Metaplot Mischief

[KingOfDreams]

So I recently went back and reread all the material I could find about the Trinity metaplot. The reason being is that I am trying to salvage my enthusiasm for designing a campaign. I love Trinity, but a few things always bugged me.

1- Mercer's Time Traveling: Why is it that Mercer is the only individual in the whole setting to be blessed with this ability. He obviously uses it to make plans for the future by preparing himself and others in the past. These manipulations have a direct effect to the way history plays out. I do think that Mercer finds it very difficult to accomplish his goals when utilizing his time traveling methods, and that his plans don't always turn out the way he wants them to, but he still has a dramatic effect. What are the odds that another person who gets similar powers from any available source becomes capable of the same thing. I know, I know. Its for the integrity of the story. I might as well ask that the ability to time travel at all is completely banned, but this denial could only be explained by a writer's difficulty to make his or her story work. I believe that when you delve into the theoretical science of the genres, you just have to include time travel. So I'm left with a conundrum. I don't like that Mercer is the only character in canon jumping around messing with the continuum, but I can't bring myself to omit the possibility from my view of the plot.

2- All Those Morphs: I get confused. Who is an eximorph, when do psiads appear, and just what the hell are daredevils? There's telluric energy, psi particles, quantum forces, and taint radiation. Just how are they supposed to all interact? I believe most of this confusion is due to the fact that several writer's had their hand in the pot, and the story somewhat evolved over its history. I seem to prefer the original ideas and wish I knew what Andrew's desires were for the direction of the story regarding these aspects. Bruce's influence seems to have taken all possibilities and thrown them together. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to see it played out. Perhaps if I had I would be pleased with the result. I'm sure there were many other creative minds that changed the integrity of the story at various points. The beauty of the Storyteller privilege is that you can write and rewrite whatever you want. I just need it to make sense for me and for my players.

3- Damn Doyen: These bastards screw everything up! To top it all off they are complete wimps! I do feel these aliens deserve a place in the plot, but I don't like how much power they actually have. The proxies are subject to their every whim. Why don't the Doyen just possess them all and get 'er done?! They just seem to make dumb decisions. Maybe because humans are so alien to them they can't completely comprehend the human condition enough to adequately anticipate all the crazy things humans will do.

I'm trying to redesign the metaplot in a way that addresses these problem I have with it. I am going to express some ideas here and see what everyone thinks. I would need to know how a seemingly minor change would affect the rest of the story. Since the story of Trinity is so frickin' huge, I need help.

First of all I want to simplify and clarify what energy provides what powers and how these energies interact with each other while still maintaining many of the cool elements provided in the canon. In my view there are only two types of power providing energy; psi and quantum. The Adventure! reference to telluric or "z-ray" energy was just that era's explanation for those energies. Max got the psi end of the spectrum while Mal got the quantum. Mal's development can progress unchanged, but this leaves's Mercer's abilities in need of some explaining. Currently there is no canon mechanics for psi to allow for time travel. I do think that time manipulation is within the realm of psi use and I even think there is some home brew aptitudes around. I have even toyed with the idea that Max doesn't get the power to time travel, he just becomes a very powerful precognitiant. He sees the future and adjusts the present to compensate. He spends so much time gyre surfing that he isn't able to completely oversee his plans in the present resulting in them not being as effective as he would like. Should I include the Process 418 block I might need to explain how Max adjusts for that as well. Either way, I like the idea of the two rivals getting each side of the coin so to speak.

With just psi and quantum flowing about, the possibility of all those morphs becomes simplified. There are psions and there are novas. I would still have differing degrees of these two types. Some would be naturally occurring, without the need of a tank for instance. Some might be able to use their energy type without the danger of a negative effect, albeit with limited results. I would still include psionic dysfunction as well as taint. I would have taint negatively affect psi use, and psi use negatively affect quantum use. Mal gets to implement his utopian idea by imbuing humans with quantum use. In turn, I would hand over the gift of psi use for humans to Max. The Doyen no longer are the ones who provided the tanks, Max finds a way to do this. The Doyen are still around and view taint as a threat, enlisting the Chromatics and harassing the proxies and other psi users via possession.

The Pai still tries to recreate the Venezuelan tragedy, but his goal is to purge the Earth and surrounding area of the Doyen which he just recently discovered. I'm not sure what else to do with the effects of the event. I do like the aspect of not being able to see past it before it happens and before it after it happens. I just don't like all the other craziness Bruce and his writing team included.

So how would these changes affect the rest of the story? Would any aspects of the game need to be re-explained? Hopefully this will provide some enjoyment for those of you still floating around here. I would hate to be written off as another crackpot who wants to create a lot of work to fix something that isn't broken.

Thanks

[Sprocket]

::blink That's a pretty tall order there, but I think I can help you with two of those points.

