We're celebrating Klordny Week, Superboy!

Containments, breached and failed.

June 2
[Aberrant] At 0345 unspecified local time, Divis Mal emerges from his Chrysalis. His awakening is known only to Synapse, whose monitors alert him to it, and Scripture, whom Doan tells of it.

"That's Michael," is Jeremiah's first reaction when he gets the news. "He always has been an overachiever." Synapse has given the Beacon a datapacket to read with updates on what he's slept through, and asks Scripture if there's any message he wants passing along. Scripture's only answer? "Tell him... tell him I've missed him."

In a closed UN Security Council meeting, Utopia's Internal Affairs department reveals findings indicating a frame-up of the organization. The US and British governments are unconvinced, and Directive surveillance of Utopia's operations is stepped up.

No mention of Japan, but in OTL, they were last on the council for a 2005-6 term anyway. I doubt they were convinced either.

Yet another entry in the "Slavic names don't work that way" series. Or possibly "Slavic naming: You're doing it wrong."

April 20
[Aberrant] Alexi Mirovna observes the Protectors, probably on behalf of the Directive.

Then again, I'm not sure how much room to gritch I really have, given that I forgot to post about the Protectors' mission statement when it emanated from their newly established Antarctic compound in November of 2006:

We, the Protectors, seek to establish a safe, peaceful, self-contained community away from the violence, corruption and social decay that threaten the nations of the world. We invite like-minded individuals to join us and advise those who would threaten our freedom that we can and will defend ourselves.

It all started with an American survivalist named Thomas Sering, whose eruption was supposedly triggered when the very real problems of Y2K were ameliorated by Utopia. Over the next few years, he remained off the grid in a cabin in the Rockies, corresponding over the Internet and (later) the OpNet with ideological peers, skeptical of any large organization and particularly of Utopia.

Finally, in the fall of 2006, a group of about a dozen novas and five dozen baselines flew, or were flown, from Colorado to Antarctica. Since then, they, and those who've flocked to the Protectors' banner, have apparently done nothing but excavate and develop their cave compound.

Alexi, with his powers of invisibility, Mega-Perception and temperature tolerance, has been dispatched to see if they're really as harmless to outside society (absent any hostility on its part) as they appear. He finds that they seem to be just that.

He enters the territory claimed by the Protectors at 0322 local time (whatever is the relevant time zone here) and exits by 0514. He wouldn't have gotten inside their haven but for "a combination of useful intelligence and good timing"; Sering came outside to welcome a visit from Cyrus Katrak, head of the space-migrationist nova organization known as the Daedalus League, and Mirov(na) followed them in.

While the two novas talked business, Alexi listened with maybe half an ear, concentrating on a survey of the haven — spartan but sophisticated, estimated population about 20 novas and 140-170 baselines. There's also an armory, most of whose contents looked Russian (he suspects "leftovers from the collapse of the USSR").

Overall, the behavior of the Protectors is classic survivalist.... I believe the Protectors are not involved with Project Utopia in any way, nor are they an immediate threat of any kind. I recommend they be placed under regular surveillance — preferably automated, thank you very much &and watched for any signs of trouble. Otherwise, it is best that we leave them alone.

Since the Aberrant Player's Guide shows them still isolated in 2015, I assume they'll be left alone at least until then.

Mind games, board games.

March 18
[Aberrant] The Directive intercepts Teragen member Cornelius White's phone conversation with an unidentified party about the torture of Directive agent Martin Fuller, who had been using the name "Joshua Ballantrae" to contact the Terats.

After about three months of acquaintance, "Josh" started asking one of White's friends, one "Mimi" (no other name given), some questions. "Where was she from, what was her eruption like, what did she think about Utopia. Crap like that." Mimi, figuring "Josh" was trying to seduce her, scanned his mind and found it opaque:

She got nursery rhymes and math equations. She got old show tunes. She didn't get any surface thoughts and couldn't go deep at all. [She] says it wasn't a q-power. The guy was using mind games to block her out. Strange thing is, he didn't even seem to be trying, it was, like, built into his brain.

Mimi told Cornelius, and while she was keeping "Josh"... occupied, White called in "the Hare", presumably a fellow Terat. The Hare found four state-of-the-art surveillance gadgets in the clothes "Josh" wasn't wearing, so they decided to take "Josh" someplace private and give him the third (or higher) degree.

It took them much of an hour to get his real name and a fake allegiance (FBI/Utopia). He remained resistant to Mimi's mental powers (thanks to the training the Directive calls "Thought Discipline"), but when White and the Hare started removing his fingernails and teeth with pliers, he began to sing.

