=Reputation and Social Networks= 
[[toc]]
“Once upon a time, there was a planet so incredibly primitive that its inhabitants still used money. That planet is called ‘[[Mars]].’”
//—Professor Magnus Ming, Titan Autonomous University//
The conflict between market capitalism and other forms of economics is one of transhumanity’s last great culture wars, and it’s still being fought. Transhumanity’s expansion into the solar system created myriad opportunities to experiment with new economic systems. Many failed, but the reputation economies of the outer system have proven both utilitarian and robust in a way that no previous challenger to market capitalism has managed.
The reputation economy, sometimes called the gift economy or open economy, is one in which the material plenty created by nanofabrication and the longevity granted by uploading and backups have removed considerations of supply versus scarcity from the economic equation—destroying classical economics in the process.
The regimented societies of the inner system and the [[Jovian Republic|Jovian Junta]] have used societal controls and careful regulation of the technologies of abundance on their populations, thus keeping to a transitional economy system that is largely an outgrowth of classical economics. No one could get away with doing this in the outer system. In the [[Jovian Trojans|Trojans]] and Greeks, much of the [[Main Belt|belt]], free Jupiter, and anywhere outward from [[Saturn]], the reputation economy rules.
How did this happen? For one thing, money is a nuisance when you’re an autonomous member of an autonomous collective whose nearest three neighbors (each 100,000 kilometers away) are also autonomous collectives. All of you are almost completely self-sufficient in terms of material resources. You have a fleet of robots that harvest water, volatiles, reactor mass, metals, and silicates. You have a nanofabricator to make all of your small items, a community factory for large ones, and a machine shop where you can build anything else—with help and advice from an AI with the combined knowledge and experience of a top flight engineering team, if you even need it. You grow your own food.
Money is for people who don’t know how to take care of themselves. Transhumanity is only a few decades away from being a mature Type I Kardashev civilization, having largely mastered the material resources of its own solar system. A character from the outer system most likely finds the whole concept of money an embarrassment.
However, material abundance hasn’t eliminated the value of certain goods and services. A transhuman’s lunch might be free, but innovative ideas, new designs, health care, sex, and dirty work don’t grow in fabricators. What if you need gene therapy on your morph to grow infrared sensing cells on your face? How about someone to assassinate your renegade beta fork after she set off a hallucinogen grenade at your gallery opening and kidnapped your boyfriend? What if you really need a spanking? You call on your social network. If your network is sufficiently deep and numerous, and your reputation is good enough, someone will help you out.
In the inner system, the reputation economy doesn’t replace money for the exchange of goods and services, but it does hold sway over the network of favors and influence. Calling on contacts, getting information, and making sure you’re in the best place to see and be seen all involve calling on your social network.
==Social Networks== 
Social networks represent the people you know, and the people they know, and so on. It starts with your friends and family, spreads out to your co-workers, neighbors, and colleagues, and expands all the way out to your acquaintances, from the [[Morphs#Morphs%21-Biomorphs-Neo-Hominids|neo-hominid]] waitron at your favorite cafe to the [[Morphs#Morphs%21-Biomorphs-Sylphs|sylph]] you flirt with at the club. In the always-online, fully-meshed universe of Eclipse Phase, this goes even further, encompassing all of the people you've linked to via social mesh networks, everyone who watches your blog/lifelog/updates, and everyone you interact with on various mesh forums. Now add in the friend-of-a-friend factor, and everyone has an impressive ability to reach out to people they know, people they sort of know, and people you don’t know but who are some-how linked to you in one degree or another.
Of course, social networks are not homogeneous. Among the ever-diversifying ranks of transhumanity, there is a tendency to coalesce around various shared characteristics, whether those be cultural background, personal interests, professional ties, local connections, political affiliations, subcultural obsessions, or simply common interest from being part of the same sub-species clade. The social network of an info-[[anarchists|anarchist]] hacker is likely to bear little resemblance to that of a hypercorp socialite or an isolate brinker. Nevertheless, social networks quite frequently overlap, often in unexpected and interesting ways. Most people can be considered members of several different types of social networks. This overlap is what links disparate groupings of transhumans together.
