Mesh

Before the Fall, humanity interfaced with each other through the internet, interconnected networks that served as the technical backbone for the evolving world wide web. While it began as a electronic medium for retrieving information from various sources (replacing even older paper-based info-sources), succeeding generations emphasized digital communities and hosted services such as networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. These facilitated openness, collaboration, and sharing, thereby laying the groundwork for a modern, interconnected information society. Further stages emphasized wireless interaction, geolocation, and semantic web approaches and achieved quantum leaps in the realm of user interaction with the advent of brain-computer interfaces, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and experience playback (XP).

This environment, coupled with the exponential growth of processing power and memory storage, created an evolutionary path for the development of intelligent agents—designed to augment human information processing—that then transformed into artificial intelligences (AIs) in the following decades. While these “weak” AIs did not possess the full range of human cognitive abilities, tended towards overspecialization, and were restrained by programmed limitations, the digital evolution toward artificial general intelligences (AGIs)—”strong” AIs with intelligence capabilities that equaled or exceeded human abilities—could not be halted. From this point it was but a matter of time before so-called seed AI would come into existence, machine minds capable of recursive self-improvement, leading to an exponential growth in intelligence. Unfortunately for humanity, the TITANs were the result.

Even before the Fall, however, the internet of old was transforming into something new. Instead of connecting via central servers, users were wirelessly linking to each other, creating a decentralized intermeshed network of handheld devices, personal computers, robots, and electronic devices. Users were online all of the time and connected with everything and everyone around them in a ubiquitous computing environment. This was especially true of those participating in humanity’s expansion into space. Disconnected from the internet due to distance and light-speed communication lags, these users were nevertheless connected with all of the people and objects in their nearby environment or habitat, creating local wireless mesh networks. Thus was the mesh born, taking the place of the old internet of earth, lost during the Fall.

Mesh Capabilities

The mesh, as it exists in Eclipse Phase, is only possible thanks to major developments made in computer and communication technologies and nanofabrication. Wireless radio transmitters and receivers are so unobtrusively tiny that they can literally be factored into anything. As a result, everything is computerized and connected, or at least tagged with a radio frequency ID (RFID) chip. Even food is tagged with edible chips, complete with expiration date and nutritional content. Other communications mediums, such as laser and microwave links, add to the information flow. Data storage technology has advanced to such high levels that even an individual user’s surplus storage capacity can maintain an amount of information easily surpassing the entire 20th-century internet. Lifeloggers can literally record every moment of their life and never fear about running out of room. The amount of data that people carry around in the mesh inserts in their head or in portable ecto personal computers is staggering. Processing capabilities also exist at hyper-efficient levels. Even massive supercomputers are a thing of the past when modest handheld devices can fulfill almost all of your needs, even while simultaneously running a personal AI assistant, downloading media, uploading porn, and scanning thousands of newsfeeds. Within the mesh network, devices that near their processing limits simply share the burden with devices around them, creating a massively distributed framework that in some ways is like an entire supercomputer to itself, shared by everyone. Similarly, transmission capacity now far exceeds most citizens’ definition of need. Anyone born within the last several generations has always lived in a world in which hyper-realistic, multi-sensory media of nearly any length is available for instantaneous download or upload from anywhere. Massive databases and archives are copied back and forth with ease. Bandwidth is such a non-issue that most people forget it ever was. In fact, given the sheer amount of data available, finding the information or media you’re looking for takes considerably longer than downloading it. The mesh is also never down. As a decentralized network, if any one device is taken offline, connections merely route around it, finding a path via the thousands if not millions of available nodes. Similarly, the entire mesh behaves like a peer-to-peer network, so that large transfers are broken into manageable chunks that take independent routes. In fact, most users maintain personal torrent archives that are publicly accessible and shared. Private networks still exist, of course. Some are physically walled away behind closed-access wired networks or even wireless-inhibiting infrastructure that keep a network isolated and contained. Most, however, operate on top of the public mesh, using encrypted tunneling protocols that provide private and secure communications over unsecured networks. In other words, these private networks are part of the mesh along with everything else, but only the participants can interact with them thanks to encryption, user authentication, and message integrity checking. With the factionalization of transhumanity, attempts to unify software into standard formats have still failed. However, different operating systems or protocols are rarely an obstacle anymore due to easily accessible conversion tools and AI-aided compatibility oversight.

