FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS
Version 2.0x
by Matt Rossi
FREQUENTLY-ASKED QUESTIONS
Version 2.0x
by Matt Rossi
II - ERRATA and GLOSSARY
What does all this Psionic Gobbeldygook
MEAN, anyway?
What's the deal with magic?
Gods? What's with THEM?
What's this Trigger you've been talking about?
Are there any Aliens and Other
Dimensions we should know about?
Will OMEGA be crossing over with any other
RACC universes?
The Omega group started with a post I made to RACC saying I was interested in starting a Shared World comic book universe. Other than that, I make no claim to having started Omega.What I had in mind and what this became are totally different, and this is vastly better.
We hope you enjoy, and if reading our stories or this FAQ helps inspire anyone to write an Omega story...that's why we do this, so get to it and enjoy.
Who's currently writing in OMEGA?
A talented group, if I do say so m'self. Here's as up to date a list
as I can get to you...some people are no longer writing, so they've been
left out.
| Matt Dempster | Peter "Tick: Milan | |
| Marc Singer | ||
| Jeff McCoskey | Davy Jones (HTML Guru) | |
| Chad Imbrogno | Matthew W. Rossi III |
Assuming you do, we go to stage two: ask one of us.
We all like to get new people involved, even those of us who don't have a whole lot of time. Just to be safe, email me, Badger, first, and I'll make the introductions. It's very important (Read: YOU MUST DO THIS) to send a series proposal along with this email...we intend to someday take Omega out into the real world, and when we do, we want all of the pieces to be comparable in tone and craft. (And yes, you retain ownership of your own characters and stories.)
Stage three is start writing. See how simple we try and keep it? We like to free-form our way through this difficult process.
SEEKERS
Seekers was the name of a project begun by the SIRECOM agency in the
early 70's. The official aim of the project was to create a team of Omegas
capable of neutralizing, capturing and training rogue or emergant psis.
To this end, SIRECOM recruited Omegas from all over the world, although
the grand majority of them hail from the U.S. Currently, project Seekers
has about 150 Omegas in various stages of training. Approximately 14 of
those are ready for external combat and capture missions.
THE BEAT
Pete Milan's return to Omega centers around Jimmy Denton, a New York
boy who's been away for a while...and has come back to discover the public
acknowledgement of superhuman abilities. Now working at INFO Magazine,
Jimmy and his photographer cover the Omega Beat...and anything can happen.
And often does. Stay on the lookout for innumerable cameos from other Omega
series...
COVENANT
Allen Covenant, an ex-parapsychology professor, found out some dirty
secrets about his new employers at Dynamax. From there, he began a series
of adventures that made Toad's wild ride look like a Sunday expedition
to the park. How to describe this series? Literally speaking, it's like
a mutant offspring of Tristram Shandy and R Crumb was jabbing the universe
in the spine.
LEGACY
Main Characters:
Anne Benson, a young woman who has lived all her life with the
secret that she possessed Omega powers. When government agents tried to
arrest her, she "triggered" a whole new level of untapped psionic abilities
including telepathy and telekinesis. She also discovered that her grandfather
had an even bigger secret...
Harvey Hauptmann: Known to Anne (and the rest of his family)
as 'Otto Blume' for many years, he kept his true identity hidden for decades.
He was actually an Omega of the 1930s and 40s, who inspired the comic-book
hero Overman and secretly killed Adolf Hitler. When the government
tried to arrest his grand-daughter Anne, he exposed his own Omega powers
(faster than a steam engine, able to withstand a bursting shell—but only
in his prime).
PULSE:
Currently exploring the inner lives of Danny and Mirranda Anderson,
PULSE is, as always, about the little deaths that can eat away at family
and the constructs we use to take its place.
TEMPEST:
Tempest is the story of Eric Anderson. C'mon...just go read the archives.
Anti-PSI: The psionic ability to negate or neutralize other psionic powers. Also see Null-PSI
Astral Projection: The ability to seperate the mind from the body and have it move independently.
