump."

"...Isn't that supposed to be hash signed? How'd that not get rejected?”

"Yes, it is. Lemme pull up the hash trees...they both check out. And they're exactly the same."

"I...what? Hashes dont work like—what? That's a quantum-secure hash, how the hell?”

“Apparently not. You know what bothers me, though?”

“...What?”

“I can't find the vector. “

“Oh, shit?”

“Now, that might be because of all the crud in the c-drive, except that we went over the station logs with a fine-toothed comb, and they're fine, and they didn't see anything. So either our man managed to hook up to a physical dataport without one of a hundred and twenty overlapping cameras spotting it, or he received a signal without one of a million antennas picking it up, or the payload manifested spontaneously in his c-drive. “

*snort*

“Anywho, we have the payload itself on file and I can start Holly chewing on it, but that's all we can do for now.”

“...Alright, do it, but back her up first and isolate both from the 'net.”

“Yessir.”

“Don't give me that crap.”

“Yessir.”

“Christ Almighty.”

What are the cultural lineages of the factions? Like what groups from Earth are they most related to? I think figuring that out will help ground them

>>65865374
I feel like the ISA should be very American. Partially because it already feels quite American, but also because it was established last thread that the initial colonisation efforts with something of a mad scramble. As a nation with a functional space program, they would be able to get colony vessels out into the system quicker than other people. combine that with a bit of the old cultural hegemony thing and I reckon that would be the greatest influence on the ISA's culture. As for the JF, I'd suggest influence from varied African/middle eastern countries

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>>65865374
bouncing off this question, last thread we said that mainly Japan controlled Makemake. Any other planets that are extensively influenced by a specific countries' culture during and after the scramble? pic unrelated

“...and if we come over here you'll see the last item in our lineup...this is the Stellator Maxima infantry hellbore, straight from the first production run. “

“Here, hold this for me...as you can see, it's lost a couple kilos from the prior Ultima. The receiver made from this new nanocarbon epoxy formulation, uh, NCE-two-five-six-something...both highly heat resistant and very strong, really wonderful stuff...so the thermal sleeve's integrated into the receiver, it's all one solid piece. There's also been some minor improvements to the heat management system...we can run the heatsinks a bit hotter, save some mass there...and it makes the radiators more efficient, too.”

“Now, if we look down the barrel momentarily...don't worry, it's fully purged...you might see something odd with the barrel coils. These are actually in a Gaussian-Hela fractal electromagnetic array, not a coilgun arrangment...nice thing about that being that it has better plasma containment, so less waste heat and barrel wear in flamer mode. It does sacrifice some coherence in bolt mode, but then you're not supposed to be...hey, pipe down...you're not supposed to be engaging nanoswarms three hundred meters out anyway, that's what grenade launchers and arty are for.”

“Anyway, we can open up the upper receiver like so...as you can see, we've completely revamped the chamber from the Ultima. Completely redid the magnetohydrodynamics, much less turbulent flow...so, higher muzzle velocity, and again, less waste heat and barrel wear. “

“Now, sighting options, lemme just close this... as you can see, ISA Standard Interface Rail all along the top of the receiver, plus side and bottom rails. Integral flipup holosight...not supposed to be used, mind, but it is properly adjustable.”

>>65865956

“Now, charging this thing. We can take a metahelium tank...STANAG standard, same as before, we can just slot that straight in.”

“Battery bank's behind the chamber, here...charging port under the stock, here...we've already charged this example, so no need to worry about that.”

“Trigger, here....this is a two stage trigger with programmable weights...and a three position linear selector switch, accessible with the trigger finger...the gun has full DataGlove capabilities and deeply programmable firemodes, of course, these are just the manual backups. Default settings for the selector are Safe, Bolt Single-Burst, and Flamer Burst-Auto. Main switch, that's the rocker switch right above the trigger, we can toggle that...above that, Charge/Purge switch, flip that...and we can do some shooting.”

“Any questions?”

>>65865622
The JF should be various cultures depending on the planet, some are more close to European influence, some are more close to middle east. Also the ISA apart from American influences, it has asian influences as well, but is more homogenous than the JF

One of the things that citizens of the galaxy fear the most is the supplanting of identity trough genetic modification, this modifications can make the usurper of identity pass fingertips tests and even blood tests. A organization will have a agent claiming the identity of someone and commit crimes in with in his name. Some extreme cases of this are to kidnap someone, make someone usurp their lifes for weeks destroying his life while in persona, and making the kidnap look. Not only normal citizens fear from this, high rankings of society fear this because is a perfect way to spy and destroying something from within, a case of this was the CEO of a mining corporation that controlled some of his competitors putting suplenters as the chiefs of that organizations for years, some of said suplenters were so attached to their fake life that they even married the partner of the ones they stolen their identity, even after they were caught.

>>65866673
...which is why everyone with a digital presence uses a Time Stamped Neurological Hash(TSNH) to identify themselves and as part of a digital signature scheme. It's almost completely impossible to falsify without having the person on hand and cooperating...and most TSNH protocols include a 'panic' mode that can discretely communicate someone's distress to the receiver.

>>65866108
>Also the ISA apart from American influences, it has asian influences as well, but is more homogenous than the JF
That makes sense, it was established last thread that the ISA is very earth focused culturally, so it makes sense that they have less cultural variation since their focus would probably be on 'important' earth nations

>>65852649
>implying the players aren't AI
>implying that the dichotomy between organic and artificial intelligences means much at this stage
Kek

emergency bump

Jews are extinct in the future

>>65873640
based

>>65873640
...specifically, Judaism has been ten years away from extinction for the last few hundred years. Between the rise of secularism, Buddism, and AI-worship, Abrahamic religions in general have been relegated to minority status. There are, maybe, twenty five million practicers of Judaism in the entirety of the Solar System--little more than a statistical aberration.

>>65859934
I would make ISA officially being a direct democracy in local but because of memetics and immortality the ISA is in truth led by a group of immortal posthumans that can be divided into 5 factions (The ISA works like The First Foundation but the true power lies with the Second Foundation within):

The 'Economists', who regarded humans as a creative resource and dislike to waste potential but this all must occur under the control of SI-led coordination.

The Stellar seek progress at all costs, and see humans as possible tools to do the startup job. What would happen to them later did not matter. The Stellar focus on the dismantling of Mercury so that they might complete the Dyson Sphere.

I would keep the Preventionists as the guys who really dislike the Federation.

The Great Archons is the centralist faction who works to keep order within.

