For the Continuum Curious, The World of Aberrant in 2018...
over 5 years ago
– Fri, Jul 05, 2019 at 04:01:49 PM
Hello to the Continuum Curious today,
For those who are checking this campaign out, wondering what it's about and if they should back, today I'll share a little from our manuscript preview to shed a tiny bit of light on the setting.
This project, Trinity Continuum: Aberrant, is a rules & setting supplement and requires the Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook to play.
Trinity Continuum is a roleplaying game about possibilities and human potential. In the continuum, you will portray characters who can act and achieve even the most outlandish goals. You could find yourself in a heist to save ancient artifacts from the hands of villains, rescuing innocents from natural disasters, investigating strange technologies, or saving people from dangerous anomalies born of weird science. Trinity Continuum isn’t a single game, but is instead the framework for multiple different games. All with a slightly different focus or action, but all involving a single unifying theme: Nothing is impossible.
The Trinity Continuum contains multiple timelines, various time periods, and different genres of play. In the core book we present a modern-day setting in which you could enjoy many different genres of play, such as action-adventure, mystery, heist, do-gooders saving the world, or investigating weird science. Much of the game’s eccentricities come from science fiction in the broadest sense of the phrase. Anything that could account for strange occurrences, near-future realism, or farfetched future devices falls under that umbrella.
The Trinity Continuum: Aberrant book expands the Trinity Continuum timeline with a new system and setting featuring the superheroes for a new age, a world a decade in the future, with seeds planted in the early 21st century. In the timeline of Aberrant, 2018 started very differently...
Aberrant Timeline
March 23rd, 2018, N-Day — the day the world changed forever. Following the tragic explosion of the space station Galatea in orbit, people around the world began displaying superhuman abilities of an unexplained nature, starting with New York City firefighter Randel Portman, later known as “the Fireman.” In the days and weeks following, dozens more people manifested powers, leading to a worldwide state of emergency. It was soon clear that the world would never quite be the same again, as the miraculous and the extraordinary became the order of the day.
2018 — Eruptions
March 23, 12:18 p.m. GST: The research space station Galatea explodes, killing the astronauts on board and dumping radioactive material into Earth’s atmosphere.
March 23, 3:31 p.m. GST: In New York City, firefighter Randel Portman manifests superhuman powers, absorbing all the heat and flames from a multi-alarm apartment building blaze without harm to himself. Portman’s first superhuman feat is captured on video and he is quickly dubbed “the Fireman” by the media.
March - April: Dozens of other people with “aberrant powers” appear worldwide, leading to widespread panic, states of emergency, and emergency sessions of the United Nations.
April 2: The Æon Society initiates a dialog with the United Nations, offering to seek out and study the phenomenon to learn more about it. The term “nova” is adopted in response to the early suggested taxonomy of Homo sapiens novus, the scientific speculation that these people are a subspecies or mutant offshoot of baseline humanity. The term “baseline” enters common use not long thereafter.
May 1: The Æon Society publicly issues an invitation to open dialog with any interested novas to help them study and understand their abilities. The UN works diplomatically to assure the world that Æon can handle the nova outbreak, as more novas continue to manifest their abilities worldwide. The sometimes violent, elemental nature of the first manifestation of a nova’s powers leads to the term “eruption.”
June 30: The United Nations issues the Zurich Accord, affirming the human rights (and responsibilities) of novas: Whatever their abilities, the Accord says, novas are still human beings, and must be treated accordingly.
July 1: The Æon Society tasks its Project Utopia division with finding ways to harness the powers of novas for the good of the world, as much for public relations and to calm widespread fears as for practical reasons.
October: The aftershocks of N-Day create apocalyptic cults and backlash against novas, along with groups practically worshipping them. Public opinion on novas is deeply divided, with concern about when the continued eruption of new novas will end, if ever.
December 4: Drs. Mazarin and Rashoud, Triton Foundation researchers, release their initial findings from scientific studies of novas. These included what is termed “Mazarin-Rashoud (or MR) flux” detected in brain-scans, and “MR coils” in cellular examinations, the first clear physical differences discerned between novas and baseline Homo sapiens. Their use of “baseline human” in their writings reinforces the use of “baseline” in popular culture to refer to non-novas. The Mazarin-Rashoud report suggests nova abilities are based on mental manipulation of fundamental quantum forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear force, leading to the popular association of “quantum” with novas and their powers.
Profile: Henri Mazarin and Farah Rashoud
Despite the public perception of overnight success, Drs. Rashoud and Mazarin have both been involved in research for the Æon Society for years leading up to N-Day. Both have had long careers working for the Triton Foundation in their respective specialties, but it was the nova phenomenon that brought them together.
Since releasing their findings on MR coils and flux, both Farah and Henri have been on permanent loan to Project Utopia. Neither researcher has an official place in Utopia’s organizational structure, but both are considered giants in the field and everyone defers to them or seeks their advice on projects.
Their names are intertwined, but they each have their own interests and don’t work directly together that often. Dr. Rashoud studies how emotional stressors precipitate the eruption process, and how these can be predicted, guided, or even prevented. Dr. Mazarin is more interested in nova physiology and medicine, and understanding how quantum flux can have such a varied expression of effects on human cells while maintaining a viable living creature. Henri is also concerned that despite the numerous discoveries and papers coming from his lab, his career will never experience another shining moment of recognition without his constantly-named partner. Farah is less concerned about this, in part because her name and screening procedures are synonymous with the Rashoud Facilities across the world. This fact has caused some resentment and professional jealousy in Dr. Mazarin, but not enough to sour their relationship.
December 31: The Æon Society’s estimates there are some 200 novas worldwide.
The Trinity Continuum in 2028
Now, ten years later, in 2028, the world is indeed a different place, but perhaps not as changed as some hoped or feared. Some two thousand people worldwide have “erupted” into what is believed to be a new evolutionary subspecies of humanity, Homo sapiens novus, commonly known as “novas” and less flatteringly as “aberrants.” Their presence and powers have changed the world and may offer hope for a better future, or a looming threat greater than any humanity has ever faced — or both.
Backers of this campaign will have access to weekly Manuscript Preview updates, each featuring a few chapters from the Trinity Continuum: Aberrant book. By the time this campaign concludes, you'll have the entire manuscript in hand. Since this game requires the rules from the Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook, I'll also be sharing a Storypath rules primer and the complete Character Creation chapter from the Core Rulebook to help provide some background and a foundation for Aberrant.
If you'd like to follow along, choose a reward tier and then check out Update #1 - the first manuscript preview featuring the History and Setting for the Trinity Continuum: Aberrant world.
