Aberrant: Exile

MJ12-run Aberrant game.

General Notes

This game uses the Aberrant 2.0 rules changes to improve character survivability, combat playability, and increase character power. Read the errata and changes to powers while doing chargen.

Background

The launch of the ISV Unity in 2030 was the highlight of the Nova age, an age few remember, and those who do remember it with dread and loathing. It was crewed by a mixed group of Novas and humans, a testament to Utopian cooperation, the Daedalus League's research and development, and named after the emotion it was supposed to engender. Few participating in the launch realized what would happen merely 25 years down the line.

Intended to establish observation posts and enact a year-long exploration mission around a faraway star, a series of unfortunate accidents stranded it in space and forced it to return to Earth via slower-than-light travel. Its crew of brave astronauts pointed the vessel towards Earth, stepped into their stasis chambers, and waited for the century long journey to end. Estimated time of arrival was to be the year 2150. Arrival was successful, but the Earth and humanity they came back to was one different indeed, one which remembered the old golden age with horror and fear, and those who call the Novas something other than Novas...

They call them Aberrants.

The World of 2150
Eden Directory
The Mutation Facility
Technological Analysis: Coalition
Diplomatic Briefing: Qin
Canadaberrant
OMEN Control Facilities

You have 995 in-character days before being eaten by the Coalition.

UNSC Status

Or: How likely any party is to veto you.

Permanent Members

China: Ambivalent

FSA: Hostile

European Union (read: Germany + Italy): Hostile

South America: Ambivalent

United African Nations: Friendly

Rotating Members

Britain: Hostile (subverted)

Russia: “From Hell’s Heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee."

Japan: Friendly

Mexico: Unfriendly

India: Unfriendly

Olympus (Luna): Ambivalent

Australia: Ambivalent

Vietnam: Unfriendly

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Party Possessions

The party's current possessions.

Finances

The party currently possesses approximately Resources 5 total outside of party personal resources.

Property

France

It's not really an empire, but it's a start.

• Sanctuaire: Settlement in the ruins of Paris, based around a former high-class hotel. Part of the Merovingian empire.
  • Population 2,500
  • Security: 15 knights and 50 squires from the Merovingians, plus local militia and novas.
  • Notable amenities: Hyperfusion reactor, running water, sanitation, power and local area network, repurposed farm-gardens and edenite medical facilities.
  • Eden Permanent Liaison: Francesca Beatrice Hermann, young megasocial looking to burnish her CV and smug out at baselines. Claude's ex.
  • Horrors: Bob/Birth, giant fetus that eats people and makes soma.

Space Stuff

1 x Downgraded British Novastorm, the HMS Thunderchild. Try not to get this one blown up against space aliens. (fat chance)

Dramatis Personae

Mallory Gibbs: Comm officer.

Marie Clements: Secondary (baseline) helmswoman and pilot of one of the two landers.

Dr. Madukhar Gupta: Chitra Bantu Quantakinetic. Gifted with a talent for passing on uncomfortable truths.

Notable Attributes/Abilities: Academics (Theology) 3, Science (Noetics) 4 [Theistic Noetics + 2], Science (Quantum Physics) 4 [M-R Nodes + 2], Etiquette 2 [Uncomfortable Truths + 3], Psi 7 (Quantakinesis: [Enhancement 3, Energetics 3, Transmutation 5], Vitakinesis: [Mentatis 1], Mega-Stamina 1 (Adaptability), Mega-Intelligence 2 (Scientific Prodigy, Medical Prodigy), Intelligence (Brilliant) 6

Dr. Jasmine Omidi: A beautiful younger Chitra Bantu Quantakinetic. Quieter but no less dedicated to her work in finding a cure for Taint.

Agent Takae Yamamoto: A Japanese Nova assigned to shadow the party in Japan and monitor their actions.

Elaine Marquis: A French Nova whose former delusion was "I am possessed Joan of Arc." Currently she has no mental aberrations and no taint due to a Chitra Bantu operation. Powers include all Mega-Physicals and Mega-Socials at 2 and high levels of Claws.

Eve: Coalition honeypot.

Special Rules

Aberrant 2.0 Psion Rules
Aberrant 2.0 Trinity Gear
Aberrant: Exiles NPCs
The Aeon Graybox
Sanctum
Characters start with 50 rather than 45 NP.

Due to the circumstances, characters may not take the backgrounds listed below and must buy them with XP during downtime or earn them in play:

• Allies
• Backing
• Cipher (everyone gets this free at 4 instead due to the OpNet crash)
• Contacts
• Followers
• Influence
• Mentor
• Resources

These backgrounds (and some social merits/flaws) require the characters to be known, and as they are not known besides for "Aberrant Invasion!" headlines, that's a current problem.

