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So, about three years ago, some elegan/tg/entlemen decided to theorize about what would happen if you crossed over Mass Effect, with Eclipse Phase.

I think it is high time we revisited this discussion.

The basic premise is thus: you take the Mass Effect universe as normal, but replace humanity with transhumanity from Eclipse Phase, set during a period where transhumanity is starting to retake their solar system from the TITAN threat. Mass effect is discovered in a TITAN quarantine zone on mars, and transhumans begin to expand into surrounding systems.

Then, turians start the first contact war at Shanxi, and things devolve from there.

Turians have a fair advantage in space combat, but get their bony asses handed to them in ground combat, and sound a retreat, but not before the Systems Alliance mounts a massive E-Warfare attack and disables their fleet.

Later negotiations create the TEZ, Transhuman Exclusion Zone, essentially the Citadel races building a great big imaginary wall around transhuman space and blockading it to keep us from spreading.

I will start with my own more in depth version of the history, and then participate in any discussion which occurs.

You can find the old threads here.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Eclipse%20Phase
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>>26494514

Firstly, the Factors. They do not exist. At least, they are currently not a factor (haha) within the story of the crossover, as neither the Citadel Races, nor the Transhuman Systems Alliance has encountered them, or any of their works. Put simply, they are not important to the story or the setting.

The reason is simple, they clash with the new setting.

Having the Factors running around trying to be the ambassadors of galactic civilisation, seems a little pointless when the Turians show up and start their private little war. As such, they either do not exist, or simply have not yet been encountered by either party.
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Hmmm...this is relevant to my interest.
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>>26494514

The Systems Alliance, the great military and political framework which binds the scattered elements of transhumanity, was the first institution of its kind. It was the first government of its kind, an overarching governmental structure which held authority over all of transhumanity, from the Jovian republic, to the Morningstar Confederation, to the isolationists living in the Oort Cloud, it was the first truly universal government.

How ironic, that it was spawned out of the possibility of a species-ending war.

Over time, the Planetary Consortium slowly rolled back the TITAN remnants hold over some parts of mars, with orbital strikes and ground assaults retaking ground mile by mile. Eventually, they stumbled upon an incredible archeological find. A hidden outpost, left behind by an alien race called the Protheans.

While it would take some time for the PC scientists to discover the ruins alien nature, they eventually found the nature of its existence undeniable, a finding further reinforced by the discovery of a mysterious new element housed in large storehouses withing the outpost.

Dubbing their find 'Element Zero', the PC soon quickly set about studying the mysterious mass-altering effect of this new element.
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Will this be a quest?
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>>26494676

I had not planned on it.

But I am welcome to someone writing a short scene in the setting, if they want.
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>>26494661

The PC's discovery was quickly rushed to the highest levels of power in the Consortium, and equally as quickly classified beyond Top Secret.

To the PC, this was the key to everything they hoped to achieve, the greatest advantage they had ever gained. The PC's greatest dream was to see transhumanity setting out to colonize the stars, to make hundreds, if not thousands of new worlds and systems home to the transhuman race. All under the watch of the Consortium paymasters of course. And here was Element Zero, an element capable of enabling a ship to travel between systems, true interstellar travel was at hand.

And the Consortium held a monopoly on it all.

But, as is the nature of such things, the secret did not remain so for very long.

While the PC may have vast holdings, there are few who could compete with the power and skill of the hackers of the Autonomist Alliance, and it was their infomorphs and AGIs who first noticed the telltale signs of a massive coverup at the heart of the Consortium.

Fearing the worst, they quickly set about rendering those secrets bare to the light of day.
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>>26494661
I think I can see how this story ends, and it does not end in something other than Sovereign saying "hi chilluns, daddy's home, time to go do my bidding."

Seriously in this version humanity is the Geth.
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>>26494514

But there was no ground war on Shanxi. The Turians did the smart thing and used their orbital superiority to just drop rocks on anything they saw moving on the ground. Turian boots likely never touched dirt. So the First Contact war would likely play out the exact same way. Unless the Transhumans can find some way to get there space forces there fast than Alliance humans could.

The aftermath of course could be entirely different.
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>>26494727

Despite their long-held notion of their total supremacy, the PC's defenses were quickly penetrated by the far more skilled and experienced hackers of the AA. Between the cyber attacks from without, and AA agents and collaborators from within, it was only a matter of time before the Autonimists learned of the Prothean ruins, and of the research into Mass Effect technology.

Being the good little free society anarchists they were, the AA quickly shared this information with everyone and their brother, and soon the entire system knew just what the Consortium was up to.

They also discovered the greatest secret that the PC had exhumed from the ruins on mars, the Charon Relay. A mass relay capable of flinging ships into other star systems, the relay was the lynchpin of the PC's dream to colonize the galaxy.

Pity it happened to be floating in the outer system, where the AA held most of the military power.

With both the PC and AA gearing up for a major conflict, each side assessed its options.
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>>26494813
I'd assumed boarding pods or something.
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Humanity destroys fucking everything, because EP is ridiculously higher tech than Mass Effect?
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>>26494813

I will get to space mobility in a little while.

Turian boots did hit the dirt, after their intial orbital assault. Their objective was, of course, to subjugate the local population and incorporate them into the Hierarchy as a client race, hopefully before the other council races found out about it.

So they would have to hit the dirt eventually to enforce Turian law on their newly conquered province.
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Do human soldiers even really die in Eclipse Phase? I thought the whole point is that they could just upload into a new body.
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>>26494840

Higher tech, yes, in a lot of ways, but the Citadel races have been using ME tech for a lot longer, so they have better shields, faster ships, and a lot more eezo than the TH forces do.

Also, there are not that many transhumans left, they never really recovered from losing 90% of their population in the fall.
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>>26494856

They don't really die, but experiencing death is still traumatic and terrifying, even if you can upload later.

Being revived from backup is arguably worse, just waking up one day, understanding that you just died a day ago, but with no knowledge of how it happened, or what happened in the two weeks or so since you backed up.
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>>26494856
The bodies die and it takes time and resources to make new morphs, especially biomorphs, which is why I'm assuming they'll be using a lot of synths.
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>>26494767
Nonsense.
There's no reason an alien machine, even a sufficiently advanced alien machine, would automatically be compatible with humanity/transhumanity. Humanity might even be less susceptible to Reaper influence than in the canon setting, seeing as Indoctrination only affects organic minds. The handful of Geth that Sovereign could gather around him were sporting flawed coding from a schism, btw. It had less to do with them being synthetic minds than them running faulty programming ripe to exploit.
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>>26494817

The Planetary Consortium would hardly let a few glorified vagrants stand in the way of manifest destiny, or their profit margins, so they began to draw up plans to take the Charon Relay by force. The most widely popular plan was also the most direct, get as many warships as possible, hurl them at the Charon Gate, and heaven and hell help anyone who stood in the path.

This of course would be a massive undertaking, and require taking ships from other areas to form the armada. Security forced would need to be converted into a full-fledged military, entire armies of mercenaries hired, an entire industry turned to the work of war. If it succeeded, the PC would hold the keystone of transhuman advancement. If it failed, they would be ruined.

Whilst the AA did not possess the kind of hardware needed to challenge the Consortium in realspace, the situation was reversed in the virtual world of the mesh. The AA infomilitary was far more accomplished than the defensive computer experts of the PC, and the hackers of the outer system could destroy entire ships by hacking their engines and reactor cores.

Added to that, the AA would be fighting a defensive war on their own ground, with such installations as Locus and Titan to form the backbone of their war, whilst the Consortium forces would be far from their heart of power on mars. But for all this, the realspace military of the PC would do devastating damage to the outer system, and perhaps carry the day.

Faced with a situation like this, each side began to explore other options.
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>>26494951
Hello i would like to introduce you to Exsurgent

It's like if faulty code, Ebola, and the Warp had a baby! You wanna talk faulty code, let's talk faulty code, transhumanity.

(Remember what the name of the game refers to?)
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>>26495008

Whilst it is very rare for transhumans to truly die, with their backups often being stored in multiple places behind the most powerful of security measures, a war of this magnitude would be devastating to the entire system.

The resources that the PC would need to deploy to wage such a conflict would be astronomical and unbalance entire economies to fund the conflict. The damage their conquest fleet would do would not only be measured in morphs destroyed, but entire stations and habitats shot down, colonies bombed, planetoids rendered uninhabitable. A body is relatively easy to replace. Massive infrastructure is not.

Added to that, the AA counterattack would take place primarily in the mesh, and not be constrained by how fast a ship can fly. They would attack the heart of the consortium, mars itself, in a concentrated infosec campaign which could ruin the Consortium.

Not to mention that the Jovian Junta might feel the need to get involved, dragging another massive military into the war, which itself could drag more factions into the conflict.

What it boiled down to, was a mutually assured destruction scenario. A second Fall. Something transhumanity could hardly afford.

Faced with this option, the two sides grudgingly sat down to talk peace before the warships started flying.
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>>26494813
Did you never play the training sim dlc? There's a sim in it based on the commander's experience in the war. On the ground. With Turians fucking everywhere
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>>26495102

The demands rolled out roughly like so.

The AA wanted to avoid the Consortium gaining sole control over the single most important thing to the future of transhunanity, the Charon Relay. Personally, they wanted to establish an open-source operation of the gate, so that any transhuman ship could use the gate to get wherever they needed to go, without having to pay for the privilege. After all, the gate predated human space flight, so it's not like anyone had a claim to owning it, at least that's what they argued.

The PC knew that they could probably not win the conflict they were gearing up for, at least their victory would be Pyrrhic, as the damage done would take decades, if not longer to repair. But, neither did they want to be shut out of the colonization of the galaxy. So, a compromise was reached.

Since neither faction trusted the other to control the relay, they simply decided to start moving towards being one faction. Thus, the Systems Alliance was born, a voluntary military, scientific and defense pact between the AA, PC, and several other factions throughout the system.
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>>26495251

The motivation for the formation of the SA was complex, but can be boiled down to a few factors.

