This is very well-said and very helpful.

I'm in agreement as well. Like I've said before, changing any of the major players under what has already been proposed is pretty unlikely, but the possibility is there if someone comes up with a great story and gets everyone to go along with it.

Thank you very much, Nova_OOC and Mr Fox, I appreciate the kind words.

One thing I'd like to add is that (and I believe that Mr Fox has already said this, or something much like it) there should be a defined system for introducing any Canon-Altering events that players might come up with. I think the requirement of a straight 2/3rds majority vote in favor of the change, in a thread created expressly for the purpose of voting on the proposed change, is a good way to go about it. But my point here is that, regardless of what the system is, there should be a system, and it should be clearly spelled out for all to see.
Without a clearly defined system in place there bound to be hurt feelings on one side of the final ruling or the other (since no one is going to come up with a Canon-Altering idea - or oppose one, for that matter - without already having a personal stake in the issue). With a clearly defined system there will probably still be some hurt feelings from time to time, but only complete dicks are going to make a stink about it. Guidelines are like safety fences and warning signs; they show us all where it's safe to tread and what to expect should we venture beyond them. Without them we can't really look askance at or judge someone who falls off the edge and complains that they fell, and it hurt, but with them no one who falls off the edge can complain in the first place. Not without looking like an idiot anyway.

You're right.

This is bad because it changes their flavor to crackpots. If they believe that Proteus exists and are actually responding to Slider's death then it makes them true protagonists. It also makes utopia seem less squeaky clean which was the intent of the designers. To do without either really takes away from Aberrant as a setting for me.

I have always wanted to play in an Aberrant focused game. Still haven't. Came close once, but the ST vanished. :Sigh:

In cannon they are crackpots... who granted happen to be right. PU has a lot of control over the media.

I get that part. But taking away the "the they are right" part makes them into *actual crackpots* rathern than being hunted anti-heroes...

Thing is that they're right and wrong. Not all of PU is off the wall, just a part of it.

More to the point, if we take the certainy of PU's guilt off the table then we also get rid of PCs thinking "it's just obvious" that PU is guilty.

There are multiple facts in cannon that are contradictory. As of 2008 there have been no nova births at all. The implication is if you don't take the drugs you still end up sterile. Maybe that's because PU has a back up plan that really rocks, maybe it's because novas with even a single dot of taint are sterile, maybe something else. But in cannon it's not supposed to be easy to know what the problem is and avoid it, much less finger PU.

So join the aberrants if you wish, point a finger at PU, and maybe you're a crackpot or maybe you're right... or maybe both.

And honestly, I've always liked the idea that Utopia is, by and large, sincere.

It may have some bad eggs...opportunists out to aggrandize themselves on Utopia's dime. And maybe not everything it does is what everyone would like...but as a group, and on the whole, it really isn't a bad thing.

I think the core material gave into the urge to make Project Utopia a kind of "fall guy," in the unspoken notion that centralized authority must inevitably be based on corruption at its heart.

It'd be interesting, I think, to show Utopia as not necessarily being the boogeyman that it turned into in so many visions of Aberrant.

I would REALLY love to see us have that an option.

You forget that the Top Director of Utopia is in on Proteus...It goes all the way to the top...Proteus was created by The Aeon Society and they are using Utopia for their own good. Even the rest of the divisions push Novas too hard on purpose and sterilize them.

Sure a large majority of people working there "just work there" and dont know what they are really doing but the conspiracy that is pulling their strings, issuing their memos and paying their salaries has motivations sinister.

Well, let's start with the fact that Utopia (and Proteus, even) are not actually working with basic motivations that are all that sinster. In the face of people walking around with the equivalent of tactical nukes in ther hands (some more than others), their response is to try to get a handle on the situation by any means necessary. Part of that is putting those people to work doing good deeds and improving the world (which is what Utopia is really about, let's not forget), and the other part is cutting down the overall population, preventing them from breeding to produce God Knows What, and quietly killing off the ones who seem like they might, say, generate a plague that'll kill half the population of the planet.

In other words, Utopia doesn't always do nice things, but it isn't exactly the Villians United either. And it'd be worth having it clear that people can be part of Utopia and be part of something noble... even if it might be doing some wetwork in the background to keep that nobility afloat.

