I think I will go with things as you suggested. Suria worked for Genman. As a latent her ability started manifesting during interviews when she started willing public figures to reveal more than they ever would have normally. Genman let her go under threat of lawsuits, but she had caught Trinity's eye by then. They picked her up and had her dunked with The Ministry and she stayed there for some psi training. Now she is a field investigator for Trinity.
I count 20 freebie points (1-2+12+5+4) but I also see a specialty (discern truth) that probably accounts for that missing point.
Everything seems in order.
PS : Why Neptune division? That's administration, liason office, diplomatic corps and assets management. Not a whole lot of field agent in there.
Investigators typically come from Triton (InSurv). The InSurv division (Incursion - Surveillance) gather the intelligence that can't be obtained by other means than sending an agent fetch it. It employes hackers, burglars, spooks and good old investigators.
Alternatively, you also have the Athena division from Proteus. They do outright espionnage and counter espionnage operations. The two agencies step on each other toes a bit in some areas. The main difference is that Triton's finality is intelligence gathering while Proteus is about security.
Last edited by Mal Malenkirk; 1st September 2008 at 09:45 PM..
I had neptune due to my original goal of information management and PR for Trinity. I should probably change it since I changed focus there, but forgot about in the revision.
Yes- I forgot to go back and polish the bonus list, but you called it right.
What about gear? How do you want to handle that? Also- we don't have anyone with computer skills yet do we?
I'm quite happy to see that we easily have enough players for a campaign.
While we are still fiddling with the last details of your PCs, I figured I should go ahead and give you some of the players handout. These comprise the briefing files that the characters receive at the beginning of the mission and lay down the facts pretty well.
This is a short written briefing by Gamemenos. That guy is fairly important, though his briefing has obviously been written by an aide. In truth, this is a fairly low priority assignment.
Agent Hector Ramirez has other ideas and is suspcious in particular of the aftermath of the aberrant attack mentioned in the briefing. That's why he pulled strings and arranged for a suprisingy strong team to investigate. You'll hear more about that when the campaign begins.
This is a transcript of communications between Cantor Station and orbital station Moskva just before the attack.
Note the little green numbers in the transcript. They correllate to some very interesting analysis conducted by a comitee that ran the initial investigation.
Some info about the Beaulac clinic, deemed by Trinity to be the apparent common link.
Finally, Ithuriel, pay attention to this. This is an interview from Cori Heisler. She is an investigative journalist and she crop up through much of the campaign. She could be a good contact.
This isn't homework, none of this is absolutely mandatory. But it makes following the story a helluva easier, especially since you are supposed to investigate these incidents.
---
Note that I didn't download an illegal .pdf file. These are scans of my own legally purchased book, as you can see from the fact that I'm too computer illeterate to pull these together in a single .pdf!
Damn it, I wanted to attach a picture of the cover of the book and messed up. Here's the cover of Descent into Darkness, first part of Darkness Revealed.
For the record, the first adventure is called 'Remnants of the dead'
Last edited by Mal Malenkirk; 12th September 2008 at 06:39 AM..
I figure, even if I can't keep up with the posting schedule (or whatever), it'll be fun while it lasts. Besides, every science-fiction epic needs its' redshirt, alien embryo host, homicidal computer victim and Crewman #6. Still, my apologies for the delay.
First & foremost, I will try and make a team player. It's fun to be Wolverine but not so much to be around him. A team of Cyclopses would work but a Team Wolverine wouldn't (and is probably a contradiction in terms).
I will place my ideas in black text (highlight to read, how do you do a spoiler?). Actually, I don't mind who reads my character ideas. I figure too much PK is its own punishment and my character won't have much to hide (in a world with telepaths, who really does?). But let me give readers the choice...
For now, my character's name is 'Joe Hologram' (JH), when I make the character I will probably choose a name, aptitude, order, nationality, ethnicity and gender as different as possible so as to contrast, be a plot convenience and not overshadow.
