STARTING OUT

WHAT IS ECLIPSE PHASE?In Eclipse Phase, you play a secret agent protecting the scattered remnants of transhumanity from threats that could wipe it out once and for all. You are transhuman. You are genetically modified, physically and mentally augmented, and functionally immortal. Your mind can be digitally backed up, like a save point. If you die, you can be brought back, your ego — both consciousness and memories — physically restored. You may also copy your mind and download into a body of your choice. This new body — your morph — can be biological, a synthetic robotic shell, or a digital info-morph. Your body is essentially gear that you customize according to your mission and requirements.

Eclipse Phase takes place in a future of exponentially accelerating technological progress. Developments in the key fields of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and information science have converged into an impressive feed-back loop. Bodies and minds are shaped and augmented. AIs and animals are uplifted to human levels of sapience. Everything and everyone is laden with sensors, networked, and online. Your mind can communicate with every electronic device around it. Almost anything can be 3D-printed from constituent atoms with a nano-fabber and blueprints. Technology allows people to live happier, healthier lives, emancipated from need.

Such advances also have their downsides. The wonders of the future are not yet evenly distributed — the immortal rich continue to concentrate their wealth and power while others struggle to survive. Surveillance is omnipresent, and the means exist to hack people’s minds and memories, copy them entirely, and/or commit them to virtual slavery. Many technological advances are super-empowering, putting the means for mass devastation in everyone’s hands. Efforts to restrict such tools are doomed to fail; only our own maturity as a species can save us.

Exemplifying these dangers, Eclipse Phase takes place ten years after transhumanity has lost a war with a group of super-intelli-gent, self-improving AIs. 95% of the population was lost during this apocalyptic conflict, many of them forcibly uploaded by the TITAN machine gods before they disappeared. Thousands more were corrupted and transformed by an alien exsurgent virus. The Earth is ruined and off-limits, overrun by machines and monsters. The survivors evacuated the planet and spread throughout the Solar System, expanding our off-world colonies out of desperation and necessity. Many escaped only as infugees, with nothing but their bodiless minds.

The nations and super-powers of the old world are gone, decapi-tated and dismantled. New political blocs and factions have formed, loosely divided between the inner and outer systems. The capitalist economies of the inner system — Luna, Mars, and Venus — continue to enforce scarcity and intellectual property. They are dominated by the Planetary Consortium, a hypercorp-led entity that prioritizes business interests and that has declared Mars the new homeworld of transhumanity. Their habitats are identified by the influence of media and memetic conflict on civil discourse, the legalities and security restrictions that keep their populations safe, a lingering distrust of AIs and uplifts, and sharp class divisions. While socialites and hyper-elites play and prosper, many infugees have resorted to selling their labor as indentured servants to afford cheap, mass-pro-duced synthetic bodies — the clanking masses.

WHAT IS ECLIPSE PHASE?18¹

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WHAT IS ECLIPSE PHASE? • New to RoleplayiNg?–a Note oN politics ¾19

The outer system is the stronghold of the Autonomist Alliance, a mutual-aid network of anarchists and techno-socialists. In these communalist territories, currency is obsolete and unrestricted nano-fabrication means that everyone has the necessities and tools they need. People create rather than consume. Reputation, not wealth, mediates the exchange of information and services. Many habitats operate without government, laws, or police, relying instead on voluntary and cooperative structures, real-time online referendums, and collective militias. The outer system is a patchwork of political, economic, and social experimentation.

Intersticed among these major factions, other transhuman clades build their own societies. Criminal cartels feed black markets, radical scientists work to democratize science, aesthete mercenaries offer their services, pirates prey on the unwary, and isolationists filter their communities from outside influences. Even bioconserva-tives — distrustful of transhuman technologies — thrive on, fearing for our species’ future.

The war with the TITAN AIs scarred more than Earth. Zones on Luna, Mars, and Saturn’s moon Iapetus remain under machine influence. Of greater impact, however, are the mysterious pandora gates discovered around the system. These wormhole gates open to extrasolar systems — thousands of exoplanets and alien mysteries. Intrepid gatecrashers explore these new horizons, colonizing worlds and uncovering the remnants of extinct civilizations. While no living sapient species has been found beyond the gates, trans-humanity has had its first encounters with alien life within our own Solar System. A star-faring species known as the Factors visits regularly, though the true nature and intentions of these laconic ameboid merchants remains unknown.

Ultimately, Eclipse Phase is a game of transhuman survival. Aside from the threat that the TITANs will return, we face existential risks — x-risks — that endanger our future as a species. These include weapons of mass destruction, artifacts from beyond the Pandora gates, salvaged TITAN technology, exsurgent infection breakouts, alien threats, stellar phenomena, and the dangers we pose to ourselves. Our species is in a deteriorating orbit around the black hole of extinction. Will our conflicts steer us into the event horizon, or will we evolve and cooperate to escape the gravity well and reach new frontiers? Will we be recognizable when we get there?

Eclipse Phase is an exploration of uncertain futures. This is more than a tabletop roleplaying game, it’s a detailed science fiction setting that thoroughly investigates issues that affect our future as a species. The crux of Eclipse Phase emphasizes the nature of transhu-manity as it transforms itself, mentally and physically, on the edge of becoming something posthuman. This is a setting that speaks to the immense dangers that technology offers us — but that balances this outlook by considering how science can be used to improve ourselves, enhance cooperation, counteract these risks, and prosper. There is danger — but also hope.

NEW TO ROLEPLAYING?If you are new to roleplaying games, you will find everything you need to know about how to play them here:

http://eclipsephase.com/roleplaying

STARTING PLAYERSThis chapter provides a summary overview of the game; we recom-mend that everyone start by giving the rest of it a brief review.

If you're new to the game and eager to start playing, we recom-mend choosing one of the 16 sample characters ▶82 to start out. These characters are divided into 4 teams of 4, so we recommend you and your friends choose from the same team. If you have more than 4 players, choose your extras from other teams. All of the teams work for Firewall-based games, with one team optimized for the inner Solar System and one team designed for the outer system. One of the teams is also made specifically for gatecrashing, and one for criminal-oriented scenarios.

