Eclipse Phase - Steam Punk

[ftmfwb]

One set of my players wants to start an EP game and the other player wanted to do something steam punk, so I'm going to give a shot at blending the two.

For the most part, I don't see too many issues as most things tech-wise can be converted and I think some of it is kind of cool when you glue some gears on it.  The problem I have is with the stacks.  I can imagine some sort of phonograph device in people to mimic it, but that seems like it would be uncommon.

Would making the majority of people being flats ruin the feel of EP?  I see it more as people can go have a copy made and then be put in storage vs. the active stack.  Just not sure if that breaks the leveling / continuity concept.

[Cthuluzord]

I...I don't really see the point.

The ego/sleeve split is where the game gets most of its truly interesting philosophical concepts. Without that, you lose morphological freedom and all the gender, body-modification, and synthetic vs. organic vs. pod controversies. Without ego storage and stacks, you lose forking, continuity lose, and all the existential horror.

I'm not sure Steampunk can cover nanotech, no matter how many gears might be added. So there goes the majority of the exsurgent virus. If the nanotech comes from space and attacks a Victorian-Industrial society, how the hell does ANYBODY survive the Fall anyway? You could have a copper-tubing computer viruses and robots of some kind, I suppose, but then aren't they fighting those automatons on Earth? Do you want to go so far as magic space blimps and wooden habitats?

It sounds like you'd just be creating an entirely new system that uses some d100 mechanics. I'm not sure how it could still be called EP or satisfy that half of the group.

If you really want to mix the systems, I suggest a half-and-half approach. Make all the PC's Firewall sentinels, and have them investigate some complex X-threat lurking inside an immersive simspace MMO. The infomorph gameplay will be indistinguishable from Steampunk high-adventure so long as you don't let them hack the system. If they die in game or need to take real world action, have them sleeve into some crazy futuristic EP setting. You could really separate the two and have the infomorphs be Beta forks of themselves. Make the simulspace a pervasive storage hub for egos with no useful skills to earn a sleeve; they all chose to get their memories cut out and live in the gear-Matrix instead. These unwitting Sentinels get their Steampunk missions from patrons, which are actually their alpha forks relaying mission critical information derived from a typical EP game.

[clockworkjoe]

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2009/09/diamond-age-by-neal-stephenson.html

[ftmfwb]

Thanks for the thoughts.
 
I don't think the technology itself is an issue.  With the example of nanotech, EP is using an extrapolation of that technology to create a story / mechanical result.  I could have an incredible shrinking machine to make nano clockwork devices or whatever.  The mechanics generally jive.

The thought was purely on breaking themes or the blending of themes causing an issue.  Your points wrt egos was what I was getting at.  I think that needs to be maintained somehow.

I don't intend to mirror EP exactly, just using the technology horror / setting as a jumping off point and using the existing system as a base.  Not sure how the fall fits into that yet.

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2009/09/diamond-age-by-neal-stephenson.html

Awesome.  Thanks.

[joe]

you could change the ego backup procedure with analog wax cylinders or record recordings that get 'nano-ized' with the earlier mentioned incredible shrinking machine. I think that will make the procedure cheap enough in your steampunk world that it would be comparable to EPs digital version.

[Henry Hankovitch]

http://steampunkscholar.blogspot.com/2009/09/diamond-age-by-neal-stephenson.html

Except The Diamond Age isn't steampunk.  It's just sci-fi where a bunch of people like dressing up anachronistically.

...oh, right.  Steampunk.

[Gorkamorka]

Here is an image for your game.

The TITANS attacking as earth is being evacuated. 

[ftmfwb]

you could change the ego backup procedure with analog wax cylinders or record recordings that get 'nano-ized' with the earlier mentioned incredible shrinking machine. I think that will make the procedure cheap enough in your steampunk world that it would be comparable to EPs digital version.

That works well enough for me.


Gorkamorka -

That pic is perfect.  Alot of the artist's other work fits too.

[Teapot]

I'm with Caleb on this (I thought the PCs could be infugees who earn their morphs by working as NPCs in a steampunk themed MMO) but what are the ideas you want to do?

You could shrink the scale, replace the exsurgent with some other nebulous advanced threat ("The Other") and instead of the fall of Earth shrink it to the fall of Eurasia/Africa. Instead of Luna, you have Iceland or Japan, the South Pacific becomes the brink in that it's dangerously close to the where no one goes but offers space. Replace space with the oceans, dangerously connected to the fallen place and not hospitable to normal humans.

As for egos, I think it'd fit in fine to have Frankenstein like set-ups for making back-ups/ego bridging but I'm not sure where forks come in except for Alphas with all others being damaged transfers. Though Psychics might work for pruning them. You could also replace forking with Astral projection of some sort. I think you'd also do well to add more psychics/spiritualists to the mix. Similarly, many of the morph issues could also be addressed by some of the rather nasty eugenics theories floating around from the time. Adding body farms and such would allow you to keep much of the questions of the ego/morph though they'd be combined with the ideas of the day. "We're growing White bodies for the poor Black/Yellow/Red people so they can be as good as us." "Growing more angelic bodies to bring man closer to the divine." "We have designed the perfect body for women as it will help them be rational like us superior men." "The bodies we give to the natives degrade quickly, why by the time they've paid for their new forms they've damaged them horribly in the mines/fields/etc. We are happy to sell them a new one." "Only your Birth body holds a soul. All others are walking demons, devoid of the divine spark. Beware them."

Edit: You can also make the exsurgent more biological to get around technological limitations.

If you want space blimps, you can play Space 1889 too.

[Teapot]

Oh, and you can replace infugees with poor people. When the elite of Eurasia escaped, many needed bodies, but they didn't have enough. However a policy of imprisoning criminals in an "Artificial Prision" and confiscating their bodies led to crackdowns and many other laws with the intent to loot bodies from the poor.

[ftmfwb]

I may default to the MMO idea, as it is great, but the attempt is going to be standalone.

I'm not planning on limiting this to Earth.  I'm thinking the jumping off point will be Space:1889's setting + some sort of ego explanation + Exurgent stand in.

Basically, how would a classic Victorian science fiction writer introduce the dynamics of EP.

[Teapot]

In an English fashion, with a stiff upper lip and a firm right hook.

Otherwise, much of the fiction of the era (for long definitions of the era) was markedly hopeful and strongly set in the ideas of Victorian morals being black and white words of god. The unnatural* was in a bad way and generally punished.

*Monsters, people who bucked the class structure and so on.

[Teapot]

Or just have them on a hab/scum swarm that's gone full Victorian in style. All the children morphs are chimney sweeps and everything has gears added while someone yells about the Ether.