History TabletopGame / Aberrant

* Quantum tech is the nova version of Powered Science. It relies on a nova to power it with Quantum. Like nova-tech, it can be shifted into nova-tech and then into core-tech with enough effort.

* MutantDraftBoard: Project Utopia.

* PragmaticVilliany: In comparison to first ed, Project Proteus is this in second ed. They almost never stoop to assassination or even entertained the notion of a [[spoiler: mass-sterilization plot]] as the last thing they want is the Novas to find out and have a Casus Belli for waging war against Humanity.

''Aberrant'' is a role-playing game created by Creator/WhiteWolf in 1999, set in 2008 in a world where super-powered humans started appearing one day in 1998. It is the middle setting in the greater TabletopGame/TrinityUniverse timeline, chronologically situated about 90 years after ''TabletopGame/{{Adventure}}!'', White Wolf's Pulp era game, and over a century before the psionic escapades of ''Trinity[=/=]TabletopGame/{{Aeon}}''. The game deals with how the players' meta-human characters (called "novas") fit into a mundane world when they most definitely are not mundane, as well as how the mundane populace react to the sudden emergence of novas. The original ''Aberrant'' product line was discontinued in 2002, though a d20 System version was released in 2004. A new edition was announced in 2012 from Onyx Path Publishing, who'd bought the rights to the Trinity Universe games, eventually given the name ''Trinity Continuum: Aberrant''. A successful Kickstarter ran in 2019.

** In secon edition, a nova who undergoes Full Transformation at Transcendence 10 becomes an alien being completely beyond humanity, completely incapable of empathy or compassion. At best, such aberrants stop caring about humanity any more than the average human cares about a fly; at worst, they become monsters.

** In the reboot, however, it's zig-zagged, becoming SchizoContinuity. For Aeon, the Aberrant War is established history. For Aberrant, however, the War is in the potential future, and how things turn out is in the characters' hands.

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Teras, the philosophy of the Teragen, is about the nova's Taint-driven development away from humanity and into an [[EldritchAbomination alien god]]. A Terat is not a human, instead interacting with humans as a [[AGodAmI Marvel]], [[BewareTheSuperman Monster]], or [[EnlightenmentSuperpowers Portent]].

* AlternateContinuity: ''Trinity Continuum: Aberrant''. The Fireman dies saving Sao Paolo, Slider's alive, an extremist faction of Teragen takes the Aberrant name, [[spoiler:there's no nova sterilization conspiracy]]... It's [[LighterAndSofter brighter and more optimistic]] than the original, but the default path is still towards the Aberrant War.

** A nova who undergoes Full Transformation at Transcendence 10 becomes an alien being completely beyond humanity, completely incapable of empathy or compassion. At best, such aberrants stop caring about humanity any more than the average human cares about a fly; at worst, they become monsters.

* TranshumanTreachery: Argued for by Divis Mal and the Teragen. The argument of the Null Manifesto is that novas are ''not'' human, and that human laws and customs shouldn't apply to them; in the absence of a governing body for novakind, each nova is called on to consider themselves a sovereign country and act as they please. While not inherently anti-human, becoming Teragen is at best a sign of overweening arrogance and adherence to BlueAndOrangeMorality, and most Teragen ''do'' take "different" to mean "[[SuperSupremacist better]]."

''Aberrant'' is a role-playing game created by Creator/WhiteWolf in 1999, set in 2008 in a world where super-powered humans started appearing one day in 1998. It is the middle setting in the greater TabletopGame/TrinityUniverse timeline, chronologically situated about 90 years after ''TabletopGame/{{Adventure}}!'', White Wolf's Pulp era game, and over a century before the psionic escapades of ''Trinity[=/=]TabletopGame/{{Aeon}}''. The game deals with how the players' meta-human characters (called "novas") fit into a mundane world when they most definitely are not mundane, as well as how the mundane populace react to the sudden emergence of novas. The original ''Aberrant'' product line was discontinued in 2002, though a d20 System version was released in 2004. A new edition from Onyx Path Publishing, who'd bought the rights to the Trinity Universe games, was announced in 2012.

