TEXT: What Is Brainwaves?
  Brainwaves is the second in a series of Aberrant 
  sourcebooks that examine the potential and the ramifica-
  tions of Mega-Attributes in the Nova Age. Cult of Personal-
  ity looked at the effects of Social Mega-Attributes on the 
  world of Aberrant. This book looks at the effects of Mental 
  Mega-Attributes, particularly Mega-Intelligence.
  Brilliant novas have helped to transform the world of 
  2015 with their inventions and innovations. Thanks to them, 
  the environment is clean, the cities are safer, and virtually any 
  kind of information or entertainment is available instantly to 
  anyone in the world via the OpNet. But these novas have 
  also created new weapons, designer drugs, and technology 
  that may take away human freedoms and privacy, leading 
  Project Utopia to step in to regulate technological devel-
  opment. Now Utopia controls some of the most advanced 
  technology in the world, it only remains to be seen what 
  they will do with it.
  There are also concerns over the impact of nova mental 
  abilities on society. Some novas are stronger and tougher 
  than baselines, some of them able to lift tank and bounce 
  bullets. Many novas are more beautiful and popular than 
  baselines, making them media icons and objects of worship, 
  but what about the novas smarter than baselines? How long 
  are these nova “masterminds” likely to allow their intel-
  lectual inferiors to continue running the world? Will they 
  inevitably take over, running the world openly or behind 
  the scenes and, more importantly, what if they’ve already 
  begun?
  Gadgeteers in Aberrant
  A popular type of character in the comic books is the 
  “gadgeteer,” the super-inventor, a scientific genius who cre-
  ates gadgets and devices far beyond the ability of modern 
  science. From Iron Man’s suit of power-armor to the endless 
  array of fiendish devices dreamed up by Lex Luthor, comic 
  books are full of strange technology.
  In the world of Aberrant, Mega-Intelligent novas are 
  capable of duplicating some of the feats of their comic book 
  counterparts, but they have to deal with some limitations 
  that gadgeteers don’t usually operate under.
  The first is that nova inventors find their work limited 
  by the laws of science. Sure, a nova’s M-R node grants the 
  ability to bend the laws of science as we know them in all 
  sorts of interesting ways, and some novas can do the same 
  thing when they’re coming up with new gizmos. The prob-
  lem is that the gizmo only works because the nova wants it 
  to work, and bends the laws of physics enough to make it 
  so. If the nova wants an invention that can benefit everyone, 
  it has to obey the same physical laws as baseline technology 
  (although nova powers are often useful in creating things 
  much more quickly and efficiently than baseline inventors).
  Second, nova inventions have the potential to radically 
  change the world. Comic book characters rarely put their 
  scientific skills to work solving environmental problems or 
  finding cures of diseases, but novas do. They also research 
  alternative energy sources, explore space, invent new mate-
  rials, and plumb the mysteries of quantum reality. In less 
  than twenty years, novas have helped transform the world, 
  and the pace of nova invention only continues to acceler-
  ate.
  Brainwaves looks at the implications of nova inventors 
  and scientists, provides guidelines and rules for research 
  and development, and looks at how baseline society is con-
  trolling the pace of technological advancement through 
  Project Utopia’s Science & Technology Division.
  How to Use This Book
  It’s fairly easy to see how physically powerful or socially 
  influential novas can fit into an ongoing story. It’s some-
  what more difficult to involve novas whose primary abilities 
  are cerebral in an Aberrant chronicle. Brainwaves provides 
  some guidelines on how to use and include characters with 
  Mental Mega-Attributes in your games.
  Take a look at Chapter One for an overview of the 
  mental “landscape” of the world of 2015. If you’re a player, 
  check out Chapter Three for information about playing a 
  gadgeteer character and Chapter Five for more information 
  on Mental Mega-Attributes, including new Enhancements 
  and Aberrations. If you’re a Storyteller, read through Chap-
  ter Four, which has advice on how to handle masterminds in 
  your Aberrant chronicle, story hooks, and even ideas  for 
  INTRODUCTION
  1
  INTRODUCTION
  
  ABERRANT
  chronicles focused on Mega-Mental characters. Then look 
  through the other chapters for additional material you can 
  use in your games, and give some thought to which abilities 
  you want to allow, based on the advice in this book and your 
  vision for the chronicle.
  Breakdown
  Chapter One: The Thinkers covers some of the greatest 
  intellectual and technological factions in the world of 2015. 
  This includes Project Utopia’s Science & Technology Divi-
  sion, DeVries’ Dr. Rachel Alinsky, the criminal Kuro-Tek, Hong 
  Kong’s Novelty Consulting, and a number of other master-
  minds and organizations that may become allies, antago-
  nists, or backdrops for your game.
  Chapter Two: Inventing Fun talks about gadgeteers 
  and inventors in Aberrant. It focuses on how to play a gad-
  geteer character including possible pitfalls and how to avoid 
  them.
  Chapter Three: Storytelling offers advice for the Story-
  teller on how to handle masterminds and how to integrate 
  them into a chronicle. It also includes ideas for running spe-
  cialized Aberrant chronicles focused around the activities of 
  mastermind characters.
  Chapter Four: Knowledge is Power takes an in-depth 
  look at all three Mental Mega-Attributes, and provides new 
  Enhancements and Aberrations related to each, along with 
  how these extraordinary abilities are seen by the rest of the 
  world and how to roleplay mastermind characters.
  Lexicon
  Brainwaves introduces and uses a number of new terms 
  relating to novas with Mega-Mental Attributes and things 
  and organizations in the world of 2015 that involve them.
  biotech: Technology based on, derived from, or affect-
  ing biological life forms. Many researchers in the 21st century 
  are turning to biological models and techniques for develop-
  ing new technologies, although this raises concerns about 
  “tampering” with nature.
  blacktech: Any technology declared illegal or restricted 
  (usually by Project Utopia). So named because it usually turns 
  up on the black market via sources like Kuro-Tek.
  brainiac: A nickname for novas with Mega-Intelligence. 
  Other common nicknames include brains, eggheads, Ein-
  steins, geeks, techies, and smarties.
  gadgeteer: A nova who develops devices based on 
  quantum powers and usually requiring the quantum energies 
  of a nova to operate. Contrast with inventor.
  inventor: Someone who develops new technology. 
  Novas with Mega-Intelligence are among the foremost inven-
  tors in the world of 2015. Unlike gadgeteers, the work of 
  inventors is replicable and usable by anyone with the neces-
  sary resources.
  mastermind: A general nickname for novas with Mega-
  Mental Attributes (Perception, Intelligence, and Wits), simul-
  taneously arrogant and somewhat derogative.
  metasensory: A nova ability to sense beyond the range 
  of the normal five human senses of sight, hearing, taste, 
  touch, and smell, usually applied to quantum powers like 
  ESP and Telepathy.
  nanotech: Technology based on the creation of very 
  small machines or robots, often microscopic (or at least 
  insect-sized). Molecular-scale nanotech has the potential to 
  revolutionize all areas of technology, although it has not yet 
  been developed.
  quantum tech (AKA nova tech): Technology based on 
  the quantum energies or abilities of novas, either to dupli-
  cate their abilities or to detect, enhance, or suppress them.
  quick-thinker: A nickname for novas with Mega-Wits. 
  Others include wits, mega-wits (or mega-witty), razor (or 
  rapier) wits, and Wildes.
  sphinx: A term used to refer to Mega-Intelligent novas 
  who manipulate people and events on a wide scale to suit 
  their own particular agendas. Some theories suggest that 
  becoming a sphinx is a matter of choice while others say that 
  novas above a certain threshold of mental ability can’t help 
  but become sphinxes, and that they manipulate the world 
  around them almost instinctively. Those who subscribe to the 
  sphinx theory are often concerned about the potential for 
  conspiracies of nova masterminds.
  TecReg: The Technological Regulation Department of 
  Project Utopia’s Science & Technology Division, the part of 
  that organization in charge of regulating nova created and 
  derived technology world-wide.
  watcher: A nickname for novas with Mega-Perception. 
  Others include peeper, seer, sentinel, visionary, and voyeur.
  2
   Introduction to the Online Version
  Brainwaves was intended to be one of three “Mega-Attri-
  bute” books for White Wolf’s Aberrant game. The first, Cult of 
  Personality, focused on the Mega-Social attributes, and the third, 
  Brute Force (the working title), would focus on Mega-Physical 
  attributes. Ultimately none of the Mega-Attribute books were 
  published.
  Although I’m making this material available online I’m not 
  giving up my claim of ownership to it, so I’d ask that it not be 
  reproduced except for personal use. It’s not intended as any 
  challenge to White Wolf’s ownership of Aberrant. This material 
  includes all of my work for Brainwaves. I’ll note that it has not 
  been developed. This is the first-draft text that I wrote. It is in no 
  way “official” or endorsed by White Wolf in any way. 
  With all that said, I hope you enjoy this sample of what might 
  have been.
  -- Steve Kenson 
  INTRODUCTION
  
  Chapter One:
   The Thinkers
  Project Utopia’s Science & 
  Technology Division
  What many people think of as Project Utopia’s “Science 
  & Technology Division” is actually only a sub-department of 
  the Hardtech Department of said Division, the Technologi-
  cal Regulation (or “TecReg”) Department. This is the branch 
  of Utopia given the tremendous responsibility of “protect-
  ing baseline society from the potentially harmful effects of 
  unchecked nova science and technological development.” 
  And TecReg takes its job very seriously, because it has seen 
  the potential of some of that “unchecked nova science 
  and technology” which, quite frankly, scares the hell out of 
  them.
  TecReg’s job breaks down into three major areas, each 
  of them a considerable undertaking: the regu-
  lation of new technology, the investigation of 
  violations of technological policy, and direct 
  intervention involving policy violations.
  Technological Regulation
  Technological regulation is the first step 
  in Utopia’s goal to keep potentially harmful 
  and dangerous technology out of the wrong 
  hands (note that the definitions of “poten-
  tially harmful and dangerous” and “the wrong 
  hands” are left pretty much to Utopia’s dis-
  cretion).
  The Patent Offices and related govern-
  ment administrations of all cooperating UN 
  member nations are required to submit patent 
  applications to Utopia’s TecReg Department for review. 
  Utopia personnel carefully review each application, consider-
  ing its potential technological, social, and economic impact. 
  Most of the time, Utopia approves the application and 
  sends it back to the appropriate government for their review 
  and approval (as a general rule, applications approved by 
  Utopia tend to be approved by the government agency as 
  well).
  However, even with modern OpNet and computer 
  technology, funneling all of the world’s patent applications 
  through Project Utopia has created something of a bottle-
  neck, which can often delay an application for months, if 
  not longer. The “patent pending” label has become more 
  common as companies move new technology onto the 
  market without waiting for a patent.
  On some occasions, TecReg must take action concern-
  ing a particular patent application. The appro-
  priate action depends entirely on the nature 
  of the application and the technology in ques-
  tion. In some cases, TecReg comes back with 
  a “conditional approval.” They make recom-
  mendations on how to integrate the tech-
  nology into the marketplace with as little 
  economic or social upheaval as possible. If the 
  inventor chooses not to follow these “sugges-
  tions,” then the technology is banned for the 
  greater good. If Utopia’s experts feel that the 
  technology is simply too dangerous to allow 
  on the open market, it is banned and interven-
  tion teams swing into action, but such technol-
  ogies are rarely offered up to Utopia’s scrutiny 
  willingly (see Investigation).
  3
  Biological Sciences
  Environmental Services
  Chemistry and Pharmaceuticals
  Science and Technology
  Division
  Technical Regulations
  Space Sciences
  Nova Medicine
  Materials Engineering
  Hardtech
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  Most inventors are willing to abide by Utopia’s restrictions 
  rather than having their technology banned or confiscated. 
  Others protest and bring legal action against Utopia and the 
  patent office they applied to. In these cases, Utopia’s elite 
  cadre of lawyers are usually capable of keeping the case tied 
  up in court so long that it’s easier for inventors to comply 
  and save themselves the time and expense of a drawn-out 
  court battle. Finally, some inventors refuse to comply with 
  Utopia’s requirements and go ahead with the sale or produc-
  tion of their technology anyway, which is where the interven-
  tion side of the department comes into play.
  The TecReg Department also issues “blanket bans” on 
  certain kinds of technology, notably weapons of mass destruc-
  tion, biological weapons, self-replicating nanites, and other 
  extremely dangerous technologies. These types of technolo-
  gies are never approved by TecReg and are always confis-
  cated whenever Project Utopia investigators discover them. 
  The specter of another Sao Paulo is enough to convince most 
  people that this sort of regulation is both sensible and neces-
  sary.
  Anti-nova groups suggest that it’s an attempt on Utopia’s 
  part to limit “weapons of mass destruction” to nova powers 
  alone, and even to weaken national militaries and maintain 
  the elite monopoly on warfare. Some nations also see it 
  as an effort to maintain the monopoly of powerful nations 
  that already have nuclear and chemical arsenals (although 
  Utopia is working on disarmament as well). For the most 
  part, however, the “blanket bans” are things almost every-
  one agrees are bad news. It’s when more questionable tech-
  nology comes up that the system starts to break down.
  There are a number of issues involving Utopia’s techno-
  logical oversight, regularly debated on the floor of the Gen-
  eral Assembly.
  Restriction of Trade
  The first, and most obvious, complaint about Utopia’s 
  TecReg department is that many people and nations don’t 
  want their technology regulated. Corporations in particular 
  complain bitterly that Utopia’s interference constitutes restric-
  tion of fair trade and their innate right to make money sell-
  ing whatever people want to buy. Utopia counters that many 
  technologies and materials were already regulated by inter-
  national law before they came along (drugs and weapons 
  being two examples) and what they’re doing is just a natural 
  extension of those policies.
  Utopia also makes corporations and governments that 
  protest their regulatory policies out to be greedy institutions 
  that only care about profit and have no interest in the wel-
  fare of the global community. The counter-attempts to paint 
  Utopia as “technological Nazis” often ring hollow, consider-
  ing how much the companies stand to profit for unregulated 
  use of nova inventors. Still, the business world pretty much 
  universally resents the TecReg Department as much as they 
  do any other regulatory agency.
  Favoritism
  It’s no great secret that Utopia deals more generously 
  with nations that treat it well and play by its rules, and the 
  TecReg Department is no exception. When the United States 
  government began hassling Utopia about its operations in 
  the U.S., the organization moved its headquarters out of the 
  country and cut back on programs to aid the United States. 
  “It’s not our fault,” Utopia said, throwing up its collective 
  hands. “The government didn’t give us much choice.” And 
  the U.S. government ended up looking like the bad guys in 
  the situation.
  The same tactics apply to technological regulation. 
  Those governments (and corporations) that “play ball” and 
  cooperate are accorded a certain amount of latitude and 
  trust when it comes to new technologies. Those governments 
  known for being obstinate or violating policy are scrutinized 
  more closely, their applications take longer to process, and 
  things often get tied up in endless red tape. During that time, 
  it’s been known for one of Project Utopia’s “pet” nations or 
  companies to come up with an extremely similar technology, 
  which is approved quickly, arriving at market well before the 
  competition, even though their application was first. Utopia 
  blames this on the applicants, saying their paperwork wasn’t 
  in order, or citing “irregularities” that slowed the process.
  Some have accused Utopia of outright piracy, taking 
  technology from one applicant and selling or giving it to a 
  more favored developer, stalling the original applicant long 
  enough for the “new” invention to make its way through the 
  system. Utopia denies these allegations and, to date, no one 
  has ever proven them in a court of law.
  Legal Issues
  Technically, Project Utopia has no legal authority to reg-
  ulate technology. Although it has the support of the United 
  Nations, it’s a highly questionable legal matter as to whether 
  or not the UN has the right to grant Utopia the authority that 
  it has. Utopia and the UN maintain that it does, of course, but 
  not everyone agrees. The main forces that maintain Utopia’s 
  authority to police technology are the support of the United 
  Nations and many of the world’s super-powers, the power of 
  public opinion, and the strength of Utopia’s nova forces.
  In the first case, the UN Security Council was persuaded 
  to grant Utopia technological oversight by several things. 
  One was the terrorist nuking of Sao Paulo, which made clear 
  the potential threat posed by unrestricted technology. Novas 
  might be capable of building suitcase nukes or even worse 
  weapons, and there was a clear need to prevent that from 
  happening. The other was the success of the Saisho program 
  in Japan and other programs like it within major corporations 
  4
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  around the world. The technological and economic balance 
  of power was threatened by the presence of novas, and the 
  world’s super-powers banded together to protect it. The 
  only way they could do so was to tip the balance back in 
  their favor by restricting nova involvement in technological 
  innovation. Most of these nations see Utopia’s regulation as 
  a means for them to “catch up” to nations like Japan, which 
  took advantage of nova innovations faster. The nations that 
  got a leg-up in the technological race consider this unfair, 
  of course, but they’re in the minority.
  Utopia’s authority also stems from the number of novas 
  it employs, larger than any individual nation. Although the 
  threat has never arisen, the world super-powers are acutely 
  aware of the fact that the novas under Project Utopia’s com-
  mand would be capable of reducing any of their capitol 
  cities to rubble in a matter of hours. In many ways, Utopia 
  is in the ideal position to act as “policeman to the world,” 
  much like the United States in the latter half of the 20th 
  century.
  Technological Boundaries
  Project Utopia’s mandate is the regulation of “nova-
  based” technologies. Originally, this meant technology 
  invented or designed by Mega-Intelligent novas (or created 
  using other nova abilities, like Matter Manipulation). Since 
  the creation of the TecReg department, the definition has 
  expanded to include technologies based on other nova dis-
  coveries, studies of nova physiology and quantum abilities, 
  or derived from novas in almost any way.
  Thus, Utopia can justify that any technology involving 
  the hardware of the OpNet (a “nova-derived technology”) 
  falls under their jurisdiction, even if it was invented by a 
  baseline, and it’s likely only a matter of time before they 
  conclude that OpNet software does as well. Drugs like mite 
  and soma are derived from nova physiology, so they fall 
  under Utopia’s mandate. A nova invented the hypercom-
  bustion engine, so all of its applications are overseen by 
  Utopia, and so forth. Opponents of tech-regulation have 
  tried to keep Utopia’s oversight restricted to its original 
  boundaries at least, but every new innovation seems to 
  push those boundaries back just a little further.
  Non-Compliance
  Naturally the UN’s decision, and Utopia technological 
  regulations, did not meet with everyone’s approval. Japan, 
  in particular, protested bitterly, and many third-world nations 
  were divided between support for Utopia and their good 
  works and anger at being denied the opportunities granted 
  by nova innovations, one of their only real sources of new 
  technology. Utopia quelled many of these objects by bring-
  ing the benefits of nova innovation to the Third World them-
  selves, with things like the terraforming of Ethiopia. But that 
  didn’t satisfy others.
  To one degree or another, all of the UN’s member 
  nations have violated Utopia technological regulations. Some 
  of these violations are small and easily overlooked, while 
  others represent flagrant disregard for UN and Utopia poli-
  cies. Utopia knows, for example, that China regularly violates 
  regulations on biological research related to novas, and that 
  Japan’s reported violations are only a tip of a vast technolog-
  ical black market. The United States government and military 
  regularly violate restrictions on weapons, and corporations 
  around the world ignore technological guidelines whenever 
  it suits them. Non-compliance on one party’s part virtually 
  guarantees that others will violate regulations in order to 
  keep up, giving the TecReg investigators plenty of things to 
  keep busy with.
  Non-Member Nations
  If Utopia’s regulatory authority over UN member-nations 
  is tenuous, it’s virtually non-existent when it comes to non-
  member nations. Some of them, like Switzerland, comply of 
  their own free will in order to remain in Utopia’s good graces. 
  This is particularly true of nations that feel they have more to 
  gain from cooperating with Utopia than not. But other non-
  member nations prefer to go it on their own, and do not 
  acknowledge Utopia’s authority over them.
  Publicly, there’s little Utopia can do about these “rogue 
  nations” except work through diplomatic channels to con-
  vince them of the benefits of cooperating with Utopia’s pro-
  grams, usually making it clear that the price of defiance 
  is missing out on the various benefits Utopia has to offer. 
  Although it would go too far to say that Utopia engineered 
  government coups - where popular uprisings threw politi-
  cians out of office and replaced them with ones more will-
  ing to negotiate with Utopia - it wouldn’t be true to say that 
  Utopia had nothing to do with them either. Utopia is always 
  quick to point out that it doesn’t directly interfere in a nation’s 
  politics, of course.
  Off the record, there are things Utopia can do about 
  “rogue” nations and parties involved in technological viola-
  tions. That’s a province of the intervention teams.
  Unfair Competition
  Finally, more than a few parties have pointed out that 
  Project Utopia is a private organization, not a branch of the 
  UN (despite its presence on the Security Council). Moreover, 
  Utopia owns a number of private business interests of its own 
  that benefit from the fruits of nova invention.
  Some say this is a clear conflict of interest, and point 
  out that Utopia’s subsidiaries rarely, if ever, have any trouble 
  with the Technological Regulation Department. There are 
  5
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  6
  that may compromise the security of the OpNet (super-
  decryption programs, advanced scanning technology, etc.). 
  In the cases where sensor technology has “legitimate” uses 
  in Utopia’s view (e.g., medical, scientific, or humanitarian) it 
  tries to guide development along those lines. 
  • 
  Biotechnology: Genetic engineering is another 
  area Utopia is leery of, particularly human and nova genet-
  ics. Things like isolating the gene-sequences for nova latency 
  have the potential to tremendously impact society, as does the 
  possibility of deliberately engineering novas or “advanced” 
  humans. Add in bio-weapons like diseases and the potential 
  ecological consequences of genetic tampering, and Utopia 
  keeps a close eye on advances in biotech. 
  • 
  Nanotechnology: Even more potentially danger-
  ous than biotech is nanotechnology, tiny machines. The pro-
  liferation of molecular-scale nanotech could totally transform 
  human society. Although it has not yet appeared at that scale 
  (and may never), it’s something Utopia watches out for. In the 
  meanwhile the larger (insect- and microbe-sized) nanotech 
  poses dangers of its own, and Utopia has generally banned 
  the development of nanotech weapons (although this hasn’t 
  kept people like Dr. Rachel Alinsky from doing so). 
  • 
  Quantum Technology: Nearly any technology that 
  replicates a nova’s quantum abilities or involves exotic ener-
  gies and quantum mechanics is of interest to Utopia, mean-
  ing that it’s likely to disappear into the organization’s labs for 
  “extensive testing.” Utopia is well aware that its novas are 
  its greatest assets, so anything that is a potential threat to 
  them is likely to end up banned or under Utopia’s control. 
  Likewise, any technology designed specifically for use by or 
  against novas (such as eufiber, nova-specific drugs, etc.) is 
  sure to draw Utopia’s attention. 
  Investigation
  If Utopia could depend 
  on everyone in the world to 
  comply with its technological 
  regulations, things would be a 
  great deal simpler. But Utopia 
  isn’t nearly so naïve. It knows that 
  violations of TecReg’s restrictions 
  happen all the time. That’s why it 
  devotes the time and energy neces-
  sary to investigate potential violators 
  and follow up on leads to new tech-
  nologies that have somehow slipped 
  through the screening process.
  Unfortunately, Utopia doesn’t 
  have nearly the manpower it needs 
  to police all of the technological 
  developments everywhere in the 
  world. Although TecReg routinely 
  also accusations that Utopia takes “dangerous” technologies 
  out of the hands of others and, with the blessing of the UN, 
  turns them over to its own subsidiary companies to develop 
  and market, making Utopia untold billions in profits.
  Utopia counters with the fact that its subsidiary compa-
  nies obey technological regulations so scrupulously that they 
  don’t need to be investigated as often. Utopia also points 
  out that the money made from technologies developed by 
  its companies goes to support the organization’s charitable 
  activities, and provides jobs, which the technology wouldn’t 
  have done if it were simply banned. It also maintains that 
  a Utopia-controlled company can develop and introduce a 
  “questionable” technology more safely than any indepen-
  dent company. Still, these arguments do little to satisfy critics 
  of Utopia’s policies.
  What Technology Does Utopia 
  Consider Dangerous?
  Good question. The answer is, it depends. Utopia TecReg 
  specialists carefully consider each item of technology that 
  comes to their attention. In addition to any obviously danger-
  ous applications the technology may have, they consider its 
  social and economic impact. For example, while the OpNet 
  isn’t particularly “dangerous” per se, the availability of such 
  tremendous amounts of information to the general public 
  has had a significant impact on society. The same is true of 
  many technologies.
  Ultimately, it’s up to the Storyteller whether or not Utopia 
  decides to ban or restrict a particular technology (making 
  TecReg a useful tool for keeping technological proliferation 
  under control in the chronicle). Here are some examples of 
  technology Utopia restricts:
  • 
  Weapons: Utopia is 
  very leery of allowing newer 
  and more powerful weap-
  ons to proliferate. TecReg 
  looks with a particularly jaun-
  diced eye on heavy-weapons 
  and weapons of mass destruc-
  tion like neutron bombs, orbital 
  lasers, bio-weapons, and so forth. 
  TecReg tries to encourage non-
  lethal weapons whenever possible 
  and particularly looks out for “nova-
  killer” weapons designed to take 
  down novas (since that weakens Uto-
  pia’s nova forces and their peace-
  keeping power). 
  • 
  Surveillance: Technology 
  for covertly gathering information is 
  usually suspect, particularly technology 
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  requests more personnel, it never has enough to be every-
  where watching everyone. What it does do is follow up on 
  the biggest potential violations of Utopia’s regulations. That 
  generally means keeping tabs on independent novas with 
  the requisite technical skills and abilities, corporations and 
  governments employing novas or studying them in some 
  capacity, and private organizations capable of developing 
  nova-based technology.
  Project Utopia and the Aeon Society keep extensive 
  files of all known novas and their abilities, so TecRec can 
  keep up to date on the activities of known novas, although 
  some have managed to escape their notice. Since the 
  Slider scandal it’s been increasingly more difficult for Utopia 
  to keep track of all novas, and some novas have been 
  less forthcoming with information about their abilities and 
  whereabouts (to say nothing of being less inclined to visit 
  Rashoud facilities to register their abilities). In fact, some 
  have become downright paranoid, and TecRec is concerned 
  about the potential hazards of isolated and hidden novas 
  tinkering with new technologies, completely unsupervised.
  While corporations and governments are easier to keep 
  tabs on, they guard their secrets carefully, and step one of 
  any top-secret research project is concealing its existence 
  from Utopia’s S&T Division. Utopia investigators regularly 
  inspect research facilities and other places where new tech-
  nology is developed, but they know that the places they’re 
  allowed to visit are just elaborate shows of compliance for 
  their benefit. The real action happens in hidden labs and 
  testing areas where no one is allowed to go. Finding these 
  places and formally requesting permission to inspect them 
  is one of the first links in the data-trail when Utopia takes 
  action against a potential violator.
  Utopia has ways of ferreting out tech violators. In addi-
  tion to old-fashioned detective work (following data-trails in 
  the OpNet and conducting interviews), the insights of Uto-
  pia’s own brilliant novas and the use of metasensory powers 
  (like ESP) help to track them down. Cyberkinetic novas are 
  particularly useful in finding hidden data-trails and incrimi-
  nating information in the OpNet. There are also informants, 
  either company personnel or rivals willing to leak informa-
  tion to Utopia in hopes of reward, or just to cause trouble. 
  Finally, TecReg agents investigate unusual phenomena or 
  patterns that Utopia uncovers that might be connected with 
  unsupervised technology.
  Utopia personnel are empowered to investigate poten-
  tially dangerous technology, and can look through com-
  pany records, research documents, top-secret R&D centers, 
  and pretty much anything else they like in search of illegal 
  or unregistered nova-based technology. More than once, 
  Utopia agents have used this authority as a means of get-
  ting access to places, people, and things they might not 
  have otherwise, reporting later that they found no signs of 
  illegal technology (but did turn up other information of inter-
  est to the Project).
  Intervention
  Once the TecReg department has discovered a viola-
  tion of technological regulations, they are empowered to 
  deal with it. Again, the department’s personnel-power is lim-
  ited, so normally TecReg relies on local law enforcement and 
  authorities to deal with violators and any illegal technology. 
  In practice, of course, it’s not nearly so simple.
  First off, some governments don’t like the idea of being 
  at Utopia’s beck and call, so they respond sluggishly at best 
  to reports of technological violations. By the time anything 
  is actually done, the violators have caught wind of the situa-
  tion and taken steps to conceal their activities. The authori-
  ties arrive to find no evidence of any violations and leave 
  with egg on their faces or, worse yet, they seize or destroy 
  everything in sight, opening themselves up to legal action 
  and making them less willing to cooperate with TecReg in 
  future matters.
  In other cases, the authorities are known to overlook 
  technological violations, even ones reported to them by 
  Utopia. They claim not to have found anything or, in the 
  event that Utopia personnel accompany them, the violators 
  are mysteriously alerted to the raid and disappear, leaving 
  nothing to be found. Authorities sometimes “confiscate” ille-
  gal technology and fail to turn it over to Utopia (or do so only 
  after they have carefully examined, and perhaps copied, the 
  technology in question).
  In Japan, for example, many technological violations go 
  unreported, and for every violator the Japanese authorities 
  apprehend, five to ten others slip through the net. Those 
  who are apprehended are often given little more than a slap 
  on the wrist, and confiscated technology disappears into the 
  government bureaucracy, only to have something virtually 
  identical turn up in the R&D lab of a Saisho corporation not 
  long thereafter. All the while the Japanese government touts 
  its record of “compliance” with Utopia’s regulations.
  Clearly, Project Utopia can’t rely on local authorities to 
  do the job of enforcing their technological regulations, so 
  they often have to do it themselves.
  Direct Action
  The TecReg Department enforces compliance with Utopia 
  regulations in a number of ways: direct inspection of infor-
  mation, materials, and facilities, surprise inspections (or raids) 
  looking for violations, and the confiscation of suspect materi-
  als and information that they find.
  Project Utopia regularly dispatches “inspection teams” 
  to ensure that its regulations are being followed. These 
  “teams” range from a single inspector to small groups of 
  specialists led by an administrator and possibly including one 
  7
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  or more novas. Utopia requests (read: requires) compliant 
  companies and governments to grant their inspectors access 
  to their facilities as needed “to ensure the safety of all per-
  sonnel and to provide assistance with technological regula-
  tions as needed.”
  Generally, Utopia informs people in advance of an 
  inspection team’s arrival and schedules regular visits for high-
  profile sites. They know full well that this allows violators time 
  to clean up and hide any evidence of their activities, but the 
  point is to force them to do so, rather than making it easy for 
  violators to operate in the open. Scheduled inspections are 
  almost entirely routine and involve “marching out the flag” 
  to remind everyone that Utopia’s still watching and offer a 
  gentle, but firm, warning to potential violators.
  During inspections, TecReg can require (and expect to 
  gain) access to any research and development materials or 
  information. Most parties grant this access unconditionally, 
  but some allow Utopia inspectors to see only prepared state-
  ments and reports, while a few outright refuse them access 
  without a search warrant or the equivalent. Since this invites 
  trouble from Utopia, those with something to hide rarely do 
  it, they just hide what they don’t want Utopia to see and 
  given them “full access” to the “sanitized” public records. 
  Flat refusals are usually more of a moral or ethical stand on 
  the part of those opposed to the S&T regulation program.
  Sometimes the TecReg department will perform “sur-
  prise inspections.” These range from an inspection team 
  showing up unannounced (often under the guide of the 
  notification “getting lost”) to outright raids of a facility. Sur-
  prise inspections are one of Utopia’s better tools for keep-
  ing potential violators on their toes. Utopia maintains that it’s 
  technological regulation duties allow it to ignore the niceties 
  of search and seizure when circumstances require it, although 
  there are a number of court cases pending that argue the 
  fact. Raids allow Utopia the opportunity to catch violators in 
  the act and seize potentially dangerous or illegal research 
  and materials.
  Utopia often conducts raids in conjunctions with the 
  local or national authorities of the area, although it some-
  times find it more expedient to conduct the raid using its 
  own personnel and leaving the locals out of it until the dust 
  starts to settle. It usually depends on how helpful Utopia 
  expects the authorities to be and how much it values good 
  diplomatic relations with them. In nations that are either sup-
  portive of Utopia, or where Utopia wishes to remain in their 
  good graces, the authorities tend to be involved. In nations 
  where the authorities are less cooperative or Utopia just 
  doesn’t care about the nation’s opinion, it tends to take more 
  initiative. In “rogue” nations outright opposed to Utopia’s 
  TecReg program, of course, the local authorities are never 
  involved and any raid is conducted as a covert or black oper-
  ation.
  During any inspection or raid of a facility, Project Utopia 
  is empowered to seize any and all materials related to ille-
  gal technology and research. This includes papers, data-
  storage devices, prototypes, experimental materials, and so 
  forth. Like other TecReg guidelines this one is somewhat 
  vague and interpreted by Utopia to suit its needs. Legiti-
  mate research and materials are often scooped up in Utopia’s 
  dragnet, allowing the organization a better look at some of 
  the subject’s other activities before returning the materials 
  with their apologies for the inconvenience.
  Utopia assesses the seized materials and determines 
  whether or not it is safe to return them. In other words, they 
  have nearly complete discretion to decide whether or not to 
  return something, keep it themselves, or destroy it. Although 
  Utopia says that it destroys most banned or dangerous 
  materials, the truth is that almost nothing gets deliberately 
  destroyed; it all goes into Utopia’s own heavily protected 
  archives and research facilities, with the most secret and 
  “black” technology finding its way into the hands of Project 
  Proteus. Many parties have filed legal cases to recover their 
  confiscated information and technology, and in some cases 
  they have even been successful, but only at the cost of allow-
  ing Utopia to continue to inspect their facilities and ensure 
  that the returned technology isn’t being “misused.”
  Inspection Teams
  Project Utopia maintains a number of “technological 
  compliance inspection teams” that operate in the field and 
  perform on-site inspections to ensure that all of the organi-
  zation’s technological regulations are being followed. These 
  teams often include “stealth” novas with fairly low-level abili-
  ties, usually Mega-Attributes and metasensory abilities like 
  Cyberkinesis, ESP, and Telepathy. Some investigation teams 
  are made up entirely of novas, although they’re fairly rare 
  and used for the most important jobs.
  Such a nova inspection team would make for an interest-
  ing group of player characters in a low-power Utopia chron-
  icle of cloak-and-dagger investigation and espionage. The 
  group could even mix nova and baseline characters, if the 
  players are so-inclined. They routinely inspect sites, follow 
  up on leads, and act as “troubleshooters” in the field. Nova 
  teams also perform a fair amount of covert ops (below) to 
  keep things interesting. Storytellers may want to consult the 
  Directive sourcebook for ideas involving low-powered novas 
  in espionage and investigative chronicles.
  Covert Ops
  Not all of the TecReg Department’s work can be done 
  openly. Utopia’s regulation program is on shaky legal ground 
  as it is, and there are still dozens of ways for violators to con-
  ceal their activities and their technology from Utopia’s inspec-
  tors. In order to deal with these potential threats, the TecReg 
  8
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  Department must sometimes engage in covert operations. 
  These operations are kept secret even within Project Utopia, 
  requiring Alpha-level clearance (Project Utopia, p. 70). Only 
  the directors and the agents involved in the mission have 
  any knowledge of it.
  Utopia often uses nova agents for covert ops missions, 
  especially if their abilities are well suited for the work. This 
  includes novas with Mega-Attributes and powers like Den-
  sity Decrease, ESP, Invisibility, Shapeshift, and Sizemorph 
  (Shrink).
  • 
  Information Gathering: The primary covert ops 
  mission involves gathering information from reticent sources 
  and ferreting out secret technological violations. This usu-
  ally involves a combination of traditional surveillance and 
  detective work and the judicious use of nova powers. With 
  the assistance of Cyberkinesis, ESP, and Telepathy, there is 
  fairly little Utopia’s agents cannot learn. Some parties have 
  taken to increasingly hiring nova security to guard their most 
  secret projects, or investing in technology like a mental 
  noise generator (Directive, p. 57) or a quantum screamer 
  (Underworld, p. 61) to protect against nova spies and 
  eavesdroppers. Covert ops teams have also been known 
  to stumble across major threats while in the course of a 
  routine information-gathering mission, such as a Kuro-Tek 
  warehouse or ties between black marketers and the Tera-
  gen. 
  • 
  Industrial Espionage: Sometimes Project Utopia 
  finds it expedient to play technological violators against 
  one another rather than confronting them head on. So they 
  engage in industrial espionage, gathering information and 
  then passing it on to a rival of that party, allowing them to 
  do the dirty work of eliminating the technological threat. 
  This can be delicate work, and Utopia’s does do it often, 
  simply because they can’t always rely on outside parties to 
  get the job done (and to not simply take the technology for 
  themselves). Still, turning the worst offenders against each 
  other works in Utopia’s favor and keeps them from present-
  ing a united front. Project Utopia would particularly like 
  to damage Kuro-Tek’s reputation on the technology black 
  market, but thus far they haven’t had much success in that 
  area. 
  • 
  Sabotage: Covert ops teams may be charged 
  with outright sabotage of dangerous or illegal technology 
  that Utopia finds too difficult to deal with openly. The sabo-
  tage that covert ops teams engage in tends to be subtle 
  and relatively harmless (except to the technology in ques-
  tion). They plant viruses in computer systems and subtly 
  alter records and data. They sabotage prototypes to ensure 
  they’ll fail, ideally in a way that will discourage any further 
  research and development. They cripple key production 
  facilities to make sure the technology is never manufac-
  tured, and so forth. Much of the time the target is unaware 
  of the sabotage or at least who caused it. In cases were they 
  are aware, they’re never able to prove that Utopia had any-
  thing to do with it, although the message is still received 
  loud and clear. 
  • 
  Midnight Raids: Finally, covert ops teams may 
  engage in so-called “midnight raids” on technological vio-
  lators. Rather than raiding a place during business hours, 
  Utopia personnel break in after hours and either seize ille-
  gal technology and information or sabotage the facility to 
  ensure that such technology never sees the light of day. 
  Black-tech has been known to simply disappear from time to 
  time, with Utopia feigning ignorance as to what happened to 
  it. With nova agents able to teleport, shapeshift, and trans-
  form into invisible gases, TecReg can often circumvent the 
  most sophisticated security systems. They’re also aided by 
  the fact that most technological violators are reluctant to 
  report any theft to the authorities; after all, how can they 
  publicly accuse Project Utopia of stealing without exposing 
  their own violations? 
  Black Ops: Project Proteus
  At the extreme end of “technological regulation” comes 
  the black operations of Project Proteus. The personnel and 
  even the Director of the TecReg Department have no knowl-
  edge of Proteus’ operations. Proteus carefully monitors the 
  department’s activities. When it sees a situation were extreme 
  measures are necessary, it sometimes takes a direct hand in 
  ensuring that dangerous technology doesn’t get out of hand 
  (and, often, finds its way into Proteus’ arsenal).
  Proteus black ops involving technology tend to fall into 
  four main categories:
  • 
  Extraction: A polite term for kidnapping. From 
  time to time, Proteus personnel will abduct someone with 
  particularly dangerous or useful scientific knowledge. They 
  do so both to ensure that their knowledge won’t be used 
  by anyone else and to give the abductee the opportunity 
  to provide Proteus with the information, willingly or not. An 
  interrogation also offers the chance to find out if the subject 
  has shared information with anyone else. With the techniques 
  available to them, very few can stand up to a Proteus inter-
  rogation for very long. The organization always gets what it 
  wants from the subject, sooner or later. Subjects of extrac-
  tions meet one of three fates. They are usually discretely 
  disposed of. They disappear and are never seen again. A 
  few are “sanitized” and released with no memory of their 
  abduction, but this is very rare, since it represents a potential 
  security risk. It only happens in cases where the subject’s dis-
  appearance would be more problematic. Finally, a rare few 
  may continue to work for Proteus. 
  • 
  Sabotage: When Proteus commits sabotage they 
  ensure that nothing remains of the dangerous technology. 
  They’re not above blowing up secret research centers, creat-
  9
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  ing “industrial accidents” that destroy factories or labs, or 
  virtually anything so long as it gets the job done. Proteus 
  often works things to lay the blame at the feet of the tech-
  nology violator or the technology itself. This only empha-
  sizes the dangers of unrestricted technology in the minds 
  of the public, strengthening Utopia’s position as technology 
  regulator. 
  • 
  Sanitizing: It’s been said that knowledge is like a 
  genie that can’t be put back into the bottle once it’s loose, 
  but Proteus has found a way. In some cases, they will care-
  fully destroy all records and examples of a new innovation, 
  then use nova telepaths to erase all knowledge of it from the 
  people involved, while also planting subconscious blocks to 
  keep them for pursuing that line of inquiry in the future. This 
  sort of “sanitizing” operation is only possible when dealing 
  with an isolated individual or very small group, where infor-
  mation has been kept extremely secret, otherwise it raises too 
  much suspicion. Still, in some cases it’s a better option than 
  destroying otherwise useful resources. And Proteus keeps a 
  copy of everything, of course 
  • 
  Liquidation: Finally, Proteus has been known to 
  simply assassinate people (both novas and baselines) with 
  potentially dangerous ideas or technologies to ensure they 
  don’t get out. They usually arrange some sort of “accident” 
  to befall the target, although they’ve found that can be very 
  difficult when dealing with a mastermind nova, who can see 
  almost any plot coming from a mile away and take steps 
  to avoid it. One interesting game of intellectual “cat-and-
  mouse” can be played out between a group of nova mas-
  terminds who have all been marked for death by Proteus, 
  fighting a war behind the scenes. 
  10
   Black Science
  It would come as a shock to much of the world that one 
  of the biggest violators of Utopia’s technological regulations is 
  Utopia itself. Never overtly, of course, but Utopia often gives 
  its own scientists and subsidiaries more latitude in dealing with 
  technologies it wouldn’t let anyone else develop and does what 
  it can to maintain its technological edge.
  Proteus is largely free of any technological restrictions, and 
  the most top-secret research facilities follow up on technological 
  innovations that Utopia works to keep the rest of the world from 
  exploring. The Bahrain Rashoud facility conceals experiments on 
  captive novas, studying their physiology, their quantum abilities, 
  and the effects of excessive taint. Proteus performs experiments 
  in nova cloning and genetic engineering (some with potentially 
  disastrous results, see the Project Utopia sourcebook for details). 
  If a technology is banned by Utopia, then Proteus is almost sure 
  to follow up on it so Utopia will hold all of the cards.
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  From Nova Science magazine 
  5/07/15
  Chapter 1: The Thinkers
  11
  A B E R R A N T
  The Q Division: 
  An Interview with DeVries’ 
  Dr. Rachael Alinsky
  The weather is warm and clear outside of 
  Pretoria, South Africa, at the DeVries compound, 
  which houses some of the most powerful and combat-
  capable novas in the world. That’s one of the things 
  that makes it so strange to see children playing near the 
  small lake on the property and elites renowned for their 
  ability to overturn tanks and reinforced bunkers taking their 
  leisure in the warm sun.
  But then I’m not here to interview any of the 
  elites, not this time, anyway. My subject is one of 
  the people behind the success of DeVries, 
  who makes it possible for elites like the 
  Pursuer and even the infamous Tötentanz to 
  complete their daring missions. A white liveried employee of 
  the DeVries Agency drives me in a cart across the compound 
  to the building set aside for the work of Dr. Rachel Alinsky, the 
  technical genius of the organization, whom my guide calls “the 
  toy lady.”
  It sounds like such a pleasant moniker, and I wouldn’t be 
  at all surprised to learn that Dr. Alinsky makes toys for the chil-
  dren I saw playing. But I also can’t forget that she has more 
  weapons patented under her name than any other nova inven-
  tor on record. When it comes right down to it, the “toy lady” 
  plays rough.
  She greets me in her lab, wearing a white coat over a pair 
  of jeans and a V-neck sweater. She’s not as athletic as many 
  novas, but she still looks like a graduate student rather than a 
  mature woman of almost forty, and she smiles pleasantly when 
  talking about her work. Sitting and talking to her you can sense 
  a kind of barely restrained energy. Although she’s paying com-
  plete attention to our interview, I can also tell that her mind 
  is on a dozen other things at the same time. Even at rest, she 
  never slows down.
  Nova Science: Thank you for granting us this interview, Dr. 
  Alinsky.
  Dr. Rachael Alinsky: It’s my pleasure, Raymond. I’m always 
  happy to talk about my work.
  NS: What is it that you’re working on these days?
  RA: Oh, all sorts of 
  things, mostly different 
  applications of nano 
  [nanotechnology], that’s 
  been my primary field of 
  study for a while, but I’ve 
  always got several dif-
  ferent projects going at 
  once. I don’t like to get 
  bogged down in a single 
  thing.
  NS: What’s the aver-
  age work day like for you, 
  then?
  RA: (pauses) What 
  day is today? (laughs) 
  Seriously sometimes the 
  “average work day” for 
  me can last for three or four days, depending on how into a 
  project I am. After all, when you can get by without sleeping 
  for that long well, let’s just say I get caught up in my work. I 
  used to pull all-nighters back in school, so this isn’t so differ-
  ent.
  NS: You erupted when you were a student at MIT, cor-
  rect?
  RA: That’s right. It was the first semester of my junior 
  year. I was working late on a final project for my robotics class 
  and I was just so frustrated with it. Things weren’t working 
  out like I planned and the pressure was really on. I remember 
  being ready to take a hammer to the damn thing when it 
  was like somebody flipped on a light switch in my head. Sud-
  denly, it all just came together and I just knew how to make 
  it work.
  NS: Did you know then that you were a nova?
  RA: Not right away, actually. At first, I just thought that 
  all those late-nights were paying off! But the way I started 
  devouring information, it didn’t take long for me to figure 
  out that I’d erupted.
  NS: And you came to work for DeVries when?
  RA: 2002, not long after I decided that I’d learned all 
  that I could at MIT. I’ve been here ever since.
  
