Eclipse Phase (Tabletop Game) - TV Tropes. Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. A description of tropes appearing in Eclipse Phase. Humanity stood on the cusp of a new age, with accelerated technological growth converging toward a …. Techno Source Phase 10 Electronic Game DirectionsTechno Source Phase 10 Electronic Game InstructionsWow, this is an awesome list, the first proper one of techno too on listology, well done! A vocoder (/ ˈ v oʊ k oʊ d ər /, short for voice encoder) is a category of voice codec that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data. DJ Mag’s series Game Changers details single tracks that forever changed the development of dance music. The Jungle Brothers can probably be cited as the first real. He’s already turned the zombie genre into the biggest series on television, and now Robert Kirkman is aiming to do the same thing with exorcisms. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it. Humanity stood on the cusp of a new age, with accelerated technological growth converging toward a singularity point, promising an undreamt- of future. Despite the ecopocalypse and social upheavals on Earth, humanity had conquered the solar system and partially terraformed Mars. Advancements in biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science transformed our lives. Everyone was wirelessly networked with the world around them, AIs processed vast amounts of information, and nano- fabrication enables people to print complex devices on the molecular level at home. Biotechnology allowed people to genefix, enhance, and clone their bodies, while others pursued body modifications to adapt to new environments or make themselves into something no longer quite human. People's minds and memories could be digitized, uploaded, transferred over long distances, and downloaded into new bodies (biological or synthetic). Death had been defeated.. From within, disaster struck. Transhumanity reaped the rewards of its arrogance when conflict spiked between the battered nations of Earth, already weakened by decades of climate catastrophes and other disruptive factors. Rampant netwars soon exploded into physical conflicts with spiraling body counts. In the midst of these aggressions, a group of military AIs known as TITANs quietly achieved full sentience and autonomy, and rapidly began exponentially incrementing their own intellectual growth. The AIs spawned by this hard- takeoff singularity quickly turned against transhumanity, enveloping the system in unprecedented levels of violence, disaster, and warfare. What began as a whirlwind of conflict between political factions, revolutionaries, and hypercorps soon escalated into a struggle between man and machine. In just a few years, transhumanity was nearly wiped out with nuclear strikes, biowarfare plagues, destructive nanoswarms, infowar attacks, mass uploads, and other unexplained singularity events, ripping the superpowers of old to pieces. Our planetary homeEarthwas transformed into a toxic and strange hellhole, while many major habitats were left frozen sarcophagi in the vacuum of space. Just as quickly as they came, the TITANs disappeared, taking millions of uploaded minds with them, leaving behind a network of wormhole gateways. Known as Pandora Gates, these poorly- understood devices allow instantaneous teleportation to distant star systems.. Though only a handful of Pandora Gates are known to existeach highly contestedthe foolish, brave, curious, and desperate are already risking certain death to enter and explore what lies beyond. In the aftermath of the Fall, transhumanity lives on, divided into a patchwork of hypercorp combines, survivalist stations, transhuman faction species, and city- state habitats. Under the oppressive police states of immortal inner- system oligarchies, advanced technologies remain highly restricted, and refugee infomorphs are held in virtual slavery or resleeved in robotic bodies and forced into indentured labor. In the outer system, rebel transhuman scientists and techno- anarchists struggle to maintain a new society- from each according to their imagination and to each according to their need. And on the fringes and in the niches lurk networked tribes of political extremists, religious fanatics, criminal entrepeneurs, and bizarre posthumans, among other, stranger, and more alien things.. Though most claim the Fall was carefully orchestrated by the out- of- control TITANs, others whisper that the driving powers behind the warsboth AI and transhumanwere infected by a mutating virus with multiple infection vectorsbiological, information, nanodubbed the Exsurgent virus. Whatever its source, this virus has been known to sometimes transform its victims into something unexplainable.. Whatever the truth, the remnants of the TITANs and this virus were left to the desolated ruins or driven to the edges of the system, where they remain hidden away in dark corners, quietly waiting to infect the minds of the scavengers and explorers who find them.. This game is brought to you by Posthuman Studios. The three editors/writers/founders buy into some of the post- classical economic thinking seen in the setting; books are published