Post by Catsmate on Sept 17, 2016 13:05:33 GMT
A quick idea...
Tokyo 2nd October 1995
The party have arrived in Japan and discovered something is Very Wrong with history.
It'll be apparent very quickly that Tokyo is very different from how it should be; the skyscrapers are almost entirely missing, there are fewer people around that one would expect and a general air of poverty, despair and anger. This will become really obvious if they speak to any of the locals, something that might be difficult as anyone not obviously Asian will be actively avoided.
Then there are the omnipresent American military patrols, the lists of occupation regulations and the curfew. There may be sounds of gunfire in the distance.
All this should be enough to attract your players' attention.
But what has changed?
Some research is obviously needed; there is an Internet but it's even less developed than it was historically in 1994 (link) and no internet cafes or stray WiFi signals to pirate so a visit to a bookshop or library will be needed, or discussion with the inhabitants.
A smart player may suggest relocating to somewhere where they're less likely to get shot, and may have less problems with language, censorship and lack of sources.
Assuming the party relocates to somewhere else it doesn't take a huge amount of effort to discover that Japan was invaded in late 1945 by a mix of US, British and Commonwealth troops and has been under occupation since that time. Any good library or bookshop will have several volumes covering Operating Downfall, it was one of the major campaigns of the Second World War. Curiously, while there is discussion of the use of chemical weapons (including captured Nazi nerve gas) and mention of the effects of rice fungus there is no mention of atomic weapons. More study will show that the first atomic bomb was detonated in 1950, after Japan had been subjugated at the cost of fifteen million dead.
Obviously something (or someone) has delayed the development of nuclear weapons. But how?
More research will notice that the trend starts before the Second World War; many of the steps on the path that historically led to nuclear weapons happened a few years later. The "annus mirabilis" of 1932 (with the discover of the neutron, the transmutation of light elements, the discovery of the positron, et cetera) never happened; those discoveries happened a few years later.
This trend goes back to Rutherford's transmutation of nitrogen to oxygen; instead of happening in 1918, the experiment occurred in 1923.
Something delayed the development of nuclear physics by several years.
Some further research will lead to the hinge point; historically in 1894 a young post-graduate student from Cambridge named ‘CTR’ (Charles Thomas Rees) Wilson had spent a couple of weeks as an unpaid volunteer at the meteorological observatory on Ben Nevis.
But now it seems Wilson died in 1895 on Ben Nevis, caught in a thunderstorm, and became merely a footnote. Now the party have a situation to investigate and fix.
Background.
Ben Nevis in Scotland is the tallest mountain in the British Isles at 1,346 metres. It's located at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Lochaber area of the Scottish Highlands, close to the town of Fort William. The Meteorological Observatory was established in 1883, but by the 1890s funding problems led them to use (unpaid) student ‘volunteers’ including Wilson, who spent 08 to 22 September 1894 there, returning the following June where he was caught in an thunderstorm wile on Carn Mor Dearg to the east of Ben Nevis. Historically he ran for it and avoided injury; now it seems something caused him to be struck by lightning and fall to his death.
Completing the scenario.
So what killed poor Wilson? Was it a deliberate act by someone intending to tamper with history? Or did some accidentally make a minor change in events that caused his death?
The latter is a perfect way to have the PCs be responsible; their attempt to save Wilson actually caused his death. Can they escape the twist in time and return history to it's original path?
Good luck.
References.
The Weathermen of Ben Nevis 1883–1904
Ben Nevis – a case study
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
Tokyo 2nd October 1995
Some wrongness is subtle, perceptible only to a Time Lord or time traveller of long experience. Some is as blatant as a still steaming, radioactive crater where a city should be.
The wrongness of Tokyo that October day wasn’t quite that that obvious. But to James Trenchard it was clear here and now. something was very wrong.
He froze at the mouth of the alley where Hex's mostly-reliable TARDIS had materialised and attempted to blend into the shadow while he surveyed the city. He’s been to Tokyo before, “back” in 1995, now four years in the future.
He turned to Neko, clad in the image of a tall Asian woman, joined him, moving as silently as the felines that shared her DNA.
"Something’s wrong. Very wrong. This isn’t Tokyo as it should be".
"Are you sure?".
"Yes. The buildings aren’t right, Tokyo is a city of skyscrapers, maybe not as high as your time but not like this. And there should be far more people". He paused and stared at a small group of men who'd just come into view.
"Plus the soldiers are a give-away".
"You mentioned a poison gas incident, could they be providing additional security?".
"No, those troops aren’t Japanese".
"You may be right", she said, pointing at a poster on a light-pole to one side of the alley's mouth listing Occupation Regulations.
"Bugger".
"Back to the TARDIS and Hex?".
"Yes, and quickly, we seem to be attracting attention".
