Last month, I talked about a campaign centered on the United Nations International Operations Network (UNION), the metahuman arm of the United Nations. That installment described the basic framework of the campaign, but there was no space to explain what's behind the origin of the 42 supers.

This month I'll talk about that. Bear in mind that this information is not known by anyone in the UNION setting - not even the 42. And there's no need for it to ever come out if what you want is a game with UN-backed posthumans that deal with international issues. But in case you want something more to add to the story, here it is.

Here here here, Higgs!

Hugh Everett was right: there are more universes out there. An infinite number of them, to be precise. Each broke off its parent reality when a quantum decision point was reached.

In one such universe, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was finished five years earlier and began its operations soon after. As a result, it achieved one of its major goals in 2007 - finding the Higgs boson, the subatomic particle responsible for mass.

There was great rejoice among physicists, many articles were published, the LHC continued pursuing its other goals and life went on without any bumps for everybody. Or so they thought at the time, unaware that the creation of the Higgs boson had attracted the attention of another being.

See, there are many universes, but each one exists within its own four-dimensional membrane, or brane. All of the branes are contained inside an 11-dimensional space called the bulk. Branes are independent of each other, but are weakly connected through gravity, the only fundamental force capable of traveling between realities.

Enter the Beast

It's difficult to think what else could exist in the bulk. In fact, researchers don't think anything lives there. But they are wrong, there's sentience there. And predators. One such being was attracted by the artificial generation of the Higgs boson.

It latched onto that universe's brane and began "eating", for lack a better term. The Higgs Beast, as it would be known, feasted on that reality's fundamental blocks and the first casualty was time. It gradually compressed in relation to ours, so that two seconds would elapse there while just one would pass here. This discrepancy only increased.

The inhabitants of that brane never noticed it. What caught their attention were the rifts - holes in reality where things didn't work quite as they should. At first, there weren't many and they were small, but as the years passed they increased both in size and number (think what's happening to the alternate universe in the Fringe TV series).

Worse: the laws of physics began to wobble even in places where there was no rift. Gravity fluctuations, time distortions, strange events that were soon described as paranormal in origin. Panic spread quickly and there was talk of leaving Earth, but astronomical observations showed that other places in the universe were acting up as well.

And the Higgs Beast fed on.

Their 42

The nations of the Earth didn't sit on their hands while all this was happening. Facing annihilation, governments from all over the world were quick to forget old grudges and pool their resources, creating think tanks left and right dedicated to solving the problem.

One of these was a CERN-backed group that operated out of the Swiss Nanoscience Institute in Basel. Led by renowned Armenian physicist Eshkhan Gourgoian, this team consisted of 42 senior scientists and their most promising students, like Bryan Cornell, Cynthia Howler and Chen Chen Lee.

It was Gourgoian's team that first identified the Higgs boson experiment as the starting point of the anomalies. They also contributed significantly to the first attempts at containing and reversing the rifts, which started about 10 years after the first manifestation.

At first, these attempts succeeded, leading to a renewed sense of hope in the world. That was short-lived though, as following operations failed. Whenever scientists managed to seal off a rift, they implemented the same process in another fracture. However, they soon found out that no solution worked twice in a row.

For some unknown reason, a basic parameter would change from one implementation to the other, rendering the sealing process ineffectual. Gourgoian's team joked that there must be an intelligence behind the changes and coined the term Higgs Beast to refer to the phenomenon.

As the years progressed, the problem persisted, becoming more serious as the breaches in reality increased. What had started as a joke rapidly turned into the only explanation possible for the series of failures. Not all scientists were convinced, but Gourgoian's group knew there truly was a Higgs Beast.

A window into our world

By 2037, the situation was bleak. The world lay in shambles and millions had died. Most people had lost all hope and the end of the planet - and even reality as they knew it - was a certainty. Still, Gourgoian's people toiled on after a solution.

After one particularly catastrophic rift, the group picked up TV and radio transmissions. At first they thought the rift effects had amplified signal residues, but the stream was continuous and unbroken. Another peculiarity was that it dated back 30 years.

Some things were different too: minor details about history and historical figures. But what confused the scientists was the fact it was 2008 and the LHC wasn't even finished. The realization hit most of the 42 at the same time: the transmissions came from a parallel world.

Somehow the Higgs Beast's actions had created a connection between two branes, allowing the researchers access to a whole new reality. In itself, that piece of news would have rocked the world, but now it meant much more - it meant salvation.

Gourgoian's team spent the following months trying to devise a way to take advantage of the brane bridge, as they called it: turn it into a wormhole to send mass through, key it to a rift and then use that as portal. Nothing worked and nothing would, they realized as a massive rift ripped apart the Americas.

A somber mood took over the group as, for the first time in years, the researchers finally admitted there was nothing they could do to save humankind. It was these thoughts that drifted through Gourgoian's mind as he drank his Scotch and watched transmissions from parallel Earth.

Soon they would finish the LHC and find the Higgs boson, and the Beast would descend upon them with its ravenous appetite. Maybe the Beast already knew about this new world, thanks to the brane bridge. They had no idea what was about to hit them. Gourgoian pondered that as he finished the bottle.

He slammed the glass hard on the table and said: "we might not be able to save our world, but we'll damn well give them a fighting chance."

Message in a (gravity) bottle

Gourgoian and his people knew the brane bridge was basically gravity - a stream of gravitons that moved back and forth between the universes. They would use it to transfer a message to the other reality. However, they didn't know how to do that in a way that could be interpreted at its destination.

That's when they decided to use themselves. They would create a magnetic resonance image (MRI) so fine it recorded their memories. Then, they would broadcast it through the brane bridge and, hopefully, the quantum information contained in the MRI would entangle with their counterparts' consciousness, transferring the message.

