Torn Branches: A Science Fiction Review

It has been a long time since I have had the energy to update my Eclipse Phase players log. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since my last update, and our greasy pimple faced friend has undergone a few changes. When we last met, Duncan had shed the metallic snake skin of his former Slitheriod morph and donned the non-descript body of a Flat.  After running a few missions for Firewall, Duncan decided that he wanted to upgrade to a neotenic morph. The change in morph was mostly for aesthetic reasons. Duncan has a bit of a Peter Pan complex. He wanted to be the boy that never grows up. The morph change had both positive and negative impacts on his mission capability. Duncan’s core attributes have always been in the social skills – deception, persuasion, and intimidation (read torture). In combat he prefers to sit back and use his sniper rifle, often rigging his surroundings with explosives to provide a nasty surprise to any sneaky sneakers. The ne...

As a result of my characters backstory , I am currently running a flat. The short and skinny of it is that my character needed a morph quickly that would aid his escape. A Flat was the best choice at the time as it would enable me to go unnoticed in certain circles. This meant that I would have to give up a lot of aptitude and skill power, which was fine as a compromise solution at the time. And let’s face it, with the prospect of constant re-sleeving, you are always going to face trade-offs in a game like Eclipse Phase. However, with my Fireteam about to head off-world, I would like to be as close to full power as possible. Who knows what the GM will throw at us, maybe even a gate jump? I’m currently applying the small size trait as my character is a child and I would like to run with this concept further. So I am going to re-sleeve into a Neotenic morph. From Chuck’s Eclipse Phase Wiki : Neotenics are transhumans modified to retain a child-like form. They are smaller, more agile, ...

In my latest run, I was in a unique situation with my mental state being hijacked by an NPC and turned against my fireteam. I knew that my fireteam would easily outgun me in a combat scenario, so I utilised deception to fool them into dropping their guard. It worked only briefly before the fireteam saw through the ruse. The concept was novel, and I’m glad the GM allowed the tactic. Our GM uses a three-step process to decide the success of social tests. The first and most important element is having a convincing in-story argument. It’s not good enough to tell a simple and transparent lie. You need a con that is believable given the context. In my example above, my character turning rogue opened up plenty of opportunities. The next step is the roll based on your skill, and finally the opposed roll. I liken the steps to a play, and your argument is the script. A good script can go a long way, think Hamlet vs Dora the Explorer. But even a good script is ruined by poor delivery, and ...

We had a fascinating game last Friday. After being pinned down in the room of death by multiple turrets, we managed to escape down a corridor and find ourselves in a staff room. Inside there were six armed enemies, who we downed fairly easily. Starting to feel confident again, Slave/Susan and Asif hacked a spindle and used it to retrieve the unconscious bullet-riddled body of Hobo. While the retrieval was in progress Duncan decided to exact a little revenge by torturing one of the downed but still alive enemies we had just dispatched. This is where things got interesting. Duncan, having grown up off-earth, has never seen a spider n his life. You can imagine his surprise when two human-sized spider arms emerge from a passageway. Stricken with fear (failed the Willpower roll), a woman emerged from the passage with six large spider arms. She gently embraced Duncan’s head. Immediately, Duncan realised the ‘truth’. The spider queen was his mistress and must be protected at ...

‘What’s happening?’ Duncan shrieked. A warm yellow stain spread down his left leg. Another barrage from the high calibre machine gun turrets whinnied. Unable to hear anything but the high pitched ringing in his ears Duncan surveyed what appeared to be the remains of Hobo. ‘He might still be okay, he has to be okay’ Duncan said to himself. Hobo was lying on his stomach, his back looked like it had been put through a meat grinder then quickly fried. This mission was supposed to be a cakewalk. After getting offside with the law in the last mission, the Fireteam decided it was time to lose the heat with a journey off-world. Before leaving, we had heard of a lab out in the middle of nowhere that solid intel told us was a cover for illegal narc production. The plan was simple, hijack a regular supply freighter, infiltrate the lab (killing any white-coat types that got in the way), and knock off the stash of drugs. The money would be welcome – maybe then we could buy our own ship instead ...

Last week was my first round with my latest iteration of my ego Child Duncan. This character is inspired by the Marvel character Loki, for those who are not avid readers. A Loki story arc involved an older (and more evil) incarnation of Loki destroying a child-like innocent version of himself. Adult Duncan went through some massive mental upheaval. Slipping into severe paranoia, Adult Duncan committed a terrible atrocity when he murdered a young family who he mistook for Jovian spies. In the chaos, Child Duncan, who had been enslaved by Adult Duncan as a fork, managed to take control of Adult Duncan’s morph. He quickly altered his morph into a flat to avoid Jovian detection. Terrified, Child Duncan confessed his personality to Firewall in the hope of asylum. Firewall have taken him in but barely trust him (-30 to network firewall rolls). Duncan is 8 years old and is very weak willed (willpower 5). His main abilities lie in his skill at deception (85 SKP) and p...

Life is never easy in the zone. Interesting, always interesting. But never easy. Taking a few delicate steps forward, Duncan wearily looked upon the barren landscape. Dust bit into his face. Gritting his teeth against the cold, he plodded along until he reached an abandoned shack.  What did this building use to be? He knew. Somewhere deep in his memory, he knew. But the information would not come forward. Too much. Far too much had been forgotten he mumbled to himself. Inside the shack was a small dust-filled room with a set of stairs that led to a collapsed ceiling. Duncan surveyed the room before taking a seat on the stairs. The sound of a small fan started whirring and a warm breeze trickled out of a grill on his neck. Yesterday! He remembered suddenly. Yesterday I wasn’t here.  And today I’m not here again. Puzzled by this sudden thought, he wished, not for the last time, he wasn’t there again. 

Posthuman studios is in line for a gong, with Eclipse Phase: firewall being nominated for the judge's spotlight at the 2016 Ennie's. Congratulations to everyone nominated.

At my last update, Duncan had gone through a bit of a transformation. After ruining a selfish brat's childhood Duncan's mind had become a little warped - paranoia and multiple personality level warped. The last month has been a little uneventful for Duncan. You see, Duncan is actually a father, and his little so-and-so hasn't been sleeping well - and as any parent will tell you when the little one isn't sleeping, nobody sleeps. There is, however, a little more to tell after the events of the brat's birthday party. Our underworld contact was able to provide the location of our intended target and also threw in a bit of intel for us. Turns out the target has both a suicide mechanism and a mind wipe to be used in case of attack. On a side note. One of my team members, Uusul, was acting a little funny around the underworld figure. Maybe he has had a past history in the underworld that he hasn't revealed? Anyhow. No matter how well defended someone thinks t...

I’ve previously written about the pen and paper RPG Eclipse Phase. If the game is unfamiliar to you, here is my short overview in a previous blog post . As I mentioned in that post, my character’s name is Duncan (named after the perpetually reincarnated weapons master and later Mentat from the Dune series). Duncan is an extropian smuggler sleeved in a Slitheriod morph. Essentially he is robotic worm who loves personal freedom, hates Jovians, and uses deception and persuasion to ply his trade in black market goods. Still with me? Okay good. Being somewhat on the fringes of society Duncan has always carried a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but a recent experience might have driven him over the edge and made him reconsider his motivations somewhat. [spoilers below] In a recent mission, Duncan and his compatriots were required to carry out a clandestine revenge mission for an underworld figure. The mission required deceiving our way into a young socialite's coming of age party...