[Aberrant] Second Generation Novas in the new edition

[Dataweaver]

I like what David Brin did in Foundation's Triumph (the third book in an authorized sequel to the Foundation series), where he dropped a little nugget early on that the Foundation universe's FTL technology was based on principles that, once discovered, were trivial to implement — so much so that planets whose technology regressed to pre-nuclear stages, as many in the original book had, were still capable of producing, maintaining, and operating starships — as the ones in the original books did.

In other words, he retroactively kept the original books making sense without keeping their technology stuck in the past.

---

I also like the idea of a good portion of humanity moving into space (Cities in Flight, Culture, etc.), not just (or even primarily) colonizing other worlds; and I tend to integrate that into my version of “what comes after Æon”.

[Lian]

I like what David Brin did in Foundation's Triumph (the third book in an authorized sequel to the Foundation series), where he dropped a little nugget early on that the Foundation universe's FTL technology was based on principles that, once discovered, were trivial to implement — so much so that planets whose technology regressed to pre-nuclear stages, as many in the original book had, were still capable of producing, maintaining, and operating starships — as the ones in the original books did.

In other words, he retroactively kept the original books making sense without keeping their technology stuck in the past.

---

I also like the idea of a good portion of humanity moving into space (Cities in Flight, Culture, etc.), not just (or even primarily) colonizing other worlds; and I tend to integrate that into my version of “what comes after Æon”.

That's how you get Gundams....

[Dataweaver]

You mean VARGs?

(Sadly, giant robots seem to have hit a dry spell in today's anime. It's a shame, though I understand why it's happening.)

Also, one thing I love about TC's Super-science rules is that it allows for what I call Rubber Science: technology that's not based off of any exotic principles; it's just better than it has any right to be. Rocketeer-style jet packs, for instance, don't make sense: there's no way you could carry enough fuel to keep it flying for as long as the Rocketeer manages to fly. Or VARGs: giant robots really don't make any sense from am engineering standpoint. But with an application of just a smidge of rubber science, both become totally feasible in the Trinity Continuum.

(In terms of TC:An, you might think of rubber science as what happens when you use Q-Tech to put Mega-Attributes and Mega-Edges into gear.)

[Lian]

You mean VARGs?

(Sadly, giant robots seem to have hit a dry spell in today's anime. It's a shame, though I understand why it's happening.)

No, Gundams and Valvraves are clearly Quantum Tech. But the idea of the majority of people are in giant floating colonies basically screams Gundam and Valvave


hmmmmm I think I'm going to take this to a new thread.

[LordHeru]

I'm fine with mechs in a general sense but I dislike the ones that transform from say bipedal shape to a spaceship and such, especially if they are in a setting that is supposedly 'scientific'.

But yeah, on second gen and stable powers and novatech the idea of them working on it makes sense. Like it might be harder for them to manifest the more outlandish quantum powers and so they turn their attention to creating q-tech to allow them to develop things similar to what their parents had.

I could also see a variant of the future of Aberrant where the second gen didn't leave or stand down but rather rose up and fought their parents - which due to their nature as of the same thing they were quite suitable to do. This caused some damage to the Earth and so in the aftermath these stable novas actually worked together to create Cityships, leading to a Great Exodus from the Earth as humanity rose to the stars. Or something. hehe

[Queen Anne Country]

I'm fine with mechs in a general sense but I dislike the ones that transform from say bipedal shape to a spaceship and such, especially if they are in a setting that is supposedly 'scientific'.

But yeah, on second gen and stable powers and novatech the idea of them working on it makes sense. Like it might be harder for them to manifest the more outlandish quantum powers and so they turn their attention to creating q-tech to allow them to develop things similar to what their parents had.

I could also see a variant of the future of Aberrant where the second gen didn't leave or stand down but rather rose up and fought their parents - which due to their nature as of the same thing they were quite suitable to do. This caused some damage to the Earth and so in the aftermath these stable novas actually worked together to create Cityships, leading to a Great Exodus from the Earth as humanity rose to the stars. Or something. hehe

<3 <3 <3 love it. It'd be cool if the Gen 2s developed some Nova-Tech (hey VARGs) that would put humans - particularly Talents - on some kind of even footing with low level Aberrants and later other Doyen/Coalition adversaries.

[NewK]

A nova designed VARG would probably be a pretty good tool to use against tthe doyen, since you could 9include quantum based weapons that would ruin their day.

Of course the ultimate tool would be some kind of coretech quantum flux blaster--but that would require you making the quantum tech version, then the nova tech, and then the core tech, which would probably be pretty difficult even for the smartest aberrants.

[johntfs]

The idea is 2gen as a more stable but less potent Nova is very interesting.

Maybe cap at Q5 as the ultimate power, with most of the, never passing Q3 is a good measure. Balance the game on the sweet spot (Q3 as I see, Q4 only to unlock “Meta Power powers”).

I suppose my thing is that the "Nova Age" pretty much lasts for 42 years, of which 10 years are gone by the time that Aberrant starts in 2028. Nova fertility is already described as iffy at best. Did some Novas bump uglies? Sure. Did some of that ugly bumping result in pregnancies that get carried to term? Probably. Did that happen often enough to create the need for a full template? Probably not.

I mean assuming you had two Novas erupt and have sex and a conception on N-Day, their kid (assuming exactly a 9 month pregnancy) wouldn't be an adult until Dec. 23, 2036. AKA 8 years after the start of the game.

If you wanted to set up some kind of rules, that's probably going to be on you. Otherwise there's really no reason not to use the normal rules in the book perhaps with some kind of XP adjustment. When it comes to official supplements, Nova babies is not something I'd want to be a priority.

[Dataweaver]

Rules for second-generation Novas pretty much assume the setting advanced by at least a decade.

[NewK]

And to be honest? 2nd generation novas don't really require a huge word count to do. I mean, if you want to go: children born to low quantum novas and baselines have a chance to be x, that's a paragraph, and rules for an actual "2nd" generation Nova could probably be a bullet list of how they differ (can't buy powers by gaining transcendence, don't accumulate flux, can only increase quantum by ).

The biggest thing I think would be talking about how many there are likely to be, and there's really no need to handle that mechnically--it's "here's how many there are in the canon. (likely some but not enough to change things) and "here's what might happen if you have more or fewer." You could probably do the whole thing in under four text pages. So it's not really taking a huge amount of space which is good, since this really wouldn't be everyone's thing.

[Aliasi]

On the contrary, I think it's not quite as secondary as some seem to have it. Novas exist on Earth even before N-day. Novas continue to exist afterwards and sane ones even exist in Aeon (see: Eden). It isn't an immediately-vital question in the sense of "what is the bare minimum needed to describe the Nova Age and Nova PCs" but it's one that could use a canonical answer.

[NewK]

oh agreed, I'm just saying that if you're concerned about page count eating stuff that might appeal to more people, I think you can do 2nd gen novas, and do them well, with a fairly light footprint, word and page count wise. They don't require entirely new systems to be created to handle them.