The Stories

Football Violence

The novas were in Brussels when they get the word of an eruption amidst a football riot – a man has started to burn, crushed the police and then jumped away. They go there, manage to pick up some clues and eventually apprehend the young man, a skinhead. After some dealing he ends up cooperating with the security forces and gets a lenient (and controversial) judgement to community service for the Securité.

The characters start to learn to work together as a team. France is in uproar about what to do with their nova.

The Strasbourg Incident

The novas were acting as honorary “guards” or VIPs at the reception of a Chinese delegation in Strasbourg. They encountered the charming Bei Lange and her visions of mankind in space, as well as the somewhat more reserved Major. Outside a man begins to erupt amidst demonstrators. The PCs tried to control him, but found that having negative inertia made him extremely tricky to deal with. Also, his powers were increasing at an exponential rate. A strange spider of light appeared, demonstrated strange powers but was defeated (?) by The Russian Bear, another new acquaintance. In the end Dr. Struck used his weight to launch the nova into space, where he detonated – a sight visible across western Eurasia. Afterwards he and Die Vampire were brought back home by Bei Lange.

The event convinces many that novas are needed to deal with huge threats and that international cooperation is good – but many also see the eruption as a sign that it would be good to control and prevent eruptions.

Desire, Despair and Delirium Does London

A boring meeting with Home Office and Eurocrats in Whitehall takes a turn for the strange when the novas encounter a strange girl in Madame Tussauds. Die Vampire teams up with her and heads of to a club, where they indulge in gothic nova-enhanced sex… involving emotion broadcasting. Meanwhile Matt Doyle celebrates in his own way on a rave, using chemistry control to spice up things. The others are trying to handle the club situation together with MI6, as intense sexual desires are affecting everybody within several blocks. As an accidental side effect the skinhead ends up in a gay encounter which ends in tragedy when he comes to his mind. The girl escapes home but is tracked. Next morning most of the team sets off to get the girl, while Doyle handles Whitehall. After explaining the situation to the somewhat unstable girl she lets lose her powers again, causing the near-suicide of a neighbour and lots of nuisance. Even after she is brought down by The Saviour she manages to have a MI6 medic nearly kill himself before being sedated. After a relocation to the oil platform and some serious talking to by Die Vampire she reluctantly decides to try to control her powers and fit in as a nova (“Despairing Venus”). Mean while Doyle manages to make himself persona non grata in Britain, as well as firmly convince the Home Office about the danger of novas after spicing up some office tea with extra chemistry.

Most of the events end up hushed up.

”I hate South African Weather!”

The PCs were asked by the South African government to come and help them discover a nova that seems to be responsible for nuclear blasts – including the Mbabane disaster. Once there they arrived they were efficiently swept into the frantic investigation. Quite soon after they began work the nova used his powers again, and a suburb went up in flames. The novas spent lots of energy in getting to ground zero in various creative ways, but then were at a loss of what to do with a catatonic 10-year old. The two “dark” novas, Die Vampire and Despairing Venus, decided to take him away on their own. Unfortunately they also decided to make a show by manifesting a shadow Grim Reaper as they approached the city centre, setting loose a massive panic that killed even more people. The others attacked – which made the boy detonate again. No more Despairing Venus, and several extremely hurt novas. The novas still standing managed to get the boy away to the Namibian desert where the military would look after him (?). Meanwhile Die Vampire ended up blamed for the Grim Reaper, fled, committed two murders and was finally apprehended and got life. The rest were declared heroes.

Very good publicity for most characters, but makes people even more fearful of novas.

On Novas, Neutrinos and the North Pole (as well as Beeping Belgians)

An experiment in Geneva with extending the range of nova powers goes awry, as a “spider of light” manifests in the lab, wrecking it and vanishing. As the startled novas and researchers explore the incident they discover that the spider searched through the memories of Boost, the nova linked to the experiment, becoming interested in a neutrino image of the sun. It also vanished in a massive flash of neutrinos, aimed at the sun.

In the evening as the novas are discussing the incident at a restaurant an assassin strikes. Or rather, tries to strike as precognitive novas avoid the bullet and Major Ivalds efficiently plugs him. Afterwards some investigations reveal ties to the anti-nova site “The Human Earth”, and further (quite illegal) investigations give useful evidence that is sent to the authorities. While everybody is trying to come to terms with all this, eruptions start worldwide. In Spain a village is devastated by a gravity-control eruption, and some of the nova team goes there to help. They manage to save a girl, Maria, with tremendous gravity and energy absorption powers.

In Brussels ENA is slowly being given the authority and organisation needed, and Herr Doctor Struck becomes coordinator. But while this works as planned almost 70% of all novas try to rush to the North Pole. Are they being mentally controlled? Nobody knows anything, but for a brief while the pole is home to a confused gathering. Even more novas are running, jumping or trying to drive north. As suddenly as it started the effect vanishes.

