Trinity RPG - The invasion of Earth

[Blue Thunder]

The hiding of the Adventure era was only done in small part by Max. He didn't hide the existence of talking gorillas, or vampires, or dinosaur swamps, or the Hollow Earth, or any of that stuff. As the Telluric energies died down, the existence of these things also dissipated...and so did their memories. That's why there are no talking gorilla tribes by 2008 and there's no one that remembers them. It's a strange thing, but so is Telluric energy. People began to forget the strange creatures and places that Telluric energy had brought out. As for the tech...as Max points out in one of the fiction stories in Adventure, the story about the island with the plants I believe, the majority of Inspired inventors use their inventions and genuis for selfish pursuits. They create devices that cannot help humanity at all, devices that only help the inventor in question gain power, cause destruction, or take lives.

Plus, the information cover-up was needed from a gameplay-POV to better seperate the settings, and its something I completely agree with.

[metaphysician]

Depends on if you believe Donighal was backing Germany or not. ::wink

The question you bring up, though, is *why* are Mercer and Donighal so intent, even back before the 70s, at covering up their own existence?

[Blue Thunder]

Because some things are too dangerous for people to know; Max understands this better than maybe anyone. That's why the Inspired era was covered up, and that's why Aeon Trinity covered up the Nova Age after the OpNet Purge. Sometimes, people are better off being ignorant to the truth, because knowing the truth could harm them. I belief this point is also brought up in one of the books.

Of course, Max after the Inspired Age and Aeon Trinity after the Aberrant War go about things differently...

Depends on if you believe Donighal was backing Germany or not.

Nazi Germany to be specific, and he backed them philosophically. You can really see this in the Teragen movement. Mal believes he knows what is best, so, like Nazi Germany, he is willing to sacrifice millions so his vision of the future comes to fruition. He sees a world where novas are seperate and greater than baselines.

[metaphysician]

Your getting the order mixed up. He created the Teragen long after WWII, and after a couple of Chrysalis.

His letter to Mercer points against supporting the Nazis; he saw them as the dark cloud on the horizon that needed to be stopped.

As for things "too dangerous to be known". . . bullshit. At best, that supports my statement of him being exceedinly arrogant, and given the actual results of his plots and creations, it most likely points to far worse. When someone says something is "too dangerous to be known," I'd bet dollars to donuts they really mean "thats too dangerous to me for you to know."

[Blue Thunder]

Your getting the order mixed up. He created the Teragen long after WWII, and after a couple of Chrysalis.

I didn't mean he started the Teragen during WWII. I was just drawing a comparison to the Teragen.

When someone says something is "too dangerous to be known," I'd bet dollars to donuts they really mean "thats too dangerous to me for you to know."

And...what exactly does Max have to fear or lose? What is it that you feel he's hiding about himself?

[SkyLion]

I think y'all are overthinking this one. Sometimes us gamers try and rationalize everything but I think BT hit the nail on the head. The "reason" things were suppresed is to preserve 3 distinct settings on one timeline. It was done for OOC reasons and they kinda bullshited their excuses for them.

Now... it *does* make sense for us to come up with some plausible IC reasons since we are the players. Its just that if you allowed tech to progress from A! then Aberrant wouldn't look like the more modern day realistic setting it is supposed to be. If Aberrants history was fully known in the Trinity era then likewise, it changes the mood and setting of the game. Just a thought.

[metaphysician]

I think y'all are overthinking this one. Sometimes us gamers try and rationalize everything but I think BT hit the nail on the head. The "reason" things were suppresed is to preserve 3 distinct settings on one timeline. It was done for OOC reasons and they kinda bullshited their excuses for them.

Now... it *does* make sense for us to come up with some plausible IC reasons since we are the players. Its just that if you allowed tech to progress from A! then Aberrant wouldn't look like the more modern day realistic setting it is supposed to be. If Aberrants history was fully known in the Trinity era then likewise, it changes the mood and setting of the game. Just a thought.

