Temporal piracy (and other crimes)

[Catsmate]

ETA: I've edited the title to better reflect the content.

I've been thinking a bit about the misuses of time travel; not the potential for large scale mayhem of the "conquer the universe" sort but the smaller scale criminal potential. This was partially stimulated by jezmiller's Alexandrian Society, a group of Imperial era thieves who've obtained crude time machines and use them to steal artworks, while being careful to preserve history.

Depending on how exactly the time travel works it could be useful to circumvent most forms of security, enter vaults easily for looting or guarded locations for kidnapping or assassination. Plus a little shopping in the future, not too far as you'd need to blend in, with potentially provide some handy equipment.

• Or get you caught or killed very quickly of course, depending on how society changes. Imagine arriving unknowingly during the Dalek invasion.
• Though given the existence of a black market for food then, some profitable smuggling could be done.
  

I'm assuming, by the way, that the potential temporal criminals are modern day people who've acquired a mechanism allowing time travel, but lack detailed knowledge of how it works, how to duplicate it, or what the future holds. I've speculated previously on time travelling academics, researchers and tourists; perhaps one of these is the origin of such technology. They may have lost a few other bits of advanced technology, such as a computer with historical records.

So someone in the modern day obtains a time machine, what do they do with it? Well they might use it for historical  research and tourism, or to rewrite history to their liking but what if they just used it to get rich?

Assuming a time machine that has limited range, perhaps a couple of centuries away from the "present", and that those using it are careful not to change history significantly. This still leaves a number of interesting ways to make money.

• And maybe that money is needed to finance some greater effort, perhaps an effort to make a major change in history?
  

Firstly there are antiques. Buy cheap in the past, arrange suitable storage and collect in the present. Of course this has problems, such as disposing of the goods in the present day, especially given the relatively small network of dealers, and curiousity about such finds.
There's also the potential for high value items, such as paintings by the masters (pop back and commission a couple of works by da Vinci or Picasso), or books (first editions or oddities like lost Shakespeare plays).

• While set in the late 1940s Edmund Crispen's excellent mystery Love Lies Bleeding revolves around such a play, and letters by Shakespeare, worth millions even then. Perhaps these were placed by a time traveller who failed to collect them?
  

Not that this idea worked well for Count Scarlioni of course...


Secondly, robbery has potential for great gains, but generally greater risk too. Periods of conflict provide opportunities for theft that'll be covered up by the general destruction. Four examples:

1. World War II
During the war a mix of looting by occupying powers and efforts to safeguard artworks created numerous caches of artworks, gold and other valuables, not all of which were recovered after the war (for example this collection). The Western Allies created the MFAA programme ('the Monuments men') to safeguard such treasures, but there's room for others to 'recover' them first. Of course disposing of them may be difficult, at least to legitimate collectors.
The Soviet Army engaged in large scale looting in territories it occupied, gold, artworks and securities were taken along with personnel and industrial equipment. Such teams tended to be well armed but could also be a target.
In addition to the film The Monuments Men such caches appear in various novels written in the 1960s and 1970s, e.g. Alastair MacLean's Bear Island.

2. The Russian Revolutions.
In 1917 the twin revolutions wracked Russia, leaving it vulnerable to small organised groups targeting palaces, banks and museums. Historically the looting of the Winter Palace concentrated on it's huge (and themselves valuable) wine cellars, with many paintings and other artworks merely destroyed. A small team might be able to enter the palace before the Bolsheviks and 'save' such historically destroyed items without risking disruption to the Web of Time.

• Unless of course that's what the GM wants...
  

3. The Iranian Revolutions.
The enormously valuable Imperial crown jewels of Iran were feared missing after the 1979 revolutions, until they were revealed mostly intact in 1991.

• Unless of course they're copies placed by the Alexandrian Society or fakes created by the revolutionary government
  

Their looting was a major plot point in Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise novel The Xanadu Talisman. Of course a GM could tweak history and allow the fabulous collection to be stolen.


4. The Forbidden City
In 1860 during the Second Opium War, British and French forces looted and burned the Old Summer Palace in Peking/Beijing in retaliation for the kidnapping, torture and murder of a group of envoys. The process is described in George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman and the Dragon:

I sat
on a rocket-box, dog tired, eating bread and issue wine, watching an endless
stream of chattering, yelling Frog infantry swarming out of the Hall of
Audience, weighed down with bolts of silk, bundles of shimmering dragon robes,
jade vases, clocks, jewelled watches, pictures, everything they could lay hands
on. Some were wearing women's dresses and hats; I remember one roaring bearded
sergeant, with a magnificent cloth of gold gown kilted up above his red
breeches, dancing a can-can as his mates yelled and clapped; another was
skimming plumed picture hats up in the air like a juggler's plates; my little
lieutenant had a cashmere shawl embroidered with tiny gems about his shoulders,
and the major was casting a connoisseur's eye over a fine gilt-framed painting
and exclaiming that it was a Petitot, as ever was. There were enormous piles of
loot growing in the court-yard - silks here, clocks there, paintings over
yonder, vases farther on . . . very orderly in their plundering were our Gallic
allies, but what would you? When grandpapa has followed Napoleon, you know how
such things should be done, so the French army loot by numbers, with a shrewd
eye to quality, while the indiscriminate British will lift (or smash) anything that
comes in their way, just for the fun of it.

Earlier Flashman comments on the contents of the palace:

...another wing was given over to
jewelled ornaments so brilliant and numerous that the eye could not bear to
look at them for long; one vast room was filled with the most intricate
mechanical toys crusted with gems, jade jack-in-the-boxes, walking dolls,
blasted diamond frogs and beetles hopping and scuttling all over the shop, and
you'd no sooner escaped them than you were in a room walled in solid silver and
carpeted in ermine and sable, with gold racks covered in - ladies' shoes.

Plenty of potential there.


Thirdly, other than simple theft and antique dealing, another potential activity of interest to time travellers is investment. This could be as simple as depositing money in the past and recovering it in the present/future, not as easy as it seems given the legal impediments and interest from modern day authorities. Then there's stock trading using the ultimate inside knowledge (a la Time Cop) and purchasing land based on foreknowledge (Tegan's crack about filing a claim on the land where Heathrow would be constructed, comes to mind).


Fourthly there's forgery. This can be as simple as using modern printing equipment to churn out historical banknotes, and hoping not to get caught, or faking documents as part of a scam.
Of course the fakery might not extend to mere paper, sufficiently advanced technology should have no problem turning carbon and alumina into perfectly real gemstones.


OK, that's enough for now and I've a meeting to attend. I haven't touched on my original point, actual piracy, much so I'll leave that to another post.


Comments?

[Catsmate]

And on to the piracy...

