358: Honour Stitch

ENTRY 358: Honour Stitch

"Jaeger Heinrich saved this habitat. We honor him by making him a part of us - through him, we live; through us, part of him will continue to live."
- Surgeon General, Opening Invocation

While a romantic concept, for the most part transhumanity hasn't attached substantial emotional attachment to organ donars since about the time transplant surgery became reliably survivable. Despite the imaginations and fears of writers and the superstitious, the hands of murderers do not influence the receiver beyond the grave, much less their bone marrow or tendons. Today, only the most superstitious or bigoted attach any particular importance to the donor as long as it's a match - and with the popularity and availability of cloned organs, even those points are mostly moot.

There are exceptions. In the Brittany A.V. scumbarge, a scarcity of clonal technology means that organ harvesting is much more common, and by local regulation transplant organs are individually tagged so that they and their donor histories are visible in augmented reality for medtechs. In the neo-Islamic community on Proteus, where clans and corporate holdings overlap strongly, adopted family members are only accepted if they share some of the blood and flesh of the clan - new members marrying in typically swap kidneys if their blood types are compatible. However, the most prominent of these romantic traditions is the Honour Stitch - most popular among the Mercurials and in the Jovian Republic.

The Honour Stitch are organs and, less commonly, personal augmentations harvested from the most lauded heroes of the habitats and societies. Most, though not all, of the transhuman donors died in combat, sometimes in conflicts predating the Fall, and the organs are genefixed and universal donor-compatible. The transhumans chosen to carried an Honour Stitch - named for the notable scar purposefully left by the surgery - are selected based on demonstrated service in the spirit of the individual whom the donated organ or augmentation came from. Most Mercurials and Jovians consider an Honour Stitch the highest commendation that a living transhuman can receive, and the stitchbearers are accorded considerable status in their communities, and those who prove unworthy of carrying an Honour Stitch soon find themselves relieved of it...without anesthetic, and often without being sewn up afterwards.

Mechanics

In place of a typical Rep award of 5 points or more, a character may be offered an Honour Stitch. This is an implanted donor organ or personal augmentation of a fallen hero - no, the PC doesn't get to pick which one. An Honour Stitch is worth double the original Rep award, but only applies if the PC is is in the biomorph with the Honour Stitch - if they resleeve without taking the Honour Stitch with them, the Rep bonus is lost. Likewise, if the Honour Stitch is ever destroyed, the Rep bonus is also lost.

Using Honour Stitch

Most Rep rewards are just a couple of points added on to a statistic. Honour Stitches are a way to make such a reward more visceral and material, and can combine a Rep award with a minor personal augmentation like a drug gland or cyberclaws. However, given the restrictions on resleeving, this option is probably best for Jovians or other characters that don't resleeve frequently.

Seed

• Stitchbearer Marshall Yul Nagoya was a hero of the Jovian Republic who served the state well before defecting - and worse, taking with him an Honour Stitch: the Eyes of Jules (cybereyes that provide Enhanced Vision, Nanovision, and a complementary Oracles nanoinfection). The PCs are hired to get them back, no matter how.

301: Bonus Point Bank

ENTRY 301: Bonus Point Bank

It used to be hard to bank a favor. Reputation networks trade on ephemeral currency, and it's up to the individual transhumans who they owe and how much a given favor is worth. Most transhumans in a network base requests against the individual's rep score, giving up some of their personal judgment in exchange for a like consideration. Still, a rep will only get you so far - especially out toward the brink, where the rep networks haven't all situated themselves yet, and membership is thin. You might have a solid rep back Sol-ward, but out past Jupiter where the network is maybe a half-dozen transhumans with limited resources, even a "small" favor can tax your rep fairly heavily. Given those kind of circumstances, sometimes people need a way to 'cash in' on their rep more directly.

The Bonus Point Bank began as a money laundering tool designed to abuse rep networks, and evolved into a service allowing network users to directly transfer their reputation into assets and vice versa. The 'bank' works as a collection of false identities plugged into the rep networks; users who wish to use their services transfer property or currency to the 'bank' and the group of identities upvotes the user's profile in the network in direct proportion, and later on that user can request a 'favor' from one of the cover identities in the form of the assets or property that they 'deposited.' The original incarnation of the Bonus Point Bank involved fees, but the contemporary version has been re-engineered as a fee-free service designed to extend network access in areas with a low density of network resources and assets.