Fully acknowledged. WW wasn't *trying* to make Mercer look like a bastard.

Its just that, their OOC genre goals kind of produce some interesting results, if you look closely. . .

As for what Max would have to fear, well, following my interpretation, he has to fear superhumanity being publically known and accepted, thus ruining his chances to set up a "perfect" mundane world for humanity. Following the Aberrant era, he went with his next best option: humanity knowing about novas, but doing their best to get rid of them.

At this point, though, you also have Doyen involvement, which complicates things alot.

[Alex Green]

As for things "too dangerous to be known". . . bullshit. At best, that supports my statement of him being exceedinly arrogant, and given the actual results of his plots and creations, it most likely points to far worse. When someone says something is "too dangerous to be known," I'd bet dollars to donuts they really mean "thats too dangerous to me for you to know."

When we start getting into quantum technology, "too dangerous to be known" starts being the default.

The world is probably not better off with the introduction of weapons of mass quantum destruction.

[metaphysician]

And thusly he covers up. . .

. . .the existence of independent heroic barnstormers during the 20s?

The thing is, while super WMDs and such can certainly be justified for some creative historical recordkeeping ( or just plain not keeping info on them ), Mercer and Aeon didn't just conceal dangerous technologies. They covered up the existence of *everything*.

I have a hard time swallowing that as anything better than believing that the very concept of superhumanity is inherently dangerous. . . which is rather tough to align with the actual trend of the Adventure setting ( with, at least, as many good guys as bad ).

[Alex Green]

In the 20's the world had just ended one world war, and was building up towards another.

Adding superhumans to the mix could have meant Naxi Germany taking over the world. America was saying "all men all equal", Germany was saying "some are superior and they deserve to rule".

With that as the background, it's real easy to see someone coming from that background deciding that man wasn't ready. In fact it's hard to think that he'd fess up and say "Hitler had a point, some are superior".

[Alistaire]

The thing is, while super WMDs and such can certainly be justified for some creative historical recordkeeping ( or just plain not keeping info on them ), Mercer and Aeon didn't just conceal dangerous technologies. They covered up the existence of *everything*.

I think that what they're saying (coming from someone who knows very little about Ab. or A!) is that knowledge of one is too likely to lead to the other. If one has to go, so does the other, part and parcel. At least that is what I am getting out of this so far. Otherwise, I'm happy sitting back and learning like crazy from you guys about all this stuff. I've been wondering on and off what, if anything, to do with Max in my game.

The arrival of the Coalition was supposed to be part of the excuse for a new edition of Trinity -- we'd've advanced the timeline and overhauled everything from the ground up.

::ohmy ::cry (mourns even harder for the fall of the Trinity line; like at the news of plans for Trinity movie)

The components of {the Quantakinesis chamber} were meant to be key to unlocking the restrictions on the other chambers -- once those Doyen-imposed barriers were removed, all Prometheus chambers would trigger latents in broad-spectrum psionic abilities.

Wow, that helps a lot. I already have plans for a future episode involving the QK chamber pieces, so this is cool. Damn! What more of this stuff are you guys keeping secret anyway?!? ::wink

I dunno, maybe if there was enough of this kind of stuff it could be compiled somewhere, maybe a new little book? Our own second edition? There's enough alt rules out there to add for the "overhauling" (new char gen, new modes & powers, optional Inspired rules, robots and Qin, etc.), and just add in some light editing for the rest. Nothing too fancy like InUn (although that'd be cool too ::tongue ) but just a compilation. I know Bright Continent (and the TSG; is that still on?) will contain some of this stuff, so I don't know if there would be enough left for another book (even TFR sized?). You guys know this stuff better than I do, what do you think?

[metaphysician]

I would disagree that super humans necessarily means super tech, especially given that back in the pulp era, not all the tech is even necessarily dangerous. OTOH, the idea of superhumans and Nazis is a valid point. It would depend on when superhumanity was revealed, and in what manner, but yes, publically admitting that their are "ubermensch" could look bad. The problem is. . . its a lie by omission, because there *are* ubermensch. And its an ubermensch making this very decision.