In my previous post I alluded to using time travel to harvest the various wrecks and accidents as a source of money, either as a specific objective or to finance larger plans (à la Count Scarlioni). Part of my inspiration for this was one of Simon Hawke's Timewars novels, The Nautilus Sanction. In that the principal villain, Nikolai Drakov, steals a submarine and uses it as a mobile base for villainy.

• And not just any sub but the biggest of them all, a Soviet Typhoon class ballistic-missile sub.
  

To finance his plans Drakov loots various shipwrecks, for example the La Floridana, one of the Spanish treasure ships that carried looted gold and silver from the Americas home to Spain in the eighteenth century.

"On the 15th of July, in the year 1733....a hurricane of immense strength swept up from the Lesser Antilles, past the English Leeward Islands, heading toward the Florida Keys. In its wake, it left massive destruction on the islands of Marie Galante, Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Redonda, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Eustatius and Saba. A Spanish treasure armada under the command of General Don Rodrigo de Torres y Morales had the misfortune to be caught in this terrible storm. Their ill luck and our good fortune".

"The armada sailed from the harbor of San Cristobal de la Habana on the morning of July 13. In all, twenty ships made up this fleet, escorting treasure back to Spain. It was composed of galleons, naos and smaller merchant vessels. Only one, the Nuestra Senora del Rosario, survived the storm. The others, the Almiranta, El Infante, the San Jose, the Populo, the Lerri, the El Sueco de Arizon, the Capitana, all perished, pounded into bits as they were driven on the reefs by the fierce winds".

"They were carrying a fortune in treasure valued at over twelve million pesos in gold and silver, as well as tobacco and spices, teas, ceramics, semi-precious stones and that was only the reported cargo. You can be certain there was contraband on board the ships, as well".

This story is quite real and the location where La Floridana sank is still (as far as I can determine) unknown. A lurking submarine could, of course, easily plot her position.
An exact value for the cargo is difficult to estimate in modern terms, though a peso approximated to one-twentieth of a Troy ounce of gold.
Drakov was also quite correct about contraband; due to the Royal tax on the treasures of the New World (the 'King’s Fifth') smuggling and evasion was common.

Such a vessel is a tempting target for a time travelling looter, with access to more advanced technology to locate and access the wreck. Given that she's never located history isn't interfered with.

Other such wrecks include the SS Islander, which went down near Douglas Island in Alaska on the 15th of August 1901, carrying between three and six million (1901) dollars worth of gold (4.9 to 9.8 tonnes) and the SS Port Nicholson, sunk by German submarine off Maine in 1942 while (allegedly) carrying ten tonnes of gold, more than sixty tonnes of platinum, and industrial diamonds, from the Soviet Union to the United States.

Then there was the loss of a Comet IV jet belonging to King Saud which crashed in the Italian Alps (near Monte Matto) on the 20th of March 1963, carrying diamonds, jewellry, bullion and paper currency valued at four million pounds. Due to adverse weather, a blinding snowstorm and freezing temperatures, the crash wasn't located for a week and the treasure wasn't found until some was recovered in October 1964 from a trio of mountain climbers.
All possible targets, and scenario seeds.


Of course true piracy isn't about waiting for a ship to sink or plane to crash and looting it, it's more about stealing the treasure at gunpoint. In this a little advanced technology can help enormously in locating, catching and subduing the target.

Even a simple tramp steamer capable of 12 knots can run down an Age of Sail ship, carry sufficient crew to board it (especially with weapons several centuries more advanced) and be fitted with RADAR, SONAR and even small aircraft to find it. Even light modern weapons, say the USN's 25mm deck gun, can out-range black powder cannon and shred a wooden hulled ship with explosive and incendiary rounds.

A submarine would be better in some ways, given it's ability to hide underwater. However they have some problems for a potential time-travelling pirate. They're generally cramped and uncomfortable (and what self respecting villain wants that?) and require fairly specific and rare skills to operate. Diesel-electric boats need fuel, so a supply line to the twentieth century or a local refinery and oil supply, while nuclear powered boats are large, require very rare skills to run and tend to be quite difficult to obtain. Those governments that own them want to keep them.

• Of course Drakov stole his, but then he had a moderate future group backing him and access to technology to locate and board the boat underwater, and mind control the crew. Given that a Typhoon isn't a bad choice, despite its size (larger than HMS Dreadnought). It's about the only sub that can be considered comfortable, no shared bunks, they even have an (inside) swimming pool and sauna.
  

Something smaller, easier to hide and crew, might be more suited to a less ambitious pirate. In this thread I suggested a Swedish Gotland class or German Type 212 would be suited to operations in the past.


And finally, assuming you villain does obtain a ballistic missile sub and threaten nuclear armageddon, a finale involving a stand-off or shoot-out in the missile room seems de rigueur (well it happened in the EU novels Blood Heat and The Face of the Enemy). In this case it should be remembered that the missile tubes are designed to eject a ballistic missile weighing tens of tonnes under several atmospheres of pressure, don't expect bullets to do much.

Some fascinating pics of the Typhoon subs can be found here and here.


Any comments? Suggestions? Ideas? Sorry if this is a bit incoherent, I haven't had time to polish this idea.

[Catsmate]

I was discussing this with a couple of friends, from that conversation here are three more sunken wrecks a villain (or hero) might be interested in salvaging.

SS Central America            
Sunk 09SEP1857,  off the coast of the Carolinas. Carried about 14 tonnes of gold, 3-5% of which has been recovered.

RMS Republic                
Sunk 23JAN1909, off Nantucket, Massachusetts. Rumoured to be carrying 1.25 tonnes of US and 4.75 tonnes of Russian gold.

SS Gairsoppa
Sunk 17FEB1941, about 500km southwest of Galway Bay. Carried 220 tonnes of silver, about 40% of which has been recovered.

[jezmiller]

A minor point - I notice you didn't include Constantinople, 1204 in your list of possible targets for looting, but an enterprising temporal pirate could do worse than sign up for the Fourth Crusade.

On the basis of "The Biter Bitten", how about setting up in Port Royal in the late seventeenth century and robbing some of its richer inhabitants just before June 7, 1692? It's not as if the victims will be in a position to complain afterwards...

You discussed the innate superiority of modern ships against vessels from the Age of Steam, but that assumes the ability to transport something the size of a ship back in time. A TARDIS could theoretically perform a spacial overlap to transport back even the largest sub, but you were speculating about more limited forms of time travel and time travelers. Rogue Time Agents are limited to what they can carry, and the Alexandrian Society's machines consist of a capsule about the size of a garden shed sitting on top of a big, clumsy vortex manipulator.