  NS: Why not go to work for another corporation like 
  ViaSoft, or for Project Utopia, for that matter?
  RA: I guess Anna [DeVries, President and CEO of the 
  DeVries Agency] made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. She 
  did give me a very generous salary, but what really made 
  up my mind was the creative freedom she offered. I knew 
  that I wasn’t going to find that at a big company like ViaSoft 
  and definitely not at Project Utopia.
  NS: And you really seem to have taken that creative 
  freedom and run with it. You’ve developed everything from 
  stealth materials and maglev vehicles to high-powers lasers 
  and railguns to nanotechnology and even new treatments 
  for burns and quantum-related injuries. Do you attribute 
  your wide range of technological endeavors to the creative 
  latitude that DeVries allows you?
  RA: Absolutely. Not only that, but the company has 
  a way of finding new challenges for me all the time. 
  That burn treatment, for example, came about because of 
  some injuries some of 
  our people sustained in 
  Kashmir, involving tem-
  peratures that would 
  kill a baseline, so no 
  sort of treatment was 
  ever developed. Other 
  operations have posed 
  similar challenges.
  NS: Many people 
  might question the 
  morality of your work. 
  After all, in addition to 
  coming up with elec-
  trostunners and burn 
  treatments, you’ve also 
  designed any number 
  of powerful weapons. 
  How do you respond 
  to charges that you’re 
  irresponsible with your 
  abilities?
  RA: I’m glad you 
  asked that. It’s some-
  thing that I hear a lot. The answer is a simple one. Why do 
  police and military forces acquire better and more powerful 
  weapons? Is it so they can wage war on their neighbors? Pos-
  sibly, but more likely it’s so they can defend the law and their 
  own interests. The equipment I’ve developed over the years has 
  allowed our elites to win more victories than any others, and 
  they’ve helped shorten battles that could have cost many, many 
  more lives in the long run. I find it ironic that Project Utopia 
  denounces “warmongers” like us, while seizing and stockpiling 
  some of the most powerful prototype weapons in existence. 
  Offensive and defensive technologies are necessary, and I’m at 
  least honest about creating them.
  NS: Does it concern you that some of your inventions are 
  used against your fellow novas?
  RA: No, that’s what I designed many of them for. The way 
  I see it, it’s their own fault. If you go up against DeVries, you 
  pretty much deserve what’s coming to you.
  Chapter 1: The Thinkers
  A B E R R A N T
  12
  
  ABERRANT
  Alinsky’s Toybox
  GPS Telebeacon: The use of Teleport and Warp powers is 
  limited by the nova’s familiarity with the target point. The telebea-
  con expands the a teleporter’s range by providing precise coor-
  dinates, distance, and bearing between any two points on the 
  surface of the Earth using advanced Global Positioning Satellites. 
  The system comes as either a compact set of vid-display glasses 
  (see p. 20) or an implant that works in conjunction with a data-net 
  implant (Elites, p. 72). So long as the system is functioning, the 
  nova subtracts two from the difficulty of teleporting or warping to 
  any location on the surface of the Earth. This is cumulative with 
  the Safe Blind Teleport extra, although neither can reduce the dif-
  ficulty to teleport to an unseen location to less than +1.
  Climbing Harness: Designed to allow the wearer to climb 
  almost any vertical surface, a climbing harness consists of a snug 
  fitting web of belts around the hips, shoulders, and torso and a 
  motorized grappling reel. It fires out a cord made from eufiber 
  derived polymers that harden instantly on contact with air, pro-
  ducing a thin, very strong line. It can fire either a small piton 
  capable of penetrating stone or a flat anchor with a molecular 
  adhesive capable of holding up to ton (also the tensile strength 
  of the line). Then the reel is clipped onto the harness and hauls 
  the wearer up the line. The grapple can fire out to 500 meters and 
  characters roll Firearms to aim it. The harness also comes with a 
  chemical catalyst that can dissolve the line’s adhesive instantly. If 
  applied to the line itself, it causes it to dissolve completely within 
  five minutes.
  Hypercore Rounds: Nova abilities have led to the develop-
  ment of exotic materials, including hyperdense collapsed matter 
  used to create hypercore rounds, often known simply as “hypers” 
  or “nova-killers.” These bullets have a jacket of softer material 
  (like steel) over a very dense core shaped and designed to pene-
  trate tough armor, like the nearly invulnerable skin of some novas. 
  Hypercore rounds effectively give weapons the Armor Piercing 
  enhancement (Aberrant, p. 231). For every success on the attack 
  roll, the target’s lethal soak is reduced by two before determining 
  damage. However, additional successes on the attack roll do not 
  increase the hypercore round’s base damage.
  Since their express purpose is injuring or killing otherwise 
  invulnerable novas, hypercore rounds are legally regulated in 
  most nations, and Project Utopia keeps a close eye on the pro-
  duction and distribution of hypercore ammunition. Hyper ammo 
  is used by agents of the Directive when necessary, as well as by 
  the Nakato Gumi, the C-Z Megasyndicate, and other organiza-
  tions. Rumors abound that the Church of Michael Archangel is 
  stockpiling hypercore ammo and other “nova-killer” weapons.
  Shockglove: A weapon designed for non-lethal combat, a 
  shockglove is an insulated gauntlet with an internal battery pack 
  and electrical contacts on the fingertips and palm, making it a 
  kind of taser that can deliver a powerful shock to anyone the 
  wearer touches. The shock does 6d10 bashing damage in addi-
  tion to any normal damage caused by the strike, and soaked sep-
  arately from it. The shock also jangles the nervous system and 
  tends to disorient; if the target takes any damage from it, he suf-
  fers a -1 penalty to all of his dice pools for the next turn. The glove 
  is good for up to twenty shocks before its batteries run out.
  Nanotech
  Sensor Dust: The current leading edge in nanotechnology, 
  sensor dust deploys a cloud of microscopic nanomachines, each 
  equipped with a sensor package and a transmitter that beams 
  information back to a coordinating nansect (an insect-sized robot). 
  The nansect then sends the acquired information back through a 
  communications relay. Everything within a hundred meters of any 
  of the nanomachines is detected and information is send back 
  for analysis. Scattered over a wide enough area, sensor dust is 
  virtually invisible and capable of picking up a wide range of infor-
  mation. It can detect lifeforms, movement, radiation, quantum 
  emissions, chemical contaminants in air, soil, or water, and simi-
  lar information. Novas with Electromagnetic Vision may be able 
  to see sensor dust in an area with a difficult (+3) Awareness roll, 
  while those with Hyperenhanced Hearing may detect the dust’s 
  radio emissions with a similar roll. Otherwise, sensor dust is vir-
  tually undetectable without using sophisticated scanning equip-
  ment.
  Nanokill: The deadliest chemical weapon ever devised, 
  nanokill is a collection of microscopic nanomachines suspended 
  in an inert gas. They are designed to break down the cellular func-
  tion of any living organism they come into contact with before 
  breaking down themselves into harmless byproducts, leaving the 
  target area free of any trace of danger. Nanokill is deployed like 
  nerve gas and has a similar effect, except that conventional anti-
  dotes and even the protective abilities of novas have little effect 
  against it.
  Vector: Contact.
  Effect: Exposure to nanokill does one health level of damage 
  per turn to any living creature. It also results in immediate and 
  total paralysis in baselines. Novas have to make a Resistance roll 
  at +4 difficulty each turn of exposure or suffer the same effects, 
  and reduce all of their dice pool by three dice while exposed to 
  nanokill.
  Protection: Nanokill can penetrate any amount of soak 
  unless the Storyteller rules that it is impermeable, such as a force 
  field. It also does not affect targets that are not organic (such as 
  novas transformed into a form other than flesh and blood). Unlike 
  conventional poisons, the Adaptability enhancement of Mega-
  Stamina provides no protection from nanokill.
  Antidote: The only antidote for nanokill is to administer a 
  dose of hunter-killer nano to seek out and neutralize the invading 
  nano-machines before irrepaiaarable damage has been done.
  Hunter-Killer Nano: With the existence of weapons like 
  nanokill, a countermeasure was needed. Hunter-killer (or HK) nano 
  are microscopic machines designed and programmed to seek out 
  and destroy other forms of nanomachines, including sensor dust 
  and nanokill. An amount of HK nano wipes out an equivalent 
  amount of other nano in an affected area, and HK nano lasts for 
  four hours before losing its effectiveness.
  13
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  Shadow Tracker RM
  Chapter 1: The Thinkers
  Shadow Tracker RM
  To:     Mr. Nakamura
  From:  Raymond Chu, Director of Special Projects, ViaSoft
  Date:   05/28/06
  Re:     Shadow Tracker RM
  Mr. Nakamura,
  After due consideration of your offer to purchase our Shadow Tracker RM technology, we must regretfully refuse. We 
  feel that the potential of this technology can best be developed by us here at ViaSoft. We appreciate your interest and to 
  hope hear from you in the future.
  Sincerely,
  Raymond Chu, Director of Special Projects, ViaSoft
  Shadow Tracker RM
  To:     Project Utopia, Science & Technology Division
  From:  [address suppressed]
  Date:   09/14/06
  Attached please find information on Shadow Tracker RM, technology currently being developed by ViaSoft at their 
  Cambridge, Massachusetts facility. This technology represents a potential danger to the public and I felt that you should 
  be made aware of it, regardless of the personal risk. I’ve taken precautions to conceal my identity and wish to remain 
  anonymous in this matter. Thank you for all the work you do to help keep the world a safer place.
  [FILE ATTACHED]
  To:     Raymond Chu, Director of Special Projects
  From:  Peter Cavallino, CEO
  Date:   09/17/06
  Ray,
  How the hell did Utopia find out about Shadow Tracker? I want a complete security check and report from you about 
  how this leaked. In the meantime, we need to dump the technology fast before Utopia makes good on their threats. The 
  last thing we need is another black eye in the media. Contact Nakamura and agree to sell Shadow Tracker to Kuro-Tek at the 
  price he offered back in May, provided that his people take possession immediately. Then when Utopia’s dogs start barking 
  at the door, they’ll have nothing to find.
  A B E R R A N T
  14
  
  Chapter 1: The Thinkers
  Kuro-Tek’s Catalog
  One of the areas where we’ve continued to have trouble dealing with Kuro-Tek is their distribution of information to 
  their customers. Initially, Kuro-Tek used a secure opsite with password protection, encryption routines, and OP address 
  identifiers, which we have usually been able to shut down within a month or so of them setting it up (forcing them to 
  switch to a different OP address each time). We’re getting faster at tracking down their online information and closing 
  it down, with help from the cyberkinetics in the S&T department. But now it seems that Kuro-Tek has a new wrinkle on 
  their OpNet presence. Like natural selection, their opsite has evolved the abilities to evade us, namely mobility and 
  camouflage. How, you ask? Good question.
  As near as we can tell, Kuro-Tek has developed a sophisticated, self-contained program that holds all of their 
  catalog offerings and is regularly updated. The program is compacted into a tight, self-extracting archive and squirted 
  out across the OpNet by automatic servers to customers who ping a particular OP address. The transfer itself probably 
  takes no more than a few seconds at OpNet data rates.
  Once it’s installed on the client’s computer, the program automatically unpacks itself and goes to work. It’s got a 
  sophisticated expert system and it scans the host system first thing, getting a feel for “where” it is. The first two times 
  we managed to get hold of one of these things, they crashed and took the systems they were on with them moments 
  after they unpacked. At first we thought some kind of passcode was needed but then we discovered that the programs 
  “knew” they were on Utopia systems and engaged some sort of failsafe. It took putting one on a completely “virgin” 
  system to get it to cooperate. If the system is “clean” of any other software, the program presents the user with a default 
  selection. But if it picks up any information from the user’s system, it customizes itself to the user’s potential interests, 
  hitting them right off with the prime merchandise they’re likely to be interested in.
  Not only that, but we’ve discovered that the program encodes the information scanned from the host system and 
  includes it in the data packet that goes out with the customer’s order. So every order put into Kuro-Tek tells them a little 
  more about their customer base, what they’ve got, what they need, and what Kuro-Tek might be able to acquire. We 
  may be able to use that against them, to set up some nice, tempting industrial espionage targets and see if they take 
  the bait.
  15
  A B E R R A N T
  Private Communiqué
  Thetis,
  Kuro Tek is becoming a destabilizing influence and an outright hindrance to the efforts of Project Utopia more 
  quickly than anticipated.  While they do serve a purpose, and are partly to thank for the operational complacency of 
  the Directive, I want to keep them on a tighter leash.
  Update their dossier and compile a listing of their current projects then identify counter measures to divert them 
  from the areas I’ve identified as high risk with zero blow back on our efforts as well as those of Utopia.
  Ozaki
  
