How would you use this?

[Tom Kalbfus]

The PCs discover this in the hold of a pirate ship, what would you do?

 

[Reynard]

Let the engineers it over then take it aboard players' ship.

 

[legozhodani]

I dread to think what my lot would do. :roll:

 

[Condottiere]

The plot of most horror movies start when the characters bring something onboard, knowingly or unknowingly.

 

[Hopeless]

Is it just me or does that look like HG Well's Time Machine? :?:

 

[Sigtrygg]

It's from the 2002 remake.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

It's from the 2002 remake.

You know it traveled much further into the future than the Classic Traveller era, the Time Traveler never came back after relating his story to his friends. What if the PCs discovered what happened to his time machine?

 

[Sigtrygg]

I've only dabbled with one time travel game - Time and Time Again.

There was a proposed time travel scenario of sorts in the works for MegaTraveller, it was even advertised in the back of COAAC.

The premise was a military unit received a lethal dose of something during the ISW period but had discovered alien technology that allowed them to enter stasis. The scenario would have involved the character waking up at various times in Imperial history to see if there was now a cure and also adventure for a bit in that key moment. I would like to have seen more details - such as what transportation tech they had - they would need wormholes or teleportation over interstellar distances to be able to interact with the key events of the eras they would wake up in.

Could Traveller or the Imperial setting cope with time travel - I think so.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

The Wellsian time travel scenario involves an inventor who discovers an "alien" artifact which allows two-way time travel, this is part of a much larger time machine, the larger part is beyond repair, but by studying it, the inventor is able to build a steam powered device that can control the time travel mechanism and generate a time travel field around his time machine. The device is purely mechanical except for that one part which allows time travel, It is a tech level 4 device except for that one part, there is only one such part, fortunately it is nearly indestructible, what it does is warp time around the time machine, allowing it to move forward or backwards in time. Unfortunately this time machine has not motive power for moving in space, it needs to be transported by some other vehicle. It moves forward or backward in time along with whatever object its sitting on, whether it be asteroid, planet or even a starship! It is quite heavy and is not easily moved, weighing several tons in fact. Its motive power is steam, powered by either coal or wood, or perhaps even an oil furnace. Now this power rotates a couple of disks, one forward for forward time travel and one in back for backwards time travel.

 

[Rick]

The Wellsian time travel scenario involves an inventor who discovers an "alien" artifact which allows two-way time travel, this is part of a much larger time machine, the larger part is beyond repair, but by studying it, the inventor is able to build a steam powered device that can control the time travel mechanism and generate a time travel field around his time machine. The device is purely mechanical except for that one part which allows time travel, It is a tech level 4 device except for that one part, there is only one such part, fortunately it is nearly indestructible, what it does is warp time around the time machine, allowing it to move forward or backwards in time. Unfortunately this time machine has not motive power for moving in space, it needs to be transported by some other vehicle. It moves forward or backward in time along with whatever object its sitting on, whether it be asteroid, planet or even a starship! It is quite heavy and is not easily moved, weighing several tons in fact. Its motive power is steam, powered by either coal or wood, or perhaps even an oil furnace. Now this power rotates a couple of disks, one forward for forward time travel and one in back for backwards time travel.

Well, that would be one interpretation. How would he find these aliens? If you're going to muck about with time travel, it's less complicated to have the inventor invent it himself - far fewer loose ends to tie up. Why does everything you can't understand at first glance have to be the work of some mysterious aliens? Let it be the work of some crackpot inventor that can then vanish under mysterious circumstances, leaving the PC's with a trail to follow?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

The Wellsian time travel scenario involves an inventor who discovers an "alien" artifact which allows two-way time travel, this is part of a much larger time machine, the larger part is beyond repair, but by studying it, the inventor is able to build a steam powered device that can control the time travel mechanism and generate a time travel field around his time machine. The device is purely mechanical except for that one part which allows time travel, It is a tech level 4 device except for that one part, there is only one such part, fortunately it is nearly indestructible, what it does is warp time around the time machine, allowing it to move forward or backwards in time. Unfortunately this time machine has not motive power for moving in space, it needs to be transported by some other vehicle. It moves forward or backward in time along with whatever object its sitting on, whether it be asteroid, planet or even a starship! It is quite heavy and is not easily moved, weighing several tons in fact. Its motive power is steam, powered by either coal or wood, or perhaps even an oil furnace. Now this power rotates a couple of disks, one forward for forward time travel and one in back for backwards time travel.

Well, that would be one interpretation. How would he find these aliens? If you're going to muck about with time travel, it's less complicated to have the inventor invent it himself - far fewer loose ends to tie up. Why does everything you can't understand at first glance have to be the work of some mysterious aliens? Let it be the work of some crackpot inventor that can then vanish under mysterious circumstances, leaving the PC's with a trail to follow?

The term "Aliens" includes Futurians, the important part of the Time Machine could have been invented in the future, the Time Traveler just made the work around to replace the damaged part of the craft he found. Having an irreplacible part that he can't duplicate prevents him from making many time machines. A time machine is way beyond the common tech levels found in the standard Traveller campaign. The original operator of the time machine died or is missing, so he's not talking, and the Time Traveller doesn't want to go back in time to fetch him, because he want to keep the time machine, the original operator wants to restore the timeline, and that doesn't include the Time Traveler keeping the time machine or even learning about it. The Time Traveller has his adventure with the Morelocks and then returned to the 19th century to relate his tale, and then he went back to the future to finish his unfinished business there, and along the way his time machine ended up in the 3I setting on Terra.

 

[Hopeless]

And here I was thinking it stays exactly where it is ONLY the passenger and luggage are shifted from that point in time to a future point thinking the entire device travelled when in fact all it does is allow someone to travel to any point this device exists!

So at some point in the future the owner of the ship its currently being carried aboard is sent back into the past after their ship is pirated and they're bundled on the seat during a fight!
Find themselves in the past eventually managing to return and take back their ship but having experienced life in the past that's much better then the Valerian-Fifth Element future they disappear back into the past!

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

And here I was thinking it stays exactly where it is ONLY the passenger and luggage are shifted from that point in time to a future point thinking the entire device travelled when in fact all it does is allow someone to travel to any point this device exists!

So at some point in the future the owner of the ship its currently being carried aboard is sent back into the past after their ship is pirated and they're bundled on the seat during a fight!
Find themselves in the past eventually managing to return and take back their ship but having experienced life in the past that's much better then the Valerian-Fifth Element future they disappear back into the past!

The Time Machine naturally travels into the future just like everything else does. If the original owner is stranded in the past, all that means is he left the time machine, went on some adventure and never got back to it. Perhaps he was burned as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts for instance, the Puritans never found his time machine, and there it stayed until sometime in the 19th century the Time Traveler found it. If the original owner couldn't get back to it. Now if someone were to use the Time Machine and rescue the original owner of the time machine from his predicament, then that could change! We don't yet know whether he was burned at he stake or was rescued, either result could explain his not getting back to his time machine. If someone uses the later time machine to rescue him, the original owner obviously can go back to the time machine he left to use it because his rescue depends on him leaving it there and not going back to it!