Baptized POC nee Peo Teese [t- drunk with fame, sacrificed on the altar of power. Se aC a cla: ut emcee Beware. Your legacy is our future.SETTING2008: THE NOVA AGE Nitertainment Niterview Ni the news Nisight Nitre nous ate fun N! games gal stutt We had the chance to sit down and talk with Randel Portman, “The Fireman,” in an exclusive N! interview. We discussed what it was like being a nova, how the world has changed since novas' arrival and what the future holds. + Ni: So, Mr. Portman, what is it like to be the first known nova? + Portman: It is a distinct honor, Actually it’s just luck, really. Fate just decided that I would erupt ina rather spectacular way, and I was lucky enough to save lives. In general, though, being a nova is a wonderful thing. Novas are simply people with special abilities. Yeah, those powers can make us seem weird or unapproachable, but really we are just people. + Nt: You may be understating the case a bit. Experts postulate that, in fact, novas have the ability to theoretically do just about anything. * Portman: The theory always sounds better than the actual facts. Novas’ powers stem from our ability to manipulate the fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak one, Assuming a nova had no limits in manipulating those forces, then he would effectively be God, but we all have our limits. The Project scientists tell me a lot has to do with how an individual nova sees his, abilities and how they emerged. + Ni: You emerged — erupted, as the saying goes — spectacularly, | saving a school bus full of children. How did that shape your abilities? * Portman: I was a fireman, which is how I got the nickname, and had | responded to a traffic accident. When we got to the scene, all I | could see was the outline of a school bus in the flames. Fire was coming out of every possible opening in the thing. It was awful. I heard all the little kids screaming, and I just sort of froze. I could feel something happening, and putting out the fire was all I could think of All of a sudden, my head felt like it was being hit by a sledgehammer. ‘The last thing I remember seeing was a huge gout of flame coming right toward me, After that everything is hazy. The next thing I know, I'm kneeling in a puddle of melted 2 keep reading,Nitertainment Nitervi Ni the news Nisight Nitre nous Niternet asphalt, At the time, I didn’t even think to wonder why I wasn’t hurt. I couldn’t see any more flames, and the guys were all standing around me shouting, The rest of it was a blur of sirens and people I didn’t know asking me bunches of questions I could barely understand. The headache lasted for almost a week. The Project docs told me, later, that novas typically emerge during a time of great stress, and their powers reflect that initial situation. [ can absorb energy. Only recently have I begun to learn how to redirect it. We aren’t all-powerful. Hell, can’t even fly. What kind of superguy can’t fly? + Ni: How have your quantum powers grown, and how did you leam them? + Portman: The fire-eating thing — “radiant energy absorption,” the docs call it — just came naturally. I just knew how to do it. Within a few weeks of the initial discovery of novas, the Aeon Society contacted a lot of us and asked us if we would like training on how to use our powers. They had recruited some amazingly smart novas who had figured a lot out about our abilities. I agreed. I spent close to two years with them, on and off, after they set up the Project. They teach various meditation techniques, and they constantly test and challenge us to use our powers in new and different ways. A nova’s abilities really are in your mind. You have to convince yourself that you can do something new, and you have to make it an expansion of something you can already do. We even got a nd what crash course in quantum physics, so we would better underst we were really doing. + Ni: What's your take on the recent criticism of Project Utopia? Some people are calling it a conspiracy to take over the world, others are Claiming that it wants to create a socialist world government. How do you respond to those claims? + Portman: I don’t think that's the case at all. Project Utopia has done great things for everyone on this planet, from the global environmental cleanup to the Palestinian peace agreements to the Ethiopian terraforming project to fighting international terrorism... hell, even the Zurich Accord, that made the world accept novas as people. It shocked people when Project Utopia got an advisory position on the UN Security Council, but as closely as they’d been working with the UN, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone. I love my country as much as the next guy — or the next nova — but the recent talk of Utopia being a huge con- spiracy comes from a few right- wing nutcases with bad attitudes. Nothing more. Most of us novas would have been lost without Project Utopia. An erupting nova can be dangerous, whether he means to be or not. At any 3 keep reading,Nitertainment Niterview Ni the news tre nous Niternet —— tent rale, the process is severely painful, as the M-R