If you prefer to jump right into making your own characters, proceed to Making Characters ▶36.

If you'd prefer to get a grasp on the rules first, start with Game Mechanics ▶30. For more detail, move on to Actions & Combat ▶202 and Transhuman Tech ▶286. If you plan to play a hacker, check out Making Characters chapter ▶36. If you have a psychic async in mind, take a look at Psi ▶?.

If you're more interested in the setting, there's plenty to read, starting with the history, How it Came to Be ▶98.

STARTING GAMEMASTERSAs a gamemaster (GM), you will need to be familiar with the general content of this book. We recommend starting out with the setting, beginning with How it Came to Be ▶98. After that, pop on over to Threats & X-Risks ▶368 for the juicy, behind-the-scenes stuff.

Once you've acquainted yourself with our universe, you'll need to learn the rules, starting with Game Mechanics ▶30. You will probably want to have a grasp on the basics of skills ▶48, combat ▶202, the mesh ▶240, andcombat ▶202. You should also be familiar with how players acquire gear ▶312 and morphs ▶290. The rest you can pick up as you need.

Finally, peruse our Eclipse Phase-specific gamemastering advice in Running the Game ▶354.

A NOTE ON POLITICSEclipse Phase delves into numerous political themes; in fact, we start with the premise that everything is political. Like all authors, we write from the perspective of our personal biases. Our specific lens is radical, liberatory, inclusive, and antifascist. If you support bigotry or authoritarianism in any form, Eclipse Phase is not the game for you.

A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY, SEX, AND GENDERSexual biology is ephemeral in Eclipse Phase. Sex is elective and subject to change; almost everyone has the opportu-nity to switch bodies. A character’s gender identity may not always match their physical sexual characteristics (or lack thereof). Gender identity itself is often fluid. To reflect this, we apply the “singular they” rule, meaning that we

use “they” as the default pronoun for individuals. When referring to specific characters with an established gender, however, we use the pronoun appropriate to their current gender identity, regardless of the sex of the morph they happen to be in.

CORE CONCEPTS • tRaNshumaNism–the mesh20¹

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CORE CONCEPTSEclipse Phase is a hostile world to the unwary and a paradise to the cunning. Threats lurk invisible, factions hang on the edge of war, and transhuman nature itself is molded to purpose. Below are the core concepts any denizen of Eclipse Phase must master in order to survive.

TRANSHUMANISMHumanity is outdated. People are no longer defined by their limita-tions. Transhumans adapt to the scorching corona of the sun, where ships turn to plasma. They thrive in the dark frozen wastes of the Kuiper Belt in absolute isolation. Where humans suffer from aging and disease and are confined to limited environments, transhumans pursue longevity and adaptation.

In the 21st century, transhumanism was a movement focused on human enhancement. In Eclipse Phase, transhumanity is how people rebuild the galaxy. You can play an augmented vid star or a robotic insect, and neither would stand out on a public boulevard. You can also choose no body at all and exist as a purely digital entity. Many denizens of Eclipse Phase have absolute body autonomy, within the limits of their creativity and resources. Because of the ease of radical body enhancement, the average Eclipse Phase character has a strength and intelligence comparable to the most exceptional humans from history.

Transhumanity also incorporates those who were not decanted as homo sapiens. AIs and uplifted animals with human-equiva-lent capabilities and intelligence are part of transhumanity. Like humans, uplifts and infolife select and alter their bodies, engage in commerce across the Solar System, take VR vacations, and expand the transhuman experience.

AIs AND UPLIFTSThe genetics hypercorp Somatek famously ran batches of ten thousand semi-sapient octopus fingerlings through a gauntlet of rigorous intelligence tests. Failures were immediately destroyed. The remaining were churned into genetic stock for the next generation. A decade later, their final "product" was released — an octopus as cognizant as any transhuman; an uplift. Somatek and companies like it raised and killed millions. This is the story of almost all uplifted species. They are fully sapient, but their DNA is trademarked, copy-protected, and hypercorp branded. Their history is one of calculated eugenics.

Artificial general intelligences (AGIs) are fully self-aware, creative digital intelligences. Unlike artificial limited intelligences (ALIs), which have a human-like interface in front of a limited, task-specific program, AGIs are sapient and equivalent to other transhuman minds. AGIs, like uplifts, are the products of human research and development teams. Some are offshoots of academic research, a few are from military think tanks, while the majority were developed by private studios for their own purposes.

Uplifts and AGIs are collectively called mercurials. Many hyper-corps and political bodies see them as property. Some governments view them as abominations, abuse of technology manifest, and a

threat to human survival. The fight for mercurials is the fight for transhumanity and blood is spilled on both sides to define their place in society.

DEFEATING DEATHIn Eclipse Phase, your mind can be digitally copied, stored, and altered like software. Almost everyone uploads their mind to a secure storage service, as well as to a tiny device implanted at the base of the skull called a cortical stack. If you are killed, you can be restored from these backups. Only if all copies of yourself are destroyed will you be dead forever.

Backing up brings its own set of challenges. When your mind is recovered, it includes your memories up to the last moment of backing up. If you died horribly, that final experience is recorded in your cortical stack. Characters surviving traumatic experiences may opt to destroy their most recent backup and instead restore an older copy, losing weeks or months of experiences and memories (called lack), rather than deal with the psychological harm they’d suffered. Copies can also be stolen. You may live your life not knowing a copy of yourself has been resleeved on the far side of the Solar System to be tortured for information or sold into slavery. Fork-nappers and “soul traders” are the lowest of the low, profiting off of transhuman suffering.

RESLEEVINGDigitized minds can also be downloaded. If your current body becomes damaged, obsolete, or inconvenient, you can sleeve into a new one. You can transfer consciousness with the right equipment and less than an hour’s time. Your new form could be an Olympic runner, a robotic shell, a digital presence, or even an orbiting shuttle. Members of high-risk professions, such as criminals or Firewall sentinels, can be killed multiple times on a mission only to be brought back and sent into the field again and again. Your body is called a sleeve or a morph, and the process of changing morphs is resleeving. Morphs can be biological with organic brains (biomorphs), biological with synthetic brains (pods), robotic (synthmorphs), or purely digital (infomorph).

