Terminology

AGI: Artificial General Intelligence. AAI that has cognitive faculties comparable to that of a humaor higher. Aka “strong AI” (differentiating from “seed AI” or more specialized “weak AI.”

AI: Artificial Intelligence. Generally used to refer to weak AIs; i.e., AIs that do not encompass (or isome cases, are completely outside of) the full range of humacognitive abilities. AIs differ from AGIs ithat they are usually specialized and/or intentionally crippled/limited.

AR: Augmented Reality. Information from the mesh (universal data network) that is overlaid oyour real-world senses. AR data is usually entoptic (visual), but caalso be audio, tactile, olfactory, kinesthetic (body awareness), emotional, and other senses.

Bots: Robots.

Brinkers: Exiles who live othe fringes of the system, as well as other isolated and well-hiddenooks and crannies. Aka isolates, fringers, drifters.

Cornucopia Machine: A nanofabricator.

Cortical Stack: An implanted memory cell used for ego backup. Located where the spine meets the skull; cabe cut out.

Ecto: Personal mesh devices that are flexible, stretchable, self-cleaning, translucent, and solar-powered. From ecto-link (external link).

Ego: The part of you that switches from body to body. Aka ghost, soul, essence, spirit, persona.

Ego-casting: Term for sending egos via farcasting.

Entoptics: Augmented-reality images that you “see” iyour head. (“Entoptic” means “within the eye.”)

Factors: The alien ambassadorial race that deals with transhumanity. Aka Brokers.

The Fall: The apocalypse; the singularity and wars that nearly brought about the downfall of transhumanity.

Farcasting: Interstellar communicatiovia FTL links.

Firewall: The secret conspiracy that works to protect transhumanity from “existential threats” (risks to transhumanity’s continued existence).

Flats: Baseline humans (not genetically modified). Aka norms.

FTL: Faster-Than-Light.

Gate Crashers: Explorers who take their chances using a Pandora Gate to go somewhere previously unexplored.

Iktomi: The name giveto the mysterious alierace whose relics have beefound beyond the Pandora gates.

Infomorph: A digitized ego; a virtual body. Aka datamorphs, uploads, backups.

Infugee: “Infomorph refugee,” or someone who left everything behind oEarth during the Fall—evetheir owbody.

Isolates: Those who live in isolated communities far outside the system (in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud); aka outsters, fringers.

Lost Generation: An effort to repopulate post-Fall, a generatioof childrewere reared using forced-growth methods. The results were disastrous: many died or went insane, and the rest were stigmatized.

Mercurials: The non-human sentient elements of the transhuman “family,” including AIs and uplifted animals.

Mesh: The omnipresent wireless mesh data network. Also used as a verb (to mesh) and adjective (meshed or unmeshed).

Morph: A physical body. Aka suit, jacket, sleeve, form.

Muse: Personal AI helper programs.

Neo-Avians: Uplifted ravens and gray parrots.

Neo-Hominids: Uplifted chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.

Pandora Gates: The wormhole gateways left behind by the TITANs.

Pods: Mixed biological-synthetic morphs. Pod clones are force-grown and feature computer brains. Aka bio-bots, skinjobs, replicants. From “pod people.”

Reclaimers: A transhuman faction that seeks to lift the interdictioand reclaim Earth.

Reinstantiated: Refugees from Earth who escaped only as bodiless infomorphs but have since beeresleeved.

Resleeving: Changing bodies. Aka morphing, reincarnation, shifting, rebirthing.

Seed AI: An AGI that is capable of recursive self-improvement, allowing it to reach god-like levels of intelligence.

Shell: A synthetic physical morph. Aka synthmorph.

Singularity: A point of rapid, exponential, and recursive technological progress, beyond which the future becomes impossible to predict. Often used to refer to the ascensioof seed AIs to god-like levels of intelligence.

Skin: A biological physical morph. Aka meat, flesh.

Splicers: Genetically modified to eliminate genetic diseases and some other traits. Aka genefixed, cleangenes, tweaks.

Synthmorph: Synthetic morph. A robotic shell possessed by a transhuman ego.

TITANs: The human-created, recursively improving military AGIs that underwent a singularity and prompted the Fall. Original military designation was TITAN: Total Information Tactical Awareness Network.

Transhuman: Aextensively modified human.

Uplifting: Genetically transforming an animal species to sapience.

Xenomorph: Alielife form.

XP: Experiencing someone else’s sensory input (ireal-time or recorded). Aka experia, sim, simsense, playback.

X-Risk: Existential risk. Something that threatens the very existence of transhumanity.


Eclipse Phase is a trademark of Posthuman Studios, LLC. Some Rights Reserved. Original text content of eclipsephase.com is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Original artwork content of eclipsephase.com is copyright© 2008 – 2011 Posthuman Studios, LLC unless otherwise specified.