[Campaign Idea] The London Trilogy.

[Catsmate]

The London Trilogy.

This started as a part of the title inspirations thread, then the forum software ate my post .
However I remembered most of it and talked it through with my usual gaming group.
It was inspired by the list of Clash song titles¹:

• The Guns of Brixton
• The Fulham Connection
• The Leader
  

It's set in London in the early 1980s, the period of the first Thatcher government, the Hunger Strikes, the Yorkshire Ripper trial, and the transition of Tom Baker to Peter Davison. An era of urban decay, mass unemployment, racial strife and hopelessness. Though this version is worse.
The title is a reference to the books of Colin MacInnes, which were written a generation earlier but were (and are) still relevant.


Part 1 - The Guns of Brixton.
The PCs arrive in South London in the eighties. Specifically in Brixton in June 1981, two months after the Brixton Uprising and before the Summer of Fire starts in earnest, with future riots in Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and London.
The atmosphere around the PCs (especially if they are all white and 'respectable'²) is somewhat tense but not overtly hostile. Depending on your player group they may have no idea of where they are and need to ask ("Brixton 'innit!"). Characters not aware of recent events (i.e. those from the past, far future, aliens et cetera) may be puzzled and can ask the locals, receiving various different versions of the riots. However for the black community, and most young whites, the police and the authorities are not popular.

• This would be the time to decide what happens to the PC's transport. Of course this greatly depends on what they travel in. A TARDIS could materialise, and perhaps blend in, in an alleyway, while a double-decker bus needs more space.
  

While the PCs are refreshing themselves (it's quite warm) in a cafe they hear gunshots nearby; people are startled and panicky, though one of two people may be observed to be more surprised than scared.
Presumably, in the great tradition of Doctor Who, they rush out to investigate and/or assist. It takes a minute or two to locate the source of the shooting, an alleyway off a lane next to the cafe, from which people are exiting rapidly. In a small courtyard there is the body of young white man, casually dressed with short hair, very obviously dead from several shots to his chest.
Cue sirens.

Examination of the body show he was hit by at least three shots, closely spaced in the centre of his chest. The bullets passed through and a knowledge of ballistics or forensic medicine will suggest a short burst from a high-velocity rifle. Not at all a common weapon in '80s Britain³. There is no sign of the weapon, the shooter or any cartridge casings (more forensics will suggest the shots were fired from at least six metres: barely possible within the small courtyard). It's not possible to determine relative position of the shooter and victim without more time and examination.

Then the police arrive. They are unhappy, even hostile⁴. The first responders are two uniformed constables in a car, then a van load of armed police brandishing scoped FAL rifles⁵, then three plainclothes detectives (one an inspector, who takes charge and shouts a lot). Then more uniformed constables (almost all white men, this is 1981 and closer to The Sweeney than Prime Suspect by several years) and a uniformed Chief Superintendent with entourage, and a Scenes of Crime team (after everything has been well trampled).
The PCs are kept apart, not quite suspects. They will be searched, unless they have suitable credentials and object.
Then a group of men in suits to whom the Detective Inspect is almost openly hostile, until quietened by his boss. A perceptive PC or player will wonder who they are....

• They would be the dead undercover detective's boss and colleagues. Special Branch have arrived.
  

How this plays out is up to the Gamemaster and the PC's connections; have they credentials (or psychic paper) to brandish, or contacts to name drop? Any mention of UNIT, or it's senior officers (probably Lethbridge-Stewart is still CO) will startle one of the SB detectives who spins around and looks intently at the PCs

Now I'm going to assume the PCs manage to avoid the hospitality of the local nick, and the risk of falling down stairs a lot, and manage to at least overhear the discussions. They'll learn:

• The undercover officer was Charles Wilson, a DC from Special Branch. He was investigating rumours of weapons being brought in to the borough in quantity. It seems he may have been right.
• The local detectives are miffed that they weren't informed. Feathers are ruffled and are being smoothed.#
• The shots were probably fired from above, a windows overlooking the courtyard. The premises and flats are being searched (hence the shouting). The DI is worried this will start more trouble and a uniformed Chief Inspector supports him. Reinforcements are being summoned⁶.
• The armed FFU officers are uneasy, and covering the access to the courtyard and the windows overlooking it. They haven't safed their weapons.
• Outside the courtyard a large, mostly black, crowd is audible, and occasionally visible.
  

Eventually the PCs will be taken to the station to be questioned and make formal statements. While there a Broadsword⁷ detachment from UNIT arrive to collect them and take them to UNIT's London base. Depending on their connections to UNIT this could go various ways.

• If they've worked with UNIT before (and didn't misbehave) they'll be welcomed.
• They may have worked with UNIT in their personal future but the relative past. Hints for future adventures....
• They may have UNIT credentials from the future.
• They may be able to 'talk the talk'.
  

Whatever happens they are taken into UNIT's confidence and learn:

• The dead detective has UNIT connections, through his brother who served with UNIT before his death in 1979.
• UNIT is aware of rumours swirling around Brixton and other areas regarding weapons. Someone is up to something.
  