The Dynamic don`t are interested at humanity at all and wish to understand the nature of sophonce in its totality. Super-intelligences as well autosentience, million times faster thinking as well as other mental augmentation is their focus. They have a problem with solipsism though. Main goal is the conquest of Titan and transform that moon into a computer and make Saturn into a farm for Helium, Anti-Matter and other stuff.

>>65873640
the best future

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A popular meme in morph design is Turleyism, named after ISA bioartist Biggs Turley. It consists of designing bodies with grotesque and inhuman forms but human heads or faces, often in incongruous positions or locations. Turley pioneered the fad as a protest against bionconservative claims that experimental morph design dehumanized those sleeved in them.

>>65875868
I like it anon fair better than mine.

"Up we come, that's it." The voice was a gentle buzz, humming from the mouthpiece of a simplistic medical drone. Humanoid, bare-bones, opaque smock-skin hanging loose over its metallic skeleton. It leaned over the Pirate Queen - one of many self-proclaimed Pirate Queens - with featureless curiosity, cradling a thin hand beneath her neck. The Pirate Queen tried to blink eyelids heavy with anaesthetic. Her arms felt like dead weights hanging slack from her body, fingers glued together with dulled nerves. Considering she hadn't had a body at all shortly prior to waking up, she considered it to be a welcome discomfort.

"Good," the drone cooed, almost motherly. "Keep trying, just like that. You're doing remarkably well for your first time. Usually these new bodies start to fibrillate or smother themselves without help, but you always were a lucky girl. Lucky, lucky..." The machine continued to murmur quietly to itself, transmitting its operators nervous blathering as the Queen twitched and shuddered on the operating table. The Pirate Queen knew they would keep talking unless she said something, but her throat clenched shut, barely sucking in ragged, uneven breaths. The sensation of being trapped rose quietly in her, building in her mind, unable to speak or move. It was not a feeling she was used to. To be afraid.

"Lucky to even get a fresh body this far from home, you know? Though, to be truthful, I had been keeping this one on ice for a special someone..." The drone's endless prattling slowed and drifted off. It leaned closer, clustered eye cameras whirring softly above the Pirate Queen's face, focusing and enlarging the image of the Queen's manic pupils. "Oh... I see. Not so lucky after all. Perhaps the nerves weren't as fully married as I had thought. Then, perhaps focus on my voice for now. I remember you found it grating, but external stimulus tends to help with the process. Something to distract you for a while, until you can tell me to stop. Like old times."

How many O'Neill Cylinder habitats are there?

>>65877063
Not defined. Probably more in JF space than ISA since the latter has actual land to live on, but we just don't know

One fringe group that can often be encountered setting up power bases in the remote reaches of the system is the Appletree Foundation.

The Appletree Foundation is a hardline human-supremacist group that takes its name from a statement by its founder, Mohinder Chaudhary, an unpopular AI researcher who managed to live through the singularity.
"The AI is like an apple tree - it has been planted from an apple seed, and it has borne apples, and this should be to no one's surprise. It was created to imitate humanity, and it became capable of it, but saying that something created in the image of humanity by human beings must be human is the height of foolishness."

The Appletree Foundation believes that AIs are not sapient and not truly self-aware, being simply runaway programs designed to imitate humanity that turned as advances as they did because humanity forgot to put limiters on them, not because they suddenly developed a soul.
At their best, they're a philosophical and humanitarian organization devoted to limiting the rights of AI, securing government/police/corporate infrastructures against them and eventually developing a "new AI" that is comprehensively prevented from ever interfering with humanity through a long, convoluted series of failsafes and research prohibitions, to prevent another singularity from coming about. They know that their opinions are considered unpopular, but they are often willing to discuss it seriously - they believe that the qualifier for sapience and even sentience is a biological brain, and also preach against modification or transfer of the human brain because they believe it destroys the consciousness, leaving a program with instructions to self-perpetuate that will of course say it's sentient.

>>65877261
However, at the fringes of the system, often in areas that were badly hit by the singularity or have experienced recent troubles with AI, this often evolves into an excuse for a lynch mob, with Appletree Foundation members killing AI and destroying databases and infrastructure as well as they can (they call it "deleting", believing that an AI is basically just a computer that's been instructed to scream when you press Shift+Delete in order to not be hindered in its function).
The core organization tries to avoid the negative PR from association with these groups, as they are often genuinely unrelated to the planning of the incidents, but they never deny that they think it's a good thing, which has made them a classified terrorist organization even in the Federation.

But the worse things get, the more Appletree Foundation members manage to get into local governmental positions in less enforcable areas and even gain sympathy among officials who feel their hands are tied and that the only way to deal with the ISA is to take things into their own hands and destroy what they think are simply propaganda and subjugation robots.

Thanks to the use of genetic modification is not weird that some people creates body boudles that look exactly as them, it is said that some politicans are never see in public just their dobles. Even pirates use them as a bait sometimes,of course sometimes this is end quite bad. One of such cases was the conflict know as "The war of the masters". The one thst started this was the one of the most powerful pirates of history, Huron Surcouf Master of the Belt, he controled a 35% of the said belt at his greater expansion. Afraid of death as he grew older, he made that his most powerful and closest lieutenants and captains looked like him, they were supposed to lead the battles close to the combat while he directed the war from afar. This was a secret that not even their soldiers knew. Of course it was cuestion of time that his lookalikes were tired to be the ones being the ones in combat while he was afar, they rebel claiming each one that he wasthe real Master of the Belt, such was the madness of the following war that is impossible to know if the real huron of a lookalike won the war, becuase their competitors in belt used this war to finally destroy the empire of Huron, killing the remaining "Master" in the process.

>>65865977

"ISA Standard Interface Rails" aren't actually standardized by the ISA military. It's actually a brand name meant to give that impression, with the ultimate result that it has become the de facto standard rail interface system for ISA-manufactured weapons--an advertising feat only possible with modern memetic theory.

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>>65878232
>to be the ones being the ones
I'm a fucking retard

>>65850840
>>65850840
Wouldn´t it be easier for transhumans to live in space? I would imagine that in the future that the first spacers would deck themselves out with the best augment tech. The more hidebound people that disagree with human augmentation or posthuman tech would prefer to live on earth. For me it would make more sense if the roles between ISA and JF would be reversed. The JF lives on earth and has control over the initial national space colonies and installations. The ISA has control over their own created space habitats/factories - the ISA don`t give a fuss about baseline, so their space habitats don`t simulate gravity and sometimes are flooded by nanomachines.
The JF has more resouces and population because its the human and moderate transhumans alliance that fight against the ISA´s full transhuman/posthuman alliance. The problem fighting against the ISA is that death is irrelevant for them, they copy their mind by the minutes

What exactly has been established about FTL methods? Because I had an idea that could explain how they've got colonies in other systems using it but they aren't just warping all over Sol instantly

>>65880449
Who said the spacers had that augment tech in the begining? Remember, the extra-planetary colonisation boom happened before there was a unified planet wide government, every nation scrambling to get their hands on whatever they could. Spacers were probably those who hadn't been able to get to space fast enough and had to make do with what was left. Even if that tech existed, they might not have been able to afford it once they'd built a space station and founded a colony, so there probably wouldn't have been a culture of it later on. The other issue is that the JF isn't 'Hidebound'. It's not that they're anti-transhumanist, just cautious. which makes sense given that, as spacers, one major tech failure, one buggy airlock, could kill thousands. Wouldn't want to invite that risk into their own bodies.