1- Max Mercer & Time Travel- Provided that you're using the Time Travel presented in pp. 136-137 of the Aberrant Players Guide, you've got the potential for nova time travelers to act as foils for Mercer's history-alteration attempts, above & beyond the natural default constraints on Aeoniverse time travel seen on p. 137. It should also be pointed out that Mercer did botch one time travel jump, resulting in the "double-slit Max" fiasco presented in the Trinity Storyteller's Guide (currently in WIKI format).

2- Telluric energy- Going by the most plausible fanon, this is just a label slapped on to the phenomenon of how quantum & noetic energies interact at low levels of power. There's no need for any "third power source".

Hope that helped! ::smile

[Alex Green]

1- Mercer's Time Traveling: Why is it that Mercer is the only individual in the whole setting to be blessed with this ability.

He's not... it's just that it's a Q8 (or Q6) ability and time travel physics makes most people's heads hurt. There's a good reason very few fictions have multiple people running around changing history.

2- All Those Morphs: I get confused. Who is an eximorph, when do psiads appear, and just what the hell are daredevils? There's telluric energy, psi particles, quantum forces, and taint radiation. Just how are they supposed to all interact?

There's a couple of websites that explain it better than me. http://rpgbooks.wikia.com/wiki/Trinity_Sto...ok/Introduction

And... I don't see my other links off hand.

3- Damn Doyen: These bastards screw everything up! To top it all off they are complete wimps! I do feel these aliens deserve a place in the plot, but I don't like how much power they actually have. The proxies are subject to their every whim. Why don't the Doyen just possess them all and get 'er done?! They just seem to make dumb decisions. Maybe because humans are so alien to them they can't completely comprehend the human condition enough to adequately anticipate all the crazy things humans will do.

It's not clear if they *can* possess a Proxy. Yeah, they nailed that one, but they might have nailed him before he became a Proxy.

First of all I want to simplify and clarify what energy provides what powers and how these energies interact with each other while still maintaining many of the cool elements provided in the canon. In my view there are only two types of power providing energy; psi and quantum. The Adventure! reference to telluric or "z-ray" energy was just that era's explanation for those energies.

Agreed... although at the low end of the spectrum they can both combine (thus Daredevils).

Max got the psi end of the spectrum while Mal got the quantum. Mal's development can progress unchanged, but this leaves's Mercer's abilities in need of some explaining. Currently there is no canon mechanics for psi to allow for time travel. I do think that time manipulation is within the realm of psi use and I even think there is some home brew aptitudes around.

I think in cannon Max isn't a psiad, he's unique and unquantified. He *might* be a "super-daredevil" but that doesn't make sense considering the levels of power needed wouldn't work.

But if we ignore Max, everything breaks out very nicely.

Daredevils use both Psi and Quantum combined (this is only possible at extremely low levels of power). They appear to be probability manipulators.

The Doyen, Psiads, Psions, and... whatever A! called it's Psi users all use Psi.

Novas and Stalwarts use Quantum. Presumably a Stalwart that hits 10 becomes a Q1 nova.

So called "3rd Gen" "novas" and other "taint users" are really sub-aberrants, i.e. they're baselines turned into monsters by a powerful nova, but they themselves don't have a node. When the psions talk about how a crew of them managed to take down several aberrants (or even novas) without anyone getting killed, that's who they're talking about. When they talk about *one* abby destroying city blocks until they had to drop an atomic bomb on him, that's a nova.

[Arashi]

1- As far as I know about Aberrant, Divis Mal surpasses the power of all other Novas by far.

In the Trinity-time, the older Novas are as old as was Mal when he vanished, so it can't just be that he had more time to train than the later Novas, I think the Hammersmith-incident produced much more powerfull Novas than the Galatea-incident.

So I always imagined that Max' Timetravel-ability is like Mal's, its a normal Quantum-power (or Psi-power, doens't really matter) thats very focussed to Time Travel, it's just way beyond the limits of the Novas that erupted in 2008 or later.

It's not that they absolutely can't learn to timetravel like Max, it's just that they are not powerfull enough.

Just my thought, I'm not very educated about the topic ::wink

2- I handled it this way: there are Novas and there are Abberants. Mesmerits and Stalwarts are low-powered Psionics or Novas who use their power unconciously and the classification in Mesmerits and Stalwarts as well as Z-rays comes from the fact that the people in the Adventure-era just don't know better. Daredevils are just cool, point ^^

That's why I don't like it that the Adventure-hero-types are re-introducend into the Trinity world in AsAs, it doesn't feels fitting.

PS: Sorry for the probably bad english translation, I'm ill ...

[Alex Green]

From Max's description he was probably a DareDevil *before* Hammersmith (for that matter Hammersmith himself might have been enhanced).

Divis was supposedly the son of 2 (probably unerupted) novas (that's not cannon, it's just from the developers in one of their rare chats).