An option that would suit such limited travelers - which would also give a more pirate-movie "feel" - would be to enhance the existing ships of the period. It would be possible, for example, to transport the components for a custom-designed propeller and engine back in time, perhaps in several trips. Take a small and modest pirate sloop, bolt an engine on to it, then transport some machine-guns, grenades (gas if you're interested in hostages for ransom), some hand-held missiles, and you're in business.

A more efficient option might be to transport back a large shipment of sniper rifles with night sights. The maximum range of a sniper rifle in expert hands is about that of the Age of Sail's most powerful cannon, c. 2,000 yards (roughly, according to Google), but a sniper rifle can be fired at night using infra-red targeting. An Age of Sail cannon can't. And in any case, it's not very accurate, certainly not against a sloop whose already-superior maneuverability has been enhanced with outboard motors of some kind. A callous and skilled pirate ship could shadow their target at night, picking off the crew at long range, and then withdraw during the day. Attrition would eventually reduce the crew of even a large warship to the point where a small pirate crew could handle them.

In addition to sunken wrecks, ships that vanished without trace would be targets for Alexandrian Society piracy, as it's possible to attack and eliminate them without risking damage to the time line.

This is assuming a time traveler who is more or less limited to contemporary technology. For a pirate from a future era with limited time travel capability - like the Alexandrian Society - an obvious weak point to replace would be the crew. Malnutrition and poor sanitation limit the effectiveness of a pirate crew in this era. Replace them with the kind of androids built by the Kraal or the Tarans, and you eliminate those issues at a stroke, along with any threat of mutiny. (I just had a bizarre mental echo of John Leeson saying "Look alive, you scurvy dogs, or I will hang you from the yard-arm" in his K9 voice. Maybe I need to get more sleep..)

[DEN]

More sleep is always a laudable goal. But I really like your K-9 the pirate idea.

As has been said (in xkcd) the past is a foreign country, with vast oil reserves and an outdated military.

Are we limiting ourselves to ideas that don't alter the timeline?

You could negotiate with the local tribes for drilling rights on the arabian peninsula a century early.

[jezmiller]

Jan 17, 2015 21:54:28 GMT DEN said:

More sleep is always a laudable goal. But I really like your K-9 the pirate idea.

As has been said (in xkcd) the past is a foreign country, with vast oil reserves and an outdated military.

Are we limiting ourselves to ideas that don't alter the timeline?

You could negotiate with the local tribes for drilling rights on the arabian peninsula a century early.

I was referring specifically to the Alexandrian Society when I talked about not altering the time line. They are an organization of Earth Empire (27th century) criminals who loot Earth's history. Their policy is to avoid altering the time line because they are afraid of "unmaking" themselves. But that needn't apply to other groups or other plots.

Your idea about premature oil drilling might lead to a steampunk timeline, with Victorian technology adapted to provide the infrastructure for drilling and demand for oil. It could make a good alternate-history game setting

[Catsmate]

Jan 17, 2015 21:12:36 GMT jezmiller said:

A minor point - I notice you didn't include Constantinople, 1204 in your list of possible targets for looting, but an enterprising temporal pirate could do worse than sign up for the Fourth Crusade.

A very good point, blame it on me knowing damn all about that area of history I'm afraid. The Fourth Crusade just didn't occur to me.

Jan 17, 2015 21:12:36 GMT jezmiller said:

On the basis of "The Biter Bitten", how about setting up in Port Royal in the late seventeenth century and robbing some of its richer inhabitants just before June 7, 1692? It's not as if the victims will be in a position to complain afterwards...

Ah yes, an excellent opportunity for some looting.

Another option is having the quake be the result of something out of place; mad science, alien ship crashing, Silurian weapon test, there are several possibilities. As a bonus you could link it to the odd theories about the creation of San Francisco bay in that timeframe.

Jan 17, 2015 21:12:36 GMT jezmiller said:

You discussed the innate superiority of modern ships against vessels from the Age of Steam, but that assumes the ability to transport something the size of a ship back in time. A TARDIS could theoretically perform a spacial overlap to transport back even the largest sub, but you were speculating about more limited forms of time travel and time travelers. Rogue Time Agents are limited to what they can carry, and the Alexandrian Society's machines consist of a capsule about the size of a garden shed sitting on top of a big, clumsy vortex manipulator.

True, I was probably channelling Meddlers in Time (where they Meddlers hijack a WW2 Liberty ship) and The Nautilus Sanction when I wrote that. Doctor Who time travel generally operates on a smaller scale.
Though I remember a scenario for the FASA game that had time travelling Cybermen supply Age of Sail pirates with a hovercraft...

As an aside I wonder what the limits of a Vortex Manipulator are, in terms of capacity? Can it be integrated into a vehicle of some sort? Perhaps with some penalty, to range, navigational accuracy or recharge time.
Maybe the Honourable Alicia decides to branch out?

So, assuming you're limited to what you can carry/push (a shopping trolley perhaps) priorities would be: basic medical supplies, water desalination, information and navigation (no satellites but decent maps and a portable inertial navigation unit), suitable weapons, perhaps communications (very handy to be able to coordinate multiple ships), possibly a small drone for reconnaissance, a power source (it's no fun when your batteries run down) and a few other essentials.

Jan 17, 2015 21:12:36 GMT jezmiller said:

An option that would suit such limited travelers - which would also give a more pirate-movie "feel" - would be to enhance the existing ships of the period. It would be possible, for example, to transport the components for a custom-designed propeller and engine back in time, perhaps in several trips. Take a small and modest pirate sloop, bolt an engine on to it, then transport some machine-guns, grenades (gas if you're interested in hostages for ransom), some hand-held missiles, and you're in business.

Yep, even an outboard motor or two (preferably one that can be alcohol fuelled) to attach to small craft. Definitely a 1632-verse feel to such mixes of technology. Even the parts of a small, wood burning, steam engine.

In The Nautilus Sanction Drakov had a sailing ship (the Valkyrie) constructed using advanced knowledge and techniques in the seventeenth century. Faster than other ships of the period but able to blend in. Not a bad idea, perhaps a stranded time traveller with a knowledge of shipbuilding might to similar.

Again OT but I'm reminded of an adventure series for the old Twilight 2000 game that had the PCs based on a modern replica of the USS Constitution (created for a TV series) with some modern tech such as an auxillary diesel. This provided a very useful base for adventures in the post-WW3 Caribbean.

Jan 17, 2015 21:12:36 GMT jezmiller said:

A more efficient option might be to transport back a large shipment of sniper rifles with night sights. The maximum range of a sniper rifle in expert hands is about that of the Age of Sail's most powerful cannon, c. 2,000 yards (roughly, according to Google), but a sniper rifle can be fired at night using infra-red targeting. An Age of Sail cannon can't. And in any case, it's not very accurate, certainly not against a sloop whose already-superior maneuverability has been enhanced with outboard motors of some kind. A callous and skilled pirate ship could shadow their target at night, picking off the crew at long range, and then withdraw during the day. Attrition would eventually reduce the crew of even a large warship to the point where a small pirate crew could handle them.