Still, there remains some ethical qualms about the Bonus Point Bank and related services, as they actively subvert the trust-based nature of the reputation networks with the promulgation and use of false network identities, which are routinely flagged and eliminated - and just as routinely new ones are created and carefully fostered with Mesh blogs, subscription channels, etc. Still, the anti-bankstas have succeeded in making rep-banking a moderately disreputable activity, and apt to cause a spate of downvotes to anyone caught using such services.

Using Bonus Point Bank

Rep is a great concept and one of the more terrific ideas in the Eclipse Phase setting. That said, it does depend and require that there be transhumans around in the same network willing to exchange favors with each other, and in some of the extreme locales that player characters find themselves in that's not always a guaranteed situation. That can make for a great additional wrinkle to a scenario as the PC is forced to rely on their own resources (or what they can beg/steal/join another network to get), but sometimes it can be a game killer. The Bonus Point Bank is there to prevent a session from grinding to a sudden halt because the PCs don't have the local currency to keep going - whether it's to buy a vacsuit, rent a vehicle, pay bail, grease the wheels of bureacracy, or any of the million and one other problems that money can solve.

Mechanics

The Bonus Point Bank allows a player character to convert rep directly into credits (or other currency) and vice versa. To 'deposit' monies at the Bonus Point Bank, the PC simply exchanges credits (or other currencies and property); for every 1,000 credits or equivalent their appropriate rep score increases by 1. Any amount of credits can be deposited in this fashion, but the maximum rep that can ever be gained this way is 6 points. To 'withdraw' monies from the Bonus Point Bank, the PC burns rep points equal to the equivalent favor (see Favors table, Eclipse Phase 289) plus 1 (so, a trivial favor would be 0 + 1 = 1, a low favor would be 1 + 1 = 2, etc.) and receive the appropriate amount of credits (or the equivalent in local currency/property) according to the Acquire Services Table (Eclispe Phase 290). Unlike normal favors, there is no refresh rate on these transactions - a PC can continue to burn favors until they have the currency they need or run out of rep.

Example

Daisy Six is in jail in Nova York and needs some fast cash to make bail, which has been set at 1,000 noyos. Making the most of her one Mesh transaction, Daisy contacts the Bonus Point Bank and sets up a 'withdrawal.' Marking off 6 @-rep, the funds deposit into Daisy's account...and Daisy Six is a free transhuman once again.  

Despite the comparison to a bank, the PC does not have an "account" as such and does not need to have deposited monies to withdraw them. At the gamemaster's discretion, player characters that abuse the Bonus Point Bank system may be Blacklisted from the network.

Seed

• Santa-bot has come early this year...an unknown benefactor has deposited funds in the PC's names in the Bonus Point Bank, giving them a healthy 5-point boost in one of their reps. Unfortunately, that turns out to be a bank error in their favor, as a very dangerous-looking gentleperson from the Nine Lives drops in to explain. Of course, this is all a simple misunderstanding and if they can't pay back the money then the PCs are welcome to the rep bonus - but now the Nine Lives want a little favor in return: there's a shipment of plasma rifles heading off the habitat tomorrow and they want one of the crates to quietly end up on a different shipping platform.

263: Rep Day

ENTRY 263: Rep Day

Religions have their place after the Fall, from the xenocults and new religions to the old survivals and revivals of past practice, adapted as well as they are able to the new circumstances of transhumanity. However, the general lack of holy days and increasing secularization of habitats has led to a downswing in actual holidays, an absence that has been cited as a cause of mental and economic stress among transhuman populations. Many habitats develop local holidays, often based around significant anniversaries or events in the history of the habitat population, or else regularly-scheduled administrative leave periods, but these artificial institutions tend to be unsatisfying, clinical affairs that lack real emotional resonance. In a time when so much of transhumanity is ultimately transient and has been in their current habitat less than ten years, the anniversary of the founding of the habitat is relatively insignificant.

Among the few holiday traditions that has really caught on, thanks to a grassroots Mesh movement, synchronized scheduling, and sponsorship by all the major reputation networks is Rep Day. On Rep Day, members of the rep networks are encouraged to introduce new individuals to their rep networks, and exchange gifts and services; most habitats with an operating rep-based economy have favors called in to arrange large parties and celebrations, and various digital media artists, technicians, and artists work year-round producing new entertainment material, freebies, and large rep boosts for small acts of kindness. Most habitats look forward to Rep Day because of the increased demand, which helps to stimulate the local economy, but for many Rep Day is just an occassion to exchange gifts or small favors with their family or friends.

