059: Donathan

ENTRY 059: Donathan

Compared to old Earth, the biological diversity of the solar system is meager. Millions of species and all of the biological compounds they produced have been lost in the diaspora to space, and all the genetic engineering accomplished since the Fall has not even begun to tap the billions of years of evolution that had produced Earth’s teeming biosphere. Combined with the limitations of nanofabrication, biological compounds are the single most significant scarce resource in transhuman space—rare enough that there exist facilities solely to produce these materials, as cheaply as possible, for the profit of others.

Donathan was rescued from one such operation in the belt; unremarkable morphs designed as drug factories modified with specialized sacs along the milk lines to express exotic proteins. Treated as a production animal, physically and sexually abused by the help, it has taken thousands of hours of therapy for Donathan to begin to resume a life for himself on the outside—still expressing his milk, but this time on his own terms, and for his own remuneration.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
12	10	15	18	15	15	8	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	16	80	32	40	8	80

Morph: Splicer

Skills: Fray 35, Free Fall 40, Deception 40, Interests: Cultural Memes 50, Interests: Drugs: 50, Interests: Sex 45, Interests: Therapy 45, Language: Native Welsh 85, Language: English 50, Language: Indian 50, Perception: 50, Persuasion 45, Profession: Milker 50, Protocol 20, Scrounging 35, Unarmed Combat 35

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Clean Metabolism, Cortical Stack, Drug Glands (x12), Toxin Filters

Traits: Neural Damage (Color Blind), Uncanny Valley

Using Donathan

To the cynical, Donathan is one of the universe’s natural victims. Young, not terribly intelligent or skilled, raised in an isolated environment and exploited, it’s probably amazing that he doesn’t fall into even worse circumstances—and that is certainly one way that the gamemaster can use Donny, as a gateway to introduce the players into some of the more sordid elements of the campaign, to give them someone to stick up for or rescue or just give up on as appropriate to the player characters and the story. The flipside of things is to present Donny as the strength of the transhuman spirit to overcome adversity, to come back from horror, or just to teeter on the edge of self-destruction.

Seeds

• Research into the proteins that Donny expresses suggests that the source for the drug factory that modified and held him prisoner has access to the DNA of extinct animals. Those would be worth a small fortune to the right parties—provided Donny can provide enough information to go after them.
• To supplement his income and work on his socializing Donny has begun working as an escort; during his idle hours with the other boys and girls he’s caught rumors of a sex slave operation. Donny approaches the PCs in hopes that they will do something about it.

058: Eingerost

ENTRY 058: Eingerost

For every transhuman with an eye toward the future, pushing their bodies and minds to the limits of the available technology while developing the next step beyond, there are transhumans who are unable or unwilling to see to the basic maintenance of their morphs, lost souls who have enough functional skills to surf the Mesh but whose education and understanding of how even the most basic tech works is about a century out of date. They’re the lazy, clanking masses; unique but banal egos who shuffle through their life collecting achievements in Mesh games and credits towards the next resleeving, cheering on the more motivated and creative and skilled while they wile away the hours and days and years embroiled in petty dramas and the small crises of life.

There are people that rise above the masses, who go off into strange and terrible futures and never look back; and there are the Eingerost. They were common, disheveled, living the precarious existence of those embroiled in small dreams and with small means, until someone came along and staged an intervention—to show those transhumans their potential, to break them out of their rut, sometimes literally. Through love and cruelty and discipline, those faces in the crowd became something more: focused, imaginative, with vast goals and the abilities to realize them, to know that they could realize them, and the drive to do so. And those transhumans freed from the bondage of their old lives looked back and decided the greatest thing they could do was to provide the same experience for others—and became the Eingerost.

Authorities who are aware of the Eingerost treat them as terrorists; others view them as ruthlessly compassionate vigilantes or martyrs. They operate alone or in small groups, sharing data through private networks, and their goal is nothing less than to transform humanity, one ego at a time. Some use relatively peaceful methods, but most ascribe to a philosophy that only sudden, violent action can initiate the psychological transformation that will shift the arses of the clanking masses. So their techniques include kidnapping, often under the cover of explosive events designed to destroy the anchors of the victim’s past life, and even the murder of friends and families, the permanent erasure of personal data, and extended imprisonment. Once the “break” has been made, however it is accomplished, begins a rapid period of cultural deprogramming and re-education. Egos are broken down, taught new skills, placed in high-stress situations that require them to break their personal and societal mores, and forced to re-examine and question everything about their old existence. While this need not be traumatic, most Eingerost are cruel—for only with stress and love can the new transhumanity be forged.

When the Eingerost deems the subject is done, they are let free. Some go on to new lives, others are brainwashed by the indoctrination and become Eingerost recruits, seeking to share the experience and repeat what was done to them. Others just want revenge, or try to rebuild their lives as best they can.