True, and a .50 rifle (~12kg) can fire a rage of incendiary and even small explosive rounds, with rapid fire these'd be a threat to a sailing ship.
Realistically I'd say 2km is pushing it for smoothbore cannonfire from ships, at least with any accuracy. The old "three mile limit" came from the maximum range of shore based cannon.
A modern rocket launcher or recoilless rifle would be devastating in such a fight.

Jan 17, 2015 21:12:36 GMT jezmiller said:

In addition to sunken wrecks, ships that vanished without trace would be targets for Alexandrian Society piracy, as it's possible to attack and eliminate them without risking damage to the time line.

This is assuming a time traveler who is more or less limited to contemporary technology. For a pirate from a future era with limited time travel capability - like the Alexandrian Society - an obvious weak point to replace would be the crew. Malnutrition and poor sanitation limit the effectiveness of a pirate crew in this era. Replace them with the kind of androids built by the Kraal or the Tarans, and you eliminate those issues at a stroke, along with any threat of mutiny. (I just had a bizarre mental echo of John Leeson saying "Look alive, you scurvy dogs, or I will hang you from the yard-arm" in his K9 voice. Maybe I need to get more sleep..)

I could see the Alexandrian Society using a contemporary ship as a base but with androids (or biological constructs) for crew and a few bits of advanced tech as force multipliers.

While they wouldn't deliberately mess up history there's always the possibility of an accident... Perhaps the PCs find that history has been accidentally altered, and need to fix it. I could see a new Companion being acquired in such a scenario.

[Catsmate]

Jan 17, 2015 21:54:28 GMT DEN said:

More sleep is always a laudable goal. But I really like your K-9 the pirate idea.

As has been said (in xkcd) the past is a foreign country, with vast oil reserves and an outdated military.

Are we limiting ourselves to ideas that don't alter the timeline?

You could negotiate with the local tribes for drilling rights on the arabian peninsula a century early.

Well the Alexandrian Society don't want to screw up history, they just want wealth and power in their home era, so they're careful.

[jezmiller]

Jan 17, 2015 22:17:23 GMT Catsmate said:

I could see the Alexandrian Society using a contemporary ship as a base but with androids (or biological constructs) for crew and a few bits of advanced tech as force multipliers.

While they wouldn't deliberately mess up history there's always the possibility of an accident... Perhaps the PCs find that history has been accidentally altered, and need to fix it. I could see a new Companion being acquired in such a scenario.

That's a very nice story concept which would make an interesting change of pace in turning enemies into temporary allies. I played about with it a bit in my "Gemstones of Blood" scenario, which forced Andreas Roth and Cypher to work together - although as it turned out, and contrary to Roth's fears, he wasn't the one who'd disrupted history on that occasion.

And a former Alexandrian Society operative would make quite an attractive Minion, from the ^eDoctor's point of view - relatively technologically advanced but with the Time Traveler advantage, and also a potential source of information about an irritating thorn in his side.

[Catsmate]

Jan 17, 2015 22:38:47 GMT jezmiller said:

Jan 17, 2015 22:17:23 GMT Catsmate said:

I could see the Alexandrian Society using a contemporary ship as a base but with androids (or biological constructs) for crew and a few bits of advanced tech as force multipliers.

While they wouldn't deliberately mess up history there's always the possibility of an accident... Perhaps the PCs find that history has been accidentally altered, and need to fix it. I could see a new Companion being acquired in such a scenario.

That's a very nice story concept which would make an interesting change of pace in turning enemies into temporary allies. I played about with it a bit in my "Gemstones of Blood" scenario, which forced Andreas Roth and Cypher to work together - although as it turned out, and contrary to Roth's fears, he wasn't the one who'd disrupted history on that occasion.

Yeah, I'm going to file this one away. It might work for the ^eDoctor but it'd probably better suit a more lawful/heroic protagonist.
BTW have you seen The Infinite Quest? Captain Kaliko's crew of skeletal pirates somewhat resemble your idea for android crew.

Jan 17, 2015 22:38:47 GMT jezmiller said:

And a former Alexandrian Society operative would make quite an attractive Minion, from the ^eDoctor's point of view - relatively technologically advanced but with the Time Traveler advantage, and also a potential source of information about an irritating thorn in his side.

Absolutely. And I see such a character appearing in a certain evil Time Lord's future...
Actually I've rather left the Society out for a while, I really should have them make another appearance. Perhaps during certain events in London in 1958.

[jezmiller]

Jan 17, 2015 22:17:23 GMT Catsmate said:

As an aside I wonder what the limits of a Vortex Manipulator are, in terms of capacity? Can it be integrated into a vehicle of some sort? Perhaps with some penalty, to range, navigational accuracy or recharge time.

The Alexandrian Society's machines are definitely limited to what will fit inside the capsules. Their attempts to "scale up" have always failed, sometimes in messily fatal ways. But those machines were designed by people who were using TL10 principles to construct a TL8 device using TL6 technological infrastructure, and who, moreover, were working under duress and had zero incentive to create more than the most minimally capable vehicle they could get away with. So they are a special case from which little can probably be inferred.

The Doctor and Martha seemed to be clinging quite tightly to Jack when they used his manipulator to escape from Yana's base, so maybe the restriction is on radius affected rather than mass.

The big question is whether Jack's Chula warship was contemporary to the 1940s or whether he used his manipulator to bring it there. (Unless it was capable of time travel independently - the Doctor chased the hospital ship/module through time).

[Catsmate]

Jan 17, 2015 23:08:08 GMT jezmiller said:

Jan 17, 2015 22:17:23 GMT Catsmate said:

As an aside I wonder what the limits of a Vortex Manipulator are, in terms of capacity? Can it be integrated into a vehicle of some sort? Perhaps with some penalty, to range, navigational accuracy or recharge time.

The Alexandrian Society's machines are definitely limited to what will fit inside the capsules. Their attempts to "scale up" have always failed, sometimes in messily fatal ways. But those machines were designed by people who were using TL10 principles to construct a TL8 device using TL6 technological infrastructure, and who, moreover, were working under duress and had zero incentive to create more than the most minimally capable vehicle they could get away with. So they are a special case from which little can probably be inferred.

The Doctor and Martha seemed to be clinging quite tightly to Jack when they used his manipulator to escape from Yana's base, so maybe the restriction is on radius affected rather than mass.

The big question is whether Jack's Chula warship was contemporary to the 1940s or whether he used his manipulator to bring it there. (Unless it was capable of time travel independently - the Doctor chased the hospital ship/module through time).