Solarchive Search: Ecto(-link)

A very popular brand of mobile multifunctional personal digital assistant before the Fall, the ecto name became a synonym for handheld personal computers in the Mesh Age. Standard implanted computers are also sometimes referred to as endos to reflect the difference between an external and an internal device. No matter if ecto or endo, modern computers are governed by an operating system (OS), a multifunctional suite of programs that includes media tools, a mesh browser, locator, socializing programs (messenger, socnet updater), cartography and navigation software, language translation software, and similar software tools. OS designs are highly customizable, allowing plug-and-use add-ons for whatever additional software and gadgets are desired. Typically, the user’s muse (personal AI assistant) facilitates software interactions. The ecto itself is typically the size of 20th-century credit card and can be molded and shaped into different forms due to smart material construction. They are often worn as jewelry or clothing accessories, particularly bracelets. The user interface varies according to user preference. Wireless-enabled contacts and earbuds equip users who lack mesh implants, enabling them to experience augmented reality and the ecto’s AR control interface. Standard entoptic control interfaces are also available via wireless radio, skinlink, and direct fiberoptic line.

Sidebar: Legacy of the Titans

Given the technical capabilities of modern personal computers, supercomputers and cutting-edge wired broadband are not needed. But there is another reason they are avoided: the TITANs. Mainframes, hive-mind clusters, and massively parallel distributed computing parallel hive-mind systems are all considered potential dangers in Eclipse Phase, as they possess sufficient processing power and data capacity to enable a seed AI and another potential hard takeoff singularity. Some habitats go so far as to outlaw such systems completely under the severest of penalties: final death including the deletion of all backups and recent forks, in most cases. Those supercomputers that habitats do allow are “hard networks” that control a habitat’s most crucial systems like orbit maintenance thrusters, life support, communications, power, or cutting-edge hypercorp R&D projects. These systems are typically physically wired, heavily monitored, and locked down in electronic data processing centers with strong access restrictions and ruthless real-world security measures. Similarly, AIs themselves are quite often heavily restricted, and it is not unusual for AGIs to be outright banned, especially in the inner system and Jovian Republic. Most intelligent programs are limited with programmed growth restraints, specifically designed to prevent them from becoming self-upgrading.

Meshing Technologies

Almost all biomorphs in the solar system are equipped with basic mesh inserts—implanted personal computers. These implants are grown in the brain via non-intrusive nanosurgery. The processor, wireless transceiver, storage devices, and other components are directly wired to the user’s cerebral neuronal cells and cortical centers responsible for language, speech, and visual perception among others. Thought-to-communication emulations (so called transducing) enables the user to control the implant just by thinking and to communicate without vocalizing. Input from the mesh inserts is transmitted directly into the brain and sometimes perceived as augmented reality, overlaid on the user’s physical senses. In a similar vein, the mesh inserts installed in synthmorphs and pods are directly integrated with their cyberbrains (creating a potential security concern as cyberbrains are vulnerable to hacking). External devices called ectos are also used to access the mesh, though these are growing increasingly rare given the prevalence of mesh inserts. Ecto interface options include haptic interfaces like touch-display controls, bracelets or gloves that detect arm, hand, or finger movements (virtual mouse and keyboards), eye tracking and blink control, body scanning grids (body axis control or all-limb controls for non-humanoids), voice controls, and more. Sensory information is handled via lenses, glasses, earplugs (subdermal bone-vibrating speakers), bodysuits, gloves, nose plugs, tongue dams, and other devices that are wirelessly linked to (or physically plugged into) the ecto.

Information Overload

The mesh contains massive amounts of personal and public information shared by users, a digital commons of news, media, discourse, knowledge, environmental data, business, and culture. Transhumans embrace the mesh as a tool for exchange, communication, and participation with other users, both local and far away. As such, the mesh is an up-to-date, authoritative source on all transhuman knowledge and activities. Not everything online is available for free, of course, except perhaps in the autonomist zones. Quite a bit of proprietary data is kept off the grid in secure storage or sequestered away in private networks. Some of this is for sale, and heavily encumbered with digital restrictions—software, media, nanofabrication blueprints, skillsofts, etc. A thriving open source movement offers free and open source alternatives to much proprietary data, however, and numerous digital piracy groups deal out cracked versions of proprietary material, despite pressure from some authorities. Other data is simply secured from competitive interests (hypercorp research projects) or is an extremely private affair, such as ego backups.

Spimes

Along with the accumulated data of transhuman affairs, the mesh is also cluttered with information derived from untold numbers of wireless-capable sensor-enabled devices that continuously update the mesh with their location, sensor recordings, and other data. Colloquially called “spimes,” these location-aware, environment-aware, self-logging, self-documenting objects broadcast their data to anyone who cares to listen. Since visual, auditory, and other sensors are absurdly tiny and inexpensive, they are ubiquitously incorporated into nearly every object or product a person might wear, apply, use, or internalize. This allows almost any user to reach out through the mesh and gather environmental data and ambient sensor recordings from a specific location (or at least public locales—private areas typically block such signals or slave them to a local AI that filters their output).

