271. Sensates

Exhumans often specialize in their attempts to explore alternatives to humanity. Sensates are those who have become fascinated with sensation, seeking to create the broadest possible sensory experience, extremely specialized forms of sensing, or else edge as close as possible to total sensory deprivation while still functioning in everyday life. Psychosurgery is not the only or the best means of mind alteration; spending a year trying to recognize faces with only x-rays will alter your brains deep structures even more thoroughly.

Among the sensates are also the few exhuman artists, or at least that is the equivalent match an outsider can make. Works such as the almost-fractals of the sculptor Emmeram and the frozen extinction events of Unfortunate Garden have become famous among transhumanity, not least because of the questions that surround them.

257. The Philosophers

They have no bodies, but occupy supercomputers and server banks built in the cores of metallic asteroids. Connected by highly secure line-of-sight networks, they spend their time in deep contemplation, but about what is unknown. They keep themselves hidden as much as possible from the rest of transhumanity, and are not known to interact with anyone, even other exhumans.

The pre-philosopher egos set forth simultaneously from locations across the system to isolated asteroids. It is assumed that the philosophers are the continuation of a preexisting organization, but nothing substantial has ever been uncovered regarding its nature. Also unknown is the exact nature of their minds, and how they avoid the pitfalls of seed AIs and the exsurgent virus. The only reason Firewall has been able to learn about them at all is due to their recovery of a "dead" philosopher, which was bleeding random radio signals into space.

Plot Hook: Firewall has be unable to discover what it is the philosophers are thinking about, but from what traffic analysis they have been able to do on philosopher transmissions, have reason to believe that they have come to a conclusion. Now more than ever it has become imperative for the nature of the philosophers to be discovered.

222. The Human Uplift Project

The human uplift project is a Cognite/exhuman cooperative attempt to take the techniques developed uplifting animals and apply them to humans. Making posthumans who would be to humans as humans were to pre-uplifted animals. How this would actually be done was a matter of long debate: animal uplifting processes always drew heavily from human examples. It was eventually decided that, in addition to greater overall intelligence, they should create a more powerful consciousness, in greater control of its faculties.

The endeavor is one of the greatest examples of the still new and dangerous field of unique psychosurgeries: the creation of new modes of thought not based on any existing examples. The bulk of the successful work, admittedly, is still based on existing mental augmentations, modified to fit together into a greater whole.

Thus far, the human uplifting program's most applicable results has been a small suite of mental augmentations and permanent psychosurgical procedures. Individually they amount only to a little, but together synergistic effects do create an undeniable transcendent result. The next step in the project will go beyond what can be done to existing minds, requiring that egos be made and raised with uplifting in mind.

Mechanics

Human uplifting is a mental augmentation [Expensive+]

Human uplifting grants the equivalent of the introspection cortex and endocrine control augmentations, as well as the eidetic memory, hyper linguist, math boost, and fast learner traits.

161. The Portia Fragments

The great advantage of Portia hobbling is that it not only slows AIs, but allows their thoughts to be saved and examined at the leisure of their handlers. The examination of the thoughts of too-powerful AIs allows them to be checked for dangerous intentions, but also allows for insight into what they think, and just as important, how they think.

The snapshots of hobbled minds are both very valuable and very dangerous, and are carefully guarded. Still, the system is full of hacktivists, aggressive exhuman clades, defectors who want something of value to offer, and careless scavengers who may recognize something interesting among the wreckage when everything has gone horribly wrong. Portia fragments have become highly sought after by exhumans and singularity seekers, looking to use the knowledge within, and Firewall and Ozma, hoping to contain it.

Mechanics
 
A character attempting to understand a fragment must make a Psychosurgery or relevant knowledge skill check, such as Academics: Cognitive Science, or Profession: Psychiatrist. If they succeed, they understand the thought the fragment expresses, and gain 1d10+1 points in a relevant knowledge skill, usually Academics: Philosophy, Academics: Mathematics, or Academics: Cognitive Science. They also gain SV equal to skill points gained and must make a WILx3 test, gaining an additional 1d10/2 SV if failed.

