Transhuman Space: Beyond Good and Evil
- Thread starter Jürgen Hubert
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Jürgen Hubert
First Post
Nifft said:
Indeed. The feeling that you are not doing enough to spread the meme can be a powerful motivator.
Kobold Marine
First Post
One thing I liked about Transhuman Space was that, despite its title, the basic nature of humanity remained unchanged. What the technology of the setting had done was provide hundreds of new means of expression for humanity. The tech won't make a person (or people as a whole) evil, it will amplify whatever evil or good is there. We see that with the internet today. There's a lot of creepy, messed-up stuff and there's a lot of really good stuff too.
On the other hand, "Trans-Mythos Space" is an awesome idea. Wasn't there a GURPS Cthulhupunk book? Cyberpunk meets Mythos.
One possible scenario: In the modern day or near-future, the PC's all volunteer for an experiment on brain scanning/mind uploading. Fast-forward 150 years or so, and the PC's original mind-uploads from modern times are found and downloaded into whatever bodies are available. The agency responsible(an AI? other investigators? dunno yet) has done this because the PC's are the closest things to "innocents" it can find, and it needs them to fight off the forces of corruption running rampant in that time; everything else is too tainted by the Mythos to do the job properly. Future versions of the PC's (who have lived for a hundred+ years and become nicely evil) could be the main antagonists of the story.
Didn't the creation of an Elder Sign require the blood of an innocent? What if there aren't any left in the future because everyone is touched by the Mythos in some way? What if the only way to create an Elder Sign and fight off the minions of the Old Ones is to retrieve and sacrifice some early mind-recording from before the stars became right?
On the other hand, "Trans-Mythos Space" is an awesome idea. Wasn't there a GURPS Cthulhupunk book? Cyberpunk meets Mythos.
One possible scenario: In the modern day or near-future, the PC's all volunteer for an experiment on brain scanning/mind uploading. Fast-forward 150 years or so, and the PC's original mind-uploads from modern times are found and downloaded into whatever bodies are available. The agency responsible(an AI? other investigators? dunno yet) has done this because the PC's are the closest things to "innocents" it can find, and it needs them to fight off the forces of corruption running rampant in that time; everything else is too tainted by the Mythos to do the job properly. Future versions of the PC's (who have lived for a hundred+ years and become nicely evil) could be the main antagonists of the story.
Didn't the creation of an Elder Sign require the blood of an innocent? What if there aren't any left in the future because everyone is touched by the Mythos in some way? What if the only way to create an Elder Sign and fight off the minions of the Old Ones is to retrieve and sacrifice some early mind-recording from before the stars became right?
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
Kobold Marine said:
One of the driving forces behind the early growth of the World Wide Web was that it represented a new way of getting porn. It is telling that even the latest technological advances are used to satisfy our most primitive urges.
Transhuman Space acknowledges this like few other settings - without being a straight dystopia.
It is, and it has some excellend gamemastering advice - though other people didn't like the book, I remain a fan.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
I had some additional thoughts on how strange the setting can become:
This is probably a good example of a precursor to TS-era memetic campaigns, though of course the latter will be more sophisticated.
In this campaign, "key people" who have shown to be politically engaged by donating money to political drives were called and encouraged to go and watch a certain movie - because it is expected that if they like the movie, they would be far likely to tell other people about it and thus "spread the word", thus making the movie more popular
Of course, in the TS era such simple calls would probably be caught and screened by one's infomorphs. But still, identifying the "key spreaders of memes" (i.e., those whose opinions are respected and listened to by other people) and convincing them of something will be a major industry. I can imagine the following three-layered approach:
- Identifying such key people. This can be done through sophistic algorithms which analyze social networks, and there are likely to be a vast number of companies who do that.
- Getting "hooks" into such people to make then vulnerable to outside suggestions. There are numerous ways to do that, but my favorite would be SAIs (sapient artificial intelligences) who do nothing but trying to "befriend" such people under false online personas. They exchange emails, chat messages and fake photos, and in general do anything that makes online friendships flourish. And thus they have a much easier time convincing them of doing something than if these people had merely received calls from random strangers.
Sure, this won't be worth the effort with many people - but some people are so influental that they can shift the opinions of many thousands of people. And such people will have to beware of such "fake friends"...
- Finally, there are the people who actually want to spread particular meme, and just pay the companies that do the previous stage for it. Those companies in turn analyze which involuntary members of their "network" would be best to spread a particular meme - and set their SAIs to work. This will allow the company ordering the campaign to maintain plausible deniability.
This adds just another layer of paranoia to the setting. Do your online friends really value you for yourself - or just for your ability to spread memes?
This is probably a good example of a precursor to TS-era memetic campaigns, though of course the latter will be more sophisticated.