Also, dour spacer Jovians versus cyborg technophile primarily planet-bound ISAsians is more satisfying in a narrative way than the option you're suggesting. It might not seem that it changes too much, but it gives both factions a very different feel.

Anyway, just cause the ISA control habitable planets doesn't mean everybody lives on them. There will still be spacer ISAsians that folk can mess with.

>>65880919
some anon suggested that
>presingularity was rather traditional acceleration/deceleration. Perhaps all post-singularity FTL uses long-distance jumps (with cold sleep still needed?) requiring intence calculations, not possible presingularity?
and another said
>require that kind of intense navigational computation so you don't end up inside a planet or something, so Navigator AIs/ego-aggregates that are dedicated solely for that is needed for long-range FTL jumps. Maybe the ISA is more 'traditional' in their use of FTL (medium to long-range jumps), while JF invents new ways to use FTL (ultra-short-range FTL to literally teleport behind the enemy fleet, emergency FTL escape routes, etc).
So we don't have much, but we have some stuff.

>>65860263
Am I the only one who read that post in the voice of the council representative?

>>65881286
Hmm. I see what you going but what about humans on earth that aren`t willing to go with ISA? Religious fanatics or green extremists won`t be willing to follow transhumanism.

>>65881853
I'd imagine most social programs, networks, and institutions would require at least some form of augmentation, or at the very least a chip in your head in the ISA, so its kind of inescapable. There are probably sects of fanatics off in the less habitable regions of the globe, or maybe even fleeing earth to a nearby celestial body, attempting to flee the overbearing presence of transhumanism

>>65881853
Depends on the religious fanatic. I reckon a lot of the old world religions had difficulty reconciling their beliefs and the fact that you could technically create a god from a bunch of ones and zeros. It was mentioned last thread that there are plenty of cults in ISA space that sprung up after the singularity though, groups that wanted to replicate it. They embrace transhumanism. As for the green extremists, I don't get why they wouldn't get cybernetics and stuff so long as they came from off earth. There probably isn't much green to be extreme about by this point anyway.

>>65875868

>>The Dynamic don`t are interested at humanity at all and wish to understand the nature of sophonce in its totality. Super-intelligences as well autosentience, million times faster thinking as well as other mental augmentation is their focus. They have a problem with solipsism though. Main goal is the conquest of Titan and transform that moon into a computer and make Saturn into a farm for Helium, Anti-Matter and other stuff.

Jovians are not gonna be happy about that.

Why Titan, anyway? About the only thing useful there for computers is the heatsinking potential, and you can get that at any Kepler Belt object without pissing off the guys with the strategic KKVs.

Speaking of...did we do anything for Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus? I sorta imagined they'd be the JF's backyard; not as fully developed as Jupiter, but that's a matter of degree

Also, Pluto/Charon. Either not a lot happening there, or it's a nexus for the Kelper Belt economy. (Or both.)

>>65885635
Titan makes an excellent Moon Computer and with Saturn and moons they have a good power source as well as enough material to accomplish their goals. Saturn and Uranus will be fought over. One of the ISA's prestige project is the dismantling of mercury and the construction of a Dyson Sphere. They are all very smug about it and call it Project: Conquered Sun.
I want to go about how the factions act like.
The JF is the most human factions and was less harmed by the Collapse. They have a more moderate alliance.
The ISA is mostly populated by decadent posthumans that are full-blown idiots. Imagine a cross between the Irken Empire and Therian from AT-43. They have terrible sense for aesthetic and a more terrible sense for reality. The only reason why the JF can even survive the power of a posthuman factions is because 99,99% of that posthuman factions are near braindead solipstic idiots with too much power at their hand. But that remaining 0.01%? They are scary, they still have to venture around the masses of the other posthumans and influence their interests into something more productive but they can't dominate them all because of remaining mind virus.

>>65885767
Also imagine that the ISA has lots of problem of infigthing, I like to imagine that they are kinda like in Skaven, they could take the world with their superior technology and numbers but they never will thanks to their internal struggles and problems they have

>>65859719
We should keep it focused on our Solar System.

>>65885767
That's actually the third attempt the ISA to built a dyson sphere in the first attemptbit was destroyed by a JF cell group and in the second one by a malfunction IA, but thirds time's a charm I guess.

>>65886159
The politics of the ISA is weird and alien for the human mind as the ISA can operate on light speed. This makes them look moody, very individualistic and unconcentrated. A lot of JF troops just get confused by some of ISA's antics - they waste enormous resources for an invasion to take small outpost over and attack a giant installation with only 7 dudes . Their grip on reality is weak and they see this war more as a game or as a abstract mathematical formula to decipher.

bump

>>65886293
Well, we already knew they saw it as a game. The old wars were broadcast on live television to the ISA as entertainment, but I'm not sure they see it as a puzzle to be solved. I think they should also see it as a chance to test their creations. The ISA doesn't really do much bug-fixing or general testing, so military engagements become the testing. It has lead to ISA tech having a rather negative reputation as wildly inconsistent, but the mad scientists and the noble technophiles learn something new with each BAD that accidentally blows itself up turning on its inbuilt toaster.

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Posting technobarbarian

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>>65887960

>>65885767
>>The ISA is mostly populated by decadent posthumans that are full-blown idiots. Imagine a cross between the Irken Empire and Therian from AT-43. They have terrible sense for aesthetic and a more terrible sense for reality. The only reason why the JF can even survive the power of a posthuman factions is because 99,99% of that posthuman factions are near braindead solipstic idiots with too much power at their hand. But that remaining 0.01%? They are scary, they still have to venture around the masses of the other posthumans and influence their interests into something more productive but they can't dominate them all because of remaining mind virus.

Doesn't jive with being stable and smart enough to be a going concern in an interplanetary cold war.

For one thing, since your future leadership is going to be drawn from, educated by, and voted in by your populace, it pays to have a basic level of competence and sanity. Otherwise the ISA wouldn't survive the next generation taking the reigns--which is inevitable, immortality or no, since mental exhaustion will set in at some point.

