Aberrant: Prometheans Unbound - Prologue Material

[Blue Thunder]

((I'll post stuff that goes along with the Prologue here. I'll probably do this with every Chapter too. Most of it won't have a direct impact on your characters, but probably be related enough to be interesting. They'll mostly be e-mails between other novas and media reports based off your activities. Think of it as campaign flavor, like you would see in the books.))

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Excerpt, Scripture's journal

These Prometheans offer a great opportunity for the Teragen. The discussion I had with Jericho last month about how to handle baseline and nova relations was inspiring. If only Mal could have been there. But I suppose he had more important matters to attend to. He's spent countless days over the past few years on reviving Caroline from her Chrysalis. Every day brings him one step closer to discovering why she never emerged like Deloremier did. I pray for her awakening...

Flare was moved enough by Jericho's words that she asked permission to leave the Cult of Mal and walk alongside the Envy of the Teragen towards a brighter future. Deloremier was against the idea, but I could see that she truly wished to bring Jericho's philosophy to bloom, so I granted her permission to leave. Not that she needed it...every Terat is a nation unto his or her self. Her respect for me was flattering.

With her was her lover, a creature of liquid metal calling itself Jack. That Flare would overlook something like appearance and feel affection for Jack because of his soul speaks volumes about her character and shows how much she has learned from Mal's Wisdom. The media may paint us as hateful beasts, but these two are further proof against the accusation. Sadly I fear that even should the media become aware of these two, one a Terat preaching the Word of Mal, and the other a former Team Tomorrow member, their opinion wouldn't change...

Exactly what form the Promethean philosophy will take remains to be seen. All anyone outside of the handful of Jericho's followers know for now is that they seek to establish some kind of relationship with baselines. The Primacy is already in arms, as is to be expected. The Harvesters are calling the group a "Teragen Project Utopia." With The Prometheans gathering to form a coherant group, some Pantheon members like Zia and Bene fear that this will cause agitation with the Primacy and the Harvesters, but I'm not so sure it will be as severe as they fear. And for once, Orzaiz seems to agree with me. I do feel a great shift on the horizon though, that is for certain. Will The Prometheans help lead us to our Promised Land...or will they be the ones to hold us back, hanging tightly onto our pointless baseline origins? Will we embrace them as brothers and sisters in the new shining Quantum Age...or be forced to remove them like a disease?

[Blue Thunder]

Encrypted message, from Proteus investigative agent Eyelash, to Director Ozaki

Ozaki:

This new Teragen faction seems to be causing a stir within the group, that's for sure. Shrapnel in particular doesn't seem too happy. I couldn't find anything new on this Envy guy, but I did manage to get a bit on three others that are part of this "Prometheans" faction, in addition to the previous files I sent you five weeks ago. These are the basic overviews of my findings from the last few weeks. For the complete findings, see the attached stuff. I'm sure Thetis will be interested.

Leiko Takei - She's a popular manga artist from Japan. To jog your memory, you may remember the footage floating around the OpNet a while back of a giant dragon-like creature tearing open a convention center roof, and the following legal squabbles with Squaresoft. The ruling was an important one for novas in Japan, since it dictated that eruption was not a directly controllable occurance, thus a nova had no control over how their powers would manifest, leaving them free from copyright infirngements should they have powers or appearances that mimicked those seen in anime, manga, or other media. The ruling was used as an example a month later in British court when The Incredible Hulkster defended himself for having green skin and incredible strength. But you know all this already. We identified her half a year ago as being a mild threat, but never suspected Teragen sympathies. Her powers are incredibly powerful in scope, though she herself lacks much by way of personal offense or defense. Her summoned creatures make her a prime threat, should (and when) we take her down. She already has a fan following in Japan, and with just a few words she could easily change it into a cult following, so that deserves attention. I'll be keeping a watchful eye (or four) on her.