under the Creative Commons license, and their website's forum is used as a hive mind to collect ideas and features to be used in the book. So far, they have released the following: Eclipse Phase: The core rulebook, with Loads and Loads of Rules. Sunward: A sourcebook concerning the inner solar system and the politics of the Planetary Consortium. Gatecrashing: A sourcebook which covers the use of the Pandora Gates, sending expeditions beyond gates, and many exoplanet descriptions. Panopticon: A sourcebook combining the topics of surveillance, uplifts, and space habitats. Rimward: A sourcebook concerning the outer solar system and its anarchist polities. Transhuman: A player's guide containing alternate character creation rules and many new options for characters, including advice on how to play. Firewall: A sourcebook filled with details and information about Firewall, the Benevolent Conspiracy dedicated to ensuring transhumanity's survival. There are two upcoming sourcebooks: After the End: 1. A. I. Is a Crapshoot: The TITANs. Actually a subversion. They weren't hostile so much as they were curious, but that curiosity led them to the exsurgent virus, and.. And, on the other side of the coin The Prometheans. It's mentioned that playable AIs are engineered without the limitless potential of the early designs, to prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Alien Geometries: The Pandora Gates. No one knows how they work, but that doesn't stop the various corporations from constantly sending people in. It is stated that the bizarre geometries of said gates might cause dizziness or nausea in people, and that some of the gates' borders are encased with normal structures to keep it looking safe. The TITANs have a thing for fractals. Their structures almost universally employ them and several of their nanoviri and nanoswarms will twist anything they contact into them. Exactly why they love fractals so much remains a mystery. Alien Kudzu: The blue forest on the exoplanet Bluewood is a relatively harmless example — as long as nobody pisses it off, that is. The Alliance: The Autonomist Alliance and others. All Planets Are Earth- Like: Averted; Earth- like planets are very rare. Alternative Calendar: The Alternet: The Mesh is a wireless mesh network that employs post- Singularity technology in order to make routers unnecessary for anything less than interplanetary communication. Amazon Brigade: Furies are genetically engineered supersoldiers (well, bodies for supersoldiers, anyway). It was discovered that their brains being designed for combat made them all overly aggressive and wild, so to balance these tendencies they are only produced as biologically female. Anarchy Is Chaos: Zigzagged across the setting as a whole, and more- or- less averted. Anarcho- collectivists of most stripes avert this. They don't have laws, but the consensus of the community generally leads to functional rules of behavior. Being an antisocial dick will get your rep trashed, and on anarcho- collectivist habitats, getting your rep trashed can mean exile without your body, or permanent incarceration in low- access mesh. Scum, by contrast, embrace this mentality. No rules, total freedom, roving across the entire solar system, and if you're not one of the community, you'd best go well- armed. Among themselves, disputes are pretty much either solved by letting it go and trashing each other's rep, or by bloodshed. Anarcho- capitalists and most other groups under the "Extropian" banner (except mutualists, who internally function more like collectivists) have their own rules. You aren't protected by community, you're protected by a payoff to a security company and a private court, and tourists without such a court have no rights that they can't defend, but in general, Extropian habs are at least as safe as scum barges so long as you watch your step. If a court or security company doesn't recognize another court's judgment (to a greater or lesser extent), they'll get their rep trashed, and their judgments won't be respected. According to inner- system Planetary Consortium propaganda, of course, this trope is played completely straight, and autonomists are all ravening hordes of barbarians. Ancient Conspiracy: Millions (possibly billions) of years old. And I Must Scream: All sorts of chilling stuff can happen to you if your ego (ie, your conciousness) ends up in the wrong hands. For example the Ultimates are rumored to download indentured infomorphs into deaf, visually limited flats with no AR implants. That may not seem bad, but remember this is a society where all but the poorest people have full mesh access essentially from birth, and where most genetic defects have been eliminated- these deficiencies are considered crippling by the standards of transhumanit. There's a gangster on Titan who is rumored to have a tank full of cyberbrained koi hosting the egos of her enemies. The Nine Lives Syndicate trucks in stolen egos, a modern slave trade that horrifies even other criminal groups. A number of TITAN- manufactured drones are specifically programmed to harvest the heads and cortical stacks of any humans they find, allowing them to do whatever they wish with the egos