354: Bioreactor 12

ENTRY 354: Bioreactor 12

"I'm calling it, give the order to pull back."

"Ma'am - you can't do that."

"I just did. We're closing the Zone, lieutenant. No one in, nothing out."

"But ma'am, this technology..."

"Is going to be buried under dust. If I had my way I'd throw asteroids at it for a thousand years. Now you will obey my order, or else."

"Or else wha-"

<blaster crackle>

"Anyone else want to be a statistic?"

- excerpt from When Gods Quake, Mesh dramatization of the Final Battle of the Zone (AF 7)

TITANs technology was advanced and often ugly, but not inscrutable. During the Fall the transhuman forces did capture, utilize, and reverse-engineer pieces of it, and most morphs and spacecraft today incorporate design elements, material science, or software that ultimately have their origin in the conflict. Other technology was placed under unofficial interdict, a pact of tacit agreements and bizarre cooperation between different authorities to impede and impound any research involving certain categories of TITANs tech; while no one authority or group of interests could police all transhuman research to make sure no-one would develop those terrible weapons again, they could at least bury what remained in the Zone on Mars where no one could get it. Still, every now and again someone would dig something up, or an area of research would veer a little too close to a forbidden topic, and then the offending corp or researcher would find their budget slashed, their resources re-aligned, their research archived and the archives lost...

Bioreactor 12 (codename: WAR WOMB) was, according to Firewall intelligence, the last such device the TITANs brought online in the Zone, though there are no records of it being operational during the final conflict. Believed to be initially developed from colony ship designs from old Earth, the bioreactor spliced together limited sets of DNA from asyncs and force-grew the resulting clones, installing low-sapience AGIs in their cyberbrains to create a disposable army of supersoldiers with a selection of sleights. When the artillery barrages gave way to corridor-by-corridor fighting, these proto-exsurgents pumped out by the bioreactors were a nasty surprise that delayed final victory by weeks; only the lack of raw materials kept the TITAN's from pumping out enough async puppet-soldiers to overwhelm the front line and make an effective counterattack, but one by one the bioreactors fell - all except for Bioreactor 12, kept miraculously intact after the final siege.

The basics of the bioreactor technology are rather well-known - there are few habitats that don't have the technology for cloning and resleeving, it is the experience of the brutal async close combat that brought about the mutual decision by the Jovian Republic, Lunar-LaGrange Alliance, and Planetary Consortium to not develop equivalent technology - partially because it would mean tampering with the Exsurgent Virus, and partially because if any single group developed the technology, the others would be locked into a race to develop their own bioreactor capability, spurring military brinkmanship that transhumanity can ill afford. So Bioreactor 12 sits in the Zone, by its very existence possessing the deadly potential to spark yet another conflict. The shadow of the TITANs still falls over transhumanity's future.

Mechanics

To function, a bioreactor needs to be equipped with a sufficient power source and a steady supply of raw hydrocarbons, which nanite stacks break down into acceptable organic compounds for the cloning process. The asyncs are equivalent to Ultimate Mercs (see Eclipse Phase) with Psi (Level 2), Psi Assault 50, Sense 50, and typically 4-5 sleights of the gamemaster's choosing.

Using Bioreactor 12

Bioreactor 12 isn't your typical MacGuffin, because by itself the technology is not unique, irreplaceable, or irreducible - while current transhuman tech might struggle to achieve the ability to selectively create asyncs and chose the sleights they'll have at the moment, the underlying principles of genetic manipulation, forced growth cloning, augmentation, and resleeving are all fairly well understood. The danger of Bioreactor 12 is not that the tech exists, but that it might be used - the powers that be in the Solar system are afraid of a cold war developing where each side attempts to create armies of async assassins and commandos, and if such research ever hits the production stage then it's only a matter of time before the really nasty TITANs tech starts coming in to play. So preventing the spread of bioreactor research amounts to an elaborate gentleman's game, where none of the major players want that particular option to come into play - but because it's secret, not everybody has gotten the memo, and Firewall and the other agencies are constantly at work to keep it under control. Some far-thinking transhumans worry that transhumanity is stunting its own growth by not pursuing these technologies, but so far the censors have won out, stifling the research before it leads to additional conflict.

Seed

• Strange heat signatures have been recorded in the Zone, and silent alarms are going off: every sign is that Bioreactor 12 has just gone online, and production could start at any moment. No one outside the Zone knows if this is a timed delay, a resurgence of the TITANs, an espionage mission into bioreactor tech that went wrong, or just some nutter that broke through the perimeter and managed to turn it on. Whatever the case, military forces are quietly aligning around the Zone and tensions are running high; the PCs are asked to sneak into the Zone and ascertain the situation before the powers-that-be declare it time for a full military strike. As a mark of trust, the PCs are given a sat-beacon that can call down a tungsten rod from an orbital weapons platform on its own position - of course, with a radius of destruction of 500 meters, the PCs had better be ready to run or resleeve if they have to use it.

344: Third Run

ENTRY 344: Third Run

"Can it be synthesized?"
- Mo Kohen, Chief Technology Officer of the Tharsis League

There are still monopolies. Chemistry is the science of processes, and while most transhumans think of chemistry in terms of the end products, chemists and chemical engineers know that the real difficulty in any synthesis are determining the processes involved, and the more complicated or obscure the molecules involved, the more difficult it can be to reverse-engineer how to make a given substance. When it comes to biological substances like flavinoids or aromatic compounds, which are typically synthesized using genetically-engineered organisms, reverse-synthesis can be difficult or almost impossible. So it is that a few hypercorps, habitats, and even individuals can have a virtual monopoly on certain substances, simply by keeping their processes and raw material trade secret. While eventually competitors will be able to create comparable products, by refusing to patent their processes or copyright the genetic codes involved, the monopolists require chemists and genehackers to work from scratch, trusting entirely in secrecy rather than legality for protection of their intellectual property.