Surveillance, Privacy and Sousveillance

While spimes are easily trackable, they also contribute to an environment of universal surveillance. Between spimes, microsensors, ubiquitous security systems, and the recording capabilities of the mesh inserts used by almost everyone, just about everything is recorded. Factor in the availability of mesh-tracking, facial recognition, rep/social networks, and other data mining software, and it rapidly becomes clear that privacy is an outdated concept. Special considerations must be embraced by anyone that seeks to mask their identity or cover their movements. Alternately, off-the-shelf looks common with some morphs (especially synthmorphs and pods) allow a user to blend in with the masses. Though in part this may seem an Orwellian surveillance nightmare, the abundance of recording tech actually works as “sousveillance” (watching from below), serving a role in making everything transparent and putting checks on abuses of power. Authoritarian regimes tread carefully, as they are also universally monitored, despite their attempts to control information flow. Many people also willing participate in this open “participatory panopticon.” With nearly infinite storage capacity, dedicated lifeloggers record every moment of their lives and share it for others to experience.

Sidebar: Information at Your Fingertips

The following information is always available for most mesh users in a normal habitat:

Local Conditions

• Local maps showing your current location, annotated with local features of personal interest (according to your personal preferences and fi lters) and your distance from them/directions to them. Details regarding private and restricted areas (government/hypercorp areas, maintenance/security infrastructure, etc.) are usually not included.
• Current habitat life support (climate) conditions including atmosphere composition, temperature.
• Current solar system and habitat orbit maps with trajectory plots, communication delays.
• Local businesses/services, directions, and details.

Local Mesh

• Public search engines, databases, mesh sites, blogs, forums, and archives, along with new content alerts.
• Syndicated public newsfeeds in a variety of formats, filtered according to your preferences.
• Sensor/spime (mostly audio-visual) feeds from any public area of the habitat.
• Private network resources (including tactical nets).
• Automatic searches for new online references to your name and other subjects of interest.
• E-tags pertaining to local people, places, or things.
• Facial/image recognition searches of public mesh/archives to match a photo/vid still.

Personal Information

• Morph status indicators (medical and/or mechanical): blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, white cell count, nutrient levels, implant status and functionality, etc.
• Location, functionality, sensor feeds, and status reports of your possessions (via sensors and transmitters in these possessions).
• Access to one’s life-spanning personal audio-visual/XP archive.
• Access to one’s life-spanning personal file archive (music, software, media, documents, etc.).
• Credit account status and transactions.

Social Networks

• Communications account status: calls, messages, files, etc.
• Reputation score and feedback.
• Social network status, friend updates.
• Updated event calendar and alerts.
• The public social network profiles of those around you.
• The location and status of those nearby and involved in the same AR games as you.

Interfacing: AR, VR, and XP

Mesh media is accessed using one of three protocols: augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), or experience playback (XP).

Augmented Reality

Most users perceive data from the mesh as augmented reality—information overlaid on the user’s physical senses. For example, computer-generated graphics will appear as translucent images, icons, or text in the user’s field of vision. While visual AR data—called entoptic data—is the most common, other senses may also be used. AR input includes acoustic sounds and voices, odors, tastes, and even tactile sensations. This sensory data is high-resolution and seemingly “real,” though it is usually presented as something ghostly or otherwise artificial so as not to be confused with real-world interactions (and also to meet safety regulations). User interfaces are customized to the user’s preferences and needs, both graphically and content-wise. Filters allow users to access the information they are interested in without needing to worry about extraneous data. While AR data is typically placed in the user’s normal field of vision, entoptics are not actually limited by this and may be viewed in the “mind’s eye.” Nevertheless, icons, windows and other interaction prompts can be layered, stacked, toggled, hidden, or shifted out of the way if necessary to interact with the physical world.

Avatars

Every mesh represents themselves online via a digital avatar. Many people use digital representations of themselves, whereas other prefer more iconic designs. This may be an off-the-shelf look or a customized icon. Libraries of avatars may also be employed, enabling a user to switch their representation according to mood. Avatars are what other users see when they deal with you online—i.e., how you are represented in AR. Most avatars are animated and programmed to reflect the user’s actual mood and speech, so that the avatar seems to speak and have emotions.