stored therein. Artificial Human: In flavours ranging from "AI in a human body" to "uplifted squid". Arrogant Kung- Fu Guy: Stereotypical ultimates ooze this attitude. They believe that only ultimates are fit to live, contemptuously look down on "genetrash," and they're also some of the hardest badasses in the Solar System. Favourite Techno Classics | Listology. Submitted by sljiva on Sun, 1. Techno is the greatest music ever. I think that's a fair description. Now, the list: Plastikman - Plasticine. Released on: Sheet One / Plus 8 / 1. Although Sheet One is conceived as a concept album, it's impossible not to notice a couple of tracks that stand out from the rest. Plasticine definitely stands out the most, not only with me, but probably with many, many others. It's probably my favourite track from the whole Richie's career. The master, using a minimalist approach, succeeded to create one monster of the track adeptly adding small doses of acid on the beautiful and entrancing main structure of the track. As someone on discogs said: "This is the closest music can get to drugs". And to perfection, I would add. Galaxy 2 Galaxy - Hi- Tech Jazz (The Science)Released on: Galaxy 2 Galaxy / Underground Resistance / 1. Warm, beautiful and jazzy track from one of the staples of Detroit's second wave - Mike Banks (the main figure behind Underground Resistance and social commentator who fought against commercialization of dance music). Mike incorporated music of his idols into his own style of techno, and got a track that represents what Detroit is all about. Simply breathtaking tune. Rhythim Is Rhythim - Strings Of Life. Released on: Strings Of Life / Transmat / 1. Ah, these strings.. I know if I play this track, I'll spend the rest of that day humming the main melody. So, take that strings, add a beautiful piano work and you're getting an instant classic, and one of the most recognizable techno tunes ever. Only if the kick is constant through the whole track.. Model 5. 00 - No UFO's (Inst)Released on: No UFO's / Metroplex / 1. Another first wave classic. Unlike May's organic style, Juan Atkins here presents the pure synthetic side of techno. SF elements are inherent as always (which is Juan's trademark), this time the theme is UFO's. Everything about this track is great: it's dark, futuristic, full of strange and unexpected sounds. The best example that techno evolved from electro. Sterac - Asphyx. Released on: Asphyx / 1. Pure / 1. 99. 5Steve Rachmad created an outstanding second record for the Dutch label 1. Pure. Second track of the EP, breaksy Darkness In My Life is a fantastic atmospheric journey enhanced with some really subtle acid work. First track, however, is even bigger masterpiece with incredibly unique atmosphere and fat bassline that dominates the track. Steve said in one interview that label wrongly pressed the sides, so the first track on the A side is actually X- Tracks, not Asphyx. However most people talk about Asphyx when commenting that first track on the A side, so I put Asphyx on the list, not X- Tracks. Rhythim Is Rhythim - Nude Photo. Released on: Nude Photo / Transmat / 1. Derrick May really knew how to make a hit, and the best proof for that is his Rhythim Is Rhythim alias and his releases under that alias on his own Transmat label. Nude Photo is actually his first release under that moniker, and just a little weaker track than Strings. However, this track is equally beautiful (especially the sample of girl smiling) and some people even prefer it over Strings. The only bad thing is that annoying pauses are present again (but fortunately only at the end). Carl Craig - Wrap Me In Its Arms (Inst.)Released on: VA - Equinox Chapter One / Retroactive / 1. The hardest- to- find track on the list. While some other classics are repressed couple of times, released on every other compilation or featured in numerous dj sets, this track is so obscure that it appeared only on one compilation. Which is a shame (well, not for me since I have that compilation), because it's a wonderful track which deserves to be heard by everyone. However, there is a New Age Pimp Mix released on No More Words EP, but it's a vocal version that doesn't come close to this instrumental beauty. The Aztec Mystic - Jaguar. Released on: Knights Of The Jaguar EP / Underground Resistance / 1. Warm, but dark track with unforgettable melody and equally memorable strings that build a climax in the middle and at the end of the track. There was a controversy about licensing this track. Sony wanted to license it and release it with some trance remixes to earn loads of money on something that isn't even theirs. However, that was against everything UR stood for, so the guys, leaded with Mike Banks and Rolando stayed true to themselves and knocked off the bastards. At the end Sony released promo version of Jaguar rip- off, but after lot of criticism from the techno community, they decided not to commercially release it. Phase Featuring Dr. Motte - Der Klang Der Familie. Released on: Der Klang Der Familie / Tresor / 1. One of the first releases on legendary Berlin based label that caused the techno boom in Europe. Fantastic uptempo track with a memorable riff. Mike Dierickx aka Push later used that riff (he slowed it down a bit) for creating his Universal Nation. AFX - VBS. Redlof. BReleased on: Analord 1. Rephlex / 2. 