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Aberrant: Nexus Discussion


Matt

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I have been waiting for this one and after a quick read I can easily say the wait was worth it. The scope of this book greatly enhances Aberrant.


An expansion of the Aberrant timeline was always needed, fun to read too.


New quantum powers are on the high end of the spectrum, for example Battlezone, made me remember that star trek episode Q does this to the crew, was this the inspiration for it?


Paradise Meridian was my favorite Alternate Universe, the lemurian civilisation is nice idea for a chronicle. There could be some connectivity with the new Aegis setting when its finally out.


The Devries bet was fun:)


And the Doyen writeup expands on them greatly, as an enemy to novas they are a challenge but still not a direct one.


A Big Thank you for the work put in this book:)

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3 hours ago, Blip said:

New quantum powers are on the high end of the spectrum, for example Battlezone, made me remember that star trek episode Q does this to the crew, was this the inspiration for it?

Nope! My inspiration (pun intended) was drawn from the anime X/1999, believe it or not. CLAMP preceded Star Trek:TNG on that, IIRC.

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I didn't realize that people still discussed this let alone fan projects still being made. It is totally awesome and I love what I have been reading through so far. Really cool information, ideas, thoughts, and suggestions and I am quite pleased that I discovered it.

Really cool that you created this Sprocket, really cool.

The Atlantean (sorry, I mean Lemurian) alternate setting interests me, as does the whole Stalwart to Nova idea, plus a lot of other commentary and interesting ideas you present. :)

Actually, the nature of that setting makes me think of a campaign where the players are all novas who are part of a colonial process (which probably have some baselines) to settle upon another world, place, or time that is probably home to dangerous monsters. Part of the campaign would be to make the land safe to inhabit, to build the structures and government, and to figure out the situation that is going aroudn them with monsters and stuff. I don't know where they would go, so many options, but it could be a landmass on another planet, or in a prehistoric time, or a parallel dimension, or maybe something like in a pocket area outside of the general material world (something like Outland from WOW). I think it could be extremely fun especially if the players are among the movers and shakers of the movement.

 

Also, loved the fact that Mega-Willpower existed in this faction. Its funny cause as I was reading the begining I thought to myself "I am going to have to search for Mega-Willpower" and then behold its already there.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

First off, I would like to say that the quality and options that this supplement has offered are amazing and it is a very good read.

Thank you (those that did this) for your time and effort in sharing this with the rest of us.

I do have a lot of questions (that don't really need to be answered but I will post in case others want to consider them)

I noticed that the shielded reality power is a maintenance power, and works by providing a target universe with a soak value. This would be that it must be applied before someone or some event happens in which the universe would take damage. The question is then, how does the nova with shielded reality know when to activate their power, because as written, a nova with universe destruction power can very well one shot a target universe without giving any indication that he/she/it is using this power? With that being said I imagine that you would need locus to pinpoint someone hitting your universe with a hammer.

Mass-minds are really cool, however when would a nova interact with it? The cross-time travel and cross-time interface powers seem to deal with interactions directly between universes and don't really cover any "in between travel", in which case it does not seem that a nova would run into a mass-mind because they exist in the Multiverse just outside its food source universe. Also what power would a nova need to survive in the multiverse medium?

When I use Cross-time Retrieval with the summoning extra can I choose some arbitrary constraint, like summon me a person that is about to die that is young of age, or do I have to know exactly what I'm summoning or who I'm summoning for it to work? If I want a planet destroying bomb can I simply use retrieval to get it even if I don't know exactly what I'm looking for?

If I use cross-time something to move to a different universe, and it is a magic universe, do I automatically lose my powers if I don't have the Unreality Zone power?

With respect to the Unreality Zone power the first sentence of the 5 successes reads "Allows permanent normal function of nova capabilities (and quantum gadgets) within their normal parameters, regardless of this power's area of effect." while the 7 successes reads "Allows permanent normal function of nova capabilities (and quantum gadgets) within this power's area of effect, which can help make a handy place for a base of operations when exploring (or planning to conquer) an otherwise nova-incompatible universe.". Should those two sentences be swapped? The 5 successes seems to be more beneficial then the 7 successes with respect to nova powers.

As written the Limbo technique allows you to one shot any being that does not have cross-time powers, with no way to resist, this gives the player means to lock up extremely powerful enemies much to the storytellers frustration with one application of Limbo. Was this intended?

Pocket reality allows you to create a reality with a surface area near or exceeding the surface area of planets in the upper range of the power but makes mention of a certain "additional occupancy". What is the original occupancy?

Star flight and Tau Discharge can exceed the damage of quantum inferno. Quantum inferno has a upper damage of 1000 B, 500 L, or 200 A. Star flight can do up to 1000 L and Tau Discharge can do up to  2000 B, 1000 L, or 400 A when you take into account 10 projectiles hitting the same target and the cumulative damage clause and 10 in the power and 10 quantum. Was this intended?

If you slam into an atmosphere with star flight does the deflector shield protect you from the effects or do you take the damage as well?

If I misunderstood or misread something please let me know.

Again thank you for the supplement, it is a good read.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Apologies for the late reply, I've been busy w/ the new project & RL. That said, my time's been limited of late, treat this reply a a one-shot.