The standard stalwart from Hammersmith was clearly much weaker than the standard nova from N-day... but Divis became a for real nova (perhaps the only one on the planet, perhaps not). It's an interesting question whether him being at ground zero of Hammersmith gave him a serious leg up on things (given that Max is basically the only other person with this advantage it might be).

As far as we know there were no novas at ground zero on N-day so it's just not clear... although I like that idea better than Divis being the offspring of 2 novas. He's already absurdly lucky in being at Hammersmith, he doesn't need more.

[KingOfDreams]

I'm going to paint Daredevils the same color Andrew mentioned in an interview which was posted on NPrime. Unfortunately I can't link it because that sight is down right now. Daredevils are just really lucky or very skilled normal human beings that do amazing things. They just happen to be in the right place at the right time and roll the right numbers to get recorded in the history books. Max is not a Daredevil in my version. He is a psi user. Certain material about daredevils and Process 418 in Terra Verde will be ignored in my version.

Superiors will be genetically engineered, cybernetic, super soldier creations. Japan still has quantum using novas that have control of their taint [for now!]. I remember reading in canon that the human genome data was lost in the Aberrant war and that genetic tampering was discouraged after the recovery. Japan has been exempt from this forced science ban and their novas have been secretly researching germline engineering all that time. They have discovered a way to determine if a human is latent. Latents can become psi or quantum users, and once they become one they can't become another. Does anyone remember a reference [and where] in Trinity that mentions the genome data is still floating around in pieces and might be recovered? Maybe Aeon still has it in their Babel Dossier.

I still like the idea of Max using gyre surfing to see the future instead of time travel. Although, the possibility of him bouncing into the Venezuelan event and getting split is interesting. It seems to me that Max is really messed up. He must be totally confused and probably bat shit insane. Mal seems to have the same insanity problems but in a different way. Maybe I can go with a "power corrupts" theme and make them both complete failures due to their mental instabilities. Mal failed and had to take his project into another dimension. Max's benevolent Aeon Society has turned into a black ops operation that humanity would wholly disapprove of if they ever found out.

If I do take away the Doyen's gift of the tanks to the proxies and give it to Max, how would I explain the tanks and biotech in general? I think it stated in canon that the Doyen taught the proxies about biotech and that is why it is so prevalent in Trinity.

[Alex Green]

Does anyone remember a reference [and where] in Trinity that mentions the genome data is still floating around in pieces and might be recovered?

I think Eden has/had it.

[Alex Green]

I still like the idea of Max using gyre surfing to see the future instead of time travel. Although, the possibility of him bouncing into the Venezuelan event and getting split is interesting. It seems to me that Max is really messed up. He must be totally confused and probably bat shit insane. Mal seems to have the same insanity problems but in a different way. Maybe I can go with a "power corrupts" theme and make them both complete failures due to their mental instabilities. Mal failed and had to take his project into another dimension. Max's benevolent Aeon Society has turned into a black ops operation that humanity would wholly disapprove of if they ever found out.

I had a game where the PCs were transported back to the Hammersmith event. One of the first things they had to do was *create* a Project-Pro type organization to do the black deeds that needed to be done because the future was so awful.

Hitler killed himself. Stalin's cureer was derailed. Politicians were manipulated into do the 'right' thing. And it all looked really bad and crazy from the stand point of someone who didn't have future knowledge.

As bad as the sterilization conspiracy was, not having it might have been much worse.

As repressive as the technology police were, not having them might have been much worse.

This is where we normally say, "but we'll never know"... but the reality is that *Max* might know.

If I do take away the Doyen's gift of the tanks to the proxies and give it to Max, how would I explain the tanks and biotech in general? I think it stated in canon that the Doyen taught the proxies about biotech and that is why it is so prevalent in Trinity.

It's a temporal paradox. Bio-ware is future tech, given by Max... and he got it from the future where it was developed from his gift.

[Arashi]

Does anyone remember a reference [and where] in Trinity that mentions the genome data is still floating around in pieces and might be recovered?

In AsAs it is said that the Bandits or Pirates or whatever in Myanmar are recovering the genome code illegaly to do something with it. Don't remember what ^^ I think it was in the description of the country.

Btw I don't know how they can't have the Genome discovered in Trinity. As far as I know, for Craig Venter it was ab bit isolating and lots of processong power, with the Computer available in Trinity every Biolab should be able to do it in one weekend-shift.

I had a game where the PCs were transported back to the Hammersmith event.

That sounds really cool!

Do you have an outline or something of the adventure, that you would like to share? ::smile

[metaphysician]

I just cannot buy daredevils as "nothing special here, move along." Not when they have access to abilities that normal humans *can't* have. Either daredevils need to be a subtle variety of superhuman, or the dramatic editting and knack rules need to be openned up to 'any' normal human with the proper background and experience totals.

[Sprocket]

I just cannot buy daredevils as "nothing special here, move along." Not when they have access to abilities that normal humans *can't* have. Either daredevils need to be a subtle variety of superhuman, or the dramatic editing and knack rules need to be opened up to 'any' normal human with the proper background and experience totals.