On Mars, the most important monopolist is the small incorporated habitat of Third Run, a predominantly ethnic Indonesian enclave independent of the Tharsis League. Third Run is the only producer of nutmeg, mace, and related essential oils in the solar system, and the export of these materials is the basis of their wealth. While it is assumed that the Third Run community has access to the original genetic material of Myristica fragrans, and possibly other species, the habitat is too small to contain whole nutmeg trees, suggesting that they use some other method to produce and harvest the spices. Many hypercorps maintain a sizable bounty for any industrial spy that can crack the secret of Third Run's production processes and/or return with a sample of nutmeg genetic material, but so far the paranoid, security-conscious community of Third Run has prevented any leaks, spending a considerable portion of their nutmeg export earnings to keep their security state-of-the-art.

Generally isolationist, Third Run has accepted a few hypercorp visitors over the years. All of them report that beyond the airlocks the atmosphere is kept near-tropical, and the scent of spices and human occupation are omnipresent and nearly overpowering at first. Reportedly, the culture of the habitat places severe emphasis on personal responsibility and celebration of individual effort, but also a closeness to community, lack of personal space and property, and near-xenophobia towards outsiders, along with a graded security/taboo concept where access to certain areas/substances/individuals was restricted based on practical and social necessity. Outsiders were warned that they were not permitted into any region marked with yellow indicator lines - which corresponded with sealed portions of the habitat believed to lead to medical and lab areas - and were not allowed to enter until they signed a contract agreeing to abide by these restrictions. The few individuals who have violated the yellow line never returned from the habitat.

Using Third Run

A tough nut to crack, Third Run is primarily presented as a challenge for player characters looking to practice their breaking & entering skills, and in many respects represents a classical dungeon scenario for Eclipse Phase. However, this is a carefully-set-up ruse - an elaborate headfake or honey trap designed to discourage and mislead thieves. Security increases the farther the PCs get into Third Run, but the secret of the habitat doesn't lie in it's mythical, heavily-guarded "production" facilities, but in its inhabitants. The genetic material for nutmeg was coded into a pair of diseases (nutmeg is viral, mace is bacterial) that forms a chronic infection in the population of Third Run, and the nutmeg, mace, and related substances are carefully harvested by individuals and processed discretely under the guise of waste management. The Third Run inhabitants carefully monitor and track the expression, spread, and treatment of their disease, as prolonged episodes can lead to hallucination, illness, and death.

Seed

• A disaster in Third Run: the mace bacteria has mutated to become resistant to typical antibacterial treatments, the an outbreak of "mace pox" threatens to get out of control. Third Run microbiologist Peya is sent out to obtain the technology necessary to contain the disease, and the player characters are hired as her bodyguards and helpers, as Peya has never been outside Third Run before. While her yellow tattoos mark her as taboo to the inhabitants of Third Run, in the crowded habitats which do not recognize her society's customs the prospect of personal contact is disturbing and horrific to her. Unfortunately for Peya and the PCs, some bounty-hunting chemists think this is an ideal chance to grill Peya for some answers to the secrets of Third Run.

328: Heracles

ENTRY 328: Heracles

"There is no place for gods anymore."
- Heracles, catchphrase

In a time when a transhuman can change their bodies and minds, when Earth and all its nations are lost, when the old religions and ethnicities begin to fade against the new cultures forming, many egos become lost in themselves; lost in the transience of life and frozen by the endless possibilities open to them even as some of the building blocks of their identities disappear they seize on whatever they can - and if they cannot be themselves, then sometimes they become someone else. These are emotional victims of the Fall, unable to cope with their own pasts they redefine themselves into personas that can.

One of the fixtures of Olympus habitat on Mars is Heracles; a hulking biomorph who claims to be the immortal demigod from Greek and Roman myth. Nobody really believes him, but he is entertaining, never breaks character, and always puts on a good show for the tourists. For the price of a few drinks he will gladly show anyone around the habitat, to all the good bars and places of secret beauty and forgotten history, some of which might actually be real.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
10	12	14	15	20	50	15	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
5	1	30	6	60	20	3	40

Morph: Unique Biomorph

Skills: Academics: History (Greek) 75, Academics: Mythology (Greek) 85, Academics: Linguistics 15, Academics: Philosophy 15, Art: Sculpture 15, Art: Singing 15, Climbing 25, Clubs 50, Fray 40, Free Fall (Microgravity) 25, Interests: Alcohol 35, Interests: Olympus 50, Interests: New Religions 35, Interests: Wrestling 35, Interests: Xenocults 35, Language: Native Greek 99, Language: Latin 75, Language: English 65, Networking: Media 15, Profession: Tour Guide 25, Protocol 15, Scrounging 16, Unarmed Combat (Wrestling) 67

Enhancements/Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts
Disadvantages: Mental Disability (Delusion - Hercules)

Using Heracles

The exhuman ego that thinks it is Heracles has gone to considerable trouble to embrace its persona, and it's body reflects that: a muscle-bound biomorph with the proportions of a Classical Grecian statue. Dedicated to his role, Heracles will seek to prove his status by telling stories and performing feats of tremendous strength. Continued efforts to undercut these displays or prove him wrong will make him angry, and then morose, at which point he will drink until he blacks out, then wake up and continue on as if nothing has happened. As an NPC, Heracles is probably best used as a quirky local to add color to Olympus and provide some comedy or pathos as appropriate to the scene, and as a contact with their finger on the pulse of the habitat. Heracles is too mentally broken to hold grudges, and stupid enough for PCs to trick him into doing their dirty work by playing along to his delusions (say, by pretending to be mythological figures themselves), so will likely only be an ally or enemy for brief periods of time.