Since they didn't know who existed and who didn't in the other universe, all 42 submitted to the procedure, which involved rows and rows of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). The first one to be mapped and transmitted was Gourgoian, and the last one was Regina Ndlovu.

Gourgoian and his team never knew if their desperate attempt at saving another universe worked, because a couple of days after the transmissions, a rift bathed all of Switzerland with deadly doses of radiation, killing everybody there.

Meanwhile, on this side of the rainbow...

We already know the attempt didn't quite work - the signal-to-noise ratio was high enough that even the first broadcast, Gourgoian's, failed to convey the information. The following transmissions suffered from gradually more degradation.

Of course, the project had unforeseen consequences. The basic powers displayed by the 42 come from their connection to the brane bridge. The quantum entanglement locked them to the graviton stream, giving them access to a pool of gravitational energy that manifests as the common suite of powers.

Since all 42 have their consciousness quantum entangled through the same medium, they are able to communicate with each other telepathically. Finally, the graviton stream connection also links the 42 to the superstructure of their home brane. This allows them to tweak the laws of physics in a very specific way.

It's like they are a puppeteer and the universe is their puppet, but each of the 42 only have one string, so they can only get reality to do one trick. For example, when Cynthia Howler yanks her string, she shoots laser from her eyes.

Of course, none of the 42 has any idea that's what is really happening. As far as they are concerned, they have a unique superpower. Theoretically, if they understood the origin of their ability, they might be able to expand it, but that's not guaranteed.

OK, but...

What do you do with all that background? Well, you can do many things. One of them, like I point out in the introduction to this installment, is to ignore everything. Let the origin of the abilities remain a mystery and concentrate on the superinternational hijinks.

You can also use the threat of the Higgs Beast as a metaplot, slowly introducing elements in the campaign. Maybe the 42, starting with Gourgoian, begin to remember the memories of their alternates and realize they must stop the LHC boson experiments.

But why wait for that? Have the Higgs Beast come to the UNION universe! The brane bridge and the broadcasts attract its attention and it sends a shard of its consciousness to piggyback on one of the transmissions. Now, one of the 42 is a host for a higher-dimensional cosmic entity intent on devouring reality.

This is a first for the Higgs Beast - it has never inhabited a four-dimensional form, so at first it acclimates to the new form. The host has no idea he or she is carrying the Beast, but when it syncs up with this new state, it takes over, merging its consciousness shard with that of the host. Now the UNION universe has a Darkseid analog!

Unlike the 42, the Higgs Beast has a lot more strings with which to play with this universe. And play it will, bringing the collapse of reality from within. It will revel in the chaos and mayhem it will cause in this new form, feeling (yes, feeling!) special pleasure whenever it bests one of the 42.

Wait. Did I say "higher-dimensional cosmic entity intent on devouring reality"? Hmm, that sounds suspiciously Lovecraftian. And if there's a Higgs Beast, maybe there are other beings in the bulk. Tired of UN-backed supers? What about Old Ones-backed supers? You could even borrow a page from an earlier installment of Superseeds.

A person and a seed

I promised seeds and NPCs, so here's one of each.

Regina Ndlovu: Regina was born in Zimbabwe in 1980 after the election that put Robert Mugabe in power. Her parents were doctors who, sensing the bad times ahead for their country, emigrated to England in the early 90s. Regina still had lots of relatives back in Zimbabwe and so had plenty of opportunity to learn of everything that was going on down there. All the bad news coming from her home country and the rest of Africa got to her and Regina would always imagine ways to fix all that. They were never diplomatic ways, though. After medical school, Regina joined Doctors without Borders and spent two years in some of the worst spots of the African continent. This only reinforced her anger with the status quo. When Regina gained her powers, she quickly declined the chance to join UNION and flew to Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, where she descended like an angel of death upon Mugabe and his inner circle. That night she found out her unique ability was disintegration (actually, she converts her targets into gravitons and beams them to the parallel universe through the brane bridge, where they are reintegrated, but she doesn't know that). Regina left the government in the hands of Morgan Tsvangirai, but watched over him, both to protect him from Mugabe sympathizers and to ensure he wouldn't become like his predecessor. Six months later, she moved on Sudan.

Once We Were Friends: Regina Ndlovu is called Angel of Freedom by many Africans. In the two years since she became a 42er, she has deposed dictators and brought stability to many regions. But now she has started to affect the interests of the major powers in the world and the UN Security Council wants UNION to take care of her. Regina is not dumb - she knows she can't stand against UNION - and she doesn't want to disintegrate her fellow posthumans, even though she thinks they are partially to blame for the African situation. She moves a lot, not staying in one place for long, and tries to recruit other rogue 42ers to help her, with modest success. If the pressure becomes too strong Regina will retaliate by disintegrating American, European and Chinese interests in Africa - like oil refineries, military bases etc. She will avoid casualties as much as she can (she is pretty good with her disintegration, being able to vaporize a destroyer without affecting the crew). If that's not enough, Regina will move away from Africa and hit targets in Europe. Locating her might be difficult, unless one of the UNION agents has the unique ability to locate other super-humans. And even if they do, she won't go down easily, although she will try to reason with them first. If the characters are already having doubts about their role, her words might push them over the line. Failing that, Regina will create diversions to draw the PCs away from her. She will only fight them as a last resort, but by then she won't have any reservations in using her signature power (this might actually be a way to introduce the background, as the PC will find himself in the rapidly deteriorating parallel Earth from where his powers come).

Additional inspiration

Bulk and Surface: This alternative Aberrant campaign was the first time I saw the concepts of brane and bulk applied to a RPG campaign and it certainly inspired me. Check it out. You might find other ideas for this seed or for completely new campaigns.

I hope you liked it. Feel free to share any comments, suggestion and criticisms on the forum. If you ever run this, let me know too.