The wrongness of Tokyo that October day wasn’t quite that that obvious. But to James Trenchard it was clear here and now. something was very wrong.
He froze at the mouth of the alley where Hex's mostly-reliable TARDIS had materialised and attempted to blend into the shadow while he surveyed the city. He’s been to Tokyo before, “back” in 1995, now four years in the future.
He turned to Neko, clad in the image of a tall Asian woman, joined him, moving as silently as the felines that shared her DNA.
"Something’s wrong. Very wrong. This isn’t Tokyo as it should be".
"Are you sure?".
"Yes. The buildings aren’t right, Tokyo is a city of skyscrapers, maybe not as high as your time but not like this. And there should be far more people". He paused and stared at a small group of men who'd just come into view.
"Plus the soldiers are a give-away".
"You mentioned a poison gas incident, could they be providing additional security?".
"No, those troops aren’t Japanese".
"You may be right", she said, pointing at a poster on a light-pole to one side of the alley's mouth listing Occupation Regulations.
"Bugger".
"Back to the TARDIS and Hex?".
"Yes, and quickly, we seem to be attracting attention".
- It doesn't actually matter that much exactly when and where they arrive. The date above is for a group who intend to catch the premiere of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Your players might want to catch the original Godzilla in 1954, or have some completely different reason to visit.
It'll be apparent very quickly that Tokyo is very different from how it should be; the skyscrapers are almost entirely missing, there are fewer people around that one would expect and a general air of poverty, despair and anger. This will become really obvious if they speak to any of the locals, something that might be difficult as anyone not obviously Asian will be actively avoided.
Then there are the omnipresent American military patrols, the lists of occupation regulations and the curfew. There may be sounds of gunfire in the distance.
All this should be enough to attract your players' attention.
But what has changed?
Some research is obviously needed; there is an Internet but it's even less developed than it was historically in 1994 (link) and no internet cafes or stray WiFi signals to pirate so a visit to a bookshop or library will be needed, or discussion with the inhabitants.
A smart player may suggest relocating to somewhere where they're less likely to get shot, and may have less problems with language, censorship and lack of sources.
Assuming the party relocates to somewhere else it doesn't take a huge amount of effort to discover that Japan was invaded in late 1945 by a mix of US, British and Commonwealth troops and has been under occupation since that time. Any good library or bookshop will have several volumes covering Operating Downfall, it was one of the major campaigns of the Second World War. Curiously, while there is discussion of the use of chemical weapons (including captured Nazi nerve gas) and mention of the effects of rice fungus there is no mention of atomic weapons. More study will show that the first atomic bomb was detonated in 1950, after Japan had been subjugated at the cost of fifteen million dead.
- On the subject of biological weapons there's also mention of Japanese attacks on San Francisco and Hawaii with plague bombs.
Obviously something (or someone) has delayed the development of nuclear weapons. But how?
More research will notice that the trend starts before the Second World War; many of the steps on the path that historically led to nuclear weapons happened a few years later. The "annus mirabilis" of 1932 (with the discover of the neutron, the transmutation of light elements, the discovery of the positron, et cetera) never happened; those discoveries happened a few years later.
This trend goes back to Rutherford's transmutation of nitrogen to oxygen; instead of happening in 1918, the experiment occurred in 1923.
Something delayed the development of nuclear physics by several years.
Some further research will lead to the hinge point; historically in 1894 a young post-graduate student from Cambridge named ‘CTR’ (Charles Thomas Rees) Wilson had spent a couple of weeks as an unpaid volunteer at the meteorological observatory on Ben Nevis.
- Wilson was a Scot, a scholarship student at Sidney Sussex college Cambridge where he was the only person to graduate with physics as his main subject in 1892.
But now it seems Wilson died in 1895 on Ben Nevis, caught in a thunderstorm, and became merely a footnote. Now the party have a situation to investigate and fix.
Background.
Ben Nevis in Scotland is the tallest mountain in the British Isles at 1,346 metres. It's located at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Lochaber area of the Scottish Highlands, close to the town of Fort William. The Meteorological Observatory was established in 1883, but by the 1890s funding problems led them to use (unpaid) student ‘volunteers’ including Wilson, who spent 08 to 22 September 1894 there, returning the following June where he was caught in an thunderstorm wile on Carn Mor Dearg to the east of Ben Nevis. Historically he ran for it and avoided injury; now it seems something caused him to be struck by lightning and fall to his death.
Completing the scenario.
So what killed poor Wilson? Was it a deliberate act by someone intending to tamper with history? Or did some accidentally make a minor change in events that caused his death?
The latter is a perfect way to have the PCs be responsible; their attempt to save Wilson actually caused his death. Can they escape the twist in time and return history to it's original path?
Good luck.
References.
The Weathermen of Ben Nevis 1883–1904
Ben Nevis – a case study
Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?