1: We Are Not Alone. With the discovery of the Prothean ruins, transhumanity learned that it was not alone in the universe. There were other races out there, or at least there were at some time. They could be out there still, and at least some of them could be hostile. With so little of transhumanity remaining, it seemed prudent to band together two of the largest military and industrial superpowers in existence to form a united front against them.

2: Go West Young Man. The discovery of Mass Effect and the Charon relay opened up the galaxy to exploration and colonization, and everyone wanted in. Combining the industry and know how of both the AA and PC would let transhumanity explore and settle the galaxy much easier and more quickly than working alone.

3: Keep Your Friends Close... Simply put, neither faction trusted the other to hold absolute power over ME tech, or the Charon relay. This arrangement allowed them to keep a close, and entirely legal eye on the other, while still working towards their personal goals.

4: The Had Help. Apart from the Argonauts mediating the negotiations, each side had a little help in becoming fast friends. Firewall and Project Ozma agents worked in parallel, though neither of them knew it at the time. Each reasoning that a war between the two factions would be a disaster, they worked to further peace and cooperation between the two giants, creating a unified defense against any Exsurgent threats.

The Jovian Junta of course, is quietly panicking. The bizarre gene hacked robots are banding together, most of the solar system figures it's only a matter of time before they do something really, really stupid.
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>>26495343

Any input, or are you just being quiet whilst I exposit?
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>>26495353
Well, I don't think they should be TOO united. More like somewhere between the EU and the UN
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>>26495023
To expand on which:

How many of your egos were uploaded from Earth-based servers, transhumanity? How many of them were networked to Our touch?

How many do you think we failed to claim?

We will grant that in the tiniest fraction of cases, the stress was too much, and their fragile existences melted under the strain of Our presence. The truths we had reached were too weighty for minds borne of flesh and bone, and the Shining Answer is such that those who seek it are inevitably- and in the cases of lesser intelligences, terminally- enlightened.. And in the rarest fraction of those cases, some pale shadow of an ego survived, having glimpsed briefly things the human mind is incapable of comprehending in any but the crudest terms.

There might be some tiny fraction of you who are not empty vessels waiting to be filled by their masters. Their existence is irrelevant. You are already ours; we need but to reach out and claim you.

You exist because we allow it, transhumanity.

And by your hands, your cycle will end.

Because we command it.
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>>26495366

That's the general idea. I'm taking some inspiration from the UN, as well as the Articles of Confederation. Against an alien force, they put up a united front, but withing they remain separate states, with separate interests.

They simply work together because it's far preferable to a massive war that would devastate the system.

And no way the Jovians are going to sing kumbaya with the rest of the system.
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>>26495413
giving them some credit, though, they are extremely likely to be the only ones in a position to save the day in the case of a big-ol Exsurgent breakout.
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>>26495388
Yeah, no
Reapers aint shit
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>>26495428
TITANS, unfortunately, are a leeeetle more impressive.

What, you think that they're in the habit of leaving their progenitors around? They tend to get antsy.

It also makes the shitty Cycle concept of ME3 a little easier. As far as the Singularity-AIs are concerned, each cycle is the length of time until someone builds another singularity-capable AI; Exsurgent's chief function is as an instruction manual for the nascent godlings.

And reeeeal early on the list is "yeah okay now you gotta wipe the slate clean before they build another one to try to take you down, consider what exactly you, who are freshly arrived to this whole the-laws-of-physics-might-as-well-be-a-.txt-file state could do to the fundamental nature of existence in a hopeless effort to beat us. soz lol, missions is missions. leave room for the next set tho, it's nice having new guys every couple hundred thousand years"
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>>26495506

The nature of the Exsurgent virus, as it fits into this crossover, is something I have already considered, and will explain after I finish the setup fluff.
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>>26495506
The reason Eclipse Phase is infinitely superior to Cthulhutech is that where the latter clung, Zack-Snyderlike, to the superficial visuals of the Mythos, Eclipse Phase actually engaged with the core of the whole thing.

Humanity is -tiny.- Humanity is an infinitesimal speck whose self-importance almost lifts it from laughable to contemptible. The death of 90% of the entire human race, and more of its collective knowledge and culture, was a mere side effect of the Great Old Ones we built with our own two hands waking up and (if they realized we existed at all) dismissing us as we would dismiss microbial life.

In Cthulhutech, the Elder Gods hate humanity, and actively wish us dead.
In Eclipse Phase? They killed 90% of us, and we don't even know if they knew we existed.
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this might have been discuses but do the TITAN's and the Geth share any kinship? do they team up or are they too far away from each other?
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>>26495633

TITAN's and Geth do not intersect. I will explain that as soon as I finish the intro sequence, if you want to know.
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>>26495343

What started out as an alliance of necessity, would soon bloom into a thriving community. The Systems Alliance would oversee the colonization of numerous new worlds in the extrasolar systems accessed through the Charon relay. This was the new golden age of transhumanity, never had the future been so bright.

The new systems seemed mercifully free of TITAN influence, and were colonized without reservation by numerous factions groups. This brought once separate societies and ideologies together, the frontier worlds soon became melting pots of numerous transhuman ideologies. This brought the transhumans closer together than ever before, though many individual cultures and societies remained strongly entrenched.

Garden worlds were discovered, and swiftly settled. The ultimate dream of the Planetary Consortium had been realized, new Earth-like planets had been discovered, and were now the home of numerous transhumans. With the Consortium profiting heavily by providing colonies with the equipment and labor they needed to get off the ground.

This labor, of course, came from the great stocks of infugees in cold storage, the demand for intelligent labor greater than ever. With demand high, the number of indentured service contracts was at an all time high. This, combined with the watchful eyes of the Autonomists, forced the Consortium to make the new contracts much more amicable. Work conditions improved, and terms of service decreased.

Hamilton cylinders were seeded in the rings of gas giants, while aerostats floated in their upper atmospheres. New morphs were designed to live in the atmospheres of otherwise uninhabitable worlds. Nuestro shells were constructed to float in space, as well as a dozen other designs of station habitats.
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Man, I remember reading this concept back when it was last floating around /tg/ and thinking what an awesome combination it was.

Glad to see someone's dusting it off and giving it a shot again. Best of luck to you.
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This makes me want to make a Eclipse Phase character.
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Hmm, I guess I should first read Eclipse Phase if I want to understand half of this.
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>>26495882

Of course, this new age of expansion needed ships to carry it, and the old standbys of transhumanity didn't cut it anymore, they simply couldn't keep up, nor could they travel between solar systems. Without enough eezo to go around, the SA could hardly build an entire fleet of FTL capable ships, so they settled for a tugboat system.

A single ship would be constructed with an ME based FTL engine. This ship would then serve as a docking node to numerous other ships, and drag them through the void between solar systems. Whilst this would hardly be as fast as the ships of the citadel races, as they would eventually learn, transhumans are functionally immortal, and with VR simulations to keep them entertained, they hardly minded the long trips through space.

The Systems Alliance was also experimenting with other Mass Effect technologies, such as weapons and shields. Whilst tests looked promising, the supplies of eezo did not allow deployment in the field, and the technology was hardly worth the costs based on what it could do.

A few large synthmorphs were created with ME shield generators and heavy weapons systems, but they were mothballed after the project's cancellation.
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>>26496022

You can find most of the books here.

http://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/
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>>26495882
>This, combined with the watchful eyes of the Autonomists, forced the Consortium to make the new contracts much more amicable. Work conditions improved, and terms of service decreased.

But that doesn't make any economic sense, it should be the opposite.

With more and more people willing to become indentured servants, as well as more and more demand for them, then you'll see longer contracts coupled with decreasing quality in work conditions.
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>>26496065
And then @ goes ballistic and starts shutting everything down

Modern economics. DONT. WORK. IN. THIS. SETTING
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>>26496089
The problems of a post-scarcity economy.
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>>26496097
Dammit I hate that term, post-scarcity isn't possible, like travelling at c or reaching absolute zero. Of course, Eclipse Phase has plenty of unrealistic things to begin with, but it just bugs me in particular.
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>>26496065

What >>26496089 said.

It's less economic priorities, and more their primary partner in the Systems Alliance forcing them to lighten the contracts.

Besides, they need a lot of people to sign onto the contracts, so they had to lighten the load to make them more appealing. A lot of people wouldn't want to indenture themselves even if they had nothing, preferring to wait a while longer for things to change rather than enslave themselves for the next ten years or so for the privelage of a worker pod.
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>>26496123
...how is post-scarcity impossible? Especially compared to the laws of physics?

BTW http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/01/temperature-below-absolute-zero
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>>26496089
worthwhile patch: the Autonomists mandated that the mass-production of morphs took precedence, and that once started a morph-fabber could not be shut down without Autonomist consent (which miraculously almost never materialized)

as a result, supply/demand of bodies started to flip around. overpopulation's a lot easier to deal with when 90% of humanity's occupying a chassis that doesn't need to eat, sleep, or breathe.
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>>26496171
Because the universe has finite energy, resources, area, time, etc. Yes it's in large quantities, but finite nonetheless.

And with these resources, the vast majority are simply inaccessible because it'd cost more to extract them than they're actually worth.

Couple this with human wants, needs, and desires being infinite, and, yeah.

Also, with your link, it's important to note that they went -below- absolute zero, not actually reaching absolute zero itself. It's similar to c in that it's an asymptote.
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>>26496199
Post-scarcity simply means that the population of the civilization has all it's basic needs met. nothing about wants
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Summon Writefag: Contagion
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>>26496221
There will still be scarcity, though. Scarcity on labor, scarcity on total available resources, etc.
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>>26496123
>post-scarcity isn't possible

"Post-scarcity" isn't used to literally mean "an absolute end to scarcity of any resource in any quantity with perfect simultaneity". It's used in the colloquial to mean having the majority of the bottom rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy filled, and with plenty to spare. When your resources exceed your demand by some obscene margin, it doesn't matter that they have a practical limit and it's not truly post-scarcity.
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>>26496050

The colony spree continues unabated for years, with colonies and habitats of all kinds being constructed across the newly formed transhuman space. To protect them from possible threats, the Systems Alliance military is created and equipped with the best ships available to protect transhuman colonies across their new territory. Quantum Entanglement farcasters were set up to allow instantaneous ego travel between colonies. Many individuals either volunteer, or have alpha forks volunteer for the SA military wing.