White was just about to wrap up his report-in and join the Hare in testing what White might be holding back when the Directive rescue team broke down the door. The last sounds on the transmission are the explosion of a stun grenade and gunfire from a Directive-issue weapon. Agent Fuller was recovered alive, well and of normal size alive and intact, and didn't reveal his Directive allegiance nor the names of any of his cell. "Speaker B remain[s] unidentified and unaccounted for."

Short and to the point.

2006
[Aberrant] On America's Talking!, Count Orzaiz is asked if he's worried about the Directive; he replies "Who?"

It's not clear, from the snippet provided in Aberrant: The Directive, whether he's genuinely unaware of the Directive's existence or merely dismissing them as a potential threat. Many in the Teragen consider the Directive a cover for Utopia's less savory activities; then again, many in the Directive think the Teragen/Utopia rivalry is staged.

Mayday! M'aidez!

2005
[Aberrant] Following the revelation that Radocani's weaponry had been produced by Japanese corporations acting in violation of UN norms (the reason Utopia became involved), Utopia's Science and Technology Department is granted even greater regulatory latitude in monitoring "potentially dangerous technological advancements."

Some of those blacktech weapons had probably been produced by the company whose name means "blacktech" — Kuro-Tek, whose CEO Yoshira Nakamura is the cousin of the Directive's Mitsu Nakamura (as well as having ties to the Nakato-gumi of the Yakuza).

[EDITED 12:46 PM to correct the defect lostfactor points out. Thanks, man!]

Jeez, I've been taking my time about this, haven't I? Well, there's only so much month left, and (as they say on Scanalyzer) there's no time like the present for things to happen in.

1923
[Adventure!] Whitley Styles records in his journal that Mercer and Danger Ace, back from success in Mexico City, stopped by Mercer Manor to see how the reconstruction was coming.

Whit considers that Æon's making a lot of progress. "The attack [link added] suggests we're bothering the right types of people." He's surprised none of the membership have quit, but Max points out, with "an 'I told you so' look", that Æon's members are act-ors, not observers.

1998
[Aberrant] First use of the term "baseline" to refer to humans without nova powers.

The excerpts from the d20 version of Trinity posted on White Wolf's website indicate that the term seems to be replacing "neutral" (which had been used in the Storyteller version of Trinity to refer to the non-Inspired masses as distinct from psions and Aberrants).

( 2001: A Utopian odyssey. )

2004
[Aberrant] The Directive assigns Lucas Barrows to monitor German communications and media for evidence to confirm or deny President Fredericksen's anti-nova prejudices.

Preliminary intel suggests that Fredericksen is just shy of having the Bundeswehr chase all novas out of Germany, which could begin driving a wedge between the German government and Europe's novas, with catastrophic results. However, Barrows' research shows that the German press, at least, seems as nova-enraptured as the rest of the planet.

Not one, not two, but three.

1970
[Aberrant] Marcel Delorimier, later the Terat known as "the Apostle," born in Paris, France.

He was the sort of alienated suburban youth that makes easy pickings for ultranationalist movements, like the militias here in the US or Le Pen's lot in France. Then he erupted, expanding the list of people he considered himself superior to — not just piedsnoirs, but baselines in general.

It was in this state of mind, in the fall of 1999, that he and Caroline Fong met up with two other novas who weren't happy with the rules Æon was laying out for the nova game — jet-setter Raoul Cristobal Orzaiz and gray eminence Pedro Santiago.

Over the years, more disaffected novas (such as Shrapnel) found the nameless movement that resulted from that meeting. Last summer, they reached a critical point when Divis Mal joined — or, rather, when they joined him. He gave them a philosophy — Teras — and a name: the Teragen, omen-bringers. Now, their legacy is our future.

Delorimier has attached himself to Fong. He's a follower looking for leaders, but he has a tendency to betray his current leader when he finds one he likes better.

1998
[Aberrant] The Æon Society publicly announces its UN support and issues an invitation to open dialogue with any interested novas. The UN works behind the scenes to calm and reassure the world that Æon can handle the nova outbreak.

It's hinted (in the Trinity core rules, as I recall) that the UN was an Æon creation. Make of that what you will.

2001
[Aberrant] The Sternych Missive, in which Petr Ilyanovich, Calvin Lathrop and Mitsu Nakamura lay out for Eliot Stinson's perusal the case for the Directive and for US involvement therein.

They didn't have to do much persuading — Stinson, President Schroer's Assistant Secretary of Defense, was one of the first to realize that Project Utopia's interests would not always be identical with America's (and, in fact, already weren't).