What are your Suggested Mechanics for Nova and reproduction?

[Eldagusto]

So with Nova's being sterile tossed out the window what is your ideas for mechanics for Novas Reproducing, and if you want rules for Superiors and Psi Breeding?

I remember I think Glamourweaver having the interesting idea of Nova's being long lived seem like they don't have kids but in truth they just shift their reproduction to correlate to their new lifespans.

My biggest influence for Nova's and reproduction are Inhumans and Eternals in Marvel, followed up by Mutants. In Earth X when the Terrigen Mist gave everyone on Earth Superpowers people stop having kids but they reveal all Inhumans are like this they just got around it in Attilan by carefully selecting arranged marriages to maximize fertility, and like Glamourweaver suggested they were long lived so had less kids. They also brought the idea that Inhumans are essentially just humans without exposure to the Terrigen mists.

Eternals in Neil Gaiman's miniseries didn't age and couldn't have kids, once again tying with Glamourweavers idea of lifespan effecting reproduction. But we also had the Titan Eternals, an offshoot of Eternals who went to live on the Moon of Saturn known as Titan. These beings seemed to be long lived but not immortal, so they seemed to have kids and were by default more potent then mortals while also being able to develop special unique gifts. Thanos is probably the most well known of this Group, he was a genius and was very powerful by default, he also developed energy manipulation through scientific and mystical experimentation. His Grandfather is always quite interesting having originated on Earth with the first Eternals he ascended as Kronos and mastered time. Good example of Nova apotheosis. Thanos in mainstream displays a throwback Deviant genetics making him different from other Eternals, this sparks my idea of what could happen if Nova's breed with say Novas of nonhuman species are just weird entities.

Mutants are all over the place. Early on Marvel set the precedent that superhumans who weren't mutants themselves had a tendency to have children whose special powers were expressed with the Mutant Gene, such as Franklin Richards and early on when Spidey had his first kid with MJ. Even hybrid species like Namor born of Homo Sapien and Homo Mermanus was a mutant, along with his cousins, indicating mutation seemed to activate with human genetics rather then create whole new types of beings each time. Later they seemed to drop this for some reason. And later beings seemed to just have superhuman kids that weren't mutants. Then we also had Mutant Inhuman Hybrids like Quicksilver and Crystals child Luna, but I think they just lump her into Inhumans, I forgot where she is now.

So what are your thoughts?

I personally would like something like maybe only first generation Nova's having a blank slate for their powers, and maybe their children are stabilized towards their expressions of power, or related fields. I'm also a fan of Nova's who erupt in comic book style due to thematic accidents like being bitten by a radioactive spider making you a Spiderman. Maybe I would have them be a bit less fertile then humans due to their maybe greater lifespan and potential. This would lend to the idea that maybe first gen Novas are closer to the progenitor of new species each. So maybe if they have children with humans their children would have thematic variants of their powers, like Scott Summers Absorbing Cosmic rays to release Optic Concussive blasts while his brother absorbs cosmic rays to release intense superheated plasma waves. Or Jean Grey's bloodline creating potent psychics. So with this idea if two Novas breed then maybe their children have a greater degree of variable powers compared to those with one human parent, kind of like a limited reshuffling.

I am not sure at all how I would handle Psions and Psiads having kids yet, or Superiors, are we given reproduction rules for them?

Some have brought up when erupting anything could happen, so I've then entertained the idea that say if you clone and successfully erupt the clone than rather then develop the same powers its randomized instead. This makes truly powerful Nova's freak occurances that can't be replicated. But the Coalition did successfully crack Nova genetics and seem to extract specific powers. So maybe I'll go with once erupting your genes are irrevocably changed and warped towards the Nova's new form

So how would you handle Nova's having kids with humans, other Novas or Psiads?

[Penelope]

I like your ideas. I think a nova having kids with a psiad or psion would be the same as a baseline, except that the child would never have both quantum powers and psi powers.

[Eldagusto]

I'm wonder maybe it could favor the nature of the strongest parent, so its born human with say the destiny of erupting as a Nova if the Nova parent is stronger, but because the other parent was a Psi user it seems mutated, or like some sort of new species that is born Nova.

[Penelope]

Hmmm. Makes sense.