  ABERRANT
  Kuro-Tek: Black Science
  Number one on the hit parade of Project Utopia’s list 
  of “technology violators” is Kuro-Tek, a Japanese corpora-
  tion founded and run by the Nakato Gumi Yakuza. Kuro-Tek 
  develops, build, and sells technology Utopia has declared 
  banned or restricted, thumbing its nose at the UN’s techno-
  logical regulations and earning vast amounts of money in the 
  process. In fact, in its short existence, Kuro-Tek has grown 
  to become the most profitable enterprise the Nakato Gumi 
  runs, making the Yakuza very protective of their new cash 
  cow.
  Corporate Structure and Organization
  Kuro-Tek is a privately held corporation with Yoshiro 
  Nakamura, the oyabun of the Nakato Gumi, as CEO and 
  majority stockholder. It is arranged much like any other cor-
  poration, with vice-presidents and middle-managers over-
  seeing the rest of the company’s personnel. It is divided into 
  two main sections: Operations, which handles the day-to-
  day business of the company, and Research & Development, 
  which creates the technology Kuro-Tek sells.
  Research & Development
  Kuro-Tek’s R&D department is involved in some of the 
  most cutting-edge research in the world, developing tech-
  nologies Project Utopia has banned “legitimate” companies 
  from. Most of Kuro-Tek’s development projects are top-
  secret, protected against industrial espionage by advanced 
  security systems, trained security personnel and, occasion-
  ally, nova agents (supplied by elite agencies like DeVries or 
  directly by the Nakato Gumi, see Aberrant: Underworld for 
  more details).
  Of course, Kuro-Tek knows all about industrial espio-
  nage. The company’s so-called “Acquisitions” department 
  focuses on two things: purchasing new technology from other 
  companies and individuals, and stealing it where it is too 
  expensive or too difficult to purchase. Kuro-Tek keeps a close 
  eye out for potentially lucrative technology. When it finds 
  some, it usually offers to buy and develop it, offering the 
  seller a generous payment (often pointing out that Utopia 
  might not look too kindly on their work). If they refuse, Kuro-
  Tek has been known to leak word of the technology’s exis-
  tence to Utopia’s S&T division. When the investigators start 
  knocking on the door, seller’s become much more willing to 
  unload their technology.
  If those tactics fail, Kuro-Tek is willing to employ agents 
  (both baseline and nova) to acquire the technology for it, usu-
  ally eliminating any information or prototypes in other hands 
  (and sometimes eliminating any evidence of the technology’s 
  existence along the way). Operations include physical break-
  ins as well as OpNet hackers and sometimes kidnapping an 
  inventor with vital information (although Kuro-Tek prefers to 
  avoid kidnapping, too many complications).
  Once a new technology is in its hands (either by hook 
  or by crook), Kuro-Tek begins developing it in its own labs. 
  Plenty of developments come out of those labs, too. Kuro-
  Tek has more than a few researchers, engineers, and techni-
  cians working for it. Most are baselines, but some are novas 
  who are on the run from the law, hiding from Utopia, or 
  simply interested in the benefits Kuro-Tek has to offer, namely 
  lots of money, carte blanche in developing new technolo-
  gies, and freedom from Utopia’s stifling regulations. Some 
  noteworthy areas of research for Kuro-Tek include:
  • 
  Weapons: Kuro-Tek is well known as an arms dealer, 
  particularly high-tech, cutting-edge weapons, some of which 
  can threaten even novas. The company’s array of weapons 
  includes advanced armor-piercing ammo, explosives, stun-
  ners, tasers, sonic beams, rail-guns, and (as the marketing 
  department says) much, much more. Many of their weapons 
  are based on studies of nova abilities, while others are 
  designed to allow baselines to take on novas in combat 
  (these are popular with customers like the Directive). Kuro-
  Tek weapons tend to be expensive and often experimental, 
  so they’re more suited to individuals or small units rather 
  than equipping armies. 
  • 
  Chemistry: Kuro-Tek experiments will all sorts of 
  exotic chemicals, from deadly poisons and nerve gases to 
  acids, designer drugs, and some applications of material tech-
  nology (notably synthetic eufiber, which Kuro-Tek acquired 
  the formula for from Utopia some years ago). While some of 
  the applications are fairly harmless, most tend to be danger-
  ous, including the manufacture of drugs specifically tailored 
  for novas. Kuro-Tek makes soma in small quantities, along 
  with adrenocilin, moxinoqunatimine, and eclipsidol (see The 
  Directive, p. 55, for the latter). 
  • 
  Biotech: Biotechnology is another field Utopia 
  often finds questionable and Kuro-Tek finds profitable. They 
  do research on human (and nova) DNA and cloning, organ 
  replacement (often using illegally obtained transplants), bio-
  logical augmentation techniques like mite, anti-aging for-
  mulas, and similar borderline medical technology. They sell 
  black-market aphrodisiacs and potency drugs derived from 
  nova hormones and pheromones that are very popular in 
  Japan and abroad (many of them even work as advertised). 
  16
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  • 
  Novas: Kuro-Tek also stud-
  ies nova physiology and biochemis-
  try looking for ways to augment and 
  improve nova powers, inhibit or block 
  them, and (most of all) induce erup-
  tions in latents and perhaps even 
  baselines. The latter often involves 
  putting latent “volunteers” through 
  a series of “stimuli” (read: tortures) 
  attempting to induce eruption and 
  direct the manifestation of it so as 
  to select what powers the new nova 
  will have. This has resulted in disas-
  ter on a few occasions, and earned 
  Kuro-Tek the enmity of the Teragen 
  (among others) but they keep trying. 
  They also pay highly for nova cadav-
  ers to dissect and study, and to break 
  down for “raw materials” for manufac-
  turing nova-specific drugs like soma. 
  Operations
  Kuro-Tek’s Operations division 
  runs the business and keeps the com-
  pany in the black, and out of trouble 
  as much as possible. Kuro-Tek maintains the façade of a law-
  abiding corporation in Japan, with public offices and facili-
  ties that handle legitimate products and business concerns. 
  Some of the people employed there aren’t even aware of 
  the true scale of Kuro-Tek’s operations, and those who are 
  don’t think much of Utopia’s restrictions anyway. They con-
  sider Kuro-Tek heroic for defying Utopia’s totalitarian atti-
  tude and supporting Japan’s economy, regardless of the 
  risk.
  Under the surface is Kuro-Tek’s thriving black market 
  operation, which sells illegal technology to customers around 
  the world. Kuro-Tek uses a variety of means to disseminate 
  information to its customers and potential customers. Their 
  biggest marketing tool is the OpNet. The company uses 
  secure, encrypted opsites to sell product, as well as transmit-
  ting “autonomous” catalog programs over the ‘net to cus-
  tomers, which automatically delete themselves and contain 
  hidden features that gather information for the company on 
  their customer’s habits and needs. Word of mouth is also a 
  powerful sales force, and nearly anyone 
  connected to the black market knows 
  that Kuro-Tek is the place to go for ille-
  gal technology. Company representatives 
  visit potential customers to entice them 
  with Kuro-Tek’s latest offerings, politely 
  pointing out that many of them are not 
  “entirely approved,” but most Kuro-Tek 
  buyers don’t care, so long as they get the 
  goods.
  The other major duty of the Opera-
  tions division (apart from administration 
  and data-management) is security. Kuro-
  Tek needs protection from its rivals, from 
  Utopia’s inspection (and covert ops) teams, 
  from “nova terrorists” (like the Teragen 
  or the Aberrants), and from criminal orga-
  nizations that move against the Nakato 
  Gumi. The company uses highly trained 
  17
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  baseline security personnel, equipped with the latest hard-
  ware (and, ironically, body armor based on the velamid fibers 
  sold by Utopia’s subsidiaries).
  More recently, Kuro-Tek has looked into augmenting 
  its security forces using advanced robots, some of them 
  operated by telepresence 
  technology, allowing base-
  line security to handle more 
  powerful threats for a position of 
  relative safety. It’s also looked 
  into the possibility of powered-
  armor, but find robots more 
  practical overall (like the 
  Gunsen on p. 20, or the 
  Dangard armored warrior 
  from Aberrant: Underworld, 
  p. 47 & 61. For major security 
  jobs, Kuro-Tek hires nova elites 
  from DeVries, Janissaries, or 
  a Japanese agency. The com-
  pany has considered starting an 
  elite division of its own, both as a means of cutting costs and 
  providing additional resources, but both DeVries and Utopia 
  have subtly made it clear that Kuro-Tek elites are not some-
  thing they want to happen. The company is understandably 
  reluctant to do anything that might unite Utopia and DeVries 
  against it.
  Kuro-Tek baseline security takes lessons from the Direc-
  tive (and vice versa) when it comes to dealing with nova-
  level threats. Storytellers might want to consult The Directive 
  sourcebook for more ideas on baselines coming into conflict 
  with nova opponents.
  Delivering the Goods
  One of Kuro-Tek’s biggest challenges is getting illegal 
  technology to its customers around the world. Utopia keeps 
  a careful eye on shipments coming out of Japan (not just 
  for Kuro-Tek but because of the vast amount of blacktech 
  bought and sold in Japan in general). Kuro-Tek can often rely 
  on conventional smuggling, particularly since the Japanese 
  authorities often turn a blind eye to their activities, and tie up 
  Utopia’s surveillance efforts in red tape. The Nakato Gumi’s 
  extensive smuggling operations also serve to move Kuro-Tek 
  goods to their destinations.
  Of course, Kuro-Tek doesn’t ship everything from Japan. 
  The company has operations throughout the world, and 
  maintains a number of “warehouses” (some are actual ware-
  houses, others concealed storage facilities) where goods are 
  kept until they are shipping to buyers. Utopia raids these 
  places when it finds them, but Kuro-Tek moves its ware-
  houses around on a fairly regu-
  lar basis to keep them 
  18
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  from being discovered. Some warehouses are also con-
  cealed by other legitimate businesses owned by Kuro-Tek 
  through various subsidiaries and shell companies.
  When necessary, Kuro-Tek can also rely on nova “couri-
  ers” to deliver the goods to their customers. Utopia knows 
  of at least one nova, Billy “Pipeline” McMurdow, who serves 
  the company in that capacity. Pipeline has the unique ability 
  to “digitize” solid objects, breaking them down into energy 
  and transmitting them over the OpNet, reassembling them 
  at their destination. He works as a computer consultant in 
  Japan using his cyberkinetic abilities, but Utopia strongly 
  suspects that the Australian expatriate uses his abilities for 
  Kuro-Tek on the side. Kuro-Tek also employs other novas 
  from time to time, usually elites with abilities like Hyper-
  movement, Teleport, and Warp that allow them to slip past 
  border patrols and arrive at their destination quickly.
  The Directive Connection
  One of Kuro-Tek’s greatest advantages, which has 
  helped to ensure its continued survival, is its relationship 
  with the shadowy Directive. When the Directive first began 
  to form, its Directors contacted Mitsu Nakamura, chairper-
  son of the Finance Committee of the Japanese Diet and 
  an influential woman in Japanese politics. Unknown to the 
  Directors, Nakamura was also a cousin to Yoshira Nakamura, 
  the oyabun of the Nakato Gumi and CEO of Kuro-Tek. The 
  oyabun quickly saw the potential of this new alliance when 
  Mitsu approached him for his insight and he insisted that 
  she, and Japan, join the Directive.
  With Director Nakamura’s help, the Directive quickly 
  made arrangements to buy technology from Kuro-Tek, which 
  was riding the wave of Saisho that was beginning to sweep 
  through Japan. Kuro-Tek’s access to the cutting-edge of 
  technology gave the Directive and its agent a leg up over 
  the world intelligence community. It also gave Kuro-Tek 
  a powerful hold over the new intelligence agency, and 
  allowed it to acquire information the Directive uncovered.
  The relationship between the Directive and Kuro-Tek 
  grew and deepened as Utopia’s power expanded. When 
  Utopia was granted technological oversight authority by the 
  United Nations, Kuro-Tek’s willingness to defy Utopia’s reg-
  ulations allowed the Directive to continue buying the best 
  equipment available. They couldn’t allow Utopia to choke 
  off the technology that gave them a much-needed edge 
  against nova opponents, so the Directive supported Kuro-
  Tek’s activities behind the scenes.
  Of course, it also wasn’t long before the other Directors 
  learned that Kuro-Tek was a Yakuza front, and that they’d 
  made a deal with the devil. But as it turned out, many of 
  the Directors didn’t care. The intelligence community had 
  worked hand-in-hand with organized crime before, and pol-
  itics made for stranger bedfellows. Kuro-Tek served a pur-
  pose, and served it well. Although Director Ilyanovich has 
  suggested the idea of “weaning” the Directive from its 
  dependence on Kuro-Tek for its equipment, the idea hasn’t 
  met with much success. The Directive simply has more impor-
  tant things to worry about than fixing something that isn’t 
  broken from their point of view. Plus Directive Nakamura 
  shoots down any attempt to separate the Directive from her 
  cousin’s company.
  The relationship does benefit both sides. The Directive 
  doesn’t have to invest money in research and manufactur-
  ing facilities (or argue over which nation will own and con-
  trol them), it gets access to the best technology available, 
  and Kuro-Tek enjoys the Directive’s assistance and protection 
  from its enemies (including Project Utopia).
  The only real flaw in the arrangement (apart from the 
  Directive owing much of its existence to a criminal syndicate) 
  is that the relationship could prove a public relations night-
  mare for the Directive if the truth came out. Certainly Utopia 
  could use knowledge of the Directive/Kuro-Tek alliance to put 
  pressure on the Directive and force them to back off in certain 
  areas. In fact, Utopia suspects the possibility of a relation-
  ship. After all, they know the Directive is getting blacktech 
  from somewhere. But they don’t have any hard evidence, so 
  they’re not quite ready to openly confront the Directive in 
  the public arena.
  The Kuro-Tek Catalog
  The following is a sample of the sort of goods Kuro-Tek 
  has available. Some are fairly innocuous, while others are 
  more dangerous and banned by Utopia. Additional Kuro-
  Tek products can be found in The Directive sourcebook and 
  Aberrant: Underworld.
  Tekcloth
  Developments in eufiber technology allow for comput-
  ers and display systems made from a light fabric than can be 
  folded, crumpled, and generally treated like ordinary cloth 
  while still retaining the ability to function. A tekcloth is a 
  small computer system “woven” into eufiber cloth, usually 
  about half a meter square when spread out on the flat sur-
  face. When activated, the surface of the cloth shows a dis-
  play area and a flat, touch-sensitive “keyboard” for typing. 
  Objects in the display area can also be moved around by 
  touch. A small, lightweight battery pack is attached to one 
  corner of the cloth, and it also has a plug for AC power.
  Larger tekcloths are available, including flat-screen dis-
  plays two meters or more across and “e-paper” capable of 
  displaying any text or image downloaded to it, then being 
  erased and used for different text or images. Eufiber is also 
  laminated to rigid backings to create desktop displays, por-
  table “data-slates” and even wall art that can be changed at 
  the touch of a button, uploading new images (even moving 
  images) to electronic “windows”. Eufiber is also making 
  19
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  appearances in the fashion industry as a fabric for clothing 
  capable of not only changing color or shape when certain 
  electrical charges are passed through it, but also capable 
  of displaying graphics and moving images. Video clips are 
  becoming popular displays in the T-shirts and backs of jack-
  ets in many parts of the world.
  Nootropic Drugs
  Nootropic or “smart” drugs stimulate brain activity and 
  promote the development of neural connections in the brain. 
  Modern-day nootropics are based partially on the study of 
  neurotransmitters and other activity in the brains of novas 
  with mental enhancements. They help treat a wide variety 
  of mental conditions, including absent-mindedness, senility, 
  attention deficit disorder, memory loss, and similar dysfunc-
  tions. Nootropics are also believed to “build brain-power” in 
  healthy people, allowing them to improve their intelligence 
  and other mental abilities, although critics say that there is 
  no definite proof of this, and there are concerns about long-
  term side-effects. Still, this hasn’t stopped “smart drinks” 
  from showing up in trendy cafes and places like Star Lord’s.
  In game terms a dose of nootropic drugs grants a +1 
  die bonus on any Mental Attribute or Ability roll for about 
  an hour afterward, may allow a Willpower roll to overcome 
  some mental Flaws or even Aberrations (rather than having 
  to spend a point of Willpower). A regime of nootropics over 
  the course of weeks or months can justify spending experi-
  ence toward increasing any of the Mental Attributes.
  Sensor Cloth
  Another development of eufiber, sensor cloth is a fabric 
  sensitive to light and other electromagnetic energies used 
  to create sensor devices. Sensor cloth equipped with tiny 
  radio transmitters or thread-like eufiber connectors can be 
  deployed almost anywhere, creating sensitive, full-spectrum 
  cameras ranging in size from a postage stamp to a large 
  painting (the fabric surface of the sensor can be printed on 
  or colored without any effect on its use).
  Sensor cloth can also be made into suit of clothing, 
  feeding data to a set of display glasses or even an implanted 
  data connection (see Elites, p. 72). A sensor cloth suit grants 
  its wearer +3 dice to all Perception-based rolls along with 
  the effects of the Mega-Perception enhancements Electro-
  magnetic Vision, High-End Electromagnetic Scan, and Ulter-
  peripheral Perception. It operates for up to eight hours 
  continuously using a compact battery pack (usually located 
  at the small of the back).
  Vid-Display Glasses
  A pair of lightweight glasses virtually indistinguishable 
  from ordinary eyeglasses, these spectacles contain micro-
  circuitry in the frames and eufiber derived coatings on the 
  lenses, allowing them to display visual information directly in 
  the wearer’s field of vision from any standard input device via 
  infrared transmission. The glasses can display pretty much 
  any information that can appear on a computer monitor, 
  ranging from text to tactical information. Vid-Display glasses 
  are often linked with a palmtop computer or cell-phone 
  (usually the same thing in 2015), and may also have tiny 
  speakers in the earpieces to provide sound along with 
  visual information. In addition to their many other functions, 
  the glasses can change from transparent lenses to sun-
  glasses on command (either from an input device or with 
  a 
  pre-programmed 
  tap 
  against 
  the 
  frames).
  Energy-Opaque Vitrium
  Vitrium or “super-glass” is a glass-like material with ten-
  sile strength equal to that of steel (see Aberrant: Year One, 
  p. 98). It is used for a variety of construction work; including 
  the creation of “bulletproof” windows in high-security build-
  ings. The use of vitrium has been further refined by the 
  creation of a type of the super-glass that is sensitive to EM fre-
  quencies of a particular intensity. When the glass is exposed 
  to a powerful energy source like a laser, it becomes opaque 
  and its outer surface takes on a silvery, reflective sheen. It 
  takes the vitrium one turn to turn opaque, so it won’t protect 
  against a sudden sneak attack, but once it changes, the glass 
  provides complete cover, imposing a +3 difficulty modifier, 
  and it also provides an additional five points of soak against 
  physical and energy attacks.
  Energy-opaque vitrium is also sensitive to things like 
  laser sights and laser microphones, and blocks them when it 
  becomes opaque, providing additional protection. Optional 
  electrical leads allow the opacity of the glass to be controlled 
  remotely as well. Otherwise the vitrium changes in response 
  to energy it comes in contact with, returning to normal trans-
  parency over the course of about half an hour. The only sort 
  of attack vitrium is vulnerable to is a specific frequency of 
  intense sound (which differs for each batch of super-glass). 
  Vitrium cannot soak sonic attacks on that frequency.
  Gunsen “War Fan” Security Robot
  The gunsen or “war fan” security robot is produced by 
  Kuro-Tek (along with other mecha like the Dangard, see p. 
  47 & 61 of Aberrant: Underworld). The gunsen has a rela-
  tively small torso topped with a triangular head on a flexible 
  neck-stalk. It’s limbs are long and spindly, allowing it to fold 
  itself up into a compact shape less than a meter in diameter 
  for concealment and storage. It can unfold instantly into an 
  active configuration when needed. It is operated by telepres-
  ence or pre-programmed instructions. The gunsen has the 
  equivalent of Mega-Strength 1 and Mega-Dexterity 1 and 
  it’s armed with a large SMG (7d10L damage, RoF 45, Ammo 
  200), a shock pad (see the shockglove, p. 13), and a rotary 
  saw blade that does [5]+10d10L damage. It has Armor 3 [4].
  20
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  Sonic Pacifier
  Studies in acoustics have discovered specific frequen-
  cies that produce different states in the human (and nova) 
  brain. Terr’r music uses these subsonic frequencies to create 
  unreasoning fear, but it is possible to create other effects as 
  well. The sonic pacifier uses low-frequency sound waves to 
  produce a soothing effect that calms people and can even 
  put them into a deep sleep. It has begun to enter use as a 
  therapeutic tool in the medical field, but other people have 
  quickly latched on to its use as a security device.
  The pacifier can be designed as a single generator able 
  to affect a small room or a collar or headband worn by a 
  subject (and affecting only him). While the pacifier is acti-
  vated, the subjects are affected like the Soothe enhance-
  ment of Mega-Charisma (Aberrant, p. 176); they immediately 
  become happier and calmer, and cannot take aggressive or 
  hostile action without making a Willpower roll at +2 difficulty 
  to overcome the effects of the pacifier. At its highest level, a 
  sonic pacifier forces subjects to make a Willpower roll at +1 
  difficulty each turn to avoid falling into a deep sleep. Such 
  pacifiers are sometimes used as a non-pharmaceutical treat-
  ment for insomnia. Pacifiers are also entering use in prisons 
  to help control outbreaks of violence.
  Explosive Collar (Bracelet)
  Nova prisoners are particularly difficult to control, lead-
  ing to the creation of the explosive collar: a slim metallic 
  collar filled with high explosives that fits closely around the 
  wearer’s neck. The collar is equipped with a remote control 
  (usually radio or IR base, sometimes both) that allows the 
  operator to detonate the explosives in the collar at any time. 
  This does an automatic ten health levels of lethal damage to 
  the wearer, plus another ten dice of damage. The placement 
  of the collar and the design of the explosives also halves the 
  wearer’s lethal soak against the explosion (round down), so 
  even very tough novas are likely to be hurt or killed. The 
  collar also comes in the form of a bracelet, which will “only” 
  blow off the wearer’s hand (and may allow him to survive if 
  he gets immediate medical attention).
  In addition to the remote control, explosive collars can 
  be activated in other ways. They are commonly set to go 
  off if they are tampered with in any way, and may be tuned 
  to a central transmitter. If the wearer moves outside of the 
  transmitter’s range, the collar explodes, encouraging wearers 
  not to wander off. Collars can also be equipped with quan-
  tum scanners (see Aberrant: Underworld for details), allow-
  ing them to go off when the wearer spends quantum or uses 
  quantum powers, for example.
  Since blowing someone’s head off is something of a 
  final measure, many explosive collars and bracelets are also 
  equipped with built-in tasers and high-density batteries. This 
  allows them to deliver a powerful shock to the wearer that 
  does 8d10 bashing damage, enough to addle many novas, or 
  at least sting them enough to remind them who’s in charge.
  Lethe
  A memory erasing drug, lethe breaks down the chemi-
  cal links in the brain relating to recently formed memories, 
  causing short-term permanent memory loss.
  Vector: Injected
  Effect: A minute after entering the subject’s system, 
  lethe begins erasing memories beginning from the present 
  moment and working backward, targeting the most recently 
  formed memories first. The subject becomes disoriented (-3 
  dice to all pools) and must make a Willpower roll each turn 
  to remain conscious. The subject’s memory of the previous 
  1d10 days is erased, at the rate of about one day’s worth of 
  memory per minute, after which the drug has run its course.
  Protection: Lethe must be injected directly into the 
  bloodstream to have any effect, so novas with three or more 
  levels of lethal soak are likely immune to being injected 
  (except with a very heavy-duty needle or some other method). 
  Novas with Mega-Stamina can roll Resistance against the 
  drug’s effects, each success protects one day’s worth of mem-
  ories and successes equal to or greater than the drug’s effect 
  mean it has no effect on the character.
  Antidote: There is no known antidote for lethe and its 
  effects are permanent. Even the use of nova powers like 
  Telepathy can’t restore the lost memories.
  21
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  ABERRANT
  Quik-clot
  Intended for medical use, quik-clot causes rapid blood 
  clotting, preventing patients from bleeding excessively, but 
  it has also been co-opted for use as a tool of assassination.
  Vector: Injected.
  Effect: Quik-clot causes rapid blood clotting, prevent-
  ing the patient from losing any more blood due to injuries. 
  It can help prevent an Incapacitated character from dying, if 
  applied quickly enough. An overdose of the drug is a deadly 
  poison, causing blood clots to form inside the bloodstream 
  and leading to a fatal heart attack or stroke. The subject of an 
  overdose must roll Stamina each minute, failure results in a 
  level of lethal damage, a botch results in immediate death.
  Protection: Quik-clot must be injected or applied to an 
  open wound to be effective, so novas with three or more 
  levels of lethal soak are generally immune unless they are 
  already wounded. A nova who scores six or more successes 
  on a Stamina roll to resist the drug manages to purge the 
  effects of it from her system.
  Antidote: There is no antidote for quik-clot, although 
  fast medical treatment, blood thinners, and a complete blood 
  transfusion can eliminate its effects (although most patients 
  die before any treatment can be completed).
  Kiroshi Virus
  The Kiroshi virus is a biological weapon, an engineered 
  disease that causes the body’s own immune system to 
  run amok, so that the victim is attacked and killed by his 
  own immunity (“Kiroshi” is a Japanese expression meaning 
  roughly “death from overwork”). Even novas are not neces-
  sarily immune to the effects of the disease.
  Vector: Airborne. The virus cannot survive long outside 
  of a living host, however, dying rapidly on contact with air, 
  and is not contagious once it inhabits a living host, so it does 
  not spread. It is sprayed in aerosol form on its intended tar-
  gets to infect them.
  Effect: An hour after infection, the victim of the virus 
  begins running a very high fever, accompanied by chills and 
  weakness, often vomiting. The immune system runs rampant, 
  attacking the patient’s own systems. Delirium often accompa-
  nies the fever as it intensifies. The victim suffers a health level 
  of bashing damage each hour thereafter. Once he reaches 
  Incapacitated, the damage becomes lethal damage; victims 
  usually die within 12-16 hours of infection.
  Protection: Potential victims must avoid breathing in the 
  virus. Conventional gas masks are ineffective, but full hazmat 
  suits or seal oxygen supplies work. Novas with the Adaptabil-
  ity enhancement are immune to the virus, but other novas, 
  even those with Mega-Stamina, are susceptible to it, since 
  the disease turns the body’s own immune system against it.
  Antidote: There is currently no medical treatment for 
  the Kiroshi virus, although a nova with at least Healing •••• 
  can cure it. 
  22
  CHAPTER ONE: THE THINKERS
  
