Transhuman Space is a role-playing game published by Steve Jackson Games as parts of the "Powered by GURPS" (Generic Universal Role-Playing System) line. Set in the year 2100, humanity has begun to colonize the Solar System. The pursuit of transhumanism is now in full swing, as more and more people struggle to reach a fully posthuman state.
Transhuman Space was one of the first role-playing games to tackle postcyberpunk and transhumanist themes.[citation needed] In 2002, the Transhuman Space adventure "Orbital Decay" received an Origins Award nomination for Best Role-Playing Game Adventure. Transhuman Space won the 2003 Grog d'Or Award for Best Role-playing Game, Game Line or RPG Setting.[1]
The game assumes that no cataclysm natural or human-induced swept Earth in the 21st century. Instead, constant developments in information technology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and nuclear physics generally improved condition of the average human life. Plagues of the 20th century (like cancer or AIDS) have been suppressed, the ozone layer is being restored and Earth's ecosystems are recovering (although thermal emission by fusion power plants poses an environmental threatalbeit a much lesser one than previous sources of energy). Thanks to modern medicine humans live biblical timespans surrounded by various artificially intelligent helper applications and robots (cybershells), sensory experience broadcasts (future TV) and cyberspace telepresence. Thanks to cheap and clean fusion energy humanity has power to fuel all these wonders, restore and transform its home planet and finally settle on other heavenly bodies.
Human genetic engineering has advanced to the point that anyonesingle individuals, same-sex couples, groups of three or morecan reproduce. The embryos can be allowed to be developed naturally, or they can undergo three levels of tinkering: 1. Genefixing, which corrects defects; 2. Upgrades, which boost natural abilities (Ishtar Upgrades are slightly more attractive than usual, Metanoia Upgrades are more intelligent, etc.); and... 3. Full transition to parahuman status (Nyx Parahumans only need a few hours of sleep per week, Aquamorphs can live underwater, etc.) Another type of human genetic engineering, far more controversial, is the creation of bioroids, fully sentient slave races.
People can "upload" by recording the contents of their brains on computer disks. The individual then becomes a ghost, an infomorph very easily confused with "sapient artificial intelligence". However, this technology has several problems as the solely available "brainpeeling" technique is fatal to the original person, has a significant failure rate and the philosophical questions regarding personal identity remain equivocal. Any infomorph, regardless of its origin, can be plugged into a "cybershell", or a biological body, or "bioshell". Or, the individual can illegally make multiple "xoxes", or copies of themselves, and scatter them throughout the system, exponentially increasing the odds that at least one of them will live for centuries more, if not forever.
This is also a time of space colonization. First, humanity (specifically China, followed by the United States and others) colonized Mars in a fashion resembling that outlined in the Mars Direct project. The Moon, Lagrangian points, inner planets and asteroids soon followed. In the late 21st century even some of Saturn's moons have been settled as a base for that planet's Helium-3 scooping operations.
This is no utopia, however: several problems have arisen from these otherwise beneficial developments. The Generation gap has become a chasm as lifespans increase. No longer do the elite fear death, and no longer can the young hope to replace them. While it seemed that outworld colonies would offer accommodation and work for those young ones, they are being replaced by genetically tailored bioroids and AI-powered cybershells. The concept of humanity is no longer clear in a world where even some animals speak of their rights and the dead haunt both cyberspace and reality (in form of infomorph-controlled bioshells or cybershells).
And the wonders of high science are not universally shared some countries merely struggle with informatization while others suffer from nanoplagues, defective drugs, implants and software tested on their populace. In some poor countries high-tech tyrants oppress their backward people. And in outer space all sort of modern crime thrives, barely suppressed by military forces.