Yes I'd agree about the devices used by the AS, it also keeps them limited and interested in acquiring better technology.

The standard Vortex Manipulator seems only able to move a couple of people, so I'd limit to maybe two passengers with personal gear or a shopping trolley sized load. The one the Family of Blood stole/obtained (and which IIRR the Doctor said belonged to a Time Agent) seems to have been able to move their ship though. Maybe with some modification/reprogramming? Like I suggested for Alicia's bus.

The Chula ship is interesting, reasonably sophisticated time travel and advanced nanotech (~TL8?). Given that the Chula ambulance could also travel in time I'd say Jack's VM was a separate device.


BTW I found that FASA RPG scenario with Cybermen and pirates. It's called Time Pirates and was originally published in Stardate magazine back in 1985. It's pretty poor but if anyone's interested there's a PDF downloadable from the Yahoo FASA Who group (link).

[jezmiller]

Jan 17, 2015 22:54:20 GMT Catsmate said:

Yeah, I'm going to file this one away. It might work for the ^eDoctor but it'd probably better suit a more lawful/heroic protagonist.
BTW have you seen The Infinite Quest? Captain Kaliko's crew of skeletal pirates somewhat resemble your idea for android crew.

And also Barbossa and his crew from Curse of the Black Pearl. And androids which look like an army of zombiefied or skeletal undead would also have the advantage of striking terror into the superstitious sailors of the Age of Sail.

Galen did something similar in "Shades of Knight", equipping androids with Shimmers that made them look like zombies, as part of a scheme to fool the SS during World War II. That idea was a straight rip-off from "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", but it would work equally well here. An ^eUniverse version of Galen could make it a trademark tactic, using it to pose as a necromancer or sorcerer.

[Catsmate]

Jan 18, 2015 17:34:21 GMT jezmiller said:

Jan 17, 2015 22:54:20 GMT Catsmate said:

Yeah, I'm going to file this one away. It might work for the ^eDoctor but it'd probably better suit a more lawful/heroic protagonist.
BTW have you seen The Infinite Quest? Captain Kaliko's crew of skeletal pirates somewhat resemble your idea for android crew.

And also Barbossa and his crew from Curse of the Black Pearl. And androids which look like an army of zombiefied or skeletal undead would also have the advantage of striking terror into the superstitious sailors of the Age of Sail.

Galen did something similar in "Shades of Knight", equipping androids with Shimmers that made them look like zombies, as part of a scheme to fool the SS during World War II. That idea was a straight rip-off from "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", but it would work equally well here. An ^eUniverse version of Galen could make it a trademark tactic, using it to pose as a necromancer or sorcerer.

I like it. That way if anyone encounters the pseudo-pirates and talks their stories will be dismissed by historians too.

[Catsmate]

On the subject of "The Biter Bitten" here are a few historical robberies that a criminally minded time traveller might want to preempt or might have arranged in the first place.

1. At Schiphol Airport in February 2005 a group dressed in stolen KLM uniforms and driving a stolen KLM van hijacked an armoured truck carrying
diamonds valued at approximately US$118 million. Loot never recovered.

2. Paris, December 2008. Four armed men dressed as women, robbed the Harry Winston
Store on Avenue Montaigne of gemstones and jewellry valued at US$108m. About a fifth of the haul was recovered in 2011 and about 25 arrests were made.

3. Antwerp, February 2003. The Antwerp Diamond Centre was entered by a group of four thieves from a rented office and stole approximately US$100m in worth of gemstones. The thieves were later arrested but the
stones have not been found.

4. 1990, Boston. In the early hours of March 18th two men dressed as police bluffed their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and remove paintings Rembrandt, Degas, Manet and Vermeer valued at half-a-billion dollars today. None have been recovered.

• The thieves seemed rather inexpert to be the Alexandrian Society, but perhaps the reason the paintings have never been found is that they're not on Earth for a few centuries?

5. The November 1983 Brink's-MAT warehouse robbery at Heathrow Airport (link) is a complicated story. But about 3.5 tonnes of gold is still unaccounted for...

[jezmiller]

Jan 21, 2015 13:15:59 GMT Catsmate said:

On the subject of "The Biter Bitten" here are a few historical robberies that a criminally minded time traveller might want to preempt or might have arranged in the first place.

1. At Schiphol Airport in February 2005 a group dressed in stolen KLM uniforms and driving a stolen KLM van hijacked an armoured truck carrying
diamonds valued at approximately US$118 million. Loot never recovered.

2. Paris, December 2008. Four armed men dressed as women, robbed the Harry Winston
Store on Avenue Montaigne of gemstones and jewellry valued at US$108m. About a fifth of the haul was recovered in 2011 and about 25 arrests were made.

3. Antwerp, February 2003. The Antwerp Diamond Centre was entered by a group of four thieves from a rented office and stole approximately US$100m in worth of gemstones. The thieves were later arrested but the
stones have not been found.

4. 1990, Boston. In the early hours of March 18th two men dressed as police bluffed their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and remove paintings Rembrandt, Degas, Manet and Vermeer valued at half-a-billion dollars today. None have been recovered.

• The thieves seemed rather inexpert to be the Alexandrian Society, but perhaps the reason the paintings have never been found is that they're not on Earth for a few centuries?

5. The November 1983 Brink's-MAT warehouse robbery at Heathrow Airport (link) is a complicated story. But about 3.5 tonnes of gold is still unaccounted for...

They never did get the real Stone of Scone back either, did they? I thought they'd proved that the one that was left in Arbroath Abbey back in '51 was a fake?

And while we're on the subject of royal relics, how about switching the Crown Jewels stolen by Colonel Blood with fakes, while he was making his escape? For the Alexandrian Society, the security measures around the Tower wouldn't be an insurmountable problem, just as the defenses of the Louvre couldn't stop Scaroth. But Crown Jewels that had been involved in a famous contemporary robbery would have more history, more notoriety, and hence more value (even damaged), than Crown Jewels that had been stolen by time travelers who were using technology to cheat.

For a certain market - historians and collectors of criminal memorabilia - the stolen gold and diamonds would have a value beyond their intrinsic worth. Paper money handled and spent by a Great Train Robber might not be legal tender in the 27th century, but an obsessive collector determined to have at least one sample from each robber's share would pay through the nose for it. Same story with the Brinks-Mat gold. For a darker tone, really notorious criminals like Thomas Blood or the train robbers would be perfect targets for the Society's make-your-own-Elvis project

Staying with the Crown Jewels, how about using 27th-century technology to recover the ones that King John lost in the Wash? It'd give a whole new meaning to laundering money...