The public is confused: what kind of force can take control over so many novas? Is this a sign they are not to be trusted and potentially dangerous, or actually in need of protection?

Matt Doyle has a mental breakdown after several weeks of neurochemical self-hacking and a flamewar with Booster. Finally he cracks, tries to commit suicide or remove his powers and ends up catatonic. Rajiv and Johan marries to get Rajiv a Swedish citizenship, making the pair the darlings of the gay rights movement.

Burning the Village In Order to Save It

Gerhart escapes from the high security prison in South Africa where he has been kept, killing guards and prisoners alike. After crucifying the judge who presided over his sentence he vanishes. That is not the only bad news: Pakistan’s ruler general Musharraf appears to have been killed in some form of attack in the Pakistani parliament.

At a meeting with new novas at the ENA offices in Nice the group uses Rajiv’s ESP to examine the events in Pakistan, and discovers that somebody took control over the general and had him attack the parliament members before killing himself. Some form of nova power seems to be involved. The group also decide to try to find Gerhart. Using the long range telepathic powers of Pratelli they succeed, but only too well: the somewhat unstable Pratelli becomes almost possessed by Gerhart and projects a horrific scene as a hologram around the offices. Gerhart is busy killing the inhabitants in some African village and look on with glee through Pratelli’s eyes as the remote novas cannot intervene… and get a nasty surprise when Rajiv opens a gate from the illusion into reality, and a number of very upset former comrades storm in. Gerhart answers with an all-out attack against Gustave, and then vanishes – while Gustave lets loose a conflagration that destroys the village and everybody in it. Suddenly the main priority is to save people rather than catch the strangely stronger Gerhart.

After returning to Nice and licking their wounds, they began to plan the defense of Europe. Gerhart is moving north and raising his “army of darkness” according to Pratelli. He wants to get revenge and end all life on Earth, at least according to Pratelli’s impression. After a secret deal with the Chinese, Struck gets some worrying information: there are at least 8 novas with Gerhart’s signature moving about in Africa. He has somehow been dividing!

Most of these events had no effect on the public, with the exception of the Uganda massacre. It was to become a troublesome spot on the ENA reputation, although subsequent events were to overshadow it and Dr Struck’s policy of openness to some degree mitigated the political fallout.

Battle of the Mediterranean (“You Should Leave Archangels to Do Their Job In Peace!”)

ENA manages to convince Italy, Britain and France to help stop Gerhart from reaching Europe. The lessons from Strasbourg, Johannesburg and Uganda clearly showed the terrible risks nova battles posed for civilians, so it was decided to deal with the Gerharts on the Mediterranean. A number of military ships were set up for an “antiterrorism operation”, with ENA as “advisors”. Enormous logistical problems were dealt with, including the quarrels among the novas about chain of command or even whether to allow themselves to act in a quasi-military way.

The first attack works – Gustave gets his revenge for the village by jumping out of a military helicopter, embracing a flying Gerhart and activating his flames. As both fall into the sea the vampire is burned to a skeleton. Which Gustave crushes into dust while boiling the water.

The Chinese tracking data tells the operation leaders the other Gerhart’s have suddenly stopped – mostly in Libya and Egypt. It is as if they suddenly knew something was wrong. As ENA waits, worries mount. What if they decide to stay outside international waters? Finally The Saviour convinces John to teleport him to one of the Gerharts. He finds the Gerhart busily massacring a poor Libyan family and immediately possesses him – now he is Gerhart. They return to the French frigate Aconit and began to explore the existence of die Vampire. The Saviour realizes that he is aware of the other versions of Gerhart, as well as a former identity as an African Farmer: Gerhart is converting other people into himself, but these copies all share the same energy. As one dies, the others are drained of energy as it tries to regenerate until it is utterly destroyed. But the others can regain energy by drinking it from the living. It is a breakthrough, but other ENA members begin to worry whether they might have given Gerhart just as much information.

The battle continues, with Gerharts trying to sneak past the patrols and others sustaining the collective by massacring humans along the south Mediterranean coast. Nobody has paid much attention to Pratelli, who has been quietly sunning on the Giuseppe Garibaldi. But suddenly he rises into the air on angelic wings, surrounded by light and a brilliant halo. With a shining sword he begins to resolutely fly towards Libya and an international incident, proclaiming that he, as an angel, will defeat the demon. He has not just gone mad, but extended his powers immensely. For a while it looks as if he will also have to be hunted down, but is eventually brought to the Aconit for questioning.

