We're celebrating Klordny Week, Superboy!

Sorry for the delay.

July
[Aberrant] This month's issue of Science Explorer announces that next month, 10 patients at the Triton Foundation's Atlanta Mediplex will be test subjects for an artificial kidney.

This is probably in Aberrant: Project Utopia, but I'm disinclined to dig for where. Turns out it's in the Technology section of Aberrant: Year One.

One of the first installments of Nathan Black's new N! show Eye on... includes an interview with Dr. Tasmin Harver, newly inducted Utopian and the head examiner at Slider's autopsy, for whom Black and his audience have some questions about Utopia.

Some rather pointed questions, which she tries to dodge or deflect; the excerpt ends just as she's about to have take the first of them, from galfrey07@stuntmail.com.

Devon "Slider Fetish" Works makes a scathing post to the "Rant Back" OpList, addressed to "Dear Losers and Future Losers Alike", in which he pours out a long string of sneers at anyone with any doubts about Utopia's fundamental and immutable benevolence, lumping those who merely have worries about Proteus using the Utopia agenda as cover with those who wear tinfoil hats to protect their thoughts against "the great stamping juggernaut that is Project Utopia."

This is the one that's actually been holding this post up, as I can't look directly at it for too long. This, in turn, is down to a level of blistering contempt for humans in general and one's audience in particular, combined with a smug and clearly over-inflated sense of the writer's own superiority, that leaves me continually amazed when I turn to the credits page of Aberrant: Project Utopia and don't see even a "special thanks" credit for Justin Achilli.

"It's entirely possible that Utopia funds this site privately and I'm being paid under the table for saying all this. Happy spook-hunting, losers." There are only two automatic reasons not to treat this as a sarcastic confession:
1) they don't need to pay him to sing the praises of Utopia, any more than the American Eagle Party needs to pay Bruce Tinsley to push their official flannel in "Mallard Fillmore";
2) if they were paying him, they'd spring for some etiquette lessons once they actually read his output.

I'm running late, but I'm running.

June 15
[Aberrant] official beginning of the Aberrant timeframe. There are approximately 40 Aberrants worldwide, all in either deep cover or hiding. To date, neither Corbin nor Rousseau has been captured, and the identity of Slider's assassin remains an official mystery.

Happy birthday, aeonaberrant!

The Democratic Party, searching for a candidate who will make their two major PR liabilities (the "character" issue, still lingering from the Clinton years, and the similarity of their program to the Utopian plan) meaningless, concludes that a nova candidate would solve both problems, and begins scouting Randel Portman.

etherlad has mentioned this as actually happening slightly earlier, but my obsession with every last detail of the TU isn't so deep as to cover every individual date of the 2008 (TU) primary season.

Charlotte "Ghostdancer" Holden, ex-Utopian and one of Slider's contacts, retreats to Ibiza, where she is hunted by Chiraben. A group of Aberrants seeks to find her before Proteus can disappear her. Utopian agents are sent to bring her into custody. Additional Proteus personnel are sent to capture Holden and keep Chiraben in line.

All this in "Permanent Vacation", the mini-adventure story arc included in the Aberrant Storytellers Companion book that came with the Aberrant Storytellers Screen.

Enemies again.

June 3
[Aberrant] The Pantheon (consisting, at this point, of the Apostle, the Apothecary, Bounty, the Confederate [filling in for Epoch], Geryon, ibn'Mahmoud, Leviathan, the Mathematician, Narcosis, Orzaiz, Scripture, Shrapnel, Sin-Eater, Swarm Queen and Synapse) meet in council at a hidden retreat hosted by the Count (they are brought in by Blinker, the only Terat with whom Orzaiz shares the location). Topics of discussion include a review of the various Teragen cliques, what precisely is going on with Project Utopia, and how to use Utopia's newly-revealed weaknesses against it.

Actually, this first day is/was mostly about "catching up with fellow Terats we haven't seen in months and meeting newcomers to the movement," as the count will describe it when he opens discussions tomorrow. Today's discussions have been mostly civil, but with tense undercurrents among the various cliques, according to Leviathan's epilogue to the second of two essays circulating among Terats at mid-year. (The first, by Santiago, covered the movement's history from N-Day to the Null Manifesto; de la Rocha takes it from the Halloween Surprise to the present.)

Synapse logs in and out of the meeting, as he is spending much of his time trying to persuade Saxon to join the Teragen.

I'm not sure where I got this impression; the evidence for it seems to have evaporated from my copy of Aberrant: Teragen, even though I swear I've found it on other readings.