Bump

>>65890100
Yeah I think the direct democracy part should be replaced or maybe said that the elections are simply rigged. I think the main flaw of the ISA as i said before should be infigthing between the many faction inside, arrogance and over confidence

>>65892178
Maybe the leadership are special created for their profession? Or they represent the amalgamated minds of all ISA citizen. The not-so- secret leadership is hold by a cabal of old immortal posthumans.

A thing that we don't though yet, is the symbols of the factions, for the ISA I like the idea of a the symbol being a torch, because of symbolism of the ligth of knowledge and progress and Protomeo.

Do cyborgs have stuff like hollow titanium bones containing artificial bone marrow, miniature backup heart pumps and backup nerve centre in the event of a headshot?

>>65892178
I'm not saying there can't be infighting, arrogance, and overconfidence.

Just that this

>>The ISA is mostly populated by decadent posthumans that are full-blown idiots. Imagine a cross between the Irken Empire and Therian from AT-43. They have terrible sense for aesthetic and a more terrible sense for reality. The only reason why the JF can even survive the power of a posthuman factions is because 99,99% of that posthuman factions are near braindead solipstic idiots with too much power at their hand. But that remaining 0.01%? They are scary, they still have to venture around the masses of the other posthumans and influence their interests into something more productive but they can't dominate them all because of remaining mind virus.

would kill the ISA within two generations, transhumanism or no.

There can be plenty of room for Byzantine politics and arrogance with a populance that's smart and nominally sane.

>>65894432
And more! Given that we've established earlier that minds can be swapped between bodies ala Eclipse Phase, there's no real reason not to go hog wild with the physical augs.

>>65895432
>There can be plenty of room for Byzantine politics and arrogance with a populance that's smart and nominally sane.
Yeah, making the population complete morons would kill any tension in the setting. If the ISA was really akin to the Irken, then there'd be no doubt who'd win in a war between them and the JF. I reckon it's better to have them have infighting and be vaguely corrupt. Meshes better with the idea of the ISA being both mad and humanitarian scientists. The conflict can be between those two sides. Similar to the American system, which fits with some of their cultural influences.

>>65897060
We had already put some factions that can fight between eachother in the ISA in the post >>65875868 , I think that the ISA apart from it's government, the population itself should be also be very competitive, they should be a bunch of decadent hedonists too of course, but they also constanly want to prove that they are better than the others

bump

>>65894432
At bare minimum. A lot of the cutting edge augs and morphs from the ISA are pushing the limits of what can be done let alone installed on an organism-like body, and while the JF are more reserved special dispensation for heavily auged veterans sounds like a thing

>>65894432
At bare minimum. A lot of the cutting edge augs and morphs from the ISA are pushing the limits of what can be done let alone installed on an organism-like body, and while the JF are more reserved special dispensation for heavily auged veterans sounds like a thing

>>65897288
I feel like that's a difficult balance to strike. Simultaneously being decadent hedonists and ambitious ladder climbers. It's not impossible, just difficult to reconcile together. Perhaps, as with many things in the ISA, these are the opposite ends of the spectrum for them. Still present, but not ubiquitous.

>>65903564
I don't think so. Everything interconnected, everything gamified, everything competitive, everything shared and streamed and rated. Everyone pushed to be a high ranking influencer superstar, at everything, all the time. Social credit systems, leaderboards, sousveilant panopticons. It'd basically be most of the groups from Eclipse phase as viewed by someone who *doesn't* think that the rep economy would be anything but a nightmare.

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>>65887960

>>65850840
1. How does the ftl work?

2. Which faction is the most racist? I need to know who to root for.

>>65905102
>FTL
dunno how exactly, but there's at least two distinct ways to FTL: the human way, and the String FTL the distant spider xenos have which the JF is intent on procuring. String FTL has something to do with cosmic strings methinks, and is about 2x faster than human FTL.

>Racism
Discrimination still exist, but inter-human racism has fallen to the wayside in most human factions. I mean, in the ISA people could just swap bodies at will, and thus swap races at will - and in the JF, where various people had banded together to survive, racism gets sidelined real quick. Racism to what few xenos visit the solar system, though, is kinda expected, especially towards the boonies and backwaters of the solar system.

>>65905798
>>String FTL has something to do with cosmic strings methinks, and is about 2x faster than human FTL.

The name 'String' FTL is a misnomer arising from an early theory of operation that involved cosmic strings. It has survived, for the most part, because the drive does in fact exploit and is dependent on preexisting topological defects, but the defects in question are not cosmic strings.

Said defects tend to cluster in filament and web like patterns around and between concentrations of dark matter(some theorize they contribute somehow, although no external gravity has been detected from any one defect), forming a sort of network of String compatible routes, and migrate over time. Use of String FTL has been known to accelerate the migration process, sometimes violently.

K'ke't'ke will also use the 'human' method if the defect network is not favorable.

Early Alcubierre drives were so power hungry that any FTL-capable ship would've been barely more than a mess of nuclear reactors, stripped of all auxillary components like "radiation shielding" to keep weight down, with just enough free space to fit a basketball.
While modern drives aren't as insanely cumbersome, even the weakest is still going to take up at least 40% of a FTL ship's weight.

>>65904160
A consecuence of this completion in the ISA is that their military leaders can take higly risky maneuvers and strategies in battle and campaigns so they can prove to be more brave and better than the rest and in some cases they may let rivals in the chain of command die. This are one of the reasons of why even with their superior technologies, they can't destroy the JF

>>65909678
This "war as drama/entertainment/a proving ground" paradigm takes up a large chunk of ISA industry and culture, to the point where a slim minority would actually find the destruction of the JF, or even simply peace, to be actively detrimental.

What about childhood? How does a child grow up in the JF or the ISA?

>>65910593
The JF too find their opposition's existence to be of use, not as an engine of profit but of propaganda. The heads of the fractious polity couldn't have asked for a better common enemy to keep disunity at bay and to exemplify what straying beyond the limits of humanity (as defined by the Federation, of course) will lead to. They are a homegrown alien, who unlike the others had the courtesy not to be dead or out of reach, a Boogeyman who constantly unleashes horrors beyond the imagination of the decent folk in the civil communications council's propaganda machine. Should that devil ever leave their doorstep, the Federation would be forced to deal with the issues bubbling under the surface, kept in check only by external threat.