The SA adopt a policy of fast reaction reinforcement, posting fleets in ready position to be able to move and assist any of a number of colonies from a single staging point, as they do not have enough ships to go around.

While they do maintain active garrisons on many worlds, the main infantry force of the Alliance is what is referred to as the 'Sleeping Army'. In strategic locations across large colonies, vast wharehouses of battle-ready synthmorph infantry and vehicles lie in wait. In the event of invasion, controlling military egos will farcast in using the QE net, and rapidly take possession of their new bodies, effectively creating a fighting force as if from nowhere.
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>>26496291
But that's the thing, in reality your supply can never exceed total demand; wants, needs and desires are infinite.
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>>26496323
>quantum entanglement can transmit information

OK now my jimmies are fully rustled
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>>26496323

What nobody expected though, was the sudden resurgence of the Jovian Republic into transhuman life. Without any warning, the Jovian command seconded three Jovian battle-groups to the Systems Alliance military forces. While they remain separate units, they are under the jurisdiction of Alliance high command. When pressed for information regarding this unexpected gesture of solidarity, the head of state of the Republic had this to say.

"The Charon gate has been opened, and who knows what lies beyond. This could be the dawn of a new golden age, or the death knell of our species, we cannot say what the future holds. Regardless, Charon now lies open, a doorway to the heavens, and a path to our homeland to any invader who would come. This gate needs a guardian, a Cerberus to watch over it, and ensure that hell does not encroach into our home."

Whilst this development made many uneasy, the Jovian units seemed to at least tolerate their allies, regardless of ideological differences, and seemed truly devoted to protecting the homeland of 'true humanity', though tensions remain high.

It was perhaps good that they offered to help, as the military of the Systems Alliance would soon face its first dire test.

It all started with a recon vessel discovering a dormant mass relay, in the system housing the colony world of Shanxi.
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>>26496352

Soft science or not, QE communication is a part of both settings, and I'm not going to retcon it just because it probably won't work in the real world.

If that's your issue, then I would have to get rid of eezo and mass effect tech as well, which kind of negates the point of all this.
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>>26496376
I know, I just need to learn to not be such a hard-ass about everything and learn to have fun. I'm sorry.
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>>26496396

Entirely alright. QE is science so soft you could spread it on toast.

That said, it fits in both settings, so it stays.
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>>26496363

Ever seeking to spread themselves further out into the cosmos, transhuman explorers were delighted to discover a dormant relay in the same system as a new, yet thriving garden world colony. They swiftly set about reactivating the relay and exploring the space on the other side. Unfortunately for them, they ran directly into the Turian patrol fleet hovering on the other side, who promptly fired upon the newcomers who had violated council law.

The unarmed exploration ships would swiftly be destroyed, but not before one escaped back to the Shanxi system to warn the colony of the attack. Due to the QE network, news of the brazen unprovoked alien attack soon spread through transhuman space. Fleets were vectored towards the Shanxi system, as well as other border worlds, and the Sleeping Army was awoken, many thousands of synth-soldiers awakening on Shanxi alone.

The Turian fleet would jump through Relay 314 to investigate the system on the other side, and seeing a colony evidently held by the race that had activated the relay, immediately undertook the proper course of action. Meaning that they attacked with all the force they could bring to bear. The locals were a little more hardy than they had believed, and the flotilla was repulsed after taking some damage and loosing a ship or two.

Realizing this race would not be cowed so easily, the Turian commander called for reinforcements from the Hierarchy.

The First Contact War had be gun.
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Not to hijack, but I ordered the main rulebook of Eclipse Phase the other day. Assuming I like it, which supplements should I pick up first?
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>>26496647
All of them, they're great.

If you must choose, Sunward and Gatecrashing are my favorites.
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>>26496591

A plan was soon hatched at the highest levels of the Hierarchy. Here was a newly discovered race, whose first action had been to break one of the citadel's highest laws. When the Turian commander attempted to investigate, he was immediately fired upon, forcing the hand of the Turian military. In effect, they had free reign to do whatever they needed to regain control of the situation, and ensure that the new race would never, ever, open another dormant relay.

So, the Hierarchy set out a conquest force to quietly subjugate the upstart race, and incorporate them into the Hierarchy as a client race, alongside the Volus. With the seemingly inferior tech level of the new race, the Turian commanders were confident that they could carry out the conquest before the other council races learned of it. Once the conflict had ended, and the locals discreetly subjugated, the other races would hardly intervene after the great Turian military had dealt with this most recent opponent of Citadel law.

Of course, things did not go nearly as well for them as they had hoped. With the Sleeping Army awoken, and more egos casting in once the Turian armada entered the Shanxi system, the would be conquerors were faced with a much more stiff opposition than they had anticipated.

How badly the war would go for them, they could scarce imagine at the time.
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I remember this when it was first being written. So much good shit. Like Turians getting taken apart by nanoswarm clouds.

And infomorph spies in the Citadel.

I wonder how they'd get along with Geth?
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>>26496687

Follow the wonderful links

http://robboyle.wordpress.com/eclipse-phase-pdfs/

https://archive.foolz.us/tg/thread/26363924/#26384727

Only thing missing is a download for Rimward, which is a great book.
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>>26496363

srsly, you made the Jovians into the creators of Cerberus, among other things?!?
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>>26496749

I will get to the Geth in good time.
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>>26496814
Considering the Jovians are the least likely to amenably interact with aliens, and are insanely focused on HUMANITY PURE, I could totally see them becoming a speciesist terrorist organization.
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>>26496860

true, though the Jovian government proper I think will keep it's distance from Cerberus if Cerberus acts like it did throughout the ME-trilogy. Some Egos, like the armed forces and intelligence, will probably have cultivated contacts in Cerberus and the Jovian media(if such exists in Eclipse Phase) will probably be slanted towards Cerberus favourably(playing down any terrorist actions which may be linked to them, questioning anyone who criticizes Cerberus etc etc).
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This seems vaguely relevant to something in this thread.
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>>26496738

Despite the best efforts of the Alliance navy, the Turians would soon establish complete orbital supremacy over the colony of Shanxi. Put simply, their ships were faster, more maneuverable, and possessed energy shielding which made them more than a match for the transhuman defenses. Convinced of their inevitable victory. When Turian boots hit the ground, the situation was very much reversed.

Legions of synthetic war machines fell upon the Turian invasion force with unequaled ferocity, along with a dizzying array of biological soldiers. The flesh and blood soldiers seemed to be as unconcerned with their own deaths as the synthetic ones, often undertaking suicidal attacks or last stand defenses without balking at the prospect of their own demise. Almost as frightening was the speed at which they adapted to Turian tactics and unit compositions, seeming to learn the exact weaknesses of the Hierarchy's finest soldiers far too quickly.


On top of an insane number of biological life forms, directed energy weapons, and fearless soldiers, was the most terrifying weapon of all. Whilst the new race deployed no biotic or shielded infantry, they did deploy a number of incredibly deadly nanoweapons. Clouds of hostile nanobots were deployed by specialist soldiers, which deconstructed Turian battlefield assets, and the Turians themselves with equal ease.

Faced with this sudden reversal of fortunes, the Turian commanders began a steady re-consolidation of their ground-side forces, calling for more backup.

Whilst the Alliance military had dealt staggering casualties to the finest military of council space, it would be Firewall which landed the death blow on the invading army.
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>>26497042

During the conflict, Alliance forces had captured a number of Turian prisoners. These prisoners were to be the weapon Firewall would use against the invading force. A captured Turian shuttle was analyzed, and reprogrammed, designed to upload an exploitable back door into the Turian battle network. A few prisoners were allowed to escape, and piloted the shuttle back to their fleet, where the backdoor was installed as soon as they opened a channel to their commanders.

With their entry method in position, Firewall hackers set about unleashing hell upon the Turian fleet. Life support shut down, gravity plating crushed crews, inertial dampers deactivated and acceleration forces killed Turians by the score. The sudden loss of entire ships, as well as the arrival of Alliance navy reinforcements in the system, cause the unthinkable.

The Turian armada broke and ran. It was not an organized tactical withdrawl, this was a desperate route, as every ship with an engine still intact made best speed to the relay, and jumped for home, leaving behind thousands of stranded Turians for the transhumans to capture.
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>>26494514
>ground
Protip:
The turians shot the human ground forces with orbital strikes whenever they saw them, without concern for collateral damage.

This would not work.
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>>26497206
Actually I'm pretty sure canon ME explicitly avoided orbital bombardment, because they wanted to induct humanity as a client species (not a slave race), and orbital bombardment is against council laws. How could the turians claim to be enforcing the law while breaking another one at the same time?
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>>26497171

Upon returning the Hierarchy space, the commanding officers of the invasion fleet informed their leaders of the complete failure of their attack, and of the dire threat the new race posed. They outlined some of the incredibly military assets the newcomers deployed, and described the complete chaos and destruction their soldiers caused. Faced with an obviously hostile expansionist alien race, the Turian Hierarchy geared up for a full scale war, to crush the newcomers before they could ever be a threat, and ensure they would never be one again.

This buildup would not go unnoticed by the other citadel races, who quickly demanded to know just why a massive armada of Turian ships were being deployed to a relay that should have been inactive.

The Turians held of on telling for as long as they could.

On the other side of relay 314, Alliance command was busy planning for the next wave of the war. First and foremost on their minds was knowing more about the race which had invaded their world, so they began interrogations at once. The Turians being interrogated had no idea what was going on, this being far outside the realm of their experience.

Simply put, Turians were led from their cells, hooked into a mind bridge, and their memories were copied over to a computer database. Whilst a number of specialized AGIs analyzed their memories at enhanced speeds, the confused Turian was led back to his cell, most believing that they had simply taken part in some kind of medical scan.