===Networking=== 
Just being connected, of course, doesn’t mean you have several thousand idle transhumans at your beck and call. If you hope to gather the latest gossip, get advice from an expert, find someone who can fix your problems, acquire a piece of gray market tech, or spread a meme, you need to know both who to talk to in that social network and how to go about getting what you need, especially if you hope to keep things quiet and not raise any flags.
This is where your [[Networking]]: [Field] skills come in. Networking represents your ability to maneuver through this web of personal and impersonal connections to find who and what you need. This could be handled by word-of-mouth, posting the right queries in the right places on the mesh, monitoring the right personal profiles and forums, harnessing the power of the mob with crowdsourcing, or any number of similar creative tactics.
Each field you have in Networking represents a particular network grouping, a common interest that ties people together. Most of these fields are based on factions (Autonomists, Hypercorp, etc.) and tie into a special reputation network (see the Reputation Networks table, below). At the gamemaster’s discretion, other groupings of people could be connected through these skills and rep systems. For example, artists and journalists of all stripes can fall under the Networking: Media skill and f-rep, no matter if they are autonomist or hypercorp. Likewise, being a diverse group, brinkers do not universally fall into any of the categories, and are instead spread out between them. If the gamemaster and players agree, other Networking fields and rep networks may be added, representing other spheres of interest, such as AR Games, Sports, Slash Fiction, etc.
The exact uses for which you may exploit your social networks are noted below. While in some cases the defining element is who you know and how good you are at reaching out to them, in others the defining element is how known you are. You might be connected to thousands of people, but if you don’t have clout, your efforts to make use of these connections is limited. This is where Reputation comes into play.
==Reputation== 
Reputation is a measurement of your social currency. In the gift economies of the outer system, social reputation has effectively replaced money. Unlike credit, however, reputation is far more stable. Within Eclipse Phase, reputation scores are facilitated by online social networks. Almost everyone is a member of one or more of these reputation networks. It is a trivial matter to ping the current Rep score and history of someone you are dealing with—your muse often does this automatically, marking an entoptic Rep score badge on anyone with whom you interact, updated in real time, so you will see if they suddenly take a hit or become popular. The 7 most common networks are noted on the Reputation Networks table. Gamemasters and characters may decide to add others appropriate to their game.
You purchase a Rep score in one or more of these networks during character creation. Rep scores are rated between 0 and 99, just like skills. These ratings determine your ability to acquire goods, services, and information and favors, as noted below. These scores may be raised or lowered during game play according to your character’s actions.
==Using Networks and Rep== 
In game terms, you take advantage of your connections and personal cred every time you need a favor. A favor is broadly defined as anything you try to get via your social networks, whether that be information, aid, goods, and so on. Different types of favors are described under Favors.
===The Networking Test=== 
To pursue a favor, you start by looking around. This calls for a Networking Test to determine if you can find the person, people, or information you need. This represents talking to people you know, spreading the word to people they know, posting queries to the social network at large, digging through various profiles, chat rooms, etc. to  nd someone who might help you out, and so on.
Networking Tests are subject to modifiers for the level of the favor (see below), the amount the character is trying to keep quiet about the request (see below), and any other factors noted on the Networking Modifiers table or determined by the gamemaster.
Networking Tests are Task Actions—it takes time to call in favors or track down information. The timeframe depends on the level of favor, as noted on the Favors table.
===Favor Levels and Modifiers=== 
Rep scores are broken down into five levels, reflecting your standing within that community. Every 20 points of Rep equals one level. See the Reputation Levels table for a breakdown.
