Aberrant readthrough: ReignofEvil.com and Church of Michael Archangel

So, having decided that I hate this game and want it to perish in quantum fires, I am nonetheless soldiering on. This week we’ll take a look at the last two mini-supplements for the first edition, who most conveniently have a common theme.

The theme is, People Who The Writers Of Aberrant Had Snooty Contempt For. These two booklets are of course not enough to fully explore that theme, which could probably have provided material for a dozen more if anyone had actually been interested enough in Aberrant to be buying these books, which is perhaps why it further spilled over into Worldwide Phase Two (which we’ll discuss next week). For now, though, let’s start with:

So it’s about Satanists. Specifically, it’s about something called the Church of Astaroth who worships a nova by the same name. And he’s a loser! And they’re losers! But losers can be dangerous, possibly, in some way, so it’s okay to hate them and it doesn’t make you a bully! But they’re definitely losers! A bunch of man-babies who fail at life and can’t spell! Feh! Feh! We spit at them! Did we mention that they’re losers? Because they’re losers!!!!!

… yeah, you kind of get the idea after the first page and then it goes on for twenty-five more. The writers of Aberrant really hated Satanists, and gosh-darn it, they were prepared to say so no matter how controversial it was!

Now, being at the time a maladjusted all-black-wearing young man, I actually sniffed around some Satanist websites and publications at around the time this was written, so I at least understand what it’s attacking and that, while humourlessly mean-spirited in the extreme, it’s not entirely off the mark. And yes, I can vouch for the fact that a lot of self-proclaimed Dark Lords of This World really couldn’t spell particularly well.

But you know something? Some of it had a sort of morbid beauty to it, too. Hey, Anton LaVey was a maladjusted jerk, but he was a maladjusted jerk with a serious poetic streak – he could make being a maladjusted jerk sound absolutely gorgeous. Honestly, Satanists deserve better than this hatchet job. I say this even though they worship selfishness and depravity and even though (more objectionable by far, to my mind) they are usually libertarians. Seriously. Some people may deserve to be mocked, but no one deserves to be mocked this lazily.

And what makes it really obnoxious is that the Teragen, who the writers constantly fawn over… are philosophical Satanists. I mean, they just are. They believe in transcending conventional morality! They believe in wielding power unchecked by the sheep-like masses! They revel in monstrosity and deviance! They form a cult of personality around a guy who goes by a pretentious Latin name that means “the wicked god”! They’re Satanists.

And unless one of the writers was bitten by a metal-head as a child, I can only theorise that that’s precisely why this book was written – as a pre-emptive counter to any accusation that they might be Leading The Youth Astray. Which, I will admit, was probably not baseless concern back at the turn of the millenium, with the Satanic Panic not yet cool in its grave, but still… they got away with glorifying serial killers and terrorists, I think they could have gotten away with having Satanist-coded characters in their silly superhero game without hiding behind this ridiculous fig leaf.

It’s an especial shame because, again… Satanic imagery is cool. Hey, ask any Warhammer 40,000 nerd and he’ll tell you that the only thing more awesome than a ten-foot-tall space marine with a machine gun is a ten-foot-tall devil-worshipping space marine with a machine gun! This could have been a fun villain faction that explored what thoroughly disenfranchised people might become if they suddenly got the power to make their every maladjusted fantasy come true. But no, instead we got 26 pages of the writers going, “guh guh guh! That’s YOU! That’s how DUMB you sound!”

In addition to really hating Satanists, the writers of Aberrant really hated fundies. Because, again, it was the aughts, and hating fundies was the style of the times (unless you were a fundy, in which case hating the godless secularists was the style of the times). So of course Aberrant has a whole bunch of them who hate novas and go around killing them, and…

Wait. Stop. Hold the phone.

They go around killing novas. Novas. You know, the ones with the superpowers. The godlike creatures who can smash cities to rubble. The ones who can do anything baselines can, only better. A bunch of rednecks with shotguns are going around trying to kill them.

…

… howwwwwwwww? I mean, this is a villain faction, right? They’re meant to serve as antagonists in the game. How are they meant to do that? How are they supposed to be relevant? They show up, they get creamed. It’s about that simple.

And the game doesn’t even bother to hide that. The Michaelites are few in number, low in funding, untrained, clueless, outmatched. They’re irrelevant, an annoyance. But they’re still going to be shoehorned into the game and treated like their very existence is an important part of the setting. Because, I guess, they have the unmitigated nerve to not like novas, and that proves that novas are oppressed woobies who are totally justified in joining the Teragen – who, let’s remember, refer to baselines as “monkeys” and consider them to have no moral significance. Because the absence of universal approval is exactly the same as relentless persecution.

I hate this game. I hate this game. I hate it, I hate it, why did I start reading it, why do I do this to myself…

Sorry, sorry, I had to hyperventilate for a moment there… Anyway, the book wraps up with a fiction piece about a Michaelite discovering that one of the leaders of the movement is actually a nova with a split personality, which is a thing that was mentioned aaaaaaall the way back in Year One. They fight and the Michaelite ultimately kills the nova. Well, good riddance to bad rubbish, I guess, but all this did was to remove a plot hook that a previous book had established. Like, by reading this book, you end up with less game than you started with.

Okay, I’m done here. Stay tuned for next week, when we find out that the writers of Aberrant also hated Catholics. And British people. And possibly bulimics, because why not.