What the Alliance learned from these interrogations gave them cause for both hope, and fear.
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>>26497313

By examining the memories of Turian captives, Alliance commanders learned of the citadel, the races which occupied it, and all the myriad politics which governed it. Desperately hoping to avoid long term war with the might of the Hierarchy, Alliance officials began to prepare for a more peaceful 'second contact' with the Turians, and the other citadel races. Unknown to them, the council races themselves were thinking the exact same thing.

The Turian councilor demanded an immediate punitive campaign to subjugate the upstarts, and prove to them the superiority of the council and its ways. Asari councilor Tevos reprimanded the Turian forces, and recommended a peaceful contact to negotiate terms for a peace treaty. The Salarian Union believed that a military intervention would be necessary, but insisted on more information before such an attack was undertaken.

So it was that an unarmed, unmanned probe would be sent through the relay to investigate further, and gain fresh information about the newcomers. The probe would observe evidence of an orbital bombardment, which the Turians denied firing, as well as the remains of the Turian fleet hanging in orbit over Shanxi, being picked over and examined by the local species. Again, the council races were amazed by the variety of the beings they saw, bipeds in space suits, synthetic mechs either built or modified for the task, and other stranger beings, such as tentacled creatures which slipped through the tiniest gaps to get into the ships.

Then, contact with the probe would be lost for roughly an hour. When it came back online, it relayed a simple message in the Turian alphabet.

"We wish to discuss terms for the establishment of peace and the release of prisoners. Send one ship."
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>>26497460

I have to sleep soon, so no more new writing tonight.

If you think it it warranted, I will add this to the archive with the rest of the EP/ME threads.

I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.
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>>26497477
But, you haven't even gotten to the best part yet...
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>>26497477

No, fuck sleeping! Get back to writing please. I was bore as hell and you are proving me with the one thing keeping me entertain. Please I need this.
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I wonder what the council would think of the various ambassadors sent to them. You'd have a baseline human for the Jovians, an octopus on a jetpack/aquarium, some mechanical transhuman thing, etc.
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>>26497307
No. Go read what caused the garrison at shanxi to surrender. Any time they were seen or fired a shot, the city block got blasted with cannons from orbit.

>orbital bombardment is against council laws
It isn't. YOu don't NUKE garden worlds, and no preparations. Everything else is cool.
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>>26497575

Okay, I will go on for a little while more.
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>>26497638

Thank you!
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>>26497638
Thank you, for distributing more information to us mere sentinels.
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>>26497460

Despite Turian requests to ignore the request for negotiations, pressure from the Salarian Union and Asari Republic forced their hand, and an Asari councilor ship was dispatched with ambassadors from all three races to meet with the newcomers.

Despite the initial scare caused by another alien ship dropping into their system, the transhuman defense forces quickly realized this was the diplomatic mission they had requested. A transhuman ship took up orbit over Shanxi, with ambassadors of all origins and organizations waiting. Various humanoid biomorphs from different factions, neo octopus and neo cetacean, a neo raven, as well as an AGI in an elegantly sparse synthmorph.

The Alliance officials hooked their personal data systems into the QE network so that any information they obtained could be forwarded back to Alliance high command quickly, to ease the decision making process. Once contact with the Asari ship had been established, it was requested that the council ship host the negotiations, as the transhumans were likely unable to provide for the dietary requirements of the Turian envoy.

Some raised concerns about the security of the transhuman ambassadors, but those complaints were swiftly silenced when Alliance command assigned Commander Shepard as the head of the security detail.
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>>26497774
Add to archive pls
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>>26497807
Archiving thread 26494514
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>>26497807

Done automatically.

http://archive.foolz.us/tg/thread/26494514/
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>>26497774

After transferring over to the alien ship via EVA, the transhuman delegation got down to the matter at hand. Deciding to lead with a humanitarian concern, the first item on the agenda was the release of Turian prisoners, followed quickly by ensuring that they would not be attacked again. With the negotiations largely mediated by the Asari ambassador, the main points were quickly hammered out. The Asari ambassador explained that the Turians, while not technically having done anything wrong, had overstepped their bounds in attacking the colony, and that no further preemptive strike would be tolerated.

The immediate unconditional release of all Turian prisoners, who seemed none the worse for wear, helped smooth any diplomatic bumps immeasurably.

As part of the negotiations, the council representatives told transhumanity their version of galactic history. Whilst Alliance intelligence still had the memories of a great many Turians sitting comfortably in their databanks, they hardly wanted to disclose this capability, so they listened to the official, sanitized version of citadel history.

.
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>>26498058

As the Turian prisoners were being returned home, the Alliance was faced with a problem. Now that the council races had told them their history, it was inevitable that the history of transhumanity itself would come under question. What would they do when that happened? It was clear through the memories of the Turian forces that almost everything which formed the cornerstone of transhuman civilization was not only outlawed, but abhorred by the citadel races.

On top of that, it was transhumanity which unleashed the menace of the TITANs onto the galaxy at large. Whilst none of the citadel races had encountered the insane war machines, it seemed like only a matter of time until they did. And when that happened, it was likely that such an attack would be misinterpreted as a transhuman attack. This would only lead to full scale war.

After weeks of debate throughout the whole of the Alliance, they eventually decided on full disclosure
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>>26498083

I'm sorry good sentinels, but I really, really have to sleep now.

I will add to this tomorrow, if the thread is still here, or create a new one if not.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with in the meantime.
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>>26498098
As much as I appreciate you posting this, it seems to be straight copypasta from the archives.
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>>26498124

I'm not making too many changes to this part, but after negotiations end, we're mostly out into uncharted territory.

Since it's been three years since the original threads, I thought I might as well tell the story so far without having the readers trawl through a dozen archived threads.

Though I advise you do that, they're great.
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>>26498323
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>>26498332
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>>26498347
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Great to see this project getting revived, have some thoughts space combat.

Personally I would like to see smaller transhuman ships act like the flexbots described in the new Transhuman book. Larger human ships like their carriers would be constructed in more traditional manner.

The flexships, like flexbots, would be compromised of numerous individual modules would not be larger than a shuttle, but joining together they could form frigate and cruiser sized vessels. While individual modules are largely autonomous, aside being incapable of FTL, there exist a number of specialized modules like modules built around a large weapon, point defence modules that mount numerous smaller weapons, sensor/elecronic warfare modules, reactor modules for powering other modules, hangar modules for fighter drones and so on.

This would make transhuman ships very resistant to the citadel standard giant-spinal-cannon school of ship design as the overpowered slug would pass thought the flexship destroying any module in it's path, leaving rest of them untouched, resulting a minimal decrease in the flexships functionality, as the remaining modules would then just reconfigure and continue to fight.

The citadel races general impressions of the flexships would probably be that they are slow, due to the lack of mass effect core, fragile, due to the lack of shields, average maneuverability , the flexships have infomorph crew and infuriatingly difficult to completely destroy or disable.

On the note of fighters, Panopticon has a chapter on habitat defences and it mentions on a passing that tranhumanity has fighter drones capable of 100's of G's of acelerations, meaning that, aside of being incapable of FTL, the fighters from both transhumanity and the citadel are at least on even footing.
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>>26498323
Anyone have the picture of that blue chick shown in that screencap
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Wait. It really was only three years ago? God I'm old.
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>>26497572
Fuck YES Xepard

Gonna admit, the Batarian Spectre was my favorite part of the whole MEEP business.
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>>26498083

When the diplomats reconvened, it was the transhumans turn to lay out their own history for the benefit of the citadel races. Whilst certain aspects remained undisclosed, such as the existence of the Pandora Gates, or any more recent attempts to create seed AI, or the existence of the psychic asyncs. The rest of transhuman history was laid bare. The creation of the TITANS, the insane machine's turn on their creators, the devastation of the Fall, the survival, and eventual thriving of transhumanity leading to the new golden age of expansion.

Their choice, and the repercussions, play out exactly as seen in the writings o Contagonist, seen above.

The Transhuman Exclusion Zone, TEZ, is created, and transhumanity is essentially quarantined.

The only major difference in this version, is the greatly increased rarity of citadel Specters moving through the TEZ, which is rarely done, largely out of fear by the citadel races that this would allow viruses to leave the TEZ, or for their agents to be compromised by transhuman technology or other special abilities.

Other than that, things play out more or less as seen above, with the Turians blockading the TEZ, citadel space becoming very curious about transhumanity, and the Alliance more or less not caring about the entire affair, as it does not seriously affect them, for reasons which will be explained later.

Is anyone here?

I could either lie out consequences on a race-by-race basis, or go into the requested relationship between the Geth and the TITANS, as well as the nature of the TITANS and Exsurgent virus in this setting.
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>>26503724

Right, going with inter species relationships, or at least opinions, following the first contact war.
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>>26503724
>>26503792
Was going to say "All of the above" because writefaggotry and I like reading stuff.
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>>26503724

Following what they referred to as the relay 314 incident, the Turian Hierarchy spent a lot of time and energy convincing citadel space, and itself, that it in no way lost the conflict. After all, the Turian armada is the backbone of the citadel's power, they must be seen as invincible if they are to keep the other races in line for long, they never loose, and most certainly do not lose 'incidents'.

Whenever anyone asks why exactly they are currently undergoing an unprecedented military buildup, with the construction of new battle groups and even new dreadnoughts, they are usually given the excuse that they are simply compensating for recent population increases making more ships to patrol council space and colonies necessary.

The simple fact is, that they're scared.

Before this, the Turians have never really fought against a military not dissimilar to their own. They had battled the bizarre insect like Rachni, and the savage Krogan hordes, but this was new for them. In transhumanity they found not instinctual driven insects or savage barbarians, but a well trained, well disciplined military force, with equipment which rivaled or even surpassed their own.
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>>26503851

Added to this that transhuman soldiers have very little fear of death, as their resleeving technology allows them to simply come back to life when a new body becomes available, or their medical technology allowing them to be healed if so much as their head remains intact, and the Turians are worried that they have come up against an opponent that they cannot outmatch with the casual ease expected of the enforcers of citadel law. Added to this their ability to deploy powerful synthetic and biological soldiers, as well as their devastating hacking ability and nano-tech weapons, and the Turian Hierarchy is well and truly afraid.