IMHO it's got to be the first option, with a bullet. The difference between the Inspired & mundane humanity is made chillingly clear on p. 25 of the Adventure! core book, where Mike Donighal mentions all the would-be pulp heroes & villains who wind up getting killed attempting to match the feats of the Inspired.

[Alex Green]

Btw I don't know how they can't have the Genome discovered in Trinity. As far as I know, for Craig Venter it was ab bit isolating and lots of processong power, with the Computer available in Trinity every Biolab should be able to do it in one weekend-shift.

It wasn't obvious that this was true when Trinity came out.

That sounds really cool!

Do you have an outline or something of the adventure, that you would like to share? ::smile

Sure... my PC was a nova investigator ("Steve") and a "super normal". He had Q1 with most of the megas... with his only power being Luck at 5 dots.

Steve, his telepathic friend & business partner (another PC) discover some interesting clues to a technology they're not familiar too...

...and *BOOM* they're Teleported to one of the moons of Jupiter along with all the other PCs who also had the misfortune to discover clues. Someone is out there, and they're the absolute master of time, and they don't want to be found. We think they just figured out historically that we were going to cause problems so took us out the moment we set ourselves on that path.

We discover a semi-sentient shape shifting time ship the size of a football field who explains this, and tells us we're banished from this reality. She'll take us anywhere we want, anywhen we want, any parallel reality we want, she's crew to our captain, but she can't re-enter this reality after we leave. Many of the PCs have family and are not happy. The ship has *no* food or anything, she's been sitting there for a *very* long time.

First Trip: A world where there are no novas, we go to Las Vegas. Steve proves that a guy with super human intelligence who can't be lied to and who is inhumanly lucky really can just win at poker (etc) until they kick him out... but since it wasn't the Casino's money that took a long time. $100 million dollars buys a lot of provisions, we also hire some 'crew' to explore time with us. By the time the authorities realize that we're serious (some of the other PCs held a show announcing we're novas 10 minutes before we left), we're out the door and gone.

Second Trip: Gold World. A world where humanity was exterminated by a rock... aka the dinosaurs. We raid Fort Knock because gold will be useful more places than cash will be (i.e. different worlds use different cash).

Third Trip(s): Review of the future. We discover there's going to be a nuclear human/nova war. We look into the roots of this and discover a lot of it is PUs fault... and from there discover the existence of Project Pro. The odd part is it's basically *not* *possible* to deal with the problem historically. I.e. someone is operating with cuts outs behind cut outs and going public with one scandal in 2000 (i.e. the very start of the sterilization attempt) doesn't deal with the root issue.

Steve's conclusion is that we're dealing with someone who knows of time travel and has actively attempted to prevent the success of the methods we're trying. Given that Project Pro has the resources of T2M (most of whom could trash the entire PC group) we're very careful. Eventually we move forward to a time after nuclear war has killed all of Project Pro and shift through their notes. Interestingly we discover Thetis hiding out on Mars, she had a bolt hole to deal with even this contingency... which she might have regretted since she'd spent the previous 30 years stuck there in isolation.

Forth Trip: She, and the other records we got from Project Pro, led us to finding out about Hammersmith and Max. So we went there... and were present for the event... and got nailed. Hammersmith altered reality itself so time travel stopped working. We're stuck.

Steve pointed out there were two choices.

1) Minimalist: Tell Max where he screwed up and try not to mess up the time line.

2) All In: *We* set up the Aeon society's efforts to save humanity. We've got a half dozen novas, the time travel ship's resources, 50 people from the future, and historical knowledge. We know that there's going to be the great depression, which sets the stage for WW2 and the holocaust, which sets the stage for the cold war, etc.

Further... in some of the trips I'm not mentioning we looked for a cure for taint... and didn't find one. Curing taint is *hard* and takes a huge amount of money, too much even by nova standards. Basically society as a whole doesn't have the motivation to look, and individual novas don't have the resources. By going all in, we try to find the cure ourselves before taint eats us all individually... which yes, means directing society to looking for it.

Obviously we did option #2, and our first stop was with Max, and our second was with getting pre-Divis to join the team *before* he got taint issues. Also since he wasn't the *only* nova this time around and since we told him *exactly* how to avoid taint, Divis never came into existence. Similarly we prevented Hitler's assent into politics, and Thetis was never born because we made sure her parents never met.

[KingOfDreams]

It's a temporal paradox. Bio-ware is future tech, given by Max... and he got it from the future where it was developed from his gift.

This is what I don't like about time traveling. For instance, when Max was first exposed to "Z-Rays" at the Hammersmith event he traveled to the future and met himself as an older man. This older Max taught the younger Max how to use his powers. So it goes like this:

Max travels to the future to learn how to use his powers so he can teach it to his younger self when he is older, and repeat.