Astral Space: The zone of "Space" where telepathy occurs. It does not actually exist in a physical sense, and can only be reached by telepathic means.
Clairsentinence: The ability to sense without using one of the five senses, even at range. Clairvoyance is the Clairsentinence ability of sight. Analogs for all the other senses (taste, touch, smell, hearing) exist, as well for senses no human has.
Cryokinesis: The ability to slow molecules with the mind, thus causing cold effects to occur. See Psychokinesis.
Dreamwalking: The uncontrolled use of Telepathy while sleeping in order to visit other sleepers dreams. See Telepathy.
DYNAMAX: A biogenics laboratory which poses as a beneficient organization while in reality performing ghastly experiments on Omegas in order to determine how to duplicate their powers. The most knowledgeable agency on Omega biology; has ties to SIRECOM.
ESP: Extra Sensory Perception. The Umbrella all psionic senses operate under. Telepathy, Psychometery/Retrocognition, Clairvoyance, Precognition and Clairsentinence all operate under this umbrella.
Electrokinesis: The ability to control electical particles, and thus electricity, with the mind. See Psychokinesis.
Gestalt: The telepathic ability for a PSI to link minds with another PSIi, combining the power and minds of both. See Telepathy.
Harrakin: An alien race of psionics bred as slaves who rebelled and began forging an empire. See Wrexxakt.
New Ones: The first humans to express PSI, also known as some of our earliest gods.
Null-PSI: The power to absorb others PSI-Abilities in an attempt to neutralize them, this power is a hybrid of Psionic Vampirism and Anti-PSI.
Omega: A psionic human.
Omni-Psionic: A psionic who has all psionic abilities.
Photokinesis: The psionic ability to control light. See Psychokinesis.
Precognition: The psionic ability to see the future.
Psionic: The science of the mind, coined by John Campbell to describe those abilities seemingly outside science, which he believed to be explainable by mental energy.
Psychic Surgery: The ability to use Psionic energy to induce healing. Often linked to Telepathy. See Telepathy.
Psychic Vampirism: The psionic ability to steal life-force from another, feeding on them as a battery. See Telepathy.
Psychokinesis: The most common Psionic ability (only telepathy comes close), Psychokinesis is another umbrella term that covers all the ways to effect the physical universe with the mind. Electrokinesis, Photokinesis, Pyrokinesis, Cryokinesis, Telekinesis, Teleportation, and many other types of Psychokinesis exist. Any ability to affect the physical world with psionics, no matter how bizarre, is a Psychokinetic ability.
Pyrokinesis: The Psychokinetic abilty to agitate molecules, causing heat and fire effects. See Psychokinesis.
SIRECOM: Special Intelligence Resources Command, or SIRECOM, is the US. Government's multi-agency task force which specializes in Omega operatives and containment.
Spirit-gods: Beings of pure mind, the spirit gods were created by the expectations and prayers of man. They conflicted with the New Ones for human worship.
Telekinesis: The Psychokinetic abilty to move things with thought alone. See Psychokinesis.
Telepathy: The psionic abilty of Mind to Mind contact, and far more. Telepathy is the second most common psionic ability. This ability includes Psychic surgery, Astral Projection, Psychic Vampirism, Dreamwalking, Illusion casting, and Telescanning (rapid telepathic searching of other minds to find specific information).
Teleportation: The Psychokinetic ability to travel from point to point without traversing the space between.
Trigger, The: The Trigger, intended to eliminate all intelligent life on earth, it now gives psionic power to those who inherit it.
Wrexxakt: An alien race who bred the Harrakin.
What's this Trigger you've been talking about?
My turn to explain, I guess, since I came up with it.
The Omega Trigger is very misunderstood by both Geneticists and Laymen. This is an attempt to explain it simply, so as not to strain the genetic knowledge of the average person on the street, and yet to allow for coherence. The leading theory is that the Trigger is a mutated form of a genegineered virus, unleashed upon humanity by an unknown party. It has been traced back a few million years. At this time, Humanity as we now know it did not exist as such. Various competing strains of hominids (Homo Erectus, Austrolopithecus Africanis and Robustus, et al) were all alive in different regions.