00. 5For a long time, I refused to add this track to the list just because of one reason: it's too new - therefore it shouldn't be considered classic. However, since my goal is to make a list of the best techno tracks (and not the best pre- 2. I finally decided to add it (with a couple of more post- 2. And this tune is definitely one of the best new techno pieces. Seems like Rich listened to a lot of µ- Ziq early stuff, because this tune sounds exactly like some dancey stuff from Tango N' Vectif and Bluff Limbo: impressive thick bassline is coupled with analogue icy synths, 9. IDM effects and barely hearable kick. Massive and highly recommended. Jeff Mills - The Bells. Released on: Kat Moda EP / Purpose Maker / 1. Even though Jeff is better known for his mixing skills (he used to mix up to 7. The Bells, is one of those classics, and probably his most famous work. Hard, almost industrial sound interlaces with main, funky melody and creates a perfect rush of energy that's ideal for the conclusion of every techno party. Plastikman - Spastik. Released on: Spastik / Nova. Mute / 1. 99. 3This is the track that converted a lot of unbelievers to techno, and one of the first tracks that Richie released under his world- renowned moniker Plastikman. It's interesting that the whole track was created with just one instrument - TR- 8. Richie succeeded to force that 8. Unforgettable sound, one of the most original ever invented. Joey Beltram - Energy Flash. Released on: Beltram Vol. R& S Records / 1. Simple, but astounding track with a great bassline, and some absurdly elemental 3. Choice - Acid Eiffel. Released on: Paris EP / Fnac Music Dance Division / 1. Long, deep and emotional track from Laurent Garnier, Shazz and Ludovic Navarre (St Germain). Almost 1. 4 minutes of microscopic changes and subtle 3. Robert Hood - Minus. Released on: Internal Empire / Tresor / 1. Minimal techno is more often "less is less", than "less is more", but this track is simply amazing and for me the essential minimal techno tune. MB - Die Kosmischen Kuriere (Magic Juan Mix)Released on: 3. MB Feat. Magic Juan Atkins / Tresor / 1. Melodic, spacey themed beauty with a gorgeous, out of this world atmosphere. This track is often overshadowed by Jazz Is The Teacher, the A- side of the record (which i don't like at all), but it's undisputable that the real classic is this, B- side. And it's no wonder, considering who was involved in the process of making: Godfather himself Juan Atkins, Thomas Fehlmann (from The Orb) and Moritz von Oswald (the man behind Maurizio, Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound). The Black Dog - Cost IIReleased on: Cost II / General Production Recordings / 1. Somewhat typical (really low bpm and lots of unusual effects for techno at that time), but at the same time magnificent UK "intelligent techno" track from the early 9. IDM. Suburban Knight - Midnite Sunshine. Released on: VA - Dark Energy / Underground Resistance / 1. Another long and entrancing track that's pretty hard- to- get, but the search will pay off, because this beauty will charm you right after the first listen. Underground Resistance - The Punisher. Released on: The Punisher / Underground Resistance / 1. Fast and agressive track that sounds similar to Sonic Destroyer, track that was released by the same outfit (but under the X- 1. The Punisher. Although The Punisher was the name of Mike Banks' racing car, I would say that Jeff Mills was the one to blame for the sound of this track. Vainqueur - Lyot (Original Mix)Released on: Lyot / Maurizio / 1. Repetitive and percussion rich track that develops really slow and quite effective. Most people prefer Maurizio's remix, but the Original is the one for me. DBX - Losing Control (Carl Craig Remix)Released on: Losing Control (Remixes) / Peacefrog / 1. This is the track that got the all star remix treatment. Great original by minimal techno pioneer Daniel Bell was remixed by Carl Craig, Robert Hood and Richie Hawtin, all on one record. The best job was done by Carl, who turned this minimal track to a monster that just reeks with energy. Laurent Garnier - Wake Up. Released on: A Bout De Souffle EP / Fnac Music Dance Division / 1. The real (acid) journey (unlike most other tracks on the list). Wake Up is Laurent's best known work, and with a good reason, since the atmosphere created here is impossible to outmatch. Speedy J - Evolution. Released on: Evolution EP / Plus 8 / 1. Jochem Paap aka Speedy J started his career with simple tracks that didn't have some great value (Wicked Saw, Minimal, Spectrum), so this Evolution is not just a title, it's a real evolution and further development of his music, which will culminate on Ginger, album that even Warp licenced for its Artificial Intelligence series. Track itself sounds intelligent and progressive, but at the same time hard and uncompromising. Second Phase - Mentasm. Released on: Mentasm / R& S Records / 1. Rhythim Is Rhythim - Icon. Released on: Icon/Kao- Tic Harmony / Transmat / 1.
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