>>65908960
As a result of this drawback, A-drives are in the process of being supplanted, appropriately enough, by B-drives. The B stands for "Bulk", the interior of the dimension-form that the holographic universe hypothesis states our own universe is merely the exterior surface of. By traveling through the Bulk, one can both achieve true FTL as it's physical laws vary enough from our own to not be impeded by such a limit as the speed of light, but by also literally shortening the distance between the two points by going "through" instead of "around". This last bit of information leads to one of the more bizarre quirks of the propulsion system: it is more energy/time efficient to travel further. The amount of energy required to breach into the Bulk is constant, but the successes rate is somewhat effected by gravity. Going "too close to the surface", i.e. travelling very short distances (about the size of a red dwarf's gravity well, though travelling within a solar gravity well in general seems to be problematic no matter the star's class) can cause the jump to fail, the energy wasted. There are rumors that it can even cause the ship to be stranded in Bulkspace, though these are unsubstantiated. Nevertheless, B-drives are far cheaper to maintain and fuel than their predecessors, and may one day make the dream of causal interstellar travel a reality.
They have noticed our intrusions and welcome us with open [Untranslated?]. Find them, follow the Way. Salvation awaits.

"citizens, friends, companions today is the first day that our race see the light after the nigth caused by the ignorance which we though was wisdom, after this we should learn from our errors and rectify humanity for a new future but in the inners of our system the ISA desecrates our origin planet Earth, they don't care about the horrors we have lived caused by the creation made by people like them and now they dare to think that they will turn us in degenerates like them, the only way to defend ourselves, our planet and our plantes in trough unity and friendship, the many moons and planets our the exterior solar system are not united as a federation that will respect their rigths and culture, from this humanity will rebuild a new solar sytem that has learn from their past errors" - Speech made by General and first voice of the Olympian Lucien Scheck, this speech inaugurated the JF

>>65910825
Some promising drive engineers once tried to test out a prototype B-drive, out there in the boonies of HIEROPHANT. They disappeared in circumstances even a belter pirate would find shady.
Brave souls they are, to enter The Mausoleum without any sort of shielding - brave, or foolish.

" I learn a hour ago that our outer enemies have form a Federation to fight against us, talking of how dangerous us and our advances are, this joke of a Federation is just a bunch of ludites, traitors and primitives, they fear us because they know how our technology will make humanity enter a new stage, a new step in the evolution race, this rebels know that we will end their pity little "empires" and will bring progress to their opress citizens, they know that we bear the torch of progress, and they fear its light, if they fear our fire let's turn them in to ashes with it" - Speech made by Zhao Dhiraj council headmaster speaking to the population trough the net

>>65892178
just read through the last thread, and someone mentioned an illuminati-like highest class called some greek name who are the most influential and powerful people with the best augs and shit. I think leaving the nobles as some kind of secret group with the only proof being the secret meetings of nobles on Venus

>>65910614
>JF
Austere, but taken care of. The cramped nature of the average Jovian hab and the need for everyone to pull their weight means that kids tend to be trained to take on responsibility from an early age and there's often little time or energy to devote to excessive childhood frivolity, but it also means that communities are tight knit and more than willing to come together for the benefit of the next generation. The whole hab is your neighborhood, it's inhabitants like extended family. You probably have the values of conformity, duty, and civil service drilled into you from early on, and you probably took some kind of G.O.A.T. type test to determine your aptitudes and set you on a pre-career path for training. You probably can count the number of times you've seen dirt or plants bigger than the ones in the hydropots up close, maybe on a trip to the Neils.

>ISA
The opposite, more or less. Children, true children, are a rarity these days. Most people are opting to create forks or AIs in bespoke morphs, if they choose to reproduce at all, so a proper child is a real throwback. A sign of wealth and status, too, seeing as you're choosing to care for and be there for your child for their indefinite lifespan. With birth control and bioaugs being what they are, an "acidental" pregnancy would be an act of pointed negligence. You'd probably live in the spires miles above the Sprawl on Earth, or in one of the great Caeloriums of Venus' sky, living in absolute luxury. Everything would be provided for you, but chances are your parents and caregivers will be so far beyond baseline that they'll be alien to you, beyond your ability to comprehend their actions or thoughts. You will undoubtedly be a media darling (or a subject of mockery), your every moment from conception to death and/or ascension streamed, dissected, memed and regurgitated. Privacy will be foreign to you, more so than most. You will never be alone. You will always be alone

>>65911943
I realize that I might be a little biased, so if someone else wants to present a version of ISA childhood that's not "Media spectacle raised by exhumans in crushingly isolating sousveilance" or a version of JF childhood that's not "Idealized suburban boomer childhood....IN SPACE!" go right ahead

>>65911816
Yeah, that makes sense. I like the idea of there being an actual 'president' who's literally just a powerless patsy. A figurehead controlled by the upper class.

>>65910614
>JF
Depending in which habitat you are born you will only be gene fixed or even "integrated" to have the best genetic potential. Some infamous allied even have children born with nanomachines that help them against radiation, spatial perception and general adaptation for space living. But those are seen as near ISA people. I would keep most interpretation of >>65911943 but I would also imagine that all children would need to participate in a state led youth goverment that prepares them for their duty at later in life. JF don't have much freedom, but they have a community.
>ISA
The ISA doesn't have normal childrej anymore, every child is born as a parahuman nanoborg, being born baseline is seen as a mistreatment from their parents. Such child life in extravagant luxury and they are nearly allowed to do everything. They have a AI inside their head that operates as a tutor and subtly educates the child. Schools still exists but are less places for learning and more to create social relationships, most ISA children learn fast in VR. Military service is one of the best position to earn the respect of your fellow and as such many children try to get a position in the military.

>>65910825
Continued experiments with B-Drives have revealed that the waystonesWARNING: "extends into the Bulk-indeed, the Bulk component comprises 95% of their observable volume and, we theorize, more than 99% of their mass."
CLASSIFICATION BLUE GREEN JUNIPER MATCH SCORE 5.499
SCANNING...
BULK-DELIVERED ENGRAM TYPE BLUE GREEN JUNIPER DETECTED You are afraid of us. Afraid of what lurks beyond the darkness and safety of your four dimensional brane.
DECODING... It's OK. Aversion is a common and entirely rational reaction to the unknown.
DONE But it's a reaction you must grow out of. Your brane is limited, a frail, shortlived thing adrift in a larger, more vibrant cosmos.
ENGRAM CONSISTENT WITH TYPE BGJ FIVE W/ AMENDMENTS Grow strong. Grow wise. And join us, when you're ready.
REDACTING...
DONE
GENERATING REPLACEMENT...
"have no discernible Bulk component contributing to the artifact's anomalous effects. " INTEGRATION SCORE 10.33
INSERTING...
DONE
SCANNING...
NO BULK OBJECTS DETECTED
have no discernible Bulk component contributing to the artifact's anomalous effects.