Casius Granger - I did a lot of investigating to find this guy's baseline identity. It's not that he covers his tracks well (quite the opposite...you can see and smell them wherever he walks) but he stays in the most filthy places imaginable, making following and watching him more difficult. Don't get me started on his choice of cuisine. The things I've seen him eat would send even the hungriest of vultures hobbling away in the other direction. Anyways, he goes by the name Roach. I didn't observe him conversing with any Terats, so I don't know his actual roll within the group, but he's probably a tagalong. He seems to lack self-esteem, so before we label him a target for elimination, we may wish to turn him against the Teragen, or at least make an informant out of him before we send him to Bahrain for the ol' Strapdown and Eyepoke.

James Allen Winston - His origins are unclear. His history is so basic and uneventful I'd swear it was fake; not a surprise given that he's a Terat. But if he has another identity, I wouldn't even know where to start looking for it. The guy appears baseline to the eye, and hasn't exhibited any powers that I can tell. I can only assume that he's one of those novas without external powers like Orzaiz, but that isn't for certain. And since I've seen him with Orzaiz twice, I suspect they're friends. I'm not sure how to assess this one, so I'll investigate him more later.

- Eyelash

PS - I'd like to request some better camera gear. My current set started malfunctioning when I was taking pictures of Winston, ruining all my pictures of him. And some custom "double-goggles" too. It ain't easy having four eyes you know.

[Blue Thunder]

OpChat, secured channel

>>>Logged-in: Leviathon, Reflex, Clusterfuck

Leviathon: Yo guys, thanks for logging on.

Clusterfuck: Hey no problem. I don't know how long I can stay on before my powers make things go to shit, but I'm here for now.

Reflex: Yeah, what is it you needed? I was about to sleep...

Leviathon - Sorry 'bout that. I just wanted to talk about the Prometheans for a bit. They're having some kind of meeting in Cuba right now, getting their stuff together. I asked a few others to sign on, but Geryon is busy in Canada, Confederate is busy in Nigeria, and Boogeyman is probably touching himself.

Reflex - Oh, those Promate wankers. I can't believe everyone else is letting them get away with this crap. Why don't they just join the Casablancas with the rest of the baseline huggers?

Leviathon - Yeah, Shrapnel's about to blow her node over it. Having James Winston with them doesn't help either.

Clusterfuck - What's the deal between those two anyway?

Leviathon - I dunno, but she wants to spike his head on a stick and send the remaining chunks of his body into the sun. I don't even bring him up when she's around for fear she might try to kick me in the nuts. I'm pretty sure she couldn't find my nuts, but it would be painful having her try. And I love my nuts too much.

Reflex - Thanks for the visual. Anyway, who is this Envy person? I've only met him once, he didn't seem too important at the time. Apparently he's like Sin-Eater...?

Leviathon - About a year ago he blew up into some crazy Taint monster or something. Some of Orzaiz's cronies popped him in at Heartland and Zia started poking around at him. He's got the ability to sap the powers of other novas by touching them. But what's really f'd up is that he can send his Taint onto other people, like he accidentally did to one of Zia's assistants. Her face melted off. He's got powerful control over the Q and T levels of himself and those around him. I don't even know how far his power reaches for sure, but Zia's all popping a hard one over it and Sin-Eater's all jealous girlfriend cause that was her schtick. Orzaiz took him in and has been tutoring him. I heard the quantum calculator himself met with him a few times even.

Reflex - The Mathematician talked to him? Damn. Too bad he's not putting his powers to good use with the Harvesters though.

Leviathon - Yeah, well, tough shit. I don't like him. He's an arrogant ass.

Clusterfuck - Oooh, I sense resentment. He must have pissed you off.

Leviathon - Shut up.

>>>Logged-in: Boogeyman

Boogeyman - Yo yo yo! Sorry I'm late, ladies!

Reflex - About freaking time. What were you doing?

Boogeyman - Still payin' off my lame-ass debt to Orzaiz. He's got me tryin' to figure out where the hell Blue Ring went.

Leviathon - Fuckin' Blue Ring. He's probably in some cesspool Third World nation gobblin' up the natives. And without me. He always eats alone. Jerk!