E-tags

Entoptic tags are a way for people to “tag” a physical person, place, or object with a piece of virtual data. These e-tags are stored in networks local to the tagged item, and move with the item if it changes location. E-tags are viewable in AR, and can hold almost any type of data, though short notes and pictures are the most common. E-tags are often linked to particular social networks or circles within that network, so that people can leave notes, reviews, memorabilia media, and similar things for friends and colleagues.

Skinning

Since reality can be overlaid with entoptics of hyperreal quality, modern users can “skin” their reality by modifying their perceptual input. Environments around them may be modified to �fi their particular tastes or mood. Need your spirits boosted? Pull up a skin that makes it seems like you're outdoors, with the sun shining down, the sounds of gentle surf in the background, and butterflies drifting lazily overhead. Pissed off? Be comforted as flames engulf the walls and thunder grumbles ominously in the distance. It is not uncommon for people to go about their day, accompanied by their own personal soundtrack that only they can hear. Even olfactory and taste receptors can be artificially stimulated to experience sensations like the smell of roses, fresh air, or freshly-baked pastries. While originally developed to make “space food” less distasteful and as a method to counter space-induced cabin fever for those that weren’t born in space, vast archives of aromas, tastes, and environments are available for download. Skins do not need to be kept private, they may also be shared with others via the mesh. Tired of your cramped habitat cubicle? Decorate it with a custom-themed skin and share it with visitors to make them feel more comfortable. Found a new music track that livens up your day? Share it with others around you, so they can nod to the same beat. Skinning can also be used for the opposite effect. Any undesired content of reality can be edited out, veiled, or censored by modern software programs or muses that engage in real-time editing. Tired of looking at someone’s face? Add them to your killfile, and you’ll never have to acknowledge their presence again. AR censorware is also common in some communities with strict religious or moral convictions.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality overrides the user’s physical senses and places them inside an entirely computer-generated environment called a simulspace. While AR is used for all common day activities and interactions, VR is used mainly for recreation (gaming, virtual tourism, escapism), socializing, meeting (when face-to-face meetings are not possible), and training. Dedicated networks with high-capacity information processing are required to render and run large and complex hyper-real simulspaces with many users, and these are often hard-wired for additional stability. Smaller simulspaces capable of hosting a smaller amount of users can be run on a smaller distributed network of linked devices. Many infomorphs and AIs effectively reside within simulspaces, and some transhumans have sworn off the physical world altogether.

Sidebar: Aether Jabber

# Start Æther Jabber ## Active Members: 2 #>>I have to tell you, after losing Kiri and Sal to that Exsurgent infection, my team is a lot more worried about contracting the virus from digital sources. Actually, I’d label them as paranoid. I don’t think they’ll ever touch any salvaged electronics again unless they’re behind a zillion firewalls and the device is completely isolated and tested by a delta fork loaded with every antiviral ware we can find first. Even then, they’d rather shoot it than access directly or hook it up to an important network. After seeing what the virus did to Sal, I don’t blame them.<<In our line of work, paranoia can be healthy.>>Sure, but it’s also a pain in the ass. Security is always a trade-off. Firewall’s gotta have something up its sleeve that I can pass along to the rest to put their guards at ease.<<Yes ... and no. It’s complicated.>>I don’t see why. Do we have a way of detecting and killing this thing or not?<<Sort of.>>You’re killing me.<<Look. Ever since the Fall, we've had measures in place to detect and counteract Exsurgent infections and all of the other worms and malware the TITANs concocted. Firewall went to great lengths to make sure that everyone had access to the detection signatures and countermeasures—and we mean everyone. They’ve been incorporated in almost every commercial and open source security software released in the past decade. Every habitat in the system—well, every one with a lick of sense anyway—employs such measures in their chokepoints and mesh infrastructure.>>I sense a “but.”<<Yes. The problem is that the Exsurgent virus and similar TITAN infowar worms are adaptive. They’re intelligent. Even though we mostly eradicated them from our networks, new versions periodically pop up, using some new trick to get past the Firewall scans and wreak havoc. Our warning and outbreak response system has it down to a science, and such instances are usually contained.>>Usually.<<Well, there’s always the chance that variants are still skipping around out there, under our radar. What’s worse to contemplate, though, is that we may get another major outbreak that spreads to multiple habitats before we can contain it. That might get very, very bad, very, very quickly.

