End of the Week, End of the World

ABC News has an article on people who are preparing for the world to end in December of 2012, as predicted by the Mayan calendar. (Those of you who play Shadowrun are already familiar with this idea, as that game places Dec. 11, 2011 as the date of the Awakening, when magic returns to the world, on the same premise.) These people are even buying land and preparing caves as survivalist bases for when the End comes:

First, a polar reversal will cause the north to become the south and the sun to rise in the west. Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years. Only the prepared will survive, Geryl said, and not even all of them.

Though Eclipse Phase is set far past 2012, it’s not inconceivable that there will be survivalist groups that band together under the belief than an impending singularity event will doom humanity and destroy the Earth … and, in a sense, they’d be right. Some of them might even still be surviving in the planet’s ruins …

Lars Blumenstein Bio

Eclipse Phase Contributor Bio
Real Name: Lars Blumenstein
Firewall Codename: LabRat
Eclipse Phase Background Equivalency: Hyperelite Argonaut

Previous Experience: Numerous Shadowrun titles in both German and English

About Me: I’d classify myself as an open-minded futurist scientophile in both passion and profession. I hold a PhD in biochemistry (biophysics and bioanalytics background) and currently work in the pharma biz. I have been a regular RPG freelancer for about 7 years now, and before that I wrote fan fiction for German-based RPGs (I am German, btw). I am also a caffeine addict (who isn’t?) and a media junkie (news feeds, books, movies/series, i-net, RPGs) when I get the time, though work, freelance writing, social life, and GF have diminished that in recent months.

Transhumanist Interests: I am interested in the posthuman angle like self-evolution and genetic redesign of mankind (augmentations, genetic engineering).

Eclipse Phase Contributions: I wrote the first version of the Psi section (expect the unexpected), the Mesh chapter (the omnipresent infosphere), part of the Gear chapter, and some of the material on the mysterious Factors, the only known alien (and I mean it) xenobiological species in EP so far.

Favorite Thing About Eclipse Phase: What I like most about EP besides the setting and versatile take on character play (“Death is just an Option,” gendernauting, and body-hopping) is seeing the game continuously evolve from the basic concepts and rules mechanics with which we started.