Well on the Aconit he forces Johan to teleport him to Libya anyway, attacking one of the Gerharts with dramatic angelic force. Johan joins in, and they kill the vampire. Back to the Aconit, where Pratilli faces the Saviour-possessed Gerhart. Just as he is about to kill him the spiders appear again, apparently intrigued by Gerhart too. The Saviour slips away, and the Gerhart ends up vivisected by the spider. By now ENA has had enough, and begins a systematic series of teleporting attacks on the remaining Gerharts faster than they can regenerate. After some extremely brutal fighting they are each literally squashed.

The public gets a somewhat sanitized version of the events, reinforcing the image of ENA as defenders of Europe against everything bad. Many are intrigued or react strongly to Pratelli’s transformation. And a few wonder about those mentions of an Ugandian village.

What nobody but the Saviour knows is that he used his infection powers while possessing Gerhart to infect a nurse on the Aconit. Using bodymorphing and mental shielding the Gerhart-possessed-by-the-Saviour escaped notice and started a new life in Marseilles. Just a small step in a vaster plan…

After the battle the novas recuperate in Nice with Dr Operov and a newly erupted nova, who is apparently blind. They discover that he is actually seeing the world from somewhere else, and eventually find out that he can view enormous volumes of the universe: he is looking out over the intergalactic voids. As they guide his perception home to Earth they discover something worrying. Clouds of dark starfish-like beings consuming stars in a remote supercluster, transforming entire galaxies into starfish and black holes. A new threat?

Meanwhile Pratelli gladly explains how he gained his powers: just as Gerhart prayed to the darkness within him, he prayed to God to grant him the necessary powers – and he gained them. He claims any nova (and perhaps all Christian humans) can do it. Some researchers dub the phenomenon “secondary eruption”.

Immortality Challenged

Some months later Dr Operov and Booster are ready to attempt communication with the spiders using an elaborate setup on the Aberdeen platform. But the night before the experiment, Dr Operov is murdered. ENA and the novas are saddened and shocked. His digital testament urges them to work on, creating a better understanding between novas and baselines.

Thanks to evidence gathered by the mysterious Verifex ENA can strike back at the killer. This time there is no mercy – the killer is found to be a Polish boy able to possess and control people worldwide, who has been raping and killing with no fear of getting caught for several years. But despite his delusions of omnipotence he is literally splattered before he even has time to react when ENA descends on him. Some ENA members begin to wonder about their methods; despite the evidence that the boy was one of the worst murderers and rapists (as well as responsible for the Musharraf attack, which is now drawing Pakistan and India into war) it is hard to sleep when you know you have killed a boy.

Despite this the experiment goes on. In front of the novas and xenobiologists contact with the spiders is finally achieved using Operov’s left behind project. Most of the contact is telepathic and utterly confusing for the participating novas. But some things get through: some force inimical to the spider is linked to the novas. When they become too many the spiders will counter by destroying the Earth. The novas have to get away before then – or become an unstoppable dark force. It has something to do with the pregeometry in the 26 dimensional spaces outside the four dimensional brane where the universe lies.

While trying to digest the information Booster vanishes as part of the equipment suffers a meltdown. His body apparently gone, he is still reachable on the Internet. Although his responses sometimes seem far more machine-like than before. And people who know him say that Johan has begun to change too in worrying ways. As if he was no longer thinking entirely human.

The Reactor Needs a Hug

During the summer and autumn Dr Struck pours ENA’s efforts into building a Mars base – the Arkady Operov Memorial Base (near the Sengou crater in the southern hemisphere). The reason is partly to exploit the wonderful potential of Johan and Rajiv’s teleportation and gating. Another part is to keep some novas occupied so that they do not cause trouble.

But the last place to expect disaster is the EU Nova Diversity Conference in Nice. Amidst seminars on female novas of the third world, neo-colonial analysis of the nova phenomenon and discussion of novas as a minority several novas suddenly get an immense urge to reproduce. Just as irresistible as the urge to go to the North Pole several months ago, and this time far more dangerous. Humans have problems controlling themselves when making love, but gravity control can be far more devastating. Picking up the wreckage, saving the injured and trying to deal with the news impact kept the less affected novas busy. Few thought much about how The Saviour scrambled to Marseilles, and apparently tried to reason with somebody (or somebodies?) there. People were far more intrigued by the wedding between John and Maria (and his gala breakup with Rajiv).

Unfortunately baseline trouble is also growing on Earth. Pakistan is advancing at a dangerous pace into Kashmir, threatening the stability of the region and maybe forcing the US, China, Pakistan and India into a direct confrontation. Rajiv decided to do a bit of undercover meddling, using his powers to implement the greatest espionage coup ever: to give each side access to key information from the other. In the end Rajiv is left with the worrying suspicion that he might have triggered the tactical nuclear exchange – and been played a pawn by a nova in Indian intelligence.

