Comparing Cataclysms

[sunnagram]

Which Would be objectively worse compared to the other, the Fall from the Eclipse Phase RPG, or the Coming of the Rifts?

[kirnos]

I would consider the Rifts the worse one. In Eclipse Phase humanity can not return to Earth, but has colonized other planets, and technically can keep expanding on outer space.
On Rifts Earth, humanity is trapped on their own world dealing with monsters, demons and worse. Yes, they can use magic to travel to other dimensions, but in essence the vast majority are trapped there.

[Willy Elektrix]

In Eclipse Phase, the TITANs mysteriously vanished and could come back at any time. That's pretty scary.

Although, I agree with Kirnos. In Eclipse Phase, human society still seems mostly stable.

[kaid]

Eclipse phase was more catastrophic for earth itself as its nearly uninhabitable by humans. That said unlike rifts earth they were able to move a lot of their society out into the system. Also like rifts they have access to portals to go to other worlds and colonize those as well.

Rifts earth if they could leave the planet via space travel would be a lot easier situation to deal with. If you have satellites and space based imagery and communications back that allows a lot of information flow and threat management that is not currently possible. Also the major powers clearly could build effective space craft if they could punch through to break out of the gravity well past the kill sats and debris fields. The asteroid belt has tons of available resources if one can get to it to mine it that would allow a much easier path to reclaiming the planet.

That said some things like the archons and the splugorth are a lot bigger threats if they can reach space readily as well. The blockade in a lot of ways hems in how big of a hammer a few forces can wield at rifts earth.

[kaid]

In Eclipse Phase, the TITANs mysteriously vanished and could come back at any time. That's pretty scary.

Although, I agree with Kirnos. In Eclipse Phase, human society still seems mostly stable.

not only mostly stable but finding ways to adapting to life on some really crazy environments such as THE SUN. If you can find ways to LIVE ON THE SUN and also have access to the gates it would be pretty easy to spread yourself in ways that would be very difficult to fully wipe out.

[Shark_Force]

humanity is under no major threat on rifts earth. we are, apparently, the rats of the megaverse. heck, i suspect even rats might be jealous of how widespread humanity is in the grand scheme of things

(even earth humanity likely has a lot of unknown outposts resulting from large groups of people getting rifted to random parts of the megaverse, plus actually has outposts in space as well).

not to mention that again, even if we're only talking about human earth society in the current setting rather than including any group that came from there, it's pretty stable on earth too. there aren't a lot of completely peaceful places, but you've got the CS, the NGR, the SRR, the nazcan empire, camelot, the colorado baronies, arzno, kingsdale, lazlo/new lazlo, all the various russian nations, japan, china and even australia has some fairly large, fairly stable nations that don't show any sign of disappearing in the immediate future. only africa really lacks large, organized nations, but africa also has numerous small tribes as well. sure, there's lots of places on rifts earth where a regular human cannot safely go... but there are places where they can safely go, and those places for the most part are not really in imminent danger of disappearing.

i'd say eclipse phase was more disastrous. and it's also pretty much still ongoing... the titans are not (visibly) still around, but they've left behind lots of their artifacts and agents which continue to cause problems.

[taalismn]

Tough call there; in one, Earth's still habitable, if balkanized to an insane degree, on the other, Earth is shot, but at least people can run away.
I'd say Eclipse Phase is worse, because in Rifts, Earth is still viable as a habitat, and humans can both adapt to a wide range of circumstances/technologies, and use the Rifts to a degree to spread, trade, and profit. Provided the Splugorth (or other Big Bad) don't just move in in force, Earth-folk just might be able to make a nifty profit off the possibilities of being a dimensional nexus.


EP has more POWER to throw around, what with biowar, smart viruses, nanotech, god-tier AIs, and high efficiency spacecraft(in space, Newton's one mean SOB), which makes power politics in the solar system akin to playing with Armageddon triggers...

[sunnagram]

Tough call there; in one, Earth's still habitable, if balkanized to an insane degree, on the other, Earth is shot, but at least people can run away.
I'd say Eclipse Phase is worse, because in Rifts, Earth is still viable as a habitat, and humans can both adapt to a wide range of circumstances/technologies, and use the Rifts to a degree to spread, trade, and profit. Provided the Splugorth (or other Big Bad) don't just move in in force, Earth-folk just might be able to make a nifty profit off the possibilities of being a dimensional nexus.


EP has more POWER to throw around, what with biowar, smart viruses, nanotech, god-tier AIs, and high efficiency spacecraft(in space, Newton's one mean SOB), which makes power politics in the solar system akin to playing with Armageddon triggers...

So hypothetically if say Rifts Earth replaced post-Fall Earth, yet remained a multiversal nexus, how would the powers on both sides react?

[taalismn]

So hypothetically if say Rifts Earth replaced post-Fall Earth, yet remained a multiversal nexus, how would the powers on both sides react?

The CS MIGHT see the humans in space as potential allies, but then again, they might regard the transhumans and their ability to change bodies as making them little more than frighteningly powerful aliens. Cue arms race to upgrade anti-space defenses and 'watch the skies' protocols.
Conversely, the powers of the solar system might see the apparently re-greened Earth as a rather more stable version of the old one, but with much more opportunity to serve as a genetic reservoir to be exploited...if not for all those nasty little squatters.
I imagine there will be varying factions on either side warring between wiping out all 'aliens', exploiting the new technologies and lands accessible through the rifts/space, or merging with their equivalents dirtside/spaceside.

[sunnagram]

So hypothetically if say Rifts Earth replaced post-Fall Earth, yet remained a multiversal nexus, how would the powers on both sides react?

The CS MIGHT see the humans in space as potential allies, but then again, they might regard the transhumans and their ability to change bodies as making them little more than frighteningly powerful aliens. Cue arms race to upgrade anti-space defenses and 'watch the skies' protocols.
Conversely, the powers of the solar system might see the apparently re-greened Earth as a rather more stable version of the old one, but with much more opportunity to serve as a genetic reservoir to be exploited...if not for all those nasty little squatters.
I imagine there will be varying factions on either side warring between wiping out all 'aliens', exploiting the new technologies and lands accessible through the rifts/space, or merging with their equivalents dirtside/spaceside.

That's not even getting into what the Exsurgent Virus would do if strains got through Rifts. Can you imagine what it would do if it ran escaped into dimensions like the Three Galaxies or Wormwood? Or got involved in the Minion war or Mechanoids? Or worse, what if the Exsurgent Virus runs into a bigger fish...

[taalismn]

There's a novel called Millennium Rain which deals with a nano-clypsed Earth .....then the orbitals discover a wormhole to a stasis-locked 'snapshot' of an earlier Earth, and the subsequent rush between the various space factions to explore/exploit/destroy the pristine planet. It's this situation-lite.