  One of the opportunities presented by playing a Mega-
  Intelligent nova is advancing the frontiers of science and 
  coming up will all sorts of fun and interesting new technology. 
  Unfortunately, this can be an area that creates headaches for 
  Storytellers and leads to players becoming frustrated with 
  the limitations of the setting and the story. Gadgets and cool 
  technology have their place in Aberrant, but there are a 
  number of things to take into consideration before letting 
  your imagination run wild.
  Two Flavors of Technology
  In Aberrant novas have basically two means of creating 
  new technology: traditional scientific research and develop-
  ment and gadgets. The former is similar to how it works for 
  baselines in the real world, except novas often have intel-
  lectual and physical capabilities far beyond those of baseline 
  scientists and researchers, allowing them to push the enve-
  lope in many fields of science faster than baselines. Gadgets 
  are essentially nova powers cloaked in technological trap-
  pings. They’re “cheats” in that the nova’s ability to affect 
  quantum reality is what allows them to work, not tried and 
  true scientific principles. Gadgets are more akin to traditional 
  comic book super-science and tend to have less impact on 
  the world as a whole.
  Scientific Research & Development
  Many novas (Mega-Intelligent and otherwise) engage 
  in scientific research to expand the boundaries of human 
  knowledge. Ultimately, it’s up to the Storyteller what these 
  nova researchers discover, and what they can prove. The 
  guidelines in this section focus more on applied research, 
  the development of new technology and new applications of 
  existing scientific knowledge, rather than pure research.
  Pure research makes a good background element for an 
  Aberrant campaign, with some of the implications of that 
  research as story or adventure hooks. For example, a nova 
  scientist might be studying the origins of the universe and 
  develop a theory that suggests it might be possible to trig-
  ger a collapse of the space-time continuum, if the condi-
  tions were right. But something like that is highly unlikely to 
  happen, right?
  General Guidelines and 
  Requirements
  In order to research a particular technology, the 
  researcher(s) must have the appropriate Ability. That’s gener-
  ally Computers for new sorts of programs and software, Engi-
  neering for most forms of hardware, and Science for things 
  like biotechnology. The Storyteller may require certain abil-
  ity ratings and/or complimentary skills in order to even begin 
  Chapter Two: 
  Inventing Fun
  23
   Why You Can’t Be Iron Man
  Or Reed Richards, or Doctor Doom, Lex Luthor, or any of the 
  many other comic book scientific geniuses. The simple answer to 
  the question is that most comic books assume that the remark-
  able scientific inventions of heroes and villains aren’t used for 
  much other than trying to commit crimes or saving the world 
  from evil. The best gadgets are locked up in their headquarters 
  and secret lairs, away from the public eye and, for one reason or 
  another, Tony Stark doesn’t license his power-armor designs to 
  the military or corporate sector. Notice how corporations invent 
  amazing technology, only to have it stolen from them and used to 
  commit crimes. Also notice that when heroes recover the stolen 
  technology, it’s inevitably lost, damaged, labeled too dangerous, 
  or simply ignored in future stories.
  In Aberrant, novas can do whatever they want with their 
  technology and inventions, meaning they have the ability to radi-
  cally affect the world with them. Therefore, novas tend to have 
  more realistic limitations on the sort of things they can invent 
  or discover; no whipping up time machines or portals into other 
  dimensions as a routine part of their day. For inventions more 
  closely resembling comic book technology there are gadgets, 
  but they have limitations of their own (see Two Flavors of Tech-
  nology).
  On the other hand, if you’re not using the Aberrant set-
  ting, you’re running a more four-color game, or you don’t really 
  care how nova technology affects the world, you can feel free 
  to loosen or ignore any and all of the restrictions discussed here 
  and in other Aberrant books. But plan on seeing some major 
  changes in the setting once nova inventors hit their stride. It’s 
  your game, so do what you want with it.
  CHAPTER TWO: INVENTING FUN
  
  ABERRANT
  researching a new technology. For example, developing a 
  computer-based artificial intelligence may require a minimum 
  of five dots in Computers, four dots in Engineering, and even 
  a few dots in Medicine (Psychology) to even get started. 
  Unless the characters involved have the appropriate Abili-
  ties, they don’t even know where to begin, no matter how 
  much raw Mega-Intelligence they may have.
  Technological research takes time, often a lot of time. 
  Novas are capable of speeding up the process somewhat, 
  but even they can’t make scientific breakthroughs in a matter 
  of days or even weeks. And while they’re working on their 
  latest toys, there are other things that novas can be doing 
  (see Laboratory Life, below, for details).
  Technological and scientific research also takes money 
  and resources, usually a lot of both, particularly when deal-
  ing with cutting-edge innovations. While it might be possible 
  for a nova with Resources 5 to front a research operation, it 
  would be a drain on nearly any one individual’s Resources. 
  Fortunately there are all sorts of organizations willing to front 
  money for nova research, but those resources usually come 
  with some strings attached to them. Project Utopia expects 
  technological innovations useful in advancing its goal of 
  improving the world, while organizations like Kuro-Tek want 
  technology that’s valuable on the black market. Governments 
  and corporations have their own agendas, and middle-man-
  agers and other VIPs get their say in how a research project 
  proceeds. Acquiring the necessary resources and dealing 
  with the red tape that often comes with them can be one of 
  the greatest hurdles for a would-be inventor to overcome.
  Inventing and Resources
  It’s tempting for a player to say “I don’t need to give my 
  character dots in Resources, I’ll just get Mega-Intelligence, 
  invent some stuff and get rich (or take the Financial Prodigy 
  enhancement, for that matter, and make a killing in the stock 
  market). Storytellers should take care in dealing with this sort 
  of “loophole lawyering” in the game. There’s nothing inher-
  ently wrong with the character concept described above 
  (poor nova makes it rich), in fact, it’s a pretty common on in 
  the world of Aberrant.
  But Storytellers should encourage players to take the 
  appropriate Background to suit their character concept, 
  unless the player wants to play out the nova’s rise to fame 
  and fortune. In that case, the Storyteller should feel free to 
  place whatever obstacles he likes in the character’s path. The 
  Storyteller isn’t out to make it impossible for the nova to 
  earn a fortune, but it shouldn’t be easy, either. There are 
  all sorts of complications that can entangle a nova trying 
  to use Mega-Intelligence (and related abilities) for personal 
  gain, some described here under Invention is the Mother of 
  Necessity and others elsewhere in this book.
  The Design & Development Process
  Once the conditions described above are satisfied, the 
  real work can begin. The project is broken down into two 
  main stages: design and development.
  The design stage involves coming up with the idea for 
  the project and a design that can be built and tested in a lab. 
  The player describes the desired invention to the Storyteller 
  in reasonable detail, including what it is intended to do. You 
  can get as technical and specific as you and your players 
  want at this stage, so long as it doesn’t hamper everyone’s 
  enjoyment of the game. The Storyteller should decide if the 
  invention is plausible and set the difficulty for designing and 
  building it.
  Both the design and the development phase are 
  extended actions (Aberrant, p. 109). Additionally, because of 
  the often-frustrating nature of research, the second chances 
  rule (Aberrant, p. 111) applies to design and development 
  rolls. After each roll, the total number of successes required 
  is increased by one. The Storyteller determines the difficulty 
  of the action based on the complexity of the invention. In 
  general, designing an invention is at least Challenging (+2) 
  while developing a working prototype is at least Difficult 
  (+3). Novas with Mega-Intelligence can apply their dots to 
  reduce these difficulties normally. The Storyteller also deter-
  mines the total number of successes required. Generally, a 
  new design requires at least five successes, and can require 
  as many as 10 or more for especially complicated technol-
  ogy.
  Each design roll takes one day (eight hours) of work with 
  relatively few distractions or interruptions. The Storyteller 
  makes the roll secretly and records the character’s successes 
  for that day. A failure means no successes are gained (and, 
  in fact, some ground is lost due to the increase in difficulty). 
  A botch sends the designer down the wrong path. After her 
  next roll, she believes the design is complete, but in fact it is 
  flawed and will never work.
  Design Example
  Dr. Edward Olanos starts working on the design for a 
  new device for detecting quantum emissions from a nova’s 
  M-R node. He is a baseline with Intelligence 5, Engineering 
  5 and Science 4, meeting the Storyteller’s requirements for 
  doing the research. The Storyteller decides that the device 
  is plausible and sets the difficulty for the design at Challeng-
  ing (+2), with a total of seven successes required. On the first 
  day, Dr. Olanos rolls and gets three successes over the dif-
  ficulty. That leaves four successes needed on the task, but 
  the Storyteller adds one more for the first roll, increasing it 
  to five. The next day, Dr. Olanos rolls again, getting only 
  one success above the difficulty. That is canceled out by the 
  increase for that day, so he still needs five more successes. 
  After 12 days of work, Dr. Olanos has accumulated enough 
  24
  CHAPTER TWO: INVENTING FUN
  
  ABERRANT
  successes to give him a complete design.
  Elsewhere, another scientist is working on a similar idea. 
  But this is Dr. Rachael Alinsky, DeVries’ nova tech-wizard. She 
  has Intelligence 5, Mega-Intelligence 5, Engineering 5 and 
  Mental Prodigy: Engineering. She subtracts two from the dif-
  ficulty of the design with two dots of her Mega-Intelligence. 
  Before making the first design roll she rolls Intelligence, get-
  ting four successes, allowing her to add four dice to her pool. 
  She rolls a total of 17 dice on the design roll (Intelligence + 
  Mega-Intelligence 3 + Engineering 5 + 4 dice from Mental 
  Prodigy) and gets seven successes, allowing her to complete 
  the design for the quantum scanner in a day.
  Once the design work is complete, the inventor can 
  head into the laboratory to build a working model of the 
  design for testing. The inventor needs the appropriate facili-
  ties and equipment for the development work. If these are 
  lacking, work cannot proceed (or proceeds at a much slower 
  pace, possibly with some dice pool penalties at the Storytell-
  er’s discretion).
  As with the design phase, the Storyteller sets the dif-
  ficulty and the total successes required to create a working 
  model from the design. Each development roll requires a 
  week’s work, and the total number of successes required 
  increases by one after each roll. The inventor receives +1 die 
  to his pool for each qualified assistant helping him (the Sto-
  ryteller decides on the qualifications, but Abilities within a 
  dot of those of the inventor are a good guidelines). An inven-
  tor can have a number of assistants equal to his Bureaucracy 
  rating helping him at once. (At the Storyteller’s discretion, 
  assistants over this rating may actually impose a penalty, get-
  ting in the way, messing up instructions, and so forth.)
  Achieving the needed total of successes proves the 
  design and creates a working prototype of it (although not 
  necessarily a full-scale production model in the case of 
  larger inventions like generators or heavy-weapons). A botch 
  destroys the prototype and wipes out all accumulated suc-
  cesses, forcing the inventor to start over again at the begin-
  ning of the development phase. A botch may also have other 
  dangerous side-affects, ranging from explosions to rifts in 
  the space-time continuum, as the Storyteller sees fit. Work-
  ing from a flawed design (above) will never produce a work-
  ing model. The inventor just wastes time (and resources) until 
  he decides to give up.
  Development Example
  Dr. Olanos takes his complete quantum detector design 
  into the lab and begins working on a prototype. The Story-
  teller sets the difficulty at Challenging (+2) and requires a 
  total of eight successes to complete the work. Dr. Olanos has 
  a pool of 10 dice for his design roll, plus the assistance of 
  two qualified baselines, giving him two more dice. He com-
  pletes the work in three weeks and has a working model of 
  the device.
  Dr. Alinsky also takes her design into the lab. She again 
  applies two dots of her Mega-Intelligence to reduce the dif-
  ficulty, using the same difficulty and number of successes 
  as Dr. Olanos. She rolls a pool of 17 dice, and scores the 
  needed successes in the first roll, finishing her prototype in a 
  week (well before Dr. Olanos has even completed his design 
  work, in fact).
  Complex Devices
  The rules and guidelines presented here assume rela-
  tively simple devices with a single purpose, e.g., a weapon, 
  a scanner, a new type of material, etc. For more complex 
  or multi-purpose devices, the Storyteller has two options. 
  The first is to simply increase the total number of successes 
  requires (and perhaps the difficulty) to reflect the additional 
  complexity of the invention. This works for devices that are 
  slightly more complex or involved.
  For very complex inventions - prototype vehicles, pow-
  ered armor, computer systems, and so forth - the Storyteller 
  may want to break the invention down into its major compo-
  nent systems, having the designer work on each on in turn. 
  Thus for a suit of power-armor, the designer has to come up 
  with the compact myomer motors, then the new armor com-
  posites, the control systems, the advanced weapons, etc. 
  Design and construction of complex devices and take a very 
  long time, although Mega-Intelligence novas can still speed 
  the process up considerably.
  Storytelling the Process
  Throughout the design and development process of 
  inventing, the Storyteller makes all rolls secretly, and informs 
  the player of the results (e.g. “You’ve made a little more 
  progress this week.”) Not only does this keep players from 
  knowing exactly how close they are to a successful design, it 
  also allows the Storyteller considerable latitude is stretching 
  out, compressing, or otherwise messing with the design pro-
  cess to suit the demands of the story. See Invention is the 
  Mother of Necessity for more ideas on how to complicate 
  the design and development process.
  Gadgeteering
  Gadgeteering (described in detail in the Aberrant Play-
  ers Guide), allows novas to create devices (“gadgets”) based 
  on their own quantum-manipulating abilities. Gadgets are 
  empowered by quantum energy, so they aren’t restricted 
  like ordinary technology, but they’re also limited in their use, 
  since they require either a storehouse of quantum energy or 
  a nova to operate them, and they’re not always usable by 
  all novas (much less baselines). Gadgets can’t be mass-pro-
  duced; they’re unique products of nova genius. This allows 
  Storytellers to give players more leeway with gadgets, since 
  they don’t affect the setting as much as true advances in 
  technology.
  25
  CHAPTER TWO: INVENTING FUN
  
  ABERRANT
  Other “Nova Tech”
  Nova gadgets are one example of novas exercising their 
  quantum abilities through the medium of technology. Some 
  other nova abilities might appear to be “technological” even 
  when they’re not. For example, some novas develop a psy-
  chological dependence on a particular object in order to use 
  their powers (the “Dumbo Syndrome,” see p. 95, Aberrant 
  Players Guide). This object may be a device like a computer, 
  gun, “power armor suit,” or even a vehicle. The nova (and 
  others) may be convinced that his powers stem from the 
  object, even when that is not really the case.
  Laboratory Life
  Whether they are expanding the boundaries of existing 
  technology or whipping up amazing gadgets, nova inven-
  tors have to spend a lot of time in a laboratory or workshop, 
  which isn’t necessarily the best environment for exciting sto-
  ries, especially when all the other characters can do is stand 
  around, occasionally passing the inventor test tubes and 
  remarking on how brilliant he is. If characters spend a lot of 
  time doing research and development, the Storyteller has to 
  take it into account when planning the chronicle. There are 
  several strategies for handling this in the game:
  Downtime: Things like scientific research can take place 
  in “downtime” between stories or even between scenes or 
  episodes or an extended story. This allows the Storyteller 
  and the inventor’s player to consult with each other outside 
  of the game and handle the inventing process “off stage” 
  without involving the other players. It also keeps the charac-
  ter’s research from bogging down the events of the story. By 
  controlling the amount of “downtime” a character has, the 
  Storyteller can influence how much research gets done (par-
  ticularly since only the Storyteller knows exactly how long a 
  given project is going to take).
  Duty Calls: Few nova gadgeteers can spend all of their 
  time in the lab. There are other things they need to do 
  from time to time. It might be attend staff meetings, give 
  interviews, report to superiors, make personal appearances, 
  attend to duties as a member of T2M, and so forth. Some 
  inventors do their very best to limit these sorts of “extrane-
  ous” activities, but such anti-social sorts are probably not the 
  ideal characters for a group-oriented chronicle, and Storytell-
  ers should feel free to point this out to players.
  Also, many Mega-Intelligent novas have abilities other 
  than their intellect. Antaeus, for example, would be a formi-
  dable nova even without his Mega-Intelligence. Novas are 
  still rare and nova scientists may be called upon to use their 
  other powers from time to time. For example, Antaeus (when 
  he worked with Project Utopia) helped to clean up environ-
  mental disasters, rescue earthquake victims, and even find 
  people lost in the wilderness in addition to spending time 
  in his lab. The same is often true of other Mega-Intelligent 
  novas.
  Field Work: Even the most dedicated scientists some-
  times need to leave the lab to test their theories out in the 
  real world. Storytellers can use the need for “field research 
  and testing” as a way of luring inventors outside where inter-
  esting things can happen. Testing a particular invention, or 
  doing field research can be a story hook that may lead to 
  other things as well (like when the test goes awry or some-
  one tries to steal the prototype).
  There are also plenty of uses for Mega-
  Intelligence out in the field, away from the lab. 
  When a situation requiring a nova scientist’s 
  expertise crops up (from a new disease to a 
  difficult engineering problem), odds are good 
  that the character will be called to the scene to 
  help out.
  Get a Life: Characters only demonstrate 
  their personality through their actions, particu-
  larly when interacting with other characters. A 
  nova character that stays in the lab and never 
  gets out doesn’t offer too many roleplaying 
  opportunities. Storytellers should encourage 
  these (and other characters) to have a life out-
  side of their work. Does the character have 
  friends or family? Hobbies? A significant other? 
  All of these things can help keep a character 
  from spending 24 hours a day in the lab and, 
  if they do, can give the character some realistic 
  consequences to deal with (from a neglected spouse, chil-
  dren, or friends).
  Laboratory Accidents: The lab can also be a setting for 
  stories, just not all the time. Still laboratories offer opportu-
  26
  CHAPTER TWO: INVENTING FUN
  
  ABERRANT
  nities for various kinds of stories using the nova’s work as a 
  hook. A laboratory accident might pose a challenge for the 
  inventor and fellow novas (especially if there are clues that 
  the “accident” was deliberate sabotage). Utopia or govern-
  ment inspectors might visit the lab suddenly, or nova elites 
  might “visit” in order to steal a new invention (or kidnap the 
  inventor!). On a more mundane level, the character might 
  develop a conflict or a relationship with a co-worker or assis-
  tant, or technical problems might force a temporary halt in 
  the inventor’s work, forcing him to find something else to 
  do.
  Invention is the Mother of Necessity
  Mega-Intelligent novas have the potential, perhaps more 
  than any others, to revolutionize and transform the world. 
  Fortunately for Storytellers everywhere there are some limi-
  tations and restrictions on the creativity of the Mega-Intelli-
  gent. Some are limitations novas have yet to overcome while 
  others are imposed by outside forces looking to put the 
  brakes on nova invention.
  Storytellers can use these factors to help control the pro-
  liferation of nova technology in the chronicle. But a word of 
  warning: don’t go overboard trying to restrict nova inven-
  tors or the players are sure to become frustrated. After all, if 
  they created inventor characters, you should let them invent 
  things from time to time. But you don’t necessarily have to 
  make it easy, or let players walk all over you when it comes 
  to their brilliant ideas.
  Time and Resources
  One of the biggest limitations faced by inventors is the 
  availability of time and resources (money, lab space, and 
  materials). The issue of time-management in an Aberrant 
  chronicle is covered under Laboratory Life, above. In short, 
  characters who spend all their time in the lab don’t have 
  much of an opportunity to interact with the events of the 
  chronicle. Storytellers should encourage inventors to get out-
  side from time to time, and even arrange circumstances to 
  get them to do so.
  It’s not difficult for a Mega-Intelligent nova to get some-
  one to give him laboratory space and enough resources 
  for research, but those things rarely come without strings 
  attached. Whoever is providing for the inventor’s needs is 
  going to want a say in the kind of research that gets done 
  and how the nova’s inventions are developed, patented, and 
  marketed. Sure, novas working for a major corporation like 
  ViaSoft get a piece of the pie (maybe even a big piece), 
  but they also have to deal with corporate management and 
  sign contracts that give ViaSoft certain rights over the nova’s 
  work. The same is true of pretty much any other organization, 
  from Project Utopia to the underground labs of Kuro-Tek. 
  Sure, Kuro-Tek doesn’t have any problem with you develop-
  ment deadly new weapons (in fact, they prefer it to research 
  into humanitarianism, which just isn’t as profitable). But Kuro-
  Tek has to deal with the demands of the market, not to men-
  tion raids by the authorities and things like that.
  Moreover, some resources may be more difficult to come 
  by than others. If a nova’s idea involves micro-gravity manu-
  facturing, well, there’s aren’t a lot of off-planet research facili-
  ties for the nova to use. Likewise, labs on the ocean floor, or 
  equipped with truly advanced equipment (like particle accel-
  erators) are rare, and always controlled by someone, who 
  may or may not want anyone else using them.
  Finally, resources or components of the new technology 
  may be difficult to mass produce, or difficult to produce at 
  all without the use of nova abilities. A nova may be able to 
  use Molecular Manipulation or Matter Creation to come up 
  with exotic new substances and materials, making all sorts 
  of technology viable. But the only source of the material is 
  the nova, who probably doesn’t want to spend all day whip-
  ping up batches of raw material to make new gizmos when 
  he could be moving on to the next research project.
  The Ladder of Progress
  Sometimes a nova inventor is just a little too far ahead 
  of his time. Technology is only capable of advancing so fast, 
  even with the help of novas. This is especially true when it 
  comes to mass-production technology. Sure, a nova may be 
  able to invent an amazing new technology, but what will it 
  take to retool factories and manufacturing plants to produce 
  this new technology? And are the owners of said facilities 
  willing to pay out the costs of the changeover? The market 
  likes steady and gradual change rather than technological 
  revolutions. Just because the nova’s new gizmo does things 
  a hundred times better doesn’t mean that everyone in the 
  world will throw out the old way of doing things immedi-
  ately.
  It may also be that real-world technology needs to catch 
  up to the nova’s ideas. A nova inventor may have a design for 
  a theoretical technology that could revolutionize the world, 
  provided someone develops cold-fusion first, or room-tem-
  perature superconductors, or molecular-scale nanotechnol-
  ogy, or computers about a million times faster, or well, you 
  get the idea. Mega-Intelligent novas have a lot of ideas that 
  are simply impractical for anyone to develop because the 
  technology to create and support them doesn’t exist yet. 
  That often leads novas to start at the bottom of the tech-
  ladder and work to improve things so that their wilder con-
  cepts can be realized eventually.
  Project Utopia’s Science & 
  Technology Department
  One thing nova inventors can count on is that Big Brother 
  Is Watching. Utopia’s S&T Department has the job of keep-
  27
  CHAPTER TWO: INVENTING FUN
  
  ABERRANT
  ing the proliferation of nova technology under control. If they 
  choose, they can require inventors to submit their designs 
  for approval, suspend experimentation, seize research and 
  information (and prototypes), and place bans on particular 
  areas of research and development. About the only thing 
  the inventor can do about it (apart from engage in a lengthy 
  and drawn out legal battle) is go underground, ending up on 
  Utopia’s “most wanted” list and working for whatever organi-
  zation is willing to help sponsor research that defies Utopia’s 
  regulations.
  The S&T Department is one of the Storyteller’s ultimate 
  tools for controlling the proliferation of nova-tech. Odds are 
  if you think a particular innovation is going to cause problems 
  in the world, Utopia probably does, too, and will take steps 
  to minimize those problems. Utopia doesn’t have to ban 
  technology outright. They may instead insist on an extended 
  period of testing and research, along with a carefully con-
  structed program to introduce the new technology with as 
  little social and economic upheaval as possible.
  Government Regulation
  Utopia’s not the only party interesting in controlling nova 
  technology. Governments often get in on the act, too. This 
  is particularly true when dealing with technology that may 
  become a threat to public safety (like weapons or biohaz-
  ards), or simply things the government feels threatened by 
  (like spy-tech or ultimate data-encryption technology). This 
  includes everyone from the United Nations to national gov-
  ernments to local and regional governments. They perform 
  the same sort of spot inspections (and possibly seizures) as 
  Project Utopia, and things can get interesting if a govern-
  ment happens to disagree with Utopia’s decision regarding 
  the inventor’s latest project. Utopia may permit it while the 
  government shows up to confiscate it, or vice versa.
  If nothing else, nova inventors have to register their 
  inventions at a government patent office, if they want to 
  ensure their technology remains theirs. If they do, they alert 
  the government and Utopia to whatever it is they’re working 
  on (allowing them to take action, if they feel it’s necessary). 
  If they don’t register, then someone else can steal their tech-
  nology and claim to have invented it themselves and legally 
  prevent the nova from marketing it!
  Corporate Intervention
  Nova innovations make or break corporations in the 
  21st century, and savvy companies keep an eye on the 
  latest developments coming from Mega-Intelligent inven-
  tors. Plenty of companies try to hire these geniuses to work 
  for them, and a number of novas do. A corporation may 
  offer to buy a nova’s technology, not to sell it, but to bury 
  it so it can’t damage the company’s own position in the mar-
  ketplace! For example, the hypercombustion engine caused 
  oil prices to drop with its huge increase in fuel efficiency. 
  Car manufacturers were pleased, but oil companies certainly 
  weren’t!
  A corporation may also buy a new technology, but take 
  some time to bring it out on the market. The company might 
  run afoul of manufacturing problems, or Utopia’s technologi-
  cal regulations, or simple bureaucratic incompetence that 
  causes all sorts of delays.
  Finally, there’s industrial espionage. Many companies 
  have no qualms about stealing new technology from nova 
  inventors any way they can, including hiring elites to “acquire” 
  it for them. Corporations spy on each other and sabotage 
  rival research projects to ensure that theirs is the only one 
  that’s successful. Dirty tricks help to reduce the value of 
  another company’s stock in preparation for a hostile take-
  over. The waters of the corporate world are full of sharks, 
  waiting to smell blood.
  Public Prejudice
  Public opinion sometimes limits the development or at 
  least the sale and use of certain technologies. Already, the 
  culture of the world in 2015 is in a state of profound “future 
  shock” with the development of things like the OpNet, hyper-
  combustion, eufiber, and dozens of other technologies. On 
  the one hand, many baselines have come to expect tech-
  nological miracles from novas that make the world a better 
  place.
  On the other, there is a profound nervousness in base-
  lines about novas and anything related to them. Certain 
  “watchdog” groups can be counted on to oppose almost 
  any advance in technology, and some may trigger opposi-
  tion from a large segment of society. Storytellers can use the 
  whims of public opinion to direct the development of tech-
  nology. Certainly if a majority of people are opposed to a 
  particular innovation, no corporation or government is likely 
  to move ahead with it, for fear of the negative press it would 
  generate.
   No, Really, You Can’t Be Iron Man
  Well, okay, you can, sort of. A nova with a substantial amount 
  of Mega-Intelligence, the right enhancements (particularly Mental 
  Prodigy and Inventive Genius), and enough Resources can built a 
  lot of gadgets following the guidelines from the Aberrant Play-
  er’s Guide. The nova gets access to a variety of quantum powers 
  and abilities without having to acquire those powers directly using 
  experience. The trade-off is that gadgeteers spends a lot of time 
  in the lab building or maintaining their various gadgets and they 
  have to devote quantum points to powering them. Gadgets, while 
  more reliable than quantum powers, also don’t have nearly  the 
  flexibility or the potential for being maxed out in a time of need. 
  28
  CHAPTER TWO: INVENTING FUN
  
  29
  Chapter Three: Storytelling
  So, think you’re smart enough to handle some of the 
  smartest people the world has ever seen? No matter how 
  smart you are, there are some challenges to incorporating 
  the full potential of Mega-Mental Attributes into your Aber-
  rant chronicle. This chapter looks at them and ways you 
  can handle them without making your players regret those 
  nova points they spent on giving their characters Mega-
  Intelligence or Mega-Perception. We’ll also consider the 
  possibility of chronicles based on novas with primarily Mega-
  Mental Attributes rather than the traditional kick-ass quan-
  tum powers.
  Any More Bright Ideas?
  Odds are, after reading this book, you’ll have your own 
  ideas on how to handle Mega-Mental Attributes in your 
  game and some twists on the game rules and source mate-
  rial. By all means, use them! Maybe you want to make Kuro-
  Tek and the Directive into puppets of a world-spanning 
  conspiracy, with a Mega-Intelligent nova pulling the strings. 
  Or you want to have the most Mega-Perceptive novas start 
  going mad because they keep sensing something, some-
  thing too horrible for their minds to cope with, that other 
  people can’t see, hiding in the shadow of what we call real-
  ity. Whatever you want to do with your Aberrant chronicle, 
  take it and run with it.
  One particular area where you might want to mess 
  around is in the places White Wolf can’t. Two major things 
  limit official Aberrant products. First, the need to maintain 
  a certain “baseline” world (no pun intended) that cleaves to 
  the history of the future in Trinity and of the past in Adven-
  ture! Just because White Wolf isn’t going to have China go 
  to war with the rest of the world or have Earth invaded by 
  a parallel timeline in Aberrant doesn’t mean that you can’t. 
  Second, White Wolf is limited by copyright in terms of what 
  it can add to the Aberrant mix. Do you want to have a nova 
  who thinks he’s a certain Man of Steel (and has the powers to 
  match)? Time-Warner probably wouldn’t like it if White Wolf 
  did it, but you can. Want some of H.P. Lovecraft’s creations 
  to drop in? Dig out your other books and introduce your 
  novas to what’s beyond the quantum level of reality. In short, 
  this game is a tool for your imagination, not the other way 
  around.
  Theme
  Theme is what the overall story is “about,” the mean-
  ing it imparts. The major theme Aberrant explores is one of 
  power and what people do with it, summed up in the tag-
  line “What would you do with the power of a god?” Mega-
  Mental characters offer the opportunity to explore this and 
  many other themes.
  Responsibility
  It’s an old line but “with great power comes great 
  responsibility.” Perhaps more than any other novas, those 
  with Mega-Mental abilities have the potential to transform 
  the world, because they can conceive of things that no one 
  before them ever has and, more importantly, they can make 
  those things a reality. That’s a tremendous power, and an 
  awesome responsibility. How do novas handle it? With so 
  many problems in the world, where do they choose to apply 
  their abilities first? What do they identify as problems and 
  how do they propose to solve them? What if some people 
  don’t agree with the solution they come up with?
  The key element of this theme is your actions have con-
  sequences. When you’re tremendously powerful, your actions 
  often have tremendous consequences. We’ve pointed out 
  that, in the comic books, the world never really changes all 
  that much. In your chronicle, things can change as much 
  as you let them, so it becomes a matter of what the char-
  acters choose to do and what happens after that. Some 
  novas may try to escape the terrible burden of responsibil-
  ity, by denying or running away from it. Others may ignore 
  the consequences of their actions, until they catch up with 
  them. Some are paralyzed by all the possibilities, unable to 
  act. Then there are those that accept their responsibility and 
  forge ahead as best they can.
  Normality
  A lot of people want to feel accepted and normal. But 
  what is “normal” exactly, and what if you can’t achieve it? 
  The life of a Mega-Mental nova can be an isolated one, even 
  from fellow novas. What’s it like to live in a world where 
  Chapter Three:
   Storytelling
  CHAPTER THREE: STORYTELLING
  