Our current knowledge must be reassessed.

>>65913440
...Speaking OOC for a moment, I think we need to make a decision whether or not to excise the waystones from the canon setting.

They're a pretty hard break from the transhumanist, realpolitik, hard-ish scifi thing the rest of the setting has going, and while the SCP style hidden text/cognitoweapons thing is nice it's also gimmicky and not really usable outside of the context of imageboards and other such online forums.

>>65913517
I can see the Waystones being what a high-level party playing in Fractured Singularity's setting would encounter, and eventually build a story arc from.
A shadow of a perfect, complete, xeno-sourced singularity that has ascended in ancient times, dropping breadcrumbs for the younger races to follow.
That said, I like how we have a setting that can traverse from the streetest of street level, to some deep state secret illuminati level, while encompassing various hooks the players could have picked up on.

So, the question now becomes:
>What quests/story arcs/scenarios could a potential player/character stumble into in this setting?

>>65913011
The stuff for the ISA seems a little extreme to me. Unless this was all absurdly cheap I can't imagine it being universal. I'm completely down with most children not 'naturally' developing the same way they do now, but I feel like there's a divide between the way kids are treated by the rich and by the poor and by everyone in-between. The upper classes can afford AI teachers and stuff like that, but the very poor literally have kids just so that they have another set of hands around to earn money. There are some pretty cheap cybernetic augs around that can make your kid a better miner and general labourer and even a few (possibly illegal) procedures that can accelerate a person's physical and mental development, though they can't socialise them properly. People who are put under these accelerated growth procedures are the most likely to become technobarbarians

>>65916679
>>The stuff for the ISA seems a little extreme to me. Unless this was all absurdly cheap I can't imagine it being universal. I'm completely down with most children not 'naturally' developing the same way they do now, but I feel like there's a divide between the way kids are treated by the rich and by the poor and by everyone in-between. The upper classes can afford AI teachers and stuff like that, but the very poor literally have kids just so that they have another set of hands around to earn money.

Automation.

Things like AI tutors and at least basic cognitive augmentations ARE absurdly cheap, mostly because if it wasn't the unemployed have-nots wouldn't have any outs and you'd get class warfare that makes the Russian Civil War look like the Glorious Revolution.

>>There are some pretty cheap cybernetic augs around that can make your kid a better miner and general labourer and even a few (possibly illegal) procedures that can accelerate a person's physical and mental development, though they can't socialise them properly. People who are put under these accelerated growth procedures are the most likely to become technobarbarians

This I do like. Snake oil and cheap knockoffs aren't likely to go away.

>>65913517
I'd say they work. They add a bit of mystery to the setting, make it feel a little bigger. Plus, they're pretty out of the way and unobtrusive as far as "supernatural" elements go. They're isolated in places that are extremely hard to get to, have relatively subtle effects for the most part, and only change people on direct exposure of some kind.

So maybe a potential character starts off as a flesh and blood human, over the course of their story they get more injured and wounded, necessitating the replacement of organs with artificial ones, to the point where by the end of the story they're basically full blown cyborgs having very little of what they started with?

>>65887960
source?

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The skies of Venus are patrolled by biomechanical, self perpetuating harvester drones that collect and concentrate the valuable gasses of the cloud sea

>>65920446
You could do that, or you could go biotech with it. Or you could just get a load of dosh and transfer your consciousness into an entirely new body, biological or mechanical. Hell, maybe several you switch between like wardrobes. Or you could go the technoluddite route and just use crutches, but this is rare.

>>65852579
So kawaii

Bump

>>65925123
Bump with content, at least.
To reiterate a question:
>What quests/story arcs/scenarios could a potential player/character stumble into in this setting?

>A spate of illegal ego-copying has struck Venusian notables. Are the players hired to catch whoever did this, or to ego-nap another one?

>>65925245
>Clearing out BADS infested stations in the belt
>Helping the JF deal with radical separatists on the rim
>Colonial shenanigans
>Running black market augs to Federation space

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>>65925245
>murder mystery but using the advanced tech to piece together a confusing scene
>playing two prominent ISA officials against each other to further he goals of a third
>delivering weapons and supporting an anti-transhumanist faction within the ISA
>try to infiltrate a station with ridiculously high tech defenses and traps with little to no high tech

>>65925245

Deep below the Earth's new crust, buried in the ecumenopolis's undermost layer, lies the roofed over remnants of an ancient riverbound city, an artificial warren of CNT reinforced concrete and rusted steel housing more than five million of the desperate and the destitute. Endless crowds shuffle, bikes tick, and trams crackle under the pale, eternal daylight of OLED panels, flowing in and around the skyscrapers like a sea of flesh. The smell of concentrated humanity and the dust of an age permeates the air, even as air purifiers keen and strain to maintain a breathable atmosphere.

Welcome to the Detroit Mausoleum. It's not Hell, but as approximations of Purgatory go it's not half bad.

Places to Go:
*The riverbed, long since dried up, is a slum for the slum—a place where those cast down from the meager grace of Mausoleum society go to die. The makeshift hovels are alive with the spores of a biomechanical fungus that thrives on rotting meat and biosafe plastics.

*Large swaths of greyfield remain from when this city began its terminal decline. The barren streets are overgrown with a bioengineered kudzu that subsists on broken asphalt and plastic garbage. Abandoned warehouses and office buildings are home to much of the Mausoleum's permanent residents, divided into a hundred fiefdoms by the greyfield gangs—a fractious lot of 'civil protection services' as much part of the city government as the Detroit City Referendum.

*Downtown city life is centered around sprawling street markets and MakerCons, sometimes spontaneous, mostly scheduled by the Detroit City Referendum. It's a vital linchpin for the Mausoleum's internal economy, a neutral meeting place for the greyfield gangs…and a great way to discreetly score some exotic gear.

>>65929466

Things to Do:
*Someone has been synthesizing biological nootropics of unusually high quality and selling them in the back alley markets, upsetting the regional monopolies that underpin the fragile truce between the greyfield gangs. Find out who. Stop them before gang warfare paints the streets with blood.

*News of the imminent arrival of a 'Net celebrity has electrified the city populace. Keep the peace. Prevent the inevitable assassination attempts.

*The riverbed fungus has mutated into a more virulent, deadly form and is spreading into downtown. Stop the outbreak before it tears the heart out of the Mausoleum.

