284: Transprimitivism

ENTRY 284: Transprimitivism

"There is an ancient and primeval need in transhumanity, to go into the great out of doors, to find or make your own shelter, learn to live off the land, and in other ways enjoy for a brief period the self-sufficiency that comes from surviving on your own, with only your skills and knowledge. One would have thought that the destruction of transhumanity's only natural habitat would have squelched that ancestral urge, but alas old habits resleeve with little difficulty..."
- Deep Red, Ruster trailblazer

One of the oddest survivals among disparate transhuman cultures is the stubborn retention of formal camping or "roughing it" excursions, where alone or in small groups transhumans set out from their artificial ecosystems with a bare minimum of technology and see or learn what it is to survive on their own for a few days or weeks. Of course, in a system with no fully-terraformed planets as yet "bare minimum" covers quite a large selection of necessary equipment, and these weekened getaways are less the proverbial hike in the woods with a tent and a water bottle and something closer to an extended surface excursion in a vacsuit from a mobile forward observer station. It is particularly notable that this sort of transprimitivist activity is more common on the more developed and hospitable bodies of Mars, Luna, and Titan than anywhere else in the system.

Mars and Luna in particular are home to the Solar Scouts Organization, in the form of the BGNT Scouts of Mars and the Young Transhuman Scouts of Luna, both transprimitivist organizations dedicated to teaching transhumans critical post-Fall survival skills such as Advanced Atmosphere Loss Training, Shipboard Firefighting, Emergency Repairs, Cortical Stack Harvesting, First Aid, Leadership & Administration, Spacewalking, and of course Surface Survival. Solar Scoutmasters train their students thoroughly before going on any planned surface excursions, which are only undertaken when a scout group as a whole has passed the qualifying exams and mock-emergency timed drills in an airlock to see if they are adequately prepared to patch sudden holes, set up mobile shelters, and perform triage and first aid, all while wearing their vacsuits.

While the Solar Scouts trace their skills and organizational heritage to similar traditions on Earth, as with the rest of transhuman society it is still relatively young - the first generation of Solar Scouts is just now entering their period of graduation, when they must personally complete a project for the benefit of their community to achieve the status of Solar Eagles. These young transhumans, having passed so many trials and proven their skills and abilities before their peers and teachers, face the world with solid starting reps and are already receiving offers to join gatecrashing and exploration expeditions.

Aside from the scouts, there are innumerable other transhumans who engage in transprimitivism more directly - Rusters who use laser-cutters to hollow out a cave in the rock, then set up an air-tight seal with a portable airlock to form a crude dwelling; Europans with aquatic morphs that go out for week-long fishing expeditions with nothing but a submersible and as much alcohol and bait as they can carry; "walkabout" Jovians on Ganymede that can survive for weeks off icemelt and slow-release nutrient implants; and even scumbarge vacation retailers who advertise three-day stays in private tents outside the hull, local radiation levels permitting. 

Seed

• Jul Breen is a 17-year old Solar Scout, eager to earn their eagle. His proposed project is the rehabilitation of a damaged and abandoned bacteria-stack atmosphere processing station near the Martian north pole, and he asks the PCs to help volunteer their time and efforts. Breen is aware that the PCs might not help out for free, and is willing to offer his expertise and training in survival, tracking, and other skills; of course, nothing is ever simple, and it turns out that not only is fixing the station more difficult than it first appeared, but someone appears to have deliberately sabotaged the station to hide evidence of a murder...that points to another Solar Scout.

114: Relicteurs

ENTRY 114: Relicteurs

Skillsets age and lose relevance as civilization and technology moves on. The necessity of creating flint knives through knapping drops to near-zero once superior metal technology becomes available and widespread; foot- and head-binding to achieved desirable body alteration falls out of fashion due to changing cosmetic preference and medical or ethical concerns; in both cases the skills are no longer practiced, and within a few generations are generally lost. Most transhumans rarely give this any thought, aside perhaps from a passing sadness or triumphant glee at the passing of the old ways—but others see this as a criminal loss of knowledge.

Relicteurs are a mostly informal association of transhumans dedicated to the preservation through practice of archaeoskills, the intellectual and physical abilities no longer in widespread use but which they feel should be preserved for the day when they do have some use once again or out of a desire to keep past legacies alive. While it is impractical to practice with certain obsolete technologies and circumstances, relicteurs also maintain distributed libraries of self-crafted and peer-reviewed skillware, most of which are available for free.

Barsoomians in particular have benefited from relicteur training in ancient traditional low-tech building techniques, and security forces regularly access the thousands of catalogued styles of martial arts, many of which use exotic and archaic weapons, and hunting, trapping, and survival techniques from old Earth cultures. Scumbarges tend to be relicteur strongholds as well, with an urgent need to keep at least a few people on board capable of programming near-obsolete programming languages and servicing antiquated but vital equipment.

Among the relicteurs themselves, there is a substantial movement for reinventing or repurposing archaeoskills for contemporary use, finding immediate and practical value in the skills of yesteryear. Knitting and sewing for example have re-emerged as energy-conservative and stylish endeavors in habitats where maker-crafted clothing was becoming a strain on the system; it is less resource-intensive to make a length of thread for repair or embroidery than to re-process an entire article of clothing. Likewise, many Neo-Avians and Neo-Ceteceans have repurposed scrimshaw methods to decorate their bills and teeth.

Mechanics

Relicteur networks on the ‘Mesh maintain a freeware library of skillsofts for archaic skills, everything from Art: Scrimschaw to Medicine: Leeching; it is up to the gamemaster to decide what relicteur ‘softs are available in their game. Skillsofts follow the rules in Eclipse Phase p.309 and 332.

Using Relicteurs

The most immediate benefit of relicteurs is to provide characters with an obscure, archaic skill in a pinch and with a minimal cost or hassle. Run a search, download the freeware skillsoft, then make a test. Used creatively, this can be a lot of fun for both players and gamemasters. If a player begins to somehow abuse the relicteur network (like trying to sell the skillsofts), consider applying a rep penalty or limiting access until the PC makes amends.

Seed

• The relicteurs post bounties for certain highly-desired skills, everything from organic home-made pickles to dates with minor celebrities. The latest bounty involves lassoing, and the last grandmaster lives in an isolated bubble-farm on Mars, herding transbovines and studying the effects of their manure on Martian soil. If the PCs can convince the grandmaster to record a skillsoft and upload it, they can get some sweet prizes.

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.

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.