* TheAce: Divis Mal, by far the most powerful nova in the world (''Adventure!'' reveals this is in large part because he has several decades on other novas, having gained his powers in 1922). His partner Jeremiah Scripture is also in the top ten.

* AnimalWrongsGroup: Greenwar

* BulletCatch / DodgeTheBullet: Sufficently high levels of [=MegaDexterity=] will allow a character to do this. (For a simple bullet dodge, "sufficiently high" is defined as "any [=MegaDexterity=] at all".)

* CocaPepsiInc: [=ViaSoft=], a megacorporation formed by a merger between Viacom and Microsoft.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Divis Mal, as revealed in ''Adventure!''.

* EmotionSuppression: Totentanz's eruption brought many wonders, one of which was complete elimination of all positive emotions; that's because he erupted after his "[[BitchInSheepsClothing lover]]" revealed her infidelity in [[MoralEventHorizon the worst manner possible]].
* ExplosiveBreeder: Proteus fears "breeders" (fertile novas) in general, but they reserve their greatest fears for "hatchers" -- tainted breeders whose mutations have transformed them into r-type (large numbers of progeny with little parental care invested) reproducers. A hypothetical "perfect storm" hatcher, one who produces 10 identically tainted offspring (of which 5 survive) per month, which grow to reproduction age in six months, could produce '''forty-five thousand''' offspring in as little as two years.
* TheExtremistWasRight: On both sides of the racial division. [[spoiler: The baseliners fearing novas as potentially deadly to human existence were right, since the canon of the metaplot is that they nearly destroy the world, leading to the Aeon setting. The novas fearing baseliners were right, as novas who sign up with Project Utopia are sterilised as part of it, and [[SelfFulfillingProphecy the discovery of this is part of what sets off the Aberrant War in the first place]].]]
* FictionalCounterpart: The ''N!'' network, which is for Novas what ''E!'' is for celebrities in entertainment.

* FromBadToWorse: Taint doesn't seem that bad to begin with ...how bad can neon pink armpit hair be?

* GovernmentDrugEnforcement: [[spoiler:Most newly erupted novas are secretly fed sterility drugs along with the drugs given to help them control their powers in order to prevent the breeding of a superpowered race.]]
* TheGroup: The Directive

* ImmuneToDrugs / NeverGetsDrunk: A side effect of nova powers.
* InternetIncorporated: The [=OpNet=] is the system that esentially replaced the internet (due to better AppliedPhlebotinum) and requires its users to be licensed.
* KnightTemplar: Project Proteus. Many of the Teragen. Let's just say there were a fair few.

* LonersAreFreaks: Played with by Mega-Charismatic novas with the Autonomy enhancement. These transhuman novas do not have the human need for social companionship, and yet do ''not'' have any kind of psychosis. This particular evolution is extremely worrying to baseline psychologists, who really don't get it - a few fringe ones assume that it ''is'' actual Psychotic Dissociation despite evidence to the contrary.
* LovecraftianSuperpower: One of the many consequences of taking high levels of Taint.

* MalfunctionMalady: The Yin/Yang enhancement enables a nova with Mega-Appearance to switch between male and female forms. If the nova gets pregnant (a rare event), this enhancement will [[ShapeshifterModeLock shut down at a certain point in the pregnancy, locking the nova in female form]].

* MostCommonSuperPower: Explicitly lampshaded in the graphic for the Mega-Appearance attribute.
* MugglePower: Various groups and factions. The most hostile is the Church of Archangel Michael, a fundamentalist group who stalk and murder novas whilst publicly becrying their existence as agents of Satan. [[spoiler: Project Utopia is ultimately one of these, sterilising all of the novas it recruits to ensure that, in addition to being drafted for the good of baseline humanity, they won't breed even stronger novas.]]

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It turns out that the thing that causes the Aeon War that leads to the ''Trinity'' setting? [[spoiler: It's the truth that Project Utopia ''sterilises'' all of its recruits immediately upon recruitment becoming public knowledge, leading to outraged novas and scared new novas rising up enmasse to defend and avenge themselves.]]

* PrequelInTheLostAge: To ''Trinity''. While it's not more technologically advanced (generally speaking), life is usually much better for everyone and the mood is much more optimistic.

