Tom Kalbfus
Mongoose
I want to do an Traveller adventure set in Earth's history. The purpose of this post is to get an idea of what people would like to see, I am putting down my ideas and would like your input or reaction. Here is the basic idea. Within the Scouts is a secret group that has developed the ability to send Traveller Starships back in time into Earth's history, the main purpose is to gather information about the past, as there is a limit to what can be gathered through fossil evidence and surviving historical records. Of particular interest to this Scout organization is records of events before space travel became common, basically the early 21st century and prior. The patron of this encounter is a mysterious person from "the future". This is the future relative to whatever time period the player characters are based in, it could be the future relative to the 3rd Imperium, but whatever. The patron has access to future technology, that is beyond tech level 15, this future is not set in stone however, his mission is to retrieve information from the past, and he wants to hire the PC's to do just that. To that purpose, he has equipped a fleet of scout ships with Time Drives, and he has set up a series of time gates as well. Basically the Time Drives work like the optional hyperdrives except they open a portal to something called Chronospace instead of hyperspace. One of the properties of Chronospace is one of the spacial dimensions in it is swapped with the dimension of time.
The properties of Chronospace are otherwise identical to normal space, one major difference is that Chronospace where the portals open up is very empty, there is nothing there that is within range of a jump drive. In other words it is like intergalactic space between galaxies, distant galaxies can be seen that are millions of light years away, but nothing that is within range of a jump drive equipped starship. There is nothing to do here except move back and forth along the time dimension, and the rules work as in my other article about converting Traveller Starships into time machines. The patron has two types of devices for travelling through time, one is the time drive equipped starships, those he uses sparingly, because they are very expensive and he doesn't want to lose them. The other thing he uses are time gates. Time gates open up a portal to Chronospace so that an ordinary starship without a time drive can enter Chronospace, the only way to leave Chronospace without a time drive is to pass through another time gate which provides an exit. The Patron has left a number of timegates throughout chronospace, each one opening up to a different period in Earth's history and to a region at Earth's 100 diameter jump limit, at which the Time gate orbits the Earth. After being hired by the mysterious patron, the PCs are given the coordinates to the nearest timegate and the code to allow passage through the timegate into Chronospace, along with that, the PCs also receive information as to the location of the other timegates in Chronospace for them to use to reach the various time periods in Earth's history, to which the patron would like to gain information about.
My question first of all is which time period would you most like to see a Traveller time travel adventure in? I'll give you some choices for inspiration, though you can supply your own as well.
Would you like to see a time travel adventure set in:
Earth's 21st century 2000 - 2015
20th century 1900 - 1999
19th century 1800 - 1899
17th -18th centuries (The Age of Reason) 1600 - 1799
The Age of Exploration 1450 - 1599
The Renaissance 1150 - 1450
The Middle Ages 500 - 1150
The Roman Empire 44 BC - 499 AD
The Classical Period 300 BC - 45 BC
The Ancient History 4000 BC - 301 BC
Prehistory
The Late Stone Ages 10,000 BC - 4001 BC
The Ice Age 30,000 BC - 10,001 BC
The age of Early Man 200,000 BC - 30,001 BC
Cenozoic era 65,499,999 BC - 200,000 BC
Mesozoic era (The Age of the Dinosaurs) 252,000,000 BC - 65,500,000 BC.
Just throwing some ideas out there. Naturally in a prehistoric age, there is less sneaking about, but history or prehistory could still be derailed.
The model of time travel I'm using is parallel timelines, that is if some time traveller does something to change history or prehistory, then the time traveller continues to exist no matter what, but he uses contact with the future he came from. The time gate which leads to Chronospace still exists, but there are no other time gates in chronospace that he can travel too, thus he can't travel in time, he's stuck in what is now the present until he can put history back on course. A time gate can only stay open for a short time before closing. To travel to any two points in time, you need four time gates, two of which are placed in normal space to allow entry into Chronospace and two more are placed in Chronospace to allow exit from Chronospace. Just one timegate will allow entry into Chronospace and can stay open for about 5 minutes before closing, if there is no timegate on the other side then the spaceship entering Chronospace has 5 minutes to exit back through the same portal if there is no corresponding timegate to send them back in Chronospace. If the timeline has been changed, the PCs will find that Chronospace is empty and there are no timegates to send them back into normal space. That is how the mechanics of time travel work. If there is a spaceship equipped with a time drive, it can use its drive to travel through time regardless of whether the timeline has been altered or not, but from the patron's point of view, is one of his time ships alters the timeline and enters into a parallel timeline because of that, there is no way for him to retrieve his expensive time ship. It is as if the mission back in time never existed. It is up to the people stranded in those parallel timelines to set things right.