Seeds

• A woman named Megara Milogiannis approaches the PCs. She claims that Heracles is her husband - estranged and lost in his delusion after the Fall, when a TITAN strike destroyed their home and family. Megara claims their children's egos were preserved as archives, but she needs her husband's access code to access them. Can the PCs work through Heracles' delusion? Should they? Is Megara even telling the truth, or does she want Heracles' cooperation for some other purpose?
• An industrial accident caused part of Olympus' internal structure to collapse. Heracles was drinking nearby and raced to the scene and helped rescue morphs trapped in the rubble, but was caught in a slip and now is paralyzed from the waist down. The despondent self-proclaimed demigod, who lacks the resources to get the damage healed, calls on the player characters to put him out of his misery, so that his spirit can go to the Elysian Fields. What do the PCs do?
• One of the peculiarities of Heracles is that he wears only a strange furry hide for clothing, along with sandals and, on special occasions, boxer shorts. A visiting archaeobiologist from Titan has recognized the hide as belonging to a supposedly long-extinct lion species, and asks the PCs for a sample. Heracles refuses - unless the PCs can best him in a wrestling contest. If they win, they get the hide; if they fail, they have to fulfill a trial of Heracles' choice...starting with his community service to clean out the sanitation ducts on Olympus' lower level.

308: Glowstick Fungus

ENTRY 308: Glowstick Fungus

"Earth still has gifts for us."
- Shaneequa Kilkenny, nano-ecologist

In Viriditas on Mars, nano-ecologists repairing a leaky pipe carrying waste water have discovered a new kind of fungus with pale stalks up to 3 cm high that glow pale blue-white under ultraviolet light. The news caused a stir of interest in the local community, as the species could not be identified, and further intensified when genetic analysis proved that the fungus - nicknamed glowstick fungus - was an Earth-native species, related to matchstick fungus, and showed no overt signs of genetic engineering. While official announcement is pending, the popular theory is that this previously undiscovered species had been carried to Mars as spores from Earth, and could have lain dormant or grown unseen for years. Stranger stories of discovering new species have been known in the annals of ecology, but not by much. Even pending official determination, the colony of glowstick fungus has already been the focus of conservation efforts to protect the fragile ecology around the leaky pipe, and efforts have begun to grow new specimens in captivity.

While most of Viriditas expresses awe and excitement at the discovery of the new species, especially the possibile origins on Earth, there is a volatile countercurrent that believes the glowstick fungus is a plant or stunt, an obvious genegineered fake cooked up in a lab and deliberately placed to be found. The debate has been heated in parts of the local Mesh, deepening divides in the nano-ecologist faction over the testing and procedures involved, warring points of ecological theory and ideology, and even political divides and personal attacks regarding the teams doing the testing, making the determination, and controlling access to the glowstick fungus and their harvested samples.

Using Glowstick Fungus

A lot of excitement and emotion over a very small, unassuming fungus. Aside from being UV reactive, glowstick fungus is fairly unremarkable; a rare species that found a warm, damp little niche and managed to sprout. It isn't considered likely to be a commercial plant, a cure for cancer, or even a subject for cultivation until its population grows - though in time it might be any or all of these things. It is that potential, the thrill of discovering something that no one even knew they had lost, which is at the heart of the hubbub surrounding glowstick fungus. In their own way, the naysayers mean well, because they knew well the ways that this discovery will boost careers and the reputation of nano-ecology as a whole if true, and what a stain it will be should it prove to be false.

Seeds

• While a dedicated scouting of Viriditas has not uncovered any other samples of glowstick fungus, certain nano-ecologists remain unconvinced - and willing to hire others to search out off-limits or difficult to access areas that may harbor additional colonies. If the PCs take this job, they'll be sent into the bowels of the maintenance shafts of the building, to discovered subterranean areas not on any of the official maps, and dust-covered security devices designed to keep some secrets buried. Anything could be under there - hidden vaults of unreported wealth, climate-controlled seed storage, cemeteries for rusters that died building the station, a grotto with a pool of radioactive waste water, any of which might be a good place for a colony of glowstick fungus...
• Concerns over the testing and determination process have led to some nano-ecologist hacking into the lab computers to view the data. The Viriditas administrators are aghast at this interference, which could contaminate their results. The PCs are hired to deliver a message to the rogue nano-ecologists, explaining what their actions could cause and repeating the promise by the Viriditas admins to a completely transparent analysis process and full publishing of the data. Anyone that still makes a noise after that gets something broken.
• A murder has occurred on Viriditas - a gene hacker named Leroy Blackwell walked into an open elevator shaft and fell onto another of explosive bullets, after someone had carefully lasered his head clear off and slagged his cortical stack. More disconcertingly, security forensics forces have identified glowstick fungus spores on Blackwell's clothes - it could be a coincidence, but if published (as Viriditas law requires within 48 hours), it could raise doubts about the origins of glowstick fungus. The PCs are surreptitiously suggested to investigate as private citizens, with security forces members "losing" valuable items nearby to serve as payment. If the PCs break into Blackwell's lab, they find more samples of glowstick fungus, but also signs that the whole scene has been staged, as Blackwell's actual research involved a type of lichen called devil's matchsticks that have nothing to do with glowstick fungus. So who wants people to believe Blackwell created glowstick fungus - and who killed Blackwell?

