Aberrant RPG - Hi

[NORLucasz]

Hi, I just recently picked up the core book for Aberrant. I've been surfing the web looking for good Aberrant sites, and obviously I found this one. Most of the others that I've found are dead links though. I was wondering if anyone has links to where they have gone or backups of what was on them?

Thanks,

[Vox Via]

Did you pick up the story teller or the D20 aberrant book?As the D20 book is not well liked by most people who like the story teller book.

I hope you enjoy it,and I hope you can come up with many good stories.

[NORLucasz]

It was the softcover ST version. I play Exalted and liked the system, I like supers stuff too, my favorite stories being The Nail, Kingdom Come, Wild Cards (The first couple books), Rising Stars, Supreme Powers, Squadron Supreme (Their Utopia Project miniseries), Powers, and the Watchmen.

Thanks I hope I do as well

[kalaong]

Hey, i'm feeling really in the dark here. I got a copy of the Trinity core book and thought, hey, this is pretty cool. When I found this site, I thought, hey! Even cooler.

One problem though.

The FAQ for the Trinity area of this site shows spoilers. Where can I find the same thing for Aberrant? Where can i find out such cool stuff as:

Why do people 'erupt' and become Novas?

Why are Novas sterile?

Who killed Slider?

How, exactly, can you have a war against a widespread population, AKA the Aberrant War?

What are the exact words of Divis Mal's Manifesto, anyway?

(I know it ends with "Your legacy is our future")

I've been able to glean a few things like: prior to the Galatea incident, there were only ten Novas per century, and Divis Mal is somehow responsible for the Nova Age for some gratuitous reason, but that's about it. Help!

[Hugin]

Welcome, come on in and pull up a chair.

Most of this site's activity seems to lean towards the Aberrant end of the Aeon storyline (Adventure-Aberrant-Trinity). It's generally all considered the same timeline. As for your specific questions here's my take:

1. Baselines (non-novas) do not erupt into novas. Latent novas (novas without an active MR Node but with the genetic potential to become active novas) erupt into active novas. They experience some form of stress and erupt becuse of it. The stress can be mental (Dr. Troll's character erupts from academic pressure) or physical (Salamander's character erupts because she was under threat of burning to death.) Their latent MR Node (little bauble of brain matter) gets all active, starts pumping energy and BOOM!!! They're GOD for Planck Time and deal with the situation. Afterwards they're subconscious slaps on some limitations and they end up superhumanly powerful beings.

2. Novas are sterile because of a shadowy little organization within Project Utopia called (only by very few of it's members, nearly no one else even knows it exists) Proteus. They're all about protecting the world from novas who are irresposnsible and untrustrworthy and to make this easier they want to limit the numbers. They lace the drugs that Project Utopia's Rashoud Clinics give out to newly erupted novas to help them cope with their powers with some form of drug (I called it a retro-virus) that sterilizes them. Is this over the top and inhumanly evil and obvious? Yes. Bad game writing at its best.

3. Who do you want to have killed Slider? Slider's death was a pivotal moment in Aberrant history. Kind of like the Nixon scandal ripped away America's innocence (okay okay, that's a b.s. analogy, American never really was 'innocent' about it's politicians but you know what I mean.) Slider's death shocked the world. Nova death up to this point was kind of a big, blasting, obvious thing. The result of titanic battles. People knew what was going on. Slider got geeked and no one had a clue as to who really did it. Utopia blamed someone it wanted to blame (Andre Corbin) but a lot of people think they're high as a kite about that. The general suggestion from canon material is that a shapeshifter who works for Proteaus did it. He's called Chiraben. But, that's not set in stone.

4. You have one side start fighting the other. In this case novas who considered themeselves transhuman started fighting with humanity and the novas who defended humanity. Humanity eventually starts lashing out against ALL novas. Then some novas go bannanas and just start fighting anyone. The Aberrant War hasn't really recieved much of a write up. It's all very vague.

5. Only a portion of the Manifesto has been written. That is in Aberrant core rulebook. Someone here has given it a shot to fully write it out but it is non-official and I'm not sure where it is on the site anymore.

Oh, and just remember this, the Teragen is cool and Utopia sucks.

Have fun!