Mechanics

Rep Day is a good opportunity for characters to build their rep by participating in the various activities and providing goods, favors, expertise, or services to the local Rep Day parties. In game terms characters are all treated as if their Rep Level was 10 points higher than normal, with many Trivial favors given away for free. Characters who are particularly generous with their time or resources on Rep Day (Level 3 Favor or higher) receive a number of free Rez Points which they can put toward increasing their rep – 1 RP for all-day participation/1,000 credits worth of donated goods/services; 2 RP for month-long Rep Day preparation/5,000 credits worth of donated goods/services; and 3 RP for year-long Rep Day preparation and planning/200,000 credits worth of donated goods/services.

Seeds

• It may be Rep Day in the rest of the ‘verse, but the local orphanarium is being defunded. They need at least 10,000 credits or a couple really big favors to keep going through the end of the year. No one else in the habitat seems to care—do the player characters?
• Local ne’er-do-wells that take advantage of Rep Day to abuse the charity and good will of others are known as Rep Day Dicks. This year though, the Rep Day organizers have a plan: they ask the PCs to spend the day getting the whole pack of RDDs drunk, high, laid, and otherwise away from the more family-friendly and organized activities. Can the PCs corral and inebriate a pack of dedicated debauchers, or will Rep Day be ruined?

257: The Black Spot

ENTRY 257: The Black Spot

Rep systems are more than networks of mutual cooperation where friends upvote each other so that they can all enjoy the benefits of the one with the highest rep. Reputation systems are also societies and family-substitutes in their own way, with their own etiquette and relationships. They are designed to help members get what they need, but they are not designed to help members get what they want. This is a distinction that many egos sometimes fail to grasp, and so many a greedy, self-centered, individual has been perplexed at how low their reputation score is, and why they cannot seem to improve it when others seem to get nice things…and there are the truly give-nothing-back types who seek to game the system to their own advantage and the detriment of others. This type of regressive behavior is usually recognized quite quickly by members of the network that know the signs, and if the several warnings and helpful and frank advice don’t work to curb the individual’s network-destructive ways, then the individual’s account is typically blackmarked, and the individual is effectively ostracized from the rep system. Whatever their score was before, whatever deeds they had done to earn any reputation, they are now considered persona non grata, often deliberately ignored and suffering social repercussions beyond the immediate extant of their network—in a small enough habitat dominated by a particular rep system, a morph might even starve to death if they become blackmarked. In some rep systems, network members even lose rep if they are known to help someone whom the network has blackmarked.

Yet being blackmarked is not the end. Rep systems are designed for the promotion of charitable and equitable giving between all members, even those with black marks on their record. So it is that most rep systems also include the Black Spot, a special designation among the blackmarked that signals out an individual who has the potential to learn and become a useful and contributing member of the network. Transhumans that help intercede on behalf of an individual with the Black Spot and set them on the course to participating fully with the rep system typically receive generous boosts in rep in return. In the war of ideology, the Black Spots represent those converts that the rep systems are most wanting to make, the regressives and atavists whose greed caused so much turmoil in traditional socio-economic systems, and if they can bring these prodigal transhumans back into the fold, then the members of the network generally consider it well worth the time and expenditure of resources. One the individual with the Black Spot has managed to work off their black mark through show of recalcitrance, good faith, and works, the Black Spot passes on to some other blackmarked member.

Mechanics

The Black Spot is an optional addendum to the rep rules, generally reserved either for storytelling opportunities or when a player character has basically used, abused, and burned out most of their rep in one or more systems. Rather than just kick the character out of the network entirely, the rep system algorithms or admins decide to mark the character out for corrective action. For a PC, this means various characters will arrive in their life attempting to guide them back to the path of being a contributing member of the rep system—often a matter of a good deal of selfless work, although sometimes one big act will earn a lot of forgiveness. The exact details are up to the gamemaster, but should generally tailor them to the system in question. An r-rep Black Spot, for example, will earn the character several offers to assist in scientific research and endeavors for the good of the Research Network Associates, under the guidance of a senior researcher. Guanxi Black Spots are given the opportunity to prove their worth and trust in a series of criminal activities. @-rep Black Spots generally invite the character to give classes on whatever their particular skillset is. In each case, the Black Spot character is not given a blank slate, nor is their rep restored or black mark removed—they are simply given the opportunity, if they can rise to the occasion, to dig themselves out of the negative rep hole they’ve dug themselves, and if they prove willing they will receive help and guidance from individual network members (who themselves earn rep by helping the Black Spot character) along the way.

