Aberrant RPG - Beginning in 1998

[Centipede]

I have a campaign starting soon which will begin in 1998. All the characters will erupt within a week after Galatea.

I was wondering if anyone has a nice little list of which novas were around in the beginning.

I have most of the books so I can go through them myself if I need to, but I thought that if someone already has done this, I could borrow it.

If I have to do it myself I think the best source is the Utopia book. Has anyone got any good pointers where to find this stuff?

Also, I found the info about Montoya-Bernal contradictionary. He was one of the first Utopia recruits but spent time in the XWF before joining. This does not compute...

[Agnelli Celeste]

This game sound both best and wrost with new players.

I mean it seems that you would want players not to know what it means be a nova.So, I would as a guide line liimit the powers the players can get.Maybe even draw up what powers the characters have based off of the idea the players give you.IE a blast of lighting could be bashing/leatha q-bolt, or one of the suite powers.It would add a level of mystory.

Maybe make them at lower levels.Mostly if you start there make it so that nothign is realy set in stone...

[Kirby1024]

The Fireman was around, as was Divis Mal. Other than that, it gets hazy, unfortunately. I'm not sure whether Pax was an early erupter, and Sophia Rosseau has enough mystery around her origin that she could have been there at the end.

Other than that... I have no idea. However, around the Galatea explosion was one of the many points that Max Mercer finds it easy to temport to...

[Sandy Davis]

Early boomers, Tanz, most of the high t-rats,I beleve that walking add,the defender of atou city(kikjak},maybe Slider,..Some people who could fit into that area. Splash,Corbien, the presuser, and many more.. rember by the 99 there were 600 novas.. we can assume that most of the big names in 2008 come then.People like Anne DV...

In fact the only big shot in t2m that I can think of not being able to fit into this, would be thorn.

[Centipede]

Kirby:

Pax was one of Utopias first volunteers so he was early. Read page 98 in the Project Utopia book and see if you think he is as early as I think he is.

Sandy:

Corbin was 13 years old in 1998, can't really find how old he was when he erupted though. Otherwise I agree with your principle, the more powerful, the older. Then again, Corbin isn't really very powerful.

Most of the Pantheon erupted early but kept very quite about it so they won't really matter.

I will probably end up listing known eruptions, or at least latest possible eruptions, for known novas. If I get it done I will post it.

[ronin]

Pax and Rousseau were both around in '98. As was Divis and Portman. Scripture and Mal have been together a long time, and since Mal triggered the eruptions, I doubt he'd let his boyfriend go longer than a year without. It's also rumored that he erupted when the Galatea exploded. That much we know for sure.

Slider absolutely wasn't. It's mentioned in the PU book she erupted in '00. 'Tanz wasn't that early either, I'm pretty sure. They make reference to it in the Elites book, but I seem to recall nova's being a popular phenomenon by the time he erupted.

My theories include The Mathemetician, Psyche and Kikjak. Slag, I think, is also a possibility.

.ronin

[Jager]

As are Splash, and Anteaus, I think. Actually, most of the Pantheon didn't erupt at the beginning. The founders; Fong, Mathmetician, Orzaiz did, but there is strong reason to believe that most of the others erupted later.

Information: pg. 11 of Project Utopia tells you who were the first to join in October '98.

Pg. 19 tells you who was intrumental in cleaning up the sky in early 2000.

[Centipede]

Thanks for all of your input.

So, has anyone read p.98 in Utopia and drawn the same conclusion as I have?

[Dr. Arcturus]

Yeah, I rather like the idea that Pax erupted in the 60's. There are few other explanations for his monstrous power levels though:

1.) He's more tainted than he's letting on about in public.

2.)He somehow had a really high potential for power as a baseline. This is something Ive toyed with before. When I say potential for power, Im mostly talking about the Quantum most people use the bonus points in the baseline stage to buy. To me, that spending reflects a Nova who was highly predisposed to Quantum manipulation. This second point postulates that Pax "bought" about three levels of Quantum. Granted, this flies in the face of the Q5 ceiling for starting characters, and, I think, eliminates the theory as a plausible conclusion.

