254: The Posthuman League

ENTRY 254: The Posthuman League

Before the Fall. Human technology first made the transition to exhuman status feasible long before it became widely available. Those first exhumans pushed the technology of their day to its limits, and they were exceptional individuals—resourceful, driven, often brilliant; many of the technologies involved they had to refine or invent on their own, and they experimented on themselves, all to realize needs and modes of existence that could not be met by the traditional human form. These first would-be exhumans were ostracized by the public, hounded by governments for their technologies and what they had done to obtain their transformations.

So they went underground. Consolidated into networks. Developed their own philosophies and ways of interacting with each other. A society of sorts. The name attached to them was “The Posthuman League”—and when the governments closed in, when they drew first blood, when the first proto-exhuman died on an operating table during a raid…they vanished. Into the night, toward the stars.

The first posthumans. Maybe the first brinkers. Silent, uncommunicative, never tracked, never traced, never found. They’ve been out there in the darkness for longer than most of transhumanity, and who knows what lessons they’ve learned, how they have developed their technologies in isolation. Or maybe they’re all dead, their society torn apart by internal pressures, their primitive morphs unsustainable over the long term. Maybe the TITANs got them. No one can answer the question: what happened to the Posthuman League?

Using the Posthuman League

Another mystery for the Eclipse Phase setting, the legend of the Posthuman League is more romantic than the facts. The earliest “exhumans” comprised a variety of inventive but relatively low-tech morphs, back when egocasting was only possible with a room full of equipment that cost something on the order of the gross national product of a mid-sized state. In their day they were clever, resourceful, and unique, but on their own, in isolation, their technologies are unlikely to keep pace with contemporary tech levels in Eclipse Phase—hell, a lot of it might not even be compatible. The archaic retrotech morphs of the Posthuman League, combined with their antiquated sense of themselves is part of the appeal. These were explorers, some of the first explorers, diving headfirst into embracing new sensoriums, new bodies, new ways of being. Some likely died. Others are probably insane. The rest, if they survived…what stories they have to tell, if anyone still gives a damn to listen. History has passed them by, should they ever return, and they’re not likely to react well to that. Gamemasters can have the PCs search for the Posthuman League, or maybe just run across them somewhere in outer space. It’s first contact with their past, the culture shock of explaining to these people what has happened in their absence, and how thoroughly forgotten and passed-by they have become. Some may return with the PCs; others might prefer exile. A very few might be in dire need of some materials to sustain their degrading forms, and aren’t above raiding habitats to get it, leaving the PCs to stop them…if they can.