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

[Catsmate]

Jan 21, 2015 19:07:37 GMT jezmiller said:

They never did get the real Stone of Scone back either, did they? I thought they'd proved that the one that was left in Arbroath Abbey back in '51 was a fake?

An excellent point, as far as I'm aware the stone returned to Westminister Abbey and then returned to Edinburgh Castle was indeed a fake. And no-one living knows where the real one is.
In the Whoniverse such a stone couple be more than symbolic, a psionically active crystal matrix or even a living organism (a baby Ogri perhaps?).

In fact I find that the idea has already been used.

The events around the theft are conducive to various groups trying to steal it, and getting in each other's way.

Jan 21, 2015 19:07:37 GMT jezmiller said:

And while we're on the subject of royal relics, how about switching the Crown Jewels stolen by Colonel Blood with fakes, while he was making his escape? For the Alexandrian Society, the security measures around the Tower wouldn't be an insurmountable problem, just as the defenses of the Louvre couldn't stop Scaroth. But Crown Jewels that had been involved in a famous contemporary robbery would have more history, more notoriety, and hence more value (even damaged), than Crown Jewels that had been stolen by time travelers who were using technology to cheat.

Oh yes, leave fakes to be recovered and sell the originals in the future.
Another example of such a theft was that of the regalia of the Order of St. Patrick (incorrectly called the Irish Crown Jewels) in 1907. They've never been found and would be worth tens of millions today.
Perhaps the thieves (whomever they were, that was never established either) open the safe to find the jewels gone...

Then there was the Crown Jewels robbery in 1303 (link), from Westminister Abbey, when 150,000 marks worth of plate, jewels and bullion was stolen. While most was recovered there's plenty of room for substitution.

Or perhaps there was something else stored in the vault...
 

Jan 21, 2015 19:07:37 GMT jezmiller said:

For a certain market - historians and collectors of criminal memorabilia - the stolen gold and diamonds would have a value beyond their intrinsic worth. Paper money handled and spent by a Great Train Robber might not be legal tender in the 27th century, but an obsessive collector determined to have at least one sample from each robber's share would pay through the nose for it. Same story with the Brinks-Mat gold. For a darker tone, really notorious criminals like Thomas Blood or the train robbers would be perfect targets for the Society's make-your-own-Elvis project

Absolutely. There's a market for criminal relics even today.

Jan 21, 2015 19:07:37 GMT jezmiller said:

Staying with the Crown Jewels, how about using 27th-century technology to recover the ones that King John lost in the Wash? It'd give a whole new meaning to laundering money...
(Sorry, couldn't resist)

Another Royal treasure lost, and mostly never recovered. Some advanced planning and the right equipment would be very useful.




[/quote]

[Catsmate]

Jan 17, 2015 21:54:28 GMT DEN said:

More sleep is always a laudable goal. But I really like your K-9 the pirate idea.

As has been said (in xkcd) the past is a foreign country, with vast oil reserves and an outdated military.

Are we limiting ourselves to ideas that don't alter the timeline?

You could negotiate with the local tribes for drilling rights on the arabian peninsula a century early.

Well if you're no concerned with preserving the past (or want to dangle a very obvious alternation in front of your players for the to fix you could do worse than an armed robbery of the British Crown Jewels from the Tower of London or the Royal Mint. Both have convenient river access and would be vulnerable to (say) a group of time travellers with automatic weapons and gas grenades, plus some fast getaway transport.
Depending on the era (while Britain remained on the Gold Standard) the Mint would have several tonnes of gold and gilver on hand, some in the form of finished coin or blanks.

The Bank of England gold stores (or those are another interesting target, though you'd need time and transport to move several thousand tonnes of gold.

[jezmiller]

Jan 21, 2015 21:00:25 GMT Catsmate said:

Well if you're no concerned with preserving the past (or want to dangle a very obvious alternation in front of your players for the to fix you could do worse than an armed robbery of the British Crown Jewels from the Tower of London or the Royal Mint. Both have convenient river access and would be vulnerable to (say) a group of time travellers with automatic weapons and gas grenades, plus some fast getaway transport.
Depending on the era (while Britain remained on the Gold Standard) the Mint would have several tonnes of gold and silver on hand, some in the form of finished coin or blanks.

The Bank of England gold stores (or those are another interesting target, though you'd need time and transport to move several thousand tonnes of gold.

If you can't actually undo that kind of alteration to the time line without causing paradoxes, there's another option - minimize the damage by keeping it out of the history books. In the modern era, there's the option of a D notice, plus hypnosis / bribing of witnesses. In earlier eras it gets progressively easier to suppress the news the further you get into the past and the less literate the population becomes - it doesn't matter so much about gossip spreading at the time, after all, it's whether it's recorded for future generations and has an effect on history that's the big question. If you can replace the stolen gold and jewels with identical fakes, you'd get a ripple in the time line rather than an alteration. And Gallifreyan technology wouldn't find it hard to do that. Even our TL5 civilization can transmute lead into gold - it's just that the process costs more than the value of the gold you get out of it, so it's a rather pointless party trick. A Time Lord wouldn't be so restricted.

I have an NPC in White Wolf's cWoD setting, an immortal sorcerer who was the son of William Rufus (the idea was originally sparked by Bernard King's "The Destroying Angel"). He has a small collection of manuscripts and chronicles that he's collected over the centuries and locked away - all the ones that recorded the fact that Rufus ever had a son. I imagine that a CIA clean-up specialist would have much the same MO. The trick would be to get to any potential witnesses as soon after the event as possible - once the news has had a chance to spread, suppressing every single written account might be impossible.

[Catsmate]

Jan 21, 2015 23:00:02 GMT jezmiller said:

If you can't actually undo that kind of alteration to the time line without causing paradoxes, there's another option - minimize the damage by keeping it out of the history books. In the modern era, there's the option of a D notice, plus hypnosis / bribing of witnesses. In earlier eras it gets progressively easier to suppress the news the further you get into the past and the less literate the population becomes - it doesn't matter so much about gossip spreading at the time, after all, it's whether it's recorded for future generations and has an effect on history that's the big question. If you can replace the stolen gold and jewels with identical fakes, you'd get a ripple in the time line rather than an alteration. And Gallifreyan technology wouldn't find it hard to do that. Even our TL5 civilization can transmute lead into gold - it's just that the process costs more than the value of the gold you get out of it, so it's a rather pointless party trick. A Time Lord wouldn't be so restricted.

I have an NPC in White Wolf's cWoD setting, an immortal sorcerer who was the son of William Rufus (the idea was originally sparked by Bernard King's "The Destroying Angel"). He has a small collection of manuscripts and chronicles that he's collected over the centuries and locked away - all the ones that recorded the fact that Rufus ever had a son. I imagine that a CIA clean-up specialist would have much the same MO. The trick would be to get to any potential witnesses as soon after the event as possible - once the news has had a chance to spread, suppressing every single written account might be impossible.