So Max can just hop around the time stream and take whatever tidbits he wants back into the past so that they will be there in the future.

I don't like!

Maybe if it is explained by jumping to alternate time streams that have different histories.

IMHO it's got to be the first option, with a bullet. The difference between the Inspired & mundane humanity is made chillingly clear on p. 25 of the Adventure! core book, where Mike Donighal mentions all the would-be pulp heroes & villains who wind up getting killed attempting to match the feats of the Inspired.

I had always thought of giving all humans access to the dramatic alteration effects in Adventure, albeit a very mild form of it. It sounded cool at first, giving humans the power to shape their own destinies or something. I just never settled on it.

[Alex Green]

Max travels to the future to learn how to use his powers so he can teach it to his younger self when he is older, and repeat.

So Max can just hop around the time stream and take whatever tidbits he wants back into the past so that they will be there in the future.

I don't like!

The *nasty* thing about this is paradox and time loops.

Max makes some kind of tech loop where he goes into the future and gets something... and the loop is *NOT* stable. I.e. every time he goes around it's slightly different. Eventually, *something* happens to break the loop. Normally that *something* will be Max getting killed.

The Cross-Time Engineer had a civilization where time travel machines were as common as microwave ovens, and used as commonly. You sit down in a restraunt and order and the waiter takes you your food right away because they were cooking it before you walked in.

And with hundreds of thousands of people making Billions of uses of time jumps, NO ONE had ever successfully caused a paradox, even though there was lots of people who weren't very ethical and lots of opportunity for them to do so.

Or put another way, no one who was currently alive ever did so, or no one who ever tried to do so survived to talk about it.

So while it's legal for you to go back in time and mail yourself the winning lottery number, it's not legal to tell yourself to *not* step in front of that car because you already know you got hit. The first is using time travel to help yourself, the second is a paradox because how can you warn yourself if it didn't happen (etc).

[metaphysician]

Wouldn't that be a really pointless law, as paradoxes are apparently impossible in that setting?

[Alex Green]

Wouldn't that be a really pointless law, as paradoxes are apparently impossible in that setting?

By "legal" I meant "the laws of physics allow it".

The interesting question is what happens if you force the issue, and the answer is "no one knows what happens then". You know you're going to get hit by a car, you go back in time to stop yourself. Either you fail, in which case normal natural laws say "nothing"... or you succeed.

The problem is *no* *one* has actually managed to do it, and very few appear to have tried. Which raises the issue of what do the laws of physics say happens? I *think* the answer is, "you die". I.e. you've made a loop where the cycle goes on until you get killed at some point and then it becomes stable without a loop at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frankowski

[KingOfDreams]

I think I have a solution for Max providing the Prometheus Chambers and bio-tech in general.

Divis gives the technology to Max.

Here's my reasoning. The technology is very advanced when it is introduced. To me this means only two explanations after I eliminate the time traveling paradoxical one. Either the tech is alien in nature or it was created by a super genius. Since I ruled out the Doyen already, that just leaves the genius. Who fits that bill better than a mega-intelligent nova? Now, I'm not implying that Divis made the tech himself even though that is a very possible reality. I figure that there were enough hyper intelligent novas to come up with the possibility of bio-ware and the tanks. In my scenario Divis even guided these novas in the direction of Psi research. He had always been aware of the effects of the Hammersmith accident. In addition to experimenting with Quantum effects, he also dabbled with Psi.

Why give the knowledge to Max?

Simple.

Divis still harbors deep rooted feelings of homosexual adoration for the man. Divis's nova experiment on humanity failed. He decided it was best to take his project into another dimension that he created himself. Before he left, he handed over what Psi research he had to Max, knowing that Max would most likely use it to prepare humanity for the possible return of taint ridden novas. I figure the two men still kept in contact in some way or another. Sure, they may have been enemies, but I get the impression that they still respected each other. Divis sees the gift as throwing a bone to poor Max. What do you think?

I still would like to incorporate Process 418 into my new version of the metaplot. I like the idea that the Pai de Norca recreates the Hammersmith accident on a larger scale to purge the Doyen, but with unintended consequences. I also like the tidbit from the Trinity Storyteller's Guide that explains Max's time jumping to the event and getting split in the timestream. I just need to decide what kind of impact that would have. Any ideas?

[Alex Green]

He decided it was best to take his project into another dimension that he created himself. Before he left, he handed over what Psi research he had to Max, knowing that Max would most likely use it to prepare humanity for the possible return of taint ridden novas.

Interesting... it's almost a way for Divis to burn his bridges. And he might as well give it to Max, the only other alternative is to destroy it (wasteful) or take it with him (useless since he's altering natural laws).

I still would like to incorporate Process 418 into my new version of the metaplot. I like the idea that the Pai de Norca recreates the Hammersmith accident on a larger scale to purge the Doyen, but with unintended consequences. I also like the tidbit from the Trinity Storyteller's Guide that explains Max's time jumping to the event and getting split in the timestream. I just need to decide what kind of impact that would have. Any ideas?

