aberrantangels: (Default)
There's a possibility that [livejournal.com profile] thessalian might accidentally give a flying shit about this one, since it takes place in her hometown or somewhere with the same name.

July 16
[Aberrant] Montreal city councilman Marcus Smith, a known proponent of Quebec's faltering Anglophone movement and of the United Canada agenda, is found dead in his penthouse apartment; the RCMP have no doubts that he was murdered and that a nova was responsible. A note left at the scene on behalf of Citoyens pour le supremacy [sic] des français declares that Quebec will be free from English tyranny, whatever the cost.


It's the 17th such death of an Anglophone in the last four years. Apparently, the TU's Montréal really is a place where militant Francophones will ignore even the most desperate pleas for help if they happen to be phrased en Anglais. Unless the sweet bird specifically confirms this, I'm going to chalk it up to White Wolf editors (who, you may notice in the sidebar, are now a tag) aiming for satire and achieving only snottiness.
aberrantangels: (welcome to hell)
Ironically, I have an appointment with my own therapist this afternoon.

June 11
[Aberrant] Carmel "Calamity" Callahan is interviewed by Dr. Wilhelmina Helene Rausch-Rivers, of the Craiglockhart Centre for the Treatment of War Disorders, about the Field of Glass incident.


Aberrant: Elites dates this as happening on June 11, 2007, despite it referring to events later in that same year, but this is obviously the earliest June 11 on which the discussion can take place. Ah, White Wolf, where editors are something that happens to other companies.

Dr. Rausch-Rivers: I know, Carmel, and we have touched on this before. But I think we should put off that discussion till a later time. Right now, I feel as if you're trying to stall about something.


She actually says this to him after he's discoursed on how he prayed the night before the attack: "I remember asking [the Virgin] Mary for her special help.... Mary has helped me a lot since I was a kid." But she could just as easily be saying it to me, because there's a certain amount of stalling in the writing of this post. The level of emotional intensity that comes off the page, when he's telling her about the Field of Glass, literally hurts me to read. Or maybe it's just the sense of him letting out a scream that nobody really hears.

Before we get to that point, he talks about how pumped up he was for the attack, the fight with Totentanz he was expecting. This leads Rausch-Rivers to ask if the US government had given him soma, and Callahan to at least the second in a series of denials.

Eventually, he talks about what happened when his Calamity Blast melted the fort, slagged the stone and fused the sandbags into glass:

I didn't shoot right *at* them, but they were too close by... ) I killed 143 dumb, unwilling kids! I will never use my powers again. Oh, God, I will never be forgiven...


Rausch-Rivers asks her assistant, Joey, to send for Marie and Selima, while Callahan raves some more:

I swear the Lord hates us all or is testing us and trying to destroy us. I don't understand how anybody could be like me, and kill people like me, and not go crazy.... You know what? I think Totentanz is more than an icon. I think anyone who kills that easily really is Death. I bet he doesn't get nightmares. Oh, God, I'm not human any more.


He warns Rausch-Rivers that everybody needs to be careful of people like him and asks her to tell everyone. She assures him that she will and asks him, in return, to let Marie give him his tranquilizer. He agrees, then says they're not strong enough and asks if he could have the green pills instead. Then he asks somebody to pull the blinds down on the office window, as the sun is going down and "I can see my own face behind you." Rausch-Rivers asks Marie to tend to the blinds, but she's not quite quick enough: "Oh, my God! Please, please, get me out of here, help me, my eyes are watching me in the glass!" (Recording breaks off)
aberrantangels: (conspiracy theory)
< 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 [livejournal.com profile] cricharddavies for calling her "a deluded woman on the verge of accepting the Null Manifesto as part of her personal philosophy."
aberrantangels: (good commando name)
Macho bullshit. Let's go.

April 17
[Aberrant] In an N!terview, DeVries Elite™ Lance "Stone Badass" Stryker denounces the rumor of his scheduled participation in next month's XWF "Hong Kong Karnage" pay-per-view, or indeed in any other XWF event. "If Core wants to take off his little makeup and come out from inside his little arena and bring his little Core Meltdown to [any] place where real men do real fightin' for a livin', then the Stone Badass will be happy to shove the sole of my boot straight up his ass...and that's a damn fact!"


This is the second time I've mentioned Lance Stryker (if you don't count the days when my comments links came with a reference to his trademarked catchphrase "and that's a damn fact"). I should've mentioned him last spring, when he was unmasked by rival elite Borealis, but the Aberrant core rules didn't state the date any more precisely than "the spring of 2007". (There's another item about him from last year that I missed then, but it's got a precise date, so I'll get to it next month.)

