Sunday, September 6, 2015

249. The Solemn Initiative

Solemn represents a great opportunity in the form of a great problem. The exoplanet's unique ecology devours metals and plastics, and with them the foundations of most transhuman technology. Solemn is therefore of interest not only to scientists, but bioconservatives and neo-primitives, who see it as a new Earth, and the best chance for a natural life.

Protection in the form of repair swarms and anti-microbe swarms is sufficient for the short-term, and with improvement, might allow for indefinitely functional tech. Firewall, however, has decided that it would be better for transhumanity to solve the problem the hard way. Firewall, with the help of Argonaut agents and sympathetic bioconservatives, has been pushing a plan for Solemn based on new forms of biotech, recreating the functions of synthetic technology in organic forms.

In the far-future, Firewall envisions a biotech-based transhuman society, distinct from the more synthetic mainstream, with different strengths and weaknesses and therefore subject to different modes of failure and existential threats. Anything that could wipe out one would not likely be as effective against the other.

Plot Hook: Firewall's plan is much more appealing to bioconservatives and neo-conservatives than to most scientists and explorers. The player characters discover that Firewall supported the recent neo-primitive attack on the Solemn science station, as part of an earlier version of the plan to establish a new outpost of transhumanity. It is up to them to decide how to handle this sensitive information.

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