Wait, what split? Are there two Maxs?

[KingOfDreams]

Wait, what split? Are there two Maxs?

It is an idea proposed here.

It is in the section labeled Schrödinger's Max.

[Alex Green]

Interesting... thank you.

Two Maxs would explain a lot. Like why Project Pro even exists.

The 2nd Max may know the first one exists, but he just assumes he's "himself" so hasn't bothered to tell him what is what... especially since his earlier self wouldn't approve.

[Ayre el KaBeer]

Maybe Divis needs to blow up a couple more satellites and see if it turns everyone into nova's or grows them a third head (sub aberrant?) ::devil

[Alex Green]

Maybe he did. Trinity is high taint.

[metaphysician]

Or, for a twist, maybe what caused the tainting up was him *stopping* giving the quantasphere repeated booster shots. The high taint level being a side effect of quantum decay.

( I don't particularly think it likely, though. Captain Taint out in South Dakota seems a much more likely candidate. )

[Alex Green]

Maybe "Taint-Supreme" isn't the same as "Quantum-Supreme".

What's his name does NOT have Q-Supreme (that's the ultimate 'I win' cheat code short of PlankScaling).

[Sprocket]

Maybe "Taint-Supreme" isn't the same as "Quantum-Supreme".

What's his name does NOT have Q-Supreme (that's the ultimate 'I win' cheat code short of PlankScaling).

IIRC, Calvert Wycoff (aka Captain Taint) was a first-generation nova who started off with Harvester-caliber levels of permanent Taint, earning him a place as one of the Apothecary's prize guinea pigs. It's also said that the Wycoff blast that tainted the U.S. Midwest was his reaction to being dosed with Eclipsidol by U.S. Federal (possibly Directive?) agents. Wycoff was never at Mal's level of power AFAICT, although he *was* probably Q6 at the time.

AFA Mal creating further N-Day quantum events, I'd find it hard to believe that he'd quit doing so just because his subjects (erupting novas) began displaying increasingly higher levels of Taint when the tipping point was reached during the 2030s (IIRC).

[Alex Green]

I'd thought that Cal was 2nd gen, i.e. that there was some report of him as a kid in "AB:Teragen" or something. Meaning that there were several Wycoff's running around.

RE: Q6

The sheer scale of the blight puts him at Q8. Basically you need Mastery x2 in order to cover that kind of range. Granted, Cal was created before the rules for Mastery x2 were created, but I think the later was created to explain novas like the former.

AFA Mal creating further N-Day quantum events, I'd find it hard to believe that he'd quit doing so just because his subjects (erupting novas) began displaying increasingly higher levels of Taint when the tipping point was reached during the 2030s (IIRC).

Oh, he didn't. It's mentioned at some point (or maybe in a developer chat) that with the absence of one very powerful nova, the level of background-quantum could go down.

However it's not at all clear that "high-Quantum" is the same as "high-Taint". Basically the menu options are as follows:

1) Divis did something deliberately, i.e. he viewed the increasing level of taint as worth the results.

2) Divis did something accidentally, i.e. he botched his roll.

3) Someone else did it (accidentally or deliberately) and Divis either wouldn't or couldn't undo it.

Personally I like the idea of a "Taint Supreme" power because it lets Cal do his thing without having the side effect of making him invincible.

[metaphysician]

I could maybe see Calvin as being Q7, with the scope of destruction being the result of a Q7 nova getting hit by eclipsidol. . . but given you'd probably need two separate powers to do what he did ( Taint Authority and Taint Supremacy ), I'd be inclined to go with Q8. And also, seriously, *don't use Eclipsidol on Q6+ novas!*

[Sprocket]

I'd thought that Cal was 2nd gen, i.e. that there was some report of him as a kid in "AB:Teragen" or something. Meaning that there were several Wycoff's running around.

No, I'm afraid not. Calvert Wycoff is mentioned by name by the Apothecary on p. 61 of AB:Teragen. Calvert also happens to be the son of Heartland's tame baseline sheriff & his baseline wife, so there's nothing 2ndGen about him.

RE: Q6

The sheer scale of the blight puts him at Q8. Basically you need Mastery x2 in order to cover that kind of range. Granted, Cal was created before the rules for Mastery x2 were created, but I think the later was created to explain novas like the former.

Possibly so, but I wonder if maxing one's power (Quantum Bolt in this case, AFAICT) to self-destructive levels with the aid of eclipsidol could account for it. Calvert's death in that blast *was* verified, IIRC.

Oh, he didn't. It's mentioned at some point (or maybe in a developer chat) that with the absence of one very powerful nova, the level of background-quantum could go down.

No argument there, it's plain to see for anyone w/ a copy of Trinity: Terra Verde.