Not only is this likely the only Trinity game I will get to play in, this is also as close as I will ever come to getting to sample the Adventure and Abberant settings as well so I will try to work some of those distant (from the point of view of 212?) backgrounds into my character background.
Also, I believed those Popular Mechanics magazines that said we would all be vacationing on the Moon and Mars by now (along with the flying cars), so the idea of actually being from an (literally) unearthly place that we actually know something about is very compelling.
Here are the few facts I am pretty sure about:
JH is genetically related to at least one of the early members of the Aeon Society (a Z-Ray soaked Daredevil, Mesmerist or Stalwart) and an Aberrant who started with the Nova Age as a true hero and then changed over the decades into a bitter travesty of super-humanity. Both ancestors are presumed dead but no body has ever been found. JH may have no real idea of his ancestral history nor the family 'tradition' of para-normality but the Aeon Society has been aware of the Hologram genetics for centuries and has kept at least cursory tabs on the Hologram clan. If his lineage is public knowledge, JH may be somewhat shunned for his 'Aberrant' blood.
JH spent most of his childhood on a minor extrasolar colony. The colony was at least partially founded (perhaps covertly) by the Aeon Trinity to make, first and foremost, yet another outpost of Humanity should others be destroyed. Also, the colony deliberately adopted past technologies and traditions to protect against another critical loss of universal knowledge (a paperback book may not be as effective as the OpNet but it can't be as easily corrupted and/or deleted). This settlement would be the equivalent of the 22nd-Century Amish, although they can use modern tech, they generally choose not to.
About once a year, psion recruiters would visit the colony (as with almost any other human-populated area) looking for latents, JH and about a dozen of his fellow colonists were sent to the Earth-Luna system to be examined by the various orders and, if promising, 'dunked.'
This was in 2114, just before the Esperanza 'landed' in Paris and the teleporters, one and all, vanished.
Desparate to reunite with his entire family and fearing them helpless before Aberrants or hostile aliens, JH threw himself into his order with one overriding goal, do whatever it took to get home.
Mark, I am not sure of the timeline, if the new bioships that can cross interstellar distances are available at game start, then JH was able to get home seven years late to find the colony abandoned, no trace of survivors or bodies. If not, then JH is still working towards getting home.
The trauma of losing his family and not knowing their fate has dedicated JH to two overriding conclusions.
First, there are no two humans so different that Aberrants or aliens will ever be more familiar. Thus, there is no human division of feud which matters against the very survival of the species.
Second, the forces against Mankind are so powerful that Psions are the best hope (maybe the only hope) for salvation and the Aeon Trinity is the best organization to lead them.
In game terms, this makes JH an utterly loyal and resolute team player.
Despite reading my newly purchased Trinity .pdf, I have some questions I just can't seem to find the answer to. Any information would help me finalize my character.
First, how rare are latents compared to the general population? One in a hundred would make Psions just a career choice, one in a billion would make a Psion a messiah. I assume the rate is somewhere in between. Also, how old is the typical latent when dunked?
Second, Are there reluctant Psions? As a psi's awakening requires 'dunking', every Psion is the result of a deliberate choice (maybe not by the Psion, though). I assume that latents aren't abducted, coerced or drafted into Psionic service, the last thing an order wants is a bitter resentful Psion. And I imagine most people would jump at being a Psion.
Third, why aren't Psions 'mass-produced?' With Humanity fighting for it's very survival, why are successful Psions cloned? Or at least why aren't Psions encouraged to have large families (similar to the arranged marriages of the Psi Corps from Babylon 5). This is honestly the one aspect of the Trinity setting that makes no sense to me and I would appreciate any clarification. Humanity is fighting for its existence against super-powered enemies and the Psions are the best defense. In my opinion, Psion babies would be 'decanted' by the gross faster than you can say 'Brave New World.'
I look forward to anyone's questions, comments or feedback. At that point, I think I can then give a complete description and/or character sheet. Thanks in advance for any help.
That's good stuff, a lot of which can be made relevant to the story at hand without much modification.