I would like some thoughts on these mechanics of time travel that I propose, what do you think of them? Do you have any other ideas on how to handle time travel and potential time travel adventures? Lets hear them.
The properties of Chronospace are otherwise identical to normal space, one major difference is that Chronospace where the portals open up is very empty, there is nothing there that is within range of a jump drive. In other words it is like intergalactic space between galaxies, distant galaxies can be seen that are millions of light years away, but nothing that is within range of a jump drive equipped starship. There is nothing to do here except move back and forth along the time dimension, and the rules work as in my other article about converting Traveller Starships into time machines. The patron has two types of devices for travelling through time, one is the time drive equipped starships, those he uses sparingly, because they are very expensive and he doesn't want to lose them. The other thing he uses are time gates. Time gates open up a portal to Chronospace so that an ordinary starship without a time drive can enter Chronospace, the only way to leave Chronospace without a time drive is to pass through another time gate which provides an exit. The Patron has left a number of timegates throughout chronospace, each one opening up to a different period in Earth's history and to a region at Earth's 100 diameter jump limit, at which the Time gate orbits the Earth. After being hired by the mysterious patron, the PCs are given the coordinates to the nearest timegate and the code to allow passage through the timegate into Chronospace, along with that, the PCs also receive information as to the location of the other timegates in Chronospace for them to use to reach the various time periods in Earth's history, to which the patron would like to gain information about.
My question first of all is which time period would you most like to see a Traveller time travel adventure in? I'll give you some choices for inspiration, though you can supply your own as well.
Would you like to see a time travel adventure set in:
Earth's 21st century 2000 - 2015
20th century 1900 - 1999
19th century 1800 - 1899
17th -18th centuries (The Age of Reason) 1600 - 1799
The Age of Exploration 1450 - 1599
The Renaissance 1150 - 1450
The Middle Ages 500 - 1150
The Roman Empire 44 BC - 499 AD
The Classical Period 300 BC - 45 BC
The Ancient History 4000 BC - 301 BC
Prehistory
The Late Stone Ages 10,000 BC - 4001 BC
The Ice Age 30,000 BC - 10,001 BC
The age of Early Man 200,000 BC - 30,001 BC
Cenozoic era 65,499,999 BC - 200,000 BC
Mesozoic era (The Age of the Dinosaurs) 252,000,000 BC - 65,500,000 BC.
Just throwing some ideas out there. Naturally in a prehistoric age, there is less sneaking about, but history or prehistory could still be derailed.
The model of time travel I'm using is parallel timelines, that is if some time traveller does something to change history or prehistory, then the time traveller continues to exist no matter what, but he uses contact with the future he came from. The time gate which leads to Chronospace still exists, but there are no other time gates in chronospace that he can travel too, thus he can't travel in time, he's stuck in what is now the present until he can put history back on course. A time gate can only stay open for a short time before closing. To travel to any two points in time, you need four time gates, two of which are placed in normal space to allow entry into Chronospace and two more are placed in Chronospace to allow exit from Chronospace. Just one timegate will allow entry into Chronospace and can stay open for about 5 minutes before closing, if there is no timegate on the other side then the spaceship entering Chronospace has 5 minutes to exit back through the same portal if there is no corresponding timegate to send them back in Chronospace. If the timeline has been changed, the PCs will find that Chronospace is empty and there are no timegates to send them back into normal space. That is how the mechanics of time travel work. If there is a spaceship equipped with a time drive, it can use its drive to travel through time regardless of whether the timeline has been altered or not, but from the patron's point of view, is one of his time ships alters the timeline and enters into a parallel timeline because of that, there is no way for him to retrieve his expensive time ship. It is as if the mission back in time never existed. It is up to the people stranded in those parallel timelines to set things right.
I would like some thoughts on these mechanics of time travel that I propose, what do you think of them? Do you have any other ideas on how to handle time travel and potential time travel adventures? Lets hear them.