212: A Thousand Words for Fire

ENTRY 212: A Thousand Words for Fire

For many, the Fall does not mark the period of rapid decline for transhumanity, but a new beginning—a time of challenge when transhumans can test themselves and push the limits of what they want and can achieve. A Thousand Words for Fire is a Mesh-based initiative to push the boundaries of transhuman achievement, a constantly-updating set of goals that mark the limits of what transhumanity has not yet broken…and everyone who publishes verifiable evidence of their achievement has received rewards in proportion to the difficulty of their task.

Using the Words

A Thousand Words for Fire is a set of adventures-in-a-can—but not your typical bounties or corporate jobs, or favors for a friend. These are tasks designed to push the limits of what egos and morphs can achieve, and all that the player characters are given is the goal itself. The plan of how to achieve it, the resources involved, are all up to them. Any difficulties that the PCs may run into and the actual award if they succeed is up to the gamemaster, but here are some examples and suggestions.

Sample Words

• Agni: The bioconservative brinker community of Goblinhead suffers from a series of mutated antibacterial-resistant syphillis strains. Find a way to deliver the nanite-based cure to the entire community.
  Suggested Reward: Medichines augmentation for each member.
• Blaze: A sunken TITAN-buster submarine lies in the deepest trench on Europa; fifteen missile children have been stuck there since the Fall. Rescue them.
  Suggested Reward: A brand-new submarine and +6 points divided among their rep.
• Campfire: Spend an entire month camping out in the open at the mouth of the Iktomi Vault on Echo V without outside supplies or communication.
  Suggested Reward: Gatecrashing contract to explore new world.
• Combustion: The Hero Necropolis in orbit of Earth houses the remains of some of the most famous astronauts, scientists, writers, thinkers, and military personal of old Earth, but has been abandoned since the Fall, when a stray missile damaged the power supply and forced evacuation. Restart the fusion reactor.
  Suggested Reward: Free drinks for life at Gagarin’s Rest and the Legitimate Bar.
• Conflagration: Convince Vo Nguyen to adopt thirty-three political refugees from the Jovian Republic outcast because they accepted extensive augmentations to deal with crippling genetic damage.
  Suggested Reward: +6 points divided among their rep.
• Inferno: On the surface of Mercury is an exsurgent factory-stronghold, dormant since the Fall. Built like a bunker, it is too tough to destroy with orbital weapons, even if it could be successfully target, and the crawling, masterless exsurgents inside made it too dangerous to storm. Slip into this Last Redoubt and set off the self-destruct on the fusion reactor.
  Suggested Reward: 250,000 credits, or the equivalent in grams of antimatter
• Wildfire: Capture a piece of the sun’s corona and transport it intact to Olympus on Mars.
  Suggested Reward: First tickets to the first Martian Olympic Games. (Can be sold for 50,000 credits…each.)

191: Eyebrow Network

ENTRY 191: Eyebrow Network

“You are your rep. A wise transhuman takes no more than they need, gives no more than they can afford, and through their work achieves merit and accumulates a higher rep. Those who seek rep for its own sake are often doomed to failure, others successful beyond their dreams. To borrow against your rep, your name, to commandeer the resources of a tribe, a network, a gang, a habitat, a planet to your whims—if you succeed, to the benefit of others, you will earn it back again and then some. If you spend it selfishly, your rep will wither and die, and black marks will stain your rep beyond fallible human memory. Remember, each to their own need, and by each to their own ability.”
- Fuck-the-Money-I-Have-Rules, Anarchist Philosopher

Transhumans exist not just as egos and morphs; each individual is also their informational footprint, the tracks and records they leave behind them in the Mesh, in every gateway and airlock they pass through, all the accumulated data of their life. These traces exist for everyone, even the dead, and vast engines and innumerable egos make it their work to sift, compile, and organize these heaps of data into comprehensible chunks. The business of data mining is not just in the finding and sorting, but the précis and presentation. There is value added in taking ten thousand receipts and distilling them into the salient data points “Enjoys Chinese food, particularly mushroom chow mein.” Entire organizations and databases exist whose sole purpose is to derive and update pithy, accurate profiles of transhumans, living and dead. The most popular is the Eyebrow Network.