Boogeyman - Last I know Blue Ring was at the Blackburn. Then he just went and disappeared, even though he was supposed to go to Narcosis's killer party. He's only been gone a few days, I don't see what Orzaiz is all bent outta shape over. Anyway, what're you guys talkin' 'bout?

Clusterfuck - The Prometheans.

Leviathon - And how we should feel about them. Personally, I think as long as they play along with everyone else it'll all be peachy. I can't say I agree with them, but I don't agree with Scripture either and then Mal sticks it inside him every night, so I guess my opinions of people ain't right all the time. Geryon seems to think the same as me, but Shrapnel and Confederate want them out lickety-split.

Reflex - But what about the Cult of Mal?

Leviathon - Best I can tell, Scripture approves of them. He said as much in the last Pantheon meeting. Apostle either disagrees or agrees, but I wouldn't know cause I've been ignoring that loser the last few months. I brought up how Clarion's little junior-high brat brigade got whomped by Teen Tomorrow a few months back and he's been all stuffy about it. He needs to get his head out of Scripture's ass too.

Reflex - Yeah, that ass is Mal's ass.

Boogeyman - Hah!

Clusterfuck - But who's in the Prometheans besides Envy and Winston? I know Flare and that ex-Tomorrowite. How they hell we got an ex-Tomorrowite is beyond me.

Leviathon - That purple sparky bitch is with them. I hope they enjoy that one. She chopped one of my fingers off. They better have good health insurance. And that King Cobra guy that thinks he's Batman.

Boogeyman - You guys prolly don't know him, but the Colony. I overheard Narcosis mention him. He's some kinda shapeshifter or whatever? I've never seen him though.

Reflex - Never heard of him...

Clusterfuck - Me either...

Leviathon - Probably another one of Orzaiz's hidden novas.

Boogeyman - And then there's that Roach guy from Chicago or some other hellhole. Wasn't he a Harvester? He looks like one of you nasty bastards.

Leviathon - No. I was gonna ask him, but Envy had already gotten to him. It doesn't make sense, but he's with them now. Whatever. More food for me. And that Leiko chick that was hanging around, the one we all thought was a poseur? Seems she joined in too.

Reflex - Damn, they've got more people than I thought.

Boogeyman - Half of 'em ain't bad. The other half I ain't met yet. Envy doesn't mind if I hang around their hideout and pretend to be that rich Chambers douche that Synapse made up. Makes it looks like some crazy rich guy lives in the hills, instead of some novas.

Reflex - I heard what you did in Havana. I'm surprised they still let you do it.

Boogeyman - I'm Pandamonion. They shoulda known I'd do what I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it. Chambers is a rich guy. I know that if I was that rich, I'd be out there bangin' midgets too. So as far as I'm concerned, I was stayin' in character, and you can kiss my big black ass.

Clusterfuck - You're white.

Boogeyman - Whatever man, I gotta go. Narcosis needs an extra for some new porno tomorrow. Gotta save my strength!

>>>Logged-off: Boogeyman

Clusterfuck - Am I the only one that has a hard time talking to Pandamonion Terats?

Reflex - I don't know how Pandamonion is still around. They're so reckless. They just party and do whatever they feel like doing. You'd think Utopia or the Directive would have smashed them by now.

Clusterfuck - I think I better get going too. This is a pretty nice computer, and I don't want my entropy powers messing it up. Honeytrap will get mad at me if I break another computer...

>>>Logged-off: Clusterfuck

Reflex - Honeytrap...now there's one nice piece of ass.

Leviathon - Agreed. Well this has been twice the fun of wacking off, and with only half the lube, but I gotta scram. I'm hungry so I think I'll raid one of the nearby fishing docks. I haven't had dog in a while either, so I might visit the park tonight.

Reflex - Yeah I'm off too. I think Geryon wants me in Canada soon for whatever the heck is going on up there, but Confederate wants me in Nigeria for some crap with DeVries elites too. I'm gonna hate telling one of them "no"

>>>Logged-off Leviathon

>>>Logged-off: Reflex