Edit June 4: I've since realized wherein the evidentiary basis consists, and it's not much. (It'll be in tomorrow's posting.) We don't actually get datestamps for either day of Saxon's captivity, so in fact, it may already be over by the time the meeting starts.

( Here's what happens during it, anyway. )

In a communique to Director Thetis (double-encrypted, Navajo Daedalus 3), baseline Proteus agent Ruiz gives an overview of his interactions with two Utopian novas: engineer Dr. Piotr Enrikssen and someone referred to only as Cocharin.

Enrikssen's ever-expanding intellect needs new stimulation, and Ruiz suggests "the new games of chance from Hattori's pet project" as an option. Cocharin's on "a schedule that allows her to use her matter-transmutation abilities on a regular basis without any real quantum-bleeding or signs of stress." She's taking Slidergate in a Proteus-approved way, having "expressed worry as to what the 'rogues' might indeed try." He's working hard on being friendly to her, and "regular non-nova company... seems to break down any self-imposed feelings of 'being different.'"

News from opposite sides of the divide.

May 30
[Aberrant] The mysterious Sophia Rousseau contacts the fugitive Corbin (Proteus had feared she might get in touch with Slider). Their underground organization immediately begins contacting friends and acquaintances in the nova community, as well as newly erupting novas. The group's goal is to expose the hidden corruption in Project Utopia, and Corbin dubs its members "Aberrants" in an ironic usage of the anti-nova epithet.

It starts when she calls him at a public phone terminal, identifying herself only as "[s]omeone who's well aware of who you are and what you're running from." She then says, after pointing out that this isn't necessarily a secure line,

I have resources enough to keep you hidden — but I also have resources enough to back you on a more aggressive course of action, one that stands to help you correct some of your current problems.

After that, she sends a "telecom virus" to those friends and acquaintances, stating that Corbin's folder of Slider's evidence makes a strong case "that elements within Utopia seek to subjugate or regulate, possibly even systematically eliminate, novas as a whole." But they need more than a strong case; with Utopia's presence "in every aspect of normal life", they can't go to any authorities, and "to overturn public confidence in [Utopia] could lead to catastrophic panic worldwide." They don't even know for sure to what extent Utopia is compromised. "Nonetheless, we cannot remain passive against a clear and present threat", so she's inviting "[n]ovas interested in defending their rights as individuals" to meet on Sunday at the Amp Room.

Caestus Pax fires off an angry memo to William F. Reed, director of T2M Americas, ordering him to reprimand Ana Graça Texeira and Gvuthbjörg Danielsdottir for their participation in a recent Queer Nova Alliance demonstration.

A T2M agent has no business getting involved in political or social issues. You will immediately remind them that they represent Team Tomorrow and that they do not have the authority to use their T2M status to further their own agendas without getting prior approval through the proper channels.

He recommends they be sent out on widely separate assignments (Ana to hound the Medellín in Colombia, "Guggie" to handle a matter in Ontario). "You let this kind of thing continue and your agents will start thinking they have rights."

Oh, Shelby... just because you're in the closet, you want the whole queer world to stay there with you. ("A T2M agent has no business getting involved in political or social issues"? Then what the hell business does T2M have even existing?)

[Everything from here down was added in an edit June 4.]

Jesus "Matador" Morales, a Terat mascara in Mexico City, sends an encoded message to his mentor Feathered Serpent about his recent meeting with Meztiszo, of the Aberrants, to open ties between the two anti-Upie groups.

I was thinking of posting this June 30, as it seems to make more chronological sense and be less sudden, but as Ian points out below, Aberrant: Teragen has it taking place today, so there it is. (Of course, now I come to make this edit, I can't actually find the passage in A:T.)

Once you start running, they won't let you stop.

May 16
[Aberrant] UN and Utopia investigations finger Slider's murder as the handiwork of Corbin, whom they allege is linked to the Teragen. This revelation comes as part of a worldwide public broadcast on all major news networks.

So... yeah. No "teragen" tag because they was not actually in said crime.

Whom do you serve, and whom do you trust?

May 11
[Aberrant] Slider leaves a note for Rourke, a fellow Utopian with microscopic vision, telling him of her discoveries. She also goes to four others: Utopia rep Albert Petalan, somebody from the Calcutta police, an AP reporter, and her liaison with Novelty — all of whom are (she comes to believe) either openly hostile to her telling them about or part of the Proteus cover-up, whether actively or through ignorance.

The money quote is paraphrased here, in paragraphs four through seven (from "Then I took a job" through "things he needs you alive to do"). (She doesn't know for sure about Rourke, but he is either already a Proteus member or recruited shortly thereafter.)

