Tags: eclipse phase

Doksleepless

Eclipse Phase Character Diary: 1

 
Well... that was an abrupt introduction to this new century and to the new nature of mankind. While we're based in the asteroid belt we spent most of our time on Mars, Titan and an O'Neill platform. This whole 'swapping bodies' thing doesn't sit too well with me and, like the AI in our shuttlecraft, I bemoan the lack of decent in-system travel. The bodyshock of swapping bodies is not something I particularly care for. I have a feeling I'm going to have to invest in a series of bodies around the solar system - and beyond - along a standard model, to reduce my bodyshock. I may well split my personality apart and reintegrate periodically. There's just too much to this new world that I want to see, to do, to explore. The cheaper bodies also lack sensation, but a cheap solution to that is the tawdry 'pornobots' or 'pleasure pods' they have which at least come with a good sensory suite.
 
My unease at transporting my conciousness around - honestly I still wonder if all this is just residual electrical activity in my vitrified brain - has been made worse by our first investigation into 'ego-napping'. If a consciousness can be kidnapped, torn apart, retooled and used to 'patch' other, damaged conciousnesses, I'm not especially keen on making my consciousness vulnerable by beaming it left, right, up, down or wherever else.
 
This is also going to sound odd... but investigating a glorified kidnapping and 'organlegging' operation, however rewarding in terms of reputation and the goodwill of the anti-corp Barsoomians, seems a trifle... ordinary, when the other thing on our investigative radar is so much bigger. A stealthed wormhole gate, powered by a dangerous - and apparently massless - miniature protostar. That sounds far, far more exotic and interesting but then, perhaps, that's why the others seem reluctant to investigate it.
 
I'm not sure I'm cut out for this work, countering 'existential threats' (shouldn't that be eschatological threats?). I'm really not good in a fight and my contributions to the danger we've faced have been shooting a 'radio' and deliberately falling down the stairs. Not my classiest moment. Still, we put paid to the 'Asynch' who was behind the ego-nappings (words cannot express how disappointed I am to find out that Uri Gellar's nonsense has some sort of actual basis) and I have discovered that my knowledge, however patchy, of Pre-Fall Earth and 20th/21st Century pop culture is greatly valued. I have a feeling it's going to make me something of a minor celebrity, especially if I keep mingling with artists.

After being confined to the Earth for my lifetime it's strange how, already, being limited to the asteroid belt, to the solar system, feels confining.
 
Jon Darrow, signing off.
 
Doksleepless

Eclipse Phase Character Diary

 
My name is Jon Darrow.

I used to write science-fiction stories during that tricky period when reality was out-accelerating our imagination. As fast as we could come up with concepts and applications of bleeding-edge science engineers and scientists would conquer them and move on. It was a dying form of fiction but a growing form of speculation. We had become weathermen, economists, prognosticists, shaman even. Trying to navigate the waters of possibility that stretched before us and deal with the social issues before they came along.

I lead a good life. I sold a lot of books. I became something of an internet guru. I guested at conventions, I consulted on social and technology issues, films and games were made of my books and I made a pile of money. I never married, I don't know what happened to the children I had from the relationships I had. I grew old and fat, my indulgences caught up with me and eventually there was no option left but to die.
 
In a wild throw of the dice, a gamble on the future, I paid good money to have my head cut off and frozen with cutting edge technology. Hedging against the idea that someone would resurrect me in the future.
 
I'm told my head was taken and interred in a facility on The Moon.
 
I'm told that it wasn't 'economically viable' to resurrect me for some time and then 'The Fall' happened. So I languished. A dead severed head in a pool of liquid nitrogen for... well, nobody really knows how long.
 
Then I woke up in the future.
 
I woke up young and virile, bright eyed and bushy tailed into one of my novels.
 
The future is strange and terrible and beautiful, it is terrifying and exciting, it is not - quite - what we imagined. It is neither dystopian nor utopian. We have not overcome our social ills, we are still human - and others - we just have greater capability.
 
Firewall tell me that they value me for my outlook, my experience in extrapolation. They worked out who I was from fragmentary records and saw fit to bring me back. I am not about to argue. I'm a temporal tourist here and they're paying my way. If I can help, then I can 'stay' longer and I can experience more and even the horrors make me smile.
 
In my time I explored the universe from a computer in my office. Now the universe is really there to be explored.
 
I'll take it.