Post by Catsmate on Apr 28, 2020 19:24:31 GMT
This is more of a vignette than a proper scenario seed but the idea has been buzzing around in my head for a while now and needed to be recorded. I give you:
The Metal Men.
It started, as so many life-long rivalries do, at university. At Cornell1 University in 1924 two young men met and set in motion a chain of events that would end in the horrors of Things Men Were Not Meant To Meddle With.
Anthony Erhart and Dietrich Drexler were barely adults, when they entered college that fall, and from different backgrounds; Anthony was a scion of a well-established family in Massachusetts, with generations long academic history (his parents were a mathematician and physician) while Dietrich Drexler was a German immigrant, not long in the United States, but also the son of a physician, though his father was killed in the Great War
Both were studying physics as their majors, especially the new “modern” physics of particles, radiations and forces. Both had brilliant minds.
Oddly it was at a lecture only peripherally relating to their major field of study; nearing graduation and interested in advanced post-graduate or doctoral fields to study they attended a guest lecture on the theory and experimental practice of the electrical functions of the brain.
They were enthralled and began their own experiments. Even then the later tragedies might have been averted but for the hand of fate. While returning to university on a late autumn evening the car being driven by Dietrich cut out on a lonely stretch of road. Stopped the two found the emergency flashlight was dead2 and they were stranded in the dark.
Seconds later the men saw a circle begin to glow a dozen metres away near the edge of a field, just beyons a low stone wall. The glow continued, without visible source, as the pair stared in amazement. As it brightened a series of bluish electrical discharges arced from the circle of light. After perhaps a minute there was a sudden discharge of electricity in all directions, with tendrils of lightning striking nearby trees and blasting branches.
Anthony and Dietrich took cover behind their car, amazed and terrified in equal measure. Suddenly the lightshow ended, leaving only the ozonic smell and the patches of burned grass.
And the body.
Improvising torches from newspapers, notes and other combustibles in the car, the two men investigated as best they could. The figure was clad in some sort of protective suit, the scientists were familiar enough with that sort of gear to recognise its general nature, even if it was like nothing they’d seen, resembling somewhat a diver’s suit.
It took a few minutes for them to open the bulky suit, separating the helmet from the collar, but they managed it without much difficulty.
Inside was the obviously dead body of a young woman.
She was pretty, with short dark brown hair and grey eyes, her features having, to the observers, an Asiatic cast to them. What struck them more than her race were the devices integrated into her flesh. The collar of the suit she’d worn was connected to sockets in the back of her neck, perhaps linked to her brain. She had no pulse and was not breathing. Anthony tried resuscitation but it had no effect.
Who was she? Where had she come from?
Realising their improvised torches wouldn’t last much longer; the men abandoned their examination and gathered wood from the fields, using their pocket knives and a saw-back engineer’s bayonet from the car as tools. They kindled a fire and resumed their examination.
The suit was composed of some flexible, rubber-like, material with thicker padding in several spots. The small backpack held a number of devices in a storage compartment, as well as containers of compressed air, water and some sort of thick broth; sustenance for the time spent in the suit.
Pouches on the chest, thighs and arms held other devices; a block of some Bakelite material the size of a paperback book, a thin-bladed utility knife of astonishing keenness, a short rod, tubes of some sort of jelly, a device of interlocking circles of metal and a device resembling a large Swiss Army knife that unfolded a multitude of tools.
The contents of the backpack were equally mysterious; a device resembling a handgun, a number of small cylinders and spheres, four boxy devices of different sizes and proportions, something like a pair of binoculars, three larger cylinders the size of still illegal beer bottles and a rolled pouch containing smaller but equally odd devices.
Where has the woman come from?
Both men were interested, in a casual sort of way, in scientifiction, the still new genre of stories of the potential of science. Both were also familiar enough with the limits of known technology to realise this was something outside those. What created that circle of light? How did the suited woman arrive in a field in the back of beyond in New York State? Where was she from? What was she doing here?
She seemed human enough, despite the devices embedded in her body. Could she be, as Wells had written about, a Chronic Argonaut?
A time traveller...
OK that's it so far. It the seed of a scenario, possibly more suited to Call of Cthulhu or Pulp Fantastic, intended for the 1920 or 30s and featuring two scientists, once friends and now rivals3, driven by a desire to understand the technology they once stumbled over and make use of it.
It's got elements of Herbert West - Reanimator (published in 1922 BTW) though they don't appear yet and the opening scene was inspired by The Last Hero (wiki) one of the early Saint books. The suit and the dead occupant came from The Face in The Mirror4
I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to develop this, other than the title which came to me and suggests cybernetic minions, but I have some ideas.
If anyone has any comments, suggestions or ideas please post them or PM me.
Likewise if anyone wants to use the premise, go ahead.