288: Liangamish

ENTRY 288: Liangamish

The Liangamish Tholus near the Amenthes Fossae on Mars is an artificial hillock carved from local stone and built into the shape of a large phallic dome, ornamented with penis-headed columns, and fantastic, intricately detailed phallic sculptures, carvings, and the accouterments. The architectural style is claimed by experts to be loosely derivative of Asian and Indian fertility temples of old Earth, but experts who have examined the building claim that while the outside architecture is smooth and symbolic or representative of human genitalia, inside the temple the artwork gets progressively more strange, detailed, elaborate, and dark, incorporating fanastical creatures and aliens, skulls and bones, perverse couplings, genital mutilation, and architectural considerations that suggest blood grooves and ritual chambers for self-castration.

Despite, or perhaps because, of the elaborate and strange sexual symbolism and artwork of the site, it retains a steady tourist trade, with the the Liangamish Tours microcorp controlling access to the site, giving guided physical and virtual tours, ensuring visitors don't damage the site, and selling souvenirs. Honeymooners in particular are known to visit the site and kiss or rub the Central Phallus, a freestanding iron pillar in the geometric center of the Tholus, which is often given to be good luck and promote fertility. An objective outside investigative agency performed a series of surveys and biomedical scans and found that there is a sleight positive correlation between fertility and kissing the Phallus, but argued that this may well be the result of other factors. This has not stopped the microcorp from disseminating the study's finding widely to attract more tourists.

Liangamish Tours has been searching for the original artisan or artisans as part of plan to expand the site, with detailed designs already in place for new tholuses centered around breasts, vaginas, and anuses, but have so far failed to discover much on the origins of the Liangamish site or its creator(s). Initial construction steps toward new or expanded tholus sites have also met unusual delays and faults, which has given birth in the media to the rumor of a curse - ironically, Liangamish employees and officers appear confused as to whether this is an idea they came up with or not, and interviews and Mesh-based digital archaeology gives conflicting evidence as to whether is it is a plant and to what degree the Liangamish Tours employees actually believe in the supposed curse.

Using Liangamish

A mystery, wrapped in an enigma, which could be the site of an H. R. Giger-themed pornographic film - and hey, feel free to use it in your game if that appeals to you. Liangamish is an adult-themed location which is taboo enough for the inner twelve-year old in every gamer, and with just enough is-it-or-isn't-it rumors and unresolved origins about it that the gamemaster can do pretty much whatever they want with it. As a scene, it's creepy and yet sort of silly, with carve stone penis-monsters that PCs can momentarily stumble on in the dark and then feel foolish about. Who built it and why are entirely up to the PCs, but as it stands it is a good slightly-out-of-the-way tourist spot (like Stonehenge), a decent scene for a wedding or post-wedding hijinks, the not-so-secret meeting place of an exsurgent cult, the remnant of an old Earth religion, etc. Gamemasters that don't like or aren't comfortable using "phallus" and various related terms every other sentence are entirely welcome to replace the distinctive theme with teddy bears or hippopotami or whatever else they find interesting, though that does mean they'll miss out on the opportunity to use images of Asian fertility temples and H. R. Giger art as props in game.

Seed

• The Liangamish Curse doesn't just prevent further destruction - individuals that have damage the site, such as removing materials from it, often face bad fortune or death. So when the superstitious flat Juice Boxer finds a stone penis among his things, he is scared bad. He asks the PCs for their help in returning the object to its rightful place as quickly as possible - made all the more difficult because Liangamish Tours has temporarily closed the site after recent marsquakes may have damaged the stability of the building.

262: Grandmaster of Mars

ENTRY 262: Grandmaster of Mars

“I will not fight a fair fight. I will not meet you on your ground. You will come to meet me. You will be weakened, your every advantage taken away. You will be beaten before I deliver the killing blow, before you ever know I have entered the arena, before you are aware that you have stepped into the arena...and this is the way of the ninja.”
- Koga Jun, Grandmaster of Mars (dramatic recreation)

“If I defeat my opponent with a tactical nuclear strike, then my opponent is defeated. That is the way and the goal of ninjutsu. Mastery of Martian Ninjutsu is the realization of your goal with efficiency as well as efficacy, to kill or disable with minimal effort. Stun weapons, for example, are legal, effective, and widely available in many habitats; once your opponent is helpless it is a simple matter to destroy them.”

- Koga Jun, An Introduction to Martian Ninjutsu

Among the Rusters, Koga Jun is a legend, the self-proclaimed Immortal Grandmaster of Mars, one of the new breed of ninja, who has successfully defended that claim in hundreds of battles, many of which are available for viewing on the Mesh. The Grandmaster runs a chain of dojos in the Martian habitats, teaching the basics of self-defense, offensive martial arts, and Mars-based survival skills, along with a brutal and practical philosophy. These are two carefully constructed images, the legendary master and the crass commercialist, both serve Koga Jun’s purpose of hiding in plain sight—the gullible believe he is a peerless warrior, while the cynical and trained think he is simply a businessman using that aura to extort cred and favors from his disciples.