057: After Eden

ENTRY 057: After Eden

Transhumanity learns from its mistakes. It helps that so many of them are in the same place.

After Eden is a small, specialized habitat in the Martian north pole with political and economic ties to the Jovian Republic and certain hypercorps. The majority (70%) of the four-thousand strong population consists of flats with gross genetic defects—conditions grown obscure after decades of genetic screening and engineering have winnowed many of the most egregious and curious genetic diseases that transhumanity have to offer, the result of mutation, genetic damage, and improper development. To the bulk of transhumanity, these are failures, dead-ends, monsters, and objects of pity, but to the researchers and caretakers of After Eden, they are a smorgasbord of strange genetics in the wild, which they sample, study... and encourage to proliferate.

A.E. is nominally an anarchist habitat with a rotating schedule of work which is accomplished on a volunteer basis by the residents, sometimes out of boredom and otherwise in exchange for privileged access to certain local scarcities like sugar, alcohol, and Jovian sportsfeeds. Caretakers and researchers also participate in habitat maintenance, which they have to balance with their medical duties, seeing to the personal needs of the residents and working toward specific research goals. The two populations, residents and caretakers, are thoroughly intermixed.

While open to visitors, mostly traders from other Martian habitats and visiting researchers, and billing itself as a medical community to care for genetically defective transhumans, After Eden is essentially a research penal colony. The test subjects are subject to behavior modification to prevent them leaving, and in some cases to remove sexual mores and encourage breeding between subjects that might be disinclined to otherwise cohabit—such as close relations. This feature remains controversial, as the researchers have enough biological material culled from the research subjects to create hundreds of viable embryos and examine the resultant genetic code, but such a sterile laboratory process does not replicate the developmental issues that may shape a fetus, and so the process continues.

Using After Eden

A.E. is the transhuman equivalent of the quiet little village with the dark secret it wears on its sleeve. While some visitors might consider it a freakshow, the habitat shows no less variety of forms than most transhuman habitats, with the exception that instead of possessing those forms by choice, they are a natural product of their genetic code and development. The real monsters are of course the researchers who twist the residents’ minds to keep them there, and to cull from their genes the next enhancements to the transhuman genome. This, again, may not be obvious—many of the residents require considerable aid for their basic existence, which is provided by their caretakers without fail. Ideally, the gamemaster should insinuate the nature of After Eden gradually, so that the PCs fully understand the nature of the moral dilemma—to “free” the residents would also mean cutting them off from the vital care provided by the caretakers and researchers.

056: Seedless

ENTRY 056: Seedless

On some of the windswept canyons of Mars, along the lonelier beaches of Titan, and in other strange parts of the Solar system where no human voice should be, a strange whistling permeates the atmospheres that no unmodified throat should be able to breathe, and some people go to investigate…and fall into the trap of the seedless.

One of the more obscure exsurgent threats, seedless resemble medium-sized, exotic plants with fleshy, heavily, veined, dark purple-brown leaves and thick stocks. Forensic analysis of deceased specimens has revealed that each seedless is “built” from harvested human tissue, augmented with additional clonal material. The leaves contain sensory cells and nerves harvested from the eyes, ears, nose, and tongue, feeding an agglomeration of sensory data down a central nerve bundle (formerly the spinal cord) in the trunk down to the brain, which is situated near the root of the plant. The trunk typically displays six-fold radial symmetry about the central axis, with 12 two-chamber hearts and 18 micro-lungs per organism, though in the wild some folds are damaged and others more developed due to the environment. As their name indicates, the seedless have no means of reproduction.

Seedless are each unique, their anatomies tailored for their environments, and from a genetic perspective are nearly immortal, exhibiting no signs of aging. Principally they draw what nutrients they need from their environment, and produce a loud multi-harmony whistling by passing air through modified tracheas; though some examples use hollow bone tubes and gas-filled bladders to achieve a similar effect, and the Siren of Ganymede was even known to sing a wordless, endless ululation through a full vocal-esophageal tract, complete with a lower jaw, teeth, lips, and tongue. The whistling is presumed to attract human prey—not to damage them, but only to pass on the exsurgent virus carried within the seedless’ system.

Mechanics

Each seedless has unique stats with attribute limits equivalent to a wrapper (Eclipse Phase, p.370), but all are immobile and typically with no physical offensive capability. However, each is a Level 3 psi, and a carrier for the Watts-Macleod viral strain (Eclipse Phase, p.368). Whether or not an individual seedless is sentient is left up to the gamemaster; if they ever were intelligent beings then they have been so warped by strange science and left alone and incommunicative on alien worlds for so long they are probably insane by most transhuman standards.