• Normally this wouldn't be UNIT business, the Thatcher government is rather hostile to the organisation, but three weeks earlier a Broadsword team witnessed a killing in Hammersmith where an energy weapon was used. They fired at the killer with no visible effect, and he escaped. A car was found and in the boot were dozens of weapons.
• This would be a matter for Special Branch (or Anti Terrorism Command) but the UNIT armourer, Staff Sergeant Travis was unable to identify the weapons. Given his status as a walking, voluble, encyclopedia of firearms this was odd. Further investigations show the weapons match no current designs.
• Hence UNIT is investigating the matter, in parallel with the police. The police are picking up rumours of an organisation operating within the disaffected young, or gangs coming under new leadership, people disappearing and weapons being stockpiled.
  

If they want to see the captured guns they can. They haul consists of:

• Twenty compact sub-machine guns resembling somewhat the MCEM-6 with a folding metal stock. The have British proofmarks and stamps indicating production at Enfield.
  
• Twelve assault rifles resembling the familiar Kalashnikov family but with differences. They have Cyrillic markings and Soviet marks.
• Six bullpup automatic rifles resembling the Janson rifle, again with UK markings and chambered for the"6.9mm NATO" cartridge.
• Six single-use rockets in fibreglass/plastic launch tubes, similar to the US M-72 but with design differences and a diferent rocket.
• Plentiful ammunition, magazines and military ammunition boxes.
  

Another factor concerning UNIT is Osgood's detection array⁸, which is supposed to detect Artron energy from time travellers arriving. It picked up the party's arrival, but over the last couple of months has picked up smaller surges of Artron energy with different characteristics which Osgood cannot identify.
As UNIT is currently without Scientific Advisor⁹, the PCs are asked to help. UNIT will provide resources, accommodation transport and other support¹⁰.

Word soon arrives that the police are going to launch a major sweep through Brixton; it's obvious that this will stir things up. It's suggested that the PC and a Broadsword team enter the area and keep their eyes open (and use some portable sensor devices). Weapons are offered. The players will probably want to be retrieve their transport and move ti to the safety and convenience of UNIT HQ, so they should agree.

When they arrive, in several cars with plainclothes troops as escort, they find chaos. The police are out is force, the streets mix utter emptiness and thronging crowds, openly hostile to the police (and anyone associated with them). The atmosphere has moved from 'tense' to 'oncoming storm'. Eventually it kicks off. Abuse is shouted, truncheons are brandishes, missiles are thrown, police are mobbed, windows broken, street stalls overturned, cars broken into and stolen. Amidst the chaos the party make their way, by discretion or brandished weapons, to where their transport was left.
It's gone.

Now they have to make their way out, through hostile crowds, and hostile police, to the safety of UNIT HQ. In the distance shots are heard




Comments? Criticism? Suggestions? Ideas?






1. For some reason the Beatles titles don't inspire me at all.

2. In thew middle-aged and well dressed conservative sense.

3. Well, not outside of Northern Ireland.

4. Especially if any of the PCs are non-white.

5. Despite the public view the Metropolitan Police have always had access to firearms, though procedures have varied. However the rapid arrival of a van load of the Force Firearms Unit suggests they were rather close....

6. Such as the SPG....

7. UNIT'S plainclothes undercover/detective/intelligence division.

8. That would be Staff Sergeant Tom Osgood, he of the glasses and spiral notebook.

9. The Doctor is "off gallivanting", Elizabeth Klein hasn't been appointed as is currently "unavailable" (if they ask), Anne Travers has been appointed as the Cabinet's chief scientific advisor, Rachel Jensen has retired and is travelling, Liz Shaw is unavailable and Iris Wildthyme hasn't started yet.
It's up to them

10. If the players ask about a bag of gold pieces they've been playing the wrong game.

[Catsmate]

Part 2 - The Fulham Connection
When last we saw our heroes they were making they way through a second (non-historical) round of rioting in Brixton, their time machine having been stolen, heading for the safety of UNIT headquarters and further research into what is going on.

Part two starts back at UNIT the following morning with a brainstorming session, chaired by ALS or if he's off in Geneva, by a suitable senior officer. Wounds have been treated, and anyone seriously injured is in hospital (unless one of the PCs is packing some futuristic medical tech).

What everyone now knows.

• The party's time machine has been stolen. This suggests that their antagonist knows there is something special about it. If they have a tracking device it's showing no signal.
  
• There are at least seven people dead, including three police officers, and over a hundred injured (and probably more that didn't go to hospital). Brixton is not quite a war zone.
• Parallels are being drawn, at the meeting and in the media, with Northern Ireland in 1969 (including comparisons with NICRA¹ and the police). There is a political crisis brewing and talk to deploying troops. The Metropolitan police is receiving tear gas and baton rounds and water cannon.
  