And I'll second the disappointment re: Trinity 2e. We could have gotten an advance in the metaplot, a rules revamp to take into account the stuff learned doing all three lines. . . and instead we got Trinity d20. Talk about a booby prize.

[Alex Green]

I would disagree that super humans necessarily means super tech, especially given that back in the pulp era, not all the tech is even necessarily dangerous. OTOH, the idea of superhumans and Nazis is a valid point. It would depend on when superhumanity was revealed, and in what manner, but yes, publically admitting that their are "ubermensch" could look bad. The problem is. . . its a lie by omission, because there *are* ubermensch. And its an ubermensch making this very decision.

Granted... but as a decision for it's time, it was probably the right one.

My view on this is similar to my view on slavery and the foundation of the United States. The Constitution said slavery was legal. From one view point (ours, looking back) this was *wrong*… but from another view point (theirs) it was the correct decision because it let the country be created. The country/world/people simply weren’t ready for any other outcome, and no one at the time had the power to force the issue.

Jefferson slept with his slaves. Jesus and Moses repressed women. Max kept important information secret.

In Max’s case, probably the only option worse than hiding the truth would have been revealing it. (The USA would have had a witch hunt and the Nazis would have had their master race).

[metaphysician]

The US hadn't been witch hunting its superhumans for the couple decades they weren't particularly concealed. The government, certainly, knew all about them ( Branch 9, anyone? ).

Thats why I don't buy the witchhunt argument. The time to worry about that would be before WWII, not after, and yet after is apparently when all the coverup was done.

[Alex Green]

The US hadn't been witch hunting its superhumans for the couple decades they weren't particularly concealed. The government, certainly, knew all about them ( Branch 9, anyone? ). Thats why I don't buy the witchhunt argument.

The US at the time was pretty racest against jews/blacks/gays/women/communists/various other racial groups.

How do you think the federal gov is going to react went told that there was a (member of group "X") out there who could control the President's mind? This is the same USA that had basically withdrawn from the world and was very issolationist. Superhumans would have been a grave threat to the social order and stability of the country.

I suspect that super humans would have been viewed as a grave threat, i.e. the internal threat would be much greater than the external threat. We've had years of comic books and rapidly changing science. They've had foke tails of witches and goblins.

The time to worry about that would be before WWII, not after, and yet after is apparently when all the coverup was done.

A! starts in 1929 or so. Max presumably knew about WWII. As for after WWII, most of the coverup done then was the loss of Quantum itself (although Mal's Cipher may have played a roll).

[BlueNinja]

A! starts in 1929 or so. Max presumably knew about WWII. As for after WWII, most of the coverup done then was the loss of Quantum itself (although Mal's Cipher may have played a roll).

A! starts (from a PC POV, anyway) in 1923 around June, on the one-year anniversary of the Hammersmith Event. It doesn't seem written to extend into the 1930s or later, thematically, and I think the timeline in the back of the A! book says that the telluric energies are starting to fade by the turn of the decade.

[Alex Green]

Point. My dates were off a bit.

[Blue Thunder]

I should note that Max is not Aeon. He lost control of it when he left after the Inspired Age. The Aeon Society of the Nova Age does not answer to Max or follow his commands. He has a seat on their council, but he's not the one making the decisions. The big decisions are made by the leader of the Council (I forgot her name). In the Aberrant era, he basically stopped by to keep a check on things and see how life had turned out. He does the same in Trinity; by the point in Trinity, he feels the Aeon Council has gone too far out of control. The organization was created to help humanity, but all they've done is cover things up.