"Do I look like a damn cartoon to you, son?" he asks the N! reporter right before calling out the reigning champion of posthuman sports entertainment. "Do I look like Core or [Maxx] Mauler or one of them other mite-injectin', pumped-up, fake-ass faggots that goes out there and rolls around in his damn underwear so that a bunch of fat OpNet turds can sit around and jack off?" The irony here is that he's a fairly obvious Captain Ersatz of "Stone Cold" Steve Austin ("And that's the bottom line").
aberrantangels: (good commando name)
Everything you want is not everything you need

March 30
[Aberrant] Sara Stefano, a class A case reviewer, submits case file T2M-033008-SS0287 to T2M-Europe. The file concerns what appears to be Radocanist guerrilla activity against Serbs, Albanians, Turks and UN teams in Macedonia.


"Officials report more than two dozen shooting deaths and several people missing," Stefano reports. She also notes that the guerrillas seem able to bypass the nocturnal surveillance of "[l]ocal military and police personnel", which suggests to her "nova involvement, possibly elites."

She recommends "that we attach an operative there until we have rendered all of Radocani's supporters powerless", preferably a T2Mer "with quantum-detecting abilities" to spot the suspected nova(s).

Furthermore, I believe we should pull a team of agents from the ongoing, less-urgent diplomatic mission in norther Ireland. This team should approach the Balkan situation with extreme prejudice against the war criminals and terrorists, so that we can finally put an end to this. Historically, the Balkan region has flared up again and again. This goes against Utopia's and the United Nations' plans for the future of the area and we should give cauterization of the situation a high priority.


Macedonia doesn't rate a mention in Shattered Europe, so I can't say whether those plans succeeded or failed in that specific case.
aberrantangels: (good commando name)
This didn't happen until the evening of the 24th, by which time I was in Maryland.

December 24
[Aberrant] DeVries Elites™ "Finn and Dog" leave 26 dead aboard the cruise ship Island Princess, including novox stars Brother Rap and Sister Soul, who are later found to have been dealing in arms for the Nation of Islam.


Well, technically a radical NoI faction, but still. It's a good thing the people who set Finn (somewhat bishonen, social combat-monster) and Dog (master tracker with a schnauzer's muzzle aberrated onto his face) onto BR&SS weren't playing the two elites for saps; their response to that sort of thing tends to be messy.

When they find out during the initial negotiations, it's still painful, but it tends to be only verbal (well, verbal with the full weight of Finn's Mega-Social enhancements behind it, but that's no worse than being insulted by, say, Pere Brinker or Doug Piranha). Something like Finn's "Lies give me gas, idiots give me a headache. Now I have both, and all I did was sit in the same room with you for two minutes" or Dog's far earthier and decidedly NSFW comment ).
aberrantangels: (dreaming of Zion awake)
The article in the Aberrant corebook is undated; I think I got the date from the relevant supplement.

November 12
[Aberrant] Graham Herron, current holder of the Houston Tornado "franchise" (urban defender license), is found shot, stabbed and beaten to death near Dime Box, TX. His corpse is reportedly marked with symbols associated with the Church of Michael Archangel, a fundamentalist Christian sect which holds that "aberrants" are literal demons from hell.


Sheriff Tom Boddard, who found the body, says "[t]here must have been a lot of the Michaelites to take one of these boys down," but says he wasn't aware of a Michaelite compound in the area; he speculates they came from Austin or Nacogdoches, which presumably both host Michaelite presences. "Powder burns marked the weapons as having been discharged at close range."

A spokesman for Micah Piper, Grand Deacon of the Austin (TX) Michaelite compound, while not actually admitting any role in Herron's death, says that the Tornado "obviously met his match in God's Chosen." Online Michaelites echoed the sentiment; Suzanne Haslett of Virginia asks "Why should we weep for the passing of the Devil's own?" Lucy Corgan, age seven, boasts: "My papa has a gun that will drop an aberrant dead in his tracks, and so do all his friends."

Linda Raphael (evidently done with Operation Upgrade) and fellow Devries Elite™ Elijah Crane head for Houston to "rally some novas interested in justice." Piper counters with a warning: "The righteous God is with us, you spawn of Satan. We've got enough guns and faith to lay you out just like what happened to your friend." Sounds to me like they have more faith in their guns than in their faith, but money and gunpowder do talk, don't they?
aberrantangels: (sonic boom!)
War is hell.

November
[Aberrant] After initial testing and rehabilitation at the Craiglockhart Centre for the Treatment of War Disorders, Carmel "Calamity" Callahan is admitted as a full-time patient for an indefinite period or until his rehabilitation, whichever happens first.


This successor to Craiglockhart War Hospital isn't located in the original building, which is presumably being put to the same use in the TU as in OTL, but on the island of New Guinea, discreetly out of the public eye. The British government established it in 2005, when it became clear that nova PTSD raised a new set of issues.