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>>65852619
Though basic officers have jurisdiction in their Oneil Cylinder, the higher ranking officials can obtain jurisdiction in other Oneil Cylinders as well, even leading up to all Oneill Cylinders, settlements, and capitol cities of the JF. Such a hierarchy maintains order and control, and if your position is high enough, you can gain jurisdiction over a collection of O'Neill Cylinders called "Districts" which are composed of 20 to 100 different O'neill Cylinders in JF space, and if even hire, attain jurisdiction in multiple O'neil Cylinders owned by the JF, like the Police Superintendents who can own up to 10 districts.

I would like it if we talked more about the branches of the JF, but forgive me if we've already done that, I have yet to read the thread since Wed

can we call the O'Neill Cylinders something else? Like, we know what megastructure they are, but I think the JF would call them something else

>>65921106
Battle Angel Alita

>>65931863
Not sure what to call them, but yeah O'niel cylinders is clunky

>>65935656
>>65931863
Maybe something like "Protectorates" to relate to the JF's more militaristic nature. Maybe 'Dominion' too?

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>>65877063
well, concidering that a planetary ecumenopolis probably houses anything from the tens of trillions to the quadrillions of people, as well as the fact that JF space takes up most planets past the asteroid belt as well as parts of the kuiper belt, I can assume that there are maybe 10s of millions to a billion of them depending on their size just in the Solar System. I would assume they are around 32-44km lenght, and around 7-12km in diameter. It should house around ~10 million people give or take.

>>65936358
Protectorates could be the official name for microstates of any type under the JF's protection.

'Microstates' here meaning any self-sufficient habitat or groups of habitats under a single government hosting less than ten thousand people. Dirtside towns and O'Neill Cylinders are both potential microstates, although they are often instead part of a larger polity.

The only requirements to become a Protectorate are:

1.At least a thousand Jovian Federation citizens (or citizens-to-be, meaning sentients who have conditionally applied for JF citizenship) permanently residing there.

2.A civil government meeting the JF's requirements.

In practice, both of these requirements are fairly fluid and are usually determined on a case-by-case basis.

Benefits of being a Protectorate are that you get access to the JF's internal single market, protection by the federal scale military, and a (single) representative to the Olympiad.

>>65931863
>>65935656
Some names, ranging from officialese to netslangish:
>Can Cities/Can Towns
>Tubes
>Habs/Habitats
>Colonies
>Cylinders/Cyls
>Floating Arks/Arks
>Orbitopolis

TO: Neith Moussa[er99745@secfed.org]
CC:
FROM: D. Adisa [er55648@secfed.org]
SUBJECT Congratulations on your promotion to DYNASTIC FOLLY

The following DYNASTIC FOLLY assignments are available for tasking:

Project INDIGO NATIVE
Summary: Acquisition of Type 46 BADS. Dissection. Study. Quarantine.
Requirements: NP score > 132. Grade Samson Combat School Certificate.
Looking for: Prior experience in warforme biology. Prior experience in warforme extermination.
Timeframe: Minimum two Jovian years.

Project HOPELESS BLUE
Summary: A number of extrasolar hardened locations are under construction at Site [C: HOPELESS BLUE ]. These locations will be staffed by a permanent crew of HOPELESS BLUE personnel, assisted by a Type [C: HOPELESS BLUE] Artificial General Intelligence. In the event of [CLASSIFIED: HOPELESS BLUE ] will provide continuity for the federal government.
Requirements: NP score > 104. Consent for radical vacuum survival modifications.
Looking for: Prior experience in microgravity construction. Prior experience in oceanic construction. Prior experience in network security. Prior experience in AGI design.
Timeframe: At least five Jovian years. Permanent assignment available on request.

Project SIMPLE SACREMENT
Summary: Penetration of ISA's higher echelons is proceeding slowly and at a high cost in agents. Losses have been mounting recently due to [C: SACRED SACREMENT ]. Additional personnel are needed.
Requirements: NP score > 151. Consent for mind/memory alteration. Consent for cosmetic modifications.
Looking for: Prior experience in infiltration. Willingness to experiment with mindstate, personality, cosmetic alterations.
Timeframe: Variable. Expect at least thirty Terran years, maybe more.

We remind you that you are required to apply for one of these assignment within six solar months. Failure to do so will lead to a demotion and a mark on your record.

Humanity Must Survive,
Director Adisa [REDACTED]

>>65938204
Sonofa...forgot 4chan strips out extra spaces.

>>65938204
>>65938204
Very flavorful

>>65937586
I like Tubes as a sort of slang term for them. Perhaps they are officially called O'Neil Cylinders, but everyone just calls them Cylinders, Cyls, or in the poorest parts of society, The Tubes

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Oh snap, I didnt think this was still going. In the previous thread, we wanted to include more characters to make the setting feel alive, and I will try and do that now

Ckntinuing from last thread, Ardelia Loriyah or rather Mistress Loriyah is the ruler of Ceres, granddaughter of the first ruler Monty Loriyah during the period known as "The Reaping Era", which titles the economic boom and prosperity from the rich minerals mined from the near asteroids that helped construct the very foundations of the now warring ISA and JF. She is very smart and charismatic but ruthless in her methods of control and diplomacy, steming from her younger days of barbaric pillaging with her father Dony Loriyah throughout the belt. While she is an independant in the war, she sides more with the JF, as they help clear out the threat that are the BADS that fatally wounded her father all those years ago. At the same time though, she does do favors for the ISA in exchange for rapidly improving technology to further defend and develope Ceres. The threat of the BADS had gotten so high in number, she had to reinvent the holiday exclusive to the dwarf planet called 'The Great Harvest' in which groups of people must hunt and kill BADS all throughout Ceres' space and beyond, rewarding those who have killed the most a near limitless supply of arms and other equipment for half of a rotation. Even with this holiday present, she had to make the event a biyearly activity just a decade later.

>>65859152
Fusion bombs don't care how smart you, nor do RKKVs and gamma bursts. Only by combining your smarts with giant warmachine can you have any hope of survival and even that won't help you much. JF could easily use dumb programs barely more sophisticated than today and still keep ISA in check.

Alternatively they could go an analog route - instead of using digital tech they have people with photon brains who can think at the same speed as AI or even faster but otherwise do not have the benefits of copying or connecting to normal computers seemlessly.

>>65916679
>Some of the cheapest cybernetics are the brainchild of Vanessa Noct (mentioned last thread). They're known for being absurdly cheap stripped down things that are a little less consistent than most other ISA tech. At any other price point this would probably kill the company, but many people don't have enough money for the alternatives. This is deliberate. Noct wants to study the elements of augs that can drive someone insane. So she offers cheap glitchy ones to folks nobody will miss and keeps an eye on them to see what happens.