Similarly, the characters in question were chosen to psychological suitability, and should not have any egregious mental flaws, a Taint higher than 3-4, or significant physical flaws. Utopia selected for stability rather than raw power, and also suitability for the mission. That is to say, all Nova characters should be able to survive (and possibly maneuver) in space, and have gotten training to do so, granting them a few abilities and specialties for free. Characters should buy up relevant or related skills to the mission.

Due to restructuring Aberrations and Taint in-play, all characters gain an additional 4 XP. This should be used to repurchase the bodymods lost from Taint 1-2 not giving any bodymods if you have a Taint of 2 or higher. Otherwise, spend it as you want. As an additional reminder, 2nd Generation Nova's cost has gone down from 6 bp to 1 bp.

Backgrounds

Citizenship

This is (obviously) the number of legitimate citizenships you have in a country (or an important NGO). Being a citizen of a country means a lot less hassle when traveling back and forth, and generally increased rights, such as ownership of firearms, trial by jury, whathaveyou. Most countries offer citizenship, and so does Aeon, although Aeon citizenship is never "your country of birth".

Citizenship X: Citizenship only in your country of birth (which is kind of irrelevant)

Citizenship ●: Citizen of 1 additional country.

Citizenship ●●: Citizen of 2 additional countries.

Citizenship ●●●: Citizenship in 3 additional countries.

Citizenship ●●●●: Citizenship in 4 additional countries.

Citizenship ●●●●●: Citizenship in 5 additional countries.

Resources

The Trinity-era resource background and item costs are printed below.

Resources

Resources ●: 400Y a week in income, roughly 100Y/week in spending money and 500Y in cash reserves. Roughly 5000Y in total assets.

Resources ●●: 1000Y a week in income, roughly 250Y/week in spending money and 5000Y in cash reserves. Roughly 50,000Y in total assets.

Resources ●●●: 5000Y a week in income, roughly 1000Y/week in spending money and 50,000Y in cash reserves. Roughly 750,000Y in total assets.

Resources ●●●●: 10,000Y a week in income, roughly 3000Y/week in spending money and 500,000Y in cash reserves. Roughly 1.5 million Y in total assets.

Resources ●●●●●: 200,000Y a week in income, roughly 30,000Y/week in spending money, and 5 million Y in cash reserves. Roughly 20 million Y in total assets.

Resources ●●●●● ●: roughly 4 million Y a week in income, roughly 300,000/week in spending money, and 50 million Y in cash reserves. Roughly 250 million Y in total assets.

Resources ●●●●● ●●: roughly 80 million Y a week in income, roughly 10 million/week in "spending money", and 1 billion Y in cash reserves. Roughly 5 billion Y in total assets.

Resources ●●●●● ●●●: roughly 200 million Y a week in income, roughly 50 million/week in "spending money", and 20 billion Y in cash reserves. Roughly 100 billion Y in total assets. You control the GDP of a small country.

Resources ●●●●● ●●●●: roughly 2 billion Y a week in income, roughly 150 million/week in "spending money", and 200 billion Y in cash reserves. Roughly 2 trillion Y in total assets. You control the GDP of a sizable developed country.

Resources ●●●●● ●●●●●: roughly 50 billion Y a week in income, roughly 500 million/week in "spending money", and 2 trillion Y in cash reserves. Roughly 40 trillion Y in total assets. You control the GDP and assets of a world power.

Costs

Cost ●: 1-50Y. Examples: A meal, bottled drink, knife, flashlight, entertainment software, tickets to a movie or play, ammunition (1 magazine of standard ammo), hostel (per day).

Cost ●●: 51-200Y. Examples: Single-purpose computers, personal light firearms (pistols), sports equipment, bicycle, hospital visit, motel (per day).

Cost ●●●: 201-1,000Y. Examples: Minicomps, motorized personal transport (Segways!), armored clothing, first aid equipment, most small arms, most small arms accessories, professional software, hotel cost (per day), high-class entertainment tickets.

Cost ●●●●: 1,001-5000Y. Examples: Most military armor types, ECS, Aberscope, coil or laser pistol/carbine, heavy personal arms (machine gun, LAW, grenade launcher), olaminium ammunition (1 magazine), workstation computer, motorbike, panimmunity vaccine, intensive care (per day), studio, luxury hotel (per day).

Cost ●●●●●: 5,001-50,000Y. Examples: Bioweave armor, plasma weapon, civilian car, civilian skimmer, minor genetic tweaking (change appearance, lose weight, slow growth of muscle mass, etc), anti-armor rockets, apartment.

Cost ●●●●● ●: 50,001-500,000Y. Examples: Anti-tank missile, VAS suit, luxury car, LAV, vehicle weapon, assault skimmer, bioenhancement surgery (Enhancements 1-2), comfortable house.