In this campaign, "key people" who have shown to be politically engaged by donating money to political drives were called and encouraged to go and watch a certain movie - because it is expected that if they like the movie, they would be far likely to tell other people about it and thus "spread the word", thus making the movie more popular
Of course, in the TS era such simple calls would probably be caught and screened by one's infomorphs. But still, identifying the "key spreaders of memes" (i.e., those whose opinions are respected and listened to by other people) and convincing them of something will be a major industry. I can imagine the following three-layered approach:
- Identifying such key people. This can be done through sophistic algorithms which analyze social networks, and there are likely to be a vast number of companies who do that.
- Getting "hooks" into such people to make then vulnerable to outside suggestions. There are numerous ways to do that, but my favorite would be SAIs (sapient artificial intelligences) who do nothing but trying to "befriend" such people under false online personas. They exchange emails, chat messages and fake photos, and in general do anything that makes online friendships flourish. And thus they have a much easier time convincing them of doing something than if these people had merely received calls from random strangers.
Sure, this won't be worth the effort with many people - but some people are so influental that they can shift the opinions of many thousands of people. And such people will have to beware of such "fake friends"...
- Finally, there are the people who actually want to spread particular meme, and just pay the companies that do the previous stage for it. Those companies in turn analyze which involuntary members of their "network" would be best to spread a particular meme - and set their SAIs to work. This will allow the company ordering the campaign to maintain plausible deniability.
This adds just another layer of paranoia to the setting. Do your online friends really value you for yourself - or just for your ability to spread memes?
green slime
First Post
Incredibly interesting discussion here. Didn't read the entire thread though, and I am a bit uncertain as to where this "TransHuman Space" idea springs from. I gather it is some kind of setting? Who publishes it?
I don't actually see anything remotely similar to this springing into mainstream society anytime soon.
In fact, I strongly suspect we will achieve true AI, and experience a whole range of other problems in its wake, prior to the kind of frenetic base debauchery through out society as depicted in this scenario.
I don't actually see anything remotely similar to this springing into mainstream society anytime soon.
In fact, I strongly suspect we will achieve true AI, and experience a whole range of other problems in its wake, prior to the kind of frenetic base debauchery through out society as depicted in this scenario.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
green slime said:
It is published by Steve Jackson Games. The product page can be found here.
The setting takes place in the year 2100 - 93 years in the future. Consider what society and technology were like 93 years ago. 93 years are plenty for social changes.
And some technologies, like human genetic engineering, will be used as soon as they become available and are reasonably reliable.
IIRC in the setting the first artificial intelligence with self-awareness compatible to that of an adult human was created in the 2060s, but I'd have to look that one up again.
The Human Target
Adventurer
Very interesting thread.
I have a question, but don't want to derail the discussion.
What exactly do player characters do in THS:BG&E? Is there a central hook to the campaign setting, or is it designed to play all sorts of different ways?
I have a question, but don't want to derail the discussion.
What exactly do player characters do in THS:BG&E? Is there a central hook to the campaign setting, or is it designed to play all sorts of different ways?
green slime
First Post
Jürgen Hubert said:
Given that scenario, I'd say it wasn't completely beyond the realm of the possible.
I'd suggest though, that it is more likely a comment on contemporary western society. There are very strong forces in the world working in the opposite direction: one of increasing religiosity, making other extreme demands upon how people should live their lives. We just don't notice them so much living as we do in western society.
These radical, fundamentalist, theocratic, antidemocratic forces strive for a return to non-enlightenment, and will happily repress anyone from expressing any form of personal joy other than that which they proscribe.
Consider if you may, that these forces will not stand idly by and allow the creation of a true AI which would threaten their existance. If not for any other reason, than the AI's realisation that one of the the most effective means of controlling humans is through religious fervour, and declare itself God.
So then you have hi-tech AI-enhanced human-bots having their pleasure zones contantly stimulated by various means while defending against fanatical religious zealots. While neither extreme is one I find particularly attractive, I must admit I'd rather die with a hard-on in a drug-enduced tinkerbell landscape, than in a flea-ridden hovel with plastic sheet covering the dunny-hole.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
The Human Target said:
The "Beyond Good and Evil" isn't really an inherent part of the setting as written - it is more like a mood or theme through which the setting can be seen. The campaigns you run in the setting within that frame probably don't differ too much from "standard" campaign types (for quite a few suggestions, see this thread), but the overall mood would be on that as humanity and all its offspring move away from the 20th century it increasingly rejects older social restraints and mores - and becomes increasingly alien as a result.
This works best with player characters who were either born at the beginning of the 21st century or even in the 20th century (medicine has become so advanced that it becomes increasingly possible to keep people healthy indefinietly), who else came from a fairly isolated community whose inhabitants rejected many of the latest social changes, or who came from one of the poorer nations where the most radical technology (and its social impact) simply isn't available. With such characters, it becomes easier to emphasize just how strange and different many human social units have become.
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