Likewise, favors are also broken down into five levels, rated from Trivial to Scarce (see Favors, below, for specific examples). The standard level of favor you can expect to get from a social network is based on your level of Rep in that network. If you want to pursue a favor above your level, you can do so, but you will suffer a negative modifier on your Networking Test. This reflects that someone with low standing has a hard time getting people to go out of their way for them. Similarly, if you pursue a favor below your level, you receive a positive modifier to your Networking Test, reflecting that your prestige makes it easier to acquire minor things that you need. For each level the favor falls under or above your Rep score level, apply a + or –10 modifier, as appropriate.
__**Example**__
<span style="color: #ff0000;">Jaqui’s on a scum barge and she needs to get a hold of a weapon fast. She has a specific weapon in mind, but it’s pricey—its cost is High. She decides her best approach is to try talking to the scum on the ship to try and ﬁnd someone who can lend or sell her such a weapon, using her @-rep and her Networking: Autonomist skill of 50. Acquiring a High cost item counts as a Level 4 High favor (see Acquire/Unload Goods). Jaqui’s @-rep is 53, which is only Level 3. Since the favor is one level higher than her rep level, she suffers a –10 modifier on her Networking Test. Jaqui must roll a 40 or less (50 – 10) to ﬁnd a weapon supplier.</span>
||||||||~ Reputation Networks ||
|| **Network Name** || **Rep Name** || **Networking Field** || **Factions and Others** ||
|| Circle-A List || @-Rep || Autonomists || [[Anarchists]], [[Barsoomian Movement|Barsoomians]], [[Extropians]], [[Titanian Commonwealth|Titanians]], and [[scum]] ||
|| CivicNet || c-Rep || Hypercorps || hypercorps, [[Jovian Republic|Jovians]], [[Lunar-Lagrange Alliance|Lunars]], Martians, [[Morningstar Constellation|Venusians]] ||
|| EcoWave || e-Rep || Ecologists || nano-ecologists, [[preservationists]], and [[reclaimers]] ||
|| Fame || f-Rep || Media || socialites (also artists, glitterati, and media) ||
|| Guanxi || g-Rep || Criminals || criminals ||
|| The Eye || i-Rep || Firewall || [[Firewall]] ||
|| Research Network Associates || r-Rep || Scientists || [[argonauts]] (also technologists, researchers, and scientists) ||
|| ExploreNet || x-Rep || Gatecrashers || [[Gatecrashing Ops#http://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/Gatecrashing%20Ops|gatecrashers]], gatecrashing funders/supporters, [[Pandora gates#http://eclipse-phase.wikispaces.com/Pandora%20gates|gatekeepers]] ||

||||~ Networking Modifiers ||
|| **Situation** || **Modifier** ||
|| Favor level exceeds Rep level || -10 per level ||
|| Rep level exceeds favor level || +10 per level ||
|| Keeping Quiet || -Variable (see below) ||
|| Burning Rep || +Rep amount burned ||
|| Paying extra || +10 per level ||

||||~ Reputation Levels ||
|| **Reputation Score** || **Reputation Level** ||
|| 0-19 || Level 1 ||
|| 20-39 || Level 2 ||
|| 40-59 || Level 3 ||
|| 60-79 || Level 4 ||
|| 80-99 || Level 5 ||
===Paying/Exchanging for Favors=== 
Favors don’t necessarily come for free. Depending on what you’re after, you may also need to exchange for it. In the capitalist and transitional economies of the inner system and Jovian Junta, you may need to buy the goods or services you are after with credit. Even information might be paid for by bribing the right person. Once spent, that credit is gone until you earn more. In the anarchistic reputation economies of the outer system, you can get what you need for free. In this case, you are acquiring goods and services based on the strength of your reputation.