  ABERRANT
  30
  everyone seems blind, deaf, stupid, or impossibly slow? How 
  do you relate to people like that and what do you feel toward 
  them: pity, sympathy, frustration, anger, envy, or a little of 
  each? Moreover, how do those people see you and what do 
  they feel: awe, jealousy, respect, fear? The struggle between 
  the need to “fit in” and the need to “be yourself” is one that 
  most people understand that also relates strongly to Mega-
  Mental novas.
  Awareness
  If “ignorance is bliss,” then Mega-Mental novas must be 
  very unhappy people. They’re capable of perceiving, under-
  standing, and coping with information baselines aren’t, but 
  even novas must have their limits. They’re more likely than 
  anyone to be aware of some of the dangers threatening the 
  world in the Nova Age, up to and including the existence of 
  Project Proteus and the creeping threat of Taint that leads to 
  the Aberrant War. How do they deal with this knowledge? Do 
  they ignore it and tell themselves that they don’t really care 
  what happens or do they take some sort of action? Can they 
  convince others that what they know is true or do they have 
  to act on their own? Doomsayers throughout history have 
  often been ignored or derided for their warnings, with others 
  realizing the truth when it’s too late.
  On a more personal level, how does increased aware-
  ness affect the nova’s life? How difficult is it to live in human 
  society when you can tell exactly how everyone feels about 
  you, no matter what they actually say? How many conversa-
  tions can you have with people who clearly have no idea 
  what’s going on around them? What is it like being constantly 
  surrounded by people who are your mental inferiors? (Yeah, 
  I’m sure many of you think you already know what that feels 
  like but, remember, to a Mega-Intelligent nova, even Einstein 
  was a mental midget.)
  Conflict
  Conflict is what drives a story, putting the characters into 
  action. Mega-Mental Attributes offer plenty of opportunities 
  for conflicts.
  Nova vs. Baseline
  This conflict is built right into the game, but Mega-Men-
  tal characters help to bring it out. Many people can more 
  easily accept that fact that novas are physically more power-
  ful than baselines, even accept that novas are better looking, 
  richer, and more famous than baselines. But many baselines 
  have a very difficult time with the fact that some novas are 
  also smarter, cleverer, and more perceptive than they are. 
  Many believe that intelligence and self-awareness are the 
  qualities that set us apart from all other creatures. It’s a sober-
  ing thought to realize that you’re no longer at the top of the 
  “intellectual food chain,” especially for baselines who con-
  sider themselves smart, witty, or perceptive, or did before 
  novas came along.
  Now the smartest baselines in the world are outstripped 
  by novas and rather than performing the research, making 
  the discoveries, or coming up with the plans, they’re often 
  managing the novas who are doing those things. Take note 
  of the fact that organizations like Project Utopia, the Direc-
  tive, and ViaSoft are run by baselines who tell novas what to 
  do. How is a Mega-Intelligent nova going to feel when he’s 
  asked to carry out the (clearly flawed) plans of his intellectual 
  inferiors all the time? Let’s ask Antaeus... oops, that’s right, 
  he left Project Utopia, didn’t he? Is it any wonder why?
  Sooner or later, Mega-Mental novas wonder why they’re 
  taking orders from their mental inferiors and, unlike many 
  frustrated baselines, they often have the means of doing 
  something about it. A lot of nova vs. baseline conflicts feed 
  into the idea that Mega-Mental novas will inevitably take 
  over, simply because of their nature (see The Riddles of the 
  Sphinxes for more on this).
  Brains vs. Brawn: Mega-Bright vs. 
  Mega-Kick Ass
  Who’s more powerful: Caestus Pax or Rachel Alinsky? 
  Well, Pax can pulverize mountains and he’s pretty much invul-
  nerable, but if anyone can come up with a weapon that can 
  hurt him, Alinsky is the one. Moreover, she can probably 
  arrange a trap so cunning and complex that Pax won’t see it 
  coming until it’s too late. Sure, if Pax gets his hands on Alin-
  sky, she’s probably dead meat. That’s assuming that he can 
  find her, that when he does it’s really her (and not another 
  trick or trap), and that he can figure out she’s the one respon-
  sible for all those traps in the first place.
  As you can see, brains and brawn both have their strong 
  points, and you can get some interesting stories by pitting 
  novas with flashy physical powers against opponents with 
  Mega-Mental abilities. In the short-term, physical power wins 
  out. But give the Mega-Mental novas the opportunity to plan 
  and implement their ideas and the other guys haven’t got 
  much of a chance. Playing from this perspective requires 
  some adjustments from the brilliant strategy of “I fly in and 
  kick his ass!” See Running Mega-Mental Antagonists for 
  some ideas and ways to handle it in a chronicle.
  The Scientific Race
  In the scientific world of 2015 “publish or perish” is 
  more true than ever. It’s not so much a matter of publishing 
  one’s scientific theories or discoveries, but getting new inven-
  tions patented and being the first to get new technologies 
  to market. Vast fortunes are made on nova-created and 
  -inspired technology, and the scientific race can be a brutally 
  competitive one. Corporations and government don’t mess 
  around when billions of dollars and the fate of entire indus-
  tries are at stake.
  Novas involved in any sort of research and development are 
  CHAPTER THREE: STORYTELLING
  
  ABERRANT
  31
  likely to get drawn into the struggles of the scientific race, 
  whether they want to or not. They have to deal with rival sci-
  entists (both nova and baseline), industrial espionage, sabo-
  teurs, and special interest groups (possibly including some 
  of the factions from the Aberrant Players Guide, like the 
  Daedelus League, Greenwar or the Gestalt). Nova research-
  ers also have to deal with Project Utopia’s Science & Technol-
  ogy division sooner or later (see Chapter One for details).
  Progress vs. Tradition
  Where Mega-Mental novas are concerned there is no 
  lack of new ideas. But just because you can do something 
  doesn’t always mean that you should, and novas often 
  encounter resistance to their brilliant schemes in the form 
  of simple conservatism and unwillingness to change. Con-
  sider all of the many brilliant and alternative ideas that have 
  come up in the past twenty or thirty years and how some 
  of them have fared. For example, it’s scientifically provable 
  that a carefully managed vegetarian diet is healthier for both 
  human beings and the planet, but huge numbers of people 
  still eat meat. We know that fossil fuel emissions damage the 
  environment, but giving up our cars (much less our power 
  plants) just isn’t an option.
  The innovations of Mega-Intelligent novas have to take 
  the needs and wants of society into account if they are to be 
  successful. For example, novas came up with ways of scrub-
  bing the pollutants out of the environment and invented 
  cleaner, more fuel-efficient, engines, neither of which required 
  baselines to change their lifestyles. The more a technology 
  changes the way people live, the more resistance there tends 
  to be to it, unless the change is clearly for the better (that is 
  to say, makes life easier or more fun). Some ideas are just too 
  radical for society to accept without taking some time. This is 
  one of the reasons Utopia’s S&T division exists, to help mini-
  mize “future shock” and ensure that new technologies and 
  ideas are introduced gradually. This often proves frustrating 
  to innovators who can’t wait for the rest of the world to catch 
  up to their visions.
  Mastermind Shadow-Wars
  Mega-Intelligent characters often have goals and plans 
  so complex and sweeping that only another Mega-Intelligent 
  nova is capable of understanding them, or stopping them, 
  for that matter. Some Mega-Intelligent novas, like Antaeus, 
  devote themselves to fairly solitary goals (in his case, pro-
  tecting and cleaning up the environment). Other novas, how-
  ever, have conflicting goals, or come into conflict for other 
  reasons. Novas (even the Mega-Intelligent) are not neces-
  sarily gifted with greater maturity or emotional stability, and 
  may suffer from petty rivalries, jealousy, anger, and the like 
  the same as baselines. Some novas may even conflict with 
  their peers simply because they enjoy the challenge, treated 
  the whole struggle like a complex game to keep their vast 
  intellect occupied.
  Whatever the reason, Mega-Intelligent novas can and 
  do come into conflict. When they do, it’s usually in the form 
  of a complex game of cat-and-mouse, move and counter-
  move, with the whole of the world as their game board, and 
  the rest of the people and institutions in it as the playing 
  pieces. Most people (baseline and nova alike) are completely 
  unaware that these novas are fighting their own “shadow 
  wars” behind the scenes, often for very high stakes indeed.
  Storytellers can use the shadow wars of the Mega-Intel-
  ligent as hooks to draw the characters into the conflict, either 
  as unwitting pawns of either side, or as outsiders who stum-
  ble onto something bigger than they imagined. Conspiracy 
  minded groups can go wild with multiple masterminds and 
  their various interlinked plots and schemes, mixed with the 
  existing conspiracies of the Aberrant world to create a cloak-
  and-dagger chronicle well suited for characters affiliated with 
  the Aberrants or the Directive, or loners out on their own.
  This sort of conflict is also a great basis for a chronicle 
  with only one or two players, creating an entirely different 
  sort of Aberrant game (see Solo and Duo Games).
  The Riddle of the Sphinxes
  Shadow wars already exist between Mega-Intelligent 
  novas, but some think they are inevitable. There’s a theory 
  that says not only do Mega-Intelligent novas tend to hatch 
  schemes and plots, they have to as part of their nature. 
  Part of intelligence is the ability to influence and 
  control your 
  surround-
  ings. We 
  humans 
  as a spe-
  cies do so 
  in numer-
  ous ways 
  w e ’ r e 
  scarcely 
  e v e n 
  aware of. 
  Our society 
  and tech-
  nology 
  h a v e 
  u n d e -
  n i a b l y 
  transformed 
  the 
  world 
  around us to 
  suit 
  our 
  needs.
  The theory says that 
  CHAPTER THREE: STORYTELLING
  
  ABERRANT
  novas can’t help but do the same, and their ability to con-
  trol the world around them is greater than ours by several 
  orders of magnitude. Mega-Intelligent novas can (and do) 
  treat the world like a giant chessboard, with them manip-
  ulating pieces that represent entire organizations, nations, 
  and cultures, and they do so without regard for the individ-
  ual people those “chess pieces” represent. Just like human 
  cultures throughout history have given no thought to enslav-
  ing or wiping out less-developed societies, so will these 
  “sphinxes” transform the world to suit their needs without 
  any concern for the human lives they alter in the doing. 
  Storytellers interested in more details on the sphinx theory 
  should consult “Strange Bedfellows” in Aberrant Worldwide 
  - Phase I.
  Certainly there’s some truth to the sphinx theory. Mega-
  Intelligent novas can manipulate people and events to a 
  great degree. The question is whether or not such manipula-
  tion and behind-the-scenes scheming is an inevitable part 
  of being Mega-Intelligent. This is left for the Storyteller to 
  decide. Adding the sphinxes to an Aberrant chronicle adds 
  a darker element of conspiracy and a certain inevitable nova/
  baseline conflict. It also brings the role of Mega-Intelligent 
  player characters into question. Which side (if any) will they 
  ally with, and will they become “players” in this worldwide 
  game of strategy and manipulation?
  Factions
  The various factions of the Aberrant world each have an 
  interest in the abilities and activities of masterminds, both as 
  resources and as potential threats. Mega-Mental characters 
  fit into each in their own way.
  Utopia
  Project Utopia’s relationship with Mega-Mental novas 
  (like its relationship with all novas, to a 
  degree) is both optimistic and cautious. 
  On the one hand, most of Utopia’s 
  greatest achievements can be directly 
  traced back to the work of Mega-Intel-
  ligent novas: the cleanup of the envi-
  ronment, new technologies, new ways 
  of doing things, and so forth. Although 
  the more flashy powers of novas like 
  Team Tomorrow are what show up on 
  the OpNet broadcasts, the work of bril-
  liant nova scientists created the foundation Utopia is built 
  upon.
  On the other hand, Project Utopia is still primarily an 
  organization run by baselines, and aimed at improving the 
  world for everyone, baseline and nova alike. That means that 
  not only is Utopia limited to moving at a speed baselines 
  can tolerate, but its agenda and its goals are set by baseline 
  managers and directors. The number of novas in the upper 
  echelons of Utopia’s management has increased very slowly 
  over the years.
  This has led to frustration on the part of some novas 
  working for Utopia. When their less-intelligent superiors have 
  asked them to carry out plans they clearly think are faulty, or 
  that are dictated by things like public relations, politics, or 
  anything other than logic or common sense (as defined by 
  the nova), they feel slighted. Some (like Antaeus) choose to 
  deal with it by leaving Utopia, although they never leave the 
  scrutiny of the organization or its S&T department behind. 
  Others try to work for change from within, or swallow their 
  objections and allow them to fester (possibly leading to stress 
  and the risk of accumulating Taint).
  Project Proteus
  The other risk Mega-Mental novas working for Utopia 
  encounter is the fact that they’re the most likely to discover 
  the existence of Project Proteus and take note of some of 
  the unusual things Utopia is doing. Mega-Perceptive novas 
  pick up on small clues others might miss. Mega-Intelligent 
  novas figure out the logical reasons for things like the “mys-
  tery” of nova sterility or the sudden deaths of certain novas, 
  while those with Mega-Wits tend to put together rumors and 
  things they’ve discovered and notice patterns that others 
  don’t. Plus they’re very difficult to lie to or deceive in the first 
  place.
  All of these things put Proteus in something of a bind. 
  Mega-Mental novas are essential to Project Utopia’s success 
  but they’re also the greatest threat to its existence. That 
  means Proteus must tread very carefully in dealing with them. 
  The Project does its very best to keep masterminds (both 
  inside and outside Utopia) ignorant of its existence and its 
  operations as much as possible. It actually encourages com-
  petition and conflict among masterminds as a means of 
  creating a “smokescreen” for its own activities. If nova mega-
  brains are busy playing their own power-struggles, they’re 
  not as likely to notice Proteus slipping between the cracks.
  In the event that a nova does learn of Proteus’ existence, 
  the Project has several ways of dealing with them. The first is 
  to simply lie low and see what the nova does. There are cer-
  tainly some Mega-Intelligent novas who know Proteus exists, 
  but have chosen to do nothing for reasons of their own. 
  In some cases because they feel the truth would damage 
  Utopia, and they don’t want that, in others because they 
  have their own plans for dealing with Proteus, but require 
  time to put them into motion (giving Proteus the opportunity 
  for counter-espionage, and another shadow-war begins).
  Some novas actually agree with Proteus’ goals, or at 
  least see the need to act ruthlessly in order to further Uto-
  pia’s agenda. They have no problem with treating the rest of 
  the world like game pieces because they do so already. They 
  may choose to leave Proteus alone, keeping an eye out for 
  trouble and preparing some contingency plans should Pro-
  32
  CHAPTER THREE: STORYTELLING
  
  ABERRANT
  teus prove a threat to them. Others actually join Proteus, and 
  the Project tries to recruit these novas, since their abilities are 
  a great asset.
  Those few remaining masterminds that are an immedi-
  ate threat to Proteus and its goals are usually targeted for 
  assassination, although that doesn’t always prove easy, and 
  sometimes creates an new enemy for Proteus to deal with.
  Aberrants
  Some of those novas turn to the Aber-
  rants. The ranks of the Aberrants include 
  a number of Mega-Mental novas who 
  figured out there something not quite 
  kosher going on inside Project Utopia. 
  Some chose to disappear after Slid-
  er’s death, figuring they might be 
  next, while others wanted the opportunity to do something 
  about the corruption within Utopia outside the system. A 
  number of the so-called “hidden” Aberrants still working for 
  Utopia also have Mega-Mental Attributes, allowing them to 
  take note of unusual happenings inside the Project and to 
  pass that information on to their colleagues without getting 
  caught.
  Unfortunately for the Aberrants, most of their master-
  mind members tend to be those who chaffed under Utopia’s 
  regulations to begin with, and have various radical ideas of 
  their own. The infamous Dr. Worm (Exposé: Aberrants, p. 
  19) is one example. Although undeniably brilliant, his phi-
  losophy and personality tend to put people off, and certainly 
  don’t engender sympathy for the Aberrants or their cause. 
  The masterminds of the Aberrants often lack to social skills 
  to get their message across (which is why leadership of the 
  group tends to fall to more social and dynamic novas). Of 
  course, a nova character who combined brains and charisma 
  might be able to change that.
  The Directive
  The Directive mistrusts novas, masterminds most of all. 
  The organization exists to check the power of novas that 
  can seriously alter the status quo, so the Directive would be 
  perfectly happy if the activities of Mega-Mental novas were 
  strictly regulated, happier still if they didn’t exist at all. But 
  the organization is somewhat split on how to deal with the 
  dangerous potential of nova brainpower.
  In general, the United States and England want to see 
  masterminds carefully controlled (although the Directive is 
  unaware the British nova Arthur Anningsley is actually doing 
  some of the controlling. See Aberrant Worldwide - Phase 
  II). Russian Director Illyanovich strongly distrusts masterminds 
  based on his experiences with Russian Minister Vladimir 
  Sierka. Illyanovich (and the rest of the Directive) knows that 
  Sierka practically runs the Russian Confederation, but hasn’t 
  yet found a way of limiting his power without harming Russia 
  in the process. The Japanese are all for harnessing the brain-
  power of novas for the common good, as shown by the suc-
  cess of their Saisho program, but even the Japanese are 
  threatened by the specter of novas operating on their own, 
  outside of government supervision and control.
  A Directive chronicle offers the opportunity to baseline 
  characters (and “stealth” novas) to pit themselves against 
  the schemes of various nova masterminds. See the 
  Directive sourcebook for details.
  Teragen
  It is among the Teragen where Mega-
  Mental novas can find the most freedom 
  to explore their abilities and their ideas, 
  but they may find themselves surrounded 
  by peers who don’t necessarily agree with 
  them, and may even find their ideas and abilities threaten-
  ing.
  Although the Teragen is ideally a gathering of equals 
  to explore their potential as novas, it’s often more like a dys-
  functional family unit, or a pantheon of squabbling gods. 
  Each member of the Teragen (particularly the aptly named 
  Pantheon) has his or her own agenda, and a nova master-
  mind is just one more among many. A Teragen chronicle 
  offers excellent opportunities for scheming and inter-group 
  conflict for Mega-Mental characters. See the Teragen source-
  book for more details and ideas.
  Elites
  Brainiacs among the biggest ass-kickers in the world, 
  why not? Most people tend to think of elites as combat spe-
  cialists, and that is often the case, but the mercenary attitude 
  can apply just as easily to intellectual pursuits, as compa-
  nies like Amanda Wu’s Novelty Consulting prove (see p. XX). 
  Mega-Mental novas have no lack of potential clients willing 
  to pay huge fees for their abilities, especially if they’re will-
  ing to overlook some of Utopia’s rules and regulations. Even 
  combat oriented elites are grateful for the work of eggheads 
  like Dr. Alinsky (p. 11), who come up with the fancy tech they 
  use in the field to get the job done.
  Running Mega-Mental 
  Games
  Unless you happen to be a Mega-Intelligent nova your-
  self (and trust us, you aren’t) some of the characters in your 
  campaign are considerably smarter than you are. Yet as the 
  Storyteller, you are expected to accurately portray these 
  masterminds, particularly adversaries. How do you do that? 
  Simple, you cheat.
  Storytellers by definition have a limited degree of omni-
  science where their chronicles are concerned. They know the 
  motivations and actions of all of the characters other than the 
  players’ in advance, and they know all of the exact abilities 
  33
  CHAPTER THREE: STORYTELLING
  
  ABERRANT
  of the players’ characters (and probably have a good idea 
  of the abilities and proclivities of the players as well). They 
  also know, to a limited degree, what their players will do 
  in a given situation. Here are some tricks for making Mega-
  Mental characters in your game as capable as they should 
  be:
  “Oh, I knew that.”
  Storytellers are usually encouraged to separate what 
  they know from what the characters they portray know. In the 
  case of Mega-Mental novas, the line is a little more blurred, 
  simply because they know a lot. So you’re entitled to give 
  those characters a little “privileged information” and, more 
  importantly, allow them to act upon it.
  A good chronicle should always have secrets, things that 
  the players (and their characters) don’t know. Mega-Mental 
  characters may know some of these secrets, and use them to 
  their advantage. For example, they make know about Project 
  Proteus or some parts of its agenda, information Utopia has 
  classified, scientific discoveries most people aren’t aware of 
  (and wouldn’t understand anyway), and so forth.
  “I have planned for every contin-
  gency!”
  Just because an action a player comes up with takes you 
  buy surprise, that doesn’t mean that a Mega-Mental charac-
  ter didn’t see it coming from a mile away. Secretly adjust 
  things behind the scenes so it seems as if the mastermind 
  expected the characters to do exactly what they did. Roll 
  some dice, shake your head sadly, and keep the Mega-Men-
  tal character one step ahead of the players’ characters the 
  whole way.
  For example, the novas run into trouble and decide to 
  seek out a friend to ask for help. Have the friend already 
  replaced by a shapeshifting ally of the mastermind, ready to 
  lead the novas into a trap or feed them misinformation. Have 
  the safe haven they go to already compromised, with a strike 
  team lying in wait for them. Give the antagonist defenses 
  prepared against all of the characters’ powers, even the ones 
  most people don’t know about, and always give the master-
  mind an escape route when he needs one.
  “This is what I had planned all 
  along.”
  No matter what happens, find some way that it fits into 
  the Mega-Mental antagonist’s plans and make it so that’s 
  what he planned to happen all along. So the characters have 
  smashed his plot to manipulate the stock market? Have it 
  turn out that their intervention was just what he expected. 
  The subtle shift in the market when it’s revealed feeds into 
  another plot that you can detail in a later story.
  Listen to the players. Odds are good they’ll speculate on 
  what they think the mastermind is up to. They may give you 
  ideas for even better plans than the one you had in mind, 
  and may point out possible holes in your current plan. Plus, 
  if someone guesses right, you can always change things on 
  the fly and give the antagonist a different plan altogether.
  “Did you really think I wouldn’t find 
  out?”
  Masterminds can take advantage of information other 
  characters just wouldn’t have. They can deduce a nova’s 
  secret phobia just by observing her behavior and learning a 
  little about her history. They can find out the deepest, dark-
  est secrets and turn them to their advantage. They know 
  things the players don’t expect them to know, as if they can 
  read minds or see the future (and some masterminds can do 
  that, too).
  Hey, Don’t Get Smart With Me!
  Of course, there are times when you shouldn’t give 
  Mega-Mental characters too much of an advantage over the 
  players. You’re “cheating” to make the masterminds a chal-
  lenge, not to ensure the players lose and rub their faces in it. 
  This is especially true when some of the players are running 
  Mega-Mental characters as well. In that case, you should 
  tone down the advantages of their mastermind adversaries 
  accordingly.
  Even when none of the player characters are mega-
  brains, you shouldn’t go overboard making the players feel 
  stupid. The goal is to make the players think in order to over-
  come their adversary, and make it difficult for them to deal 
  with masterminds using nothing but brute force. If you can 
  do that, then the game should be both challenging and fun.
  Storytelling Techniques
  Some particular types of games and storytelling tech-
  niques are well suited to Mega-Mental chronicles and sto-
  ries.
  Bluebooking
  “Bluebooking” is a term coined by author Aaron Allston 
  (in his Champions book Strike Force) to refer to roleplaying 
  conducted by writing, either in person (using a notebook) or, 
  more commonly, by e-mail. Bluebooking offers a number of 
  advantages that can improve a chronicle:
  • 
  Creative Freedom: Many players feel less con-
  strained in their roleplaying when they’re putting it down in 
  words rather than acting it out at the gaming table. Blue-
  books allow for more creative freedom, staging scenes that 
  might be uncomfortable or awkward to play out in person 
  (particularly romantic or highly emotional scenes). Bluebooks 
  also allow for more detailed descriptions and carefully chosen 
  prose than a spur-of-the-moment idea rattled off at the 
  table. 
  • 
  Character Knowledge: Using bluebooks (or pass-
  ing notes during a game) can cut down on the “parrot 
  34
  CHAPTER THREE: STORYTELLING
  
  ABERRANT
  syndrome,” where the Storyteller explains what a character 
  knows and the player parrots it back to the rest of the group 
  in-character. Information in a character’s bluebook can be 
  shared (or not) with the other characters as the player desires. 
  This particularly helps enhance the mood of conspiracy ori-
  ented chronicles. 
  • 
  Subplots: Bluebooks allow players to explore sub-
  plots for their characters that might otherwise detract from 
  the main plot during a game. They also allow players to 
  explore their characters’ personal lives “off-stage,” sharing 
  what they want with the other players. So when someone 
  from one of their sub-plots pops up in the regular game, the 
  player knows who it is, but the rest of the group may not. 
  • 
  Permanency: Bluebooks provide a permanent 
  record of character interaction and plotlines that the Story-
  teller and players can refer to later, when they need to know 
  exactly who said what to whom. They’re also fun to read 
  when you’re in the mood to reminisce about a particular 
  game. 
  Online Games
  Related to the idea of bluebooking is online chat or play-
  by-email (PBEM) games, which are well-suited to the more 
  cerebral style of Mega-Mental nova characters. These games 
  are played much like face-to-face (FTF or “live”) games, 
  except all of the participants communicate in an online chat-
  room or via e-mail. Online games tend to be slower-paced in 
  live games (PBEM games can take a week or more to handle 
  a scene, a month or more for a single story, depending on 
  the frequency of the turns). Online games offer the same 
  advantages as bluebooking, but tend to be less action- and 
  more story- and description-oriented (simply because com-
  plex action like combat tends to slow the game down). 
  They’re also an option for players having trouble finding an 
  Aberrant group to play with, or Aberrant Storytellers having 
  trouble finding players.
  E-mail and online play can also supplement a regular 
  FTF game, running subplots and various scenes in between 
  live games, particularly if the group can only get together to 
  play every so often and wants to keep the game going in the 
  between times.
  Solo and Duo Games
  Masterminds are often loners, and well suited for a game 
  where the Storyteller has only one or two players. A solo 
  game can obviously focus entirely on one main character, 
  much like many novels and other stories do. As a general 
  rule, solo characters need to be very competent on their 
  own, since they can’t rely on others to help them out. This 
  is rarely a problem in Aberrant, which characters have tre-
  mendous abilities, but the Storyteller may want to give a 
  solo character more nova points, depending on the desired 
  power level of the game (see the Aberrant Players Guide 
  for guidelines on high- and low-powered chronicles).
  A game with two players can either make their charac-
  ters partners or can make them rivals (possibly both, depend-
  ing on the circumstances). This is an excellent opportunity 
  to play out a shadow-war between two nova masterminds, 
  with the Storyteller as “referee” and go-between. This sort of 
  game works particularly well over e-mail, since the two play-
  ers don’t even come into contact with each other. The trick is 
  to make sure the game is handled fairly and the competition 
  doesn’t get out of hand outside the game (inside the game 
  is fine, and is likely to result in some interesting situations). 
  Storytellers can use the absentee rivalry between Amanda 
  Wu and Johnny Rose from this book (and the Aberrant Sto-
  ryteller’s Screen) as an example of this sort of chronicle. 
  35
  CHAPTER THREE: STORYTELLING
  