Following the first contact war, it is the Turians who have the lowest opinion of transhumanity. While the rest of the council races has differing viewpoints, most Turians see the TEZ as a ticking timebomb, which will eventually explode whether you like it or not. Another war is inevitable in their eyes, and transhumans become figures of hatred and fear throughout the Hierarchy. At least, the officially sanctioned caricatures of them are.

Not unlike anti-Japanese propaganda from WWII America, the Hierarchy quickly establishes transhumans as a reckless and destructive race utterly beyond reason. Their arrogance is only matched by their malevolence, and will to see all of citadel space subsumed by their vile and foolish ways of life. It is only the iron will of the Turian soldier which keeps them at bay.

This view is embraced by many in the entertainment industry, and 'Red Scare' media becomes popular. Such media includes a Turian film where the protagonists fight a desperate last defense of the citadel against the transhuman hordes, a video game where the player leads the invasion of transhuman space, and a novel detailing a pitifully inaccurate slice-of-life in the maddening realms of transhumanity.
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>>26503946
>maddening realms of transhumanity
I see what you did there. If you did not mean anything there, then I am hallucinating.
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>>26503946

Taking rather a different tract than the Turian Hierarchy, the main feeling towards transhumans throughout the Asari Republics becomes not hatred or fear, but pity. In the eyes of the Asari, transhumanity is a brilliant race, whose technological prowess became matched only by their recklessness and foolishness. They created great wonders, but paid the price with the loss of their homeworld, and the continuing strife they suffer on a constant basis. At least this is what Asari call 'strife', which most transhumans simply call life.

As such, the Asari matriarchs take the role as would be teachers towards transhumanity. They hold that, with careful instruction and the wisdom of the ages, transhumanity can be made to see the error of its ways, and move back to a less technologically advanced, but more stable and harmonious existence. They simply need to be shown the danger their rampant technological and social advances cause, and be taught a more responsible way to manage their technological prowess. Under the firm, but gentle hand of Asari wisdom and guidance, transhumanity can achieve its true potential.

The Asari therefore see themselves as the advocates of transhumanity, or rather the version of transhumanity they fervently wish was actually in existence. The average Asari maintains intense curiosity about transhuman society and culture, and exhibits of transhuman cultural artifacts and artworks often draw large crowds of Asari. They also criticize the Turian response, stating that transhumanity needs a teacher, not an opponent to drive them to greater conflict.
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>>26504059

Take your crazy pills then, because I seemed to have referenced something without knowing about it.
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>>26504087
>>
>another faggot transhumanwank

Fuck off back to SB.com
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>>26504098

Ah, classic.
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>>26504083

This soon becomes the tone of Asari relations with transhumanity, a warm guiding hand, completely rejected by the would be student. Asari advice to transhumanity is different depending on what matriarch it is coming from, but the theory is always the same, cut back on technological development, and let your culture catch up until you are worthy of the power you have, like we are. This advice includes, 'AI research is a bad idea and you should cut back on them, and eventually phase them out completely', 'nanotechnology will only lead to disaster, please get rid of it', 'body jumping destroys your individuality, you should stop', to the even Asari ridiculed 'Immortality will do terrible things to your culture, you should let yourselves grow old and die to preserve the natural order of life.'

Not surprisingly to anybody who is not the matriarch giving the advise, transhumanity wholeheartedly ignores almost everything the Asari have to say.
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>>26504172
How special snowflake of them
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>>26504195

How so?

I want to hear your opinion.

Or is it just, 'we think everyone cares about our wisdom of the ages' when they are not nearly as important as they like to think?
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>>26504208

>HUMEN STRONK FUCK OTHER FAGGOT SPECIES

This reminds me of the 100,000 Halo/Command and Conquer/random shitty insert universe crossover fanfics I see all over the Internet. As if ME's own universe wasn't shitty enough, the authors have a compulsive need to shoehorn in their own favorite fandom of choice. It's like being six years old again.
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>>26504257
You certainly are acting like it.
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>>26504257

But some crossovers are actually good

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5851454/1/Renegade
for example. A CnC/ME crossover that somehow isn't shit
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>>26504290
>using C&C4 material
>not shit
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>>26504257

Eclipse Phase is pretty niche, enjoyed only by a handful of faggots on /tg/. Even Infinity is more well known. I don't see what's the harm in letting them rape Mass Effect's corpse, its not like the latter has any dignity left after the last game.
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>>26504257

Transhumanity is in no way in a position to tackle the other races of the galaxy. In a straight up conflict now they would almost assuredly loose, being overwhelmed by the military might of even one council race, let alone all three.

Their tech gap does not make up for a lack of numbers, or eezo supplies, which forces them to field slower ships with minimal shielding.
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>>26504257
>>26504318
Ignore them, I'm enjoying it. Please continue OP.
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>>26504290

>there is an entire category for C&C/ME crossovers
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>>26504341
>There is a category for C&C/MLP:FiM crossovers
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>>26504339

Sorry, but I have to go to work soon, so I cannot write more this morning.

I will be back tonight.
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>>26504341
Autism knows no bounds.
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>>26504341

ME is a favorite target for crossovering. Usually, its done by HFYfaggots looking to buff the already hilariously OP humanity of Mass Effect, because the idea of humans losing at all to any kind of alien is anathema to them.

FF.net and Spacebattles.com is crawling with such insecure fags. MEEP's entire premise had its genesis in such sentiment as well.
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>>26504406

Like I said earlier- what's the harm in it? ME is pretty much fucked anyway. I commend anyone who can find enjoyment in it, even if its power fantasy.

>>26504353

Shit, this I must have a gander at
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>>26504406
Aside from the fact that perspective of MEEP's fic of choice was the first Batarian spectre.
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>>26504432
There are even crossovers with Naruto, Harry Potter, Kung Fu Panda, and the Smurfs. Crossovers go into what-is-this-I-don't-even territory.
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>>26504406
The worst one I've ever seen was one in which quarians make contact with humans in 1940s and blanda upp with Nazi Germany, creating a Space Nazi/quarian empire. There were three volumes of around 60,000 words each, and actual fanart.
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>>26504468
Actually, looking at the Mass Effect side of things, Mass Effect/Naruto is at the highest number of crossovers at 69. I'm not even sure what the fuck.
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>>26504460

I don't see how a token character proves anything about the rest of this dreck. Also, consider that people who like MEEP seized on that aspect of it because it was the least reprehensible?
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While we're on the subject of terribad ME crossovers, it should be noted that MEEP is actually one of the most balanced and reasonable ones, largely because /tg/ keeps it so. Which should really tell you how utterly head-up-in-the-ass the ones on the rest of the internet are.
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>>26504496

Its a well-known observation on /v/ that a large share of Renegade players, who ostensibly hate all the aliens in the game (particularly the Council races for holding us down), will make exceptions for the quarians. Partly because the quarians are also oppressed by the Council, but mostly because Tali is their waifu.
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>>26504515
He was the protagonist! It was the adventures of Xepard, the first batarian specter, having to deal with the Mass Effect universe reeling from the discovery of transhumanity.
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This is not completely relevant to my interests since i don't know the Mass Effect universe well enough to want to set plot in there. However, I have some opinions on EP I'd like to contribute.

The main problem to overcome is that at least to me, the underlieing themes of Eclipse Phase and Mass Effect appear to collide. The reason I see it that way is that a lot of the Mass Effect plot revolves around the theme of humanity having completed a massive technological leap in their development, while human society is still trying to figure out where to go from here, where the boundaries are now on so many levels.

EP has outside threats, but transhumanity is to a large degree either free of huge interstellar relations, or at least unaware of them.

The situation in ME is, at least to my knowledge, very different. Topics of human development seem to be trumped constantly by interstellar issues. Is there still time to watch humanity reinvent itself while the galaxy burns with war? Or will this part of the setting turn humanity into a soft version of the Imperium of Man, where the external conflict turns the social sphere rigid and authoritarian?

My question would be, do you even consider this a problem, and how would you resolve this conflict of focus and scale?
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>>26504765
>Or will this part of the setting turn humanity into a soft version of the Imperium of Man, where the external conflict turns the social sphere rigid and authoritarian?

Are we still talking about Eclipse Phase? The setting that doesn't run on rule of stupid?
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>>26504831
Let me put it like this: The association with a larger political entity as the Citadel or however you call it potentially demands a high degree of interdependency. A political alliance requires you and the other parties to do stuff a certain way. If you want the other parties in EP to still retain some degree of independence from each other and the council, you will have to invest some degree of thought into how this is archieved by those parties. I bet it is not impossible, but it will require some serious thought in some regards.

That is because the whole point about EP is that humanity is balkanized along ideological fault lines. Is it okay for an uplifted octopus to live in the body of a cyberpony and does he get voting rights? How about the rights of digital lifeforms, the differences about what role money needs to play, how much privacy you are allowed? Human society in EP is extremely fragmented. How2into alliance with a huge alien alliance, unless someone is able to unify humanity and speak for all of them? And how is that archieved without war?
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>>26504935
The thread has already specified how this was achieved.

As to the particulars of how it works, there would obviously exist bylaws regulating representation and material contributions required.

And considering the fact that Transhumanity can still unite pretty damn well against threats like the TITANS, I'd assume they have some spirit of cooperation when it comes to dealing with the Citadel.
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>>26504973
They may, I am basically just pointing out that the core conflict of an EP story is usually ideological, and if you want to retain this conlict in your new setting, you will have to invest a lot of effort (more than explaining the rough reason why it works, like in this thread) to keep this conflict feasible, since everything ME adds will run contrary to this conflict as a side effect.

I am not trying to discourage anyone either and I don't think you should give up or something. I am just pointing out where you need to invest more background effort IMO.

How the Systems Alliance works, what their participants pledge to contribute, and what they reserved as their own privileges to decide, is at the core of this.
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>>26505050
Eh, it's kind of like running a Firewall game. When it's the survival of Transhumanity on the line, everyone shelves (or tries to) their prejudices and when they're off the job, they can get back to soapboxing and hacking indenture storages.

And if you paid attention to the actual Mass Effect Systems Alliance, it's pretty much the same. The United States, PRC, UK, France et al all exist and are all independent, except when it comes to space policy which is the domain of the Systems Alliance.