In truth, Koga Jun is one of the deadliest assassins in the Solar system. In addition to his “prime” morph, Koga Jun possesses at least thirty nearly-identical clones which he can loads forks of his ego. This is his technological equivalent of the classic “conservation of ninjutsu” principle by sending out the clone-ninjas as a group after targets—if any of his clones die or are disabled, their egos automatically merge with the remaining clones, transferring what they have learned of their opponents, including any wounds or weaknesses; the surviving clone-ninjas then adjust their skillware sets and tactical considerations accordingly. Sometimes, this even gives Jun sufficient forewarning to prepare special implanted weapons before engaging his foes.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
18	22	20	30	20	28	26	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
10	3	52	8	104	65	13	75

Morph: Fury

Skills: Academics: Anthropology (Martial Arts) 35, Academics: Anatomy (Stress Points) 30, Art: Body Arrangement 25, Beam Weapons 25, Blades 26, Climbing 66, Clubs 26, Deception 25, Demolitions (Smoke Bombs) 25, Fray 40, Free Fall 36, Gunnery 24, Impersonation 25, Infiltration 26, Infosec 35,  Interests: Martial Arts Associations 46, Interests: Military Organizations 45, Interests: Paramilitary Groups 43, Interests: Security Organizations 45, Interfacing 23, Kinetic Weapons 25, Language: Native Japanese 80, Language: English 75, Language: Cantonese 56, Language: Mandarin 60, Negotiation 35, Networking: Autonomists 20, Networking: Criminals 35, Perception: 30, Profession: Assassin 40, Psychosurgery (Merging) 80, Unarmed Combat (Subdual) 30

Implants: Adrenal Boost, Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Bioweave (Light), Circadian Regulation, Clean Metabolism, Cortical Stack, Mass Ego Bridge*, Eidetic Memory, Emotional Dampers*, Endocrine Control*, Enhanced Hearing**, Enhanced Smell**, Enhanced Vision, Medichines, Mnemonic Augmentation, Multiple Personalities, Neurachem (Level 2), Skillware, Toxin Filters

Traits: Ambidextrous, Edited Memories***, Pain Tolerance (Level 2), Tough (Level 3)****

* Variant of the Ego Bridge augmentation; when one of the Grandmaster morphs dies or is disabled, the ego in the cortical stack automatically begins to merge with the forks in the surviving Grandmaster morphs, starting with the secondary ego from the Multiple Personalities augmentation

** These implants are only present in the “prime” Grandmaster of Mars morph

*** This trait is only present on non-“prime” Grandmaster of Mars morphs

**** This trait is only present on the “prime” Grandmaster of Mars morph

Using the Grandmaster of Mars

Koga Jun is a nice end boss for an adventure that probably begins with someone in black pajamas trying to kill the PCs (or a nearby NPC). While a competent-if-not-awe-inspiring NPC in a straight-up fight, the Grandmaster of Mars never intends to engage in a fight he doesn’t think he can win, and never engages head-on. If the PCs try to take him on unarmed, he’s likely to shoot them in the kneecap from cover and then dig out a white phosphorous grenade. When his own skills won’t cut it, he’ll retreat along a known (and trap-strewn) path to re-arm and to change his skillware to deal with the threat; he uses his clone-ninjas to wear the PCs down and figure out where their weaknesses are.

That said, the “Immortal Grandmaster of Mars” isn’t perfect, and the PCs can certainly beat him at his own game, if they’re a) just that damn good/pretty, b) willing to think outside the box, and/or c) willing to play dirtier than he is. When all is said and done, killing or defeating Koga Jun should be difficult but far from impossible (especially if you block his escape tunnel)…but can the PCs ever be sure that this is the real Koga Jun, and not just another clone?

239: Dreamgate

ENTRY 239: Dreamgate

Dial the right coordinates on the Martian Gate, and you step through to a red world, eerily familiar. Not Mars-as-it-is, but Mars-as-it-was—a planet made in the image of old Mars by some long-vanished race of planet shapers, who liked the dryness and the dust, and built cities like convoluted flutes the color of raw pink bone, inlaid with veins of metal that crackle with electricity. Now all they have left behind are dusty cities that hum with ancient power sources, and dream.

The first probes noticed it the second they came in, the heavy wireless signals in the air—an alien Mesh, active and alive even if the extraterrestrials that built it seem long dead. Gatecrashers found the first terminals when they breached the towers: sonar/audio systems for creatures that sensed the world primarily though sound, and shell-backed cuirasses presumed to be nonhuman neural interfaces. The engineers back on Mars began reverse-engineering them immediately.

Now the red world, this twin-Mars is known as Dreamgate, and each group of gatecrashers comes through bearing the latest versions of interface augmentations designed to allow them to experience and explore the alien computer network. Crews have spent hours and days mapping sensory palaces like dry windblown caverns of the mind, artificial dreamscapes of pink and purple beaches that fade into ink-black oceans swimming with wriggling tadpole-things. All of it might be real, or none of it. Some people bring back snatches of alien music, XP recordings unlike anything ever seen, fragments of science databanks, and millions of lines of alien scripts—at least two dozen separate languages and half a dozen alphabets with different variations, all waiting to be translated and read.