Angst is easily compartmentalized. Utopia is big enough to be more or less good... with big meaty chunks of vile corruption, waiting to be excised by Novas possessed of sufficient means and motivation.

If any setting should be opposed to being able to point at a single organization and say "Look! The Villain!" I'd think it would be Aberrant. I'd say this applies to Utopia big time. But even the anti-Nova groups deserve a -little- moral ambiguity.

I'm still holding off on my big rant on why strictly following the Aberrant storyline makes baby Xeno cry...

But definitely -one- of the reasons to avoid it is being able to go in without so much meta-game knowledge of the nature of things and future events. You might tell yourself, deep down inside, that you can RP above your knowledge of all the secrets and future-events the Aberrant-writers made up all those years ago... but even deeper down, you know this is not true. Every fiber of your being screams 'I know the answer! I know the answer!' and the human drive to be correct in the face of a complex problem is nigh irresistible, in the end. The knowledge will bleed through, one way or another.

JJ Laragoine is Thetis' boss, and he distrusts the hell out of the skank and agonizes like Oedipus over the sterilization thing. It's not really as sinister as you paint it.

Project Utopia: We Do What We Must Because We Can

Well I get it that its all about shades of grey. I am also not in favor of strictly following the plot to the aberrant war...as plausible as such a war might be given the right circumstances and an appropriate catalyst.

What makes it sinister (and juicy to play) from the Aberrant factions point of view is that if one part of Utopia is corrupt then you cant trust anyone. Even the good people might have their emails bugged or be spyed on. You dont know who the spies in the ranks are. Does that make more sense? If Proteus was after me I would sure as hell go WAY underground...

That's a valid point: even the well-meaning functionaries and Heroes of Justice in PU are potential tools in the hands of Proteus, and that does lend an aura of menace to all of Utopia as a whole. But you seem to be forgetting that one, most people don't know about Proteus, and two, Proteus, while certainly clandestine, is not the Ultimate Evil of the Aberrant setting.

Im not forgetting about it. I was discussing with relevance to the Aberrant faction who does know about them.

I also dont think Aberrant has an Ultimate Evil. Though if Proteus hadnt engaged in its activities a lot of damage might not have been done. The Sterilization. Creating brush wars where elites would kill each other, fanning flames in the Kashmir DMZ etc. Proteus is as much resposible for the Aberrant War as the Teragen (post NOLK) was.

Once the scandals got out nonone was sure who to trust anymore and things went from bad to worse the more the lines were drawn...

It's also worth saying that we now have the chance, if we wish to (and certainly we may decide not to), to make decisions that change the status of the Director, of Proteus, and of Project Utopia itself.

It's worth considering, I think.

Ditto.

Also agreed.

Thats what this thread is all about discussing! ^_^.

I was merely stating my preference to keep enough canon to keep the Aberrants intact. Almst everyone I know of tends to gloss over the faction. This is due in large part to the fact that the development team switched in mid-line and the new ones decided they like the Teragen better. Thats why we only got a crappy little book on the Aberrants. Had they gotten the same in depth treatment and were we provided with more concrete details about people like Rouseau, I think it would be a more popular option to run games/strories about. As is it takes alot of work for STs to flesh out the faction...

The Aberrants do not adapt well to this environment. Cannon says they don't win. If they do win, heck, if they do anything positive, then we need to worry hard about what happens to one of the two big groups (PU or Project Pro).

If we let them take down PU in 2008, then that's very limiting for anyone who wants to do anything with PU in 2009. For that matter it gets harder to play the Teragen if they don't have a foe.

All of these things are most easily dealt with by an ST and not a committee.

The Aberrants catalyzed as a movement when Corbin bolted from the funeral with Proteus having left him no options. However, what people forget is Sophia was already out there and apparently knows something of what is going on without having the vital links to put it all together. Corbin acts as the pretty boy figurehead while Sophia the smart girl no can pin down. There was an "Aberrant" in play before Corbin. Corbin is the one that makes it cool and dashing, not unlike the way Mal makes the Teragen mainstream.

Project Utopia labeled the mainstream Aberrant movement as terrorists and everyone says okay because they're Project Utopia. Even the Directive personnel buy into it and have to be reminded by their bosses that no law enforcement agency has labeled the Aberrants as such, only Project Utopia.

Just some thoughts for everyone.