THE TRIGGER'S EFFECT ON HUMANITY
The Trigger was, at that time, a very versatile and unique killer. But, A virus that kills its host too rapidly keeps the virus from reproducing effectively. Therefore, within a decade of introduction, the virus had mutated to become a recessive genetic adaption, riding the genome of its host rather than striking immediately. Only at times of stress, or sometimes pubescence, or if two people who were both carrying the Trigger mated, would there be an activation.
In most strains of Proto-Humanity, it did indeed lead to extinction. But in one strain, it activated the psi potential of the host in an non-lethal way. This strain was known as Homo Sapiens Sapiens, (thinking man who thinks...redundant, but accurate) and it spread.
The triggers were still very rare (they had killed the other hominid branches who carried them) and after millenia of sexual reproduction, Parents to Children, had become more of a genetic passenger than a virus. An RNA addition replicated along with the genome of the hosts.
THE NEW ONES AND THE TRIGGER
Eventually, a statistical quirk happened, even though it took millions of years. Many humans with the Trigger were settled in one place, and isolated from others. Soon, on this atlantic island, trigger carrying human would mate with another...the chances for the Trigger to activate rose. And rose. And eventually it did go off, and the beings resulting from this were the first true psionics in the history of the earth.(For a history, read Chad Imbrogno's article GODS.)
TODAY - THE AGE OF THE OMEGA
The depletion of the Trigger after the events of the Deluge and Concordat from humanity was so thourough that even today, what was once present in half the genepool (albeit a much smaller genepool) is only present in 12.5% of the population, and is latent in the vast majority of those cases.
There are three ways to activate the Trigger. These are:
1) Extreme Agitation. Sometimes (0.01%) a latent who is subject to extreme emotional or physical trauma will kick in his Omega, allowing him access to the psionic portion of her mind. This does not happen often enough for me to sanction putting one's self in the line of extreme danger.
2) Proper Genes. If two latents marry and have offspring, those offspring have a one in four chance of being Omegas. If they are, they will express their Omega's usually around pubescence (ages 12- 21) but later and earlier triggers are known.
3) Unknown. There is an X-Factor at work in the Trigger...something not readily explainable. Some Omegas report "Self-Triggering", wherein they managed to access their powers by force of will. Sometimes the Trigger causes massive physical changes, and sometimes it ignores the rules I have already set down. It is extremely difficult to predict or control.
Okay, there it is on the Trigger...feel free to play with it.
Are there any Aliens and Other Dimensions we should know about?
The New Ones and Spirit Gods reside in other dimensions, but that really hasn't been explored too much. So feel free to be the first! Write a whole series set in an alternate Omega dimension if ya wanna! On a related note, we haven't done much with Time-Travel and alternate timelines, either. Like I keep saying, it's a young universe. That's the beauty of it. You can explore these options to your hearts content.
As far as aliens, be on the lookout for BLOOD IN THE SKY, a kind of Space Operatic storyline coming out sometime late '98/early 99. It will deal with the situation in the Milky Way Galaxy, at least.
Will OMEGA be crossing over with any other RACC universes?
I don't rightly know. Individual Omega books might, as their writers have absolute control over their characters. As a group, we've just finished a very, very large crossover entitled INVASIONS..I don't know how many of us are really up to a large crossover right this second. But, I am sure that we will eventually welcome such a move. It's up to the other guys. If Superguy, or Patrol, or ASH, or even the NTB/LNH worlds (or any of the ones I'm forgetting like Byron Molix's worlds) have interested writers in them who want to try and work something out, I'm sure we could talk. After all, we all like to write, and that's something.
That's the Omega FAQ for now. Updates to Follow.
Matthew "BADGER" Rossi, Signing off
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