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Es to Et

Escapist Gnosticism

An offshoot of gnosticism that shares most of the tenets of the Universal Freedom Gnostics (UFGs), but applies them in a much more benign form.

They believe that the material universe is evil and seek to escape into the spiritual universe. However, death is no release as conscious beings are constantly being reincarnated. Only when the material universe no longer supports conscious beings can any truly escape.

Instead of seeking to hasten the end of material existence as UFGs do Escapist Gnostics seek to travel to it. Since the advent of reactionless drives Escapist Gnostics have been placing themselves in stasis and launching starships at ever-increasing relativistic speeds into the interstellar and eventually intergalactic voids. They wish to remain in stasis while their ships rush into the future and the heat death of the universe, where finally when all things fail they believe they shall be freed from this universe.

UFGs reportedly consider Escapist Gnostics optimists and cowards who trust to fate to deliver them to freedom while leaving so many fellow conscious beings in the past. More conventional Gnostics consider the Escapist Gnostics to be simply misguided, as most Gnostics believe it is through personal enlightenment that one escapes from the physical.

Glen Finney

Escelon 3

Part of the Puppis Democracy. Victim of Nimbus dissidents.

Eschatology

Branch of science dealing with the ultimate fate of the cosmos; extrapolation into the future of observations or hypotheses about the present cosmic order. Pertaining to the ultimate destiny of mindkind and the universe.

Eschatronics Unlimited

"We make sure it stays dead".
Sterilisation corporation/clade from the MPA, handling the dangerous but profitable work of cleaning up after uncontrolled transcendence events. It is notable for employing baselines and baseline-equivalent nearbaselines in some positions, exploiting the fact that so limited brains are immune against many kinds of infiltration that would be dangerous to higher singularity level entities. Among other famous efforts, it helped clean up after the Lomuti transcension at Whispers Release and defused the antimatter spiracles of Bunisdeye.

Anders Sandberg

ESP, esp

extra-sensory perception, natural (non -ultratech or -cybertech - mediated) clairvoyance, precognition, and telepathy. Part of psionics. Not all clades or groups affirm that such a thing even exists.

esper

one who (supposedly) possesses natural extra-sensory perception and is able to direct it voluntarily. See also psionics

Eta Carinae

a peculiar, erratically fluctuating Luminous Blue Variable , one of the most luminous stellar objects of our Galaxy.

Chris Clowes

The Eta Carinae Nebula - NGC 3372

The nebula, some 9,000 light years from Sol, is a huge diffuse emission nebula consisting of clouds of high temperature gas. The atoms in the cloud are energized by ultraviolet light from nearby stars and emit radiation as they fall back into lower energy states (in much the same way as a neon light). It is a site of ongoing star formation. Each of the bright lobes are the size of an entire solar system. A whole mythology and economy has built up around this beautiful nebula, the so-called Eta Carina Rush.

Eta Carina Rush

Many believe there is a great secret in the Eta Carina nebula. While sober minds dismiss this, many expeditions have been sent to the region and there is a notable expansionism along the spiral arm towards the star and nebula. Thanks to the wormholes discovered in NGC 3247 the first relativistic ships should reach the goal about now. In the meantime, several small but ambitious exploration projects are setting up colonies along the arm. The Rush has no formal structure and contains everything from religious zealots hoping to awaken the Supernova God over researchers and xenopaleologists to businessbeings recognizing a gold rush when they see it.

The Rush only really took off after the fall of the local "Third Federation". The "capital" is Oh-F-Star-4 in NGC 3247 (the name was apparently an obscure literary pun/reference to 21th century c.e. poetry, suggested by the exploration AI), an otherwise unremarkable F4 star with a supposedly Tunnler wormhole leading to a network in the Eta Carina direction. Oh-F-Star-4 is the center of the Rush, trying to become something like Tunh once was. Many fear that when Eta Carina is found to be just another super-star it will lose its relevance or suffer major disruptions by disappointed sects, but the local government claims they will weather all problems.

text and logo by Anders Sandberg

Eta Cassiopeiae

early colony world, homomorph vec inhabited, now Solar Dominion.

Eternal Disciples, Eternal Apprentices

Variously, a lifestyle choice or form of psychological dependence, whereby disciples, students, or devotees refuse to graduate and strike out on their own, preferring to sit forever at the feet of a chosen master or Tutor.

M. Alan Kazlev

the eternal life postulate

The assumption that life, once it arises in the universe, lasts forever (originally made by pre-singularity hu Frank J. Tipler in his Omega Point Theory).

Transhumanist Terminology

etheric body

According to many esotericist memeticities, the subtle formative field that serves as the blueprint around which the physical body is built, and from which the physical body develops as growth proceeds. The etheric body has its own distinct system of organs (chakras), and nadis or meridians (channels or currents of flow of ch'i energy). When the etheric is damaged then physical illness results. There have been many claims by many different clades and institutes regarding successful measurement and observation of etheric body, and a huge body of associated information (paraphysics, chionics, radionics, etc), although none of this data is considered viable by physicalists.

M.Alan Kazlev

etheric plane

Ontological gradation corresponding to the etheric body; reality intermediate between matter and spirit, or (in some memeticities) between the physical and the astral.

Ethnobotany

study of how plants are used in various (mostly prim, neo-prim, or bioborg) hu, tweak, splice, provolve, and xenosophont cultures.

Ethology

Originally the study of animal behavior and psychology, especially in the wild; later came to mean the study of the behaviour of any sentient creature of at least one toposophic node below the level of the observer.

Includes subdisciplines such as sociobiology, group behavior and community structures, communication, social hierarchy, mating behavior, parental care of offspring, altruism, individual versus group survival strategies, the way in which behaviour is shaped by evolutionary forces, and predicting the likely behavior of a sentient in any given situation.
Sentients studied by Sophont Ethologists range from simple microorganisms (protozoa and equivalent) to presophont baseline primates and cetacea. Sentients studied by Transapient Ethologists include hu, splice, provolves, cyborgs, vecs, aliens, and so on. Sentients studied by higher Ethologists include also posthumans and hyperturings.

adapted by M.Alan Kazlev from the original write-up by Robert J. Hall

Etodism

religion of the infinite path

Beliefs:
Etodism is based on the "universe-within-a-universe" cosmology; simply put, our world is a mere particle within an infinitely greater universe, while other universes exist within every particle of our own cosmos. Etodists view human life as merely a temporary journey through the known universe; after death, the soul is reborn in some greater or lesser universe, as determined by a law which is essentially based on Karma. Most Etodists equate the larger universes with heavens, the internal universes with hells; for every 'heaven' (universe) the soul reaches, there will be an even more perfect 'heaven' to work towards. Unlike most religions, Etodists do not predict any kind of end point to the soul's journey--no nirvana or paradise. Their view is that "perfection is like infinity--no matter how perfect the soul becomes, it can always strive for greater perfection".

"Life is not a game to be won or a path to a goal; the purpose of life is to live".

History
Etodism arose as a minor religion during the early interplanetary period, among the tech-elite on Earth. The faith gained in relative influence only on Earth's initial colonies, due to a high proportion of Etodists among the spacefarers. Although persecuted on some Human Rim worlds after the collapse of the Federation, especially during the Tahmetian crusades, Etodism became a powerful religion, first in the Eridanus League (peaking at over 800 million faithful) and again centuries later in the Yoson Confederacy (where the Etodist population reached nearly 3 billion). Even then, Etodism rarely had full government or military support; aside from a few popular uprisings, the religion remains mostly unsullied by fanaticism or atrocity.

Aaron Hamilton

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