However it's not at all clear that "high-Quantum" is the same as "high-Taint". Basically the menu options are as follows:

1) Divis did something deliberately, i.e. he viewed the increasing level of taint as worth the results.

2) Divis did something accidentally, i.e. he botched his roll.

3) Someone else did it (accidentally or deliberately) and Divis either wouldn't or couldn't undo it.

Huh. I always thought that Divis kept making his little mini-Hammersmith vortexes to the point where they started affecting people who were too genetically-damaged to erupt beforehand, with said genetic damage manifesting as increased permanent Taint. But your ideas work well too.

Personally I like the idea of a "Taint Supreme" power because it lets Cal do his thing without having the side effect of making him invincible.

Given that the blast in question literally vaporized him, I'd say that Calvert was *far* from invincible even at his best.

I could maybe see Calvin as being Q7, with the scope of destruction being the result of a Q7 nova getting hit by eclipsidol. . . but given you'd probably need two separate powers to do what he did ( Taint Authority and Taint Supremacy ), I'd be inclined to go with Q8.

If the initial blast was just Wycoff's Quantum Bolt hyped up to self-destructive levels, it's likely that the secondary effect - the tainting of the Heartland - could have been the result of the Taint Bleed aberration. Since he is/was a taintmonkey AND a Harvester Terat, there's no reason why Calvert Wycoff couldn't have had it.

And also, seriously, *don't* use Eclipsidol on Q6+ novas!*

I can just see Homer Simpson as that *&#$%#$ federal agent, looking at the Hastings blast just before it hits him and going "D'oh!". ::laugh ::devil

[Alex Green]

If the initial blast was just Wycoff's Quantum Bolt hyped up to self-destructive levels, it's likely that the secondary effect - the tainting of the Heartland - could have been the result of the Taint Bleed aberration. Since he is/was a taintmonkey AND a Harvester Terat, there's no reason why Calvert Wycoff couldn't have had it.

Black Thumb is definitely in theme for this guy.

But I did the math on how you'd mechanically create an effect this big and it pretty squarely fell into Mastery x2.

There's other ways to do it I guess. The ST could rule that novas can "die" to do a Node Spark thing for more Quantum...

I'm not a fan of that solution but it could explain how that guy in the ST Screen leveled Kashmir.

On the other hand we've only got a bare handful of incidences like this and there's a ton of novas who have died violently.

[Sprocket]

Black Thumb is definitely in theme for this guy.

But I did the math on how you'd mechanically create an effect this big and it pretty squarely fell into Mastery x2.

There's other ways to do it I guess. The ST could rule that novas can "die" to do a Node Spark thing for more Quantum...

I'm not a fan of that solution but it could explain how that guy in the ST Screen leveled Kashmir.

On the other hand we've only got a bare handful of incidences like this and there's a ton of novas who have died violently.

Either Black Thumb or Taint Bleed would do the trick, since the former's effect is also a part of the latter's package. Agreed.

AFA Mu Lung, I always figured that his death involved *all* of his quantum capabilities (save his Quantum Pool) counted as nova points being reworked into a single use form of Quantum Bolt w/ the extra Quantum & Mastery required - literally going off as a superhuman living bomb. His quantum points & the sacrifice of all his health levels to power the blast would fuel the blast.

If Wycoff was indeed dosed with eclipsidol as we've speculated, it's easy to see how a similar situation could have happened & how the Hastings Blast covered so much ground.

[Alex Green]

AFA Mu Lung, I always figured that his death involved *all* of his quantum capabilities (save his Quantum Pool) counted as nova points being reworked into a single use form of Quantum Bolt w/ the extra Quantum & Mastery required - literally going off as a superhuman living bomb. His quantum points & the sacrifice of all his health levels to power the blast would fuel the blast.

He certainly stands out as an anomaly. Basically there's no good reason to give him Q6 other than the blast... although he was at least Q5 (Disin).

We could give him a "dying" flaw (available in some WW games), but I'm deeply reluctant to give Q6 (or even +1 Q) to novas as an available "dying" option. Mu Lung didn't want to die and he wasn't doing anything heroic that required it.

[Sprocket]

He certainly stands out as an anomaly. Basically there's no good reason to give him Q6 other than the blast... although he was at least Q5 (Disin).

We could give him a "dying" flaw (available in some WW games), but I'm deeply reluctant to give Q6 (or even +1 Q) to novas as an available "dying" option. Mu Lung didn't want to die and he wasn't doing anything heroic that required it.

Given that replicating Mu Lung's situation sounds like the results of a really bad botched roll, briefly attaining Q6+ isn't much consolation for the player of such a nova.

"Yeah, you've just hit Q6... but only for a microsecond before your explosive death."

A booby prize if ever I saw one...::sly

[metaphysician]

I figured it was, he got his tenth dot of Taint during the fight. I generally consider a valid Taint 10 aberration to be "immediate violent self-destruction."