Notes

The Portia Fragments are intended to take the role of the eldritch tomes from Call of Cthulhu games. They can give players an opportunity to learn What Is Really Going On.

150. Exhuman Perspectives

"Cliché goes that communism was a great idea, but for the wrong species. Well, us transhumans can become whatever species we wish. Corruption, greed, mob mentalities, power trips, terrible obsessions; all of these problems can be well and truly solved if only you are willing to take a knife to your foolishness."

Thomas Augustus, AGI and psychosurgury pioneer

"Human morality is of little use, why should lives be respected when we are immortal, why should pain be avoided when sensation can be edited, why should you give credence to an ancient voice in your head that understands only the tribe and the savannah?"

<name withheld>, child kidnapped and raised by an exhuman clade

"Singularity seekers are often committing a teleological fallacy. Greater sophistication, by any metric, is not necessarily the key to success. There are many examples of species on Earth remaining essentially unchanged over hundreds of millions of years, because they occupied the right niche. Careful, lateral change can be more worthwhile than simple increases in power."

Excerpt from initial Exhuman response, Exhuman/Singularity Seeker debate

"It took the TITANs to convince us to embrace what our technology has made possible. Lot less flats around then there used to be. Transhumanity has proven it thrives on adversity."

Unsleeping Golem Whose Mind Journeys Too Far, known Exhuman terrorist

"A species has one strategy for survival. Species go extinct regularly. Ecosystems are diverse, the extinction of every single species is rare. Do not limit yourself to one ego. Be fruitful, multiply, and become your own ecosystem."

Myrmidon, early fork hive

Notes

Inspired by Farcast 252: Bioconservative Ethics.

141. Neo-Canines

Man's best friend might seem like the obvious choice for uplifting. Smart and friendly, their ability to coexist with humanity has been stress tested for thousands of years. This is, perhaps, why they have not been uplifted. For many people, re-engineering this old relationship would feel wrong in ways that don't apply to avians or octopuses. These same people were greatly disturbed when it became apparent that an exhuman project had uplifted dogs, creating neo-canines.

Socially, neo-canines instinctively form into tight packs of up to a dozen individuals, which can include non-neo-canines. Trust and loyalty within these packs is absolute, but no bonds will be formed with anyone outside it. Non-pack members are treated in a business-like fashion at best, and will not be shown either empathy or mercy. Mentally, neo-canines are smart, smarter than many humans, but their intelligence is focused in some unusual ways. Their ability to understand the motives and predict the actions of their pack-mates is almost perfect, leading to great feats of cooperation. They have difficulty with long-term thinking, however, typically having to work methodically to build formal plans.

Neo-canine physiology has not been changed from that of normal dogs, at least on the surface: they are mammalian quadrupeds. The only visible differences are that their tails are longer, stronger, and prehensile, and their tongues are similarly longer, and have been turned into an effective tentacle, at the cost of their sense of taste. Neo-canines typically use their tails to for tasks requiring strength, and their tongues for tasks requiring finesse. They are incredibly perceptive, with enhancement suites for all senses.

Mechanics

Neo-canines are biomorphs [Expensive 25,000+]

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Claws, Cortical Stack, Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Vision
Aptitude Maximum: 30
Durability: 30
Wound Threshold: 6
Advantages: +5 COG, +5 to an attribute of the player's choice, +20 Kinesics
Disadvantages: Quadrupeds have a difficult time in microgravity (–30 to Free Fall Tests)
Notes: Reduced size trait
CP Cost: 25

Plot Hook: Most neo-canines currently living are members of exhuman-led packs, although it is rumored their will be an auction on Extropia selling their genetic data for recreation. Firewall would like the players to attend the auction. They are to take note of the high bidders, counter a predicted exhuman attack, and either steal or buy the data.

139. Motivation Trap

Among the exhumans, at least, social exhumans there is a fable. A powerful exhuman thought it would be valuable to temporarily be a series of different personalities. He altered himself into a devout Buddhist successfully, but while the exhuman had been interested in being a Buddhist, the Buddhist was no longer interested in being an exhuman, and he lived as a Buddhist for the rest of his days.