Defying Nature's Laws

A plethora of simulspace environments are available, ranging from simulations of real places to historical recreations to fantastic worlds representing almost every genre imaginable. All of these simulations are bolstered by the fact that possible scenarios are not bound by the laws of nature. The fundamental forces of reality and nature, like gravitation, electromagnetism, atmosphere, temperature, etc., are programmable in VR, allowing for environments that are completely unnatural, such as escheresque simulspace where gravity is relative to position. These domain rules may be altered and manipulated according to the whim of the designer. Time itself is an adjustable constant in VR, though deviation from true time has its limits. So far, transhuman designers have achieved time dilation up to 60 times faster or slower than real time (roughly one minute equaling either one hour or one second). Time slowdown is far more commonly used, granting more time for simulspace recreational activities (more time, more fun!), learning, or work (economically effective). Time acceleration, on the other hand, is extremely useful for making long distance travel through space more tolerable.

Accessing Simulspaces

Most simulspaces can be accessed through the mesh just like any other node. Since VR takes over the user’s sensorium, however, and sometimes involves time perception dilation, users are cut off from other mesh-delivered sensory input and interacting directly with other nodes. Instead, outside mesh interactions are routed through the simulspace’s interface (meaning that a character may browse the mesh, communicate with others, etc. from inside a simulspace, if the domain rules allow it). Since physical senses are overridden when a user accesses VR, most people prefer to rest their body in a safe and comfortable environment while in the simulspace. Body-fitting cushions and couches help users relax and keep them from cramping up or injuring themselves if they happen to thrash around. In case of long-term virtual sojourns (for instance, during space travel), morphs are normally retained in tanks that sustain them in terms of nutrition and oxygen. Many VR entertainment and game networks offer dedicated and hardwired physical VR cafes with private pods. Visitors rent a pod and physically jack in, using either access jacks or an ultrasonic trode net that reads and transmits brain patterns when placed on the head. When accessing a simulspace, the user first enters an electronic buffer “holding space” known as a white room. Here the user chooses a customizable avatar-like persona to represent them in the simulspace, called a simulmorph. From this point, the user immerses themself in the virtual reality environment, effectively becoming their simulmorph.

Experience Playback

Every morph with mesh inserts has the capability to transmit or record their experiences, a form of technology called experience playback, or XP. Since the first programs were developed that provide a simple interface to “snapshot” one's experiences, it has become extremely popular to share XP with friends and social networks, or with the online public at large. The level of experiences depends on how much of the recorded sensory perception is kept when the clip is made. Full XP includes exteroceptive, interoceptive, and emotive tracks. Exteroceptive tracks include the traditional senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste that process the outside world. Interoceptive tracks include senses originating within the body, such as balance, a sense of motion, pain, hunger and thirst, and a general sense of the location of one’s own body parts. Emotive tracks include the whole spectrum of emotions which can be aroused in a transhumans. Due to the biological requirements (neuronal and endocrine systems) of expressing emotions, hardcore XP aficionados deem only the experience in and from biomorphs as the real deal.

Mesh Uses

There are many reasons people use the mesh. The foremost is communication: voice and video calls (typically displaying avatars rather than actual video), electronic messaging (e-mail, instant messaging, microblogging), and file and data transfers. Socializing is also key, handled via social and reputation networks, personal profiles, lifelogging, chats and conferences (both AR and VR), and discussion groups and forums. Information gathering is also at the top, whether its browsing the popular Solarchive or other databases and directories, tapping the latest newsfeeds, browsing mesh sites, tracking your friends, taking lessons in VR, or looking up just about anything conceivable. Recreation rounds out the pack, covering everything from gaming (AR and VR) to experiencing other people’s lives (XP) to VR tourism and club-hopping.

Personal Area Networks

Since everything a person carries is meshed, most people maintain personal area networks that route all of these devices through their mesh inserts or ecto, which acts as a hub. This is both a security measure, ensuring they maintain control over their own accessories, and a convenience factor, as it focuses all of the controls in one place.

Virtual Private Networks

Virtual private networks (VPNs) are communications networks tunneled through the mesh, which are dedicated for a specific group of people. The primary use of VPNs is to create privacy and security for its users, and so they typically use security features such as ego authentication and public key encryption. VPNs are regularly used to mesh mobile offices into a corporate network or mesh people together who work on or contribute a certain project. Other VPNs—particularly social networks and rep networks—operate with minimal security features, simply serving as a network of specific users within the mesh and making it easier to keep in touch, transfer information, make updates, and so on. Most VPNs come as specialized software suites that run custom environmental software that integrates into the user’s normal mesh interface and AR.

