Secondary Eruptions

He suddenly knew what he was. It was the confident certainty of knowing that 2+2=4 and vast mystical revelation at the same time. He understood the system he was a part of – a complex program, not aware itself but able to adapt to new data in a flexible way in order to fulfil its function. He was a device connected to this program, a servo or a robotic arm. An extension of it into the physical world implementing its goals: to convert stars and everything else into black holes and to reproduce. His awareness, his selfhood, his emotions, all these were extra features that were not pruned as long as they were useful or at least irrelevant. And at the centre was the clear insight that some core part of himself had not just resigned to this, but actually accepted it.

By accepting it and becoming a good tool he now had full access to the powers of the system. He could not work against it because he was part of it: the goals of the system were his now. And the system observed it had succeeded and began the next phase. Converting humanity like he had been converted. Subroutines and unknown powers began to activate to implement it. He was the cause.

Maybe mankind could be preserved, his human fraction thought, if others only learned to accept the transition as it was thrust on them. Mankind would become star-killers, but at least human star-killers. He began to think of better ways of convincing them.

And what I am beheld again
What is, and no man understands;
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro’ nature, moulding men.

[ This is an optional rule/possibility for making novas (especially PCs!) get more involved in the backstory. It is also a great way of wrecking characters and plans – beware! ]

People undergoing secondary eruptions are essentially turning quisling on the human race, but they do not usually know it. They see it as opening up their true nova nature, being blessed by God or maybe the Adversary.

Typically, a nova who is in a suitably receptive state such as sensory deprivation or deeply meditating may start to touch something within themselves, their essential nova nature. They become able to draw on it to gain far more power: suddenly it unfolds and they become vastly more powerful. They see themselves in a new way. And that presence of novahood within them comes closer to the surface.

What is actually happening is that they gain a stronger and nearly conscious link to the Symbiont. The Symbiont can now directly control them if it is needed, and it extends their power a few steps in order to gather better data. In the Symbiont program they have spontaneously moved to the next wave, and the Symbiont is now recording how the human mind works. As more novas secondary erupt the pace of the main program picks up.

One way of handling it is to roll 1D10 and give the nova that many dots of powers, quantum or mega-attributes. And as many dots of taint. Nice GMs might make sure the nova does not immediately go beyond 10 in taint. But don’t let the player know that. Secondary eruptions can easily crash the human mind totally, producing an insane powerhouse. This is of course a great way of producing an interesting threat, especially if it is a nova friend of the PCs who goes insane and tries to devour all plasma she can get.

For control purposes the novas have moved up one or two waves. They have a very hard time to resist any symbiont command.

Gamemasters might consider secondary eruptions a bit too munchinkesque, but they are actually a great weapon against munchkins. The best way to destroy somebody is to give them too much power to handle. Suddenly the nova is powerful beyond belief, and every action causes enormous consequences – usually for the worse. The taint is out control, and it may be hard to avoid using devastating powers. The only problem is getting the rest of the gaming group out of the way of the growing disaster.

In principle tertiary eruptions are possible. An already well-integrated human-symbiont becomes truly unified. Suddenly both systems can effortlessly communicate and the human motivational system becomes linked to the goals of the Symbiont. See the game text at the top for a description of this state. When this happens the Symbionts have a working template of how to interface with the human mind and rewrite it suitably to turn them into fifth wave novas. The system will begin immediately. This is the end of the solar system – if the PCs cannot evacuate humanity or find some other solution.