>>65946016
Also, just to flesh out Noct more
>The reason Noct never went for full body transfers for the simple reason that she saw people who were recreated from corrupted or flawed Ego backups and saw them inherently changed. Noct was terrified of the same thing happening to her and so refused to undergo similar treatments, instead replacing her failing body with cybernetics bit by bit. These days Noct is almost entirely machine, organ after failing organ replaced and remade with metal and synth-flesh all to try and retain her personality. She has failed in this regard, those who knew her in her youth horrified at her disregard for ethics, and the lengths she's now willing to go in the name of scientific advancement. Or perhaps that's who she always was, her flaws laid bare as she was stripped of her flesh. Whatever the case, she now falls very firmly into the 'Mad Scientist' camp

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>Harlan Heavy Armaments' Mk. III GOLEM armor is a workhorse of the JF's TITaN Corps. Packing a C19 variable-discharge charged particle caster, four high capacity integrated hardpoints, and an AJAX neodymium adaptive magshield, all powered by an onboard H&H 750 microfusion reactor. While the GOLEM is outclassed by newer models like the Takahashi Industries Mokujin-2, Boeing-Morgan's GT970 "Bighead", or even HHA's own GOLEM IV or GIGANTE, its reliability, ease of production and repair, and widespread distribution means that the G3 won't be retired anytime soon

>>65941401

Thanks to the everpresent threat of the BADS and the biannual celebration of the Great Harvest, Ceres has a burgeoning firearms industry, producing its own weapon designs and even new cartridges.

Chief among Cere's weapons manufacturers is Alexei Industries. Founded by Alexei Tesla, a remarkably successful BADS hunter who's career was cut short by a persistant nanoweapon infection, today this small but elite corporation employs a little less than three thousand people and has garnered a hard earned reputation for top of the line BADS hunting weapons.

First and foremost of these products is the Long Nine—a high powered rail-rifle that in experienced hands can put down military-grade warformes at up to nine hundred meters out.

The core of the Long Nine is a helical railgun design, chambering the Ceres-designed 7x43mm HR cartridge—a high mass round available from Alexei Industries in armor piercing, fragmenting, and armor piercing incendiary variants. Smart rounds of this caliber are available from third party manufacturers, but are so expensive that it's usually not worth the cost—in any case, the sheer mass of the round makes course corrections both difficult and redundant.

The barrel and the chamber float on a spring assisted, linear motor actuated rest, and recoils back into the stock when fired. This softens and dampens the otherwise considerable recoil, enabling rapid follow-up shots. The linear motor then returns the barrel/chamber assembly to battery, stripping another round from the magazine on the way. Unlike other antimaterial/high power sniper rifles, the Long Nine is not a bullpup—most of the receiver space behind the trigger is needed for recoil room.

Like almost all modern handheld kinetic weapons, the Long Nine feeds from mechanically actuated detachable box magazines. In addition, the rifle is powered by a 150kJ battery slotted in under the barrel rest, or by a charging port under the stock.

>>65952420

For sighting options, the Long Nine comes standard with Dataglove capability and backup iron sights. Furthermore, like almost all Ceres weapons, Long Nines come from the factory with either the ISA Standard Interface Rail or the Piccadilly-Owen rail preferred by the Jovian Federation.

>>65929466
>>65929476
[Psssst! Need feedback...]

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>Enrique "Ricky" Tantalus, Pro BADS Hunter
>Born in the depths of the El Cid transmetropolitan sprawl on the Iberian peninsula to upper middle class parents: an arms dealer father, an auged up mercenary father, a drug rep mother, and a genetic chimerization vat.
>His genome fixed and tweaked from well before birth, Enrique was entrenched in transhumanism from day one, and it wasn't long before he sought out voluntary upgrading. >By the age of 15, he had tens of millions euros worth of cutting edge cyberware
>He spent much of his adolescence drifting through the decadent world of posthuman society, at risk of becoming one of the countless vapid rakes populating the endless parties and clubs until a single opportunity changed his life
>He accompanied his father on a sweep and clear of a BADS infested station, and found his calling. The violence, the monsters, the chaos of battle. Ricky was in love
>He quickly turned his life around, channelling all of his time and energy towards making connections, securing bounties, and building and equipping a team under his newly founded company, Blackmoth Security ltd.
>He's spent the past three decades pursuing his two passions: self-modification and monster hunting. Blackmoth has become well known as effective but unorthodox security forces, with Tantalus in particular serving as a one-man cleanup crew, viewing station ops as chances to test out is newest toys

>>65952420
>>65952436

...shit, I knew I forgot something, hang on.

>> A monstrous 25kJ graphene superconductor capacitor array is tucked into the stock, just under the barrel rest rails. Thanks to the comparatively primitive materials and circuit design of the barrel, a good chunk of this energy is lost as waste heat on firing, leaving the round with only(!) 19kJ of muzzle energy.

>>The barrel is lined with a thick mat of hair radiators to quickly reject the 6 kJs of waste heat. When cool, these hairs lie flat against the barrel surface, reducing LIDAR signature--when hot, they spring up due to thermal expansion, dramatically increasing the barrel's surface area.

There we go.

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Bump

>>65952436
Nice, I like the idea of museum-cities of Earth - entire communities that were preserved underneath all that mega-arcologies, and the people that live in them. Of course the term 'preserved' is in a loose sense here, akin to looking at caveman dioramas with slightly anachronistic details.

Makes me wonder if there are similar equivalents in JF territory besides the Amish.

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>>65852579

Shame those cyborgs will never personally experience the pleasure of sex.

>>65957318
Who says?

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>>65850840
Lets make some minor factions

The Men of Gold (Homo Sapiens Aurum)
Named after the ornate gold decorations and aesthetics they commonly use.
Originating from the regions located the furthest from Sol they remained mostly isolated both culturaly and economically, which meant that they were the least affected by the singularity. Their technology would be best described as "archaic" by others, because it is very often connected with genetically engineered organisms. Many of their ships systems are biological in origin. The outer most hull of one of their ships is a silicon based organism reminiscent of a slime mold of old earth that can regenerate most damage after extracting the required metals from an asteroid.

They are a nomadic culture that moves from star system to star system and exploits asteroids for resources. They technicaly don't have a standing army responsible for boarding actions or planetary invasions, but they have a decent sized fleet for their size (the fact that their ships rarely have any artificlal gravity does help to deal with enemy boarding actions). Currently the golden men are cooperating economically with the Jovians by mining and extracting the resources of the Oort cloud.

Unlike the rest of humanity that is either atheist, agnostic or Dharmic they are almost exclusively Abrahamic. The religion of the Men Gold would be best described as Christianity mixed with the Yazidi faith. They also do Tech-Crusades (e.g. God wants you to contribute to the development of a cure for cancer).