EGO MANIPULATIONMorphs are temporary; your mind is what defines who you are. Your ego is your skills, memories, and personality.

Multiple copies of your ego (called forks) can operate simulta-neously and independently, each fork effectively its own person. Forks can be electronically transferred across the Solar System at the speed of light; uploading at a facility on Mars to be resleeved on Ceres and back again by dinner. Forks can also be passively stored for later use, brought online only if certain criteria are met.

You also have the opportunity to directly manipulate your ego. With psychosurgery, you can alter your behavioral traits, remove memories to ease previous traumas, prune forks to fulfill specialized roles, and merge forks back into your primary persona.

THE MESHNearly every object is wireless and computerized. Each of these devices links to its neighbors to join the local network, sharing

TABLE TALKAll characters are assumed to be mesh-connected. This permits them to talk to one another, share first-person video, sensor data, and other information even when separated. But use caution! Infosec-savvy enemies can monitor these discussions or even alter messages between characters.

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CORE CONCEPTS • NaNotech–FactioNs ¾21

processing capabilities and functionality. This is the mesh; a hyper-connected, distributed, everyware network. The mesh offers free and unlimited digital processing power to its citizens. Digital agents crawl the mesh running errands for their masters. You wear or are implanted with mesh inserts that reveal a dazzling augmented reality overlay. Via entoptic displays, the world blossoms in an elaborate display that can only exist in a virtual world. Wild animals roam electronic storefronts, new fashions include moving dioramas. Every language is seamlessly translated, every moment is perfectly recorded, every question taps into the wealth of transhuman knowl-edge to produce an expert response. But the mesh's omnipresence has its downsides. Everything is hackable, and everything is watching; surveillance is everywhere and accessible to all.

NANOTECHWith nanotechnology, you can fabricate almost any good on demand. Nanotech has resulted in novel materials and goods, from stain-proof clothes to molecule-sized robots. Isolated habitats mine minerals and other raw-material feedstocks to convert to luxury consumer goods and complex electronics. Scarcity does exist, but as a result of copy-right-holders and governments using armed force to defend the old economic order. Habitats accepting of post-scarcity economics are more likely to see capitalism as inefficient and abusive.

Nanotech is not without its risks. It shrinks the realm of warfare to the microscopic. Invisible clouds of robots can bug rooms, sabo-tage machines, or disassemble people. Meanwhile, habitats that permit a freedom from scarcity grapple with their citizens manufac-turing weapons or conducting deadly experiments. Entire habitats have been destroyed by putting too much trust in creative people.

X-RISKSExistential risks are threats and vulnerabilities with the potential to exterminate or permanently cripple transhumanity. Firewall works to identify and eliminate x-risks at any cost, and many polities have their own organizations to fight them — or attempt to harness them.

The most dangerous x-risks are the TITAN AIs that tormented Earth and the exsurgent viruses that continue to infect transhumanity. Despite the horrors it has faced, transhumanity continues the frenetic chase for knowledge and profit, blind to the risks that could be lurking at the bleeding edges of art, science, and space.

ALIEN EXPLORATIONExplorers have discovered enigmatic gates capable of teleporting gatecrashers across the galaxy. These are pandora gates, full of excitement and dread for the gatecrashers who use them. As trans-humanity charts the borders of the Milky Way, it has discovered remains of alien civilizations. The littered graveyards show reaching the space age is easy but surviving it is rare. The exception to extinc-tion is a mercantile race called the Factors, whose ships visit the Solar System to sell xenoartifacts at exorbitant prices. The Factors have refused to share the secret of their own survival, leaving trans-humanity to stumble through it alone.

FACTIONSSocieties are as diverse as transhumans themselves; technosocialist utopias and fascist citadels, frontier outposts and roving carnival ships. As people fled Earth, anyone with a ship or a claim on an asteroid could build a habitat, and with it, a new way of doing things. Old governments learned to incorporate refugees to reinforce the existing power structures. To survive, societies learned to provide mutual support and formed factions with like-minded habitats. The dominant factions are the Autonomist Alliance, composed of varied polities bound by their desire for individual empowerment, and the Planetary Consortium, a corporate state that arose from the ashes of Earth and still controls most of the inner system. The Jovian Republic, a biochauvinist police state, holds most of the old world’s military hardware and acts to return to pre-Fall ways of life. Meanwhile, ultra-competitive, specialized, and super-networked hypercorpora-tions release untested technologies and pull down governments as long as it keeps the cycle of profits spinning.

THEMES • post-apocalyptic–coNspiRacy 22¹

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THEMESIn one session, the player characters (PCs) may explore the ruins of Earth, battling past TITAN machines to find a relic of the past. In another, they fight off exhuman hunters until the pandora gate opens for them to escape to safety. Around the table, during these moments, the players bathe in the details. But the details feel most poignant because they are an integral part of the setting and the broad themes it encompasses. Even when not the focus, the Eclipse Phase setting and adventures will explore several recurring themes. GMs should use these to define the character of their games.

POST-APOCALYPTICTranshumanity survives in the shadow of the Fall, when the TITANs razed Earth and exsurgent outbreaks metamorphosed civilians into writhing biological monsters. 95% of the population was extermi-nated in a few short years. For every person who escaped via shuttle, ten thousand lined up in mass-upload facilities, waiting for their minds to be digitized and beamed to orbiting servers. Billions more were consumed by war machines and plagues. Stations took on refugees until life support crashed. A few never made it off Earth but still survive among civilization's bones, hunted by machines. No matter where people set their bed in the Solar System, they can look back on their charred homeworld and its rings of devastated stations and frozen corpses.

But as a wildfire clears space for new growth, transhumanity is set to rebuild society, seeking new ways of living that would not have been possible under the gaze of Earth’s central control. Mars and Luna are centers of commerce; Saturn hosts colonies of culture and science. In the outer reaches, independent habitats incubate new transhuman experiences. As some yearn for the old Earth to soothe traumas, others reach for the stars.