1. Selected for its physics programme. Miskatonic could be substituted...
2. Insert X-Files theme here.
3. A fairly classic Pulp theme.
4. Though I have no plans for angel statues or other suited travellers to appear.
The Metal Men.
It started, as so many life-long rivalries do, at university. At Cornell1 University in 1924 two young men met and set in motion a chain of events that would end in the horrors of Things Men Were Not Meant To Meddle With.
Anthony Erhart and Dietrich Drexler were barely adults, when they entered college that fall, and from different backgrounds; Anthony was a scion of a well-established family in Massachusetts, with generations long academic history (his parents were a mathematician and physician) while Dietrich Drexler was a German immigrant, not long in the United States, but also the son of a physician, though his father was killed in the Great War
Both were studying physics as their majors, especially the new “modern” physics of particles, radiations and forces. Both had brilliant minds.
Oddly it was at a lecture only peripherally relating to their major field of study; nearing graduation and interested in advanced post-graduate or doctoral fields to study they attended a guest lecture on the theory and experimental practice of the electrical functions of the brain.
They were enthralled and began their own experiments. Even then the later tragedies might have been averted but for the hand of fate. While returning to university on a late autumn evening the car being driven by Dietrich cut out on a lonely stretch of road. Stopped the two found the emergency flashlight was dead2 and they were stranded in the dark.
Seconds later the men saw a circle begin to glow a dozen metres away near the edge of a field, just beyons a low stone wall. The glow continued, without visible source, as the pair stared in amazement. As it brightened a series of bluish electrical discharges arced from the circle of light. After perhaps a minute there was a sudden discharge of electricity in all directions, with tendrils of lightning striking nearby trees and blasting branches.
Anthony and Dietrich took cover behind their car, amazed and terrified in equal measure. Suddenly the lightshow ended, leaving only the ozonic smell and the patches of burned grass.
And the body.
Improvising torches from newspapers, notes and other combustibles in the car, the two men investigated as best they could. The figure was clad in some sort of protective suit, the scientists were familiar enough with that sort of gear to recognise its general nature, even if it was like nothing they’d seen, resembling somewhat a diver’s suit.
It took a few minutes for them to open the bulky suit, separating the helmet from the collar, but they managed it without much difficulty.
Inside was the obviously dead body of a young woman.
She was pretty, with short dark brown hair and grey eyes, her features having, to the observers, an Asiatic cast to them. What struck them more than her race were the devices integrated into her flesh. The collar of the suit she’d worn was connected to sockets in the back of her neck, perhaps linked to her brain. She had no pulse and was not breathing. Anthony tried resuscitation but it had no effect.
Who was she? Where had she come from?
Realising their improvised torches wouldn’t last much longer; the men abandoned their examination and gathered wood from the fields, using their pocket knives and a saw-back engineer’s bayonet from the car as tools. They kindled a fire and resumed their examination.
The suit was composed of some flexible, rubber-like, material with thicker padding in several spots. The small backpack held a number of devices in a storage compartment, as well as containers of compressed air, water and some sort of thick broth; sustenance for the time spent in the suit.
Pouches on the chest, thighs and arms held other devices; a block of some Bakelite material the size of a paperback book, a thin-bladed utility knife of astonishing keenness, a short rod, tubes of some sort of jelly, a device of interlocking circles of metal and a device resembling a large Swiss Army knife that unfolded a multitude of tools.
The contents of the backpack were equally mysterious; a device resembling a handgun, a number of small cylinders and spheres, four boxy devices of different sizes and proportions, something like a pair of binoculars, three larger cylinders the size of still illegal beer bottles and a rolled pouch containing smaller but equally odd devices.
Where has the woman come from?
Both men were interested, in a casual sort of way, in scientifiction, the still new genre of stories of the potential of science. Both were also familiar enough with the limits of known technology to realise this was something outside those. What created that circle of light? How did the suited woman arrive in a field in the back of beyond in New York State? Where was she from? What was she doing here?
She seemed human enough, despite the devices embedded in her body. Could she be, as Wells had written about, a Chronic Argonaut?
A time traveller...
OK that's it so far. It the seed of a scenario, possibly more suited to Call of Cthulhu or Pulp Fantastic, intended for the 1920 or 30s and featuring two scientists, once friends and now rivals3, driven by a desire to understand the technology they once stumbled over and make use of it.
It's got elements of Herbert West - Reanimator (published in 1922 BTW) though they don't appear yet and the opening scene was inspired by The Last Hero (wiki) one of the early Saint books. The suit and the dead occupant came from The Face in The Mirror4
I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to develop this, other than the title which came to me and suggests cybernetic minions, but I have some ideas.
If anyone has any comments, suggestions or ideas please post them or PM me.
Likewise if anyone wants to use the premise, go ahead.
1. Selected for its physics programme. Miskatonic could be substituted...
2. Insert X-Files theme here.
3. A fairly classic Pulp theme.
4. Though I have no plans for angel statues or other suited travellers to appear.