One of the chief concerns of exhumans is motivation traps: any form of ego modification that causes an ego to be unable or unwilling to undo the modification (with the implication that the modification is harmful or sub-optimal). Sometimes a motivation trap takes the form of a fundamental cognitive malfunction, and the modified ego is unable to look after itself, much less undo its mod. The more feared traps are subtle, taking the form of a shift in fundamental attitudes and motivations.

For these reasons, it is standard practice among cautious exhumans to maintain and keep running a backup of its last stable version of itself. The backup oversees all experimentation and modification, testing the resulting modified thoroughly before accepting any changes into itself.

Plot Hook: Exhumans do a lot of dangerous experimentation. How often does a well-armed Firewall/Ozma team fight past the automated defenses of an exhuman brinker hab, only to find that its owner long ago removed itself? Firewall has tasked the players with tracking down an exhuman threat. When they breach its isolated hab, they find that it accidentally rendered itself catatonic months ago and starved to death; its progeny, however, are very much alive. 

126. Braids

The reintegration of forks is one of the tough problems for group-minded exhumans. Unless the period of separation was short, trauma is a virtual guarantee. Integration is thus a focus of psychosurgical research, and exhumans, of course, take everything farther. What does it take to merge separate egos? Could one gain only skills, aptitudes, attitudes, instincts, acquired tastes? Could a fusion of two egos into one be possible?

The key insight was to let go of the conscious mind. Specially prepared delta forks are so stripped down that they are incapable of experiencing trauma. If merged correctly, areas that conflict will be left dormant, while those areas that are compatible become active. Each fork thus contributes to the formed ego, but only in ways that do not directly conflict with other forks. Merging a strict vegan fork with an atavistic carnivore may produce an ego with no strong feelings on food whatsoever, while mixing socialites will produce a new socialite. Extreme traits are moderated or eliminated, and the produced egos are much more boring than might be expected from exhumans.

Among the exhumans who have begun a new society based on this practice the deltas are called strands, and the formed egos are called braids.

A single strand is sub-sentient, functionally no different from any normal delta fork. Two merged strands will have a weak personality on the border of consciousness. In contrast to single strands they are notably unstable, left to their own devices they may slowly integrate enough for intermittent sentience. Three merged strands becomes a full, conscious ego. Merging more than three produces sub-sentient minds as more and more conflicts between forks require dormancy.

Continuity between braids and strands is based upon commonality. Strands retain memories, or aspects of memories, but they can only be fully remembered by the braid that formed them. If a braid is formed of three strands, then severed, with the three strands become parts of three new braids, the new braids will only have vague access to the first braid's memories. If the three strands are once again woven into a braid, the braid will be the same person, will have full access to its memories, and will feel as if it has simply been unconscious while its strands were separated.

Only continuity of the pattern is necessary; discontinuity of body or disconnections in time do not bother braids anymore than sleep bothers humans. In this society there may be a thousand active egos, but hundreds of thousands of potential egos, awakening and discorporating as strands are shuffled. Death is rarely experienced by a braid directly, for there are so many more potentials than actuals. The destruction of a strand is a significant loss, as it effectively kills all of the braids of which that strand was a part.

Mechanics

Braids are made from specially prepared delta forks; normal delta forks cannot be used. The forks are combined using the same rules as for packages in Transhuman.

Notes

Inspired by the tines of Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep.

61. Myrmidon

The exhuman now know as Myrmidon was born in the Guangzhou megacity an estimated 16 years before the Fall. He made a meager living scavenging material for fabber feedstock. As the Fall progressed, his skill at scavenging and knowledge of his local neighborhoods enabled him dig in and survive, until he was one of only a handful of scattered human remnants. He was picked up by one of the last desperate rescue missions, and sent to refugee processing on a Go-Nin orbital station.

Go-Nin aptitude tests revealed a bright mind with a talent for unweaving complex systems. Go-Nin gave him training in psychosurgery and put him to work on his fellow refugees, where he excelled. He found his work less and less interesting, however, and left his contract at the earliest available opportunity.

He slowly worked his way to the main belt, where he eventually joined with an exhuman clade on Extropia conducting experimental psychosurgery. Again, he excelled, learning rapidly from the exhumans, eventually playing a key role in the development of fork hives. As soon as the work was deemed reliable, he became a fork hive himself, at which point he spread across the system.