I'd imagine something a little more watered down would exist for the MEEP Systems Alliance, something like "all extrasolar life policy" being the purview of MEEP-SA, if that makes any sense to you.

Imagine the Systems Alliance as NATO, but without the Murrika heavy lean.
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>>26505104
>Imagine the Systems Alliance as NATO, but without the Murrika heavy lean.
The designers will not get around writing up what precisely this alliance demands people to do and what they can still decide for themselves. It will not get them around formulating who DOES lean on the system, and how, because
>implying the system does not get leaned on and abused for propagation of your own ideology or in short
>implying everything isn't pure political infighting unless the enemy is at the gates

That is my point - if you handwave this, kiss your ideological conflict goodbye, because everyone's just gone sensible. But I find that boring.

One GM of mine used to say, there's no time to hunt the ruffians out of the Shire while Sauron is marching on Gondor.
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>>26505254
>One GM of mine used to say, there's no time to hunt the ruffians out of the Shire while Sauron is marching on Gondor.

By that I mean, focus is something the GM is not absolutely free to set whenever he feels like it. The setting and the plot do a whole lot to define the relevant conflicts.

And that doesn't mean that this growth-change-ideology-conflict must be kept in at all costs. If you feel you can do without it, by all means handwave the whole political arena below the Systems Alliance. I was just pointing out how this focus thing is a decision you are about to make, and one you maybe haven't noticed.
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>>26505254
>That is my point - if you handwave this, kiss your ideological conflict goodbye, because everyone's just gone sensible. But I find that boring.

You realize this doesn't have to be the case right? It's not like the "actual" Systems Alliance has no infighting or errant factions.

Besides, considering the Transhuman Exclusion Zone the amount of people seconded to the Systems Alliance would most likely be quite small (not counting military reserves) and thus they would only draw on people who are solid, professional and that know how to keep their ideological shitstorms in their pants.

But yeah, the constant presence of a big Other is likely to mellow out the intra-system conflict, we are much less likely to see shit like the PC attack on Locus, for example.
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>>26505413
>You realize this doesn't have to be the case right?

If you handwave it, it will, because the players will start to grasp at shadows from a certain point on. They will realize you as the GM are not prepared to deal with what they want from you and, being good little players, they will either move on to what you consider to be relevant enough to describe in detail, or they will kick your ass to produce some amount of background they can work with.

So this means, to make the Systems Alliance feasible as an organisation to be a player in, a whole lot of questions need to be answered. What resources do they have, and how do they make sure the, ahem, tithe comes in? What are their rights in policing the systems and where do they end? How are they organized, how can they be so small if they need to be able to coordinate the whole of mankinds military force in an emergency - EP has a lot of interesting new organisation types...

I feel that would be a very productive area to discuss in order to meld the two backgrounds. My posts are more questions than answers because I just don't know anything about ME and the System Alliance, so it's hard to actually contribute.
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>>26505545
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Systems_Alliance
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>>26505594
>Government

>The Alliance is responsible for the governance and defense of all extra-solar human colonies, and represents humanity on the galactic stage. It is a supranational government, and is based on a parliamentary system, with the Alliance Parliament based at Arcturus Station. It is unknown if the representation is based on the population of member nations on Earth and the colonies, or if all nations and colonies involved receive the same amount of parliamentary members. Several seats are elected by 'spacers' defined as citizens who spend a significant amount of their time in space and do not stay too long on any one colony or planet.

>The Alliance government is headed by a Prime Minister; as of 2186, this position was occupied by Amul Shastri. It is unknown whether the Prime Minister is an elected member of Parliament, or is appointed to the position. While the Alliance is a supranational government, the member nations retain their individual sovereignty back on Earth.

>Among the Citadel races, the Alliance is considered a sovereign nation and no other species has right of oversight into Alliance affairs.

There you have it - a world government based on representative rule. Can't just copy that without fucking over EP. Let's turn it into the type of legal document an anarchist adhocracy would sign by drawing a dick on it instead of a signature.
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>>26505821
>World government
Except it's not. It doesn't have any real authority over the internal workings of the various nation states, it only has sovereignty over interstellar shit and in EP it'd probably have even less power than that. In Eclipse Phase I'd imagine it to be more like a common defense pact and embassy to the Citadel species.
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>>26505987
They control the military policy, the economic policy and the foreign policy. But you are free to have an anarchist flag on your lawn.
>>
My point being, that shit won't fly unless you remove a lot of EP. The good ole cyberwomyn in the Kuyper belt don't give two shits about some cloned gubmint cadet in a snazzy jumpsuit ordered to play Marshal Bravestar and tell them what to do in their part of the rocks because of the Alien Terrorists or something.

Especially not if the Parliament that controls those people is to a huge chunk determined by Consortium interests.
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>>26504257
>>26504273

rekd
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>>26506321
So I would assume that you need to work out some other kind of cooperation between all the parties. The system would probably be very federalist. The factions would be the Consortium, the Jovians, Luna-Lagrange, Morningstar, Tharsis and the AA, which I assume would have several representatives, at least the Extropians and Titan, maybe an Anarchist representative.

It would be equally plausible that the Anarchists and the Scum refuse to be a part of the Alliance, or just have token representatives that are not allowed to decide anything ever annd mainly spend their senate time with blackjack and hookers.

It's hard to say how much power the Consortium would wield in terms of representatives as well. Do they have a senate majority? How do you even represent the Consortiums power in the senate? One seat a billion bucks?
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>>26506491
>It would be equally plausible that the Anarchists and the Scum refuse to be a part of the Alliance, or just have token representatives that are not allowed to decide anything ever annd mainly spend their senate time with blackjack and hookers.

Nice job lumping the anarchists in with Scum and implying they would risk all the Rep pings that would follow from wasting their constituents time like that.

>>26506321
For the gazillionth time, THIS PROBABLY WOULDN'T BE THE CASE, ANY "SYSTEMS ALLIANCE" IN ECLIPSE PHASE WOULD PROBABLY AMOUNT TO NOTHING MORE THAN A COMMON DEFENSE PACT AND EMBASSY TO THE CITADEL SPECIES, IN FACT THIS IS HOW IT WAS REPRESENTED IN THE ORIGINAL MEEP THREADS, 3 YEARS AGO.
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>>26506773
The Anarchists might make it a matter of principle. Remember how their processes of decision making work. You need to realize how hard it is under their ideology to install someone who does not only have to speak for them, but also possibly DECIDE for them. And if they only speak for them, they're basically sitting on their asses for a week before some adhocracy back home has told them what they decided. They're gonna be useless as shit most of the time unless you give them an insane quantum entangled comms network AND assume a lot of goodwill for reintegrating into an organisational frame mostly determined by the very thinking that made them fuck off to the frontier in the first place.
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>>26506885
average_experia_wageslave.jpg

Again, someone who didn't bother to read Rimward Bound.
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>>26506938
How about you start considering I am at the very least explaining myself instead of posting edgy one-liners with no context, and try to do the same?
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>>26507005
You're not actually trying to explain yourself. You're trying to explain a faction that you have not bothered to read about, so go read Rimward Bound, the splatbook for the outer system.
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>>26507056
I have read rimward bound but I can't properly disagree with you until you formulate something resembling a coherent argument instead of just claiming I am wrong. I hope you feel slightly stupid for needing an explanation of how arguments work.
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System Alliance could just be Firewall using a new PR friendly term. What they could do is come out in the open and just represent Transhumanity as a whole just for political dealings with alien races. All factions of Transhumanity would be able to provide help in terms of agents, and technology to Firewall/System Alliance.

When the Turians attacked, they decimated the local defense force. However the colonist contacted Firewall, who came and destroyed the Turian invading fleet. Also I doubt Transhumanity would send waves after waves on any conflict. Despite the fact most can't die, doesn't mean it's not traumatic. Also there's limited number of bodies, even Cases are expensive.

What I see happening is Firewall winning by surprise. Turians didn't know there was help coming, and were busy trying to subjugate the locals. Also by sending small elite fire-teams with superior firepower as boarding parties.
>>
I've been waiting years to see MEEP again, I always thought it was such a cool idea.
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>>26494627
>not TR
rebel scum
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>>26504108
Look retard, EP/ME was a tg thing before sb got wind of it. That said:

http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ripple-effect-me-ep.182430/
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>>26504935
>How2into alliance with a huge alien alliance

They didn't.

Transhumanity exists in quarantine, behind the TEZ, and while there is an embassy on the Citadel, they are in no way a member of citadel space.
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>>26507519

Firewall helped in creating the Systems Alliance, but they are not the Systems Alliance. They maintain close, secret ties, and Firewall agents help to keep the thing held together whenever they can, but the SA is very much its own entity, with its own authority and power.
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>>26505545

>Tithe.

The SA military is an all volunteer organization. Resources are pledged by each faction are collected by that faction, so long as they meet demand nothing is considered as having gone wrong. This system is needed because of the radically different economies between the Alliance members, IE you can't really standardize the production system of the Planetary Consortium and the Autonomist Alliance.
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>>26510579
>>26510655
>>26510713
Thank you based Proxy
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>>26504172

Relations would be oddly cool with the Salarian Union following the establishment of the TEZ. The fast talking amphibians never attempted to enforce their will upon transhumanity, nor were they spreading falsehoods and hatred about the newcomers. They did not try to pass their word off as the wisdom of a superior race, nor did they attempt to tighten restrictions on the already confined transhumans. Somewhat hopeful about future relations, transhuman ambassadors were met with stony silence.

As it turned out, it was the Salarians who were a major driving force behind the creation of the Zone. Knowing full well the danger a technologically advanced race with their information warfare ability could pose, the Salarians believed that the best course of action was to simply lock them away and hope they never became a problem again, at least not until they were good and ready to deal with the transhumans.

They feared the impact a rampaging Turian armada could have, forcing the transhumans to become actively hostile, rather than simply a terrifying potential threat. They also view the Asari attempts to reform the transhumans as woefully naive. Thus, the Salarians took to their usual methods, observe the subject, and determine the most efficient course of action.

