The issue of how old someone has to be to erupt has come up.

My impression is that you can be *any* age, but teenager is most common, however I haven't found any book support for that.

So, is it possible for someone to erupt at age 10? 5? Baby?

Note "possible" is not "common". I'd think there would be a bare handful of superpowered babies out there.

I think Nova Infants should be a once in a lifetime type of thing here and should be best left as either a backdrop or plot device for another story. They certainly wouldn't be able to interact here as a PC for the most part.

That said I don't have a problem with very young PC novas (having a 16 year old Nova here myself) as long as they could be reasonably believed to actually be interacting here.

I pretty much feel the same way. A nova infant should nearly impossible. As an ST, I draw the line at puberty. Something about puberty activates the latency in the Nova gene. Before then, there just isn't the mechanics for eruption.

Mind you, Second Generation novas are a different problem. With little official information to go on, we can only speculate on how 'quantum sensetive' these children are and what that means for their eruptions.

RE: 2nd Gen
See this for info. I think it's semi-offical. http://rpgbooks.wikia.com/wiki/Trinity_Storytellers_Handbook/Introduction

RE: Infants
IMHO the only way we could have a child PC here is if they have Mega-Int and/or Temporal Manip.

However that's not the question on the table. How young should the youngest nova eruption on record be?

Well, Chimera erupted 4 months after his 16th Birthday but I doubt he's the youngest here.

Solstice erupted 3 months before her 16th birthday, so she was 15. However Teen Tomorrow (est. 2012) asks for any nova between the ages of 13 - 19.

So, we know that they erupt as young as 13. However in my TT game we've had a nova as young as two but with a taint of 6. I guess it's whatever you feel works for your story.

Around here, to keep it simple, I'd go no lower than 13.

Ravenshire is on the right track, an infant nova should be almost unthinkable. It's a tabloid story waiting to happpen: "Mother to be shot in stomach! Baby born with bullet in hand! Bat Boy claims to be the Daddy!"

We've had a PC who was 9 months old and erupted due to his birth trama (yes, killing his parents). Admittedly he had Temporal Manip (making apparent age a matter of choice and he choose mid 50's) and Mega-Int.

As I see it, an infant nova should be impossible. A nova's eruption is shaped, as well a limited by, the personality, imagination, and subconscious desires of the character. An infant, even at 9 months, would not have any (or least much) of these things.

Under circumstances that would cause in eruption in a mature baseline, I think an infant would not even be aware of the threat. Or would only be aware of the stress and discomfort caused by it, and not be capable of any cognizant reaction consciously or subconsciously.



Of course, by this logic alone, the aberrant universe should be swarming with super-powered four-year-olds.

You don't need to erupt in response to a threat. Granted, that's the most popular option, but other possibilities are meditation and just "finding out you can do things".

And the PC didn't erupt at 9 months, he erupted at birth. At a guess there would be a personality and subconscious and even "desires" even at that age, although they wouldn't be "normal" by adult standards.

The core problem is whatever you get from something like that won't normally be a functional person who can log in here. PCs would of course be the exception, but even then they'd need a darn good explaination (Temporal Manip and Mega-Int work).

But if we remove the need for logging in here (i.e. it's just someone on record), then the only cannon evidence I can present for baby novas is Adam and his sister (both serious aberrations).

So IMHO what we're dealing with here is an ST question.

Menu Options:
1) Early puberty is the youngest age on record. So that means 12 would be a certainty but in theory they could be a lot younger. Say the youngest on record is 11.
2) Child novas are possible but rare. Say, the youngest on record is 6 but there's no reason in theory it couldn't be younger.
3) Baby novas are possible but very rare. Say, the youngest nova on record is about 1 but there's no reason in theory it couldn't be younger.

this appears to be mostly a fan-made document. I don't know how much of it was pulled from developer notes or unfinished official pages, but they say it's still the process of being edited and some of it seems to contract known AEON material. Such as calling Daredevils Paramorphs, when I think that Adventure and Aberrant stated that Max Mercer was the only known paramorph.

I could be wrong, however. Just skimmed it. I don't know how much of it was, in the words of the writer "intended" to be released into Trinity and what is complete speculation on his part.

Yup, the Trinity Storytellers Handbook was indeed a fan-based effort, spearheaded by Ian Watson and his Continuing the Continuum team.

Another fan-based effort at dealing with 2nd-Gen novas was A Breed Apart.

Mind you, there were disagreements on the whole "what are paramorphs" question amongst the original design team. Bruce Baugh was of the opinion that daredevils were paramorphs, whilst Andrew Bates took the stance that Max Mercer was the only known paramorph.

Sascha was eleven at the time of his eruption.