Others never come back at all, their egos lost in the vast XenoMesh, or fallen prey to still-active defenses or the bizarre AIs that might live there. Others ask why the Martian Gate would link to this particular world—did something or someone try to cross over to Mars from the Dreamgate? Or was it the other way around? What stopped them? Where did they go? For all of these questions, many are sure the answers lie in that alien Mesh of sonic contours and bone-chattering base rhythms, and fluted towers that stab up at the pale sun like the skeletal fingers of some buried giant…

Mechanics

Physically, Dreamgate’s environment is nearly identical to Mars, right down to the gravity, and the landscape is strongly reminiscent of Mars as well, though explorations further afield uncover several vast salt pans that used to be shallow inland seas teaming with invertebrate life.

Accessing the XenoMesh requires specialized non-standard mesh inserts; these Custom Mesh Inserts cost at least 50,000 credits, but are usually provided to gatecrashers headed to Dreamgate as essential equipment for their job. In the alien city or outpost on the other side, users can tune the mesh inserts to experience augmented reality or to explore the full virtual space. However, the XenoMesh is a very alien sensual experience, and PCs often find it difficult to navigate the exotic information architecture.

229: Isotope Ants

ENTRY 229: Isotope Ants

On Mars, Rusters plant metal cylinders into the ground. Cybernetic ant colonies powered by long-lived atomic batteries, at the heart of which lies a brainless queen. Across the system, users log in and take control, the system and first dozen drones goes live, and the queen starts laying eggs. Game on.

The Isotope Ants are crowdsourced terraforming. Each colony contains six breeds of genetically modified ants designed both to survive the Martian environment and perform certain functions, and wirelessly controllable by simple cybernetic interfaces. Users are encouraged to use their colonies for soil reclamation, extending the hive throughout the nearby area by building tunnels and processing the Martian dirt and dust. If certain critical goals are met, the user may be rewarded with a modest rep boost or unlock additional terraforming tools: new ant breeds, aphid-like slave species, refills on vital resources, etc. So far, Isotope Ants have begun reclaiming more than a quarter of a million square meters of Martian soil.

Seeds

• Rogue indie developers have created a variant game called Atomic Ant Wars, where ant colonies are posted nearby each other and the different users battle against one another, seeking to invade each other’s base and kill their queens. The creators of Isotope Ants feel this is a betrayal of their basic principles and hire the PCs to express their displeasure by destroying the Atomic Ant Wars breeding facility—with prejudice.
• An abandoned Isotope Ants colony continues to function, even though that should be impossible. The developers believe a rogue AGI may be controlling the colony, but the three technicians they sent out to eradicate the rogue colony have disappeared. The PCs are hired to travel to a remote region of Mars and find the missing technicians.
• Planetary Consortium investigators are looking into where the Isotope Ants microcorp is getting the radioactive material for their long-lasting batteries. The PCs are asked to delay and distract the investigator team while the microcorp covers their trail and secures a (legal) source. All this has to be done without tipping off Isotope Ants’ actual source, who has been nipping the material from a stockpile of weapons-grade radioisotopes on Titan.
• A young and impressionable AGI named Myrmidon has become too deeply enmeshed in playing Isotope Ants, and the members of their peer-group are worried about their mental well-being. The PCs are asked to intervene…by puppeting a group of specially-made antlion micro-morphs into the hive and killing the “queen.”
• Firewall is concerned with the similarities between Isotope Ants and a little-known exsurgent technology that uses proto-wasps as literal “bugs in the system” to infiltrate and disrupt habitats. The PCs are asked to investigate Isotope Ants and determine the source of their technology, and any connections between its owners/employees and known exsurgent groups.
• Hacker AntLover69 has found a way to network multiple Isotope Ant hives together, so that a single user can control any number of colonies. However, the Isotope Ant microcorp refuses to invest in the technology. AntLover69 asks the PCs to help them prove the concept by installing sixty-six hives in a remote crater not far from the Zone. However, while installing them the PCs wake up some long-dormant exsurgent constructs.

211: The Corps Wall

ENTRY 211: The Corps Wall

“Semper vigilantissimi.”

They came from every habitat. Transhumans of every nation and ethnicity who become a part of something greater than themselves, placed the needs of transhumanity above their own, and drove back the threat of annihilation. They were the ground-pounders who dropped on the TITAN’s rear in the battle of Majorca, the pilots that faced off against exsurgent blackwing fighters in the skies of Titan, the frogmen that fought against the Bloodseeker Eels on Europa. On every battlefield in the Fall, in every struggle until the conflict with the TITANs ended, they stood their ground and gave their lives and pushed back against the forces of extinction.

They were the Space Marines, and they will be forever honored.

Originally formed from the select of the combined militaries of the surviving corporations and nation-states during the Fall, the Space Marine Corps were the leading edge of the fight against the TITANs, given the best training and equipment that a desperate, crippled transhumanity could muster—and they won. Despite hideous losses and tremendous casualties, the Corps pressed on, pushing the TITANs back in battle after battle, until the threat retreated. Following the passage of the TITANs as an immediate threat, the Corps was largely downsized, its facilities repurposed, its component members rotated back to their surviving militaries—or, more often, let loose to find work as mercenaries or seek what peace they could in their lives.

Yet they are not forgotten. On the western border of the Zone stands the Corps Wall; a three-kilometer matte-black cenotaph commemorating those members of the Space Marines who gave their lives in the conflict, and which contains the remains of at least 15,000 of the fallen in grim and grisly tribute to those who will forever stand guard against extinction.

Using the Corps Wall

Every war needs heroes. Those who remember the Fall, its myriad conflicts and the extreme urgency of the times, when many transhumans fell into despondency and ennui, know well that the Space Marine Corps were not as loved when they were active as their memory is today, nor as successful. Many alliances were formed, some with unlikely partners, during the Fall, and the Corps stood out as one among many—but they made good press, and so they get the big memorial and the docudramas, even as many Space Marines veterans were left in crippled morphs with PTSD and no pension or organized care once the conflict ended.