Cost ●●●●● ●●: 500,001-5,000,000Y. Examples: Pulse Cannon, Lightning Gun, main battle tank, hyperfusion commercial jet, orbital shuttle, VARG, tactical nuclear warhead, large town house, LANSA array, advanced enhancement surgery (Enhancements 3-4)

Cost ●●●●● ●●●: 5,000,001-50,000,000Y. Examples: Hybrid fighters, Subfighters, supertank, minisub, orbital shuttle, opulent mansion, radical biomodification surgery (Enhancements 5+).

Cost ●●●●● ●●●●: 50,000,001-500,000,000Y. Examples: Most space-going ships, military frigates (like the Scarab), seagoing warship, antimatter city-killer.

Cost ●●●●● ●●●●●: 500,000,001-5 billion Yuan. Examples: Leviathan Jumpship, L-B Novastorm Cruiser, building an arcology or small space station.

Training Package

All Unity characters gain these abilities and specialties for free, which can be bought up as normal.

• Microgravity Ops 1
• Engineering 1 + Engineering (Spacesuit Maintenance) +1
• Science 1: Choose a valid field for exploring a new and potentially Earthlike planet. Examples of valid fields are Geology, Astronomy, Astrophysics, or Biology. This is not an inclusive list.

All Eden characters gain +3 BP instead.

New Skills

• Dexterity
  • Helmsman (Guide to the Technocracy, page 147): A must for flying starships.
  • Microgravity Ops (Guide to the Technocracy, page 150): Note that instead of capping the number of die a character has in physical skills, this reduces the difficulty penalty microgravity inflicts instead, by 1 point per dot. It is also used to fly around using a MMU or other sort of Zero-G personal propulsion, and completely replaces Athletics for movement in Zero-G.
• Intelligence
  • Science (Xenology) (Trinity Player's Guide, page 111): An entirely theoretical field!
  • Science (Noetics): This ability covers the scientific understanding of Psions and the subquantum (noetic) force. Noetic science is an extremely unfamiliar field and is never bought at half cost for anyone outside of a few groups (in Aeon and the Aesculpians).
  • Engineering (Bioapps): Related to bioengineering but not identical, bioapp engineering is used for producing psionically-active biotechnology (versus just genetic engineering as bioengineering covers). A character does not need to possess this ability to produce biotechnological systems but does need it if he wishes those biotech systems to be formattable by Psions.

Languages

• Chromatic, Qin, Coalition Languages. The Chromatic language takes 2 slots (and has no formal variant), the Qin language takes 3 slots (6 as its formal variant), and the Coalition language 4 slots (with no formal variant). Note that all three of these languages require inhuman features to communicate. Chromatic languages require Bioluminescence or Chromatophores, the Qin language requires Telepathy, and the Coalition requires pheromonal ability (10 XP to buy the variable and flexible pheromone suite necessary). Without these advantages, the character must use technological aids instead, or hope the aliens in question understand human language.

New Powers

Psi (Noetic) Mastery

Minimum Requirements: Information Mastery 1, Quantum 5, Huang-Marr Bioapp (Body Modification)

Dice Pool: Bioapp Pool + Psi Mastery

Duration: Maintenance

Description
Much as Quantakinesis is the manipulation of Quantum forces with a Noetic glove, Psi Mastery uses the interconnection of subquantum forces and the universe's information content to act on Psi forces. Psi Mastery is not technically a Suite power, it instead gives the Nova an artificial Psi score equal to (Noetic Mastery) and an artificial Psi pool equal to (Noetic Mastery + Willpower). When Psi Mastery is used, the Nova also rolls his Taint + Quantum at the end of a scene. Successes on this roll become unsoakable aggravated levels of damage, as channeling Psi disrupts the M-R node, which is all that is holding the Nova's informational template together at this point.

On the flipside, a Psi-Mastery capable Nova does not have to pay for modes-He gains 2 dots in Modes free for each point in Psi Mastery (but their permanent bonuses are halved, rounded down). Psi Mastery does not have Mastery levels-being capable of Psi is mastery enough. The artificial Psi score granted by Noetic Mastery can be used for any usage Psi has, including Attunement, Formatting Bioware, and so on. Novas which format biotech suffer from it though-each point of Tolerance a bioapp reduces the Nova's Quantum Pool and maximum Quantum/Turn expenditure by 1.

A Nova may not raise his Psi Mastery power to a rating higher than his Information Mastery + 2.