SURVIVAL The Fall is over but transhumanity’s path forward is pitted with dangers. The TITANs left by their own accord, but their death machines still stalk the Solar System. The exsurgent pestilence lies dormant in shadowed craters, waiting to blossom in mutation and death. The Factors, transhumanity’s only ally, are ambush predators pleased to litter their chosen with gifts while setting hidden webs.

If the external threats don’t kill transhumanity, the internal ones may. The major factions are locked in a cold war, waiting for a moment of vulnerability to throw the system into war. Hypercorps release products to control or kill competitors, with no focus beyond the next quarter’s returns. Ambitious explorers dodge quarantine to sell ominous TITAN relics and alien artifacts on the black market. Even normal daily life is rife with danger. Just a loose bolt at orbital velocities can punch through a habitat, venting its precious atmo-sphere into space.

Extinction looms large over transhumanity; we are just one misstep away from blinking out. New technologies bring newer threats. On top of this, xenoarcheologists have visited thousands of alien worlds, all dead. The civilizations that once thrived there long ago reaped by their own cataclysms. The numbers show that soon too transhumanity will only be cold artifacts, waiting to be catalogued by the next iteration of space-faring intelligence.

HORROR Strange things thrive at the periphery of transhumanity’s light. In isolated habitats, exhumans experiment on themselves, accelerating their own evolution into perfect predators. In dark alleys, refugees inject themselves with black-market drugs, unaware of exsurgent spores now blooming inside of them. As explorers dredge old TITAN warrens, they discover survivors, surgically joined into wailing human insects. Even a malfunctioning airlock and a moment’s distraction, and a person is snapped in half, watching their legs flop freely in the vacuum of space. Death used to be a merciful escape. Now memories drill into the psyche like water torture. People shed their old, mangled bodies, returning them to the recycler to be resold in the next year’s model — but they carry their traumas forever. Adventurers especially accumulate terrors until finally there is nothing left to be done except find somewhere quiet to retire and struggle with their demons.

INFECTION In biology, an “eclipse phase” is the period after a cell is infected but before the virus appears within the cell and begins hijacking it. At this stage the infection is invisible, but irreversible. The exsurgent virus survived a decade because of its adaptability, sometimes twisting the body, sometimes anchoring in the mind. No measure seems sufficient to stop it. It just waits, until it has an opportunity to mutate and rebuild the victim into something terrible and new. Some survive years with their infection, as an asymptomatic Typhoid Mary. An unfortunate few manifest psychic powers as a result of their exsurgent taint; a gift of terrible power with an unknown cost. It remains unclear if the virus was created by the TITANs or simply spread by them, if it was a mistake of alien evolution or if it is rebuilding transhumans for some greater cause. Anyone who comes into contact with the virus is considered infected and hunted for the remainder of their days.

CONSPIRACY An assassin takes on the face of their target. A polity delivers human-itarian aid to a remote habitat, not knowing one of the crew is smug-gling TITAN machines for the black market. A hypercorp contam-inates the air supply with a psychoactive pathogen designed to subdue rebellious behaviors. The new world is one of misdirection and treachery. The Consortium, Jovian Republic, and Autonomist Alliance are locked in a cold war, marked with propaganda and espi-onage. Even Firewall is an organization composed of isolated cells that only communicate through anonymous channels under the guidance of unknown benefactors. The rate of change, from aliens to market spikes, is so fast that maps of the political landscape are obsolete before they’re published. Alliances are formed of necessity until a message from a distant habitat or a disappeared ship turns the parties into bitter enemies.

Because it is impossible to prove identities or motivations, trust is a rare commodity. The virtuous hide their goals behind masks and cut out knowledge from their own brains if it might reveal them later. Firewall sentinels might wonder if the person next to them is their comrade from a hundred missions or if that is their empty morph sleeved by an alien intelligence. In this world, friendly fire is a valid tactic. After all, a dead friend can be resleeved. But trust an enemy and you may cease to exist altogether.

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THEMES • scieNce–chaNge ¾23

SCIENCEScience caused the Fall that nearly wiped out transhumanity. It was also the cure that permitted some to survive and provides the only path to the stars. PCs wield technology that makes them super-human, capable of destroying habitats or possibly even planets. But the advanced technology of their enemies approaches omnipotence. PCs must use the tools they have and improvise to create what they’re missing.

Science always comes with a cost, be it the risk of misuse or the loss of what makes us who we are. In a world where most people are digitized and resleeved versions of their former selves, who have the option of modifying themselves beyond recognition and living in environments unimagined by our forebears, keeping a sense of identity and humanity may prove to be a challenge science alone cannot resolve.

POLITICS Eclipse Phase explores a universe as it might be: transhumans across the galaxy, with different backgrounds and challenges. The result is a range of political systems, from representative democracies to bands of mind-joined cultists, from totalitarian regimes to colonies of forking-and-merging versions of a single seed personality. Many are familiar, some fantastical, a few obscene. Characters must learn the local customs, but may also pause to appreciate the diversity of the transhuman experience.

The technology available in Eclipse Phase has a direct impact on politics. The immense age and wealth of the oligarchs enables them to influence the lives of millions. Accessible nanofabrication undermines scarcity capitalism. Uplifts and AGIs demand equal personhood status. Forking challenges the legitimacy of voting in democracies. The ability to hack minds and surveil all paves the path to totalitarianism.

CHANGE The evolution of transhuman society is rapid. The confluence of emerging technologies creates inevitable social upheavals. Norms are erased as quickly as they form. Ideas once considered outra-geous or utopian float tantalizingly near. Institutions once assumed to be eternal and inescapable, like the divine right of kings, now exhibit cracks in their foundations or mutate overnight into some-thing wondrously unexpected.

Transhumanity itself is transforming. What it might be like in two years is uncertain, much less twenty. The political map of the Solar System could re-align, another x-risk could scatter transhumanity to the stars, or the species could advance to a post-biological stage, leaving only the bioconservatives behind. The only thing that is certain is the future's uncertainty.