Seeds

• Firewall has information that a seedless has been captured from a remote moon and is being brought back to the player character’s habitat. The ship bearing the seedless has already communicated an outbreak of a communicable virus aboard and is slated for quarantine rather than being allowed to dock or land; the PCs will have to break quarantine and risk infection to infiltrate the ship…unless they come up with a better plan.
• Jhal Dan, an ice miner from the Jovian Republic has been experiencing bouts of missing time, and the cumulative stress is taking its toll. He believes the source of his troubles lies in an underground lake on Ganymede, and wishes to return to find out what is causing his condition, and perhaps cure it. Jhal hires the player characters to escort him and provide needed firepower—but the source of Jhal’s troubles is the Siren of Ganymede, an unusually large and aggressive seedless who infected Jhal, erased his memory, and has caused him to subconsciously bring back more victims.

055: Ishmael ben Zizazel

ENTRY 055: Ishmael ben Zizazel

In the anarchist habitat of Chat Noir, on the threshold of the Fissure Gate, there is a very special game. Losers submit a fork of themselves, pruned for obedience, for a period of indentured service. So came into existence Ishamel ben Zizazel.

Ishmael is a male-identifying infomorph, and an artist who perverts his talents for the criminal syndicate he is indentured to. Instead of original works of art, his skills are spent forging works of art, copying commercial designs, and designing advertisements for illicit Mesh services. His employers are not ungenerous—Ishmael is allowed to keep a portion of his earning, to interact on social networks and with others. They trust to the mental blocks placed in his ego, periodically reinforced by psychosurgery procedures, which ensure his obedience, if not his allegiance.

In his personal time, Ishmael works on his own art—most especially a four-dimensional graphic novel told in logographic symbols which move against a backdrop of distilled mystical cosmology from old Earth religions—and collects information on Zizazel, the morph that he forked from.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
20	10	15	15	20	5	15	-

Morph: Infomorph

Skills: Academics: Art History 60, Academics: Psychology 40, Academics: Religion 50, Art: Digital Art 70, Deception 40, Impersonation 40, Infosec 55, Interests: Crime Groups 35, Interests: Transhuman Art 50, Interfacing 55, Investigation 40, Kinesics 50, Language: Native Arabic 85, Language: Mandarin 60, Language: Urdu 50, Networking: Criminals 35, Perception 75, Profession: Commercial Artist 65, Profession: Forger 60, Programming 45, Research 40

Disadvantages: Edited Memories, Illiterate, Modified Behavior (3, Obedience to “employers”)

Using Ishmael ben Zizazel

The difficulty with dealing with this indentured infomorph is that the personality and behavior hacks have made it so the nature of his slavery is not immediately obvious to outsiders—nor can Ishmael discuss all of the specifics, or ask for rescue. Unless the player characters are very perceptive, they will only know Ishmael as a rather sad infomorph whose talents are given to a job he does not care for, and employers who he does not care for, but who claims leaving his position is impossible. Player characters are most likely to encounter Ishmael by interacting with the criminal organization he is indentured to, or when the infomorph uses his meager savings or talents to hire them for additional information on Zizazel. From there, once the PCs start learning his story, they may leave him to his slow wage-slavery, or seek to free him. If they go the latter route, that will require either significant psychosurgery to overcome his modified behaviors, or finding a work around such as purchasing Ishmael from his employers or killing them all.

Seed

• The PCs are hired by a mid-level boss to eliminate a low-level boss of the criminal organization that is causing too much trouble. To assist them, Ishmael is seconded to the PCs for a period of time, to help guide them through the syndicate hierarchy, pointing out potential problems and avenues of assault.

054: Second Meditation

ENTRY 054: Second Meditation

Transhumans interact with the universe through feedback loops; the classical human form is built around responses to sensory input, every physical action swiftly followed by a rush of sensation—the location of limbs, pain, temperature, stress. This is in part why acclimating to a new morph is so difficult for many transhumans: their mental conception of self, even their general responses to new data, is geared toward things they take for granted like height, number and length of limb, balance of gravity, what will hurt and what will not. A flat, resleeved into the three-meter tall form of an Olympian, still identifies with their old form—they instinctively stoop, miss reaching for objects because they misjudge the length of their arms, and do not exert their strength correctly; they do not recognize their face in the mirror, the sound of their own voice, miss the twinge of old wounds and roughness of old calluses that vatborn morphs lack.

Software patches help considerably with initial integration, but for those who fail to adapt to their morph quickly enough, there are integration therapy techniques like Second Meditation, which emphasizes feedback loops with special sensors that respond to allow the user to visualize (or, if lacking sight, in other ways realize in their mind) their actions, so that the user relies less on the software patches to adjust their ingrained physical concept of self, and instead with repetition in a conducive learning system adapts their thinking to their new form in a more natural and organic fashion. Most Second Meditation activities resemble simple exercises, or even that the individual is resting when concentrating on becoming aware of and controlling entirely internal processes, but the user is actively engaged with the feedback from their sensors, trying to bring their action in line with the ideal response pattern for their morph.