After the initial set of GURPS books which included GURPS Lite in them, later publications such as Transhuman Space by David Pulver were labelled "Powered by GURPS" without including "GURPS" in the book title, primarily to make it easier for fans to find the books at mass-market retailers.[2]Transhuman Space was well supported by an extensive game line, and was the first major original background produced by Steve Jackson Games in 15 years.[2] The books inclusion of posthuman characters began to show the limits of the current GURPS system, which is something that Pulver would address soon thereafter.[2]
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Transhuman Space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Neurodiversity vs. Cognitive Liberty - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump: 2009.10.13 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Limits to the biolibertarian impulse - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump: 2009.10.15 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Neurodiversity vs. Cognitive Liberty, Round II - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump: 2009.10.17 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Cognitive liberty and right to one's mind - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- TED Talks: Henry Markram builds a brain in a supercomputer - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- And Now, for Something Completely Different: Doomsday! - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump: 2009.10.19 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Oklahoma and abortion - some fittingly harsh reflections - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Pigliucci on science and the scope of skeptical inquiry - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Remembering Mac Tonnies - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump: 2009.10.24 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump: 2009.10.26 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- The Bright Side of Nuclear Armament - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Grieving chimps - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Elephant prosthetic - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Mass produced artificial skin to replace animal testing - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Dog gets osseointegrated prosthetic - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- NASA Shuttle-derived Sidemount Heavy Launch Vehicle Concept - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump for 2009.02.02 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump for 2009.11.04 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Link dump for 2009.11.05 - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- IEET's Biopolitics of Popular Culture Seminar - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Einstein and Millikan should have done a Kurzweil - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Affective Death Spirals - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Cure aging or give a small number of disabled people jobs as janitors? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Would unary notation prevent scope insensitivity? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Cure aging or give a small number of disabled people jobs as janitors - unary version. - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- At SENS4, Cambridge, UK - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- SENS4 overview and review - how evolution complicates SENS, and why we must try harder - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- SENS4 top 10 photos - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- My AI research for this year - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- My AI research: Formal Logic - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- My AI research: Category theory and institution theory - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- My AI research: The Semantic Web - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- My AI research: Features and Flaws of Logical representation - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- My AI research: Graphical models and probabilistic logics - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Hughes and More engage Italian Catholicism: Image caption competition - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Surprisingly good solutions, falling in love and life in a materialistic universe - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- What do you get when you cross slightly evolved, status seeking monkeys with the scientific method? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Seeking the optimal philanthropic strategy: Global Warming or AI risk? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Machine Learning - harbinger of the future of AI? - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- At the Singularity Summit in NYC - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Katja Grace: world-dominating superintelligence is "unlikely" - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Normal Human Heroes on "Nightmare futures" - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Anissimov on Intelligence Enhancement - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Yudkowsky on "Value is fragile" - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Response to Pearce - November 8th, 2009 [November 8th, 2009]
- Creative thinking lets you believe whatever you want - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Let’s get metaphysical: How our ongoing existence could appear increasingly absurd - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Linda MacDonald Glenn guest blogging in November and December - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Link dump for 2009.11.15 - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Call 1-800-New-Organ, by 2020? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- IBM's claim to have simulated a cat's brain grossly overstated - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- John Hodgman pulls off Fermi Paradox schtick - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Deus Sex Machina - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- How Americans spent themselves into ruin... but saved the world - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- I am my own grandpa (or grandma)? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Link dump for 2009.11.29 - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The art of Tomas Saraceno - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Link dump: 2009.12.05 - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The Harmonic Convergence of Science, Sight, & Sound - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Working on my website - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Transhumanism, personal immortality and the prospect of technologically enabled utopia - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- RokoMijic.com is up - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Why the Fuss About Intelligence? - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Initiation ceremony - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Birthing Gods - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- 11 core rationalist skills - from LessWrong - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The best of the guests - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The best of Sentient Developments: 2009 - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Link dump: 2009.12.15 - December 15th, 2009 [December 15th, 2009]
- The Utopia Force - December 22nd, 2009 [December 22nd, 2009]
- Avatar: The good, the bad and ugly - December 23rd, 2009 [December 23rd, 2009]
- Singularity Institute launches "2010 Singularity Research Challenge" - December 24th, 2009 [December 24th, 2009]
- Transhumanism as a "nonissue" - December 24th, 2009 [December 24th, 2009]
- Hanson on "Meh, Transhumanism" - December 25th, 2009 [December 25th, 2009]
- Merry Newtonmas from Transhuman Goodness - December 25th, 2009 [December 25th, 2009]