  36
  Chapter Four:
  Knowledge is Power
  Mega-Mental Attributes
  Most people in the world of 2015 associate novas with 
  their amazing physical abilities: lifting tanks, flying through 
  the air, firing bolts of energy from their hands, and so forth. 
  It’s a bit more difficult to define the enhanced mental abili-
  ties of novas. But those mental abilities have transformed 
  the world more than any other single power of novas. Quan-
  tum-enhanced intellects have advanced science and tech-
  nology farther than many people would have imagined and, 
  harnessed by Project Utopia’s programs, those scientific 
  advancements have made the world cleaner, healthier, and 
  richer. If you want to see the power of Mega-Mental Attri-
  butes, you don’t have to look any farther than the rolling 
  green fields of Ethiopia or the flying cars zipping overhead in 
  downtown New York City. While Mega-Mental Attributes are 
  subtler than most nova abilities, they have the potential for 
  the most lasting impact, and some of the greatest danger.
  Mental Muscle
  It’s often difficult to imagine exactly how much smarter, 
  more clever, more perceptive, etc. a nova with a Mega-Attri-
  bute is compared to a baseline with a similar base Attribute 
  score. A helpful way of looking at this is by using Mega-
  Strength (perhaps the most easily quantifiable Attribute) as 
  a basis for comparison. For example, a nova with three dots 
  of Mega-Strength can lift 25 tons compared to a baseline 
  with Strength 3, who can lift around 100 kilograms. Figure 
  that a nova with three dots in a Mega-Mental Attribute has 
  roughly the equivalent “mental muscle” as the nova with 
  Mega-Strength does in physical power and you can see just 
  how much more capable Mega-Mental novas are compared 
  to baselines.
  Prejudice and Mega-Mental 
  Attributes
  More than any other set of Mega-Attributes, the Mega-
  Mental Attributes - particularly Mega-Intelligence - provoke 
  feelings of mistrust and jealousy in baselines, and even other 
  novas. While most people admire the amazing physical abili-
  ties of novas and everyone loves novas with Mega-Social 
  Attributes, Mega-Mentals are different in ways that isolate 
  them from the rest of the world.
  First, Mega-Mental characters see the world differently. 
  They might do so literally, as in the case of those with Mega-
  Perception, or they might simply understand and react to 
  things differently. The world seem oblivious to things that 
  appear glaringly obvious to them. They can try and explain 
  what they perceive to others as best they can, but they can 
  really only share it with another Mega-Mental nova or “mas-
  termind” as they are sometimes known.
  Masterminds find themselves surrounded by people 
  who seem dull and slow. This leads to frustration and impa-
  tience on the part of many novas when dealing with others. 
  Imagine having to deal with morons all day long. Odds are 
  good you didn’t have to imagine real hard, but now multiply 
  that by many times to get a sense of the frustration a mas-
  termind feels. Little wonder they often seem cold, bitter, and 
  sarcastic to others.
  Then there’s the fact that novas really are more capable 
  than baselines, leading to a certain amount of arrogance on 
  the part of novas. While an inflated ego is a common prob-
  lem among novas, masterminds are even more prone to it - 
  partly to shore up their own sense of self-worth in the face of 
  social disdain. If they can’t feel successful in the social arena, 
  many Mega-Mentals decide they’ll at least feel successful in 
  their own field of endeavor.
  Of course, prejudice is not entirely caused by novas. 
  There’s more than a small amount of mistrust and jealousy 
  on the part of baselines, and even from novas without Mega-
  Mental Abilities, toward those who have them. On the one 
  hand, people admire masterminds - like all novas - for their 
  achievements. The discoveries of the mega-perceptive, the 
  inventions of the mega-intelligent, and the creations of the 
  mega-witty, are all lauded by society, so long as they’re 
  not too different or threatening. Corporations, governments, 
  and private organizations like Project Utopia eagerly seek 
  out masterminds for their special abilities. They can write 
  their own tickets, if they want.
  But admiration leads to certain expectations of Mega-
  Mental novas. The more wonders they achieve, the higher 
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  37
  the expectations on them become. Some wonder why, with 
  all their brainpower, masterminds haven’t done even more 
  for the world. Why can’t they solve the problem of cold 
  fusion, or unravel all the secrets of DNA, or discover exactly 
  how their own quantum powers work?
  Then there are those who fear that masterminds can do 
  all of those things and much more. Mega-Mental Attributes 
  can be quite imposing, even intimidating, and no one likes 
  to be made to feel stupid, dim, or clumsy, especially people 
  who normally consider themselves smart, clever, and witty. 
  That is until they meet up with a nova who blows them out of 
  the water, even unintentionally (and more than a few novas 
  enjoy deflating baseline egos on purpose).
  Mega-Mental Attributes inspire jealousy and breed dis-
  like and mistrust of novas among baselines. Who knows what 
  novas are really capable of? When all of the leading scien-
  tific researchers are novas, how can any baseline authority 
  understand, much less regulate, their activities? If novas are 
  really so clever, what do they need baseline humanity for, 
  except perhaps as unskilled labor, and may not even that, 
  once they invented some robots or genetically engineered 
  some chimps. Deep down, there’s a feeling in every baseline 
  confronted by the innate genius of novas. It’s like being a 
  Neanderthal, or maybe even an ape, confronted by a modern 
  man, a sense that they’re no longer at the top of the evolu-
  tionary ladder, and that their time as the dominant species 
  on Earth may be over.
  Mega-Mentals and Other 
  Mega-Attributes
  Of course, Mega-Mental Attributes don’t exist in a 
  vacuum. If they were the only abilities that novas had, they 
  would still be impressive, but novas also have an array of 
  other Mega-Attributes as well as their quantum powers, and 
  mastermind novas often have other abilities at their com-
  mand.
  Mega-Mental Attributes often appear together in a nova, 
  just like the Mega-Physical and Mega-Social Attributes do. 
  They compliment each other well, as we shall see later on, 
  but dots in multiple Mega-Mental Attributes also tend to 
  reinforce their problematic aspects as the nova becomes 
  more and more removed from the baseline point of view and 
  baseline limitations.
  Stereotypes to the contrary, Mega-Physical and Mega-
  Mental Attributes do appear together in novas. This is partic-
  ularly true in “stealth” novas who have a small measure of all 
  of the Mega-Attributes. Novas like Antaeus prove that brains 
  and brawn are not incompatible. Mega-Dexterity and Mega-
  Wits are an especially common combination, often among 
  novas with heightened speed who need the increased reac-
  tion time. Mega-Stamina allows masterminds to research, 
  study, and work for days on end without needing rest.
  Mega-Mental and Mega-Social Attributes can be an 
  even more devastating combination than brains and brawn. 
  Popular stereotypes have Mega-Mental novas as socially 
  inept “brains” and Mega-Social novas as beautiful airheads 
  (sometimes devious, but not usually very smart). Tremendous 
  social influence and the ability to apply it to the greatest 
  possible effect are a powerful combination that can make a 
  nova a force to be reckoned with on the world-stage. Many 
  governments and baseline authorities fear the implications 
   Heads I Win, Tails You Lose
  One of the important things to keep in mind about Mega-
  Attributes is their scale, in relation to each other and in relation 
  to baseline Attributes. Note that in any contest, the character 
  with the higher Mega-Attribute always wins. The only exception 
  is when a character with a lower Mega-Attribute competes with 
  another with a higher Mega-Attribute, in which case there’s a 
  small chance of victory, but even then, it’s slim (see Aberrant, p. 
  155 for details).
  This means when it comes to baselines competing with 
  novas there’s simply no chance for a baseline to win. A nova with 
  Mega-Perception is more observant than any human being ever. 
  A Mega-Intelligent nova is smarter than every human being who 
  ever lived, including paragons like Einstein. A nova with Mega-
  Wits is never caught off guard by baselines, and always has a 
  snappy comeback (or counter-attack, as the case may be) where 
  they are concerned. In every respect, the nova is superior, and 
  overwhelmingly so. This is also generally true of novas with 
  higher Mega-Attribute ratings; the lower-rated novas barely have 
  a chance.
  Note, however, that this rule of thumb applies only in mat-
  ters of direct competition between characters, not necessarily 
  achievement. It’s possible for baselines to develop new technolo-
  gies and ideas, discover new things, and create new expressions 
  of those ideas, in some cases just as well as novas do. The dif-
  ference is in the amount of time it takes. It’s entirely likely that 
  baselines would have invented the hyper-combustion engine, 
  eventually. Their abilities just allowed novas to do it sooner and 
  faster. That’s true of most achievements of Mega-Mental Attri-
  butes, they’re things that baselines might achieve, given enough 
  time and effort.
  Of course, now baseline society will never know if they 
  might have invented hyper-combustion or terraformed Ethiopia, 
  because novas have already done it. And the pace of nova 
  achievement shows no signs of slowing. The concern is that 
  novas will leave baselines eating their intellectual dust for the 
  foreseeable future, possibly forever. Baseline jealousy over nova 
  intellectual achievements is one of the many factors that leads 
  to the Aberrant War and one of the prime reasons that all of the 
  positive achievements of novas are systematically wiped out fol-
  lowing the war.
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  38
  of a nova with a combination of Mega-Mental and Social 
  Attributes. To some degree, their fears are justified (see The 
  Riddle of the Sphinxes).
  Mega-Mentals and Quantum Powers
  Mega-Mental Attributes also improve a nova’s aptitude 
  for certain quantum powers, particularly those involving the 
  sensing and shaping of matter and energy. Novas with Mental 
  Mega-Attributes can get more out of powers based on those 
  attributes, adding their Mega-Attribute dice to their dice 
  pools.
  • 
  Perception Powers: Animal/Plant Mastery, ESP, 
  Intuition, Magnetic Mastery (Magnetize), Premonition, Preter-
  cognition, Telepathy, Teleport, Warp. 
  • 
  Intelligence Powers: Cyberkinesis (Alter Data, 
  Reprogram), Disrupt, Elemental Animal (Enhance/Diminish), 
  Entropy Control (Breakdown), Hypnosis, Mental Blast, Molec-
  ular Manipulation (Molecular Alteration), Quantum Leech, 
  Weather Manipulation (Fog, Weather Alteration). 
  • 
  Wits Powers: Cyberkinesis (Overload), Elemental 
  Anima (Elemental Shield, Shaping), Elemental Mastery 
  (Imprison, Storm), Gravity Control (Gravitational Field), Invis-
  ibility, Magnetic Mastery (Magnetic Field), Matter Creation, 
  Molecular Manipulation (Shape Alteration), Strobe, Temporal 
  Manipulation (Accelerate Time). 
  Some quantum powers enhance the perceptions of 
  novas even further, and the ability to directly control matter 
  and energy allows nova scientists to test theories and designs 
  that baselines cannot (or, at least, not easily).
  Creating Mega-Mental 
  Characters
  So, you want to be the smartest kid on the block? There 
  are some things to take into consideration when creating 
  (and playing) a Mega-Mental character.
  The first thing to consider is your character concept. 
  What Mental Mega-Attributes does your character have, and 
  in what amounts? If you’re creating a character with the 
  default 30 nova points, then your nova isn’t going to have 
  five dots in every Mental Mega-Attribute. But you can buy 
  as many as five dots in one of them (for 15 NPs), if you’re 
  willing to buy your Quantum up to four and your base Attri-
  bute up to five. This creates a very focused character who’s 
  extremely good in a particular area, but may leave gaps in 
  your character’s abilities. You should consult with your Story-
  teller in advance to find out what sort of chronicle the char-
  acter will be involved with, so you can tailor the abilities to 
  match. A mastermind character can fit into an elites game 
  just fine, for example (see Dr. Rachel Alinksy in Elites), but 
  you have to consider her role in the chronicle.
  Then consider what your nova does with her Mental 
  Mega-Attributes. Does she use Mega-Perception as an inves-
  tigator, a researcher, an observer, a spy, or something else? 
  Does your nova use Mega-Intelligence to excel in a scientific 
  field, as an administrator, an inventor, a doctor, a thief (or a 
  “freelance security specialist”), or something else? Do you 
  want Mega-Wits so your nova can be a brilliant artist, clever 
  stand-up comic, businessman, or kick-ass fighter (or some 
  combination of all of the above)? Something to consider if 
  Mega-Mental Attributes are part of your character concept is 
  that many of their applications are indirect; there’s a tempta-
  tion for Mega-Mental characters to sit around and think all 
  day instead of getting out and doing anything (see the Sto-
  rytelling section for more on this problem).
  How have the character’s Mega-Attributes affected his 
  life as a nova? Have they done so already or are they only 
  beginning to cause changes in his life? As the material in 
  this chapter shows, Mega-Mental Attributes can significantly 
  affect the way a nova looks at the world and how the world 
  looks at him, consider these effects on the character and his 
  choices. Maybe he decided to sign on with Utopia because 
  they offered the opportunity to apply his Mega-Intelligence 
  in the least-restrictive environment. Perhaps he joined the 
  Teragen in order to be in the company of fellow novas rather 
  than surrounded by gibbering monkeys all the time.
  Playing Mega-Mental 
  Characters
  Mastermind characters offer some particular opportu-
  nities and challenges in play. The Mega-Mental Attributes 
  often require a certain amount of forethought, planning, and 
  inventiveness to use well. Their applications are less direct 
  than the other Mega-Attributes, and they also require more 
  input and assistance from the Storyteller.
  Advantages
  The advantages in playing a mastermind character come 
  mainly from having greater insight into the world around you, 
  and what you can do with those insights.
  More Information: Masterminds have the potential to 
  know more than any other characters. Not just the Mega-
  Intelligent ones, either. Mega-Perceptive novas are more 
  likely to notice things that others miss, while Mega-Wits pro-
  vide you with the ability to pick up on details and small things 
  while everyone else is paying attention to the big picture (or 
  vice versa). In any given situation, a nova mastermind is more 
  likely to know what’s going on, understand things, and be 
  able to put that information to use.
  There are two ways the Storyteller can implement your 
  nova’s greater knowledge: allowing you to make Ability rolls 
  (improved by your Mega-Attributes and enhancements), to 
  find out certain things, and just telling you things that other 
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  characters wouldn’t necessarily know or pick up on. Keep in 
  mind that just because you don’t know or understand some-
  thing doesn’t mean that your character doesn’t! Feel free to 
  ask the Storyteller if you can make an Ability roll to get more 
  information whenever you feel that you need it.
  Battles of Wits: If you like intellectual puzzles, piecing 
  together clues, and figuring things out in the game, then a 
  mastermind character will suit you well, since those are the 
  sort of challenges the Storyteller should be throwing your 
  way. With Mega-Mental Attributes on your side, you should 
  be very good at it, too! Masterminds have the advantage 
  of being able to out-think and out-maneuver most other 
  people, given the opportunity. If you feel that your master-
  mind character is getting short shrift in this area, take a look 
  at My Character is Smarter than Me! on p. 48 and speak 
  with your Storyteller about it.
  Careful Planning: Putting Mega-Mental Attributes to 
  the best use calls for careful planning and forethought. If you 
  like that sort of thing, then a mastermind character is a good 
  one for you. On the other hand, if you’re not a fan of advance 
  planning, a mastermind is still a good choice, provided you 
  can get your Storyteller to agree to some ground rules. From 
  time to time you should be able to turn to the Storyteller and 
  say, “Would I know that?” or “Would I have thought of that 
  beforehand? I am Mega-Intelligent (Perceptive, Witty, etc.) 
  after all.” This shouldn’t be a “get out of trouble free” card, 
  nor should you be able to play it all the time, but it is a fair 
  way of simulating a mastermind character without requiring 
  you to do all the “homework” for it. Talk with your Storyteller 
  about how you’re going to handle such uses of Mega-Mental 
  Attributes in your game.
  Acting First: One of the advantages of having all the 
  facts is that you often get to be the first to act upon them. 
  Whether its knowing there’s a danger none of the other char-
  acters can sense, piecing together a puzzle no one else can 
  figure out, or just having greater reaction time than anyone 
  else, mastermind characters often get to take the initiative 
  and be at the forefront of things. If you like having the chance 
  to be the first to take action, then a mastermind character 
  is a good choice. Of course, it may be a bad idea to hog 
  all of the action, so you’ll probably want to clue the slower 
  characters in once in a while (see Private Agendas, below).
  Disadvantages
  While there are plenty of advantages to Mental Mega-
  Attributes, there are some drawbacks as well, notably the fact 
  that masterminds may be among the most difficult charac-
  ters to portray, because of their unique abilities. Fortunately, 
  there are ways of dealing with most of the challenges of play-
  ing a Mega-Mental nova.
  The Parrot Syndrome: One of the things you’re likely 
  to find most annoying playing a mastermind is “the Parrot 
  Syndrome.” This is when you ask the Storyteller a question 
  or make a roll to find out if your character knows something. 
  The Storyteller tells you what your character knows or finds 
  out, then you turn to the rest of the players and “parrot 
  back” what the Storyteller told you in character, perhaps with 
  a few slight modifications. This has a couple of drawbacks to 
  it. First, it doesn’t make your character sound all that smart 
  or insightful, since you’re only repeating back what the Sto-
  ryteller said. Second, it makes it more difficult for you to add 
  your own spin or interpretation to the information, or even to 
  withhold some information, since the other players already 
  heard the Storyteller tell you what your character knew. Deal-
  ing with both problems is a matter of cooperating with the 
  Storyteller.
  The Storyteller may come up with ways to communicate 
  information to you without having to tell you out loud. Pass-
  ing notes or using “bluebooks” (p. 34) is one way of doing 
  this. Storytellers may want to create some “clue cards” in 
  advance of the game, with things characters can find out 
  through investigation or the use of their other abilities written 
  on them. When characters find out things, cards get passed 
  to the players to read, allowing the information to come from 
  them directly, and allowing the players to put their own spin 
  on the information, or even withhold some of it.
  Some information can be given to players of master-
  mind characters in advance of the game, in person, with a 
  prepared handout, or via e-mail. For example, the Storyteller 
  can say “when you investigate the body and I nod to you, 
  point out how it’s clear to you that the murderer must have 
  used an exotic tree-frog venom native to South America, the 
  details are all on this card.” Storytellers naturally have to be 
  careful not to give too much away in advance, but allowing 
  mastermind characters a “peak behind the curtain” is a nice 
  perk and makes them easier to play.
  Finally, gaming groups with a particularly good rapport 
  and play-style may allow mastermind characters to occasion-
  ally “ad lib” information. In essence, the player simply makes 
  up what his character knows and the Storyteller tries to work 
  it into the overall plot of the game. So, in the previous exam-
  ple, the Storyteller would just describe the murder scene to 
  the players. Then the player of the mastermind character 
  says, “hmmm, look at this discoloration of the lips and the 
  skin around the eyes, clearly the work of the venom of the 
  rare Brazilian spotted tree frog.”
  The player has no way of knowing what the Storyteller 
  has planned, so this works best when used sparingly, and 
  only when the Storyteller is comfortable improvising things 
  to make them fit the story. As a general rule of thumb, limit 
  characters to doing this sort of thing no more than once per 
  game per dot of Mega-Attribute. Don’t allow them to change 
  any existing facts (although they can rationalize things to 
  make the facts fit their new theory), and give the Storyteller 
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  40
  the right to veto any idea that will completely derail the 
  story. In the previous case, the Storyteller might have said 
  “Taking a second look, you notice that the symptoms are 
  very similar to tree frog poisoning, but there’s also evidence 
  of some sort of pathogen.”
  Fragile Eggheads: There’s a tendency for mastermind 
  characters to not be very tough, or not to have much in the 
  way of combat abilities. This can not only make the player 
  feel left out when there’s a fight; in the dangerous world of 
  Aberrant it can also result in the rather messy death of a 
  mastermind character when a nova capable of picking up 
  buildings punches him in the brain.
  Unless the Storyteller is running a strictly intellectual and 
  combat-light game, you should give some thought to your 
  character’s offensive and defensive abilities. There’s abso-
  lutely nothing wrong with the character’s offensive ability 
  being “a biting comment” and his defensive ability being 
  “knowing when to run and hide,” so long as you and the 
  Storyteller are comfortable with that. Otherwise, you should 
  look into something a bit more substantial.
  Defensive ability is most important, since it protects the 
  character’s life. This doesn’t have to be sheer Soak value. It 
  could be tremendous dodging ability (particularly appropri-
  ate for masterminds able to see attacks coming from a mile 
  away). Density decrease is a great defensive ability, particu-
  larly if you’re not concerned about being able to attack or 
  you have mental powers of some kind. Teleportation and 
  Hypermovement are also very useful abilities for getting out 
  of harm’s way.
  For offensive abilities, you have a wide choice avail-
  able, and there’s nothing that says a mastermind can’t pack a 
  powerful Quantum Bolt or some Mega-Strength. Less offen-
  sive powers can be very useful in combat when backed by a 
  little cleverness as well, particularly the ability to manipulate 
  matter and energy that often shows up among masterminds. 
  Give some thought to clever ways your character can use her 
  other powers in combat situations.
  Finally, masterminds lacking in offensive or defensive 
  capabilities can always invent some. Take a look at the gad-
  geteering and inventing rules in this book and have your 
  character whip up some armor, a force field harness, or a 
  mega-blaster cannon to help deal with those tricky situa-
  tions.
  Private Agendas: When you’ve got some inside infor-
  mation, there’s often a temptation to play your cards close to 
  your chest, waiting for the ideal moment to use that informa-
  tion to your advantage. There’s even a temptation to lord it 
  over the other players, with an “I know something you don’t 
  know” attitude. Sometimes mystery and personal agendas 
  can spice up a chronicle and keep everyone interested, but 
  other times it can bring things to a grinding halt and create 
  feelings of ill will among the players. When using the vari-
  ous methods of avoiding the Parrot Syndrome (above), don’t 
  forget to clue in the other players about what your character 
  knows rather than keeping it all to yourself. Aberrant is gen-
  erally a team-oriented game, so try and make your character 
  a team player.
  There’s also a tendency for mastermind characters to 
  get caught up in their own struggles and shadow-games with 
  NPCs or even with other player characters. Unless this is the 
  sort of chronicle the Storyteller is running and all of the play-
  ers are agreed upon it, it’s best to keep the shadow-war stuff 
  “off screen” and handle it via blue-booking or e-mail (see 
  the Storytelling chapter for details). Don’t get caught up in 
  your character’s private agenda at the expense of everyone 
  else’s enjoyment.
  Information Overload: There is such a thing as too much 
  information. Some players find that having more information 
  doesn’t help them but hinders them, making them indeci-
  sive and hesitant. There’s also a temptation for investiga-
  tions to go on forever, or for mastermind players to spend all 
  their time in private blue-book session with the Storyteller, 
  exchanging notes and secretly uncovering things. Again, it’s 
  best to keep that sort of stuff “off screen” and handle it out-
  side the game, keeping game-time for action, and encourag-
  ing the players to do things. Take a look at the Storytelling 
  chapter for ways to encourage mastermind characters to get 
  into the thick of things when they start to become too iso-
  lated or hesitant.
  Taint and Mental Mega-Attributes
  All novas face the hazards of gradually accumulating 
  Taint and suffering the effects of excess quantum energies 
  on body and mind. Novas with Mega-Intelligence and the 
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  Taint Resistance enhancement are actually more resistant to 
  Taint than most. The modifications that Mega-Intelligence 
  cause in the brain can allow it to adapt to the growth of the 
  M-R node, preventing changes in behavior due to pressure 
  of the brain’s forward lobes. The Taint Resistance enhance-
  ment also allows Mega-Intelligent novas to more easily over-
  come the effects of mental aberrations.
  That’s a good thing, too, because mental aberrations 
  are just the sort that novas with Mental Mega-Attributes are 
  prone to developing. Such aberrations are subtle and dif-
  ficult to detect at first. Most people undergo some change 
  in their personality when they become novas; it’s difficult to 
  acquire that kind of power and go completely unchanged. 
  So additional changes in personality often go unnoticed, at 
  least at first, and baseline society tends to give novas a wide 
  degree of latitude when it comes to their personal quirks. As 
  the aberrations increase they become more and more obvi-
  ous, but novas sometimes rationalize them or find reasons 
  to hide them from others; even the most Mega-Intelligent 
  aren’t immune to self-deception.
  Mega-Mental novas can develop physical aberrations, 
  too, usually ones related to their enhanced mental faculties or 
  the importance of their mind in their self-image. Physical aber-
  rations involving the sensory organs are the most common 
  with Mega-Perception, while Mega-Intelligent novas tend to 
  develop physical aberrations involving the head, particularly 
  the cranium and brain. Aberrations of the nervous system 
  are the most common for Mega-Wits novas, with changes in 
  their neurochemistry and nerve structure.
  It’s also worth noting that many “mental” aberrations 
  have physical root causes. One significant cause of mental 
  aberrations is the growth of the M-R node, putting pressure 
  on the frontal lobes of the nova’s brain, and even reshaping 
  the gray matter to some degree. The node’s quantum emis-
  sions can also have a direct effect on neural tissue, creating 
  mutations and reshaping it to reflect the nova’s abilities and 
  subconscious impulses. Such changes in brain structure can 
  result in very different outlooks and perceptions for novas.
  Mega-Perception: Watchers
  The world is full of sensations, and the watchers, novas 
  with Mega-Perception, are aware of them all. Mega-Per-
  ception opens up the mind to the full range of sensory 
  impressions out there, opens up the nova to a whole new 
  world of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and more. To those 
  with Mega-Perception the world seems at once larger and 
  smaller, filled with an array of sensations, but ultimately 
  quite simple, once you learn to look at it the right way.
  Keen Observations
  At its most basic level, Mega-Perception enhances both 
  the sensory organs and, particularly, the parts of the brain 
  concerned with sensory input and processing. Most people 
  can train to improve their senses and their awareness of 
  what they sense, novas with Mega-Perception gain that abil-
  ity without any need to practice and study. The range of a 
  watcher’s senses isn’t necessarily greater than that of a base-
  line, but they are better able to notice fine details and gra-
  dations. Mega-Perceptive novas can tell very similar shades 
  of color apart and distinguish different tones. The sense 
  of sight and hearing remain the strongest, just as they are 
  for baselines, but the nova’s overall sensory abilities are 
  improved.
  Some novas have modifications of their sensory organs, 
  making them particularly acute, even able to detect stimuli 
  beyond the normal human range. This is most common 
  with the weakest human senses, particularly smell and taste 
  (which are closely related). Novas can develop a sense of 
  smell as keen or better than a bloodhound, allowing them to 
  distinguish individual people by their scent alone, and deter-
  mine the ingredients in food simply by tasting it. Backed up 
  by a human (or greater) intellect, these sharpened senses 
  can pick out chemicals, poisons, drugs, and similar things. 
  One nova helped apprehend a drug dealer at an airport 
  simply because he scented spike on the man as he was pass-
  ing by (the police didn’t bother asking the nova how he 
  knew what spike smelled like). Similar modifications to the 
  skin and nerve endings there can give a nova extraordinarily 
  sensitive touch which can, among other things, read type by 
  feeling the impressions of ink on a printed page.
  At the uppermost level, some novas develop the ability 
  to perceive things beyond the ability of any human sense. 
  Scientists have various theories about how this is accom-
  plished, but haven’t definitely discovered how novas are 
  able to sense things in defiance of many of the laws of phys-
  ics. For example, some novas are able to “see” wavelengths 
  of the electromagnetic spectrum that are simply far too 
  long for human eyes to perceive. The nova’s eyes would 
  have to be the size of satellite dishes (or, in some cases, 
  radio telescopes) in order to perceive such wavelengths, but 
  novas can and do perceive them. Likewise, some novas can 
  directly perceive “quantum” phenomena, seeing things on 
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  42
  the microscopic (or even smaller) scale.
  The so-called “metasensory” powers (like ESP and 
  Telepathy) are closely related to Mega-Perception, and seem 
  to partake of the same mechanism as other nova senses that 
  don’t obey ordinary physical laws. It’s a mystery how novas 
  can perceive events happening great distances away in defi-
  ance of the speed of light, much less how they can read (and 
  even influence) the thoughts of others.
  The insights provided by Mega-Perception have made 
  novas trailblazers in scientific research of all kinds, since they 
  are capable of more precise and accurate observations than 
  even the most sensitive scientific instruments. Watchers find 
  work in scientific fields from chemistry and biology to astron-
  omy and physics.
  Mega-Perception also has applications in the world of 
  art, with nova artists capable of recognizing fine gradations 
  of hues, tones, and other sensory input beyond human abil-
  ity. There are nova painters able to precisely match colors 
  and brushstrokes by sight alone and nova musicians able 
  to write down an entire musical score after hearing it only 
  once. Some nova artists have even begun to experiment 
  with mediums and works of interest solely to novas. The 
  “ultra-soprano” work of Alejandra is one example, involving 
  some notes in the ultra-sonic range, only audible to listeners 
  with enhanced hearing, as is artwork designed for viewers 
  able to perceive both infrared and ultraviolet light.
  Naturally Mega-Perception is of use in any field involv-
  ing observation and gathering information, which includes 
  surveillance and espionage. Watchers are in demand for 
  things like detective work, covert surveillance, and the like.
  Mega-Perception and the Universal 
  Hologram
  One commonly accepted explanation for the sensory 
  abilities of novas (and, to a degree, their other powers) is 
  the “holographic” theory of reality. It states that the physical 
  universe is much like a hologram, a three-dimensional image 
  of light, except far more complex. This hologram arises out 
  of the interaction of quantum forces and, like a regular holo-
  gram, is holistic in that each part of it is intimately connected 
  with (and contains) ever other part.
  In essence, the universe is a much simpler, intercon-
  nected structure than it appears, and consciousness is very 
  much a part of this structure. It may be that consciousness 
  (intelligence, awareness, call it what you will) has the ability 
  to perceive “beneath” the surface of reality as we under-
  stand it, recognizing things like distance and time as illusions 
  and able to sense beyond them.
  Thus novas can sense distant events and the information 
  received and transmitted by their quantum powers seems to 
  defy limitations like the speed of light. If the quantum holo-
  gram of the universe is influenced by consciousness, then 
  nova powers may simply be a matter of sending informa-
  tion in the same way they receive it, changing the nature 
  of the universe like re-arranging pixels on a display screen. 
  Theoretically, this means that there is nothing a nova can’t 
  accomplish, given enough time, energy, and insight into the 
  structure of reality, an idea that keeps many physicists and 
  parabiologists up quite late in the Nova Age.
  Roleplaying Mega-Perception
  Imagine being able to notice things other people 
  couldn’t. You could be like Sherlock Holmes (or Batman, 
  or any other great detective), able to dazzle everyone with 
  your displays of insight into things that seem so obvious to 
  you. Now imagine having to explain things like Holmes all 
  the time to people who just seem oblivious to what’s going 
  on around them. Now you have a pretty good idea of the 
  upside and the downside of Mega-Perception.
  Mega-Perceptive novas often point out what they can 
  sense to less perceptive people (see the Drawbacks sec-
  tion above for some ideas on how to do this in-game). They 
  tend toward offering their opinion on just about everything, 
  because things seem so clear to them. They’re also prone 
  to mentioning things other people can’t detect quite casu-
  ally. (“How did I know that he played guitar? The calluses on 
  his fingers were quite distinctive, of course.”) This particular 
  habit can get as annoying as you let it.
  Watchers tend to either revel in the world of sensation 
  or seek refuge from it (sometimes going from on to the other, 
  depending on their mood). The world can be overwhelming 
  sometimes for novas with Mega-Perception, causing them 
  to seek out peace, quiet, and isolation so they can enjoy 
  simple and subtle sensations rather than the cacophony that 
  bombards them all the time.
  There is also a tendency among the Mega-Perceptive to 
  spend all of their time observing things and very little actu-
  ally doing anything. They become too caught up in the sen-
  sations around them, giving them a distracted look. Some 
  watchers become voyeurs, caught up in the ability to spy 
  and eavesdrop on others without their knowledge; the fact 
  that Smart Alex from Teen Tomorrow has x-ray vision isn’t 
  widely known to the public, but every woman working for 
  Project Utopia finds out about it sooner or later.
  Mega-Perception and the Law
  Mega-Perception raises some significant issues of pri-
  vacy or personal responsibility in the Nova Age. Some novas 
  are capable of spying on virtually anyone they want, and the 
  fact that they notice things other people can’t may make 
  novas more responsible (at least legally speaking) than base-
  lines.
  In general, it’s extremely hard to prove charges of voy-
  eurism or stalking against a watcher. Indeed, a baseline could 
  be watched by a nova and never even know it, and it’s that 
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  ABERRANT
  idea, more than anything else, that disturbs them. The truth 
  of the matter is most novas have better things to do than 
  eavesdrop on the people around them, but some novas do 
  from time to time, and for a few it becomes a hobby, then an 
  obsession. Various crackpot schemes offer ways of blocking 
  “nova peepers” using everything from lead foil to complex 
  electromagnets, but most of them are just ways of bilking 
  people out of their money.
  It’s fairly solid precedent in 2015 that evidence obtained 
  by novas using their unique perceptions is admissible in 
  court, so long as it was not obtained illegally. However, con-
  victions are rare based solely on nova “eyewitness” testi-
  mony, particularly when it involves metasensory abilities. A 
  nova may have seen someone commit a crime through a 
  solid wall, but if there are no other witnesses or corrobo-
  rating evidence, it’s a matter of the nova’s word versus the 
  defendant’s. The same is true when a nova reads someone’s 
  mind to find out if they are guilty or not.
  This leads to legal issues of how responsible a nova is 
  to act when he or she senses a danger or a crime in prog-
  ress. If a nova happens to read the mind of someone on the 
  street and discovers he’s planning on shooting up his work-
  place, or scents homemade explosives from the back of a 
  truck parked on the street, what should he do? Ideally, the 
  matter should be reported to police, but there is a debate 
  about applying “Good Samaritan” laws to novas, requiring 
  them to take action in these cases, if it is within their abilities, 
  and possibly leaving them open to criminal and civil pros-
  ecution if they fail to do so.
  New Mega-Perception 
  Enhancements
  Body Awareness
  Everyone is aware of their body to some degree, but 
  novas can be aware of their own physical condition with 
  a precision greater than a battery of sophisticated medical 
  tests. A character with this enhancement is aware of any 
  changes in his physical condition, regardless of the source.
  System: A nova with Body Awareness instinctively knows 
  everything about his body’s physical condition: heart rate, 
  respiration, blood-sugar level, and so forth. He also imme-
  diately knows when any foreign substance (from drugs and 
  alcohol to viruses and bacteria) enters his body and how his 
  system is reacting to it. He can sense the development of any 
  illness or physical imbalance even before symptoms manifest 
  themselves, down to alterations in his genetics due to radia-
  tion, nova powers, or some other source (such as Project 
  Proteus’ sterilization treatment). With a successful Medicine 
  roll, the nova can identify the exact condition or foreign sub-
  stance (if he’s already familiar with it). The character always 
  knows his exact Health Level (and how much more damage 
  he can suffer) and his exact level of Temporary and Perma-
  nent Taint.
  This enhancement is always on and costs no quantum 
  points to use.
  Holographic Awareness
  Scientists speculate that the structure of space-time is 
  like a hologram, a three-dimensional image created by the 
  quantum interference patterns of the implicate order. Novas 
  with this enhancement sense the universe around them in 
  this manner, aware of all of the dimensions of space-time, 
  with an intuitive sense of direction, distance, dimension, and 
  time.
  System: The nova can determine an object’s exact spa-
  tial dimensions with an Awareness roll, as well as knowing 
  the exact distance between any two points she can see, and 
  the exact speed at which any object is moving, relative to her 
  position. The nova always knows were magnetic north is and 
  is capable of moving through any place that is familiar to her 
  without relying on her senses, including the ability to retrace 
  her steps through any place she’s been. The nova also knows 
  exactly how much time has passed between events she has 
  experienced (even if she was unconscious or sleeping during 
  part of that time) and can time things as if she possessed 
  an accurate stopwatch (similar to the Temporal Manipulation 
  technique Internal Clock, Aberrant, p. 226).
  Note that this enhancement only affects things the nova 
  can sense or once sensed (assuming conditions haven’t 
  changed). While she could make her way through a familiar 
  place blindfolded, she doesn’t get the benefit of the Blind-
  fighting enhancement, since by definition she can’t see her 
  opponent and the conditions change too rapidly.
  This enhancement is always on and costs no quantum 
  points to use.
  Psychic Awareness
  The so-called “psychic” or “metasensory” abilities of 
  novas still remain a mystery to modern science in terms of 
  exactly how they operate. Scientists speculate about quan-
  tum interaction with the brain’s neural electricity or even 
  neural chemistry on the quantum level, while some believe 
  psychic powers point to ties between consciousness and 
  quantum reality. Whatever the case, some novas are gifted 
  with the ability to sense psychic abilities used on them or in 
  their immediate area.
  System: The nova automatically senses any psychic 
  power used against him or in his presence (that is, any quan-
  tum power affected by Psychic Shield, Aberrant, p. 215). 
  The nova can “see” the waves of quantum energy flowing 
  between the nova and the subject. If the nova with Psychic 
  Awareness is the target of a psychic power, he can make an 
  Awareness roll to sense the identity of the attacker, opposed 
  by the attackers Wits + Power Rating.
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  If the attacker is using Telepathy with the Surreptitious 
  extra, the nova gets a chance to sense the mental intrusion: 
  roll Awareness vs. the telepath’s Wits + Telepathy. If the nova 
  wins, he senses the attempt, whether it is successful or not. 
  The nova can only detect Surreptitious Telepathy when he is 
  the subject. If he detects it, he can make another roll to try 
  and determine the identity of the telepath, as above.
  This enhancement is always on and costs no quantum 
  points to use.
  Note that this enhancement does not allow a nova to 
  detect the use of psionic powers or psiads, only “psychic” 
  quantum powers (see the Aberrant Players Guide, p. 58, 
  for further information on psiads and their abilities).
  Sensory Editing
  We’ve all sometimes wished for the ability to block out 
  the world, or just some particularly unpleasant or annoying 
  sight, sound, or sensation. Sometimes we manage to only 
  see or hear what we want to, but not to the level that novas 
  are capable of. A nova with this enhancement can literally 
  “edit out” sensory input she doesn’t want to perceive, for as 
  long as she wants.
  System: The nova has the ability to selectively “filter 
  out” any sensory input she wants. The nova selects the input 
  and poof! She’s no longer aware of it. This allows the nova 
  to do things like adjust to bright light without sunglasses, 
  eliminate background noise to focus on a particular sound, 
  ignore a nauseating odor or flavor, and become completely 
  immune to being tickled.
  The nova can also ignore sensations of pain, overcom-
  ing any dice pool modifiers due to injuries and gaining tre-
  mendous resistance to physical torture (consider the nova 
  to have automatic successes equal to her Mega-Perception 
  for Resistance rolls). If she chooses, the nova can “dampen 
  down” a sensation to a lower level rather than eliminating it 
  altogether: dropping background noise to a dull whisper or 
  blinding light to a faint glow.
  Note this ability only affects sensations that the nova 
  is aware of, it takes a moment for the nova to consciously 
  edit out the sensory input. So this enhancement is useless 
  against sudden or unexpected sensory input. For that ability, 
  see the Sensory Shield power (Aberrant, p. 220).
  Sensory Editing requires no roll and costs a quantum 
  point to activate for an entire scene (with as many edits as 
  the nova desires). The nova can restore any and all of her 
  normal sensory input at will.
  Synesthesia
  Have you ever heard colors or seen tastes? Some novas 
  can, and without the use of recreational drugs. Synesthesia 
  is the ability to “reroute” sensory input the nova feels, swap-
  ping his senses in any way that he desires. In addition to the 
  aesthetics of being able to know what the color blue tastes 
  like or see the shape and hues of a Brahms symphony, it 
  also allows the nova to better understand what he senses by 
  filtering it through different perceptions. The nova can also 
  use one sense to make up for a lack in another, when neces-
  sary.
  System: The nova can re-allocate his sensory input at 
  will. This has two primary game effects. First, the nova can 
  compare and contrast sensory impressions about a particular 
  subject. This allows the nova to make an Awareness roll and 
  apply the successes as bonus dice for an Investigation roll 
  involving the subject or another ability roll where detailed 
  information about the subject is useful (in the Storyteller’s 
  judgment).
  Second, the nova can use one sense to make up for 
  the loss or deficiency of another. For example, he can “feel” 
  colors, allowing him to read printed material by touch, 
  or “see” sounds, allowing him to differentiate between a 
  jumble of different noises. The Storyteller is the final judge 
  of any particular use of the enhancement, but it should allow 
  the nova to overcome many sensory limitations.
  Synesthesia requires no roll and costs a quantum point 
  to activate for an entire scene (with as many sensory shifts 
  as the nova desires). The nova can restore any and all of his 
  normal sensory input at will.
  New Mega-Perception 
  Aberrations
  Aberrations involving Mega-Perception usually result 
  from the effects of the nova’s extremely heightened senses: 
  either an inability to control sensory input, resulting in over-
  load, or physical mutations linked to the nova’s enhanced 
  abilities. Generally speaking, the aberrations listed here are 
  limited to novas with at least one dot in Mega-Perception.
  Common aberrations from Aberrant and the Aberrant 
  Players Guide for Mega-Perceptive novas include Aberrant 
  Eyes (see below), Delusions, Disturbing Voice, Flashbacks, 
  Masochism, Second Self, Sensitive, Sensory Dysfunction, 
  Uncontrollable Power, and Vulnerability (Strobe attacks).
  Low-Level Aberrations (Taint 4-5)
  • 
  Aberrant Eyes (Ears/Nose/Skin/Tongue): Novas 
  with Mega-Perception often develop physical mutation of 
  one or more of their sensory organs. Their eyes may glow 