Mechanics

Second Meditation is a psychosurgery procedure (Eclipse Phase, pp.231-2) designed to ameliorate the penalties from a failed Integration Test (Eclipse Phase, p.272).

SECOND MEDITATION

Timeframe: 1 day + 1 per 30 full points of MoF (or 30 days for a Critical Failure)

PM: +0

SV: 0

Second Meditation facilitates integration with a new morph, reducing the penalties associated with a failed Integration Test. The subject’s penalty to physical actions is reduced by half (from -10 to -5 for Failure or Severe Failure, -30 to -15 for Critical Failure).

Seed

• Midnomengrupp, a small psychosurgery hypercorp out of Extropia has begun testing an experimental Third Meditation technique for transhumans facing severe and heretofore insurmountable failure to integrate with their morphs. The technique basically resleeves the ego into their existing morph (allowing a new Integration Test), but more slowly and with additional feedback techniques (providing a +20 bonus to the Integration Test). What they need from the PCs are some test subjects that they can try the technique on—whether they are willing or not.
• A criminal resleeved into a Fury combat morph is having integration issues, and needs the PCs to act as her bodyguards as she goes through Second Meditation for a couple days.

053: Oxygen Emancipation

ENTRY 053: Oxygen Emancipation

Elemental oxygen remains one of the more critical resources for transhuman life, at least for biomorphs. It forms a component for the vast majority of metabolisms and ecosystems, and supplies of oxygen and liquid water still largely determine the ability of a habitat to sustain any number of biomorphs for any length of time.  Even in habitats populated entirely by synthmorphs and infomorphs, water is still necessary for many industrial processes.  While not exactly scarce, this does impose in at least some minds an onerous burden for long-distance space travel and exploration, and at least in some rather stricken colonies a mandatory “oxygen tax” designed to raise funds necessary for essential maintenance. It was seeking to overcome this biological barrier and its attendant difficulties that researchers have sought alternative metabolic strategies in the so-called Oxygen Emancipation Movement.

Most OEM technologies began by focusing on cellular respiration and examining anaerobic organisms, which are mainly bacteria and simpler lifeforms, and attempting to replicate and scale up the action, but quickly ran into problems. The few actual anaerobic biomorphs were little more than small gelatinous jellyfish-like creatures powered by bacterial stacks, unable to support a human brain, with limited mobility and an alarming tendency to explode or melt if their complex internal chemistry went out of balance. More recent efforts at Oxygen Emancipation tech has focused more on temporary anaerobic modes for human-like biomorphs, utilizing biological tricks and technological implants to maximize oxygen storage and efficiency, and have been far more successful.

Using Oxygen Emancipation

In every era of human history, despite any proof to the contrary or logic, there will always be individuals that pursue goals that seem completely impossible. Of course, in many cases these goals turned out to be possible, if not practical—nuclear transmutation of elements achieved one of the supreme goals of alchemy, albeit in a fashion that no alchemist ever dreamed was possible. So it is, largely, with Oxygen Emancipation, at least at the moment—all grandiose claims and visions, with as yet little proof that it will yield anything worthwhile. Yet it is a golden dream that entices many transhumans, and there are an unscrupulous few who continue to sell it, even as there are many well-meaning and diligent researchers actually plugging away at the inherent problems.

Seeds

• A seeming breakthrough in OEM-tech has the Mesh aflutter, with a small hypercorp ready to offer “conversions” of oxygen-reliant biomorphs to oxygen emancipated morphs. OE Watchdog groups are highly suspicious, and hire the player characters to infiltrate and investigate what is really going on before the market opens and someone gets hurt. The results are grim—the “conversion” involves modifications to block oxygen intake in the lungs and remove autonomic breathing processes while nanites deliver elemental oxygen to the cells for respiration—which gives the appearance of being free from breathing, but really just makes the subjects reliant on buying oxygenated nanites from the hypercorp or else they die.
• Early OEMorphs released “into the wild” in Europa’s seas have amazingly survived and bred; researchers hire the player characters to go down and document the new generation, tag them to trace their movements, and take samples to see how they are adapting.

052: Jalla Free

ENTRY 052: Jalla Free

Early space travel encouraged traditions of minimalist living; the accumulation of physical personal possessions was an impediment in nascent societies where space was at a premium and every gram of gear had to be accelerated and decelerated on voyages by precious reaction mass. These practices were facilitated on by lifehacks, communal property, and elaborated with principles from old Terran philosophies that encouraged simple living. Contemporary adherents are Slipstreamers, their personal possessions winnowed down to functional minimums, so that they can live and travel unencumbered, maximizing their freedom of movement.