Fan me, Calamity. )
aberrantangels: (good commando name)
Remember, if they're not with DeVries, they're not really an Elite™.

October 5
[Aberrant] DeVries Agency Elite™ Linda "Lotus Infinite" Raphael enters into a contract with TransEurope Expediting, Inc., of Atlanta, Georgia, for "Operation: Upgrade" — the location and retrieval of 13 OpNet servers, to begin October 11 and conclude by October 18.


There's a page and a half of legalese discussing Lotus' fee, required confidentiality, civil limitations (endanger no infinite lives, use neither the Infinite Wind Technique nor the Infinity Justifier), an agreement not to re-recover or otherwise tamper with the servers absent direct written permission from TransEurope... fairly standard IP-industry legal blap, I'd say.
aberrantangels: (Nova Age)
I've been slacking hellaciously, I know.

November 5
[Aberrant] A Québecois separatist group using the name of the Front de Liberation de Québec claims responsibility for recent terrorist strikes in Ottawa and Toronto. Given the nature of the strikes, Canadian authorities fear the group may be employing an elite.


I have little or nothing to add to this.

Mike Dawson sends a letter home talking about his recent Calliopist retreat, in which he participated in a "Sacred Circle".


He wants to tell his parents about what happened between himself, the other five Calliopists who make up his Circle, and Calliope, "but there's no way that you could possibly understand how it feels to share complete and utter trust with others in the way we do now." He didn't come home for Thanksgiving break as he'd once planned to; instead, he's gone to the "Grand Circle", a gathering of Sacred Circles to come "closer to Perfect Understanding and the Immaculate Soul."
aberrantangels: (Nova Age)
This is the main thing this date means to the TU.

Aberrant
Michael M'btede, Utopia's Director of African Operations, classifies Marrakesh and Casablanca as Avoid zones for all Utopia Africa nova personnel.


This follows persistent harassment and the disappearance of two DeVries elites, Tycho "Wardog" DeWitt and Benoit "Zip" Goubeaux. Zip in particular, speedster and regenerator, becomes the James Dean of the Nova Age; it will be almost two years before the next time the loss of a nova touches so many.
aberrantangels: (Trinity Universe)
Relatively minor, as far as I know. No year given because, well, it's this year, today.

[Aberrant] New nova Kyle Scott has his entrance interview with DeVries' Regina Barrone.


The Kennisaw, GA, native interviews at the New York office after teleporting into the lobby. So far, his only powers are that teleportation and the ability to hear radio broadcasts directly in his head, and since he doesn't have full control of the latter, I'm not sure it counts as a power yet.

Regina promises that the agency "can help [him] develop and control all [his] powers and make [him] a very rich man in the process." Kyle allows as how their reputation for paying better than Utopia is why he came to DeVries first. He wants a mask; she assures him that, as soon as he signs on the dotted line, she can send him to Bruce Sauvage at Superimpose (DeVries' in-house costume designer, likely to be an interesting experience for a small-town boy).
aberrantangels: (Trinity Universe)
And once again, I almost run out of month.

1922
[Adventure!] Whitley Styles records in his journal that Michael Donighal has called, asking if Whit has had any better luck finding Max Mercer (whom neither of them has seen since the Hammersmith Incident). Whit resolves to catch the next boat to London: "Mrs. Austin will be disappointed, but her jewels can wait."


I've already spoiled the ending of this movie.

1923
[Adventure!] Whitley Styles records in his journal that Max Mercer has returned from Macao, conveniently at a time when the other six Æon founders were in Chicago, and almost the first words out of his mouth were "We're not the police, but we've got to do something with the people we stop." Jake Stefokowski wondered why these Inspired malefactors can't just be turned over to the police; Whit pointed out that most jurisdictions don't actually have laws against building "death rays". Professor Dixon suggested setting up a psychiatric facility; Jack Tallon offered some of his secluded African/Arabian holdings to the purpose. In the end, Mercer agreed to the project: "it's not enough to understand the wonders of our world; we must understand the people who experience them." Max has also suggested that the Æon core membership spend Christmas together.


It may be that this decision led directly to Bahrain. At the very least, it provided precedent.

2001
[Aberrant] The DeVries Agency announces the formation of a new arm, DeVries National Tactical Solutions. While the Agency does not apologize for its role in the Equatorial Wars, it transfers the management of its combat Elites™ to DVNTS.


I'm afraid I don't have much to add to that.

2002
[Aberrant] In the wake of Utopia's being granted oversight of Kashmir, Covert Action News reports on "Utopia's Real Agenda Revisited". The monitoring facilities in Kashmir would allow Utopia to watch India and China — the two largest armies, and largest official nova military forces, on the planet — and the southern parts of the RusCon. The article's author even speculates that Utopia may have manipulated China into taking an interest in Kashmir (which they never had before).