The Eyebrows are a stateless, anarchist organization formed by Fuck-the-Money, designed to operated autonomously without administrator or rank above peer; the data is said to be backed up in servers from Pluto to Mercury, sustained without advertisements or hypercorp money by generous donations and the occasional outright larceny. The workers are all volunteers and vested interests: to join they must provide an accurate, detailed, but brief and fully documented (public sources preferred) profile of themselves and one other, which are subject to peer review. With acceptance comes access: the Eyebrow Network has profiles on over two billion transhumans, living and dead; and responsibility: regular tasks of file maintenance, review, updates, and new profiles as needed. Failure to contribute causes loss of access; efforts to intentionally deceive or provide spurious information are call for a black mark. Everyone is entitled to their secrets, the blank spots on their reports, but false data is punished with ostracism and derision, not to mention a hit to the rep.

Mechanics

The Eyebrow Network is a service associated with The Circle-A List, and accessible to egos with @-rep; contributing to update and verify Eyebrow profiles is part of regular @-rep maintenance and growth. Characters can make a Networking: Autonomist Skill Test to see if a particular transhuman’s profile is available, and call in a Trivial favor to access it. While not quite public access, these profiles are so generally accessible and editable that few will reveal major secrets about the transhumans—but they are guaranteed accurate (to the best of the Eyebrow Network’s ability), and can give the character the basic biographical details of the transhuman so they have an idea of who and what they’re dealing with. Of course, the PCs might also be interested in seeing what their own profile says as well…

At the gamemaster’s discretion, other rep systems may have their own related profile networks, though these tend to be specialized—The Hypercorp Directory (CivicNet/C-rep) for example, might contain profiles of every corporate entity, rather than every transhuman.

035: K-Rep

ENTRY 035: K-Rep

Psuedorandom acts of kindness, facilitated by discrete data mining and the subtle peer pressure of distributed-processing social networking software, k-rep is a low-key and hands-off favor system in fashion in some habitats, mostly popular in the Planterary Consortium. Rather than having users rate each other, k-rep systems log positive karmic acts towards other users and encourage reciprocal acts in exchange, with the k-rep rating as a scalar metric derived from proportional local response—basically, encouraging small acts of kindness and courtesy on a regular basis rather than large, one-time acts and deliberately avoiding meteoric rises or catastrophic falls in k-rep, a characteristic of the system known by users as inertia.

Mechanics

K-rep follows most of the rules for Reputation (Eclipse Phase, pp.286-90), but with a few added limitations and advantages. Unlike other reps, a character can never burn a point of k-rep for a favor normally—they can only accrue it (or lose it) by their actions, which are exclusively trivial and minor favors like covering someone’s volunteer shift for a few minutes or holding the elevator door. On the other hand, instead of making a Networking Test to call in a favor, the player gets a token (poker chip, M&M, etc.) for every 10 points in k-rep they have at the beginning of a session, which the player can cash-in for an appropriate lucky break (Level 0 favor) sometime during the session (or as a snack, if edible).

Using K-Rep

The benefit of reputation systems is that they contain built-in rewards and motivations for PCs and NPCs. While the k-rep system encourages small inconveniences and benefits, it has a dedicated community in some habitats which actively works to curtail abuse and prevent exploitation of the system—and which have sufficient privileges within the system to ensure the PCs receive a moderate boost in rep from their activities. That said, k-rep is an add-on system that may feel clunky in your game, and if it doesn’t work well (or is abused by the players), then as an in-game event the k-rep system might collapse and those involved “cashed out” and able to redistribute those points to another rep system.

Seeds

• A hacker named Exodudette has tricked to hack the k-rep system—and as punishment, has been kicked off. Exodudette is desperate to re-instate herself in the system, without understanding that the bigger and bigger “favors” she is trying to perform to get back in its good graces are completely antithetical to the system. The PCs are offered 10 k-rep points if they can talk to Exodudette about what she is doing wrong and get her to accept that she’s out of the karmic loop, at least for now.
• The PCs receive an unexpected fortune in k-rep favors—20 tokens or more at the beginning of a session—and as they spend them the feeling is among other users that they must be abusing the k-rep system. Can the PCs find out what is going on, or do they just ride the wave of favors and hope their rep doesn’t take a beating?