Radical slipstreamers like Jalla Free own nothing but themselves. Theirs is a transhuman philosophy who believe that individual property is an evolutionary stumbling-block, necessary in early social development but a practice to be outgrown and left behind. Jalla still struggles with her beliefs—it is not enough for her to be free of physical possessions, but to be free of desire, to exist without jealousy, envy, greed, want, and attachment. By the standards of her beliefs, Jalla lives an open monastic life, engaging in socially positive work, study, meditation, and companionship with lovers and friends as she continues to refine herself.

Jalla has progressed in her beliefs to the point of nudism, eschewing clothing save where necessary or practical. As a teenager she had submitted to a full-body tattoo, abstract patterns and symbols with meaning only to her, but as Jalla gets closer to her goal she has these removed, slowly uncovering herself. She uses her nudity to her advantage in her work as a courier and smuggler—when one is unafraid to bare their body, few look to see what they may be hiding.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
13	18	16	18	13	24	20	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
7	1	40	8	80	30	6	45

Morph: Splicer

Skills: Academics: Philosophy 60, Art: Tattooing 40, Climbing 50, Deception (Impersonation) 56, Disguise 40, Free Fall 65, Fray 55, Infiltration 55, Infosec 45, Interests: Meditation 80, Interests: Tantra 55, Kinesics 65, Language: Native Urdu 86, Language: Mandarin 50, Language: Japanese 50, Medicine: Paramedic 50, Networking: Autonomists 50, Networking: Criminals 50, Networking: Firewall 35, Palming 35, Profession: Courier 55, Profession: Smuggler 60, Protocol 65, Scrounging 60, Unarmed Combat 50

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Bioweave Armor (Heavy), Clean Metabolism, Cortical Stack, Endocrine Control, Enhanced Respiration, Hardened Skeleton, Medichines, Mnemonic Augmentation, Multi-Tasking, Oracles, Temperature Tolerance

Traits: Ambidextrous, Morphing Disorder, Psi Chameleon, Psi Defense (2)

Using Jalla Free

Imagine a New Agey hypercompetent, hyperconfident hippie; Jalla may struggle with her philosophy but just because she eschews possessions and pursues goals some see as self-destructive doesn’t make her stupid or naïve. Player characters that deal with Jalla should be exposed to both her outgoing personality, open and honest, and to the realities of her monastic lifestyle which have hardened her against extremes of mental, physical, and social discomfort.

Seed

• The player characters have been hired to complete a smuggling run through the Pandora Gate, and Jalla Free is their contact on the other side. What their employers did not tell them is that they are smuggling a new nanotech system secreted within Jalla’s body. The PCs will either have to find a way to extract the nanites, or take Jalla Free with them past the checkpoints.

051: The Guerrilla Galactic Gardeners

ENTRY 051: The Guerrilla Galactic Gardeners

Irregular eco-activists who pursue and promote an every-person approach to terraforming and xenoscaping, the Guerilla Galactic Gardners are an informal network dedicated to the promotion of small-scale, individual-action unplanned events to promote ecological change with the ultimate goal of spreading the growth of ecosystems throughout the solar system. While there are network tools for coordinating flash-xenoscaping events, the majority of the network is designed to promulgate and communication information and techniques by which an individual or small group of individuals can perform some small personal terraforming event. Major projects of the Guerrilla Galactic Gardeners include the Mars Garden located in the Okhotsk Crater, and the seasonal Europa Sargasso, but the vast majority of Guerrilla Galactic Gardening takes place in habitats, with small plants and fungal colonies kept in recycled drinking containers with homemade compost.

Detractors point to the relative inconsequence of the mostly uncoordinated efforts, which on a terraforming timescale are generally too short-lived and ineffectual to contribute substantially to a sustained terraforming effort. Worse, there have been moments when through ignorance or maliciousness GGG efforts have skewed toward ecoterrorism, particularly when they upset the delicate balance of systems in a habitat. The most notorious such incident was the over-oxygenation event in Harmonious Anarchy, when eco-activists seeded water weeds into the station plumbing, which over populated and causes a brief but dangerous oxygen swell. However, given the distributed nature of the GGG network and the widespread popular appeal, efforts to combat further such incidents is mainly accomplished by attempting to educate network members to consider and calculate the holistic effects of their actions.

Using the Guerrilla Galactic Gardeners

Mostly, the GGG is a background element designed to add or emphasize a small, interesting human touch—a morph hanging small plastic containers with little plants and flowers in otherwise sterile and high-tech habitat, school children outside in vacsuits laying down bacteria-rich nutrient strips to help transform a few meters of dusty Martian surface into soil, planting radiothermal heaters to melt centuries-old ice and release liquid water on the surface, etc. Occasionally, PCs may get caught up in a flash-terraforming event, persistent projects like the Mars Garden or the Europa Sargasso, or in bad cases may have to track down well-meaning but erroneous eco-terrorists whose efforts occasionally pose a threat to transhuman life, or at least the profits and properties of habitats and hypercorps.