Johan wants a nuclear reactor for his Mars steel factory he is building in his spare time. Realizing that Westinghouse and ABB Atom does not sell reactors to 18 year olds, he starts to explore less and less advisable ways of getting one. While dealing with the Russian mafia (or at least, so he thinks) he realizes he doesn’t need to buy it – he can just take one from a Russian atomic submarine. He does it without thinking. A fifth of K-148 Orenburg lands in the sands of Mars. As well as a dying Russian sailor. John teleports him to hospital and then realizes what he has done. After some aimless jumping around he gives himself up to the Russian authorities.

Already before Nice many countries were fearful of novas accidentally using their powers. Now it is clear that they can be deadly, and more and more countries pass laws banning unregistered nova powers in densely populated areas. The Orenburg heist truly shows the fearful power of novas – as well as the woeful inadequacy of traditional law enforcement. How do you keep a teleporter imprisoned?

Solvet Saeclum in Favilla

The Russian military court finds Johan guilty of terrorism and sentences him to a lenient 30 years of hard labour. He decides it is time to end the farce and teleports to his wife and unborn child, taking farwell. Then he is gone.

ENA, the FSB and just about every other security agency in the world goes on alert. But it is Rajiv who finds Johan: in the core of the sun. He has not just had a secondary eruption, but a tertiary eruption. He is for all purposes a god, fighting an enormous battle against the spiders inhabiting the stellar core. Rushing to Pratelli they seek advice, but Pratelli goes with his delusions and shoots off to start Armageddon – “the demon” is not allowed to darken the sun, it is his job as one of Gods angels! The pressed Johan sends telepathic instructions to other novas on how to triply erupt. It is so easy, so natural. One just has to accept one’s true self as a nova: a star eater. And then one if granted all power. Some other novas take up the offer and become titanic forces. Inside the sun the spiders are battling against novas absorbing nuclear energy from billions of cubic kilometres to power monumental powers, replicating like bacteria and forming ultrasmart mass-minds. The battle wracks space and time as both sides employ devastating physical and mental forces.

On Earth it is clear that this is the end. The novas who have not accepted to become star-eaters know that either way the Earth and mankind is doomed – either to cauterisation by the victorious spiders or by the star eaters. Ironically the human authorities are still unknowing and still looking for the “terrorist” Johan. The only ones aware of the coming end are the neutrino astronomers who see the interior of the sun being ripped apart. The Mars base is too small to house more than a few hundred people, and the Chinese space station will just take the leadership into orbit – not enough when the Sun is destroyed. Rajiv can open gates far, but not to another solar system.

It is then the Chinese telepath nova Yan-Yan proposes an unholy alliance. She knows the real secret of The Saviour, and how it can be used to save mankind. He, or rather the five hidden Gerhart-Savior copies, just have to possess novas able to open gates, novas able to scan remotely and her (to keep minds linked) and reproduce – it is not enough with one gater, it is going to take dozens, maybe hundreds. Desperate, ENA approves the plan. The situation is beyond laws or constitutions. As ENA coordinates with the Chinese novas (against the wishes of both their governments) a huge evacuation effort grows. Soon teams of novas scan the galaxy for suitable worlds, and others open gates there. First small exploration gates, then larger and larger gates able to swallow buildings. Then skyscrapers. Then cities. Then regions…

Meanwhile the battle for the sun is finally won. The spider civilization is crushed and all that is left is millions of clones of former novas, now star eaters. The sun begins to implode as some stretch out to revisit their old homeworld for the last time. Before they arrive Dr Struck gives the order to close the gates and withdraw to the evacuation worlds. The evacuation is not complete, but the decision had to be made: the star eaters must never know where mankind fled.

Dr Struck is chillingly right. While some of the former John and Maria saves the Earth from the first shockwave from the dying sun, what was once Booster begins to multiply and assimilate the biosphere. When the Sun implodes into a singularity the Earth and Moon are neatly gated away and Booster can “upgrade” humanity at leisure. What is left is something utterly alien. From the destroyed star streams of new star-eaters set off to nearby stars to feed and continue the process.

Far, far away on a planet tentatively named “Alpha” a patchwork city with parts from London, Paris, Frankfurt and Malmö stands beneath a cold blue sky with two moons. Shocked inhabitants discover that they are all that is left of Europe (together with New Latvia and a suspiciously large chunk of Basque), sharing the planet only with the former eastern US seaboard somewhere across the sea. Mankind has been reduced to a few million, spread across three planets. Dr Struck takes as many novas he can with him to “planet Delta” to keep them away from the baselines, leaving Alpha to be run by the humans.