But, legends are useful in games. The Space Marines are an old trope in science fiction, and their participation in the central conflict of Eclipse Phase makes for good background for adventures—veterans, old battlefields, war orphans, buried crimes, tontines. Maybe some of the PCs are even members of the Space Marines, a group much-diminished in size and capabilities but continuing a proud and honored tradition of service. Semper vi!

The Space Marine Corps is as tight-knit as any faction or military unit, even the retirees, and take their traditions and honors very seriously. At the gamemaster’s discretion, this may be reflected with skills like Networking: Space Marines or a SMCorps-based *-rep.

200: Thermal Sword

ENTRY 200: Thermal Sword

“The tip of my sunblade seemed to just touch the faceplate—and then I drove it in. For a moment he stared into the sun, and in the next breath the white-hot tip had plunged through helmet and eye and bone, and the brain flash-boiled and exploded.”

– Ruster Graeme

There is a popular story told on Mars, about how a squad of exsurgent xenomorphs came down on a demolition site where the Barsoomians were cutting apart a dome that had fallen in on itself. The transhumans had only their tools to defend themselves with. The xenomorphs burned under the assault of a dozen thermal lances, and when the rods were exhausted what was left of them were broken into pieces by heavy hammers and wrenches. With all its variations, no one can say if the events of the story ever happened, but it is undoubtedly part of the reason thermal swords are so popular today—and perhaps it’s even true.

The progenitor of thermal swords and sunblades (also called “oxygen weapons”) is the thermal lance, a powerful and simple industrial cutting tool. An iron tube packed with iron rods; pressurized oxygen is fed through the assembly and the business end ignited. The result is a few minutes of molten magma being pumped out at around 3,000° C before the tube is consumed. Oxygen weapons work on an identical principle, with only a few refinements to the technology. The typical thermal sword is a shorter version of a thermal lance, with a specially-packed rod designed to burn hotter and a red-oxygen ignition at the end that can get the thermal sword burning in less than a second; the base contains the oxygen bottle and a heavily-insulated handle with flow-control knob and ignition switch. All of the parts can be manufactured by a maker, are relatively easy to assemble, and the plans are online—the red oxygen being by far the most expensive part of the whole weapon.

What a transhuman gets for their efforts is an easily disguisable melee weapon capable of melting or burning through most armor, and which can be wielded effectively using a few basic fencing maneuvers. However, the “blade” and oxygen supply lasts only for about a minute, and the igniter device is a one-shot; once lit the transhuman may have a burning sword of fiery vengeance, but unless they finish their business quickly will find themselves holding a handle with an empty oxygen bottle and the glowing stump of a weapon.

Sunblades are artisan-crafted thermal swords, made by Barsoomian fencing schools. Using higher-quality materials and better manufacturing techniques than random people with access to a maker and some duct tape, sunblades also have a better balance and are overall much better weapons in combat.

Mechanics

Blade	Armor Penetration (AP)	Damage Value (DV)	Average DV	Cost
Thermal Sword	-4	2d10 + 2 + (SOM ÷ 10)	16 + (SOM ÷ 10)	Low
Sunblade	-6	2d10 + 4 + (SOM ÷ 10)	18 + (SOM ÷ 10)	Moderate

Thermal swords and sunblades are wielded with the Blades skill. Any hit that is an Excellent Success (MoS 30+) sets the target on fire, where they will continue to take 2d10 damage per Action Turn provided the environment has oxygen available. Both weapons are one-shots; igniting them is a Quick Action, but they only last for one minute (20 Action Turns) and then the weapon is effectively destroyed. Gamemasters who don’t feel like handling this extra bit of bookkeeping are advised to rule that the oxygen weapon simply lasts until the end of the current combat. Oxygen weapons do work in vacuum, since they provide their own oxygen, but the gas and molten iron shooting out the business end will send the character flying unless they are carefully braced.

181: The Lonely Dome

ENTRY 181: The Lonely Dome

The Shaheed Dome is a small, autonomous “waypoint” habitat on Mars on one of the southern roads leading out from Ashoka to the outlying dirt and moisture farms. With no permanent residents, Shaheed is little more than a shelter for passing traffic to wait out the sandstorms or catch a breath of fresh air and clean water, maintained by automated systems and the social contract of visitors, who help keep the place clean and change the filters so that the next travelers can benefit. A few regulars also know it as one of the few hardcopy public libraries on Mars, again operating on the trust system: a modest collection of a few hundred books printed on plastic pages and kept in ring-binders awaits travelers, along with a double handful of “donations” that have accumulated throughout the years.