My view: Max isn't above covering things up; sometimes its for the good of everyone if a certain weapon or creature disappears from history. But he doesn't agree with the information blackout imposed by Aeon after the Aberrant War. That was not what he created Aeon to do, in fact it's almost the opposite. The Aeon of the Psion Age keeps too many secrets, performs too many covert operations, and has too many hidden agendas, and he doesn't approve. And its not just Aeon, but so many others in 2120. As you can tell from his OpNet message with Whit in Terra Verde, he's planning something. He feels its time for all those secrets to be let out. The theme of Trinity is Unity; Earth has to unite to oppose the Coalition, but how will Aeon and the orders and government and psions and novas and aliens be able to unite if they keep so many damn secrets from each other?

[NFVD]

I think y'all are overthinking this one. Sometimes us gamers try and rationalize everything but I think BT hit the nail on the head. The "reason" things were suppresed is to preserve 3 distinct settings on one timeline. It was done for OOC reasons and they kinda bullshited their excuses for them.

Now... it *does* make sense for us to come up with some plausible IC reasons since we are the players. Its just that if you allowed tech to progress from A! then Aberrant wouldn't look like the more modern day realistic setting it is supposed to be. If Aberrants history was fully known in the Trinity era then likewise, it changes the mood and setting of the game. Just a thought.

Skylion, you postings are illuminated outbursts of knowledge, as always. ::w00t

Permit me to add some plutonium to the collective nuclear reactor of this debate. Specifically about the nature of Mr. Max Mercer. ::devil

If he truly wishes to protect mankind from external influences and allow our race to follow its destiny on its own terms, he should go back in time to where is daddy was in the process of putting the moves on his mum and discharge a sawed-off shotgun into the gentleman’s genital area, preferably at point-blank range. :tombstone:

He has been the most powerful and insidious “external threat” for 200 years in the Aeon Continuum. Is he so misguided that he fails to see this? What a jackass! ::brick

Mercer is my least favourite character of them all. Is true nature is somewhat mysterious but it clear he suffers from a flaw or even several (be it hypocrisy, idiocy, lack of vision, pure incompetence, egotism, unbridled arrogance, schizophrenia, Napoleon complex, Jesus complex pure racism, multiple personalities disorder, etc, etc, etc) to such an uber-pathological extent that it borders disbelief. ::tongue

He is essentially a flawed character, he HAS to be. It is the only way to justify his actions and their outcome.

Precisely what is the nature of his flaw(s) is open to debate but he suffers from it to such an extent that what could inspire us to pity him, perhaps even admire him causes many among us to despise, or even feeling downright disgusted by him. ::irate

IMHO, Project Proteus should sterilise and lobotomise him and they would still be following their charter. ::laugh

[metaphysician]

Skylion, you postings are illuminated outbursts of knowledge, as always. ::w00t

Permit me to add some plutonium to the collective nuclear reactor of this debate. Specifically about the nature of Mr. Max Mercer. ::devil

If he truly wishes to protect mankind from external influences and allow our race to follow its destiny on its own terms, he should go back in time to where is daddy was in the process of putting the moves on his mum and discharge a sawed-off shotgun into the gentleman’s genital area, preferably at point-blank range. :tombstone:

He has been the most powerful and insidious “external threat” for 200 years in the Aeon Continuum. Is he so misguided that he fails to see this? What a jackass! ::brick

Mercer is my least favourite character of them all. Is true nature is somewhat mysterious but it clear he suffers from a flaw or even several (be it hypocrisy, idiocy, lack of vision, pure incompetence, egotism, unbridled arrogance, schizophrenia, Napoleon complex, Jesus complex pure racism, multiple personalities disorder, etc, etc, etc) to such an uber-pathological extent that it borders disbelief. ::tongue

He is essentially a flawed character, he HAS to be. It is the only way to justify his actions and their outcome.

Precisely what is the nature of his flaw(s) is open to debate but he suffers from it to such an extent that what could inspire us to pity him, perhaps even admire him causes many among us to despise, or even feeling downright disgusted by him. ::irate

IMHO, Project Proteus should sterilise and lobotomise him and they would still be following their charter. ::laugh

::laugh

Actually, given recent revelations in the Ancient Aberrant campaign. . . well, there's a couple ways to interpret them, including the 'pure red herring' option, but it seems the most likely is 'at some point in the timeline, Max made contact with an entity he really really shouldn't have.'