__**Example**__
<span style="color: #ff0000;">Jaqui rolls a 39—she makes it! After posting some public notices on the scum social network (she’s not worried about legalities or hiding what she’s doing—this is a scum ship after all), she gets directed to a weapons dealer with a good rep. While a scum arms merchant normally sells their wares for credit, Jaqui is scum herself, so she’s able to use her scum community standing and get the weapon for free. This uses up a High favor, however.</span>
===The Limits of Reputation=== 
Even in the gift economies, reputation only gets you so far. There are limits to how often you can ask for help before you start coming across as pushy or a leech. In game terms, this is expressed as a refresh rate—the amount of time you must wait to pass before you can seek out a favor of that level again without seeming demanding. Refresh rates are noted on the Favors table.
If you need to seek another favor before the refresh rate has expired, you have two choices. You can expend a higher level favor instead, keeping in mind that higher level favors refresh more slowly. Alternatively, you can burn reputation.
__**Example**__
<span style="color: #ff0000;">Now that Jaqui’s got her weapon, she needs another favor—she needs to ﬁnd someone who doesn’t want to be found. The person she’s after is scum, so once again she turns to the scum for help. The gamemaster decides that this is another Level 4 favor. Once again, with her Networking: Autonomist of 50 and Level 3 rep, she must roll a 40 or less. She gets a 21, and ﬁnds someone who has the information she needs. Jaqui now has a choice. To get this information, she either needs to pay the person in credits (a High cost) or she needs to expend another Level 4 favor. She’s low on money, so she decides to use her rep again. Level 4 favors only refresh once a month, though, and Jaqui used her last one just a few hours ago. Her only choice is to expend a higher favor, so she expends a Level 5 to get the intel she needs.</span>
**Burning Reputation**
In some cases, getting what you need may be more important than not stepping on people’s tentacles. In situations of dire need, you can burn some of your Rep score to get the job done, meaning that you exchange a loss of Rep for a shot at a favor. This reflects that you are pushing the bounds of how far people are willing to go for you. While you still might get what you need, your online reputation rating takes a hit as people flag you for being needy.
There are two reasons to burn Rep score. The first is to get a bonus on your Networking Test. This indicates that you are pulling strings and calling in markers to get the favor you’re after. This is particularly useful when you are trying to obtain a favor that’s of a level higher than your Rep, but abuse it too often and you will soon have no social standing at all. Every point of Rep you burn gives you an equivalent positive modifier on the Networking Test, up to a maximum of +30.
The second option is to burn Rep to seek a favor before it has refreshed. This reflects that you are asking for too much in a short period. The amount of Rep you must burn in this case depends on the level of favor you are seeking, as noted on the Favors table.
__**Example**__
<span style="color: #ff0000;">Jaqui’s got her weapon and her target’s whereabouts, but she needs one more thing: a hacker. She needs someone who can open some doors and defeat some security systems so she can get to the target she’s after in his hideout. Since she’s on a scum barge, Jaqui feels that, once again, her best option is to work her scum contacts. The gamemaster determines that this will be another Level 4 favor. Rolling against a target number of 40 again, she gets a 13—her luck is holding.</span>
<span style="color: #ff0000;">She ﬁnds a hacker, but now she needs to make an exchange for their services. Once again she decides not to spend credit and use her @-rep instead. Jaqui’s already used up both her Level 4 and Level 5 @-rep favors, though, so she has no choice but to burn reputation. A Level 4 favor costs 10 Rep to burn. Jaqui spends it, sending her @-rep from 53 to 43—she’s been pulling in a lot of big favors in a short amount of time, and her friends and acquaintances are expressing their annoyance by lowering her social standing.</span>
===Keeping Quiet=== 
The problem with using social networks for favors is that you end up letting lots of other people know what you’re up to. When you’re involved in a clandestine operation, that could be exactly what you don’t want. The only way to diminish this is to take your requests to trusted friends and ask them to keep quiet, but this diminishes the pool of people at your disposal.
In game terms, you can try to keep word of what you’re doing quiet, but this makes it harder to get what you need. For every negative modifier you apply to your Networking Test, the same negative modifier applies to anyone making a Networking Test to find out what you’re up to.
