Reputation

“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

Reputation is an inherent aspect of the hierarchical social order in the inner system — and a vital component of the outer system’s egalitarian social fabric.

Social Networks

Reputation is divided between and managed by different social networks. These retain much similarity to their early 21st-century forebears, in that they enable their users to build large networks of friends, acquaintances, and professional contacts. They are in equal parts a media-sharing platform, discussion forum for shared interests, news outlet, networking/publicity tool, and an ideal medium for memetic propagation. However, modern socnets are far more numerous and varied, coalescing more around shared characteristics, whether those be (sub)cultural, professional, political, or simply common interests. Some well-known social networks are amalgamations of smaller socnets that are linked together under an umbrella framework to share information.

Shifts in technology have changed the nature of social networks over time. Early social networks served as information-gathering tools, accumulating vast databases on their customers and their lives and relationships to be sold for marketing purposes. These became a central point for people’s online activity, transforming into walled-garden media ecosystems that dominated and monetized people’s attention. For decades, online identity was hostage to brand loyalty to one of a select group of social media and tech monoliths. At the same time, authoritarian states instituted citizenship scores and social credit to regulate behavior, provide privileges, and punish unfavored elements. This regime was eventually demolished by the decentralized nature of the mesh, the advent of AI, the Fall, and the push to transition from capitalism to new economies. New social networks arose, unfettered to corporate interests, facilitated by ALIs and user-driven initiatives. Many of these are specifically driven by the needs of new polities: legal contracts, online voting, tracking habitat logistics, sharing resources, and managing multiple identities.

The Big Seven

Eclipse Phase focuses on 7 dominant rep networks:

• @-rep: The Circle-A List is prejudiced in favor of egalitarian, collective behavior and against competitive and selfish activities. It is shared by anarchists, Titanians, scum, Extropians, and other autonomists. Its focus leans more towards sharing resources, providing assistance, and creative endeavors. Originally patched together by hacktivists, the decentralized network is maintained by a healthy cadre of volunteer coders and ALIs, bolstered in part by Titanian education resources. Use @-rep to connect with autonomists, add yourself to a collective resource queue, exchange favors, share your work, vote in local referendums, and practice mutual aid.
• c-rep: CivicNet is popular among the citizens of the inner system (Planetary Consortium, Morningstar Constellation, Lunar-Lagrange Alliance), Jovian Republic, and other hypercorp and capitalist entities. A combination of multiple networks maintained as private ecosystems by media hypercorps like Ideogram, Chitter, and Reina Weibo, it also plays a prominent role in governmental and legal affairs. Use c-rep to check citizenship scores, view your friend’s lifelogs and XP, network with others in your industry, apply for a loan, get a recommendation, speak to a manager, scan product reviews, or talk your way out of a fine.
• f-rep: Fame is about seeing and being seen. It is the realm of metacelebrities, journalists, socialites, artists, and glitterati. Follower counts, aggregate critic reviews, viral media, and publicity stunts carry heavy weight. The networking of entertainment and marketing pros who maintain the spectacle from behind the scenes is where this network really shines. Use f-rep to get the latest gossip, follow your favorite celebrities, post your glamour shots, find the latest trends, view media collections, get on an invite list, take on a freelance media gig, sell your footage/tip to media outlets, or connect with media/entertainment industry professionals and socialites.
• g-rep: Guanxi is one of the more unusual networks. This shadowy darknet protocol allows various smaller, private networks to link together. The standards, formats, and algorithms do not always sync well, and the relations between cartels and gangs and individuals are often contentious. Nevertheless, an unspoken code has developed over time. Influence and intimidation factor heavily here, and suspicion of rivals and narcs takes its toll, but the advantages for black-market networking are numerous. Use g-rep to connect with criminals, hire illicit services, make deals, peruse the black market, get tips on local security, fence goods, and get the latest word on the street.
• i-rep: The Eye is Firewall’s secret internal network, maintained by its vectors. It enables sentinels and proxies from different servers to collaborate and share intel and resources. Given Firewall’s strained resources, the Eye can sometimes be a saving grace to sentinels in the field. Use i-rep to pull strings, ask for backup, learn secret history, get the scoop on a new threat, or share war stories.
• r-rep: Research Network Affiliates is dedicated to the pursuit of science. Favored by Argonauts, scientists, technologists, and researchers of all stripes, it is a treasure trove of data and a useful tool for collaboration. Published research, citations, and credited discoveries carry extra weight here. RNA is also important for hypercorp researchers who are otherwise restricted by NDAs. Use r-rep to research scientific topics, query experts, connect with scientists, crowdsource puzzles, and track the latest tech developments.
• x-rep: Originally created by a now-retired group of gatecrashers, eXploreNet has evolved into the primary network for gatecrashers and exoplanet colonists. The socnet recently gained support from Gatekeeper, helping to expand its reach. Use x-rep to learn about exoplanets, get mission reports, collect gate rumors, get tips on extrasolar corporate initiatives, and connect with gatecrashers and colonists.

Rep Scores

A major impact of social networks in Eclipse Phase is the reputation score each provides. Each of your rep scores measures your social standing with a sub-set of transhuman society.

Each social network handles rep scores in similar but distinctly different ways. As a rule, your rep score is built up by positive interactions with others in your network (pings) and decreased by negative interactions (dings). These transactions are largely automated, in that they are primarily handled by your muse without active direction, based on your reactions and past habits. Individual pings and dings have but a minor effect — but thousands of these add up over time to influence your score. Transactions are also weighted based on factors like previous history, social distance, the weight of each party’s rep scores, and so on. Every network handles this differently; inner-system networks give more value to the actions of high-rep parties, whereas outer-system networks make more effort to level the field. All networks monitor against attempts to game the system by sock-puppeting and other means, to varying degrees of success. Depending on the network, other values may impact your rep score: credit history, net worth, criminal record, legal claims, citations, publication credits, professional reviews, and so on.

In the inner system, your rep score functions as social capital. It is a mistake to think of it as currency, however. Rep is not spent, it is a measure of your net worth, your popularity, and your value as a citizen. It can open doors, provide access, and reward you with other privileges.

In the outer system, rep functions slightly more as a measure of trustworthiness and solidarity. In polities where cooperation with peers and support of the local community is an important factor, a good rep is often rewarded by more good will. Though they advocate and sometimes work against it, autonomists are sometimes guilty of allowing rep to reinforce informal hierarchies, reproduce prejudices, or propagate in-group cliquishness. It is widely valued, however, as a tool for guiding interactions.

Rep Networks for Research

Social networks can be incredibly useful for research. Many have forums, media collections, and tagged postings on all manner of interesting topics, such as current politics, events of the Fall, latest technology, and crime beat reports. They are also an excellent avenue of research into specific people and their activities, though this is sometimes impeded by privacy settings.

Using social networks for this purpose is handled as a Research Test.