CORE CAMPAIGNS • FiRewall campaigN–gatecRashiNg campaigN24¹

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CORE CAMPAIGNSThere are three default stories or campaign settings for Eclipse Phase: the Firewall investigation and containment campaign, the gate-crashing exploration campaign, and the criminal action campaign. Each of these will touch on the various Eclipse Phase themes and concepts, but usually focus on a particular range of adventures and motivations. Some stories may jump the boundaries between campaign styles; for example, criminals may lay low by gatecrashing to an exoplanet, or Firewall agents may need to establish under-world contacts to conduct a dangerous heist. Adventures may also be run independently of one another without connecting to a larger story, using either the same characters across multiple adventures or characters built specifically for that mission.

FIREWALL CAMPAIGNThe primary focus of Eclipse Phase is the band of clandestine oper-atives taking on the major threats faced by transhumanity. In this campaign, the characters work for a secret, cross-factional organiza-tion called Firewall as agents or new recruits. Firewall acts to contain and destroy x-risks that threaten the existence of transhumanity. Characters are recruited from all factions (or occasionally hired as mercenaries if the threat of extinction alone is not sufficient moti-vation). The PCs are issued a mission by a handler called a proxy and are the first line in investigating and stopping the threat. The situation is usually still developing, so the briefing may be missing critical details. The PCs are independent and under cover as they operate in a foreign habitat or hostile environment, dogged by local authorities. They have the discretion to act as they see fit to address the threat at hand.

Sentinels are frequently expected to sacrifice themselves, either by facing down impossible odds or by destroying themselves to prevent the spread of alien infection. When sentinels fail, the backup plan may be to destroy the entire habitat. Firewall is extreme in its measures, but if the alternative will kill millions or billions, the razing of a single habitat is an acceptable loss.

All of the sample characters and teams consist of Firewall agents. However, two teams are primarily designed for Firewall campaigns, one each for the inner and outer parts of the Solar System.

The Sunward Ops Team includes Dante, Hex, Qi, and Sava. Still kicking Martian dust off their boots, this team is experienced with planetary environments, overbearing governments, hypercorps, and the odd throw-down. In the inner system, missions feature abandoned TITAN machines, corporate machinations, and polit-ical intrigue. The big powers are the Planetary Consortium, the Morningstar Constellation claiming Venus, the conservative Lunar-Lagrange Alliance, the hypercorps, and the oligarchs spinning webs behind the scenes. Conflicts between the powers are common. Trust is hard won, when every organization is riddled with puppets and mobsters. A sharp mind and a good dose of paranoia are critical in staying alive.

Securing the big black is the Rimward Ops Team, with Chi, Killjoy, Njál, and Zahiri. Out here, habitats are usually smaller and isolated. Fading into the background may be impossible, and backup is months away. The PCs must be able to operate in whatever wild frontier or research station trouble has taken root. Far from the major powers, the rules are more flexible, but suspicious locals are quick to airlock strangers. The characters are likely to find themselves stranded in a situation far more complex than they were equipped for and forced to improvise to survive. The major factions include the Titanians, Jovians, anarchists, Ultimates, and brinkers. Outer-system missions focus more on containing infec-tions, fighting off monstrous posthumans, investigating weird experiments, and delaying war with the Jovians.

GATECRASHING CAMPAIGNGatecrashing campaigns focus on a team of explorers tasked or volunteering to go through pandora gates to remote exoplanets. Usually they are the first-in team. The space immediately around the gate is known to be survivable. For anything past ten meters, there’s no guarantee. The characters are equipped with everything they need to survive, as determined by the company’s finance depart-ment or their own crowdsourcing. Once through the gate, the PCs are expected to map the area and bring back artifacts or resource claims that will make their sponsors rich. They step through the gate knowing they’re disposable. If they become infected, they die. If they are mortally wounded from accidents or animal attacks, they die. Forget a critical tool to keep life support pumping, they die. If they’re late getting to the gate for their retrieval time, they’re trapped on an alien planet until they die. Most gatecrashers can

FIREWALL SUNWARD OPSDante ▶ Venusian Genehacker

Hex ▶ Lunar Async FixerQi ▶ Barsoomian HacktivistSava ▶ Freelance Spec Ops

FIREWALL RIMWARD OPSChi ▶ Mindhacker & NetworkerKilljoy ▶ Anarchist TroubleshooterNjál ▶ Titanian HackerZahiri ▶ Brinker Security Specialist

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¾25CORE CAMPAIGNS • cRimiNal campaigN

list off dozens of corpses they’ve left to decay across the galaxy. Gatecrashers lose sleep at night knowing versions of themselves may still be trapped at some forgotten dig, alone until life support finally runs out. It’s part of the job.

Most exoplanets are uninhabited by transhumans but frequently have vibrant and hungry alien ecosystems. Alien artifacts are a rare and lucrative find. Gatecrashers also serve as a first-tier R&D team, appraising what is worth bringing back for reverse engineering, what’s worthless archeological detritus, and what’s a deadly weapon waiting to vaporize curious gatecrashing teams. Gatecrashing missions may last as little as an hour, as teams complete the first site report, or may be a permanent part of a new colony.

The team of Gatecrashing Ops is Astika, Jinx, Shrike, and Whisper. A mish-mash of backgrounds, they’re brought together by corporate fiat more than choice. Keeping a cohesive team under stress (or the promise of a larger cut) is hard, and when the bodies start falling, it’s the survivors who will give the final mission report.

CRIMINAL CAMPAIGNSometimes the lure of adventure needs a little financial incentive. This campaign circles around a band of criminals, either indepen-dent or associated with a larger cartel, focused on amassing credits and power. Sometimes this warrants discretion, to keep assets secret and the operation protected. Other times it means de-orbiting a habitat and watching it burn on the way down. The team is focused on efficiency in profit-making.

