Roleplayer #25, August 1991
In The Nick Of Time
Rescue Adventures for Time
Travel and Parallel Worlds
by Steve Jackson
An adventure idea that works well in either the time-travel or alternate-worlds
genre is the rescue. The player characters, either from the future
or from some "reflection" timeline equivalent to the future, are
attempting to save someone from their "fated" death. This can
be played as a one-shot, or developed into a whole campaign; perhaps the
PCs belong to a "Rescue Corps" which specializes in this sort
of mission!
Why Bother?
If time is totally flexible, then time-travelers can do anything they like,
and the answer to "why bother" becomes "Because we felt like
it." But if paradoxes are impossible -- or if they are possible and
dangerous -- then travelers will need a good reason to interfere with the
course of history. The same is true in an "Infinity Unlimited"
alternate-world campaign, in which any interference with a "reflection"
timeline is likely to cause a catastrophic quantum shift. So there must
be some reason why that individual is worth a lot of trouble.
Research
The target might be interesting, not as an individual, but as a study-sample
from his time period. In return for his cooperation, he might eventually
be "resettled" in his own time or another, to live out a normal
life.
Potential
Many historical geniuses had tragically short careers. What might Mozart
have accomplished if he had lived past 35? The rescuers may be motivated
by simple admiration, by need for a specific talent, or by profit . . .
how much could Mozart earn his managers if he were alive today and writing
heavy metal?
Recruitment
Perhaps the target's potential is, specifically, that he or she would make
a good agent for the rescuing group. In that case, the Time Police might
have agents like Julius Caesar, Wild Bill Hickok, Jim Thorpe, Rasputin .
. .
But a crosstime force could do even better -- recruiting from alternate
worlds, they might have several Caesars, Hickoks and so on. If
the available parallel worlds include fictional ones, they could even have
Sherlock Holmes for a field investigator and a half-dozen James Bonds as
troubleshooters!
Sentiment
Finally, there may be no economic logic at all behind the rescue. It just
so happens that someone very wealthy -- or someone who owns a time machine
-- wants to rescue that particular target.
Avoiding Paradox
To keep from interfering with the time stream, the agents mustn't just walk
up to the target and say "How would you like to see the future?"
Instead, they must remove the target in a way that doesn't change the time
flow. This almost always means "at the target's reported death or disappearance."
Sometimes this is no problem at all. Amelia Earhart, for instance, would
be easy to recruit. She vanished on a transoceanic flight, with no witnesses
for hundreds of miles. Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, would present
real problems. He was shot in front of hundreds of witnesses, and his body
was closely supervised every moment until its burial. But nothing is impossible!
If a clone, a robot, a hypnotized dupe or volunteer martyr could be substituted
before the fatal shot, the real Lincoln would be free to escape. However,
many organizations will not have the resources, or the ruthlessness, to
provide a believable substitute. Something else must be arranged.
The Last-Minute Snatch
If there are no witnesses to the target's actual death, something can always
be arranged. Planning such missions should be half the fun -- there is room
for real cleverness here. A careful study of the target's last hours or
days . . . or more . . . will be necessary.
The Advance Substitution
The more time elapses between the target's last inter-action with "important"
witnesses and his death, the better. If he spends his last few weeks among
total strangers, he could be whisked away and replaced by an accomplice
days in advance. And arranging the getaway of a willing accomplice
is always easier.
Of course, if the target can be recruited well in advance, he can cooperate.
How many historical "celebrity suicides" were really covers for
an exit to the future?
The Historical Fix
Finally, in some cases, it may be impossible to "fool" history
before the target dies. In that case, the agents can try to fix it afterward.
For instance, suppose the target is a prisoner of the Nazis in 1944.
There's no way to contact him in advance, or to do a substitution; he's
imprisoned with dozens of people who know him. There's no chance for a subtle
last-minute snatch before he's taken out into the country to be shot. So
the agents forget subtlety. They ambush the execution party, rescue the
prisoner, and give the guards a choice: report what happened and be shot,
or report that the prisoner was killed and buried as ordered. They'll play
along. . .
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#25 Table of Contents)