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How affordable is body switching in Eclipse Phase? (Please assume I know very little of the game.)

How much does it cost relatively to switch bodies? Is it something available for anyone, or just for a privileged elite? Is it like a quick dinner in a fast food restaurant (IRL) or is it like buying your own private plane?

Also, does some kind of sanity system limit the number of possible switches and/or the number of copies (clones) a person can have?

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2 Answers

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I can give you a general answer because I'm away from the books. Switching bodies is relatively affordable especially if you don't care what kind of body you'd like. If you want a good body that's been properly maintained you're going to pay more and if you want an awesome one you're going to probably be pretty well off. For cost scale I'd say it might be closer to buying a car than anything else. Most people do it fairly rarely.

Short answer: yes, it's affordable but the more money/cred you put in the better body you get coming out with some exceptions (such as becoming an indentured servant).

There's no limit to switches. There is a sanity check for switching between bodies that are quite different (eq, human to sentient-octopus) but I can't remember if you are switching from damaged human body to regular human body if you have to make the check. If you do it's significantly easier to make the check then if there was a great difference between bodies. I believe your mind can also reject the body if you fail badly enough.

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great answer, thanks. a side-question: is it possible to have multiple clones of a person (downloading the same personality into multiple bodies) and if so, are there negative effects? – OpaCitiZen Aug 26 '11 at 19:47
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Sure, they're called forks which can vary from full blooded digital copies of you to very(!) dumbed down versions of yourself for simple/menial tasks. I don't think there are negative affects, but I could be wrong on that. – mirv120 Aug 26 '11 at 20:49
Thanks, this (again) sounds quite interesting. :) – OpaCitiZen Aug 26 '11 at 20:51
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@mirv120: A fork of a character must make an Alienation test or suffer mental dysfunction ("Dismorphia"), just as when resleeving; a Continuity test is also required to avoid mental stress if the fork is restored from a backup. Forking is also controversial; creating an "alpha fork" (an exact copy of your ego) is illegal in many jurisdictions; some places outlaw forking altogether. It's possible to merge forks back into a single ego; this incurs yet another opportunity for mental trauma. – RMorrisey Aug 27 '11 at 2:01
Thank you sir! I must admit while I've read all the books I tend to only remember broad swathes and not the details! – mirv120 Aug 27 '11 at 2:41
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As far as I run the game, a morph is a piece of equipment and nothing more. You can get a better one if you can afford it (reputation, money, resources, contacts, whatever...) and you want it. remember that travel between places is easier if you just egocast.

There are no side effects of having more than one of your running around. In fact, one of the one shot scenarios is to play forks of one person trying to figure out what happened to you.

If you merge with different of your forks, you can (and should) get different memories that can overlap. Think multiple personalities and you are in the right bulk part. This is why it is inadvisable to create many forks of yourself to learn new skills and merge with them. You could well end up being utterly insane.

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