* RealityWarper: Although all Novas bend reality a little, the Level 6 power "Planck Scaling" is the purest example in the game. It allows the user to cause absolutely anything inside a certain area. These changes will last after the power is turned off, even if their existence contradicts the laws of physics. An interesting side-effect of the power is that in the absence of the user, anyone else can project their thoughts into the "bubble", with multiple participants leading to most bizarre results.

* SuperRegistrationAct: A rather underhanded variety. While there is no official law requiring Novas to register, their powers tend to be hard to control without specialized training and medical care. Both are available only from Project Utopia, so most of them end up there, policing their "unenlightened" brethren. In the process they're also [[spoiler:'''''unknowingly sterilized.''''' It should be no surprise that the setting concludes with every Nova on Earth discovering this fact and going on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge that pretty much [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt wrecks the entire world]] - after which the authorities [[WrittenByTheWinners destroy all records of their crimes]], claim that [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity all Novas inevitably go insane]], and systematically kill them from that point on.]]

* VestigialEmpire: The People's Republic of China is a dying titan, with much of its governance outsourced to [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs the Heaven Thunder Triad]]. [[spoiler: After the Three Gorges Dam breaks, the PRC collapses and reforms as the New Empire, which thoroughly gets its act together with the Triad gone.]]
* WaveMotionGun: Although ''Aberrant'' characters are generally played at a much lower level of power, akin to your average Creator/MarvelComics character, the game has Quantum powers at levels 4, 5, and 6 (which could only be acquired after a very long campaign if you play by the standard rules.) One of the ''least'' broken level 6 powers is Quantum Inferno which allows the character to fire a Quantum Bolt capable of punching a hole, hundreds of kilometers wide, clean through the planet (which needless to say is the immediate predecessor to the planet's destruction.)
* WellIntentionedExtremist: Project Utopia, directed behind the scenes by Max Mercer, is trying so very hard to avoid the BadFuture by helping the novas who work with it make a better world... [[spoiler:while the black ops subdivision is secretly sterilizing them permanently with a tailored virus so they can't breed more and possibly stronger novas, and murdering those who find out about the program.]]

''Aberrant'' is a role-playing game created by WhiteWolf in 1999, set in 2008 in a world where super-powered humans started appearing one day in 1998. It is the middle setting in the greater TabletopGame/TrinityUniverse timeline, chronologically situated about 90 years after ''TabletopGame/{{Adventure}}!'', White Wolf's Pulp era game, and over a century before the psionic escapades of ''Trinity[=/=]TabletopGame/{{Aeon}}''. The game deals with how the players' meta-human characters (called "novas") fit into a mundane world when they most definitely are not mundane, as well as how the mundane populace react to the sudden emergence of novas. The original ''Aberrant'' product line was discontinued in 2002, though a d20 System version was released in 2004. A new edition was announced in 2012.

* TheAce: Divis Mal, by far the most powerful nova in the world. His partner Jeremiah Scripture is also in the top ten.

* BodyHorror: There is a power set that lets you permanently grow a extra arm or 3, just for starters. The Teragen take this further, developing physical aberrations as a part of their transhumanist philosophy.

* GovernmentDrugEnforcement: [[spoiler:All newly erupted novas are secretly fed sterility drugs along with the drugs given to help them control their powers in order to prevent the breeding of a superpowered race.]]

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: A lot of them exist, but Totentanz comes to mind most readily. Translated from German, his alias means "''The Dance of Death''". Fitting, considerin he's a Nova mercenary with absolutely ''monstrous'' fighting abilities.

* VestigialEmpire: The People's Republic of China is a dying titan, with much of its governance outsourced to the Heaven Thunder Triad. [[spoiler: After the Three Gorges Dam breaks, the PRC collapses and reforms as the New Empire, which thoroughly gets its act together with the Triad gone.]]

* LonersAreFreaks: Played with somehow by Mega-Charismatic novas with the Autonomy enhancement. These transhuman novas do not have the human need for social companionship, and yet do ''not'' have any kind of psychosis. This particular evolution is extremely worrying to baseline psychologists, who really don't get it - a few fringe ones assume that it ''is'' actual Psychotic Dissociation despite evidence to the contrary.