Concerning your questions:
The new biotech Jumpships are just coming online as the campaign begins. Sooner regular contact will be re-established.
Latents are very rare. Forced Dunking isn't in any orders policy but let's say any discovered latents is strongly encouraged to go through with the process. Strong Latents are outright hounded for recruitment, especially by the order for which the latent shows a predisposition. There's a little bit of that in 'The Honored Dead', the story that opens the corebook.
Psion aren't mass produced because we're not there yet. They've been on the map for only 16 years by the beginning of the game and while latents are rare, they aren't that rare that we need to resort to that kind of tactics. There's roughly 100k psion by the beginning of the game. 100k in 16 years, not accounting for those who died, that's a lot.
The Prometheus chambers of most orders, especially that of the Legions, are churning out new psions as fast as they physically can and are already working at capacity. Except for the Norca, most Promotheus chambers couldn't handle more latents anyway so there is no call for human farming at the moment.
Why is the Norca under producing (There are 2,000 biokinetics compared to 25k psychokinetics) has to do with ideology. They are outright elitists and are very picky in who they choose to dunk whereas the Legion have your attitude toward psion; they'll dunk anybody as long as he's not a psycho, even if they know upfront the guy doesn't intend to work for them after he's trained. They figure that humanity is better off with another psion no matter what. This tends to indicate that if they don't dunk more people, it's because they just can't. Orgotek and the Docs aren't that more picky.
The real question is why aren't there more Promotheus chambers and that would be telling...
As a friend of Mal, he know smy background as a player, so it will be up to him to accept or not.
If I can join, I could produce a character this week-end.
I've quickly read teh thread, and will do it more this week-end, but if someone could resume what teh team look like for now, it would help me to fill an hole.
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Skillwise, the team is still computer inept which is the most obvious chink in the armour.
I encourage people without a character to get a move on. I intend the campaign to have a leisurely pace where there isn't pressure to post everyday, but it must still start at some point!
I will do my best to get a character to you as soon as possible. But don't hold game start back because of me, my character can join later if that is possible. If not, well, I understand. It was still worth taking a chance for a Trinity game.
To work...
Max, Ithuriel; thanks for your help. It has helped focus my character.
Here we go, black text again...
I am almost ready to start making a character, I just need a few things finalized.
I will make either a biokinetic or an electrokinetic as those are the two available disciplines unspoken for.
Biokinetic Option:
Biokinetics are very interesting as characters but there are a few obstacles.
The first is that Biokinetics are impersonators and masters of disguise, better suited to solo play as the Norca cannot disguise the rest of the team. In most cases, solo impersonation would split the party and steal time from the group as half the game might be: read about the Norca infiltrating the target while the rest of the Psion strike team waited outside. Now if it was possible to be a obvious shapeshifter without any real skill at disguise or charisma, then the Norca would be more of a special ops soldier and team player.
The second obstacle, as detailed by Max, is that the Norca are very insular and paranoid (with cause). A biokinetic would be expected to be loyal to Norca first, which doesn't necessarily preclude Aeon Trinity second (against the Aberrants, the enemy of my enemy is my friend). But even the most devoted Norca can still be read like a book by a telepath. A possibility, JH would volunteer to have Norca-aligned telepaths remove any confidential memories, making JH a functional amnesiac. This could be a creepy plot device (who knows what secrets JH has and doesn't even know) and proof of JH's desparation to find his family (he considers Aeon necessary for this and so a mind-wipe could be a necessary sacrifice.
Electokinetic Option:
JH would use such a gift to find his family, either by trying to 'improve' spaceships beyond their listed stats or if nothing else, make enough money through his talent to buy the tools and help he needs. He would be the archetypal computer nerd or grease monkey, more comfortable with biotech than people. Unlike a Norca, I see no problems with an EK working with Aeon Trinity, if not being a full member.
Of the two options, I find the biokinetic more interesting and the electrokinetic better suited for the group.
I will post more tonight but I want to get this first part posted now. Feedback is very welcome...
Still, my apologies for the delay.
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