__**Example**__
<span style="color: #ff0000;">Revisiting one of our previous examples, we go back to the point where Jaqui was trying to ascertain someone’s hideout location. Because the person she’s after is scum, they’re on a scum ship, and Jaqui is using her Networking: Autonomist skill to ﬁnd them, there’s a good chance that if she starts asking around to everyone, word might trickle back to the person she’s after. She doesn’t want them to know she’s on their tail, though, so she decides to make her inquiries more discreet. She applies a –20 modifier to her Networking Test, which lowers her target number from 40 to 20. As noted before, she rolls a 21, which is a failure. She spends a Moxie point to ﬂip the roll, though, making it a 12—a success.</span>
<span style="color: #ff0000;">Because Jaqui took that –20 hit, representing the fact that she was keeping her research quiet, her target will suffer a –20 modifier when he makes his Networking Test to see if he gets word that someone is asking around about his hideout.</span>
==Favors== 
Creative players can undoubtedly come up with many uses for their social networks, but a few of the more common are detailed here.
Gamemasters should use their discretion as to how much roleplaying interaction and Networking Tests are included in using a social network. For normal goods, straightforward information queries, or small favors, neither dice rolling nor roleplaying may be required. For major requests, interactions with contacts, and mission assistance, dice rolls and/or roleplaying interaction with contacts from the social network should usually occur. Gamemasters may wish to keep track of the NPC contacts in each character’s social networks and make them recurring characters.
||||||||~ Favors ||
|| **Favor Level** || **Timeframe** || **Burning Rep Cost** || **Refresh Rate** ||
|| 1 (Trivial) || 1 minute || 0 || 1 hour ||
|| 2 (Low) || 30 minutes || 1 || 1 day ||
|| 3 (Moderate) || 1 hour || 5 || 1 week ||
|| 4 (High) || 1 day || 10 || 1 month ||
|| 5 (Scarce) || 3 days || 20 || 3 months ||
===Acquire/Unload Goods=== 
Social networks are a good way to find items that you can’t buy legally or make at home. Depending on who you’re getting the goods from, this will cost you credit or require an appropriate Rep score. This favor can also be used to sell or give away such items, making some money or perhaps even some Rep in the process.
||||~ Acquire/Unload Goods ||
|| **Level** || **Service** ||
|| 1 || Acquire/unload item with an expense of Trivial ||
|| 2 || Acquire/unload item with an expense of Low ||
|| 3 || Acquire/unload item with an expense of Moderate ||
|| 4 || Acquire/unload item with an expense of High ||
|| 5 || Acquire/unload item with an expense of Expensive ||
===Acquire Services=== 
When you lack the skills or education you need, or you just need another set of arms, you can call out to your social network to find someone to help you out. If you are looking for someone with a particular skill, the result of your successful Networking Test roll is the skill rating of the person you find. The higher your Networking skill, the better able you are to find highly-skilled professionals.