If, however, Pax erupted in the 60's, it gives him 34 years to work with his powers. Even in the pre-Galtea worldwide Quantum levels, this is sufficient time for a Nova to make substantial progress along the power curve. When the Galtea actually goes off, pop goes the world. Worldwide Quantum levels elevate to a massive degree, and those people genetically predisosed to eruption do so as a standard 30 point character. For the pre-Galtea erupted Eisenfaust, this means that his now relatively well-developed abilities become even easier to master. More than likely, the Galtea explosion (we all know it was really Mal, but we'll keep the Galtea as the culprit for the sake of continuity) is the stimulus that pushes Shelby into Quantum 6.

Yeah, the '64 eruption really explains him a lot better than a '98 eruption.Good point.

[Centipede]

A minor update on my research:

Rumored to have erupted before Galatea:

Pedro Santiago

Eruptions

1998:

Louis Freeman (later Duke baron, within a week of Galatea), ZAM, Wing-Xao Ji, Randall Portman (N-Day), Ceastus Pax (at the latest), Steve Debow, Anteus, Anthony Chang, Trudy Vanderman, Psyche, Griffin Armstrong, Ewan Banks, Splash, Ricardo Montoya-Bernal (information contratictionary), Slag, Shadow Artist, Ragnarockette.

As a sidenote, Ragnarockette and Shadow Artist spent more than two years as 'Tommorwites-in-training' while people like Slider and Skew seem to have been accepted withing weeks.

1999:

Anna deVries, Crystalhawk, Gaal and Narajan, Kou.

2000:

Pursuer (in March), Sierka (in August), Shrapnell, Leviathan, Michelle Medford and Thomas Seering (both on New Years Eve), Jennifer Landers.

2001:

Altaz Zia

2002:

Andy Vance

2003;

Jesse Hooks, Shawna McShane,

2004:

Epoch, Sin-Eater, Narcosis.

2005:

Nikolaj Lemchke

2007:

Skew (in February).

As you can see, information about eruptions is hard to come by. This was gathered from a quick look-thru of my books, I'm sure I missed a few, but there can't be very many more eruptions revealed.

[Anomie]

Count Raoul Orzaiz erupted in the summer of 1999 at the latest as thats when he first met The Mathematician and I thought there was something in the Teragen book alluding to Scripture having been around since before Galatea as well as Pedro, but I can't seem to find it.

I have also gone over pg. 98 in the Utopia book, and it does seem to point out that Nova's have been around for awhile, but I'm curious as to what makes you think it was Pax that they were writting about?

[Centipede]

Scripture

Before going through the books I was pretty sure Scripture erupted before Galatea, and in my mind he did. But I can't find any mentioning of it.

Orzaiz

Orzaiz erupted before the summer of '99 but there is no mentioning of when, other then just after leaving university, or something similar. He could have erupted on N-day, but we don't know.

Pax

It is not so much that I think they are writing about Pax, as that I think it would make a lot of sense if it was Pax.

Powers fit, his attitude could be well explained if Aeon had forced him to hide for decades and his high levels of power is also explained. One of the biggest gripes people have about Worldwide Phase I is that Pax is so supposedly out of the players legue. Whether or not you agree on this or on how it should be, the idea is well explained by Pax erupting a lot earlier.

Regarding his attitude, Pax is convinced he is the most powerful nova in the world (prior to the showdown,that is). He is also very interested in being percieved as the most powerful. If he knows he has decades more than any adversary behind him, and if he had to hide for a long time, prehaps doing lots of stuff but never getting the credit, he could easily develop into the Pax we know.

Of course, nothing I've said about Pax is even close to conclusive. I just think it fits nicely.