So, shotgun lobotomy might just be the best option. Either that, or going back in time to whack his younger self on the head and scream "No, no, no you idiot! Trying to jump back four thousand years in time is a *BAD* idea!"

[Rorx]

My view: Max isn't above covering things up; sometimes its for the good of everyone if a certain weapon or creature disappears from history.  But he doesn't agree with the information blackout imposed by Aeon after the Aberrant War.  That was not what he created Aeon to do, in fact it's almost the opposite.  The Aeon of the Psion Age keeps too many secrets, performs too many covert operations, and has too many hidden agendas, and he doesn't approve.  And its not just Aeon, but so many others in 2120.  As you can tell from his OpNet message with Whit in Terra Verde, he's planning something.  He feels its time for all those secrets to be let out.  The theme of Trinity is Unity; Earth has to unite to oppose the Coalition, but how will Aeon and the orders and government and psions and novas and aliens be able to unite if they keep so many damn secrets from each other?

Max and Whitley are talking at the end of 2122, and the Eden Novas have been known about (at the ver least to the UN if not the public) since April 2121. Given that it seems likely that Max is going to start trying to clear house and the secrets from the various corners during 2123 - presumably the tale end of '23 since no comment is made about it in Noetic Science.

How I'd run the Invasion?

'23-24 Max clear up the secrets and tries to get people to Unite more, this is likelt to cause some chaos which the Aberrants will try to take advantage of, but in doing so will just give the psions (if not the Orders) a chance to show how people should and can work will together against a common enemy. Also during this time the UN and Nihjon will be having negotiations with each other and Eden about a limited use of Novas against both Aberrant and Coalition targets in the future. Qin will be asked to help out, but probably be blocked from a full alliance by the clan/group that has done a deal with the Aberrants. That won't stop them increasing sales of a variety of items in human markets, although unlikely to move into arms/armour/military vehicles.

'24 I'm quessing that Bright Continent is/was meant to occur about now, which I believe will open up psions access to all the (basic) Aptitudes. This will have a significant impact both politically and within the Orders, but will also greatly improve the effectiveness of the psions/psiads against the continuing Aberrant raids and approaching Coalition.

'25 might have the Coalition Ark arrive towards the tale end of the year at the very earliest, more likely give an extra year for some of the changes that have happend recently to settle down and the psions to get more comfortable with their increased abilities.

I'd have the Coalition assault run seperately from a later massed Aberrant attack, as someone else has suggested it just gives a better sequence, and more for the party to do. As to justifying it, well the Ark may still have non-Aberrant aligned Breeders aboard who could alter the arrival time compared to when the Aberrants want to hit Earth. Alternatively, the non-Aberrant breeders may actually be able to defeat the Aberrants on the Ark while it is in FTL and possibly out of contact with the rest of the Aberrants - Trying to do a Warp while in FTL is likely to be unhealthy to say the least. That would still give them an limited ability to create Furies (that I take to be the Phyle equivalents of the Sub-Aberrants that make up 90%+ of the Aberrant forces), but still unable to control what powers they may have. Given that lack of control and the reduced or lack of control of the Furies using their traditional Pheromone system, they may just bin the lot of them.

Given the network of informers the Aberrants have they will know when the Coalition arrives, and could launch an attack straight away, but are more likely to see what happens and pick off the losers. Having said that they want to take control of and dominate the Earth and it's population, so there is the slim possibility that they would actually move in to attack the Coalition during the fight if it looks like there is a sufficient threat to their overall goals.

[Finbar]

As the Coalition doesn't have a chance anyway, I would take advantage of the chaos and insert operatives when they attacked...but that's just me...

FR

[Rorx]

Had a thought while replying to a different forum, but this seemed the appropriate place to put it.

