In the aftermath of The Fall, transhumanity lives on, divided into a patchwork of hypercorp combines, survivalist stations, transhuman faction species, and city-state habitats. Under the oppressive police states of immortal inner-system oligarchies, advanced technologies remain highly restricted, and refugee infomorphs are held in virtual slavery or resleeved in robotic bodies and forced into indentured labor. In the outer system, rebel transhuman scientists and techno-anarchists struggle to maintain a new society — from each according to their imagination and to each according to their need. And on the fringes and in the niches lurk networked tribes of political extremists, religious fanatics, criminal entrepeneurs, and bizarre posthumans, among other, stranger, and more alien things…

firewall |ˈfīrˌwôl|
noun
a wall or partition designed to inhibit or prevent the spread of fire.
• Computing a part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access while permitting outward communication.

“That’s us, in all our glory. Ten years after the Fall and we remain a broken, squabbling mess, jailed by slime molds, beaten by uppity software, and yet our own worst enemies. Spreading out from a home we don’t even have any more. Our numbers reduced and dwindling further with each passing day. Who will save us? We don’t even want to save ourselves most of the time. Or so it seems. But if we don’t, there’s no future. And I, for one, have not lived this fucking long to give up now. You, me, we’re effectively immortal. The entire galaxy is waiting out there for us. We’d be stupid not to go see it.”

-A People’s History of an Unfortunate Universe, Eclipse Phase