New Extra: Integrated (requires Psi Mastery 5, Quantum 6, Taint 0, Mega-Wits 5 + Mind over Matter, Mega-Stamina 5)

Like how originally Quantum and Psi were thought to be the same force ("Z-Rays"), they can artificially be balanced with each other with proper control, or low concentrations of either manipulative force. A Nova who has managed to purchase this Extra gains several significant benefits. Note that doing so is quite reasonably compared with combining matter and antimatter to build something, and any failures on the research roll or any other support roles may cause retroactive information dissolution (i.e. you never existed). This is possibly at least one reason why nobody's ever heard of it or even theorized it. Yet.

He no longer suffers the negative backlash effects of Psi Mastery.

The Nova's Psi Mastery score becomes his Psi score for all intents and purposes. The Nova still lacks a "natural" noetic template but has created one.

The Nova's Quantum pool and Psi pool can coexist-Psi points no longer reduce maximum Quantum.

The Nova gains enhanced Dormancy: A dormant Nova with this Extra counts as a Psion for any effect which detects Quantum rather than a Nova.

The Nova no longer needs a Huang-Marr Bioimplant to use his psionic powers.

The permanent bonuses gained from levels in Psionic Modes apply to the Nova in full.

Obviously creating this power would require research and development far above and beyond what has been done, and the Integrated Extra or hints of its existence would require finding information from sources dating back to the Hammersmith Incident, possibly via means as extreme as time travel.

Huang-Marr Bioapps

Directly implanted biotechnological applications combining Psion and Aberrant DNA, these systems are extremely difficult to acquire, seeing as the Huang-Marr scandal has mostly blown over and there are only a handful of examples of the data stored in secure caches or evidence lockers. Unlike other forms of Enhancement and unlike any Bioapps, Novas can format Huang-Marr bioapps owing to their origins. Doing so transforms 10 points of a Nova's Quantum pool into 10 Psi points instead. Formatting a H-M bioapp as a Nova requires an XP surcharge of 6 XP per App.

These Bioapps give their user +4 to Psi, as well as +1 to all Modes a user possesses, or +2 to a single mode a user does not possess. Each additional Huang-Marr Bioapp after the first increases the user's Psi by an additional +2, and adds all bonuses to Mode scores (up to a maximum of 5 in any mode), and Psions further gain a -1 Psi cost break to all Psi use (not cumulative with multiple installations). However, both Psions and Novas using these bioapps suffer horrific side effects. Psions have to check for Bioapp assimilation (once per week the Psion and the bioapp make opposed Psi rolls, if the Psion loses 1 point of his Psi transfers to the App), while Novas "merely" suffer zeroed Quantum regeneration rates and a cost surcharge (Novas no longer regenerate Quantum normally and must roll Stamina + Node to "accelerate" regeneration, use the Quantum Regeneration power, or burn HLs to fill their Quantum Pool, all non-permanent powers cost +1 Quantum to use). The negative effects of multiple implanted HM Bioapps are cumulative-a Nova that installs 2 Huang-Marr Bioapps requires the user to triple his normal Quantum regeneration rates (via Quantum Regeneration or Node stressing) to regain Quantum at all, and adds a +2 Quantum surcharge on all power use.

Characters

Format: Name (Player): Role. e.g. Shen-Ji Yang (The Computer): Chairman of the Human Hive.

Quasar(KIA 2023-2152) Supernova (2150-??) (Andronicus): Ships Daedalus League Warper and Emergency Situations Advisor. (~93 NP)
Starlance (Exhack): Ship's Helmsman and Weapons Expert. (~95 NP)
Victoria Corel (Bossmuff): Ship's Morale Officer and Alien Relations Expert (~100 NP)
Scarlet (FBH): Captain. (~90 NP)
Marisa Yomamura (Screwball): Edenite Nova extraordinaire. (~85 NP)
Claude Adams (Peel): Edenite information theorist. (~80 NP)
Rachel Razumikhina (PlaidMage): Construction Nova
Isis Lenhart (Entropy): Throwback in a box
Alywn Jones (Oseng): Edenite Space-Time Manipulator
Owen Mathers (Kokuten): Cool-Headed Ice Cop

Retirees/Guest Stars

Finn Luchs (Shrike): Space Pirate!
Aya (Silence): Not part of the crew, but a magical girl.
Dr. McAllister (OmegaPaladin): Ship's Medical Officer and Scientist

Places

Sanctuaire (our little slice of post-apocalyptic paradise in France).

Resources 4

Notable Events

[17:04] * @Freja serves a drink to Sir Carvell

[17:04] * @Marisa thinks that's a terrible name

[17:04] <@Freja> "Oh how funny, Sir Carvell. Have another double scotch on me."

[17:05] <@Freja> marisa isn't paid to think >:(

[17:05] <@Marisa> yes she is!

[17:05] <@Freja> but.. but union.... she's a scab!

[17:05] <@Marisa> >:D