node just kinda grows in your brain. Hurts like hell, let me tell you. Project Utopia interven tion teams show up and offer help and training to new novas. They also offer novas a life and a chance to help society and the world. You remember 1998: People went apesh— err, wacko when they found out there were “superpowered mutant freaks” running around. Project Utopia directed our energies toward helping the world. Without it, people would never have accepted us, and you and I wouldn’t be talking right now. + Ni: The world has certainly changed in the last 10 years. Do you think it has all been for the better? * Portman: I don’t think anything is that black and white, but the world is definitely a better place. Like I said, the environment clean, worldwide organized crime is on its way out, Utopia’s col- leagues at the Triton Foundation have discovered a vaccine for AIDS and cures for many types of cancer and we are even beginning to seriously explore the solar system. Yeah, I think the world is a better place after the arrival of novas. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that this wouldn’t have happened without novas, We certainly helped, but anyone with these abilities would. Novas have not just worked toward making the world a better place, but have inspired the rest of humanity to do more. We've changed culture, fashion, politics, even religion in some cases. | mean, isn’t this station the highest-rated in the world? + Ni: You mentioned the Triton Foundation. Medical and biological science have made prodigious advances in the last decade, What do you think about the recent work on the origins and distinctions of nova biology? + Portman: Everyone knows that novas, or Homo sapiens novus as the eggheads like to refer to us, are novas because we have DNA coding allowing us to develop the Mazarin-Rashoud node. Who would have thought that something as small as the M-R node could change us that much? As far as genetics, well, it’s not really my field. I know that they are saying that novas have a certain sequence of DNA introns or something, and that is what is responsible for us developing the M-R node. They also say that the DNA can be inherited only from your mother. All I really know is what they tell me; the docs know better than me. I hear that there are over 6000 known novas in the world, now. They come from all backgrounds and from around the world Ido know that we look different. Novas tend to be sleek and buff, with little body fat and great physiques. They say that it comes from our increased metabolism, from forcing the body to channel so much energy. We also eat like pigs. Hell, I had two steaks and three baked keop readinNitertainment vie Nithe news Nisight Nitre nous / tut hi | sana us = potatoes for dinner last night, but I can also absorb enough energy to turn just about anything into ash. I guess it’s the trade-off. Some of us also display what the religious kooks call an “anima.” Many novas have a distinct field around them when they use their powers. I guess you've seen the footage — I look like I'm covered in transparent flames when I absorb energy. I’ve seen weirder displays. I'm just glad that some of the da cold in 10 years, and if a blood sample can keep everyone else from having ‘one, all the better. research has helped with older problems like cancer. I haven’t I + Ni Notall novas, especially some who have spoken out recently, have taken such a philanthropic position. How do you respond to Divis Mal's melodra matically dubbed Null Manifesto and organizations like his Teragen? * Portman: I don’t know much about this Mal fellow, but I don’t like what I’ve heard. Isn’t he the guy who says that we aren’t human? Of course I'm human! I can just do things some people can’t. He says we're all governments of our own, and that the laws and rules of humans don’t apply to us. Personally, if he really believes that, and it’s not just a publicity stunt or ratings gimmick, then he's a meg mom should have spanked him more often. I wish he'd just mouthed off on Tivo Minutes Hate, like the rest of the bored wackos, and left it at that Jomaniac, and his ‘As far as the Teragen is concerned, they give all novas a bad name. I can’t wait until the Utopians or the UN or someone gets a hold of them. 1 don’t care how popular or “cool” some folks think the Teragen is, Mal's group is nothing but a gang of thugs, the Manson Family with super- powers, They’ve killed people, destroyed property, intervened in wars — and they say they are acting for the good of all novas? They are no better than Mal. In fact, they’re worse. At least Mal just mouthed off. These guys are wreaking havoc. They are the ones who are putting, this smear- campai n crap on the Project. oN Does the future look bright? * Portman: | think so. We've had problems and bad apples, of course, but all in all, novas have done a lot to make the world a better place. Guys like Mal will always pop up, but they'll get their due. I think the next 10 years will be even better than the last. 1 really believe that the 2ist century will be th solden age for mankind. daw: ofa