I like that! Very Secret History and conspiratorial. Plus it can be done from either side, clearing up the messes or discovering them from the missed traces.

You're right about the vale of metals and gems probably dropping greatly in the future. I'd say once you've cheap, automated asteroid mining gold, platinum et cetera will become far more available. Even before cheap nucleosynthesis.

For gemstones it'll be even sooner; we can synthesise them currently, and the technology is only going to improve.
One of my other time travel campaigns (loosely similar to UNIT) had a time traveller in sixties Britain in need of funds so he sent a package of a couple of kilogrammes of flawless synthetic gems to De Beers and suggested a regular payoff to refrain from destroying their business.

[Catsmate]

I can't seem to leave this alone. Anyway, party inspired by finding a copy of Jack Finney's novel Assault on a Queen¹ (filmed with Frank Sinatra) and partly by some reading on SMS Seeadler's adventures as a commerce raider in WW1² here's an idea that's rattling around in my head.

In WW2 Germany launched eleven commerce raiders³. These were merchant ships converted to attack merchant shipping on the high seas (it's not piracy if a government does it) and also lay mines, resupply submarines and otherwise cause trouble. It wasn't a bad strategy, such ships require far more resources to catch than they themselves need. So what if in the Whoniverse there was a twelfth such ship? It's not a major change to history and outside historians most people wouldn't know.

Unless it was equipped with advanced technology, based on recovered alien equipment.

Let's call the ship SMS Odin, it fits with the Kriegsmarine practice. Now based on the other ship used we can determine a few details of the ship. She'd be around 12-20,000t displacement, about 120-150m long with a maximum speed of 15-20 knots powered by either diesels (better fuel efficiency and range) or conventional steam turbines (easier to refuel) and with a crew of around 400 (to operate the armament, provide boarding parties and prize crews).
The armament would be a mix of old 150mm naval artillery and more modern guns, plus torpedoes and mines. At least one float-plane (probably He-114B or Ar-196) and possibly a small torpedo boat.
Given that it'll be acting as a testbed for some really advanced technology the ship would probably be at the higher end of those available.

Now the interesting questions are; where did the Kriegsmarine get this technology? And what is it capable of?

The first one is easy enough to deal with, I don't plan on it entering the scenario to any extent. The found it at sea, salvaged it and studied it. Given the Nazi state's propensity for empire building, they didn't share it with the rest of the government or military, hence it didn't effect the course of the war very much. It was their toy and they kept hold of it.

• I'm inclined to have the crash in 1935 to tie it into another bit of weirdness but that's just me.
  

There's be lots of initial excitement, depending how how much contact with alien technology there had been, which drops rapidly as the salvaged gadgetry fails to disclose any useful secrets. But they continue fiddling with it.

As for it's capabilities well it's a plot device so it'll be able to do whatever is needed. Quite possibly it can do more than the Nazis managed to figure out.
So, around the beginning of WW2 the scientists fiddling with the scrap manage to get it do something useful; it can render an object invisible!

• Shades of the Philadelphia
  Experiment.
  

Much excitement ensues. But the effect require the alien technology, so it can only be used on one ship. The naval high command are reluctant to risk one of their shiny capital ships with the gadget, and its unknown side-effects, so they fit it to a converted merchant ship and send it off on a cruise for testing. That'd probably be in early 1940, though you could place it later. It never returns, lost at sea.

• Here is one possible scenario idea. The PCs arrive on (or otherwise become involved with) the Odin during her fateful voyage. They'll probably want to stop the ship's raiding activities, though there could be hundreds of prisoners on board, will the PCs sacrifice them for the good of Time?
  

However my original idea involved a more mysterious fate for the ship. During the voyage something goes wrong with the gadget and the ship becomes unstuck. It drifts from one time period to another, fading in and out of phase with reality. Again, similar to claims made about the USS Eldridge.
Until one day someone encounters the Odin and boards the ship. There they figure out what's going on (at the price of a few expendable pawns) and manage to take control of it. So they have a ship capable of travelling in time, what are they going to do with it?
Well the sensible answer would probably be in the spectrum of nothing/sink it/hand it to the authorities but that probably would be much of a game.

• Unless they do hand it over to the proper authorities, who then start experimenting with it for themselves. A rather unusual UNIT centric campaign could be made from this with the PCs part of the crew of an obsolete ship that's adrift in time.
  

So a group of people of dubious morals have control of a warship (of sorts) that can travel in time, and also become invisible. The opportunities for piracy should be obvious....
This leads to two concepts for adventures or campaigns; operating the ship or stopping the ship. This would depend on what sort of a game you're looking for, players engaged in criminality or trying to stop it.

Further ideas.
1. To limit the power level a bit you could impose restrictions on the periods the ship visits, how well (if at all) it can be steered in time, how long it remains before 'drifting' again et cetera. Can someone remain behind (or in the future?) or do they disappear when the ship leaves?
2. Trips to the future could be especially interesting, imaging such a ship arriving (say) during the Dalek occupation.
3. You could also declare than technology more advanced than 1940 'doesn't agree with' the ship; laptops crash frequently, LED lights flicker a lot, a modern RADAR installed malfunctions after the first time jump.
4. Getting spare parts could be an adventure in itself, not to mention ammunition for those old guns.
5. If you don't want a game based around piracy perhaps the ship's new owners engage in trading accross time, smugging or salvage as more morally acceptable activities.
6. Such a ship requires a fairly large crew, unless you assume the original German crew still exist in some form.
7. Again if a pure time-travel game isn't your thing perhaps the ship drifts across parallel Earths.


The gadget.
Suggested powers: it can render a ship invisible to both visual observation and RADAR detection; it mostly masks SONAR also though a modern system might be able to locate the ship. It suppresses radio communication for a range of several kilometres, handily preventing victims from sending messages (though limiting it's own communications to lamp).
It also works against thermal imaging. It requires electric power (about 2MW) so a set of secondary diesel generators were fitted to the Odin.