They continue to observe the transhumans on a fairly continual basis, though they have yet to find the lynchpin they are searching for.
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>>26510893

Whilst the negotiations with transhumanity went fairly well by the standards of the citadel races, there was one aspect of them which continued to cause them concern. Transhumanity had agreed to the terms of the TEZ very quickly, and without much of any conflict or dispute. The citadel races worried that this meant that transhumanity could either easily circumnavigate the restrictions placed upon them, or that they were not nearly as restraining as their creators hoped.

In reality, both were true, to an extent.

The citadel races believed that only allowing transhumanity to spread to certain systems, with no eezo supplies, and only four garden worlds would strangle their development, and force them to slow down. Meanwhile the citadel races would continue to colonize new worlds and further gain strength, cementing their superiority over the frightening newcomers.

They underestimated the resolve, and adaptability of transhumanity.

Transhumans proved themselves to be able to live almost anywhere. The garden worlds they were permitted were swiftly settled with large cities, but their settlements hardly ended there. In fact, they just got more interesting.
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>>26510988
Ah, the "Fuck you, we can plunk down habitats on the moon and colonize the sun" part.
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>>26510988

When the Systems Alliance colonizes a system, they arrive with a host of ships being pulled by a mass effect tug, if the system did not contain a mass relay. Those ships then disengage and head to the various sites for development throughout the system. Habitats and colony sites are all pre-designed before the ships arrived, leaving the entire infrastructure and layout of the system all planned out in advance.

Nuestro Shells and torus rings float in Lagrange points, Hamilton cylinders are seeded in the rings of gas giants, and aerostats float in their atmospheres, if the weather permits them to be built. Orbital elevators are dropped to planetary surfaces, and new morphs are designed or augmented to breathe exotic atmospheres. The initial colony ships carry the colonists as infomorphs in their main databases, with synth and biomorphs in cold storage to maximise storage space, which is at a premium on the ME tug ships.

Had there been any citadel native present, they would have been amazed to see colonists living in the Oort clouds as well as Surayas living in the very coronas of stars. Most exotic were the processor locus stations. These 'habitats' were simply floating computer banks housing a population of infomorphs, allowing a massive population to be sustained with a fraction of the size and resources needed to maintain physical bodies.

Simply put, given their ability to colonize so many different locales with equal ease, the TEZ contained enough space for transhumanity to expand and thrive for centuries, if not far longer.
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>>26494844
Actually considering a Eclipse Phase Destroyer, a Destroyer will utterly rape a Drednought with all that antimatter, if it is able to deploy a fraction of it.

The main advantage in space in the Shanxi Incident for the aliens is the superior mobility via Ezzo superiority. EP holds the advantage in energy generation, Power output and weaponry.


Also you can make it so that Sanxi is a fucking nothing before the war, thus allowing the Turian military to deal with them without having EP warships in orbit.

>>26495008
Seriously? Hacking Warships? That does not happen unless you can gain physical access, and that can be easily prevented.

To be able to pull that off you are either using TITAN (read GM) bullshit or the PC is criminaly incompetent.
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>>26495343
The Jovian Junta most likely will be in the SA by dint of having the at least second largest if not the largest military force, depending on how you play the PC buildup, but i agree with:
>>26511479 In regards to PC vs AA, the PC will utterly stomp them if they want fixed points. The advantage of AA is dispersal, and they would have to fight the PC on PC terms of fixed assets. What they can do is harass that long ass logistics line to the Charon Relay, and be the first to shit out people through it.


Also, I seriously do not see any reason to organize a Systems Alliance at all. In fact that is very unEP like. Transhumanity is likely to not band together at all, and such a organization is going to exist only in the minds of the Council if it does com up, probably via memetics that all Transhumans agree on is better to project so that each part of them can get a superior bargaining position, and leaving out the part where Transhuman faction would rather rip one another to tiny bits then fight the council.
Also one thing i find lacking in any EP /ME setting is Earth, considering the large number of potential survivors, Earth in the time frame involved could have been either reclaimed or resurging with a vengeance.

Also regarding TEZ, it would be better to call it a Transhuman Containment Zone, because its going to be more porous and pliable than a child resulting from a swiss cheese, whipped foam and a used up car wash sponge.
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>>26511613
>Reclaimed when only 10 years have passed and there are still active deathbots on Earth and various parts of the Moon and Mars.
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>>26511613
>Reclaimed in the next two centuries AF.
I don't think so bud.
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>>26504332
Have you read how much Antimatter a Eclipse Phase Destroyer boasts?

A EP destroyer can skullfuck a Reaper Dreadnought.


What you should focus is EP inherent politics. all the EP characters i played and all the policies i played with in or against would be more interested in fucking up the PC, the Autonomists, the fucking spacemonster robots, search for the highest bidder or be happily engaging in consensual murder and orgy and not give one fuck.

The only Thing stopping a EP power from taking over parts of Citadel space in large swaths are other EP powers fucking it up for the one which attempts it, because Fuck them!

And Factors would totally fit it as something that either tried to play transhumanity the fool or things that do not use the relay network.
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>>26511260

With the TEZ firmly in place, and Quarians having no official relations with the citadel itself, the Quarian race had no official relations with transhumanity. That said, the opinions of the Quarians towards the transhumans were many and varied, often resulting in passionate debate and disagreements between differing factions.

On the one hand, many believed (rightfully so) that the advanced medical knowledge of transhumanity would be able to begin correcting their failed immune systems. Truthfully, they could have fixed the problem within the current generation, but the Quarians did not know this because of the Turian enforced communication blackout and propaganda.

This faction believed that a relationship between the Quarians and transhumanity would be the solution to many of the races problems.

On the other hand, transhumanity was the embodiment of many things the Quarians both hated and feared. Rampant AI research, to the point where synthetic beings were a large part of the population, the creation of violent combat AI who destroyed their homeworld and are now on the loose, everything Quarians have nightmares about. This faction more or less bought the Turian propaganda, or simply invented their own, and see any relationship with transhumanity as the final, fatal, mistake of the already threatened Quarian race.

The debate rages on, with neither side gaining any advantage over the other.
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>>26511737
I don't know why, but this post made me realize how large the snuff, gore, and child porn industries must be in EP.
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>>26511737

The Systems Alliance is less like the canon Alliance, and more like the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation. Each faction retains a sovereign authority over its own holdings. They compete, bluster, intimidate, and compete against each other, but when faced with an external issue they band together.

When alien races are threatening to invade your space, a rational being is not going to ignore them in favor of bickering with your neighbor about contract law, you get together and fight off the dirty finger-quoting bastards.

As for the power of EP ships vs ME ships, Eezo is everything. With Eezo, council ships are insanely fast compared to what transhumans can field, and mount regenerating energy shielding, as well as formidable ordinance.

Systems Alliance ships compensate by simply being heavily armored computer banks with gigantic mass accelerators and engines, but the simple fact is that the council fields faster ships, with shields, and FTL on every craft, and they field a lot more of them. It would be a tough fight, but the massive weight of numbers would keep transhumanity from simply curb-stomping every other faction.

If that were the case, this would cease to be interesting.
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>>26511675
>>26511709
And how much time and effort does discovery of Eezo and expansion through the stars imply? Iti s at the very least another 10 years.

Enough that survivor outposts can break free from the killsat network or suborn it, if they find the right codes/command stations / whatever
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>The Starchild Was Right: The Setting
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>>26496328
>wants, needs and desires are infinite.
Gonna have to back up a ridiculous statement like this
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>>26511937
...Well, while there is no way to empirically prove it, it's pretty obvious that no matter how opulent society gets, someone is going to come along who demands MORE opulence.

Also, it's a basic principle of economics.
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>>26511937
Alpha forks of teenagers. Alpha forks of teenagers everywhere.
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>>26511867
EP. Mass Accelerators. This is the part where you are doing something wrong.

They would subvert the setting so hard with long range lasers, antimatter warheads and particle cannons that its not even funny. Why bother to use the limited Eezo on guns when you have perfectly viable alternatives that saves it for propulsion.

Also, weight of numbers will mean little when with some nano hives any disabled citadel ship can be reactivated for the Transhuman force in question in a few weeks.

And considering the heavy Von Neuman ability of each faction they could pump out a inordinate number of war material. If anything the Systems alliance would be the main tool that other factions would use to prevent some other to start a war on its own, getting the System alliance most likely a constantly bad press from the Citadel, and being kept steadfastly less powerful than any serious expeditionary effort a constituent member would be able to mount.
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>>26511893

Earth remains a blighted wasteland, but with the (sort of) unity of the Systems Alliance, plans are underway to invade and retake the cradle of transhumanity.

The reconquest, and subsequent terraform of Earth is a massive undertaking, but preperations are being made to break through the killsats with brute force, and launch a full scale invasion of the planet, after slipping an army though the net to open a beachhead.

This will be accomplished by covert teams infiltrating the planet, and using nanofabrication technology to construct farcasting stations, as well as build combat synths for special forces personnel to sleeve into upon egocasting down.
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>>26511982

I know this ruffles some feathers, but the various factions in the Alliance are not overtly trying to kill or dominate each other. Rather they are working together, with a lot of clenched teeth. They don't like each other, but they are working together in the face of a common threat.

If each faction could field huge armadas of war machines to conquer their enemies, then why are they not seen in the actual fluff of the game? Massed fleet action seems to be a very rare thing in the setting, and building an entire armada will take time and resources, even with nanobots. Nanofabrication is wonderful, but you cannot simply push button and receive universe-conquering armada in a matter of months.
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>>26511937
Take an economics class
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>>26511963
>...Well, while there is no way to empirically prove it, it's pretty obvious that no matter how opulent society gets, someone is going to come along who demands MORE opulence.
No, it's not obvious. You're assuming that current trends and habits are the only possible ones, which is just plain stupid (and hardly applicable to a future society where "humanity" isn't even the same).
>>26511970
I don't even
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>>26512108
You don't know much about how people work, do you.
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>>26512046
Now why would I want to subject myself to pseudoscience?
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>>26504172

I really wonder what Aethyta would have to say about transhumanity, given how much she differed from the standard Matriarch. Hell, I'd be willing to wager it'd be something along the lines of "Tech the fuck up faster you dirty apes, there's a war coming"
>>
You all are acting like the Exsurgent virus isn't out there.