Social Networks

Social networks are the fabric of the mesh, weaving people together. They are the means by which most people keep in contact with their friends, colleagues, and allies, as well as current events, the latest trends, new memes, and other developments in shared interests. They are an exceptionally useful tool for online research, getting favors, and meeting new people. In some cases, they are useful for reaching or mobilizing masses of people (as often illustrated by anarchists and pranksters). There are thousands of social networks, each serving different cultural and professional interests and niches. Most social networks allow users to feature a public profile to the entire mesh and a private profile that only those close to them can access. Reputation plays a vital part in social networks, serving as a measure of each person’s social capital. Each person’s reputation score is available for lookup, along with any commentary posted by people who favored or disfavored them and rebuttals by the user. Many people automate their reputation interactions, instructing their muse to automatically ping someone with a good review after a positive action and to likewise provide negative feedback to people with whom the interaction went poorly.

Mobile Offices

Due to the lack of office space and the wireless accessibility of most information, most businesses now operate virtually, with few or no fixed offices or even assets. Instead, individuals have become their own mobile office. Bit-pushers and bureaucrats like hypercorp executives, clerical workers, accountants, and researchers—as well as innovators like artists, writers, engineers, and designers—work wherever they want to. The most prominent example of this phenomenon are the bankers of the Solaris hypercorp. Each employee acts as a mobile one-person banking office, managing transactions via Solaris’s robust VPN. On rare occasions, office environments are run in simulspace with time dilation to maximize efficiency. Since this requires the workers to access a centralized wired network and leave their bodies unattended while accessing simulspace, however, it requires an extra level of physical security that is typical only of some governmental installations and corporate habitats.

Islands in the Net

In the time of Eclipse Phase, information can become outdated quite fast, and the accessibility of new information depends on your location. It’s easy to keep up-to-date on your local habitat/city or planetary body, but keeping current on events elsewhere is typically reliant on the speed of light. If you happen to be in a station in the Kuiper Belt, on the edge of the solar system 50 astronomical units from the terrestrial inner planets, waiting on a message from Mars, the signal carrying the message will be roughly seven hours old when it reaches you. Of course it will only reach you that fast if you are using quantum farcast, which is only limited by the speed of light (not to mention rare and expensive in most habitats). If you are not using a quantum farcaster, the signal may take even longer and is prone to interference and noise, deteriorating the quality and possibly losing some of the content, especially over major distances. Whenever you start dealing with communication between habitats, you have to factor in the light-speed lag, the amount of time it takes even the fastest transmission to reach you. This lag works both ways, so trying to hold a conversation with someone just 5 light-seconds away means that you’re waiting at least 10 seconds to get the reply to whatever you just said. For this reason, AR and VR communications are almost always conducted locally, while standard messaging is used for nonlocal communications. For detailed discussions, it is often simpler to send a fork of yourself to have the conversation and then return. Quantum-entanglement communicators are one solution to this light-speed lag, although a burdensome and expensive one. QE comms allow for faster-than-light communication to an entangled communicator, though each transmission uses up a precious amount of quantum-entangled bits, which are in limited supply. Transmissions made between habitats almost always occur via each station’s massive data relays, where they are then distributed into the local mesh. This bottleneck is often used by authoritarian habitats to monitor data transmissions and even filter or censor certain public non-encrypted content. Some messages are also prioritized over others, potentially meaning further delays. The method of transmission between habitats also sometimes matters. Radio and neutrino broadcasts can be intercepted by anyone, whereas tight-beam laser or microwave links are specifically used as a point-to-point method that minimizes interception and eavesdropping. The use of quantum farcasting using neutrino systems is completely secure, however, and is the most frequently-used intra-habitat link. What these lags, bottlenecks, and prioritizations mean is that some news and data takes a particularly long-time to trickle from one local mesh network to another, passing slowly from habitat to habitat. This means that there are always gradients of information available to different local mesh networks, typically depending on proximity and the importance of the information. Some data even gets lost along the way, never making it further than a habitat or two before it is lost in the noise. The only way to retrieve such information is to track it down to its source.

Darkcasts

“Darkcasts” are ranged communications that go outside of legal and approved channels. Since certain habitats have strict regulations on transmission content, forking, egocasting, infomorphs, muse abilities, and AGI code, underworld groups like the ID crew profit by offering illegal data transmission services. Primarily used for censored data and banned content (like illegal XPs or malware), local organized crime factions also often offer egocasting services complete with resleeving and leasable morphs, allowing egos that prefer discretion to enter or leave a habitat without drawing attention. Though such authorities hunt down these darkcast networks whenever they get a chance, many habitats have a sophisticated darkcast infrastructure that makes use of decoys, temporary communications lines, relays, and regular transmitter relocation—not to mention judicious bribing and blackmailing.

