Working on a character for my first 4th ed game. Decided to go with a magic user who is out to hunt/kill Insect Spirits. I read Bug City and Burning Brighht, but have been unable to locate a timeline with what happened in bug city. I read somewhere that Aries hit the city with a virus or some such that killed dual natured beings (including ghouls). Also wondering on how bugs were dealt with around the world.

Also, is it possible for a traumatic event it someones life to cause them to 'awaken' later in life? I wanted my character to be ex-corp security (probably with a Firewatch team.. or backup for one) when the nuke went off, and that caused him to develop basic magical ability. Just dont want it to be too outlandish.


Thanks!

There's a 5 pt merit that allows a character to have a latent magical talent that awakens during play. Something like that could also easily be part of a background (and you could just take the magician or adept qualities as normal). The latent magician quality (I forget the name exactly) is in Street Magic IIRC.

As for a Bug City timeline, I imagine there's good info in Feral Cities, but I don't have it yet, so I can't comment on what's there.

There is timeline of insect spirits in Digital Grimore.

Why not make your guy a former adept of the Universal Brotherhood ?
Some street punk, or even a runner looking for a new path to "salvation", believing at the time their scientologic-like speach ...
Maybe he became a magician when the local head of the chapter, an insect shaman, invited him to a new "initiation session".
The shaman of course wanted him to become the new host for one of his spirits. Fortunately, he resisted the possession, and for some reason awakened. Of course he would have fled the sect, and try to strike back.
It could give nice backgrounds opportunity, like the character sometimes wondering if his powers come really from him or from the insects ... (this is up to your GM of course, but clearly as a GM i'd be delighted to have a player with such a background, it could lead to so much potential.).
Maybe following this event, the character could have joined Firewatch, maybe as a "consultant"/Freelancer ... and spent his life hunting bugs.
In a 2050 campaign i'm running, the whole groupe being completely unaware of bugs, one of them is a Rat Shaman.
He was son of his tribe's shaman, a proud eagle shaman, that one day left the tribe for the UB. Of course the tribe rejected the son for the "sin" of his father. The character was at that time a Snake Shaman, wise and knowledgable, but the banishment from the tribe made him loose soo much of his self confidence, that snake left him. Fortunately, rat took him, and since then he wants to survive, but for some reason, he has to know what happened to his father, even if his new totem pushes him towards survival ...