[Alex Green]

Given that replicating Mu Lung's situation sounds like the results of a really bad botched roll, briefly attaining Q6+ isn't much consolation for the player of such a nova.

"Yeah, you've just hit Q6... but only for a microsecond before your explosive death."

A booby prize if ever I saw one...::sly

Strongly disagree here. Give someone the option of taking everyone else out with him, and a lot would.

Game just ended, but for the last chapter or two my PC was trying to set off a nuke... with the high (and perhaps even desirable) chance of him going out with it. There was chat later of making sure my PC in another game NEVER had access to the "f*ck you" button.

Heritage's game was another one where that outcome might be desirable. It's the abby war, the human troops are pouring in, killing everyone they can; Teleporting to Washington or New York and taking a few million baselines with you could look pretty good.

I figured it was, he got his tenth dot of Taint during the fight. I generally consider a valid Taint 10 aberration to be "immediate violent self-destruction."

End of PC as a PC certainly. In theory you only become a "god and/or monster" though. But I guess death should be an option too.

[Sprocket]

Strongly disagree here. Give someone the option of taking everyone else out with him, and a lot would.

Game just ended, but for the last chapter or two my PC was trying to set off a nuke... with the high (and perhaps even desirable) chance of him going out with it. There was chat later of making sure my PC in another game NEVER had access to the "f*ck you" button.

Point taken, but going by Mu Lung's actions - flying straight up away from the Earth's surface as fast & for as long as possible - it sounds like his player was given the "f*ck you button" simply for the opportunity to refuse it & display some self-sacrifice. The ST would've known that about Mu Lung beforehand, natch.

[Alex Green]

Point taken, but going by Mu Lung's actions - flying straight up away from the Earth's surface as fast & for as long as possible - it sounds like his player was given the "f*ck you button" simply for the opportunity to refuse it & display some self-sacrifice. The ST would've known that about Mu Lung beforehand, natch.

Considering Mu Lung was an NPC, I'd say he would have known that. ::laugh

I dislike the need to make Mu Q6 and Wycoff Q8, but I *far* prefer making them absurdly powerful than giving the possibility of nuclear terrorism to most/all novas.

[Sprocket]

I dislike the need to make Mu Q6 and Wycoff Q8, but I *far* prefer making them absurdly powerful than giving the possibility of nuclear terrorism to most/all novas.

Yeah, well that's where the ST's discretion clause comes in. Just like a comedy writer, the ST should only give that option to someone who really doesn't want it.

[Alex Green]

That's a point... but... people change, and ST's can be surprised by their players.

That PC I mentioned started the game as a Survivor. I changed his nature after he realized "Survival is Overrated".

Give out that option and sooner or later we'll get a Mu Lung or Wycoff. On the other hand if the ST is willing to live with that, then more power to him (and everyone else).

[Sprocket]

That's a point... but... people change, and ST's can be surprised by their players.

If Storytellers are lax enough not to discuss such things with their players in regards to the PCs, then they deserve to be surprised that way. ::devil

[unkledan]

1) Time-travel should be possible by Psions in addition to Novas and Max Mercer-type superhumans. Teleportation shouldn't be too far away from time-travel. Time-travel should be discouraged but about as possible as extreme long-range movement.

2) Latents develop according to their exposure to energies, so being exposed to Inspiration, Psi, Quantum, or Taint can create the mutation that defines the Transformation. The canon agrees that Novas are Eximorphs and Psiads are Psychomorphs. However, there is evidence that Daredevils are all Paramorphs and that Max Mercer is the only Paramorph. Otherwise I've seen Paramorph used to describe all A! era Inspired; I've seen Stalwarts classified as Eximorphs and Mesmerists classified as Psychomorphs. Look at how they channel energy:

Eximorph: Stalwart, Nova, Aberrant: 'body'

Psychomorph: Mesmerist, Psiad, Psion: 'mind'

Paramorph: Daredevil, Max Mercer, Superior: 'temporal'

3) The 8 Doyen of Earth influence their hosts and can take complete control, but they tend to allow the humans to handle their own kind. Obviously things don't always work that way; the Doyen should be afraid of the powerful Aberrants and that is why the Proxies don't risk themselves very much.

As far as adding Inspiration as a third energy, unfortunately it is already that way and I see no need to eliminate anything. Inspiration is presented as cyclical ambient background energy before Hammersmith, as such it would have an integral part of the Noetic totality and quantum interactions in general. Paramorphs simply don't use Psi or anything detectable; most likely they manipulate Inspiration by utilizing the Intuition facet, effectively channeling temporal flux. I'd suggest giving everyone Inspiration. Another idea is to give Stalwarts Quantum/Taint, Mesmerists Psi, but let Daredevils keep Inspiration.

Re: With just psi and quantum flowing about,

What about Taint, tho? Obviously Aberrants have taint, but sub-aberrants only have Taint, no Node so no Quantum. So Taint is an energy source too or sub-aberrants utilize Quantum...