Specifications.
15,000t displacement
Maximum speed 20 knots, crusing speed 12 knots, range 60,000nm.
Diesel powered
400 crew
two Arado 196 aircraft

Armament.
Based on other commerce raiders the Odin is armed with:

• eight 150mm cannon
• two 75mm quick-firing guns
• four 37mm anti-aircraft guns (two twin mounts)
• eight 20mm anti-aircraft guns (eight single mounts)
• eight 533mm torpedo tubes (four twin mounts, two at deck level, two underwater facing aft) with twenty torpedoes
• 300 naval mines
• about a dozen MG08 machine guns at deck level
• small arms including Kar98 rifles, P08/P38 pistols, MP-38 sub-machine guns and MG-34 machine guns
  

References.
Ghost Ship, a rather mediocre film about a salvage crew finding a ship lost decades earlier that seems to have drifted in time   
Ghost Boat, a similar idea with a British submarine lost during WW2 suddenly reappearing  
Assault on a Queen, a small group find and salvage a WW2 German submarine and engage in a little piracy with it.
German WW2 axillary cruisers
The Dreadnought Project, a useful source of deckplans for ships, including some of the commerce raiders





¹ Yep the man behind Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and Time and Again wrote a thriller about submarine piracy.
² One of the last, if not the last, of the fighting sailing ships.
³
Atlantis, Coronel, Hansa, Komet, Kormoran, Michel, Orion, Pinguin, Stier, Thor and Widder

[Catsmate]

I have re-written (with contributions from jezmiller,
starkllr and thereviewer) and expanded on the idea of a timelost commerce raider. Packed with ideas, campaign suggestions, a sample ship with details and a suggested armament, and a background for how it all came about.
Enjoy. 11 page PDF, 347kB.

[Catsmate]

Another potential target for time pirates is the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain in 1936. Approximately 560 tonnes of gold was removed from the bank's vaults and transported to the port of Cartagena; there it was loaded on four Soviet ships (Kine, Kursk, Neva and Volgoles) and shipped to Odessa in the Black Sea.
A tempting target...

[da professor]

Jul 25, 2015 12:17:27 GMT Catsmate said:

Another potential target for time pirates is the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain in 1936. Approximately 560 tonnes of gold was removed from the bank's vaults and transported to the port of Cartagena; there it was loaded on four Soviet ships (Kine, Kursk, Neva and Volgoles) and shipped to Odessa in the Black Sea.
A tempting target...

Crikey!
Were the Soviets having some cyberman problems at the time?

[Catsmate]

Jul 26, 2015 7:36:16 GMT da professor said:

Jul 25, 2015 12:17:27 GMT Catsmate said:

Another potential target for time pirates is the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain in 1936. Approximately 560 tonnes of gold was removed from the bank's vaults and transported to the port of Cartagena; there it was loaded on four Soviet ships (Kine, Kursk, Neva and Volgoles) and shipped to Odessa in the Black Sea.
A tempting target...

Crikey!
Were the Soviets having some cyberman problems at the time?

*grin*
But maybe they were..... Sinister experiments using material from a crashed Cyber-ship scouting the planned return to Terra attract the attention of Telosians.

Enhanced soldiers being tested in the Spanish civil war could be an interesting complication for the thieves and/or a PC party.

[Catsmate]

And another interesting target for a temporal marauder was the SS Eocene (and isn't that an interesting name?) which carried the Polish state gold reserves (about 75 tonnes) from the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanța (Constansa) to London via Istanbul.
The ship was a tanker (under captain Robert E. Brett) and was diverted by British government order from Baku to Constanța on 14SEP1939 to carry the gold. When the ship docked the British Consul explained the plan to secretly transport the bullion to the Bank of England.

• The gold had been transported across Eastern Europe on trucks, cars, buses and trains and had several near misses with Nazi (and Soviet) forces.
• Loading the gold was itself a considerable effort; the Eocene was a tanker and didn't have cranes to onload the crates (about 1,200 in total). Nor did it have cargo spaces so the boxes were stowed anywhere around the ship. 27 Polish passengers (including six women and two children) were also taken on.
• Further complications included the desertion of six crew members and the difficulty in replacing them at short notice.
• The Eocene was a smallish (4,216 grt and 104m long) tanker capable of 10.5 knots flat out. It would be sunk off Alexandria in 1942.
  

However the Nazis learned of the plan and pressured the Romanian government (not then formally at war) to seize the ship or permit German forces to seize the gold. Captain Brett quietly (and illegally) took the Eocene out of the harbour without lights at 4PM on 16SEP1939.

• By 5:30PM the German government knew of the shipment (but not that it was at sea).
  

Hugging the coast the ship took three days to reach Istanbul, arriving at 3:30PM on 19SEP1939. From there (after days of negotiations) it was shipped on the the UK, via train to Beirut where it was loaded on French warships.

• When the Eocene arrived at Kabatac on the Bosphorus they were approached by a yacht flying the Swastika which circled the ship taking pictures. The crew didn't know if the Turkish government was going to seize the gold or if the Nazi were planning a spot of piracy.
• After docking only the captain was permitted to leave the ship and the British Consul warned him of rumours that the Germans were planning to attack the ship, either to steal the gold or sink the ship.
  

A fascinating story and one that's rife with possibilities.

An unarmed ship in wartime with a precious cargo; mysterious passengers; language problems; diplomacy; worries about submarines and piracy... Is there a blue wooden box on board too?
And what else was loaded in those heavy crates?

[Catsmate]

Another wartime treasure shipment that might be worth stealing is the so-called Romanian Treasure which was sent from Romania to Russia in 1916.

In fact it consisted of three trains; the first left Iaşi (in Moldova, eastern Romania, and the temporary capital after Bucharest was occupied at the beginning of December) at around 3AM (local time) on the night of 14/15 December 1916 loaded with gold bullion. 21 carriages carried about 120 tonnes of bullion (in ingots) along with two hundred armed police guards. Included in the shipment was a collection of Queen Maria's personal jewellery.

On 27 July 1916 a second and third train were dispatched to Russia. The first had three wagons loaded with 188 crates containing several tonnes more bullion, artworks and the State archives.
The final train was larger, 24 wagons (3,549 crates) holding an immense collection of works-of-art and other precious objects of the Romanian state. These included a set of 3,500 year old gold jewelry, the archives of the Romanian Academy, a collection of ancient Dacian jewels, the accumulated jewels of the voivodes of Wallachia and Moldavia, the historical archives of Braşov, the Romanian royal treasury and jewel collections, several thousands paintings, the religious objects owned by Romanian monasteries and churches (including icons and manuscripts), the collections of the National Museum of Antiquities and more.
It also contained cash, bullion and others valuables on deposit the national banks.

The value of this trainload is extremely difficult to estimate but the Russian government signed for it in the sum of 8.4 billion Romanian gold Lei, or around 370 million pounds Sterling in 1917. Today it would be worth billions of Euro/Pounds/Dollars.

Neither of these collections was returned to Romania after the Russian Revolutions of 1917. On 13 January 1918 the agreements between Russia and Romania were formally repudiated by the revolutionary government after Romanian troops entered Bessarabia. The fate of the treasure is still a subject of inter-governmental dispute today.

Now there's a scenario for you! Save the Romanian treasure! Or steal it. With all the complications of wartime paranoia...

Does the Alexandrian Society have a really big time machine?