__**Example**__
<span style="color: #ff0000;">Cole needs to find an astrobiologist who can help him identify an alien critter. He rolls his Networking: Scientist skill of 50 and gets a 43—a success. He tracks down someone with Academics: Astrobiology skill of 43 (his roll) who can help him out. When the astrobiologist looks the critter over, the gamemaster makes a roll for the NPC using that skill of 43.</span>
||||~ Acquire Services ||
|| **Level** || **Service** ||
|| 1 || **Trivial favor:** Get someone to perform services for 15 minutes. Moving a chair. Browbeating someone. Catching a ride. Researching someone on line. Borrow 50 credits. Other Trivial cost services. ||
|| 2 || **Minor favor:** Get someone to perform services for an hour. Moving to a new cubicle. Roughing someone up. Loaning a vehicle. Providing an alibi. Healing vat rental. Minor hacking assistance. Basic legal or police assistance. Borrow 250 credits. Other Low cost services. ||
|| 3 || **Moderate favor:** Get someone to perform services for a day. Moving to a habitat in the same cluster. Serious beatings. Lookouts. Short-distance egocast. Short shuttle trip (under 50,000 km). Minor psychosurgery. Uploading. Reservations at the best restaurant ever. Major legal representation or police favors. Borrow 1,000 credits. Other Moderate cost services. ||
|| 4 || **Major favor:** Get someone to perform services for a month. Moving a body. Homicide. Getaway shuttle piloting. Industrial sabotage. Large-volume shipping contract on bulk freighter. Medium-distance egocast. Mid-range shuttle trip (50,000–150,000 km). Moderate psychosurgery. Resleeving. Get out of jail free. Borrow 5,000 credits. Other High cost services. ||
|| 5 || **Partnership:** Get someone to perform services for a year. Moving a dismembered body. Mass murder. Major embezzlement. Acts of terrorism. Relocate a mid-size asteroid. Long-distance egocast. Long-range shuttle trip (150,000 km or more). Borrow 20,000 credits. Other Expensive cost services. ||
<span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">**Acquire Information**</span>
When you can’t  nd the information online or you don’t have the time or capability to look, you can turn to people in your social network and tap their accumulated knowledge base.
||||~ Acquire Information ||
|| **Level** || **Service** ||
|| 1 || **Common Information:** Where to eat. What biz a certain hypercorp is in. Who’s in charge ||
|| 2 || **Public Information:** Make gray market connections. Where the “bad neighborhood” is. Obscure public database info. Who’s the local crime syndicate. Public hypercorp news. ||
|| 3 || **Private Information:** Make black market connections. Where an unlisted hypercorp facility is. Who’s a cop. Who’s a crime syndicate member. Where someone hangs out. Internal hypercorp news. Who’s sleeping with whom ||
|| 4 || **Secret Information:** Make exotic black market connections. Where a secret corp facility is. Where someone’s hiding out. Secret hypercorp projects. Who’s cheating on whom. ||
|| 5 || **Top Secret Intel:** Where a top secret black-budget lab is. Illegal hypercorp projects. Scandalous data. Blackmail material ||
==Reputation and Identity== 
It is important to note that reputation is closely tied to identity. If you are undercover and using a fake ID, you can’t really call on your Rep score without giving yourself away. As a result, many people using false identities end up building up a separate set of Rep scores for their alter ego.
Note that since many social network interactions take place online, it is possible for someone to secretly make use of their real identity while masquerading as someone else, as long as they’re careful about it. If anyone happens to be spying on their activity via the mesh, they stand a chance of being found out.

=Optional Rule: Ultimate Rep= 
As an ultimate achieves greater self-actualization and naturally spends more time working and living with fellow adherents, their standing within the movement becomes much more important than other reputation networks. Although an ultimate still maintains a presence on other social networks, their philosophy devalues those interactions and exchanges. To reflect this, ultimate characters may make use of the special Networking: Ultimates skill and U-rep, a special Ultimates-only faction reputation score. U-rep favors can be used to call in expertise on almost any skill, for military gear, resleeving, and morph services, or for travel to and from stations with a significant ultimate population.

The ultimate ideology views the use of rep and favors differently than other networks. Calling in assistance must be carefully considered. Each individual is expected to succeed of their own abilities. While the use of favors is an accepted and common part of that pursuit, such favors are expected to be used for execution of tasks outside the character’s own competency. Favors in areas that the requester is known to have skill in may take a penalty on the Networking: Ultimates Test at the gamemaster’s discretion. Further, as the ultimates are a distinct minority outside of their bases on Aspis and Xiphos, it may be difficult to call in favors on the fly, as individuals with the needed skills may need to egocast into a location before they would be of any use. Forethought and planning for the future are, as ever, hallmarks of the movement.

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