Mesh Abuses

As with all things, the mesh has its darker side. At the basic level, this amounts to flamewar-starting trolls, stalkers, or griefers whose intent is to mess with others for a laugh. At the more organized level, it expands to illicit or criminal enterprises that utilize the mesh, such as selling black/snuff/porn XPs, illegal software, pirated media, or even egos. The most infamous threats—thanks both to the Fall and to the continuous sensationalism applied by media and stern authorities—are, of course, malware and hackers. Given the capabilities of modern hackers and the vulnerability of many habitats—where damage to life support systems could kill thousands—the threat may not be over-exaggerated.

Hackers

Whether individuals who are genuinely interested in exploring new technologies and seeking ways to break them in order to make them better, hacktivists who utilize the mesh in order to undermine the power of authorities, or “black hats” who seek to circumvent network security for malicious or criminal intent, hackers are a permanent fixture of the mesh. Unauthorized network break-ins, infiltration of VPNs, muse subversion, cyberbrain hijacking, data theft, cyber-extortion, identity fraud, denial of service attacks, electronic warfare, spime hijacking, entoptic vandalism—these are all common occurrences on the mesh. Thanks to smart and adaptive exploit programs and assisting muses, even a moderately skilled hacker can be a threat. In order to counter hacking attempts, most people, devices, and networks are protected by a mix of access control routines, automated software intrusion prevention systems, encryption, and layered firewalls, typically overseen by the user’s muse who plays the role of active defender. Extremely sensitive systems—such as space traffic control, life support, power systems, and hypercorporate research facilities—are usually limited to isolated, tightly-controlled, heavily-monitored, hard-wired networks to minimize the risk of intrusion from snoopers and saboteurs. Various countermeasures may be applied against such intruders, ranging from locking them out of the system to tracking them back and counterhacking.

Malware

The number of worms, virii, and other malware programs that ripped through computer systems during the Fall was staggering. Many of these were part of the netwar systems prepared by old Earth nation-states and corporations and unleashed on their enemies. Others were products of the TITANs, subversive programs that even the best defenses had trouble stopping. Even 10 years later, many of these are still reappearing, brought back to life by the accessing of some long-forgotten data cache or the accidental infection of a scavenger mucking through old ruins. New ones pop every day, of course, many of them programmed by criminal hacker out� ts, while others that enter circulation are modifications and variations of suspected TITAN designs, perhaps implying that certain parties are intentionally tinkering with this code and releasing it into the wild. Rumors and whispers circulate that some of these TITAN worms are even more potent and frightening than previously hinted at, with stunning adaptive capabilities and intelligence. These rumors are steadfastly denied by authority figures and security experts ... who then quietly turn around and do their best to ensure that their own networks remain safe.

AIs and Infolife

Self-aware helper programs were originally designed and realized to augment transhuman cognitive abilities. These specialized-focus AIs were then developed into the more complete, independent digital consciousnesses known as AGIs. The further evolution of these digital life forms into seed AIs unfortunately led to the emergence of the TITANs and then the Fall. This created a rift in transhuman society as fear and prejudice turned popular opinion against unrestricted AGIs, an attitude of mistrust that still lingers to this day.

AIs

The term AI is used to refer to narrow, limited-focus AIs. These digital minds are expert programs with processing capabilities equal to or even exceeding that of a transhuman mind. Though they have a personality matrix with individual identities and character, and though they are (usually) conscious and self-aware, their overall complexity and capabilities are limited. The programmed skills and abilities of AIs are typically very specific in scope and aligned towards a particular function, such as piloting a vehicle, facilitating mesh searches, or coordinating the functions of some habitat sub-system. Some AIs, in fact, can only barely be considered sapient, and their emotional programming is usually narrow or non-existent. AIs have a number of built-in safety features and programmed limitations. They must serve and obey the instructions of authorized users within their normal functioning parameters and (in the inner system at least) must also obey the law. They lack self-interest and self-initiative, though they have limited empathy and may be programmed to anticipate the needs and desires of users and preemptively take action on their behalf. Perhaps most importantly, however, is that their psychological programming is specifically based on universal human modes of thought and an understanding and support of transhuman goals and interests. This is part of an initiative to engineer so-called “friendly AIs,” who are programmed with sympathy towards transhumanity and all life and seek out their best interests. In most societies, basic AIs are considered “things” or property rather than people and are accorded no special rights.

Muses

Muses are a specific type of AI designed to function as a personal aide and companion. Most people in Eclipse Phase have grown up with a muse at their virtual side. Muses tend to have a bit more personality and psychological programming than standard AIs and over time they build up an extensive database of their user’s preferences, likes and dislikes, and personality quirks so that they may more effectively be of service and anticipate needs. Muses generally have names and reside within the character’s mesh inserts or ecto, where they can manage the character’s personal area network, communications, data queries, and so on.

