27 cards 9 card types * 3 cards/type 3 stages/type robo: Political Subversion -> Memetics -> Memetic Innoculation * First tech level: your propaganda attacks take 1 more card * Second tech level: your propaganda attacks take 2 more cards * Third tech level: propaganda attacks against you do not benefit from earlier levels of this card "With a better understanding of how the human brain works, we engineer advertisements to play on the fundamentals of our minds, suspending our audience's ability to reason and perhaps reject our message." "Ideas, or 'memes', are like viruses. They infect a population, spread, evolve, and compete in ways Darwin could only dream of. We can now direct this process, to make people believe what we want." "We came up with vaccines to defeat viruses. This public education program acts on the same principle. It is similar to what schools have been doing for centuries." Direct Neural Interface -> Cognitive Map -> Uploading * Third tech level: lose 1 less card to propaganda attacks (minimum 1) "Brains are electrical organs, but their circuity is quite different from what one might find in electronics. This device translates between the two forms, that you might control machines with a thought." "Before, we understood the circuits of the brain. Now, we understand how those circuits work together. We know what love is, as well as hate, fear, joy, memory, and learning, and we can emulate them." "Emulate an entire mind in software. It remembers being what it was, is a continuation of the original mind for all practical purposes, and is in short a human AI." Mammal-level AI -> Human-equivalent AI -> Transhuman AI * Third tech level: after drawing but before playing cards, you may look at the topmost card of the draw pile "Evolution gave us insects, then mammals, then primates, and finally humans. So it is with artificial intelligence: we create more complex digital minds as our knowledge of how to do so increases." "These programs can think and feel like a human as far as we can measure such things. Unlike humans, we can copy them onto new computers to make more - or they can copy themselves." "AIs that have optimized their software and hardware based on our knowledge of intelligence, upgrading themselves into geniuses - and beyond. We can do likewise, if we wish." bio: Designer Plagues -> Genetic Targeting -> Smart Immune System * First tech level: once per turn, you may force another player to discard a random card * Second tech level: twice per turn, you may force another player to discard a random card * Third tech level: you may not be forced to discard by earlier levels of this card "Test a thousand bio-nasties. Take the most virulent ones, splice in lethal traits from others, and unleash. Several million deaths later, when it spreads beyond the target population, 'discover' a cure." "Select gene sequences that only appear in a target population. Make a plague that only infects people with that sequence. You are immune by design - but keep that cure handy, as the weapon eventually mutates." "We now have a caatalogue of what belongs in the human body, and what does not. We can engineer the immune system just like anything biological, to target that 'does not belong' list and not hold back." Cellular Mechanics -> Regenerative Medicine -> Aging Becomes Voluntary * Third tech level: play an extra card each turn (you can do more, but you have more mouths to feed) "This is how a cell lives. This is how it dies. This is how it ages and decays. This is how it mutates. We can interfere with any of those processes, such as a cancer cell trying to replicate." "We now repair and maintain our cells, and the organs they compose, keeping them in mint condition. Most damage short of death or brain injury can be undone." "As we have learned about the mechanisms of aging, we have been able to reverse each one in turn. Now the list is complete, or close enough. People need not grow decrepit - or die - in advanced years." Reliable Cloning -> Human Cloning -> Replacement Parts * Third tech level: lose 1 less card to military attacks (minimum 1) "Cloning was a hit-or-miss affair, requiring dozens of attempts to make even one clone. Worse, cloning higher organisms like humans would leave many deformed results. Now we know how to make it work." "The deformity problem put human cloning off-limits. That has been solved. The remaining objections boiled down to objections against in vitro fertilization, which has long been accepted by most people." "We clone part of a human, growing it in a vat where it can survive without the rest of the body. Not enough to make a new individual, but enough to replace an amputated limb or a diseased kidney, for example." nano: Unlimited Resupply -> Grey Goo -> Blue Goo * First tech level: your military attacks take 1 more card * Second tech level: your military attacks take 2 more cards * Third tech level: military attacks against you do not benefit from earlier levels of this card "Logistics kept the world from endless war. Eventually, one side would run out of bullets. Now you can make new bullets as fast as you fire them." "Swarms of tiny robots that take things apart, atom by atom. The ultimate acid. Almost nothing can stop them until they run out of energy." "Grey goo, modified to recognize other grey goo and dissolve it, without harming anything else." Nano-manipulators -> Mass-produced Diamondium -> Replicators For Everyone * Third tech level: draw an extra card each turn (to reflect the substantial and continuing increase in wealth) "Tools to manipulate individual atoms precisely." "Flawless diamond, constructed atom by atom at high speed, in sheets big enough to make buildings from. The material properties and low cost make many things possible." "It can make anything from thin air, for almost nothing. Start with another of itself, then the two make two more, and so on until you have enough to make what you want quickly." Cheap Space Access -> Space Industry -> Earth Orbit Colonized * Third tech level: if you would lose your last card, keep your last card "Every trip into space cost millions of dollars, keeping space from being used for much. Now it's closer to an airplane ticket, and getting cheaper." "Now that we can afford to put factories in space, we have done so. Some things can be made a lot better or more cheaply up there." "People needed a better reason to live in space than, 'just because'. Now that people can make a living, living in space, some people do just that - and can move away from or shut out would-be invaders."