[Eldagusto]

Like maybe some reason that could discourage a Nova and a Psiad from Mating, but its not so much an issue that its the end of the world for the Child. So something like a mutated child that may look like some sort of Alien could work, its physiology and psychology could be different from its parents but it could be healthy and functional, but maybe lonely.

Hmmm this idea gives me more ideas about Alien colonies being the result of one of these mutated offspring forming some sort of Caste system. Time Travel, Chariot of the Gods, ect...

[Penelope]

I think a nova and a psiad having a kid together would be an awesome idea. Maybe the baby would have a 75% of being a psiad and a 25% chance of being a nova (or something like that; I suck at math). But psiads and psions are different, and maybe the Doyen put something in the Prometheus Chambers that makes the psions unable to have children with novas or Aberrants.

Btw, I liked Slaughtermane (the T2M member turned creepy serial killer Aberrant in Aeon Aexpansion).

[Eldagusto]

I totally see the Doyen packaging anti Nova countermeasures in the Psions, maybe if not making them unable to mate with scions something even more insidious like being born baseline but mad or ill or with a tendency towards violence against their parents.

[Shepherdboi]

Given that - according to the Aeon sourcebook - the presence of Corruption decreases fertility, I'd say that the typical Nova suffers a 20% chance per level of Transcendence for any act which could result in a child to result in a failed conception/spontaneous miscarriage. That means a Transcendence 9 Nova has a 180% penalty to have a kid; a literal 0% chance, and then another 80% in penalties on top of that.

I'd also give them a Stamina based fertility Mega Edge which improves their odds by 10% per dot of Mega Stamina. So a Transcendence 9, Mega Stamina 9, Mega Fertility Nova has a 10% chance for a normal conception. A Quantum 9 Nova with the minimum possible Transcendence (6, I believe) and Mega Stamina 9 + Mega Fertility would have a 70% chance for a normal conception, making them only slightly less fertile than a healthy baseline human. The sweet spot for the Mega Edge would be Quantum 3, Mega Stamina 3, with no Transcendence, granting the Nova a 30% increase in fertility over a healthy baseline human.

[Eldagusto]

I'm thinking of having High Transcendence Nova's maybe being more and more separated from human physiology and thus may reproduce in weirder in weirder ways. So going from getting preggo, to laying eggs, to my children are thought forms that bud off me when I feel inspired to leave space and set foot on an actual planet.

[Zsarnok]

So, I’m not sure putting game mechanics or percentage chances behind it is a good idea, but here is the pattern I have been using last edition.

Baring other factors, the child of a nova inherits the genetic potential for eruption, and environmental factors determine if they become novas (or latents) later in life. Special case if the mother is a nova(especially if both parents are) or otherwise exposed to high degree of quantum, then more than likely the child settles on the quantum side (thus can’t develop latency) and early eruption (including before birth, thus “born nova”) is more likely. It is possible but rare to go their whole lives without erupting or becoming latent.

Novas born erupted or erupted in early childhood usually develops similar powers to his caretakers like a normal child would learn language and mannerism. Children raised by baselines will tend towards mega attributes (Stealth nova/darkstar package). If the eruption happens later in life, then their personality and circumstances determine their starting powers, just like other novas.

Once taint comes into play, things start getting weird. As a rule of thumb the farther the nova parent moves from baseline humanity, the less likely they are to produce viable offspring with baselines. Of course the nova’s aberrations can move the nova away from this, either causing hyperfertility (possibly not limited to just humans), or outright abandoning the human reproduction for some other strategy(laying eggs, implanting parasites, etc).
Offspring of highly taintednovas are likely to have high taintthemselves, the aberrations usually mirroring their parents’.

As far as other inspired are concerned, I don’t think I ever actually nailed that down. As a rule of thumb in the case of nova/psiad, it’s the same as nove/baseline, but if the child goes the psi/latent route then they probably become psiads instead of latent.
Nova/psion in my campaigns the usually do not produce viable offspring without the assistance of powers due to the doyen failsafe. If such child is born then same as nova/baseline, with the tendency towards strong latency in the psion parent’s aptitude if the child goes the psi route.
As far as I recall Talents are not genetic, and thus count as baselines.