[Aberrant] Help with various nova inventions

[NewK]

I'm loking for clarification on a number of nova inventions, where the board members think they'd sit in the core/nova/quantum tech list and how hard they'd be to make. Most of the inventions are for a campaign of mine, but equally, I'd like to see where they'd sit, design wise:

1. Modifying a hyper fusion reactor to be portable enough to power an orbital and cislunar capable spaceship about the size of a Boeing 747.
2. A man portable, baseline usable, rail gun powered off of advanced battery systems capable of engaging tanks.
3. A trinity style hardtech VARG battle suit.
4. A mechanical version of the Quantum Warp power, granting a ship intersteller capability.
5. A chamber that initiates a "mini-Hammersmith/Galatea" event on those who are within in it when activated. It doesn't give the nova or individuals any control over their power expression, just grants the possibility for their genetic latency to express as a talent/nova/psiad.

[Mateus Luz]

Here are my ideas:

1. That’s basically Core tech. Build one starship from Aeon and call it rank by the total tag cost (minimum equal to 4 or size scale, the highest of them)
2. Q-Tech rank 5: Quantum Attack rank 5 (piercing, ranged x3, brutal) (it can put down a destroyer with a few good hits)
3. Q-Tech Rank 5: Growth 1 (Intrinsic), Thoughness 2 (Intrinsic). You may improve that with weapons as different items attached to it or you can improve the item rank and gain extra dots to add as powers.
4. Q-Tech Rank 3: Warp 1 (Increased Size 2). Considering a size 3 ship, increase the size of the ship and the size of the portal it will open.
5. Q-Tech Rank 5: Handwavium 5

[NewK]

Thanks--but only Rank 5? I'd thought it might be higher.

In that case, what would a rank 8 or 9 item of Q-tech be?

[Dataweaver]

2 isn't Q-Tech; it's Nova Tech at most. @NewK specified baseline-usable. 3 probably isn't Q-Tech either, as “hardtech” also implies baseline-usable. (If he had said “biotech”, I would have said that that's impossible since Novas can't make biotech; but they could make something that's equivalent save only for being Quantum-powered rather than Psi-powered, and that would count as Q-Tech.)

As you say, 5 is Handwavium: you're basically describing a Prometheus Chamber, but without any restrictions on how the power manifests. Even in the Æon era, nobody knows how to make one of those. If you want one in the Aberrant era, you need special Storyteller permission to make it. I'd probably require a collaborative effort where your Nova inventor is assisted by a psiad inventor, and possibly a Talented inventor too; and I might even require that the Nova and psiad have Quantum and Psi ratings above 5 (which, in the official TC:Ab setting, would almost certainly require the psiad to have the initials “S.K.”). If a Talent is required as well, I'd expect his Inspiration to be up in that range as well.

Creating a multi-purpose Promethean Chamber a century before the specialized ones make their first appearance should be insanely hard.

[Sakii]

2 isn't Q-Tech; it's Nova Tech at most. @NewK specified baseline-usable. 3 probably isn't Q-Tech either, as “hardtech” also implies baseline-usable. (If he had said “biotech”, I would have said that that's impossible since Novas can't make biotech; but they could make something that's equivalent save only for being Quantum-powered rather than Psi-powered, and that would count as Q-Tech.)

As you say, 5 is Handwavium: you're basically describing a Prometheus Chamber, but without any restrictions on how the power manifests. Even in the Æon era, nobody knows how to make one of those. If you want one in the Aberrant era, you need special Storyteller permission to make it. I'd probably require a collaborative effort where your Nova inventor is assisted by a psiad inventor, and possibly a Talented inventor too; and I might even require that the Nova and psiad have Quantum and Psi ratings above 5 (which, in the official TC:Ab setting, would almost certainly require the psiad to have the initials “S.K.”). If a Talent is required as well, I'd expect his Inspiration to be up in that range as well.

Creating a multi-purpose Promethean Chamber a century before the specialized ones make their first appearance should be insanely hard.

Then wouldnt that be Rank 9? why 5

[Dataweaver]

Not “rank 5”; “number 5” — as in, the fifth thing @NewK asked for: the general-purpose Promethean Chamber. I've said nothing about ranks.

[Mateus Luz]

2, 3 and 4 can be Novatech following the same rules. Sorry!

Number 5 I made rank 5, but it was more a handwavium to the rank too. Thinking on how hard it was for Mal to create one to beat the entire world, I would put it Mal’s on rank 9, and reduce the scale, that’s why I left on rank 5.

I think the hard part of Number 5 is not the act of creating, but the lack of a power that do that. A Stalwart (I would make Hammersmith a Stalwart) was capable of creating one (maybe by mistake, but...) so rank 6 would be the ultimate limit. A Nova don’t know that it’s possible, basically. Honestly the issue is the same from the Prometheus Chamber, there is no psi power to transforma a Latent in a Psion or Psiad, even if temporary, so it’s hard for the scientists to build anything in that direction.

[NewK]

Yeah, I mean the thing I was considering is the Superiors--the Novas were able to create a process that created a lower level nova, but also could create a talent (albeit nobody knows they're doing it). And of course the Hammer Smith event evidently created all three strains of powers, albeit not to the degree of later events.

So it seems that the same "switch" or latency, can express as quantum, flux, or psi, depending on how you hit it. so a treatment akin to the Superior treatment, but one that isn't aiming for any given outcome, might allow a nova to produce examples of all three powers, albeit with no control over what he gets.

Given the impact of dunking non-latents in a chamber, it probably also gets you a boat load of dead bodies.

I mean, there appear to be very strong hints that in canon "artificial" novas either aren't a thing at all, or are rare enough that they don't have much of an impact on the final events, so it makes sense that any achievement is either A. the near magical thing the quantum 9 nova buids, or B. very random, dangerous and likely prone to explosive malfunctions.

[johntfs]

Yeah, I mean the thing I was considering is the Superiors--the Novas were able to create a process that created a lower level nova, but also could create a talent (albeit nobody knows they're doing it). And of course the Hammer Smith event evidently created all three strains of powers, albeit not to the degree of later events.

So it seems that the same "switch" or latency, can express as quantum, flux, or psi, depending on how you hit it. so a treatment akin to the Superior treatment, but one that isn't aiming for any given outcome, might allow a nova to produce examples of all three powers, albeit with no control over what he gets.

Given the impact of dunking non-latents in a chamber, it probably also gets you a boat load of dead bodies.

I mean, there appear to be very strong hints that in canon "artificial" novas either aren't a thing at all, or are rare enough that they don't have much of an impact on the final events, so it makes sense that any achievement is either A. the near magical thing the quantum 9 nova buids, or B. very random, dangerous and likely prone to explosive malfunctions.

Superiors aren't Talents. They're basically Rank 2, artificial limited Novas. They have increased (but not Mega) Attributes. They have powers that are similar to (but aren't) Mega-Edges.

As for the device, it's probably impossible. I suspect that we'll learn in Adventure that the Hammersmith machine was built to do something other than what it did (time travel, space exploration, etc) and that what happened was a side effect of it malfunctioning and blowing itself to Hell.

You might be able to have Nova build something like a Prometheus Chamber that (rarely) triggers potential Novas but far more often turns people into sub-Aberrants or nasty pools of ooze (AKA dead people).

The point of the Nihonjin process is that it limits potential. It takes people who might otherwise erupt as a full Nova, be triggered as a Psion develop as a Psiad or manifest as a Talent and forces them to become a much lesser version of a Nova or a Talent. The thing you describe expands potential and the science/understanding for that just isn't there yet even in the Aeon era.

Mega-Intelligence is great but it isn't everything.