The invasion is going to take place after Nippon has been in discussions with Eden, and presumably after they have released the information about their own Novas. If that information release, at least to the UN/Trinity/Orders also includes their genetic data for how many people get the gene for psi/Aberrant/Nova/other abilities (assuming they hide the Superiors?) it will mean that all of a sudden the Orders (and others) will know just how many potential latents are out there that they have been missing all this time. From memory in one of the books it suggests that there are currently about 65,000 psions, but there are another 250,000 latents out there!

If they could get a mass program of genetic screening going in the 1st world countries/areas at least, based on the Nihjon model, the Orders could probably at least double the number of triggered psions in a year or less. Getting them all suitably trained would be a different matter, although some Aptitudes would be easier than others, the hardest (to meet the current standards) would be the Telepaths and Vitakinetics.

Still if you give the Ark an FTL capability of 10 times the speed of light and starting from Dec 2121, then they won't reach the area of Earth until about 3 3/4 years later - about September 2125. Assuming that the period that Earth tracked them at sublight was what they needed to slow to move into the Erebus system (about 2 years), and further assuming that they could actually do it in half the time (one year) then the Ark would reach Earth/Luna space about September 2126.

If Nippon released the info during 2123 then by the time the Ark dropped out of FTL there could be double or triple the number of triggered psions, and by the time the Ark reaches Earth they could all have been reasonably trained in most/all their Aptitudes.

Having said that I don't know what impact Bright Continent would have, or even when that was likely to occur except it is somewhere between Process 418 and the arrival of the Ark.

[metaphysician]

I imagine that'd only work with some very significant time to adjust to the idea of "Novas != Aberrants", as otherwise, most people would spot the salient information as being "Japan secretly has Aberrants around!" and "Psions are really closely related to Aberrants!"

( easier in the campaign I play in, where King Arthur just woke up in Britain, but thats another story. . . )

[Rorx]

Perhaps, but with the Un, Trinity and those hyper-intelligent Superiors and Novas over in PR/Marketing, they could probably pull it off in a number of stages.

1. Nippon has a way of detecting who could erupt as an Aberrant and stop them before it can happen.

2. Nippon has a better way of detecting latents than the long process that the Orders have to go through, so we can find and trigger the latents faster to help in the defence of the Humanity from both the Coalition and the Aberrants.

3. Nippon has a way of finding out who has the potential to turn into one of the rare, powerful and benign Novas - like those encountered on Eden.

small print - we could do all this only because we weeded out the Aberrants in our country and allowed the Novas to stay.

[Alex Green]

Problems

1) And that worked so well with the teleports.

2) Your country can make supers. This is an extremely profitable advantage from a number of view points. If it's public then other countries will want you to share.

[Rorx]

Problems

1) And that worked so well with the teleports.

2) Your country can make supers. This is an extremely profitable advantage from a number of view points. If it's public then other countries will want you to share.

1. Huh? The Upeo knew that the other would be coming after them and did a runner rather than be enslaved or wiped out. With the situation I postulate everyone has a bloodtest and after the results everyone gets a course of pills, for the vast majority of people they are placebos, for those that are likely to erupt as an Aberrant at some stage and are too unstable etc to make a Superior they are given the Kaga-2 to wipe out their potential to erupt [Priviso A below]. If they are latent Psi's they are congratulated and passed on to the appropriate Order or UN/Trinity. If they could erupt as a Nova they are given the placebos, then contacted again later to determine their suitability for forced eruption to Nova status.

2. They don't have to make that bit common knowledge to begin with, or even at all, just that they can tell who has the potential to erupt in a way that they are much less likely to go tainted and frothingly insane.

Privisio A

If they can take a psi or Quantum tendency and force it back to a neutral state and/or the third state required for a Dardevil then force it's triggering as an artificial daredevil, then couldn't they theoretically find a way to take a potential Aberrant and reset them to a potential psion/psiad. Given enough work they could presumably come up with their own way of triggering a Latent into an artificial Psion/Psiad of some kind...