The Myrmidon sub-group inhabiting the war were invited by Direct Action to participate as non-aligned agents and simulation variables. Planetary Consortium prognostication systems have been predicting rising influence by hives, gestalts and group minds, and Direct Action wishes to study a potential future enemy. For their part, Myrmidon states that they wish the most realistic training possible, although protesting Direct Action executives maintain that Myrmidon, too, are studying future enemies, and may learn too much.

Mechanics

Morph: Fenrir

Motivations: +Exhumanism, +Personal Development, +Survival

COG 20 COO 20 INT 20 REF 20 SAV 10 SOM 30 WIL 20
MOX - INIT 8 SPD 2 LUC 40 TT 8 IR 80 DUR 80 WT 16 DR 160

Active Skills: Climbing 55, Demolitions 50, Disguise 35, Fray 68, Freerunning 50, Intimidation 40, Kinetic Weapons 68, Medicine: Biosculpting 70, Medicine: Implant Surgery 50, Medicine Psychiatry 50, Networking: Hypercorps 40, Networking: Scientists 50, Perception 73, Psychosurgery 75, Seeker Weapons 60, Unarmed Combat 90

Knowledge Skills: Academics: Genetics 60, Academics: Psychology 50, Interests: Cutting-Edge Technology 60, Interests: Exhumans 70, Interests: TITAN Tech 50, Language: Cantonese (Native): 90, Profession: Post-Apocalyptic Survival 50, Profession: Scavenging 50, Profession: Squad Tactics 60

Ego Traits: Anomalous Mind

Morph Traits: Armor (16/16)

Reputation: c-rep 50, @-rep 50

Implants: 360-Degree Vision, Access Jacks, Anti-Glare, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Direction Sense, Ego Sharing (1), Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Vision, Extra Limbs (4), Heavy Combat Armor, Lidar, Medichines, Mnemonic Augmentation, Pneumatic Limbs, Radar, Structural Enhancement, T-Ray Emitter, Weapon Mount (External, Articulated, 8)

Gear: x6 Rail Machine Guns w/ AP Rounds, x2 Seeker Rifles w/ HE and Splash Warheads, Nanohives (Repair, Engineering, Protean, Dissasembler)

Armor: 16/16

Note that Myrmidon is a fork hive. The stats given are for typical egos encountered in the war, a martial sub-group. Variation from ego to ego is to be expected.

37. Fork Selection

If you are determined to improve yourself, you can do it the old fashioned way, with introspection and education, or you can take the bull by the horns and subject yourself to an evolutionary algorithm designed to improve your performance in a swath of simulated scenarios.

The collective venture of an unusually cooperative exhuman clade, fork selection requires only time, computing power, and the ability to cold-bloodedly delete many, many copies of yourself. First, fork yourself at least 100 times (more is better, the upper limit being defined by your available computer power and/or how much time you are willing to spend.) Subject these forks to small, random psychosurgical adjustments (it is suggested you either make use of Deja-Vu or obtain a quality AI.) Subject these altered forks to simulations testing their performance, as judged by your original. Mix and copy the most successful variants and repeat. Eventually a fork will emerge whose psychosurgical alterations have rendered them best able to succeed in random and varied situations. Either merge with this fork, attempt to replicate those alterations, or delete yourself and allow it to replace you.

It is recommended that your original judge the success of your forks; you could also allow the most successful of each generation to judge the next, but this can cause feedback loops that spiral into insanity. Take care also in the generation of your scenarios, too much of the same or similar can lead to hopeless overspecialization and an AI-like non-sentience.

31. Universal Tissue

Pet-project of the biohacking branch of fork hive biohacker Myrmidon, universal tissue seeks to replace organ specialization with a uniform mass capable of all biological functions. Myrmidon has a vision for a new type of morph, an exoskeleton filled with his universal tissue like a foam. In theory, such a morph would have no vital organs and therefore be virtually indestructible. In practice, all of Myrmidon's tissue formulas thus far have run into the "jack-of-all-trades, master of none" problem, and his prototypes are not competitive with similar models on the market, such as Nova-Crabs.