Re: Shielded Reality-
If your game is being played at the level of power where your scenario is feasible, it's best to take hints from the cosmic-scale events put out by Marvel & DC. Uses of level 6 powers (other than Planck Scaling) should generate tidal waves of precognitive warnings well ahead of time. That would give plenty of time for a defense to be raised. You're correct about Locus, BTW.


Re: Mass-minds-
The most obvious way to enter the Omniverse is through an "unlinked" crosstime interface. Natural ones are as described on p. 40. The Portal technique of the Crosstime Interface power can be used to do this, though at double the quantum point cost and +2 difficulties. Survival in the Omniverse requires Adaptability (if going solo) or use of the Unreality Zone quantum power (to protect those lacking true nova Adaptability - gadgets will not do).


Re: Crosstime Retrieval-
AFA summoning people, you will have to know just who you're attempting to summon - that's one reason for the Crosstime Awareness power. You can't summon some arbitrary target.

AFA a planet destroying bomb, that would require 7 successes IIRC. Your ST may also see fit to slap on a hefty difficulty penalty - the tech equivalent of Quantum Inferno should be rare in the extreme.

Re: Power loss-
I'd have to leave that for the ST to decide. My personal inclination is that nova powers would function in most realities that have recognizable physical laws similar to our own, and that would include most magical universes. Only those realities with truly alien physical laws should require the Unreality Zone power.

Re: Unreality Zone 5 & 7 success results-
No, they're fine as is. The 5 & 7 success results differ in their effect on non-eximorphic Inspired beings. Not all of a nova's traveling companions will or should be novas, y'know.

Re: Limbo-
Yes it was. That said Omniversal hazards can & will release said prisoners at the ST's pleasure.

Re: Pocket Reality-
Quote "a small group of people", unquote. That could be the PC's group, his/her family, etc. 10 with 1 success, 20 with 2 and 30 with 3.

Re: Starflight-
In this case, yes! Remember the Death Stars from Star Wars? They were the inspiration for Quantum Inferno. They were also inefficient wastes of resources from a rational POV - Palpatine wanted them for sheer intimidation value than anything else. Ruining and/or destroying a planet only requires an old ship with a working FTL drive to impact a planet at superluminal speeds. Doing in a planet always requires a willingness to commit suicide w/ no chance of survival w/out having Immortality at a medium or higher power rating.

Re: Tau Discharge-
In this case, it wasn't intended. I suggest deleting that bit about cumulative damage. The "multiple missiles" bit was intended for scattershot attacks vs. space stations & spacecraft in addition to planetary targets.

Re: deflector shield-
The damage *is* suffered by the nova as well.

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  • Matt unpinned and unfeatured this topic
  • 4 weeks later...

I really enjoyed the book, especially the new space-related powers and enhancements, and the Doyen.

The one thing that Just Bugged Me from the original Trinity Setting, and which stands out even more with Nexus and A Breed Apart, is the nova Fermi Paradox.

A Breed Apart discussed the potential for very fast exponential reproduction of novas, with reproduction-oriented powers enabling 10x or greater annual growth, with trillions of novas in a decade. In the early Nova Age one could explain the failure of this to happen as there being insufficient time for many such novas to arise, and ultra-powerful novas actively neutralizing them. But by the time of Trinity it becomes harder to explain why some inhabitants of the aberrant colonies haven't done this, given that we are told they have intensive breeding programs to face off with the low-Taint novas. Perhaps that is still seen as too dangerous by leaders like the Colony (who might not be able to control fast-spawning novas), or would constitute the ultimate WMD and bring about a Final War with the rest of the novas.

Even without ultra-rapid breeding, nova populations would still be growing exponentially, albeit with a doubling time of decades instead of months. Since they are capable of interstellar (and intergalactic, for some novas of observed power levels) travel and colonization, that would fill the galaxy within a few centuries, and all the billions of visible galaxies a few centuries after that. They could then create or assimilate other universes, expanding their multiversal empire by billions of times every centuries. Even if expansionist nova cultures only happen once in 10^1000 universes, they should already have assimilated everything billions of years ago (and we are told the Doyen have been around for billions of years).

Nexus says that the emergence of novas is incredibly rare, happening only once in our galaxy, perhaps even only once in our universe, but any meaningful frequency is hard to make stable. 

For non-nova cultures, Nexus reduces the problem by having the Coalition and Doyen act to suppress advanced technological civilization in the Milky Way for billions of years. But the fact that many intelligent species emerged in the Milky Way indicates the other galaxies should be populated, and intergalactic travel is quick and easy with high technology levels in the Nexus tech level system. So out of the hundreds of billions of species that would have emerged in the visible galaxies based on Milky Way development rates, why haven't some become technically advanced intergalactic or interdimensional expansionists crushed the Doyen billions of years ago?

The easiest explanation in-setting would seem to be that the Milky Way and our multiverse are in fact the playthings of such an ultra-advanced fast-growing super-civilization or god-novas, who have prevented the emergence of intergalactic and interdimensional expansionists. However, even then you have to wonder why such beings haven't themselves been outcompeted and crushed by novas or civilizations that do nothing but grow and increase their power. What would a hyperintelligent nova conclude about the world she finds herself in? Perhaps that the godlike novas/entities that stand above her multiverse are operating under different rules. And also that something very scary will put a stop to rapid expansionism, and it might be a good idea for the novas to avoid finding out what it is...

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