The Aeon Era without the Nova Age?

[Eldagusto]

So if we never had the Nova Era, I don't know say Donnigal died choking on a ham sammich in the bathtub or something, what would the timeline be like in the Aeon Era?

Would we even have Psions? Like would Bhurano have been able to develop her technology without the advancements of Coretech during the Nova Age?

The world would be closer to the one we have now, so no Hyperfusion but America wouldn't have become some weird Nightmare state, the Sky wouldn't have fallen on Europe, and South America, Australia and Africa wouldn't have had the insta success infrastructure developed for them and the suitable power vacuum for them to fall in.

But we could still have say Fusion, not hyperfusion but maybe some workable fusion tech. We could still have spacefaring tech but it would likely be more toned down, like Mars only just getting off the ground. But by concentrating only on the Solar system we could potentially have a better resources situation as the Solar system would be more carefully cultivated.

What do you think it would be like?

[Darksol-aeternium]

Hmm... my initial feeling is agreeing with yours. Without the worldwide shakeup caused by the nova age, the world would continue down the "business as usual" path, with rampant corruption, stagnation, and no relevant progress. There might be skirmishes here and there caused by political ineptitude, but those only serve to further delay any sort of progress.

[glamourweaver]

So there’s a diegetic answer and a non-diegetic answer.

Diegetically, no the Nova Age not happening would create a completely different timeline with nothing like Aeon in the early 22nd century.

Non-diegetically, could you reimagine Aeon without Aberrant in its history and Novas? Sure. There still needs to have been a major global crisis in the 21st century, but that could have been baseline driven WW3. Replace the returning Aberrants with purely alien space monsters. Attribute fusion and grav crystals to unexpected baseline tech leaps, perhaps facilitated by near singularity AIs that became a threat and were outlawed (actually that could also be your 21st century global crisis, AI singularity happened and had to be beaten down by humanity, but there’s left over weird tech and reality warped phenomena). Etc etc

[Mateus Luz]

Using the idea glamourweaver give, you can use the Independency Day idea (even the first being not that good, and the continuation a bit worse). The aliens arrive, destroy part of the world and are defeated, leaving behind their technology to be reverse engineered.

This could be a good setting for Talents only on early space age...

[wyrdhamster]

Or you could go with Star Trek IV ( original movies timeline ) route - and have massive ecological cataclysm that worked as much as pollution as World War 3 would do. ( Here it's alien induced, but with how planet is going right now, similar effects we could have in decade or two... )

/ In reality, we can have BOTH - massive ecological disaster THAT will lead to WW3 over water and resources... /

[NewK]

One question would be: would it be possible to
initiate lower level versions of
hte Hammersmith
event.
Witout the Galatea, we can assume the Doyen field is keeping
widescale effects suppressed, but perhaps we get attempts that
creat
emore talents,
psiads and possibly low level novas. (Or Stalwarts)

[Mateus Luz]

One question would be: would it be possible to
initiate lower level versions of
hte Hammersmith
event.
Witout the Galatea, we can assume the Doyen field is keeping
widescale effects suppressed, but perhaps we get attempts that
creat
emore talents,
psiads and possibly low level novas. (Or Stalwarts)

If it was my game, yes, actually it would be pretty “common”. Not exactly the Hammersmith event, but a small quantum surge, or noetic surge or flux surge caused by scientific experiments.

[IanWatson]

The Doyen field is preventing any more global events like Hammersmith. That doesn't mean that local events don't happen.

The town of Eureka is a minefield for this sort of thing. And notably, the particle accelerator explosion in Central City which created so many metahumans was also a local event.

[MythAdvocate]

Personally, I prefer to sidestep the Nova Age and Psions, except as examples of Flux mutation. I prefer the efforts of Talents being center stage in a setting. That said, Flux powered strangeness abounds in such a setting, such as Kaiju, Alien Invasion and Zombie outbreaks.

[Dataweaver]

While that would be my go-to position also, I think that the premise here is that while there's no Nova Age in this alternate timeline, Bhurano's 2104 stunt still occurs (though the reason behind it needs to change) and you still get Proxies, Prometheus Chambers, and psions. Without them, you don't really have Æon.

[Florin]

You could still have Quantum Flux without novas and therefore aberrants. Just say it doesn't trigger them in your setting.

[Nephandi]

Pessimistically, without a Nova era you don't have gravity crystals or fusion technology added to the "paradigm." FTL transport and communication is limited to a few individuals. Environmental fixes that the Novas made to the planet never happen. Orbital colonization is limited to a wealthy class of elites who profit from the resource-degradation of the planet and who benefit the most from automation. Freed from the consequences of nuclear war, this wealthy overclass bombs the planet with impunity from their orbital homes. Psiads and other Inspired might gather together under Bhurano or Mercer or Pharos, but they don't have enough power to change the world resource collapse. Rather, they scramble around the planet and preserve what they can in their post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Optimistically, psiads and other Inspired work together (probably under Aeon) and create an Inspired Age instead of a Nova age. The occasional random Nova like Pax helps out, or becomes a threat that the whole world bands together to face down. The Nakamura Process or something equivalent is invented so Superiors can be created, and Bhurano eventually figures out how psiads work. Cross-dimensional Flux is scientifically described and harnessed. A quantum or psionic singularity (or both?) is eventually achieved.

[Eldagusto]

Oh that's a bit pessimistic! Yeah totally agree no Gravity Crystals, we might get a workable fusion but not the perfected form of Hyper Fusion, but I totally don't think Orbital Colonization would be an elite class thing, I feel it would more open the doors to more resources for everyone, unless I specifically want a dark twist like that. But Aeon age they seem sloppy and lazy with their sheparding of the infinite resources available to them, without the Nova Age I wager they would be more efficient. I mean you don't need to go to out of Sol Colonies when you barely used the Resources you have in Sol!

[johntfs]

Oh that's a bit pessimistic! Yeah totally agree no Gravity Crystals, we might get a workable fusion but not the perfected form of Hyper Fusion, but I totally don't think Orbital Colonization would be an elite class thing, I feel it would more open the doors to more resources for everyone, unless I specifically want a dark twist like that. But Aeon age they seem sloppy and lazy with their sheparding of the infinite resources available to them, without the Nova Age I wager they would be more efficient. I mean you don't need to go to out of Sol Colonies when you barely used the Resources you have in Sol!

Given that Super-science is still something of thing even without Novas, there's no reason Gravity Crystals, hyperfusion, etc. can't be done via biotech of some sort. Figure with only Psiads (who are limited to Teleportation modes of 3 (with maybe one mode at 4). In which case you kind of have the situation from seasons 1-3 of The Expanse. Or super-science could allow for the creation of Prometheus chambers or just biotech "augmenters" to allow psiads to reach higher levels of powers. In which case, Aberrants aside, you'd have something close to the world that currently exists in Aeon.

[Florin]

The way I've always looked at the Nova Age is that it just sped things up. So, I think it would be perfectly valid to have the Aeon era a hundred years or two in the future. You can always push back all the other events by the same amount.