She leaves a handwritten note for Corbin, telling him all this and more:

The bottom line is, we can't go to anyone. Get everyone together and let them know the scale of this thing, but keep it hush-hush. Obviously, if you're not part of Utopia's "solution," you're part of the problem. And Utopia's got almost everyone involved as part of the solution on some level.

The Matrix hadn't been released to cinemas when the Aberrant core-book came out, so they couldn't write Jen making that comparison. The author of the LJ I linked above is under no such disadvantage (he said modestly).

< you have forgotten something > </kosh>

early May
[Aberrant] While in Calcutta under NSI contract to Novelty Consulting, allegedly to investigate rumors of Teragen infiltration, Slider begins backtracking one of Novelty's middlemen and discovers that he has "orders to cooperate" with at least three elites, including DeVries' Joseph "Pursuer" Simms (known for a public rivalry with Pax). She follows their contact trails and finds they end up in Utopia offices. She learns the fringes of Project Proteus' activities (the experiments on the patients in Bahrain, the doping of adrenocilin with sterilizing drugs, funding of the very groups Utopia is supposed to stop in Kashmir) and, understandably, becomes convinced that she's discovered an "anti-nova" conspiracy. She goes to André Corbin with her suspicions, but he mostly dismisses them as ranting paranoid shite.

For the record, NSI is Nova Services International, the division of Utopia that handles the subcontracting of Utopian novas to outside firms.

At this point, Jennifer doesn't know the name "Project Proteus". All she knows is that people inside Utopia are not just within six degrees of Utopia's enemies, they're giving those enemies their marching orders. Although the novas who work for Proteus would scoff at the notion that they're working for a conspiracy to exterminate their own kind, I for one can't fault Jennifer for reaching the conclusion she did, and I openly scoff at cricharddavies for calling her "a deluded woman on the verge of accepting the Null Manifesto as part of her personal philosophy."

A followup.

April 19
[Aberrant] Sluice escapes from Utopian custody; telepath Leland Cornwall also goes missing.

Aberrant: Teragen date-stamps this as happening in 2009, but everything else mentioned in the book happens no later than June of 2008, so I'm doing that thing where I assume White Wolf's editors were lying down on the job.

Short and to the pointless.

April 9
[Aberrant] A Ms. Anderson ("theprkid@t2m.com") sends an OpMail to Josiah K. Filbent , human resources agent for T2M Central, requesting advice on what to put in the press release announcing her need of an assistant. He cites her mail in his reply.

And I pretty much summarized the bit he quotes; if there's more to it than that, he's not bothered with it.

...of the Aberrant corebook's "Setting" section, that is)

March 23
[Aberrant] The Fireman is interviewed for the N! documentary Reaching the Stars: A Decade of Novas.

One of the delays in posting this was the difficulty in finding the motivation to look at Portman's words. They're the very first text piece in the rulebook, and as such, there's a fair amount of as-you-know-Bob; also, the artist who drew the accompanying images of Portman gives him a hebephrenic grin that really gets on my tits.

There was also a lot of sincere Utopia boosterism, meant to sucker the reader on his initial encounter with the book, but annoying as hell on revisitation: Utopia has done nothing but good for the world, only right-wing cranks have any reason to object to Utopia, blah blah blah. Oh, and

if [Divis Mal] really believes that [novas aren't bound by human laws], and it's not just a publicity stunt or ratings gimmick, then... his mom should have spanked him more often.... [T]he Teragen is... nothing but a gang of thugs, the Manson Family with super-powers.... They are the ones who are putting this smear-campaign crap on the Project.

He ended with the irony-licious prediction that "the next 10 years will be even better than the last. I really believe that the 21st century will be the dawn of a golden age for mankind."

March 24
[Aberrant] A DeVries agency employee named Khalif sends elite Jeffries a briefing letter on the Nakato-gumi.

This is preparatory to what Jeffries may think of as "a simple extraction", warning him that it's no such thing. He warns Jeffries that the blacktech the Nakato (probably) have at their disposal is likely to have military applications, and might even be capable of taking down Geryon. Having already reminded him that "half the zaibatsu in Osaka are likely in their pockets", he points out that the Nakato are popular with Jiro Sixpack as well; the number three manga series in the country is about a yakuza nova who, when not engaged in his employment, can be found "helping out the little guy and tweaking the noses of foreign authorities." (Although it's been made into an anime, it sounds to me less like the original version of Gumi Nova Tragic than like some Nova Age version of One Piece.) And you can bet your node that they've got at least one real nova, "and we have no idea what sort of powers they're packing. That comic shows somebody with superspeed, but" it's not necessarily reliable.