  softly, reflect light, acquire vertical pupils like a cat’s, and so 
  forth. Their ears may become pointed, stunted, or acquire 
  an odd shape. Their nose may become enlarged, flattened, 
  ridged, or acquire additional nostrils. Their skin may change 
  color (equivalent to the Colored Skin aberration), texture, 
  become covered in fine hairs (for improved sense of touch), 
  or become almost translucent. The tongue may elongate, 
  become forked like a snake’s (common with improved smell 
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  ABERRANT
  or taste), acquire an unusual texture or color, and so forth. 
  Each significant alteration in a sensory organ is considered a 
  separate aberration. 
  • 
  Eye of the Beholder: Mega-Perception changes 
  the way you look at the world around you. Most novas 
  manage to hold on to at least an understanding of the way 
  baselines perceive things, but some don’t. Open to a new 
  world of sensations and perceptions, the nova sees beauty 
  in ugliness, and often dismisses what baselines consider 
  beautiful. A sunset looks quite different to someone able 
  to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and gold can 
  be admired for the simplicity and symmetry of its molecular 
  structure as well as it’s color and luster. Novas with this aber-
  ration have difficulty relating their perceptions to those who 
  don’t share them, and typically feel isolated because of it. 
  This should be roleplaying, and the Storyteller may wish to 
  impose an additional penalty on Social rolls (on top of the 
  character’s Taint modifier) when perceptions and share expe-
  riences are a factor. 
  • 
  Voyeurism: The nova becomes so fascinated with 
  observing other people that it becomes a compulsion. The 
  nova spends an inordinate amount of time observing others, 
  preferably without their knowledge. In order to pass up an 
  opportunity to spy or eavesdrop, the nova must make a Will-
  power roll (modified by permanent Taint). The Storyteller 
  may increase the difficulty of the roll in particularly tempting 
  circumstances. 
  Medium-Level Aberrations (Taint 6-7)
  • 
  Antennae: The nova acquires a graceful set of 
  antennae sprouting from her forehead. They may be long 
  and thin, short and stubby, or feathered like a moth’s. They 
  typically twitch slightly when the character uses her Mega-
  Perception, particularly enhancements like Hyperenhanced 
  Hearing. 
  • 
  Bug Eyes: The character’s eyes become multifac-
  eted, like those of an insect. Baselines, with their instinctual 
  dislike of insects, find this aberration particularly repulsive 
  and disturbing, reducing the character’s Appearance by one 
  dot. Combined with the Enlarged Eyes aberration (below), 
  the character may have giant, bulging insect-like eyes. 
  • 
  Distractible: Novas with Mega-Perception live 
  awash in a sea of sensations. Sometimes it is difficult for 
  them to sort out the sensory input that bombards them 
  almost constantly and they find themselves drawn into and 
  fascinated with certain sights, sounds, smells, sensations, 
  and so forth. When a nova with this aberration encounters 
  a particularly interesting sensation (in the Storyteller’s judg-
  ment), the player must make a Willpower roll to avoid having 
  the character become lost in the experience, unable to act 
  or react to anything else. Spending a point of temporary 
  Willpower automatically allows the character to ignore the 
  stimulus. 
  • 
  Enlarged Eyes/Ears: The aberrant’s eyes or ears 
  (or both) are abnormally, even freakishly, large (at least five 
  times their normal size). The character’s Appearance is per-
  manently reduced by one dot, and his face becomes quite 
  distinctive. 
  High-Level Aberrations (Taint 8+)
  • 
  Extra Sensory Organs: The aberrant develops a 
  profusion of additional sensory organs. This may include 
  an array of eyes (similar to a spider), extra ears, noses, or 
  tongues, or entirely new sensory organs that humans don’t 
  even have, attuned to different radiation wavelengths, high- 
  or low-frequency sound, quantum emissions, and so forth. 
  These extra organs may be on the nova’s head, or elsewhere 
  on the body, like the torso or limbs, perhaps mounted on 
  flexible stalks sprouting from part of the body. 
  • 
  Rampant Synesthesia: This works like the Synes-
  thesia enhancement (above), except the nova can’t choose 
  how the sensory impressions manifest themselves and can’t 
  turn off the effect. So the nova might be seeing sounds one 
  moment and hearing smells the next, creating a confused 
  mass of sensory impressions. In addition to feeling like the 
  nova is on a permanent hallucinogenic trip, the nova suf-
  fers an increase in the difficulty of Perception-based Abilities 
  equal to the social modifier for his permanent Taint (e.g., +1 
  at Taint 4 and +1 more per two points of Taint thereafter). 
  • 
  Supersensitive: 
  The 
  nova’s 
  tremendously 
  enhanced senses become as much a curse as they are a 
  blessing. A nova with this aberration is so extremely sensi-
  tive to stimuli that her senses can be overloaded by what 
  baselines consider a normal and comfortable environment. 
  Ordinary daylight is blindingly bright, sounds above a whis-
  per are almost painfully loud, anything but the most mild, 
  bland tastes and odors are overpowering, and anything 
  more than the softest touch or the smoothest fabric is rough 
  and unpleasant. Sensory input above these levels is treated 
  like a Strobe attack (Aberrant, p. 223) against the charac-
  ter, with the dice pool determined by the intensity of the 
  stimulus (and the Storyteller’s judgment). Ordinary Strobe 
  attacks on the character have their effect doubled after the 
  successes are rolled. Additionally, the nova finds it almost 
  impossible to rest or concentrate in any environment other 
  than a quite, dimly-lit place that’s free of distractions. If the 
  nova sleeps, he may only be able to do so in a sensory 
  deprivation chamber or the equivalent. 
  Mega-Intelligence: Brainiacs
  Brains, geeks, nerds, brainiacs - they’re not the most 
  popular of people in high school, but many of them go on 
  to change the world. The limits of the human mind are chal-
  lenged with every new idea and invention someone comes 
  up with, but novas shattered previous ideas about the limits 
  45
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  46
  of intelligence when they came along. The most intelligent 
  novas make the most intelligent baselines look like idiots by 
  comparison, and the ability of intellect to change the world 
  is manifested in novas like never before. In less than twenty 
  years, nova scientists and inventors have created things it 
  might have taken baselines decades more to perfect, and 
  their inventions have made these nova brainiacs some of the 
  wealthiest people in the world.
  But in addition to their ability to develop new ideas 
  and technologies, Mega-Intelligent novas have the ability 
  to understand and influence complex systems in ways base-
  lines can barely comprehend. People are just beginning to 
  understand the potential brainiacs have to manipulate world 
  events like chess masters sitting at a board, using people 
  and even nations as their pawns.
  Brainiacs, Wealth, and Power
  Mega-Intelligence often goes hand in hand with wealth 
  and influence in the world. Although any nova can write 
  their own ticket in 2015, making ungodly amounts of money 
  from commercial endorsements, if nothing else, brainiacs 
  are especially in demand and a brilliant nova can earn huge 
  sums as a consultant, researcher, or inventor. Companies like 
  Novelty Consulting regularly employ Mega-Intelligent novas, 
  along with major corporations, governments, and organiza-
  tions like Project Utopia. Or a brainiac can go it alone, set-
  ting up a new company or consulting business, or creating 
  a new invention. A brainiac who’s a financial prodigy may 
  simply earn a fortune playing the stock market. Players of 
  Mega-Intelligent characters are certainly justified in taking 
  any level of Resources, and may also have a degree of Con-
  tacts or Influence because of their abilities. Brainiacs often 
  use their resources and influence as part of their overall plans 
  for the future (see Mastermind Shadow-Wars and Riddle of 
  the Sphinxes, in the Storytelling chapter for more informa-
  tion).
  Bright Ideas
  What is it like to be smarter than almost everyone else in 
  the world? Consider, in 2015 novas are only a little more than 
  a millionth of the world’s population. Only a fraction of novas 
  have Mega-Intelligence, and every one of them is smarter 
  than any human being who has ever lived, smarter than bil-
  lions of other people. Novas with higher levels of Mega-
  Intelligence are smarter by an order of magnitude than the 
  brainiacs below them. At the pinnacle of the scale are beings 
  so intelligent, capable of such ideas, they can scarcely be 
  called human any more.
  Of course, the question comes to mind: “what is intel-
  ligence?” In Aberrant terms, Intelligence is “raw mental 
  processes - memory, retention, judgment, reasoning, and 
  imagination.” It involved “the ability to find connections 
  between seemingly unrelated pieces of information or ana-
  lyze complex ideas.” It is a measure of how clearly and well a 
  character thinks, although not necessarily how quickly (that’s 
  covered by Wits).
  Mega-Intelligence enhances all of these qualities: 
  memory, reasoning, and imagination. A Mega-Intelligent 
  nova is able to learn and retain things more quickly and 
  easily, can reason out complex problems faster than others, 
  and can come up with ideas at the drop of a hat (not neces-
  sarily always good ideas, although they come more easily, 
  too). Mega-Intelligence is an excellent justification for spend-
  ing nova points on dots in Abilities, since a brainiac can soak 
  up new skills (especially Abilities based on Mental Attributes) 
  quickly. Storytellers may want to reduce or waive training 
  times when it comes to Mega-Intelligent characters learning 
  new Abilities; they just spend the experience and they know 
  how to do it after doing some reading or seeing it done 
  once. Even if they lack the Eidetic Memory enhancement, 
  Storytellers should consider allowing Mega-Intelligent novas 
  to make an Intelligence or appropriate Ability roll to recall 
  some useful piece of information they have seen or heard, 
  representing their excellent memories.
  The enhanced reasoning and imagination of Mega-Intel-
  ligent novas makes them the movers and shakers in nearly all 
  fields of intellectual endeavor, particularly science and engi-
  neering, but also finance, business, philosophy, strategy, and 
  related fields. Although the world benefits from the fruits of 
  nova inventiveness, there is also considerable concern over 
  the potential of novas to dominate intellectual life on Earth, 
  particularly in the area of economics.
  Baseline businesses and businesspeople are aware that 
  there is simply no way they can compete with the abilities 
  of novas. Mega-Intelligent novas are also well aware of the 
  potential of their abilities and what they can do with them. 
  This leads to efforts to curb the impact of nova intellect on 
  science, technology, and the economy. Project Utopia’s Sci-
  ence & Technology Division (p. 3) exists for this very reason. 
  If novas were allowed unregulated use of their intellectual 
  abilities, they might be capable of coming up with things 
  that could radically change society and the world, and not 
  necessarily for the better. An out of control super-weapon 
  could easily destroy an entire city, if not more, and Utopia 
  has seen designs for experiments that could theoretically 
  draw the Earth into an artificial black hole, reduce the planet 
  to atomic rubble, or even unravel the fabric of reality. These 
  are extreme and only theoretical possibilities, but they’re 
  enough to make people in the know very wary of the Mega-
  Intelligent.
  Roleplaying Mega-Intelligence
  When taking the role of a Mega-Intelligent character, 
  consider the effects of his or her vast intellect of different 
  areas of life, such as the character’s philosophy, goals, inter-
  actions with the world at large, and personal relationships.
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  Brainiacs can be quite philosophical, 
  after all they have plenty of opportunity to 
  consider and carefully dissect their personal 
  beliefs. If you like to play characters with 
  very detailed personalities and belief sys-
  tems, then a Mega-Intelligent nova gives 
  you the opportunity to plumb the depths 
  of that character’s persona.
  There’s a tendency to portray the 
  Mega-Intelligent as somewhat amoral, or 
  at least beyond ordinary ideas of morality. 
  They may have strange or novel thoughts 
  regarding proper behavior, or get caught 
  up in a particular philosophy. Antaeus 
  (detailed in Project Utopia and Aberrant 
  Worldwide - Phase I) is one example, with his fascination 
  with the environment and natural eco-systems. Things out-
  side his area of expertise aren’t of much interest to Antaeus. 
  It’s almost certain he knew of some of Project Utopia’s “black” 
  operations, but he chose to overlook them 
  until Utopia’s policy affected him directly, 
  then he struck out on his own. Another 
  example of the amoral genius is Dr. Worm 
  from Exposé: Aberrants, whose philoso-
  phy of personal freedom is at the core 
  of his personality, or even Divis Mal, who 
  advocates a different sort of morality for 
  novas than for baselines. Consider how 
  Mega-Intelligence influences a character’s 
  moral outlook and philosophy of life. Some 
  might become cold, amoral, and imper-
  sonal while others may build a strong moral 
  foundation for themselves.
  This ties into the goals of the Mega-
  Intelligent. What does a nova genius do with all of that 
  brainpower? Like any intelligent person, the goals of a nova 
  may vary. Some novas may genuinely want to help make the 
  world a better place (either out of selflessness or because 
  they want the fame and fortune that goes 
  with it). Some brainiacs want recognition of 
  their brilliance, from the public, from their 
  peers, or from someone in particular. Nova 
  researchers might be looking for greater 
  truths in the universe or simply playing with 
  fun new toys and ideas to see what will 
  happen. A few brainiacs may even want to 
  hide their intelligence, in order to fit in and 
  be considered “normal.”
  Then there’s how the Mega-Intelligent 
  go about achieving their goals, which ties 
  back into the character’s personality and 
  outlook. One brainiac may be an amoral 
  manipulator who will do anything to get 
  what he wants without any concern for other 
  people, while another may be devoted to 
  disrupting society as little as possible and 
  ensuring that other novas don’t disrupt it 
  either. Brainiacs may be well served by join-
  ing up with an organization like Utopia or 
  ViaSoft that can provide the resources nec-
  essary to achieve certain goals, or they may 
  prefer to go it on their own, taking the time 
  to build up their own resources in exchange 
  for greater personal freedom. Some Mega-
  Intelligent novas step “outside” conven-
  tional means to achieve their goals. They 
  see the world as part of some master plan 
  (see Riddle of the Sphinxes, p. 31, for more).
  How does the nova interact with the rest of the world? 
  It’s easy for brainiacs to consider themselves “above” or 
  “outside” baseline and even nova society. Teragen sympa-
  thies are common among the Mega-Intel-
  ligent, which of them hasn’t felt at least a 
  little frustration dealing with baseline limita-
  tions? Plus brainiacs are less likely to dismiss 
  the Teragen based solely on emotionally 
  biased public views of them.
  Mega-Intelligent novas tend to be more 
  popular in theory than in fact. For exam-
  ple, everyone thinks Antaeus’ ecological 
  achievements are amazing boons to all 
  humanity, but plenty of other novas are 
  more popular then him, and even if he 
  granted interviews, most people would find 
  Antaeus strange and difficult to understand. 
  The same goes for many Mega-Intelligent 
  novas. People appreciate the things they’ve done for the 
  world, but nobody’s really interesting in listening to some 
  egghead babble on about quarks or quantum theory or 
  social dynamics or whatever other big snooze of a topic is 
  on their gigantic minds at the moment. In 
  the public eye, brainiacs are still just geeks. 
  Powerful, influential, and brilliant, but geeks 
  nonetheless.
  On the flip side, the Mega-Intelligent 
  have a tendency to treat everyone else 
  like idiots (since, from their perspective, 
  they are). They either react with sarcasm 
  and clever put-downs or else they conde-
  scend and patronize, even when they’re not 
  intending to. Many Mega-Intelligent novas 
  give off the feeling that they’re talking down 
  to you, like you would to a small child or 
  even a friendly pet. Of course, when they 
  47
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  48
  don’t do this, we’re right back to brainiacs talking right over 
  people’s heads and putting them to sleep.
  It’s little wonder that the Mega-Intelligent often seek 
  out each others’ company, but there are troubles there, too. 
  Brainiacs are often competitive and territorial when dealing 
  with their peers, which can lead to disagreements, cattiness, 
  and even outright hostilities.
  My Character is Smarter than Me!
  The major challenge in playing a Mega-Intelligent nova 
  is that the character is (by definition) smarter than the player 
  could ever be. This is fairly easily to imagine when you’re 
  talking about physical or even social attributes, but how do 
  you play someone who’s smarter (possibly a lot smarter) than 
  you are?
  In part, you have to rely on your character’s Traits and 
  the Storyteller’s cooperation to help you. Don’t hesitate to 
  ask the Storyteller if you can make an Intelligence or Ability 
  roll in a situation where you think your character might have a 
  better idea than you do. Talk with your Storyteller about ways 
  you can play up your character’s Mega-Intelligence in the 
  game (a number of ways are discussed in this chapter and the 
  Storytelling chapter). But also keep in mind that even the 
  most intelligent people still make mistakes and Mega-Intel-
  ligence doesn’t mean that a character knows everything.
  New Mega-Intelligence 
  Enhancements
  Discerning Mind
  While a sharp mind is no guarantee of being able to 
  resist the a pretty face or a charming personality, some novas 
  with Mega-Intelligence are able to see through attempts to 
  influence them, and their quick, analytical minds allow them 
  to escape from such traps where others might not.
  System: In any situation where someone tries to exert 
  influence over the nova, either through Social Abilities or 
  powers like Dominate or Empathic Manipulation, the nova 
  may roll Intelligence. Successes are applied as additional 
  dice on rolls to resist the outside influence, as the nova’s 
  insight warns him of the potential danger and allows him 
  opportunities to slip the net. In situations where a resistance 
  roll isn’t allowed, Discerning Mind doesn’t help.
  This enhancement is always on and costs no quantum 
  points to use.
  Fast Learner
  The nova’s prodigious intelligence allows her to grasp 
  new ideas and information very quickly. The nova can pick 
  up new skills and improve them faster than normal.
  System: The nova learns new Intelligence Abilities for 
  one experience point, and improving Intelligence Abilities 
  costs only (current rating) rather than (current rating x 2), so 
  long as the current rating of the Ability is less than the nova’s 
  Mega-Intelligence rating. Additionally, the nova requires only 
  about half the usual amount of training time. This enhance-
  ment has no effect on Abilities bought during character 
  creation; it simulates the nova’s facility with learning new 
  Abilities and improving them during play.
  This enhancement is always on and costs no quantum 
  points to use.
  Inventive Genius
  Some people are just full of ideas. Novas with this 
  enhancement are brimming over with them. They have a 
  gift for seeing things in new ways and finding new applica-
  tions of existing technology and techniques. Their inventions 
  change the world, provided they’re not confiscated by Proj-
  ect Utopia’s Science & Technology division, that is (see p. 
  3).
  System: When the nova is working to come up with 
  a new application or invention related to any of the Intel-
  ligence Abilities, the player may make an Intelligence roll. 
  For each success, she may roll an additional die on any Abil-
  ity roll related to developing the new idea. This includes 
  creating gadgets (see the Aberrant Players Guide, p. 143, 
  for details). Inventive Genius may substitute for any type of 
  Mental Prodigy required for the creation of a gadget or new 
  invention, and its effects are cumulative with Mental Prodigy 
  when coming up with new inventions.
  At the Storyteller’s discretion, the player of an Inventive 
  Genius may spend a Willpower point to come up with a par-
  ticularly brilliant idea or inspiration in play (with input from 
  the Storyteller).
  This enhancement is always on and costs no quantum 
  points to use.
  Mental Prodigy
  Computers: While Engineering prodigies (Aberrant, p. 
  167) are good at designing, building, and repairing hard-
  ware, Computer prodigies are masters of writing and modi-
  fying software and getting computers to do what they want. 
  They put some of the best baseline hackers to shame, and 
  they can design programs of amazing complexity and utility 
  (not to mention some killer vid-games). With some actual 
  training (i.e., dots in the Computer Ability), they’ve amaz-
  ing.
  System: Whenever the character is engaged in activity 
  involving operating or programming computers (including 
  hacking them, Aberrant, p. 236), the player may make an 
  Intelligence roll. For each success, he may roll an additional 
  die when making Computer rolls or any other Ability related 
  to those tasks (including the uses of Cyberkinesis, Aberrant, 
  p. 187).
  This enhancement is always on and costs no quantum 
  points to use.
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  Total Concentration
  It’s easy to get distracted, especially in the modern 
  world of media saturation, with a hundred different things 
  vying for attention all at once. Novas with this enhancement 
  don’t get distracted. Their minds are focused like lasers, 
  allowing them to block out anything other than what they’re 
  dealing with.
  System: When performing any action based on the 
  Mental Attributes, the nova can ignore die pool or difficulty 
  penalties for distractions, including injury modifiers and envi-
  ronmental conditions, equal to her dots in Mega-Intelligence. 
  So a nova with Mega-Intelligence 3 can ignore up to 3 points 
  of penalty (to dice pools or difficulty). When an Endurance 
  or Resistance roll is required to maintain concentration, the 
  nova’s player can roll Intelligence. Successes on the roll apply 
  as extra dice on the Endurance or Resistance roll.
  This enhancement is always on and costs no quantum 
  points to use.
  New Mega-Intelligence 
  Aberrations
  Aberrations linked to Mega-Intelligence usually involve 
  a change in the functioning of the brain, leading to a vari-
  ety of mental disorders ranging from the innocuous (quirky 
  behavior) to outright insanity. Physical mutations of the brain 
  itself sometimes also result in an unusual appearance. The 
  following aberrations tend to be found only in novas with at 
  least one dot of Mega-Intelligence.
  Common aberrations from Aberrant and the Aberrant 
  Players Guide for Mega-Intelligent novas include Bipolar 
  Disorder, Hormonal Imbalance (Lust or Rage), Megalomania, 
  Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder, Paranoia, and Schizophre-
  nia.
  Low-Level Aberrations
  • 
  Bald: Some Mega-Intelligent novas (both men and 
  women) quickly go completely bald, and this baldness resists 
  all known medical and cosmetic treatments (although the 
  nova can still wear a hairpiece or wig). This is the equivalent 
  of the Hairless aberration (Aberrant Players Guide, p. 92). 
  • 
  No Sense of Humor: A nova with this aberration 
  loses the ability to comprehend humor of any kind. He’s 
  simply too analytical and literal minded, and even the most 
  highbrow humor seems crude and artless. The nova doesn’t 
  appreciate the humor of others, taking most statements at 
  their face value. Likewise he doesn’t crack jokes himself or 
  see the humor in any situation. The nova isn’t emotionless 
  (see the Cold aberration, below), but he tends to have little 
  patience with what he sees as the failings of others and is 
  prone to make sarcastic or inappropriate remarks. 
  Medium-Level Aberrations
  • 
  Analytical: The nova’s intellect overrides even his 
  basic and instinctual responses. She prefers to think a situa-
  tion over - thoroughly - before she takes action. Because of 
  the nova’s reluctance to act in haste, her permanent Initiative 
  score is reduced by 3. Furthermore, on an Initiative roll of 1, 
  the nova will hold her action to go last in the turn, regard-
  less of Initiative score, in order to get a better feel for the 
  events happening around her. Analytical characters refuse to 
  take action unless they feel they have a firm grasp of the 
  situation, otherwise they prefer to gather information and 
  develop plans, and they encourage others to do the same. 
  The player can spend a Willpower point to allow the nova 
  to act on impulse or without a proper plan of action for one 
  scene, although the nova will likely analyze the results of her 
  actions afterward for some time. 
  • 
  Big Head: The nova’s mega-powerful brain literally 
  grows larger than a normal human brain, sometimes twice as 
  large or more. The nova’s cranium increases in size to give 
  the brain enough room, resulting in the nova having a literal 
  “swelled head”. This aberration reduces the nova’s Appear-
  ance by one dot, and tends to clearly mark him as a Mega-
  Intelligent “big brain”. 
  • 
  Cold: Some novas are so intellectual that they 
  develop “past” so-called “primitive” human emotions. Novas 
  with this aberration have no emotions; they’re incapable of 
  love, joy, fear, hate, jealousy, or any other significant human 
  emotion. They can still “feel” intellectual states of being like 
  satisfaction, like or dislike, and so forth, and they still know 
  the difference between right and wrong, but they don’t feel 
  passionately about anything, positively or negatively. On the 
  upside, the nova is immune to abilities like Natural Empath 
  and powers like Empathic Manipulation; there are simply no 
  emotions to detect or manipulate. The nova is also immune 
  to any sort of social appeal to her emotions. On the other 
  hand, the nova is not capable of relating to other people 
  on an emotional level. The nova cannot have the Natural 
  Empath enhancement of Mega-Wits. 
  High-Level Aberrations
  • 
  Sociopathic: The nova’s intellect and emotions are 
  completely detached from any moral sense of right and 
  wrong, or any empathy for other beings. The nova only 
  knows that what pleases him or makes him happy is “right” 
  and what he find unpleasant is “wrong”. So a sociopath 
  thinks nothing of violating or even killing others for his own 
  pleasure, or of conducting research or experiments others 
  would consider unethical or immoral. So long as the socio-
  path is getting his kicks, the rest of the world doesn’t matter.
  Of course, sociopaths aren’t necessarily foolish. They can 
  completely understand the consequences of their acts, and 
  so take steps to ensure they’re not caught committing crimes, 
  49
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  50
  for example. They just don’t care about the harm (physical, 
  mental, or emotional) that their actions may inflict on others. 
  Sociopaths aren’t always deliberately cruel, but their inabil-
  ity to empathize with anyone usually causes them to be 
  sooner or later. A sociopath can have the ability to pick up on 
  others’ feelings through Rapport or enhancements like Natu-
  ral Empath, they just don’t take others’ feelings or welfare 
  into account when choosing a course of action. 
  • 
  Transparent Skull: In addition to losing all head 
  hair (this aberration is always associated with the Bald aber-
  ration above), the flesh and bone of the nova’s skull above 
  the eyebrows becomes almost completely transparent, leav-
  ing the nova’s brain visible. It is often accompanied by the 
  Big Head aberration as well. The nova can conceal his trans-
  parent skull using conventional wigs or makeup. Otherwise 
  it’s likely to have a negative impact on his social life, except 
  among those who really are attracted to him for his brain. 
  • 
  Vestigial Body: With the nova’s emphasis on the 
  mental, the physical body begins to deteriorate. The nova’s 
  body becomes shrunken and gaunt, although retaining the 
  nova’s normal Physical Attributes. This aberration and Big 
  Head (above) are a particularly common combination, lead-
  ing to a mockery of the human form similar in many ways to 
  images of “Grey” aliens: small, thin body with an enlarged 
  head. 
  Mega-Wits: Quick-Thinkers
  Think fast! That’s what the quick-thinkers, the novas with 
  Mega-Wits, do. They have a combination of fast thinking and 
  rock-solid concentration that lets them handle the most dif-
  ficult situations with ease and grace. They don’t notice things 
  as much as the watchers and they’re not as smart as the 
  brainiacs, but the novas with Mega-Wits are quicker on the 
  uptake than anyone else, and they have more of an opportu-
  nity to act while their fellow masterminds are just thinking.
  Rapier Wit
  How many times have you thought of the perfect come-
  back or thing to say ten minutes (or more) after the moment 
  has passed? It happens to the best of us, except for novas 
  with Mega-Wits, of course. These quick-thinkers always seem 
  to have the perfect comeback or response in every situa-
  tion. In areas where most people get rattled or lose their 
  nerve, the Mega-Witty are as cool as ice, and handle things 
  with poise and confidence. Nothing seems to faze them and 
  engaging one of them in a debate or argument is almost 
  sure to earn you a few cutting remarks that may leave some 
  serious scars.
  Mega-Wits breaks down into two major abilities: think-
  ing and reacting quickly and being able to remain calm and 
  composed under pressure. Together they allow quick-think-
  ers to be the calm in a storm of activity until they suddenly 
  leap into action, reacting at the speed of thought.
  Novas with Mega-Wits think and react faster than other 
  people. Those with the Enhanced Initiative enhancement 
  react much faster. So long as it doesn’t bog the game down 
  and spoil everyone’s fun, the player of a quick-thinker is per-
  fectly justified in asking for a moment to consider his actions 
  before he takes them, since doing so takes his character no 
  time at all. In non-combat situations where it’s a matter of 
  who goes first, the Storyteller may want to ignore Initiative 
  rolls and simply say the character with the highest Mega-Wits 
  (followed by the highest Wits) acts first.
  Amazing as their reaction time is, it’s their preternatural 
  calm and control that makes the Mega-Witty so impressive. 
  Most people have their minds going in all sorts of directions 
  at once. In any given situation they’re thinking about what 
  they’ll do next, what’s going to happen next, how things will 
  come out, and all sorts of other minutia like their social lives 
  and what they’re going to have for lunch. The Mega-Witty 
  are remarkably clear-minded, able to focus completely on 
  whatever it is they are doing without being distracted. They 
  have greater control over their emotions and their involun-
  tary reactions. Things like shock and surprise are virtually 
  non-existent for them or at the very last don’t hamper them 
  significantly.
  This allows quick-thinkers to do things like pick up the 
  subtle signs of other people’s body language and inflections 
  that show their emotions and whether or not they’re telling 
  the truth. They can then quickly synthesize all of that input 
  and come up with someone’s emotional state. Conversely, 
  they can keep their own feelings from showing and they know 
  when someone is trying to “read” them. Their tremendous 
  calm and poise, combined with quick thinking, also gives the 
  Mega-Witty the edge in any social encounter. They’re rarely 
  shaken by what anyone else has to say and can respond in 
  kind quickly, making them masters of conversational thrust 
  and parry.
  Mega-Wits, Willpower, and Mega-
  Social Attributes
  Mega-Wits have a particular impact on the use of Mega-
  Social Abilities (see the Aberrant rulebook and Cult of Per-
  sonality for more on the Mega-Socials). As a general rule 
  of thumb, characters roll Rapport (a Wits Ability) when they 
  are attempting to pick up on the fact that they are being 
  socially manipulated, or to discern someone’s intent, such as 
  when they are being “worked” with Subterfuge. Willpower is 
  used to actually resist the effects of social manipulation. So 
  it is possible that a weak-willed but Mega-Witty nova knows 
  when other people are trying to manipulate her, but goes 
  along with them anyway, while a strong-willed quick-thinker 
  is better equipped to both notice and resist such efforts.
  In cases where a Mega-Wit picks up on an attempt to 
  influence him, the Storyteller may want to make the Will-
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  power roll to resist the attempt easier, since it’s more transpar-
  ent to the nova. Add the successes from the nova’s Rapport 
  roll to the Willpower roll, with a maximum bonus equal to the 
  nova’s Mega-Wits.
  Roleplaying Mega-Wits
  If you’re playing a character with Mega-Wits it helps if 
  you can think on your feet, but it’s not essential. Events in 
  play often happen faster or slower than they do in “game” 
  time: an attack it takes the player a minute to describe and 
  roll for happens in just a second, while a long trip or other 
  scene may be glossed over with a brief description. You can 
  take advantage of the elasticity of game-time to help portray 
  your character’s quick thinking.
  Take the opportunity to consider your character’s actions, 
  without slowing down the game too much. Ideally, the Sto-
  ryteller shouldn’t pressure you or ask you to make too many 
  snap decisions, since your character usually has time to 
  weight the options before acting. You may want to talk things 
  over with your Storyteller to set some ground rules for this, 
  but realize that it’s part of the Storyteller’s job to keep the 
  game moving.
  Mega-Witty novas are at ease in almost any situation, 
  and they have keen insight into the motivations and feelings 
  of others. If you’re playing a Mega-Social character, consider 
  picking up a dot or two or Mega-Wits to compliment those 
  abilities. If you’re expecting to deal with Mega-Social charac-
  ters, Mega-Wits can help there, too.
  Unlike other masterminds, quick-thinkers tend to handle 
  social situations well. They’re not as likely to be overwhelmed 
  as those with Mega-Perception or as socially awkward as 
  those with Mega-Intelligence. The primarily limitation the 
  Mega-Witty face in social situations is impatience. Sometimes 
  the rest of the world seems so slow by their standards that it’s 
  difficult to wait for everyone else to catch up while they are 
  racing along. It may be too tempting to resist making a clever 
  remark here, a clever jibe there, thereby hurting someone’s 
  feelings. While Mega-Wits can allow novas to hold their own 
  in any conversation, it can also earn them some enemies, if 
  they’re not careful what they say.
  If you’re playing a quick-thinker and you’re at a loss for 
  a response, you may want to ask your Storyteller or even 
  your fellow players for something appropriate. This is a case 
  when outside input should be encouraged. The Storyteller 
  should be accommodating, particularly if you’re dealing with 
  baselines or novas with a lower Mega-Wits score than yours. 
  If you’re really concerned about having your character look 
  witty, pick up the Razor Wit enhancement and start putting 
  some of those “straight lines” to work for you. Of course, 
  when dealing with characters with a higher Mega-Wits rating 
  than your character’s, you’re on your own. Even the Mega-
  Witty get shown up once in a great while.
  New Mega-Wits 
  Enhancements
  Foresight
  Some novas with Mega-Wits are so fast in apprehend-
  ing a situation that they seem almost precognitive, able to 
  know what’s going to happen before it happens. Such novas 
  always seem prepared for every eventuality.
  System: By spending a quantum point, the nova 
  enhances her reactions for the turn, becoming hyper-aware 
  of the actions of everyone and everything around her. The 
  character’s player then declares her actions after everyone 
  else involved in the scene has declared their actions. In effect, 
  the character knows what everyone else is going to do and 
  may react accordingly. In the case of multiple characters with 
  Foresight, they declare actions in reverse order of Initiative, 
  with the lowest Initiative declaring first and the highest Initia-
  tive declaring last. Note that Foresight does not modify the 
  character’s Initiative, so it’s possible for characters with higher 
  Initiative scores to act before she has the opportunity to do 
  so. Sometimes it’s not a good thing to know what’s coming 
  next.
  This enhancement costs a quantum point to activate it 
  for a single turn.
  Hypercognition
  Novas with Mega-Wits are always thinking several steps 
  ahead of everyone else. Those with Hypercognition are sev-
  eral steps ahead of them. They have the ability to make tre-
  mendous deductive leaps, synthesizing all of the information 
  at their disposal and coming to conclusions more rapidly 
  than any process of simple logic.
  System: By spending a quantum point, the player can 
  turn any extended action for the character into a simple 
  action (Aberrant, p. 109), provided that the action primarily 
  involves thought and information that is potentially available 
  to the character (even if he is not consciously aware of it). 
  For example, a nova with Hypercognition can solve a difficult 
  puzzle of mystery simply by looking at the clues, navigate 
  quickly through a maze, immediately overcome a trap, and 
  so forth. The effects of Hypercognition are cumulative with 
  other enhancements that speed up the nova’s thought pro-
  cesses. For example, a nova with both Hypercognition and 
  Mathematical Savant can perform calculations at truly blind-
  ing speed, coming up with answers to even complex prob-
  lems instantly.
  This enhancement costs a quantum point to activate it 
  for a single task.
  51
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  52
  Mind Over Matter
  Some novas prove that it’s the mind that matters more 
  than the flesh. Some of them have the ability to exert mental 
  control over every aspect of their physiology, from heart rate 
  and breathing to healing and immune response.
  System: The nova has the ability to control normally 
  involuntary bodily functions. Among other things, this allows 
  the nova to slip into a trance state virtually indistinguishable 
  from death without a comprehensive medical examination 
  (roll Medicine at +2 difficulty to determine that the nova’s 
  not really dead). While in this trance state, the nova’s biologi-
  cal functions are extremely slow: she requires only a tenth as 
  much food, water, and air and poisons and diseases affect 
  her at a tenth their normal speed. The nova can roll Wits + 
  Subterfuge to resist the effects of the Lie Detector and Natu-
  ral Empath enhancements, as well as polygraph machines 
  and similar devices. The nova can ignore dice pool penalties 
  for injury up to her Mega-Wits rating. Finally, the nova adds 
  +1 multiple to her healing rates so long as she’s conscious 
  (cumulative with the multiple for Mega-Stamina).
  This enhancement costs no quantum points to use.
  Razor Wit
  You’re never at a loss for a quick comeback or clever 
  comment. Your cutting remarks have a razor edge to them 
  that can slash someone’s confidence to the bone. Your Wits 
  are an effective weapon, whether in battle or in the social 
  arena.
  System: When the player gets in a cutting remark and 
  clever jab (in character), he may roll Wits. Successes increase 
  the difficulty of the target’s actions with relation to the sub-
  ject of the remark for the rest of the scene or until the target 
  succeeds in an action related to the remark, restoring his 
  confidence. For example, if the nova derides a subject’s 
  combat skills, they suffer the difficulty increase until the sub-
  ject successfully hits something. Likewise, a jibe directed at a 
  subject’s intellect affects Intelligence abilities. The Storyteller 
  is the final arbitrator on what rolls are affected by a use of 
  Razor Wit.
  Additionally, you can give the Storyteller up to up to 
  one “straight line” per dot you character has in Mega-Wits. 
  These are things you want Storyteller characters to say or do 
  that help set you up for a brilliant comeback (which you’ve 
  had the opportunity to prepare in advance, of course). The 
  Storyteller should make every effort to work these straight 
  lines into the story, although he has the right to ask you to 
  come up with others if they prove unsuitable. Straight lines 
  also don’t work on characters with Mega-Wits scores equal 
  to or higher than your own, they’re a little harder to set up 
  than that.
  The enhancement costs one quantum point to active 
  per use.
  Unfazeable
  The Nova Age has produced some spectacular (and 
  disturbing) sights, and new things seems to crop up every 
  day. Even the most jaded people are continually surprised 
  by something that new novas are capable of, but not you. 
  A nova with this enhancement isn’t fazed by anything and 
  manages to keep his wits about him in any situation.
  System: Whenever the player is called upon to make 
  a Willpower roll for the nova to resist fear, intimidation, sur-
  prise, or similar effects, she may roll Wits and add her suc-
  cesses to her Willpower dice pool for the roll. When the 
  nova needs to conceal surprise, fear, or another socially inap-
  propriate emotion, roll Wits and add the successes to the 
  nova’s Wits + Subterfuge dice pool. When dealing socially 
  with characters with fewer dots in Mega-Wits than her, the 
  character’s poise is unshakable, no matter what happens.
  New Mega-Wits Aberrations
  Novas with Mega-Wits live at a different pace from the 
  rest of the world. Sometimes this causes them to go “out of 
  synch” with people living at a normal mental speed. Mega-
  Wits aberrations tend to be associated with the speed of the 
  nova’s thought-processes or disruptions of the same. Physi-
  cal mutations tend to be the rarest with Mega-Wits among 
  all of the Mental Mega-Attributes, although some disorders 
  do affects the nova’s brain or nervous system. The following 
  aberrations are most common for novas with at least one dot 
  in Mega-Wits, but not exclusively limited to them.
  Common aberrations from Aberrant and the Aberrant 
  Players Guide for novas with Mega-Wits include Absent-
  Minded, Anima Banner, Bad Temper, Bipolar Disorder, Flash-
  backs, Fragile, Multiple Personality Disorder, Paranoia, and 
  Seizures.
  Low-Level Aberrations
  • 
  Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD): Things happen 
  fast when you have Mega-Wits, and you’re often itching to 
  be moving on to the next thing. Novas with this aberration 
  have trouble focusing on a single task or subject for long 
  periods of time. Their attention tends to drift and they latch 
  on to other things that interest them, before losing interest 
  and moving on to the next thing, and so forth. The player 
  must make a Willpower roll (modified by the character’s per-
  manent Taint) in order to perform an extended action or oth-
  erwise focus on a task that takes longer than a minute or so. 
  A point of temporary Willpower can grant an automatic suc-
  cess on the Willpower roll. 
  • 
  Impulsive: Novas with this aberration prefer to act 
  while others wait. They never delay their actions in combat 
  (Aberrant, p. 239) or at any other time, for that matter. They 
  have no patience for planning, waiting, or pondering when 
  there are things they could be doing, and they tend to act on 
  the first idea that comes to them. If that doesn’t work, they 
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  ABERRANT
  can always try something else. An impulsive character is not 
  necessarily foolhardy, but does have to make a Willpower 
  roll (difficulty modified by the character’s permanent Taint) in 
  order to exercise restraint or to wait patiently for something. 
  Medium-Level Aberrations
  • 
  Mega-Bitch: Sometimes people just make it so 
  easy to take them down a few pegs, and it feels so good 
  doing it. A nova with this aberration feels satisfaction and a 
  sense of validation from embarrassing, humiliating, or other-
  wise humbling others. It usually takes the form of exception-
  ally cutting personal remarks and games of oneupsmanship 
  and dominance, although in some cases it may escalate to 
  physical contests or threats of violence. The player must 
  make a Willpower roll (modified by the nova’s permanent 
  Taint) to avoid indulging in this behavior in inappropriate cir-
  cumstances. Such individuals may gain a few sycophants or 
  like-minded allies, but won’t prove too popular with most 
  people. 
  • 
  Mood Swings: The moods of a nova with this aber-
  ration can vary wildly from one moment to the next and the 
  nova’s reaction to any given situation is somewhat unpredict-
  able. The player is encouraged to roleplay that character’s 
  mood swings. As a general rule of thumb the Storyteller can 
  call for a Willpower roll for the character when something 
  new happens, on a failure, the character’s mood shifts in the 
  opposite direction (happy to sad or angry, for example). A 
  point of temporary Willpower buys an automatic success on 
  the Willpower roll, allowing the character to keep control of 
  his mood swings for a time. 
  • 
  Nervous Tic: The nova’s nervous energy is built up 
  so much that she twitches, fidgets, or otherwise moves about 
  almost constantly. In addition to be inappropriate in many 
  social settings, a nova’s nervous tic may draw attention to her 
  in situations where she is trying to avoid it, such as attempts 
  at stealth or disguise. A distinctive nervous tic may also be a 
  dead giveaway for a disguised nova. 
  High-Level Aberrations
  • 
  On Edge: Some novas don’t adapt to having super-
  human reflexes and reaction times as well as others. Their 
  reflexes are so high that they jump at shadows and start at 
  every unexpected sound. On Edge novas have to make a 
  Willpower roll (modified by their permanent Taint) to avoid 
  overreacting to surprises or sudden changes in their situation. 
  On a failed roll, the nova adopts a “fight or flight” reaction, 
  either lashing out or taking off as fast as possible, depending 
  on the nature of the threat and the Storyteller’s judgment.
  So if a nova arrives home and a bunch of friends leap out and 
  yell “surprise!” she may teleport across the country before 
  realizing there was no threat. Likewise a nova who sees a 
  child jump out at him with a toy gun may not realize there’s 
  no threat before he’s hit the kid with a fist capable of punch-
  ing through steel plate. Storytellers should also exaggerate 
  descriptions given to On Edge characters, telling them: “You 
  arrive home and people suddenly leap out from behind the 
  furniture!” or “A figure leaps from the alley and points a gun 
  at you!” in the above two examples. 
  53
  CHAPTER FOUR: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
  