[Uhuru Kenyatta]

There isn't a spoilers list for aberrant that I know of, but I can answer some of those questions.

If it even needs to be said: BEWARE, SPOILERS

People erupt because they have the latent ability and they are in a stressful (or abnormal) situation. Beyond that, it's mostly speculation.

Nova sterility is due to Project Proteus (the secret organization within Utopia) distributing a sterility serum through various methods, primarily through Nova drugs like Mox and Adrenocillin.

Slider was killed by Chirabin, a nova assassin working for Project Proteus. The rest of the story is in the book that came with the storyteller screen.

Quite easily. It's usually called Genocide.

Best source I've found for the Null Manifesto is right here:

http://www.nprime.net/downloads/NullManifesto.pdf

Hope that helps.

[Charr]

Spoilers continued:

Eruption: No one knows why those with the gene code have that gene code turn on and start building a node (which is a gland) in the brain. Uhuru is correct that its often a stressful or abnormal situation but not always. A nova might erupt kicking back watching reruns of Bonanza, reading a book, thinking about sex... Whatever.

What abilities they manifest are a reflection of their state of mind, view of self and the situation. There's a logic to it but its the logic of the subconscious looking at the situation the erupting nova is in so it might be pretty convoluted.

Here an oddie - some people may have a node because the gene code has switched on without their awareness. So they've got a nuclear reactor powered genie idling in the brain waiting for the first time they need to do something. Of course this may also be bad editing on the part of the developer but hey, I'm just bringing it up.

Sterility. The sterility is suppose to viral in nature, as in a retro-virus, that's tricking the novas immune system into muching the sperm and eggs. There's some suspicion they have a variety of means but the retro-virus is the biggie.

Slider's Killer. Some of the books leave a little wiggle room for who did the deed but as a whole the finger gets pointed as a raging sociopath named Chiraben.

Enjoy.

[Preston]

A point not yet brought up is this:

The Aeon Society founded Project Utopia, and the board of directors at AS placed Proteus inside Project Utopia.

Aeon/PU also spun off a technical division that calls itself Triton.

And, yes, this is the same Aeon Society in Trinity.

Also, the only "good guys" in Aberrant seem to be the Aberrant faction (ex-Uppies trying to expose the Proteus conspiracy).

The Teragen (which has many internal divisions) has its members murdering, killing, and destroying across the globe, all in the name of Novakind. Divis Mal leads the Teragen, but not in a terribly effective manner.

Project Utopia, for all their good intentions, are is a Wall Street marketing firm on crack. Yes, they do clean up the Oceans and skies, cure cancer and AIDS, and restore Ethopia into a varitable paradise, but they also work novas to death, murder those who discover Proteus, and generally act like knee-jerk morons given any opportunity.

There are also independent novas out their (they don't need Prometheus Chambers), who do thier own thing. They is a profession known as Elites, who are nova mercaneries who sell their services to various corporations, nations, and other groups with enough cash to afford them.

[Zima]

"Your legacy is our future" is, I think, from Divis Mal's speech at the end of the Aberrant War. That is not the Null Manifesto. The Null Manifesto is made much earlier, at the beginning of Aberrant Continuity, and was intended to nullify the UN's statement that novas are human. It goes further to say that laws made for humans are inapplicable to novas, and that novas must govern themselves until such a time as a nova government is formed.

[Ashnod]

I still want to know if the Lagos Manifesto in Trinity is supposed to be Aberrant's Null Manifesto. I don't have much of the trinity books, but as far as I could tell, the Lagos Manifesto is something every child has to learn along with the Speech of Divis Mal, but it's not mentioned except very briefly and has no excerpts.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

RE: Eruption

Charr was right and put it well. Most people erupt under stress, but some just erupt for no reason we know. A few have even erupted and not realized it (this is rare).

RE: Sterility.

Although Project Pro is responsible for some or most novas being steril, it seems likely that taint could also play a part (this isn't cannon but it is common sense). If your taint has turned you perminately into a block of ice, or something icky, then sex and/or may be impossible. Also since novas are much longer lived it makes a degree of sense that their fertility is reduced.