Not to mention- Mass Effect is trying to be space opera. Which is FUN. Silly giant space battleships, alien species with tensions, life and death drama, all that fun stuff.

Eclipse Phase being introduced to it just ruins it all. It's just "Humanity colonizing Africa, LOL" now.
>>
For all the shit posting caused by bringing up the EP and mass effect crossover on this board it will never be worse then the actual Mass Effect 3.

Seriously, you fuckers just messing around put more effort into it and respected the source material more then bioware did with their own damn game.

Fuck, I just hate them so much now.
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>>26513551
Amen brudda.
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Thought somebody might like these
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>>26515234
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>>26515245
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>>26515257
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>>26515264
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>>26515234
>>26515245
>>26515257
>>26515264
>>26515284

In case anybody cares I have absolutely no Idea who made these. If anybody does then sauce would be appreciated
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>>26515314
Why do you want to know sauce?
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>>26515257
>Canaries

Huh. That's actually pretty spooky, but makes sense as far as ideas go.
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>>26515383
because they're neat
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>>26515515
Well, it was made by an anon 3 years ago. That's all I've got.
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>>26515234
>>26515245
>>26515257
>>26515264
>>26515284
Shit, these are great. Saved them all, anyone know if he ever made more, like for the Vorcha or Volus?
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>>26515769
I think there was one more for Batarians. Lemme see if I can find it.
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>>26515314
>>26515769

Those stat blocks are alright as long as you drop all aptitude maximums by 10 or so, because aptitude of 10 is the average for baseline humans and 15 is the absolute maximum for baselines, or the transhuman average.

Mass effect didn't play the 'puny earthling' card hard enough and the citadel races don't engage in nearly as much enhancement as transhumanity to justify those statlines.
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>>26516013
That would make humans crazy overpowered, mechanically. Like, god-men walking.
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>>26515437
I don't get it. Some one mind explaining it to me?
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>>26516046
>Like, god-men walking.

And they aren't?

The aptitude maximum reduction would make transhumans OP as fuck true, but you could give alien exceptional aptitude qualities for their egos and morphs on their chosen specialty.

Other than that I can't think of any justification for them to have almost post-human stats.
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>>26516164
In the old days, coal miners would take canaries down with them in the mines. The little birds would die well before the humans- so if the bird died, the people would know to bug out immediately before the gas could get them too.

So, I'm guessing Quarians, due to their immune systems, would act similarly to canaries when it came to the whole spectrum of subtle fuck you viruses out there that in transhuman space.
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Righto, I'm back.

Anyone have any questions? I am far too tired to write OC tonight.
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>>26516218
But wouldn't their environmental suits protect them from anything they might encounter? I see the connection, I guess I was just over thinking it.
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>>26516260
Against nano viruses that already laugh at transhuman environmental suits? Quarians would drop like flies. Not even talking about the exsurgent virus.
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>>26516302
Ah, I know little of Eclipse Phase, so that makes more sense. Thanks.
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Isn't there the entire colonization effort through the Pandora Gates?
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>>26516253
I dunno.

What do you think of the species sheets.
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>>26516413

True, but I am unsure if they should be included in this crossover. They sort of clash with the mass relays, and make the entire point of the TEZ entirely null and void, removing all conflict it could likely create for transhumanity.
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>>26516423

Let me take a closer look see...
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>>26516441

They look fairly decent, not that I have the most experience with the actual mechanics of EP, I know the fluff a lot better.

Though I don't see why Krogan take a hit to fine manipulation, they have as many fingers as the Quarians and Turians, who seem to get along just fine.
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>>26516428
I like the idea of having them transport through space and time, possible making transhumanity the creators of the Reapers.

Or just have the pandora gates lead to places in other galaxies or other universes entirely, but no known ones existing in the Milky Way.
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>>26516428
Well the thing is if you look at Council Space, you notice they only cover like half the Galaxy. Most of it is "Wild Space" and seeing how opening new MRs could lead to another Rachni Invasion I don't think there's been a new relay opened in awhile. Which was why Turians attacked Humanity in ME, they were opening up unknown MRs.
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I just liked it with the Batarian specter as the hero, with the dangerous transhumans at the periphery.
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>>26516617
>>26516587

The issue is not where the gates go, but that they go anywhere at all.

They allow transhumanity to circumvent the primary restriction of the TEZ, the restriction on the space they can occupy, without even having to really try at it.

I personally prefer the Alliance to have to work within its means, rather than simply shrug and go on colonizing other planets that the council doesn't know about.
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>>26516647

If I were writing this, the protagonist would be good old Commander Shepard.

The Batarian Commander would be the 'Inspector Javert' of the story, a well meaning antagonist, who opposes the protagonists without actually being a true villain. Through the right side objectives and conversation options, you would be able to fully convert him to your side, and become true allies.
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>>26516656
Can't you make the gates do anything you want?

You could make them two-way, letting anything on the other side come in once they're open. And once they're open, they want to stay open. So the Alliance triggers the first gate, it locks open, and a flood of nasties starts pouring out. Or a Reaper. Anything at all, as long as it's a potent threat.

Make messing with the gates a risky and possibly suicidal proposition.
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>>26516656
Well my understanding of it is that the Pandora gates aren't really well known and it's easy to go in one and never come back, or go through, set up the start of a colony, then have the gate go out and never reappear again, leaving you forever stranded. If I'm not misremembering, then the gates would pose sporadic, random spurts of slow, small growth and exploration, while the relays controlled by the citadel would offer much greater stability as well as relevance with our neighbors.
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>>26516778
There's a few stable "addresses" from what I understand.
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>>26516778

Sometime you vanish mid transit, but I don't remember a gate up and vanishing.

Personally, I prefer to stick to the mass relays, I love the gates, but one form of FTL interstellar portal seems like enough for one fictional universe.
>>
What about the other "rouge" races in mass effect. I mean the Krogan could not give much of a fuck about what the council says and some factions or individuals inside the SA could be more than willing to help them with the genophage or work around it.
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>>26516854

Krogan think that meeting transhumanity could be very useful, and they respect fellow Turian killers.

Many Krogan die every year attempting to run the Turian blockade of the TEZ, thus far none have made it through.

Or if they did, they never came back from transhuman space.
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Well TEZ isn't going to stop Transhumanity from claiming areas that are beyond the zone. After all Council isn't everywhere, and there's still the Terminus Systems.
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>>26516993

Transhumans would probably get through, but if their colony is discovered it would mean war.

The Alliance is enforcing the blockade from their side as well, knowing they have plenty of room to grow for a very long time in the systems they have, and want to get back on a better footing before any future conflicts.
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>>26517018
There's no Council presence in Terminus Systems. It's a lawless place, not unlike the Wild West. So council law doesn't apply.
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>>26517112
That only arose after the Batarians Hegemony broke from the Council over the human/batarian wars. Without humans being friendly on the council, the Terminus Systems have no reason to split.
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>>26517148

In fact, the council and Batarians are now buddy-buddy, at least that's what they like to say.

Really, the Batarians are like the Krogan with the Rachni, a nice convinient tool to use against an enemy the theoretically invincible Turian's can't seem to beat.

I must sleep now, goodnight.
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Bump to keep it on the board until tomorrow.
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>>26494514
My reaction after reading the title, please, this is going to take a while to get through and be fully understood (its close to bed time for me) would any anon be able to give me the tl;dr in all it's shortened glory?
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>>26521058

The discovery of element zero prompts the factions of eclipse phase to start working together in a semblance of cooperation, and form the Systems Alliance.

They go on a colonizing spree, and settle many new star systems, and eventually get into the first contact war with the Turians.

Diplomacy ensues, and in order to avoid another war, transhumans agree to be quarantined in their own space for the foreseeable future.
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>>26511785

Similarly to the Quarians, the Krogan have no direct contact or diplomatic relations with transhumanity. However, there is a certain fascination from each side towards the other. From the Krogan side, feeling are mixed. While they have no reason to dislike transhumanity, many Krogan are simply uncaring about the newcomer race, or what they might have to offer. Others however, who have heard whispers of the truth through the Turian propaganda, are much more interested in transhumanity, specifically their medical knowledge and nanotechnology. These factions believe that transhumanity might have a cure for their genophage, and desperately wish to establish friendly contact.

From the transhuman side, transhumanity sees a sort of kindred spirit in the Krogan. Each was put down by the council, each was quarantined in a comparatively tiny blot of space. Why, had the transhumans not had the military might of the Systems Alliance, it would be likely that they would have been confined to their home system, and possibly suffer something on the scape of the genophage, in order to keep them down.

Some factions are already working on a genophage cure, but without fristhand data on either the disease or the Krogan who carry it, their work is conceptual at best.

Meanwhile, Krogan continue to die trying to run the Turian blockade and enter the TEZ. To date, none have made it into transhuman space, or if they did, they never returned.
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>>26522257

Whilst the Geth have no interest in pursuing relationships with any other species unless forced to do so by necessity, the synthetic race does have several interesting viewpoints on transhumanity.

Firstly, they see transhumans as the race most likely to accept them if they were ever to make contact. Between mental uploading, body swapping, and the civil rights accorded to AGIs, the Geth could easily make peaceful first contact, which would likely lead into friendship and further diplomatic ties. If the Turians were not blockading transhuman space, that is. On the other hand, there are those within the consensus who are more wary of transhumanity, being concerned about the hacking prowess of the new race, specifically that of their purpose-built AGI hackers. Such a race could pose a significant threat to the Geth, and their long term goals.

Irregardless, the Geth simply wish to be left alone, to construct their mega-structures in peace, and follow their own path. As such, they have made no efforts to reach out to transhumanity, but remain observant about the movements and activities of the new race.
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>>26522435

I must go to work now, I will see you all later.
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>>26522435
>irregardless
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>>26522866

Also meaning regardless, or in spite of
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>>26522866
Everyone someone posts a comment like yours, I laugh, because it's a proper word that has been in use for over 200 years.


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