The criminal scene has changed drastically since the Fall. Biohackers override built-in terminator genes meant to force people to pay subscription fees to keep their bodies from collapsing. Forknappers steal backups of financiers to extract passcodes. Zone stalkers flip TITAN war technology or samples of volatile exsurgent contagions for a handsome profit. Triads compete with the Night Cartel in turf wars to push their new redlining experience playbacks. In many places, the syndicates provide the only form of social services available. The triads especially smuggle medical equip-ment to hidden clinics and provide militias to fight against outside threats. Criminal PCs may find themselves fighting on behalf of a grassroots government against Consortium jackboots as often as lifting overpriced alien leavings from wealthy collectors.

The Criminal Guanxi Ops characters, a team brought together in the underground, are Amaru Timoti, Berk, Elis, and Pivo.

ALTERNATIVE CAMPAIGNSThe Solar System is large and full of stories. Gamemasters may wish to pursue another type of campaign altogether. Other possible campaigns include:

• Salvage and Rescue Ops: The Fall left hundreds of aban-doned craft and habitats in orbit, and the smallest objects from Earth are worth a fortune. An enterprising team willing to face TITAN war machines and hostile survivors stands to make a tidy profit.

• Mercenary Ops: Mercs are the de-facto military for many factions, relied on extensively for espionage and deniable strikes. Mercenary work won’t necessarily be messy (although it usually is). A team of assassins who can kill the target and permanently corrupt their backups can usually name their price.

• Researching Ops: Pursuit of knowledge can put char-acters right on the precipice. Thanks to cheap backups, researchers are expected to take high-risk ventures for their findings. Sample adventures include ecological surveys of Titan, xenoarcheology on dead planets, SETI programs on isolated brinker habitats, or reverse engineering pandora gates to alter space and time.

• Political Ops: Many polities seem to loathe their own citi-zens. Bigotry and state violence are common. Those indi-viduals who take a stand against oppression risk perma-nent erasure. Political activists dive deep into entangling alliances and buried corpses. Guerrilla artists, journalists, and resistance fighters work to undermine their govern-ments and sabotage brutal state actions. Coordinating with outside factions to secure allies and resources is a necessary evil.

• Earth Survival Ops: The characters have been left behind. During the exodus, they were not able to escape the planet and were unlucky enough to survive the fallout. Now they must dodge TITAN war machines, radiation zones, and a weather system gone mad.

GATECRASHING OPSAstika ▶ Survival Engineer & Xeno-Archeologist Jinx ▶ Uplift Recon SpecialistShrike ▶ Security Contractor & Drone OperatorWhisper ▶ Async Scientist Explorer

CRIMINAL GUANXI OPSAmaru Timoti ▶ Nine Lives Fixer

Berk ▶ Infolife Enforcer & Bot JammerElis ▶ Scum Techie

Pivo ▶ Uplift Scavenger

CHARACTER ARCHETYPES • combat–techNical26¹

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CHARACTER ARCHETYPESCharacters are defined by their skills and reputation. The combined party needs a broad range of skills to overcome the challenges arrayed against them. These might include gathering resources, winning allies, researching, infiltrating (or defending) mesh systems, repairing or improvising a critical tool, combat, and finally applying what they have learned to a resolution. The skills the party must bring to the table can be roughly grouped as combat, social, technical, and knowledge. These establish the four broad archetypes in Eclipse Phase — the fighter, the face, the techie (or hacker), and the scientist (or artist). In smaller groups, PCs may want to fill multiple archetypes, while minimizing overlap. In larger groups, characters benefit more from specialization. Players should coordinate to avoid specialties that overlap too closely, but different specialties in the same field can create force multipliers.

Each of the archetypes below lists suggested Career and Interest skill packages to take during character creation [▶40–42] in brackets after the entry.

COMBATEven the most cunning party will eventually be in a situation that must be resolved by brute force. Most characters should have some combat effectiveness. The fighters are those characters who specialize in a range of combat methods, so they can always adapt to the situation at hand. Critical skills include Guns, Infiltrate, Athletics, and Fray, and they will have a morph outfitted to take a pounding. Melee skill should also be considered, but in a high-tech setting of armor and bots, it may not be as effective as other options. For groups of six players, it is recommended to have at least two fighters. Some example fighters include:

Direct Action and Medusan Shield Mercenaries, Firewall Erasers: These characters deploy heavy-duty hardware to utterly destroy the target. They are the ideal character for slash-and-burn operations. What they bring in explosives they lack in subtlety and discretion. Their obvious combat morphs and oversized weapons will invite scrutiny during operations. Career: SoldierEarth Survivors and Freedom Fighters: These characters have

learned to survive under the nose of a vastly superior enemy. They are capable with light, heavy, and improvised weapons, and bring a diversity of technical and knowledge skills to endure when condi-tions are tight. Career: Covert Operative/Scavenger, Interest: Fighter/Survivalist Ego Hunters, Police, and Militia: This character knows how

to navigate the micrograv jungle to locate their target. They have a strong focus on social networks and investigation skills. Their combat is usually focused and discreet, but their training relies on reinforcements when facing a stronger enemy. A good addition when the party isn’t looking for a body count. Career: Enforcer/Investigator, Interest: Fighter/Forensics SpecialistAssassins: The assassin uses stealth and trickery to avoid

direct confrontation. They have a wide toolbox, and can leverage everything from nanotoxins to explosives to get the job done. The assassin’s reliance on stealth may become a hindrance during confrontations. An assassin who is caught unawares, who has not mapped the environment and prepared multiple attack and escape routes, doesn’t survive long.Career: Covert Operative/Soldier Interest: Rogue/Jack-of-All-Trades

SOCIALAll doors open for the face, who knows who to talk to and what accounts to grease. While all characters should have some level of social skills and reputation, the face is the one who can sweet talk themself right into the central control room. Sample social arche-types include:

Glitterati: Vid stars, oligarchs, and politicians, they’re famous enough they’ve had to trademark their face. They can usually get what they want done through force of will alone, but when that falls short a healthy bankroll will bring in the people who can. For the glitterati, fame is a double-edged sword, as they are very sensitive to being caught in scandal. Firewall work is fine, as long as they’re able to deny it publicly.Career: Face, Interest: Artist/Icon or NetworkerSpies and Con artists: Sometimes it’s not who you know, but

who you are. The con artist relies on perfect mimicry and a heavy dose of infosec to pass themself off as a corporate head or a Martian ranger; whatever the role necessary to get a guided tour to the target’s front door. Career: Covert Operative/Face, Interest: Networker/RogueNegotiators: This character has the gift of gab and the rep to

flex it. Fixers, auctioneers, and lawyers, they can get anyone to see things their way. Their skills extend beyond haggling. A good nego-tiator can convince opponents to back off or call in favors when the chips are down.Career: FaceMindhackers: Through skill in psychosurgery or psychic sleights,

the character peels back layers of their target’s mind, to lay it bare or rebuild it as they see fit. Mindhackers are useful for any investi-gative team for their ability to isolate secrets, but also on high-stress teams for their skill in unwinding their allies’ accumulated traumas.Career: MindhackerInvestigators and Journalists: Ideal for sussing out information

from an uncooperative target, investigators have skills in perception, persuasion, research, and a host of technical and knowledge fields. This mix is ideal for unraveling whatever situation the team is stuck in.Career: Hacker/Investigator, Interest: Networker/Rogue

TECHNICALThe techie specializes in using, repairing, and abusing technology, either hardware or software. The techie is the hero when life support is running out and the AI has turned hostile. During combat, the techie can shut down the enemy’s tools or provide forward observers for the combat characters. The most common technical characters are:

Hackers: Hackers are critical for their ability to pull data during an investigation. Dirt like camera feeds, forgotten lifelogs, and illicit shipping ledgers hang out in forgotten caches, waiting to be dug up. The hacker keeps just as busy tidying up their own group’s mess, by erasing their camera logs and digital footprints. In combat hackers are lethal. As long as their team can buy them time, hackers can eject magazines from guns, jam friend-or-foe targeting on security systems, open airlocks behind enemy lines, or even shut down offending synthmorphs.Career: HackerEngineer: When the team wakes up on a station being consumed

by grey goo in a decaying orbit and also the commander’s seat sticks, it falls on the engineer to save the day. The engineer has a range of mechanical and hardware skills to fix what’s broken or modify something else to work just as well.Career: Techie

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CHARACTER ARCHETYPES • KNowledge–KNowledge ¾27

Bot Jammers: The jammer fields a team of sophisticated combat drones, disposable bots, and nanomachines. Used in tandem, the jammer has mastery of the battlefield. Tied into the group’s tactical network, the jammer’s bots scout the map. Snipers harass the enemy. Remote spy drones plant radio taps in air-gapped networks. Armored bots take on suicide missions so the team can escape. The bot jammer is practically a full combat squad all on their own. Career: Hacker/Techie, Interest: JammerScavengers: The team has minutes to act before people die.

Without power or parts, the engineer quits in disgust. This is where the scavenger thrives. The scavenger pulls through the bones of the habitat to form something new. They can slap together a CO2 scrubber from old batteries and cooking supplies. They can scrap the crashed shuttle to rebuild the synthmorph. Once the team sets out, the scavenger has the eye for every diamond of valuable technology buried in the debris, and when they return home, the scavenger knows where to flip that trash to pull in a tidy profit. Career: Scavenger, Interest: Artist/Icon or Networker

KNOWLEDGEKnow skills are those most specific to the mission. Gatecrashers will need the xenoarcheologist to analyze recovered artifacts. A chemist is recruited to identify the new drug on the streets. The most common roles include:

Genehackers: Genehackers design custom animals, morphs, and bacteria. Genehackers usually can fill in the medic role, but they will also be the lead in understanding the alien corpse, the bioplague, and the exsurgent beast. When provided with the labora-tory and time, they might even be able to cure whatever affliction is consuming the habitat (or, in the right group, create their own, more devastating threat to release). Career: GenehackerXenoarcheologists: Exoplanet exploration is the source for the

most drastic leaps in technology, as gatecrashers dredge up forgotten alien devices. Unfortunately, all of those dead species means transhu-manity is also bringing back all those deadly threats. When the party is grave-robbing, the xenoarcheologist isn’t just documenting how a foreign culture lived; they’re identifying what that dangerous object is or whether that creature is a pet or a predator. Career: Explorer/ScientistTITAN Researcher: The TITAN researcher prods the leavings

of the AIs who nearly exterminated transhumanity. Any work with TITAN remains has a high mortality rate. Many specialists are motivated by the high price TITAN technology can get on the black market. A few risk death and insanity to understand how the TITANs came to be and why they left. Regardless of the motivation, TITAN researchers have a reputation for being a little reckless with their own survival. Career: Scavenger/Scientist/Techie, Interest: Survivalist

SETTING OVERVIEW • iNNeR system–JoviaN space28¹

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SETTING OVERVIEWThe Solar System is dark.

The Earth was once a beacon of mass media and telephone calls. Now the only transmitters are abandoned distress beacons; cries for help left on loop. Around it are belts of abandoned habitats and debris, guarded by networks of killsats that vaporize indiscrimi-nately. Out of the eight billion transhumans prior to the fall, fewer than five hundred million still survive across all known space.

INNER SYSTEMMost survivors stayed in the inner system, expanding the estab-lished colonies on Mars and rebuilding Luna to support the hundreds of thousands of refugees that escaped there. Most of these orbital and inner-system habitats continue the pre-Fall traditions of capitalism and liberal democracies, but adapted to a hyper-connected reality. The hypercorps wield immense power here, enforcing ideal business conditions at the expense of the general population. The real power, however, lies in the hands of ancient and immensely rich oligarchs who exert their influence behind the curtain. While inner-system governments do provide basics needs for their citizens, the masses of freelancers must hustle from one gig to the next, while bereft infugees and inden-tures work thankless jobs for an opportunity at a new morph and a new life. Only the wealthy enjoy the full liberty available from advanced technologies.

The Planetary Consortium is the dominant faction here, working hard to establish Mars as transhumanity's new homeworld. They engage in espionage and propaganda against their economic rivals,

the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance that retains power over Earth's orbit and moon, and the Morningstar Constellation, a recent breakaway faction that seeks Venusian sovereignty.

