Aberrant RPG - The Inevitability of the Aberrant War

[metaphysician]

The Aberrant War, as the transition from Aberrant to Trinity, is a major part of canon.

However, as everyone knows, canon futures are only as certain as the games they are used in. So, the questions:

-Do you consider the Aberrant War inevitable, that is, no reasonable action by the major players in the setting could avert or mitigate it?

-Have your ( fellow ) players ever tried to, or succeeded at, preventing ( or accelerating! ) the Aberrant War?

[Alex Green]

In general the war probably can't be avoided because there are so many factors that lead to it (mostly Taint, the Teragen/Divis Mal, & Q6). Divis is one of the big problems, he can't be killed and he's leading the way down to inhumanity and terrorism.

However, in theory I think it could be done. In general...

1) If a nova nation were formed and it started to police it's own, that would go a long way to do it. Self policing is a big key to this, if novas don't deal with their more extreme members then baselines are forced to do so.

2) A war could be started with an alien species. Everyone rallies to the flag, the aliens try to exterminate everyone, and so forth. Novas become key to humanities survival, Teragen anarchy gets side tracked from the "Us vs. Baselines" thing.

3) I had a character who got Mastery with Temporal Manip and decided to offer immortality (i.e. unageing) to baseline leaders that refused to buy into the "short term Us vs. Them" thinking. I.e. a fair trade, peace for immortality.

[Sprocket]

Another thing that might help is to completely discredit the "good novas are supposed to be commodities & mindless heroes who must sacrifice everything worthwhile in their lives for the benefit of baseline status quo" meme. A big chunk of the Taint that novas would develop before the 2050's wouldn't occur if novas had an established way to avoid being lured into serving baselines. Rapid legal emigration of newly-erupted novas (& any loved ones willing to go with them) to an independent nova nation would be a great help in that.

[metaphysician]

Another thing that might help is to completely discredit the "good novas are supposed to be commodities & mindless heroes who must sacrifice everything worthwhile in their lives for the benefit of baseline status quo" meme. A big chunk of the Taint that novas would develop before the 2050's wouldn't occur if novas had an established way to avoid being lured into serving baselines. Rapid legal emigration of newly-erupted novas (& any loved ones willing to go with them) to an independent nova nation would be a great help in that.

Or, more simply, if the leadership of PU didn't so massively overwork the novas under them. A greater awareness of the risks of Taint earlier on would help, but at least IMO, the bigger problem is the underlying idea at PU, Proteus, and Aeon that novas should be used up until they are no more.

In a related fashion, some kind of by-novas-for-baselines benevolent organization ( as opposed to Utopia's by-baselines-for-controlling-novas angle ) that provides an alternative for public-minded novas would help. Project Utopia tries to set it up so that your either Utopian, or your not really good. Which means when PU goes bad, it hurts the whole concept of novas doing good. Having an alternative would help avoid the total smeer of good-aligned nova efforts, and hopefully mitigate the us-vs-them element later on.

P.S.: I'd really place equal blame for the Aberrant War on Utopia-et-al. The Teragen are behind the push for abandoning humanity, but its Utopia's stupid/malevolent actions that really force the divide.

[Alex Green]

A big chunk of the Taint that novas would develop before the 2050's wouldn't occur if novas had an established way to avoid being lured into serving baselines. Rapid legal emigration of newly-erupted novas (& any loved ones willing to go with them) to an independent nova nation would be a great help in that.

Granted the nova who destroyed the op-net worked for Microsoft and various other burn out cases worked for PU, but whether they worked for a big corporation or a small company or were self employed doesn’t really matter. The problem is taint and its accumulation, not in whose service it was accumulated. The nova who caused the Blight was out on his own and the leader of a “nova city/nation” or whatever.

Put hundreds of novas on an island where they have to run everything and it’s still possible some of them will let themselves get stressed out with taint. Internal politics, showing off, managing the weather, personal projects, or whatever. The nova life style needs to be something like, 1 month up, 1 month down, and no power-maxing.

Of course with the Aberrants, Utopia, DeVries, Directive, and various others all in conflict and contesting with each other, most novas simply aren’t going to take the time to burn that taint off. Worse, many will buy things tainted. And then we have the Teragen deliberately generating large amounts of Taint so they can turn it into Chrysalis.

[SkyLion]

P.S.: I'd really place equal blame for the Aberrant War on Utopia-et-al. The Teragen are behind the push for abandoning humanity, but its Utopia's stupid/malevolent actions that really force the divide.

When you think of Utopia as an outgrowth of Mercer's vision/hubris and the Teragen as being Michael Donnighal, the jilted lover...it really puts the whole thing into perspective...

[metaphysician]

Oh, I don't even think its anything as simple as a hubristic downfall. I now subscribe to the "Project Utopia was intended to fail, and result in novas becoming monsters and public enemies" viewpoint. Not by everyone in it, mind, but the top end higher ups in the Aeon Society who are behind it? Them, yeah.

But, that links ultimately into my GM's view on Mercer. . .