In the wake of the terrorist attack on Team Tomorrow in 20xx, activity returned to "normal."  Decontamination efforts and medical inspections gave everyone a clean bill of health.  Impetus and Utopia's PR wing swooped down to divert attention and assure the media that Team Tomorrow had stopped the terrorist threat.  The individuals responsible were holdovers from Columbia, and there was certainly no greater conspiracy at work.  Aid work, humanitarian efforts, and collaboration with governments worldwide increased in the weeks following the incident, lead by a charismatic, friendly, and occasionally controversial Ragnarockette, further shifting the spotlight away from Utopia's failure in handling the remnants of Columbia's militarized nova forces.

Ex-T2Mers were given a loving public speech by Laragione and a private invitation to return to the fold, while both new and old members were instructed to keep the truth quiet for the time being.  The investigation was ongoing, and Utopia didn't want to tips its hand after all.  Life resumed its frantic crawl towards the next disaster, and the victims of the attack went back to their lives.  It was three weeks before anyone knew something wasn't right.

It began with a sneeze.  One of the newest members woke up with a head cold, and he was new enough that he didn't recognize just how strange his condition was.  But his teammates on T2M:Europe did.  Days of medical tests couldn't determine the cause of his problem, but they did track a growing fluctuation in his control of quantum.  Abilities reduced to near-human levels, inability to maintain quantum energies, and general fatigue.  After 6 days, he was mostly returned to normal, though experts like Gravitas noted a residual and seemingly permanent weakening of his quantum pattern.

Researchers were both excited and worried, spending hours analyzing the data. Some suggested that the young man's powers were unstable, or that he had some variant of the dormancy ability was at work.  Others posited varied ideas ranging from evolved nova bacteria (completely unsupported by the evidence), a result of the earlier terrorist attack, or a subtle "aberration" similar to those experienced by other novas.  Analysts were no closer to understanding when more cases began popping up among T2M novas, with nearly identical symptoms.  This time, all of the weaker novas, and a few of the mid-level novas were affected.  The "youngest" novas recovered in a matter of a few weeks, but evidenced the same residual instability in their quantum signatures.  The more experienced novas were slower in onset, and recovery; months passed, and even after partial recovery they were weaker than before the onset of the mysterious "condition."  After 2 months from the first case was reported, the team veterans and less experienced members with the most powerful quantum signatures and nodes, began showing extremely mild symptoms of power degeneration, fatigue, and reduced quantum capacity.

During this period, Utopia guarded information on the strange nova sickness with utmost secrecy.  Were it leaked to the general public, Utopia would be devastatingly weakened, weapons developers would attempt to replicate the effect, and the lives of Utopia's novas would be endangered.  The causes of the sickness were unknown, but as they seemed to only affect T2M novas, most agreed that it was probably a result of the earlier terrorist attack, with a possible interaction effect for veterans of Columbia due to cellular damage from nuclear fallout.  The nature of the illness seemed akin to an auto-immune disease, as the nova's own quantum pattern seemed almost at war with itself.  Those with weaker patterns recovered almost fully, but retained the condition, while those of greater power were more deeply and permanently affected.

After 3 months, the impact of the mystery illness on the most powerful T2Mers was yet to be seen.  They continued to experience progressively greater levels of quantum interference, and the pattern was clear; they would be the hardest hit, as their own power turned against them.  The ultimate results could include temporary or permanent power loss, coma, or even death.  As their powers waned, the most debilitated members were quietly moved to positions where their power loss would go unnoticed.  Such an event couldn't be hidden forever of course, but perhaps with a little more time they could isolate the cause and find a cure.  But with the greatest nova minds slowly losing their enhanced faculties even as they worked on one of their most daunting challenges, Utopia was running out of options...

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
And... GO!

Ok, just to set the scene and provide some structure, give an initial post with a brief synopsis of your reactions and activities as this 3 month process went down, and then give your current course of action.  I want people to come together and try to interact somewhat, but how you go about that is up to you.  I hope to get some faster paced back-and-forth dialogue going here, some dramatic interaction that we haven't seen for a while.  Who are these characters, how does this hit them, and how do they react to the situation and, most importantly, how do they react to EACH OTHER?

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This message was last updated by the GM at 21:12, Fri 30 Aug 2013.

Quentin called a meeting. He had to. He was unlikely to be able to hide what was going on any more without further assistance. He was also forcing himself to admit that he couldn't solve this one on his own. He needed to brief the others on what he knew.

He'd called together several of the people that had been present at the event that he believed to be the cause of their collective problem - namely the alumni meetup of Team Tomorrow. Most were not, to his knowledge, yet exhibiting any symptoms. They might just be hiding it, though. He'd also invited several members of his research team and one or two others from outside the Utopia umbrella whom he believed he could trust with discretion on this issue (including Hell Kraken if he wishes to attend).

They gathered in a secure conference room deep in the bowels of the Nevada T2M complex. Quentin leaned heavily on a cane, shifting most of his weight to his right, whole, leg; he hadn't needed a cane since perfecting his prosthesis technology many months previously. He held the cane in his left hand, pressing it against the ground to relieve his left leg and kept his right hand inside the pocket of his jacket.

Without fanfare, he spoke as the last arrival sat around the oblong table. "You are all, probably, aware of the condition plaguing T2M novas who were present at the all-Team gathering several months ago." As he spoke, the holo-projector in the center of the room hummed to life and the lights dimmed a bit to make it easier to see for those that didn't have altered vision. A table was the first thing to appear, containing names, symptoms, and durations along with miscellaneous notes. "What we first thought to be merely an aberration is proving to be considerably more. We currently estimate that every nova present at the event will eventually display signs of the condition."

The image shifted to a humanoid wire-frame shape filled in with a hazy blue color, the blue eventually starts to spike outside the lines, dim, brighten, and otherwise distort. "All we really know about it so far is that its primary symptom seems to involve the disruption of the nova ability to control quantum with their own quantum pattern. Weaker novas have, so far, seemed to recover with only minor damage to their quantum signature." The hazy blue eventually stabilized, but was dimmer than when the animation had started. "We predict that the overall strength of quantum signature affects all of onset, duration, and intensity of the condition. Consequences for high powered novas - including many of you in this room - are currently unknown. I theorize a potential for nearly total power loss for an indeterminate duration of time likely measured in months and severe long-term damage to quantum pattern that may result in a permanent reduction in the overall ability to harness quantum energies. Temporary total power loss will, according to pessimistic models, even last for years."

He looked out across the room of assembled individuals and a sad half grin formed on his face, "I can see it in your eyes, 'What of it Grav? We're not scientists, don't you have a solution yet?'. Well, I'm working on it. I've called you together because there are some things I just can't do on my own. Primarily, I can't provide my own data for this sort of thing, I'm only one data point - I need to run total physicals on all of you. Also," he removed his right hand from his pocket and held it up. Half the thumb and most of the palm along with all the other fingers had been replaced with a cybernetic prosthesis of his own design after the Columbia bombing. He flexed the fingers into a fist and back - or tried. The ring finger didn't move at all and the motion was exceptionally jerky. "I'm beginning to show symptoms."

The hologram changed again, showing a brain with a small highlighted lump toward the front "Modelling indicates that the size of the node has some impact on the severity and exact effects of the condition." The size of the lump grew and the distribution of the parts of the brain changed accordingly. Once it reached a certain size, notes appeared floating next to it listing some common side effects of exceptionally large nodes.

"Several of you have seen my file - I had a 6th instar node." The image shifts slightly, those familiar with the human brain note several differences from a baseline brain, including structures they can't identify. Floating text nearby labels the brain as that of Quentin Abernathy around the time of the T2M psych evaluations. The node is prominent, "After my chrysalis my node evolved further and I'm tentatively classifying it as 7th instar." The hologram shifts as the node actually fragments into several parts and more evenly distributes itself throughout the brain. "My MRI shows that a part of it is pressing against my motor cortex. This hasn't really ever been a problem until now. Whatever quirk of nova physiology that has kept my node from interfering with other parts of my brain is beginning to fail."

He stuffed the hand back into his pocket, "My best guess is that over the next month or two the rest of you will begin to show symptoms as well, if you haven't already. In my own case, my best guess is that, aside from the loss of my control over gravity, I will lose the majority of my enhanced cognitive capacity and, given the distribution of the node in my brain, I will begin to exhibit a number of different psychological and neurological conditions. I will almost certainly become unable to continue contribute meaningfully to the search for a cure - and that is another reason I've called you all here." The normally unemotive nova looked, by this point, pretty distressed - or at least as distressed as he ever seemed to get. "I need your help."

"As an aside," he looked to Impetus and Solitaire (if either are  present), "It is currently unknown what the effect of having undergone chrysalis is on the condition other than the now-known fact that it does not confer immunity."

He cleared his throat, "On the upside, we know it isn't contagious, and it doesn't appear to be caused by any sort of pathogen that we can identify or isolate - other novas that you come into contact with do not appear to be at risk. Further it has no effect on baselines. Further research is, of course, ongoing."

The lights came back up as the holo-projector shut itself off. He unsteadily took a few steps forward and slumped into an empty chair. "So: questions, comments, thoughts?"
This message was last edited by the player at 03:10, Sat 29 Oct 2011.