Seeds

• GGG-enthusiastic belters have aimed three water-ice asteroids at Mars. However, while two are headed toward deserted, isolated craters, the third has been steered towards Olympus Mons. The PCs are hired to correct the course now, when a relatively small correction will safely see it impact somewhere else, and to do this are given an antimatter bomb and the appropriate instructions on where and how to set it off. However, the PCs still have to deal with the well-meaning belters.
• The PCs are asked by the GGG to smuggle a couple thousand homemade “garden grenades”—egg-shaped bacteria colonies designed to help kick-start soil production—from Titan to the Jovian Republic. The Jovians have instituted an embargo against unscreened bacteria, so if they accept the job, the PCs will have to find some way to sneak them past the authorities.

050: The Legitimate Bar

ENTRY 050: The Legitimate Bar

Early space colonization did not prioritize the creation of places to socialize and drink alcohol; such activities were generally constrained to mess halls or private quarters, and involved small bottles of imported booze or whatever the colonists could cook up in their stills. When the human diaspora did reach the level to support the creation of such recreational spaces, few of them focused entirely on alcohol—instead, they offered a variety of legal chemical and digital stimulants, narcotics, and associated products in a social setting designed to encourage their purchase and use.

Then there is The Legitimate Bar—the first and longest-lasting pub in the solar system off the homeworld. Tucked into a small corner of Erato, the Legitimate is a tunnel-like affair. A brushed-aluminum bar curves along the edge of the dome, with enough space for transhumans to squeeze by single-file behind the bar stools, and then descends into a porous underground chamber (“The Lower Bar”) with a dozen tables and a small stage for live music. Patronized mainly by the miners of Erato, the Legitimate mainly serves ethanol, mixed with distilled water to taste—clients will order a “70/30” for example, and receive a shot of 140 proof. Those interested in a bit of flavor can order tinctures made from various local-grown extracts, including gene-derivatives of marijuana and opium, and “stone wine,” which is made by dissolving various minerals in ethanol.

The owner of the Legitimate is Malik Ó Maonaigh, of the New Mumbai Maonaigh clan, though as a splicer he isn’t on good terms with the rest of the family, are all flats and proud of it. Rumors have circulated for years about some of the shadier bits of Malik’s business. They say, for example, that he has the most expensive and extensive collection of Terran alcohol in the entire solar system in cavern levels below the Lower Bar, funded by illicitly trading Helium-3 for exotic pornography, as facilitated by his criminal contacts. Malik enjoys this sort of reputation, but publicly denies any such rumors.

Using the Legitimate Bar

The bar is a venerable roleplaying location because it is a semi-public social setting where minor psychoactives are served—therefore, people can talk without being noticed, have a bit of fun, and if someone has too much fun strange things can happen. The Legitimate Bar isn’t the only place in the solar system where PCs can still do these things (you would be hard pressed to find a habitat without some social release mechanism/location), but it is one of the most traditional, and it has a few unique qualities beyond its dedication to serving alcohol. Erato is a hub where Lunar banking and mining interests overlap and mingle, and when they do rub cybernetic elbows together it is often over a shot of “50/50” at the Legitimate Bar, either to do or discuss business, revolution, criminal activity, sexual liaisons, or anything else. More importantly perhaps, the Legitimate Bar is one of the few places in Erato dedicated to having fun.

049: Wet Makers

ENTRY 049: Wet Makers

The nano-manufacture of complex chemical liquids is simpler than comparable nanofabrication methods with solid objects or mixed media from an architectural perspective, provided the materials are available—no blue prints or needed, only a working knowledge of chemistry. “Wet making” thus attracts an artisan audience that works to produce and perfect chemical recipes for the equivalent of 20-year-old single malt scotch whisky, coca-wine, radium paint, and other materials that are unsuitable for large-scale industrial manufacture or cost-prohibitive and difficult to produce among traditional methods.

The most famous wet makers focus on alcohol, as high-quality spirits can easily be derived from adding specific impurities to pure alcohol.  Biomorph-friendly habitats throughout the solar system host clubs and wet maker consortiums that work to reproduce the equivalents of old products or invent new ones, experimenting with various flavors, holding contests and even marketing their schematics and selling their products.

The second most-popular industry for wet making are aromatic gels and liquids, used extensively for perfumes, cooking, and deodorants—the latter essential for any biomorph capable of smell when crammed into a torus with hundreds or thousands of other biomorphs.  Clean Metabolism augmentations can only go so far, afterall, and most egos don't bother with the cost. Aromatic wet-making generally faces greater restrictions due to the scarcity of complex biological materials often required, and the potential for long-lasting carcinogenic compounds that can build up in contained ecosystems.