Mechanics

Universal tissue is bioware [High]

Universal tissue acts as structural enhancement, for biomorphs and pods instead of synths. However, SOM is reduced by 10.

24. Fork Hives

The restoration of contact with Synergy and the revelation of their new group-mind sent shock waves through transhuman and exhuman society. Gestalts and group minds had long been a holy grail of exhuman researchers, but attempts to link different minds had only resulted in various levels of failure. The only other successful group minds were those that linked alpha forks of the same person, instead of different individuals: fork hives.

Unlike the neo-synergists, it is inevitable that a fork hive will dissolve the individuality of its members. The fork hive begins as identical copies of the same mind, after all, and the lack of barriers is a powerful counter to divergence. The degree of independence forks can develop is based upon latency and bandwidth in communication. As the link is degrades, divergence increases. Forks that remain within close contact (within the same habitat or city) are kept so similar as to be the different trains of thought of one individual. Forks venturing further will begin to diverge, as the total mind-link gives way to frequent short-term memory and emotional updates, or even long-term, biographical memory only.

In the long term, a fork hive will slowly diversify from a single shared mind into an ecosystem of egos. If a hive seeks to be in multiple places at once, it must accept the divergence that distance causes. A mature hive might consist of multiple groups, with divergence occurring on the scale of the groups themselves. 10 forks in Valles-New Shanghai would have a strong enough connection to prevent all divergence and can be considered one person with incredible multitasking abilities. All of those forks would a looser connection to the group in Olympus, who are themselves tightly bonded. The relationship between groups is closer than that of typical individuals, but loose enough to allow for divergence, imperfect cooperation and even competition.

This growth of diversity of egos is considered by some exhuman thinkers to be not just acceptable, but highly advantages. A tightly bonded hive is like a species, with a limited set of thoughts and attitudes. A diverse hive is like an ecosystem, with many both complementary and competing thoughts and attitudes. Species, they point out, often go extinct, but ecosystems have the resilience of diversity.

1. Whistling Spider

This morph was recovered from an abandoned exhuman brinker hab and dubbed "the whistling spider". Grip pads, ball-jointed limbs and vacuum sealing indicate that it was designed to live in space, yet its echolocation requires an atmosphere. In a vacuum, the spider would be forced to feel its way with its longest arms.

The form is broadly similar to arachnids, specifically of the order Amblypygi. It has ten limbs in total: two pairs of arms and three pairs of legs. Compared to a typical spider the front most pair of legs have been turned to long, strong grasping arms, and the pedipalps to shorter and weaker but more dexterous arms. Ball joints maximize flexibility despite the rigid exoskeleton. Additionally, it is symmetrical along two axes. Left and right are mirrored like most animals, but top and bottom are also symmetrical: all of its limbs are centered along the equator and capable of 360 degree rotation.

The face reveals one of the most intriguing design choices. The morph has no eyes, but four flared, furry-bottomed craters in its exoskeleton act as excellent ears. The mouth, in the center of the face, is capable of echolocation pulses and complex whistling, but not speech. It is assumed the original designer had, or intended to make, a whistling based language.

The arachnoid appearance is only exoskeleton deep, however. The morph is built entirely on human genes and tissues. The exoskeleton is keratin, reinforced with a lattice of cartilage, and internally, the basic layout of human physiology is maintained, with major organs in approximately the same relative positions as a human body.

Plot Hook: An exhuman in a whistling spider morph has been taken in by the exoglots of Locus. Firewall would like the players to investigate, requiring them to negotiate with the exoglots (in itself a difficult task) and gain an interview with the spider and assess whether it or whatever forced the abandoning of its hab are threats.

Mechanics

Whistling Spiders are biomorphs.

Enhancements: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Echolocation, Enhanced Hearing, Carapace Armor, Grip Pads, Vacuum Sealing
Aptitude Maximum: 30
Durability: 40
Wound Threshold: 8
Advantages: 4 arms, 6 legs, Carapace Armor (11/11), +5 COO, +5 REF, +10 Freefall, +10 Freerunning
Disadvantages: Blind
CP Cost: 25
Credit Cost: Expensive (25,000+)