[Alex Green]

I meant that the head of the Teleportor order was unable to explain to the other order heads that he'd found a group of sane abbies.

[Alex Green]

Let me expand on that.

The world's top expert in his field, who is talking to other people who know him personally and have worked with him for years, decide that the only reasonable explaination for his saying this is that his order has been taken over by abbies and needs to be taken apart.

They do this because the entire concept of sane (or non-evil) abbies is so unreal to them that anything else is better. Now how is John Q public going to feel about a group of people he *doesn't* know who have been willingly working with abbies? What is he going to think about them?

The best real world example would be if you tried to explain to someone, and I mean seriously explain to them, that you had rock solid evidence that Hitler was a good man who was 100% right in what he did, what he tried to do, and every written about him contrary to those facts was a lie. I.e. that the US was the bad guys and he was upholding the good. The reason it can't be done is because we *know* for a fact it not true.

And it'd be worse for them, every movie monster for the last 50 years has been an abby. Ditto every bad guy, ditto evey bad organization, etc, etc. For this entire generation the abbies are the absolute ICONS of EVIL.

If Japan admits that they have them, and have had them, then they are admitting that their country switched sides during the aberrant war, were complicant in the murder of millions, and has been fully controlled by EVIL MONSTERS every since then. Basically they'd be saying they were a country wide abby cult.

[metaphysician]

And that, is why I occasionally worry that the little future change we induced in Ancient Aberrant that lead to the Summer King waking around 2120 or so, leads shortly thereafter to the end of the world. . .

[Rorx]

And that, is why I occasionally worry that the little future change we induced in Ancient Aberrant that lead to the Summer King waking around 2120 or so, leads shortly thereafter to the end of the world. . .

I'm sure that would be greatly interesting and illuminating if I had a clue what you were talking about!

Any chance of pointing me towards illumination (in a non-enlightenment fashion at least)?

[Finbar]

::blink Atwan is a guy???? She's butch, but I didn't think she was THAT butch...

They do this because the entire concept of sane (or non-evil) abbies is so unreal to them that anything else is better. Now how is John Q public going to feel about a group of people he *doesn't* know who have been willingly working with abbies? What is he going to think about them?

Actually, they attacked him because they were manipulated (by the Doyenne) into thinking that the quantakinetics had been infiltrated by the abbies. It didn't help that the quantakinetic proxy was himself possessed by one...

And it'd be worse for them, every movie monster for the last 50 years has been an abby. Ditto every bad guy, ditto evey bad organization, etc, etc. For this entire generation the abbies are the absolute ICONS of EVIL.

Basically true...I would point out that comic book cashes are apparently being found every so often...

If Japan admits that they have them, and have had them, then they are admitting that their country switched sides during the aberrant war, were complicant in the murder of millions, and has been fully controlled by EVIL MONSTERS every since then. Basically they'd be saying they were a country wide abby cult.

Yep. Not good for the PR. Especially when conspiracy theorists put it together that their having abbies would SO explain the biotech issues....

FR

[Alex Green]

Actually, they attacked him because they were manipulated (by the Doyenne) into thinking that the quantakinetics had been infiltrated by the abbies. It didn't help that the quantakinetic proxy was himself possessed by one...

That's the most favorable way to look at this, but...

1) It's almost reasonable that the guys researching this evil power are going to fall to it, real Lord of The Rings type stuff. But this is the teleport head, not the quantakinetic head.

2) And how long ago had this happened? A year? Two? How long does this excuse work?

3) So you were telepathically convinced that someone else was working with evil abbies two years ago. How does that really relate when someone else who wasn't involved in that says he's found sane ones?

Yep. Not good for the PR. Especially when conspiracy theorists put it together that their having abbies would SO explain the biotech issues....

Why stop there? Japan was largely spared the horrors of the war & Someone has been feeding the Colony info. They'll get blamed for everything from the destruction of France to the neighbors cow not giving milk.