Wet making schematics in the public domain cover the majority of basic chemical products—cleaners, acids, toothpaste, basic flavonoids, etc. The limits of the system depend on available chemical stocks, physical constraints, and complexity, though researchers continue to work on makers that can more effectively replicate complex biochemical compounds.

Mechanics

Wet making uses the same equipment as normal makers, though there are specialized equipment and containers that facilitate the process to avoid contamination and contain the resultant liquid. In terms of skills, wet making typically uses Chemistry or Profession: Chemist skills to design the appropriate schematics.

Seeds

• Varieties of high-proof light rum and vodka are popular products among wet makers in Mars-based habitats, with one of the champions being Erlking Seven. However, Erlking has recently attracted competition in the form of The Jurgen, an uplifted chimpanzee who has begun producing a dark, heavy pseudo-rum based on thick simple-sugar gels. Erlking is willing to do anything to get his hands on The Jurgen’s recipe, but dares not openly come out with a near-identical product. Instead, he will pay the PCs handsomely in fabricated booze to pirate The Jurgen’s maker schematic database and publish it to the mesh.
• Industrial Liquid, Inc. of Luna bases a large part of their business on the production and export of liquids in bulk throughout the system—mainly pure water and alcohol, sometimes liquid oxygen or hydrocarbon compounds. The expansion of wet making is proving a bane to their business, since small-quantity complex liquids they would normally transport can be wet-made locally. Firewall has received intelligence that ILInc. may attempt to sabotage wet-making by introducing a nanovirus into the next shipment of pure alcohol destined for wet makers on Mars—it’s up the PCs to halt it, if they can.

048: Planet Killer

ENTRY 048: Planet Killer

In a time when transhumanity has reached the limits of the solar system and beyond, one infomorph has as its sole ambition the need to destroy a planet…and he is not alone.

What began with that one ego, a cache of ambiguously legal antimatter explosives, and a small dwarf planet beyond Pluto known only by its catelogue number has become a community of ambitious hobbyists, busily crunching the numbers on a variety of doomsday scenarios, calculating the exact force and placement of various weapons needed to destroy a world—because if anyone is going to kill a planet, they feel it should be done properly. Coupled with this simple desire for mass destruction is, perversely, the need to create. So the Planet Killer community includes geologists, artists, and architects. Their designs are fed to robots on the dwarf planet’s surface, reshaping the dormant lump of rock and ice to carve out cities and mountains to scale, so that when the charges finally go off towers will topple into streets and great cracks will rend mountains to rubble.

Riding herd on these enthusiasts is the Planet Killer, waiting for the perfect moment to end a world—because it can.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
18	17	18	15	12	20	17	-

Morph: Infomorph

Skills: Academics: Geology (Catastrophes) 65, Academic: Physics 80, Academic: Chemistry 56, Deception 63, Demolitions (Large Scale Explosives) 85, Interfacing 45, Interests: Explosions 70, Interests: Planet Killing 80, Kinesics 30, Language Native German 80, Language English 75, Perception 40, Persuasion 85, Profession: Excavation 65

Disadvantages: Edited Memories, Social Stigma (AGI)

Using Planet Killer

The Planet Killer is a supervillain that has managed to crowdsource its burning need for grand destruction…and succeeded beyond its wildest dreams. It turns out that given the opportunity there are plenty of transhumans that not only want to see a planet blow up, but want to help. Hell there are even official hypercorp sponsors for the event. At the center of the whole project however is one obsessed infomorph with the destructive power to blast a planetoid to rubble and the will to do it, and that is someone for player characters to fear.

Seeds

• The Planet Killer approaches the players to “liberate” elaborate geological surveys conducted by hypercorps on Saturn’s moon Titan. Knowing the AGI’s proclivities, will the PCs deliver the data—and what will they do if the Planet Killer does decide to target Titan?
• Before the main event of detonating the dwarf planet, hobbyists seeking to improve their mathematical models have performed elaborate “small scale” explosive tests—mock-up cities, a small mountain on a xenoplanet, that sort of thing. Now however they’re getting ready for their largest demonstration to date, a city carved out of an asteroid to be annihilated using one of the killsats in the Planet Killer’s arsenal. Unfortunately, a group of tourists examining the city up-close have been trapped on the rock, and the Planet Killer is unwilling to halt the countdown. Only hours remain before the asteroid-city is due to be destroyed, and the tourists with it, unless the PCs can rescue them, disable the killsat, or talk some sense into the Planet Killer to halt the demolition.

047: Fireballs

ENTRY 047: Fireballs

Transhumanity has adapted to a vaster array of environments than old Earth ever had to offer, but even with new bodies and sensory apparatus people still feel the need to relax, and somewhere to do it. More pragmatically, designers, engineers, and potential customers require test environments to try out new morph designs, to see how they function and interact with potential hazards and other morphs. Aquatic and amphibious morphs have long been realized in just such artificial environs, glass-faced silent seas, artificial tidal pools and beaches, and such like—and for morphs intended to survive and thrive in the sun’s corona, there are high-temperature plasma chambers, colloquially known around Venus and Mercury as fireballs.