Not all novas are steril. There are two in cannon powers that avoid this fate. The stronger version (Life Manipulation?) is in AB:WWI and it

lets you control anyone's fertility... and it requires a Quantum of 6 so it's very rare.

The other power is called "Health" (in the AB:PHB) and it's a Stamina enhancement. The only thing is that mox has a pretty high toxicity rating so it might (ST's choice) only work in combination with a high mega-stamina.

[kalaong]

Oooohhhkaaaay. So far I've got

Little Cat A. Divis Mal is un-be-fragging-lievably creepy.

Little Cat B. The Aeon Society is just as creepy.

which brings me to

Little Cat C. COOL. Just like real life!

The core books I picked up had a great setting and greater artwork, but after reading through them for a while I got so fed up with the propaganda that I pretty much thought the Trinity was as full of crud as our not-so-beloved President Shrub.

Nice to know I was right.

Little Cat Z. So much for collective thinking. Time for individual action, accent on the action. Novas, lets get out there!

[Kane Knight]

The difference is Utopia actually had good intents. The problem is, a combination of myopic ideals and paranoia help to screw the pooch. the Teragen don't help, nor do the anti-nova groups.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

To be fair, the deck was stacked against Utopia.

Taint and Q6 powers might have made the war happen even without Divis.

It might have been that Project Pro was simply the least bad idea that was around.

If 10,000 novas almost took over the world, then 40,000 novas might have destroyed it.

[Sakurako Hino]

If it wasn't for the Novas that still gave a darn, 10,000 would have been enough to level the planet.

[Kane Knight]

Quote:

Originally posted by David 'Dr. Troll' Smith:
To be fair, the deck was stacked against Utopia.

Taint and Q6 powers might have made the war happen even without Divis.

It might have been that Project Pro was simply the least bad idea that was around.

If 10,000 novas almost took over the world, then 40,000 novas might have destroyed it.

Just another case of farked if you do, farked if you don't.

[Menagerie]

So because I live in Germany now(for real) and Adventure has never come over here (the gaming stores in Berlin think I'm crazy), could anyone tell me the connection between the Adventure setting and how it sets the stage for Aberrant?

Also the "why do people erupt" question hasn't been answered well enough for me. What does the Galatea explosion have to do with Nova eruption.

And why are the Nova's being sterilized? Or better yet, what happens when a Nova (according to cannon) has a child?

What is the story behind "Cult of Personality"?

And Why does the Queer Nova Alliance assist in AIDS vaccination programs if 90% of the world is vaccinated by the Triton Foundation in 2003?

And what is the story behind Rodney "The RAINBOW" Rodi as the protector of San Francisco?

[Hugin]

It has pretty much nothing except that it exploded because of the first erupted Nova.

Mal made Novas. Mal was formerly Dr. Primoris.

Nothing that I know of really canon-wise has set in stone what a 2nd Gen nova would be like. There have been some suggestions though.

Cult of Personality will never happen, give up on it. Reasons given are all pretty much supposition and rumor.

Bad editing? Pretty much explains most of WW.

As for Roddi, you've got it, he's the Municipan Defender of San Fransisco. That's about it.

[Menagerie]

Ok, follow-ups.

I thought the Fireman was the first erupted nova.

2.So Mal is Dr. Primoris. Who is Dr. Primoris and how does it tie into Adventure? (I'm guessing?) And if Mal made Novas I thought you had to be born them with latent MR-Nodes. So how/why did he create Novas?

3.I gave up on new Aberrant stuff a while ago.

4. Sorry, I've got weird gripes with Aberrant and its views on homosexuality. At least it addresses it, which if far more enlightened than a lot of "modern-esque" roleplaying games.

[Access]

The Fireman was the first publicly erupting Nova.

[Menagerie]

No lie. and the first privately erupted Nova according to cannon secrets and what not?

[Access]

If I'm understanding what you are saying, then yes. As far as several people know, the Fireman was the first one to errupt as far as the characters would know. Though according to the story line, Mal was actually the first, his was just more of a secret.

[Menagerie]

Sorry for the confusion. I was asking who the first Nova was. (as in who erupted causing the Galatea to explode...according to Prodigy).

I guess that just leave the rather dense question package 2:

So Mal is Dr. Primoris. Who is Dr. Primoris and how does it tie into Adventure? So how/why did he create Novas?