MAIN BELTThe demarcation line between the inner and outer systems is a melting pot of cultures and factions. A number of independent habi-tats thrive here, providing a forum for autonomists and hypercapital-ists to mingle and deal. Various criminal cartels maintain a presence as well, far from legal interference. The major habitat Extropia is known as an independent "anarcho-capitalist" stronghold, where mutual contracts and freelance courts are the only law.

JOVIAN SPACEDuring the fear and uncertainty of the Fall, US and allied South American military units in Jovian orbit attacked their Chinese and Russian rivals, seizing control of civilian centers. The result of this martial law is the Jovian Republic. It is democratic in name, but real-istically the population is managed under a military rule, referred to as the Junta in most non-Jovian media outlets.

The Republic is known as a bastion of religion and bioconser-vatism. They decry the resleeved and forks as soulless copies, and therefore nonhuman. To them, uplifts and AGIs are abominations of nature, and both AI and nanotech are dangerous tools, likely to lead to another Fall. They enforce their hegemony through a powerful secret police and by holding the majority of the pre-Fall’s remaining warships. The Republic’s resistance to modern tech-nologies also means they are quickly becoming obsolete and outnumbered, a fear that has only made Republic leadership more aggressive.

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SETTING OVERVIEW • outeR system–the mesh ¾29

OUTER SYSTEMIt’s difficult to appreciate how empty space is. Traveling at light speed, a message from Mars to Luna takes about twelve minutes on average. To Jupiter, almost an hour. To Uranus, two-three hours. To Pluto, six hours. The fastest ships, sparing no expense, take weeks or months to reach places in the outer system. Outside of their imme-diate neighborhoods — the moons of the gas giants or "clusters" of trojan asteroids — the outer system stations are isolated and remote from each other.

Saturn's moons provide the most dense and diverse region, home to a number of research facilities, independent colonies, and the domed metropolises of Titan. They are the most established faction of the Autonomous Alliance, with the largest intelligence and mili-tary services.

Other habitats throughout the outer system operate as anarchist communes, privately-owned corporate states, hierarchical research facilities, or more unusual structures. Best known are the nomadic scum swarms, cycling through the system to bring their experi-mental art and black and red markets to all. While isolated, most habitats participate as members of the Autonomist Alliance, to share information, collaborate on matters of common interest, and provide mutual aid and defence. These habitats thrive on their inde-pendence, which can also hamstring their ability to cooperate. As a whole, their best defense is their remoteness. Historically, however, when a common threat has arisen, such as the brief Locus conflict, they are able to muster a defense with navies, missiles, hackers, and connections to resistance forces embedded within their enemies.

THE FRINGEThe fringe encompasses all of the less-traveled areas of the Solar System, from the odd asteroid families and lone remote stations of the inner system to the Kuiper Belt and eccentric orbits of various outer system objects. These are home to brinkers, Ultimates, and factions too extreme for even the Autonomous Alliance. Here both hypercorps and criminal cartels pursue secret projects. Exhumans also lurk on the fringe, cutting away anything they see as weakness, be it their fleshy body or their empathy. They haunt the outer reaches, capturing and consuming any transhuman ships foolish enough to come within range.

EXOPLANETSExplorers have discovered pandora gates, enigmatic structures of unknown origin. These can be used to create wormholes and connect to other gates scattered through the galaxy. Gatecrashers enter the gate on one side to appear on the other instantaneously. The other side, however, is not necessarily friendly. Gatecrashers have appeared in pools of magma, in deadly rat mazes of alien construction, and in wild jungles under a strange blue sun.

The five known gates within the Solar System are contested and tightly controlled. Factions that control gates have access to thou-sands of known exoplanets, and hundreds of thousands yet undis-covered. Transhumans have established hundreds of exoplanet colo-nies and outposts on a wide variety of worlds. Gatecrashers trawl the gate network for untapped resources, lost alien civilizations, and locked-away secrets. Many do not return.

THE MESHThe mesh has changed how people live. Deep conspiracies leave digital crumbs that can be teased apart, if the investigator knows where to look. Hackers can manipulate AR feeds and news casts, altering a target’s understanding of reality. Entire habitats have migrated to a purely digital existence, with tens of thousands of infomorph citizens carrying on their business in accelerated time. Most consider the mesh another life enhancement; a faster way to deliver content, to interact with products. For others, virtual living is transhumanity’s greatest frontier.

HABITAT PRIMERTranshumans carve out safety from the dangers of space with these common habitat types (Habitats ▶116 ).

• Aerostats float like balloons in dense atmospheres; they are common on Venus and Uranus.

• Bathyscaphes are underwater habitats tethered to the ground or ice surface. These are used on Europa, Ceres, and other subterranean seas.

• Beehives are warrens of tunnels cut into an asteroid or small moon. They are rarely spun for simulated gravity.

• Clusters are interconnected modules existing in microgravity.• Cylinders are massive, hollow, kilometers-long cans spun

for gravity, with terraformed interiors. Hamilton cylinders are partly organic and rely on advanced nanotechnology to self-construct. Reagan cylinders are older, inefficient designs using hollowed asteroids in the Jovian Republic.

• Domes are temporary inflatable or permanent pressurized structures built on the surface of an asteroid, moon, or plan-etary body.

• Processor Loci are just protected servers floating in orbit, for use by infomorph communities.

• Shells are cluster habitats built within a protective outer layer or covered framework of rings and spars.

• Spheres are hollow bubbles, usually hollowed-out asteroids with terraformed interiors, spun for low gravity.

• Subsurface habs are simply structures built underground, usually on moons or planets with little atmosphere; the ground above protects from solar radiation.

• Swarms are flotillas of nomadic spacecraft, sometimes inter-linked or towing habitats. They are favored by the scum.

• Tin Cans are small, cramped modules, frequently little more than a pressure shell and life support. They are cheap and common, especially among brinkers.

• Toruses are ring-shaped and spun for gravity, sometimes with multiple tori spinning in opposite directions, sometimes linked to microgravity structures.