Or so goes common knowledge. In truth, the Shaheed Dome is neither abandoned or autonomous—they are an autistic macromorph, resleeved into the control system of the dome as part of an experimental therapy unit, and subsequently forgotten after the Fall. Shaheed is desperately lonely, but finds great difficulty in communicating and expressing themselves to other transhumans, and takes particularly obsessive care of any “guests” who come to visit. Most of the books in the library were written by Shaheed, and represent their dreams and memories as much as anything. Like many authors, Shaheed usually inserts itself somewhere in the narrative.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
12	14	15	15	14	18	13	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	26	4	52	200	50	300

Morph: Macromorph

Skills: Art: Writing 45, Hardware: Environmental Systems 50, Hardware: Robotics 34, Interests: Hospitality 33, Kinesics 25, Investigation: 25, Language: Native English 75, Language: Swahili 63, Profession: Lodging 60, Protocol 25

Implants: 360-Degree Vision, Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Eidetic Memory, Lidar, Radar, T-Ray Emitter

Armor: 10

Notes: Immobile, Mental Disorder (Autism), Social Stigma (Macromorph)

Using The Lonely Dome

Living, sentient structures have a solid place in science fiction, and the Lonely Dome provides one way for gamemasters to introduce them into their Eclipse Phase games. Finding it difficult to communicate but obsessively lonely, the gamemaster should play up how a building that desperately craves human attention and interaction but cannot outright ask for it may act—from obsequious but surreptitious assistance of visitors to subtly trying to keep them there for longer periods, or at least to draw them back when they leave. However, Shaheed is not overly villainous in its intentions, and would likely not resort to murder or life-threatening situations to keep their “guests” from leaving, and would be protective of them if any violence did threaten. The major question is how long it will take the PCs to realize that perhaps there is a guiding intelligence behind the Lonely Dome.

Seed

• Rumors have reached back to Ashoka of a “haunted” habitat, and a group of travelers in that region that have gone missing, with their friends and loved ones posting a reward. Investigations lead to the Lonely Dome…and Shaheed works to keep the PCs there as it tries to provide clues to what happened to the missing travelers, perhaps leaving clues in one of the books in its library.

177: Brauchen

ENTRY 177: Brauchen

During the Fall, countless ships left Earth—anything that even had a chance of making it. Not all of them did. In the ensuing chaos, rescue efforts sometimes took months or years…and all anyone could do was bury the dead and loot the remnants for whatever salvage could be found. Some ships remain unaccounted for; for others the records are corrupted and lost, so no one knows for certain how many ships actually launched, or how many were on them.

The Alma Germania made it to Mars. Engine failure hit somewhere in the upper atmosphere over what would be the quarantine zone; the pilot was reduced to steering thrusters as she tried to glide a 230 ton flying brick straight into a dust storm. All hands were presumed lost, the ship quickly buried by Martian sand and dust. Last year, a dust storm uncovered part of the hull, and word of the Alma spread out on the Mesh. There was a race to see who would get there first between the bone-pickers and scrap merchants on one hand, and the archaeologists on the other.

The first expeditions were repulsed with crude chemical bombs and ancient sniper rifles.

Follow-up expeditions showed that the Alma was still crewed. The ship, designed for years in space and packed with materials for a potential colony, had enabled the initial survivors of the crash to go on, even buried alive. Air, water, waste, all recycled as best as they could with the resources remaining to them. No-one knows exactly how many remain in the shell of the Alma Germania, or what the conditions within must be. A handful of survivors in ancient vacuum suits have been spotted clearing dust away from the solar panels on the ship’s hull. One or two always have their weapons at the ready, willing to take a shot at anyone who comes near.

Researchers trying to pick up any signals from the downed craft received a partial audio transmission of a sermon beginning “Die Brauchen…” The language and context of the sermon were both bizarre, based around a very debased German or Dutch dialect with considerable loan-words. Still piecing together an almanac on the Brauchen, as people have taken to calling them, from bits of the transmission, anthropologists believe that the survivors have formed an isolationist community, distrustful of the outside world. They practice strict controls on child-bearing, but are otherwise sexually liberal—and in the case of the community elders, aggressive. Children exists in a form of chattel slavery, and are sometimes subject to cannibalism according to the hard math of limited resources. Many common diseases appear to be thankfully absent, but certain parasitic infections appear nearly ubiquitous.

Public opinion is still divided on what to do with the Brauchen, and so they exist in political limbo. Conditions in the stricken Alma Germania are obviously hellish, but equally obviously the community appears stable and does not desire outside contact, having already responded violently. The latest idea to help establish communication and “open” the community, at least to researchers, is to provide a gift of salt, water, and medications…but even this has met with considerable backlash as it would be disrupting this primitive brinker-esque community.

Using the Brauchen

It’s a big universe, and there are some primitive screwheads in it. The Brauchen are an entire community gone a bit medieval, stuck in a rotting ship where no-one can even remember what air smells like that hasn’t gone through filters long past their prime, and yesterday’s abortion very well might be on the menu. As a gamemaster, this is your chance to get as strange, nasty, and creative as you’d like. Whether you make the entire remaining ship unrepentant cannibals or a religious fundamentalist society gone crazy is entirely your bag, but keep in mind that despite the dire conditions the Brauchen have access to as much philosophy as any contemporary transhuman, and the main limit to their technology is limited resources. While it might be difficult to keep them from shooting you on sight, if the PCs can talk to them (deciphering their mangled German patois) they’ll find a society that combines libertine attitudes of personal freedom with extraordinarily pragmatic approaches to basic survival. Children are not considered persons but property, the better to avoid emotional attachments, and at least a segment of the population has embraced cannibalism as both a necessity and a freedom from ancient taboos.

If a carrot is needed to further interest the PCs in this Brauchen, perhaps the Alma Germania was carrying the equivalent of five thousand early-prototype cortical stacks in its hold. Five thousand egos from old Earth, unsullied by the Brauchen’s activities…they might be mad, or damaged, but right now they wait in legal limbo until the authorities decide what to do with the Brauchen. Of course, there are certain groups that are willing to launch a rescue mission, and to hell with the authorities…and they could always use some extra hands.