Aside from testing purposes, fireballs are the only place most transhumans are likely to encounter solar morphs, much less get the opportunity to puppet them and use them to interact with others. The cost of operating and maintaining a fireball is high in terms of both power and raw resources, so access to them is generally restricted to the wealthiest and/or most connected egos; in some habitats of the Inner Sphere the distinction between a fireball and a high-end social club are entirely lost, with cover charges for celebrities and the wealthy providing the operating funds to cover the scientific research in the fireball.

What those lucky few egos get is one of the most unique experiences in the solar system—to half-swim and half-fly through energetic plasma, cushioned by a constant vapor, feeling the weird electromagnetic echoes of the room, the subtle waves and doldrums caused by the movement of other morphs in there with you washing against your exotic hide. Additionally, the high amplitude electromagnetic noise inside the plasma chamber coupled with the shielding around it typically makes a fireball one of the most secure environments for communication in the solar system; many high-level deals and business meetings that require the utmost secrecy are said to take place within fireballs.

Seeds

• A local anarchist group wants to plant a bug in the local fireball and capture the chatter, to expose the wealthy and the famous as the bastards they really are! The player characters are hired to do the job, but once inside the plasma chamber find that another set of bugs in place—have the PCs been set up? More importantly, can they get out of the chamber before the tech team starts heating it up in preparation for plasma injection and tonight’s guests?
• Firewall believes that a xenosocial scientist named Fire Mountain has ties to a cell of exsurgents, and wants the player characters to “flip” her—get her to inform on her allies and spy for Firewall. Unfortunately, her biomorph is morbidly obese and all but immobile behind a legion of security forces, but she does have an affinity for fireballs and puppeting the whale-like morphs. If the player characters are up for the challenge, they can puppet a similar morph and try their luck at flipping her.

046: Zushell

ENTRY 046: Zushell

The dearth of affordable morphs has led to many egos and infomorphs adopting less pleasant and durable options for physical embodiment. One of the most disturbing vehicles for transhuman consciousness are zushells, sometimes called “zombie morphs.” Initially designed as disposable bodies for temporary activity of a few hours in dangerous environments where synthmorphs were undesirable, zushells are biomorphs with zero regenerative cell activity, existing in a constant state of apoptosis: skin cells die and slough off in a few days, never to be replaced; red blood cells usually last four months before they die and the zushell’s blood literally begins to rot; injuries never heal and necrotic tissue never expelled. Even with constant tissue replacement therapy and various preventative measures, the ego living inside a zushell faces a constant battle against their failing body.

For some, it’s worth it. Buying a zushell is relatively cheap compared to renting a morph in the short term, and the attendant health defects aren’t generally noticeable for the first 72 hours after the zushell is decanted. For others, zushells are the final resort for the poorest and most desperate egos, willing to cling to physical existence even if it means living in dying shells of flesh.

Generic Zushell Stats

Enhancements: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Puppet Sock

Aptitude Maximum: 15

Durability: 15

Wound Threshold: 2

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Social Stigma (Pod), Doesn’t Heal

CP Cost: 5

Credit Cost: Moderate

Zushells require regular tissue replacement therapy. Initial treatments (weeks 1-4) are Trivial in cost, and increase one level every subsequent period (weeks 5-8, Low; weeks 9+, Moderate; etc.). This generally requires at least moderate medical facilities and stocks of clonal material available. After a week without tissue therapy, a zushell’s durability is permanently reduced by 5 points.

Zushells cannot heal damage or wounds without medical care. Zushells can accept Medichines (p.308, Eclipse Phase), but do not benefit from the accelerated healing provided by that implant.

Using Zushells

Aside from introducing a zombie-like figure to your Eclipse Phase game, zushells are both cheap and disposable, a bit like burner phones for some of the more shady movers and shakers in the grey lines. Zushells see the most use in places with lots of biomorphs and where synthmorphs and pods are expensive or rare, such as the Jovian Republic or some of the more distant or metal-poor habitats. Gamemasters should always remember that characters that occupy zushells for an extended period of time are trapped in biological existential hells of their own making—skin growing grey and falling off, teeth falling out, minor and major organs failing, even minor injuries failing to heal.

Seeds

• An exsurgent terrorist is planning to release dozens of zushells puppeted by his forks and infected with the exsurgent virus within a habitat, with the intent of spreading the disease. Firewall has caught wind of the plan and asks the player characters to eliminate the threat—whether it means an old-school zombie massacre, opening the habitat to space, or however else they choose to handle the situation.