The original article on "Utopia's Real Agenda" appeared in April, but I don't seem to have written an entry about it at the time. *^^* It was to do with the negotiations that led to the London Peace Accord.
aberrantangels: (Trinity Universe)
Continued from yesterday.

2002
[Aberrant] Peter Knorr, leader of the baseline mercenary cadre known as the Wolfpack, is the only survivor of his eight-man unit, sent to fight in Kashmir. His teammates are all wiped out by elites within an hour of entering combat, and Knorr only survives because the stress of fighting for his life causes him to erupt. On returning to his native Britain, he visits the London Rashoud facility, subsequently working as an ecological engineer for a few years before joining Team Tomorrow as "Thorn."


I don't know how long "a few years" is, but it's likely that right now (or, at least, in the relative now), he's still doing ecology-work a la Antaeus.
aberrantangels: (Trinity Universe)
"Many men are born blind and only realize it the day some overwhelming truth tears their eyes open."
— Jean Cocteau, La machine infernelle (freely translated)

1981
[Aberrant] Charlie Benton, later the elite and Terat known as "Epoch," born blind in Queens, NY.


"His parents sent him to the best schools he could afford," says Aberrant: Teragen, "but even there he did not fit in." He became obsessed with the few accounts of serial killers' deeds he could find in Braille editions.

He erupted sometime this year, after a car crash that killed his father and which only his powers enabled him to survive. He came out with gravity control, telekinesis, telepathy and something approximating what Doc Smith called "the sense of perception" — a view of what's around him without the need to "look" at it. After training at the Manhattan Rashoud facility, he began a career as an elite, the only way he knew of to vent his anger and bloodlust.
aberrantangels: (Trinity Universe)
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep

— Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth"

2001
[Aberrant] Talk radio's Jordan McDevitt insists to "Larry from Louisville" that the Equatorial Wars are a setup. "All those countries, like Nigeria and Sierra Leone and all, where'd they get the money to hire all those elites?...I think the answer's pretty simple — the good ol' U-S-of-A....They wanted to find out how T2M stood up in an out-and-out battle."


Larry scoffs at this theory, and Jordan offers a counterproposal: "maybe the media secretly bankrolled the whole thing. Who's making the most money off of this whole situation?" (Aberrant: Project Utopia has him specifically mentioning N!, but given that the Nova Network didn't become a separate entity for another year and a half, this must be another failure of White Wolf's continuity department.)
aberrantangels: (Trinity Universe)
...of Roland's Thompson gun and bought it.
— Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"

They killed to earn their living and to help out the Congolese. )
aberrantangels: (Trinity Universe)
Well, this is a rarity — a Today as distinct from a This Day.

2004
[Aberrant] In a letter to store managers of this date, Novation Editor-in-Chief Jerome Grant regrets to inform his customers that, due to Hiram Goldberg's recent demise at the hands of DeVries elite Klaus "Tötentanz" Kleisner while on assignment in Nigeria, the Slag: Hot Metal Fury™ comic will end with #30 (an accurate retelling of his final mission, to be sold polybagged with a Mature Readers label) and a "Mourning Edition" Slag figure will be included in Series III.


Mourning Edition Slag™ (Series IIIb if you want to get specific) is actually to be a boxed set of three figures: Slag™ with Slag Pile™, Slag™ with Accurate Death Wounds, and Hiram Goldberg in casket with removable lid; these will be the last Slag figures ever. HMF #30 is to have "two full-color covers" (whether they'll be sold together or as separate surprise variants, Grant doesn't say).

Finally, Grant takes a moment to reflect on how Slag's death reminds us all that novas are not immortal four-color superheroes, and sets a precedent. "The road forks here," he writes;

one path leads to a comfortable and changeless mythology, the other leads back to the real world. We at Novation have, after a great deal of debate, chosen to err on the side of realism to illustrate that novas are real people, with real problems and whose choices have real consequences.


Grant means it only as a comment on the static nature of most comics. At the risk of stating the obvious, Kraig Blackwelder presumably also meant it as an observation on the evolving nature of the TU. (Okay, evolving via a somewhat railed metaplot, but evolving nonetheless.)
aberrantangels: (Nova)
I've finally decided to make "This month in Trinity Universe history" a separate category from "This day [etc]".

Abandoning the search, but not the hope. )

Six Heads Lightning War. )

Profile

aberrantangels: (Default)
the true meaning of Klordny

May 2013

S M T W T F S
   12 34
56 78 91011
1213141516 1718
192021222324 25
262728293031 

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 3rd, 2025 05:25 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios