History TabletopGame / GeniusTheTransgression

* TheAestheticsOfTechnology: A Genius' Aesthetic is a manifestation of how they think super-advanced technology should look. For some Geniuses, their Aesthetic is their idea of RuleOfCool, others use an Aesthetic with a sense of irony, or a [[{{Postmodernism}} postmodernist]] examination of what it means to be mad science. Unmada can't do this; their belief is that their worldview is The Truth, and so their Aesthetic reflects that, and making a Wonder in a different style ranges from difficult to impossible.

''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20221218070445/http://sites.google.com/site/moochava/genius Genius: The Transgression]]'' is a fan Gameline for the TabletopGame/ChroniclesOfDarkness setting created by the author/artist of webcomic ''Webcomic/TheWaterPhoenixKing'', Kyle Marquis (better known on RPG.Net as Moochava), detailing the adventures of Geniuses, {{Mad Scientist}}s who can build impossible machines (called Wonders) thanks to their connection to the mysterious light of Inspiration. Drawing on every sci-fi and horror cliché out there, Genius [[ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorder justifies the setting]], [[{{Reconstruction}} expands the tropes along their logical progression]] and links its themes to the real world. It will be instantly familiar to any fan of the genre.

* PunkPunk: The only aesthetics that ''don't'' correspond to a punk genre on this wiki are Fairy Princess (a mix of [[DungeonPunk Alembic]] and [[SolarPunk Home Grown]], though a case could be made that it fits the obscure solarpunk subgenre of "Lunarpunk"), Extropic (more of [[UsefulNotes/{{Transhumanism}} a philosophy than an aesthetic]]), and Crawling Rusty Meat (a mix of [[ScavengedPunk Trash Praxis]] and [[BioPunk Black Plastic]])

* PunkPunk: The only aesthetics that ''don't'' correspond to a punk genre on this wiki are Fairy Princess (a mix of [[DungeonPunk Alembic]] and [[SolarPunk Home Grown]], though a case could be made that it fits the obscure solarpunk subgenre of "Lunarpunk"), Extropic (more of [[UsefulNotes/{{Transhumanism a philosophy}} than an aesthetic]]), and Crawling Rusty Meat (a mix of [[ScavengedPunk Trash Praxis]] and [[BioPunk Black Plastic]])

** Travel thousand of years ahead, and humanity begins to be more and more altered; life extension and the digital preservation of deceased minds are common. A thousand years in the future, the Solar System is a patchwork of human and posthuman nations. Ten thousand years hence, its worlds are ruled by a cruel despot.

** Hundreds of millions of years from now, humanity and metahumanity are gone, but new life inhabits Earth. In 100 million years, androids, beast-men and stranded aliens live in barbaric societies amidst the ruins of ancien technology and ancient, mad machines on a new supercontinent and on the terraformed Solar worlds. 500 million years hence, new intelligences evolve from far-future animals in a primitive Earth under a tired Sun. A billion years from now, the Solar System is an interstellar hub for travelers, criminals and scoundrels from countless alien races.

* ZergRush: With rank 4 Automata, your factories can create [[CloningBlues human beings.]] While these clones are no more powerful than a normal human, the mania you spend to make them isn't bound, allowing you to have an effectively unlimited number as long as you can pay the initial mania cost. Combine this with 5 ranks in Assembly Line (allowing you to have 32 identical cloning vats for only 4 bound mania), another rank 1 factory that builds weapons, and a few weeks to build up your army, and you can [[WeHaveReserves clog your enemies' barrels with dead clones.]]

* LesCollaborateurs: The human Geniuses who swore fealty to the Ophidian masters of Lemuria.
* ComesGreatInsanity: [[MadScientist Comes with the territory.]]

* ConspiracyTheorist: The Inspired are very good at seeing connections. This is equally true for connections that [[LogicalFallacies do not exist.]]
** Granted there are [[ConspiracyKitchenSink dozens of conspiracies in the World of Darkness.]]

* CorruptCop: A growing problem in the TimePolice.

* CrazyPrepared: A merit in second edition.

* CyberPunk: An old-fashioned Aesthetic.
* {{Cyberspace}}: The Grid exists ''[[YourMindMakesItReal because of this trope]]''.

* DarkMessiah: Villainous Hoffnungs can be this.
* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Deep Inspiration allows you to use Mania that you don't have. [[PowerAtAPrice Unfortunately,]] this means your Inspiration is writing checks your mind can't cash; the more Mania you spend, the greater the penalty to the resulting [[HeroicRROD Unmada check.]] Worse still, Unmada who use Deep Inspiration risk becoming [[TheUnfettered Illuminated]].

* ToTheFutureAndBeyond: Time travel is a dodgy proposition, since trips to the same era doesn't reliably bring you to the same events, but a general progression of epochs is established as the most common destinations that time-travellers find themselves in:
** The near future, up to about fifty years hence, is mostly home to the immediate descendants of modern cultures, and to people using slightly more advanced versions of modern technology; this is usually similar enough to current tech that it if is brought back it doesn't count as Wonders. Travelers heading ten years in the future usually find themselves amidst TheRapture; travel to fifty years hence instead brings you to an ice age where robots are warring against humanity.
** A few hundred years on, technology becomes more complex -- internal AI is often seen among scientists, police officers, and spies -- and the line between regular people and Geniuses starts to blur. A hundred years in the future, the serpent masters of Lemuria use its control of the Internet to take over humanity's computerized brains and rule the world, but their rule eventually slips and they're assimilated into human civilization. Two hundred years later, the Martian Empire manages to make itself real and takes over the Solar System, beginning a golden age of interstellar culture.
** Travel thousand of years ahead, and humanity begins to be more and more altered; life extension and the digital preservation of deceased minds are common. A thousand years in the future, the Solar System is a patchwork of human and posthuman nations. Ten thousand years hence, its worlds are ruled by a cruel despot.
** Tens of thousands of years hence, humans possess immense personal power thanks to ages of genetic and technological augmentation. 50,000 years in the future, a civilization of godlike, immortal people rules the stars; 100,000 years hence, the world is a sterile waste, sometimes replaced by complex megastructures, while humanity's minds live as gods in digital worlds.
** Millions of years from the present, metahumanity resembles modern folk about as much as we do apes. Powerful, undying and fey, they live in Dyson spheres, digital simulations and stranger things, and their morality rarely resembles that of modern men.
** Hundreds of millions of years from now, humanity and metahumanity are gone, but new life inhabits Earth. In 100 million years, androids, beast-men and stranded aliens live in barbaric societies amidst the ruins of ancien technology and ancient, mad machines on a new supercontinent and on the terraformed Solar worlds. 500 million years hence, new intelligences evolve from far-future animals in a primitive Earth under a tired Sun. A billion years from now, the Solar System is an interstellar hub for travelers, criminals and scoundrels from countless alien races.
** Past that point, time travelers find a slowly dying cosmos as history approaches the NaturalEndOfTime. Five billion years hence, the last intelligent life on Earth lives in a blasted waste; ten billion years hence, the Sun is surrounded by a Dyson sphere home to nightmare beings birthed from ancient computers; one trillion years hence, a darkened universe twitches through its last motions; and past that, there is only eternal darkness and strange minds birthed from quantum foam.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: DoubleSubverted; there are plenty of psychologists and therapists. [[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes They're as mad as everyone else,]] or [[BrownNote they will be after talking to you]]. They tend to [[ManipulativeBastard specialise in]] [[MindControlDevice manipulation.]]
** Amusingly enough, the sourcebook ''opens with'' a therapist talking with one of the Inspired. [[spoiler: It does not end well.]]

* TimePolice: The Guardians of Forever. The Terminals recruited them before they were [[RetGone removed from the timeline.]]

** TimeTravelForFunAndProfit: Obviously. The Guardians tolerate a little messing around, and many Geniuses use that to their advantage.

* TortureCellar: The [[ThoseWackyNazis Thulian]] Grant makes ample use of these.
* TorturedMonster: The Cold Ones, the last surviving beings after the heat death of the universe, existing as fluctuations in the cosmic emptiness. All they can do is lie there and think, and whenever they can, they try to trap and feed on time travelers for their delicious heat and matter - and maybe travel into a world where things exist.

* ToTheFutureAndBeyond: Time travel is a dodgy proposition, since tripes to the same era doesn't reliably bring you to the same events, but a general progression of epochs is established as the most common destinations that time-travellers find themselves in:

** Being in the presence of a particularly potent Clockstopper is this for any of the Inspired.

** And occasionaly Clockstoppers.
* GadgeteerGenius: The whole point, really.

* MadScientist: You play as one.

* TheMadHatter: The Peerage takes pains to remind its members that all Geniuses are mad; it helps keep them from going too far. Lemurians think they're sane. They also have an insane worldview that's notably non human-centric. This is ''not'' a good combination.

* ManaBurn: The Clockstopper Void "Hungry Emptiness."
* ManaDrain: The Calculus Vampire Merit.

* {{Muggles}}: Termed "mere mortals" by the sourcebook.

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: In approximately ten-thousand years, the most brutal dictator ever known to mankind will seize control of civilization. What does this despotic mastermind call himself? [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yao_Ming Yao Ming.]]

* GirlfriendInCanada: A typo of Mane in second edition.

* AllTheoriesAreTrue: You can use any to build [[AppliedPhlebotinum Wonders]]. [[AncientConspiracy Lemuria]] believes that the trope ''[[WrongGenreSavvy is]]'' [[WrongGenreSavvy actually]] '''[[WrongGenreSavvy true]]'''
** Of course many Lemurians and most Peers think this trope is just a trick.
** The Hermetic Order of the 28 Spheres especially focuses on the fact that All Theories Are False, since Geniuses don't do real science, and all their theories (as long as they're self-consistent) work equally well as frameworks for Maniacal devices. Therefore, it honestly doesn't matter ''what'' theory you base your Wonders on, because everything works. They have a lot of fun with this (while simultaneously trolling more serious-minded Geniuses. Most of their raison d'etre focuses around subverting expectations and testing the limits of what Mania considers a "workable theory".

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