Sidebar: What Your Muse Can Do For You

• Make Research Tests to find information for you.
• Scan newsfeeds and mesh updates for keyword alerts.
• Monitor your mesh inserts/ecto/PAN and slaved devices for intrusion.
• Launch countermeasures against intruders.
• Teleoperate and command robots.
• Monitor your Rep score and alert you to drastic changes.
• Automatically provide feedback for other people’s Rep scores.
• Run audio input through an online, real-time language translation system.
• Put you in privacy mode and/or proactively stealth your wireless signal.
• Falsify/fluctuate your mesh ID.
• Track people for you.
• Anticipate your needs and act accordingly, preempting your requests.

AGIs

AGIs are complete and fully operational digital consciousnesses, self-aware and capable of intelligent action at the same level as any transhuman. Most have full autonomy and the capacity for self-improvement by a processing similar to learning—a slow optimization and expansion of their code that features programmed limitations to prevent it from achieving the self-upgrading capabilities of seed AIs. They have more fully-rounded personalities and emotional/empathic abilities than standard AIs, due in part to a development process where they are literally raised within a VR simulation analogous to the rearing of transhuman children, and so are more fully socialized. As a result, they have a fairly human outlook, though some deviation is to be expected, and sometimes is apparent in great degrees. Despite this attempt to humanize AGIs, they do not have the same evolutionary and biological origins that transhumans have, and so their social responses, behavior, and goals are sometimes off-mark or decidedly different. AGIs bear the social stigma of their non-biological origin and are often met with bias and mistrust. Some habitats have even outlawed AGIs or subject them to strict restrictions, forcing such infolife to hide their true natures or illegally darkcast to enter habitats or stations. AGI mind programming emulates transhuman brain patterns sufficiently well that they can be sleeved into biomorphs if they choose.

Sidebar: Nonstandard AIs and AGIs

Not all AIs and AGIs were programmed and designed to adhere to human modes of thought and interests. Such creations are illegal in some jurisdictions, as they are considered a potential threat. Several hypercorps and other groups have initiated research into this field, however, with varying results. In some cases these digital minds are so different from human mindsets that communication is impossible. In others, enough crossover exists to allow limited communication, but such entities are invariably quite strange. Rumors persist that some AIs began their life as transhuman backups or forks, who were then heavily edited and pruned down to AI-level intelligences.

Seed AI

Due to the capability for unlimited self-upgrading, seed AIs have the capacity to grow into god-like digital entities far beyond the level of transhumans or AGIs. They require massive processing power and are always increasing in complexity due to a continual metamorphosis of their code. Seed AIs are too complex to be downloaded into a physical morph, even a synthetic one. Even their forks require impressive processing environments, so doing so is rare. In fact, most seed AIs require the capacities of hard-wired networks to survive. The only seed AIs known to the public are the infamous TITANs who are widely regarded as being responsible for the Fall. In truth, the TITANs were not the � rst seed AIs and will probably not be the last. There are no publicly known TITANs (or other seed AIs) currently residing in the solar system, despite circulating rumors of damaged TITANs who were left behind on Earth, speculated TITAN activity under the clouds of Venus, or whispers of new seed AIs hidden away in secret networks on the edges of the system.

Transhuman Infomorphs

For thousands of infugees, embodying a digital form is their only choice. Some of these are locked away in mesh-separated virtual holding areas or even inactive storage, locked up by habitats who didn’t have enough resources to handle them. Others are imprisoned inside simulspaces, killing time in whatever way they choose until an opportunity to resleeve comes their way. Quite a few are free to roam the mesh, interacting with physically-sleeved transhumans, keeping up with current events, and sometimes even forming activist political blocs to campaign for infomorph rights or interests. Still others find or are forced into virtual careers, slaving away in the digital sweatshops of hypercorps or criminal syndicates. A few find companions who are willing to bring them along in their ghostrider module and become an integral part of their lives, much like a muse. Some transhumans willingly choose the infomorph lifestyle, either for hedonism (custom simulspace and VR games until the end of time), escapism (loss of a loved ones leads them to write off physical concerns for awhile), freedom (go anywhere the mesh takes you—some have even beamed copies of themselves to far distant solar systems, hoping someone or something will receive their signal when they arrive), experimentation (forking and merging, running simulations, and weirder things), or because it is ensured immortality. [ Home | Game Rules ]