  54
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
  Introduction 
  1
  Chapter One: The Thinkers 
  3 
  Chapter Two: Inventing Fun 
  23
  Chapter Three: Storytelling 
  29
  Chapter Four: Knowledge is Power 
  36
  
  55
  CREDITS
  Credits
  Author: Steve Kenson
  Storyteller Game System Designed By: Mark 
  Rein•Hagen
  Developer: Kraig Blackwelder
  Editors: Matt Galyon, Paul Reynolds and Jack Yates
  Artists: White Wolf Artists, Matt Galyon, Ehecatl 
  Ugalde and Jack Yates
  Layout, Typesetting and Design: Matt Galyon, Paul 
  Reynolds and Jack Yates
  © 2001 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is 
  expressly forbidden, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal 
  use only. White Wolf, Vampire, Vampire the Masquerade, Vampire the Dark Ages, Mage the Ascension, World of Darkness and 
  Aberrant are registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Werewolf the Apocalypse, Wraith the 
  Oblivion, Hunter the Reckoning, Mage the Sorcerers Crusade, Trinity, Aberrant Underworld, Aberrant Cult of Personality, Aberrant 
  Players Guide, Aberrant Storytellers Screen, Aberrant Church of Michael Archangel, Aberrant Year One, Aberrant Project Utopia, 
  Aberrant the Directive, Aberrant Elites and Aberrant Teragen are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. All 
  characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
  The mention of or reference to any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright 
  concerned.
  This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.
  For a free White Wolf catalog call 1-800-454-WOLF.
  Check out White Wolf online at
  http://www.white-wolf.com; alt.games.whitewolf and rec.games.frp.storyteller
  Visit N! Prime online at www.nprime.net
  CREDITS
  
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