156: Communion of Re

ENTRY 156: Communion of Re

“The Future Lies On Alien Suns”

- Motto of the Communion of Re

The suryas and salamanders that inhabit the corona of Sol are one of the most enigmatic groups of morphs in the system; few can comprehend the mentality of skimming through a seemingly endless layer of plasma, much less imagine what drives such entities, what their goals and aspirations might be. Strange as they are, the sun-dwellers are still transhuman, divided into different groups and factions based on one difference or another. One of those factions is the Communion of Re.

A minor gatecrashing organization that buys time on the Vulcanoid Gate, the Communion is organized like a hypercorp but close-knit like a religious fellowship, their headquarters at Caldwell a combination of slipstream Neo-Egyptian imagery, mini-Heliopolis meets raygun gothic. While it has only used the Vulcanoid Gate a dozen times, in its six missions five have used new gate coordinates which emerged near stellar bodies or Jupiter-like gas giants, sending through suryas or salamanders to investigate. How the Communion knows which coordinates to feed in is a carefully concealed secret, with speculation ranging from gravimetric calculations to a TITANs artifact or something bargained out of the Factors.

Because of their relatively small size and resources, the Communion of Re is often eager to hire experienced gatecrashers for their missions. Hired-on must resleeve into appropriate morphs for the expected environment, usually (but not always) salamanders and suryas, and given basic acclimation training as well as classes in sunspotting. The gatecrashing insertion itself involves a specially designed plasma chamber called the “Oven,” which is brought up to heat and pressure levels equivalent to those expected at the other side of the gate—the better to ease transition for morphs passing through the wormhole.

Using the Communion of Re

The Sun is a difficult spot to adventure in Eclipse Phase—it’s not friendly to a wide variety of morphs, and there’s not a vast amount to do once your player characters get there. The Communion of Re is a means to get a bit more use out of suryas and salamanders, easing the PCs’ path into resleeving and providing environments and settings that the PCs might actually be interested in. The very fact that the Communion has found gates located within the coronas of strange suns and the bright/hot layers of gas giants suggests there may be remnants of alien life there, or perhaps native entities of some sort. As for the Communion itself, the iconography is more than superficial, but an expression of a NeoGnostic sect that is at the core of the group, basing its ideology on something supposedly found drifting around the sun. How much of this the PCs are exposed to and pick up on is up to the gamemaster, but certainly the cult/corporation has a distinct purpose to their missions—perhaps they’re looking for something specific.

Seed

• The PCs are hired by the Communion to rescue a party of salamanders that had previously gone through to explore an alien waypoint made mostly out of artificial diamond. When they arrive, the salamanders appear to be fine—they’re attempting to fix the station’s degrading orbit—but the longer the PCs observe them, the more clear it is that something or someone on the station is influencing the salamanders’ actions…perhaps the station itself, which may be operated by an alien AGI.