What is the connection between Adventure and Aberrant?

[Hugin]

Dr. Primoris was a member of the first group of 'adventurers' that becomes the Aeon Society. Max Mercer is a member. It's a time of hard hitting heroes and pulpy fun. Max Mercer and his 'good friend' Dr. Primoris (Primoris supposedly has massive crush on Mercer) are the most powerful. Primoris is basically a low QP nova at this point. He eventually breaks away from the Group and gets all Bad Guy like. Adventure time period ends, and Primoris disappears.

Primoris gets tougher, badder and more interested in having people like himself around so he uses his uber-kewl Quantum God powers and makes novas.

The nova in the Galatea is never identified in canon as far as I know.

The connection is that it's all the same world, the same timeline. Adventure leads to Aberrant and Aberrant leads to Trinity.

[Menagerie]

Quote:

Originally posted by James 'Prodigy' Meehan:

The connection is that it's all the same world, the same timeline. Adventure leads to Aberrant and Aberrant leads to Trinity.

Thanks for the specifics. I knew the three games all connected but Adventure wasn't out when I was into Aberrant and Trinity, so I was curious as to the origins of the Trilogy. I'll have to try to find a out of print copy when I'm back in the states sometime.
I knew Adventure was pulp comic fun I just was curious if we ever got any of the "big answers" that went all the way back to the Trinity line. Apparently the answer is, well, not all of them, not really.

So, not to beat a dead horse or anything, instead of asking more about this Primoris making novas thing I'll just ask what book or books I should look in for more info and hunt them down sometime.

[ronin]

Mal also is clearly not the "first" nova. He's likely just the oldest one still kicking around. To assume that Mal, who it is speculated was a low-level quantum aberration even before the Hammersmith Experiment, was the first of his kind is just kind of silly.

More than likely, Mal was just smart and discreet enough to get his shit together on the down-low until he engineered the Galatea explosion and was born late enough that he soared under the radar for awhile, thanks to the Hammersmith Experiment. Furthermore, he had the patronage of Max on his side.

Good to see you back, Menagerie.

[Singularity]

BTW - from the chat with the developer and other things, Galatea itself exploding was not the direct nor an indirect reason for novas popping up nor was it apart of Mal's plan. It was only a consequence.

What happens is Mal "flips on" his version of the Hammersmith Accident (which is specifically attuned for novas, hence why psiads and paramorphs don't pop up as well) somewhere on Earth or from orbit (which is more likely). So as this wave spreads out over the Earth and the immediate area, the VERY first person to be affected by it is an astronaut on the Galatea. His eruption caused the breach of the Galatea and its subsequent explosion. From what the chat says, this astronaut was able to survive the rigors of space, but since he doesn't have any movement powers, he was still stuck in orbit around Earth when the Trinity timeline rolls around. Sure, Mega-Stamina with Adaptibility is nice, but it sure sucks to be stuck in low-Earth orbit without movement powers for over a hundred years.

Also, while the Player's Guide makes mention of historical parahumans (eximorphs, psychomorphs, and paramoprhs) being in existance and rare, I think that's just a sidebar by the developers to give an opening for storytellers and players to have nonstandard characters. Frankly, I think the "standard" or "strict canon" way of looking at the Aeonverse is that eximorphs (novas) and psychomorphs (psiads) did not exist until the Hammersmith Experiment opened the door. Yes, there were paramorphs/daredevils before the explosion (as evidenced by Scalper Dutch and Safari Jack), but the general tone of the Player's Guide seems to have about historical novas and psiads is "sure, we can see that argument, here's some ways of looking at it, but we don't care about them nor develop it."

It's like they acknowledge that what they've said about novas leads to a possible conclusion that novas have always been around, but they're not going to work with them and for their intents and purposes, the first novas and psiads didn't show up until the Hammersmith Experient triggered their potential. Hence by inference, Mal is one of those first novas. And carrying that idea even further, since Mal was the closest person to the explosion, save Dr. Hammersmith, he was the first affected and therefore the first nova for the intents and purposes of the developers.

But that's only one way of looking at things.

ETA because I hate my typos

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

First nova of significance, perhaps excluding mythology.