[metaphysician]

I'm sure that would be greatly interesting and illuminating if I had a clue what you were talking about!

Any chance of pointing me towards illumination (in a non-enlightenment fashion at least)?

Its all in the Ancient Aberrant thread on Aberrant board, with transcripts from the campaign, but the nutshell explanation:

-There's this guy called the Summer King, an extremely powerful and charismatic nova with power of life, who inspired the King Arthur legends among other things

-Us PCs freed him from centuries of imprisonment imposed by a traitorous follower

-As a result, somehow, this leads to him waking up and being active during the Trinity era, probably after 2120. Specifically, we saw him get up to smash a giant tentacle monster and save the Legion troops who were dying trying to kill it

-This could turn out tragic, if everyone has a panic "kill the aberrant" response, because if everyone starts reigning nukes on Britain in a desperate attempt to kill him, it most likely won't work. However, it *will* take the land and people he is tied to on an essentially-spiritual level, and render them unto a blasted wasteland.

Ever read Kingdom Come? If so, imagine the ending, except with no point-of-view preacher dude to keep Superman from wreaking bloody vengeance.

[Rorx]

Flicking through Stellar Frontiers again today I spotted a comment about the fleet of ships available to the Upeo before/during their exile. Obviously most would be engaged in their exploration for additional colony sites, but given a day or two they should be able to gather a substanital part of it for Earth's defence...

60-70 Freighters, close to 30 Frigates, about 200 hybrid class fighters.

Unfortunately it also makes little sense when combined with the estimate of the whole Upeo Order (including neutrals) of being only about 1,000 strong. Freighters typically have a crew of about 30, and Frigates about 100 for efficient/effective use, so that requires about 5,000 people already!

It also gives the Upeo Order as many or more ships than Earth is able to cobble together in a week for the defence of the planet from the Chromatic attack in the "Ascent into Light" scenarios.

Assuming the Upeo are back on reasonable terms before the Coalition Ark arrives, that gives quite a reasonable boost to the conventional forces as a rapid responce fleet.

Any comments on either the fleet or the contradiction with the size of the Order?

[Finbar]

Take that fleet, and combine with the technokinetics (NOT the other eks, but those specifically with technokinesis), a clear/teleporter/telepath strike team aboard each ship, and make those frigates fully armed (and keep in mind the nukes). Back by even a handful of abbies (Apollo alone devastated a Chromatic fleet), and I'm really not seeing The Coalition have even the slightest chance...

So...What would it take for The Coalition to make a decent attack?

FR

[Rorx]

Thanks for the mention of the technokinetics - made me think of the possibilities of Inteface and Transmission with a neural interface technology base. Either they would do really well at taking control, or they wouldn't stand a hope of getting past the hacking defences.

Teleport attackers effectiveness depends on how they are making the attack. Ferrymen ripping great holes with Transportal would be limited by the number of WEAR suits available. The Upeo return with about 15-18, Orgotek's few were used up with making the Leviathans. I doubt the Upeo would risk more than about 10 of them. More later, replying from my cell phone gives limited space.

[Rorx]

A Ferryman attack would need a Clear and Tep or PCR for the initial jump to the Ark. Once there the Ferryman may need protection for the minute the Transportal takes to form, but he move to a famialiar place so he wouldn't need the Clear et al with him.

A strike team would be for doing an initial Transportal from deep inside the Ark or placing nukes in tactical places. After all if you take out the Breeders and the Spinals you could probably deal with or control the others - giving Earth access to at least some of the Arks technology.

[Alex Green]

So...What would it take for The Coalition to make a decent attack?

A ruling by the ST that you can't Warp or Teleport to it while it's under warp.

[Rorx]

I'd already assumed that anyway.

The problem the Ark has is the slow deceleration it apparently uses. It was travelling sub-light for about 2 years before it hit Erebus. Why do that if you don't need to?

Now if it can dime stop from FTL to about 10% light speed at Neptunes orbit, then you got problems.