• UNIT is in an awkward situation. It is not popular with the Thatcher administration and is prohibited by UN mandate from meddling in internal political matters. However there is evidence of external meddling in Britain.
• The Artron detector array detected three further surges the previous night, again they do not seem to be caused by conventional time travel, the frequency signatures are wrong, according to Osgood (who has some experience in the area, but acknowledges he's over his head).
• More weapons have been recovered, of the same patterns as before; there is at least one account of a police officer shooting an armed man to no effect, so it's possible body armour is being distributed too.
  

UNIT decides to maintain a low profile with undercover teams combing Brixton as well as they can while prioritising the location of the Artron source. The signal is 'fuzzy' and the equipment available rather primitive but it appears to be from a single source location somewhere in Fulham.
Much of Fulham in the period is in decay, the 'old days' of industry are fading an gentrification is years in the future. There are a lot of abandoned factory sites that would be ideal for some covert operation.

What do the PCs do? They may be involved in three threads of activity:

• Politics: briefing civil servants and politicians regarding events and the oddities. There will be skepticism, except from those who have past experience with UNIT. Anne Travers, now in her forties, will be present in her role as Chief Scientific Advisor to the cabinet and supportive.
  
• Listening: if the PCs wander London they'll hear a range of views. A lot, by by no means all, of the black population consider the rioting justified, a reaction to decades of prejudice, discrimination and official harassment. Others think things have gone too far and want a stop to violence. Some working-class whites approve of the violence against the police, but most support the police. The middle-class views tend to be more pro-police with a liberal streak comparing matters to Northern Ireland. Everyone seems to think further violence is likely.
  
• Investigation: more active enquiries probably don't yield much, the PCs don't fit in and aren't trusted, though if they get access to police prisoners they may find out a few things.
• Science: analysing the data on the Artron surges is frustrating. Osgood has done an excellent job, but he simply doesn't have the technology. He suggests mobile detectors, preferable airborne, to zero-in on the location but that'll take time and approvals from on-high.
  

In the afternoon (I'm going with a default date of Thursday 04JUN1981) there will be a spate of further incidents.

• A phone call to the police will lead an SPG van into an ambush; the driver's skill and the seemingly inexperience of the ambushers will leave three officers injured and a van riddled with bullets, rather than all ten dead. This will slow police response to emergency calls and increase pressure for the deployment of more armed officers.
• A convoy of vans taking prisoners from the divisional stations to court is also ambushed; stolen cars are used to stop the vehicles and the vans attacked. Some prisoners are freed and there is a general melee with over a hundred police and protestors involved.
• A UNIT team investigating Fulham with a mobile detector is attacked and returns fire; one attacker is killed and another injured and captured.
  

An hour or so after the last incident (around 4PM) the PCs are summoned to a mortuary to examine the body. It's a human male, probably aged around twenty five, but sports extensive cybernetic modifications including torso armour that resists rifle fire. The pathologist is baffled (he's not involved with UNIT) and the corpse is taken away for examination.
An examination which suggests that the cybernetics are similar to those used by the Cybermen, but oddly different. The materials used are less sophisticated, little more advanced than current Earth norms, and there is little alteration to the brain. beyond a few implants.
This news will cause the government, at Dr. Travers' urging, to accede to UNIT's request for more resources. A number of Army helicopters will be made available and Osgood's detectors will manufactured in larger number. This will take a few days however.

By now the players should have figured out the skeleton of what's going on. There are incursions from a parallel Earth, one that seems to have access to Cyber technology. This explains the odd Artron signatures (if the players haven't figured this out, have Osgood suggest it).

Collation of intelligence, from the Security Service, police and UNIT sources suggest a network is coalescing in parts of London, and beginning in other cities also. There are fears of large-scale violence, of making parts of the country ungovernable by the civil authorities. No-one doubts the Prime Minister would impose martial law if she feels it necessary. There are effects outside Britain, King Khaled of Saudi Arabia has cancelled his state visit, citing the 'troubled political situation'.
There is also a surge in reactionary violence, attacks by white nationalists and skinheads are noted to be increasing. The National Front is planing a series of marches².

After snatching some rest the PCs are introduced to Osgood's new mobile detector array, of which he is rather proud (the Brig or other officers are more skeptical). It's a repurposed TV detector van, an old Dodge SpaceVan with an antenna on top.
Presumably the PCs volunteer to assist with the tests? Osgood will be present and the van is accompanies by a couple of civilian cars with plainclothes Broadsword personnel, with Land Rovers of heavily armed squaddies nearby.

And it works.
Around midnight the main detector array³ gets a signal. While stopping for a cup of tea, in a car park that conveniently has an all-night cafe-van, the team is attracted by the van driver shouting. A corporal with a headset listens and draws lines on a map, lines that intersect not far from where the van is parked.

• They're in old Fulham, near the river, an area that was once a thriving hive of small industry, most now shuttered as industry moved from the city. In thirty years no local will be able to afford an apartment here, but now no-one wants the place.

Tea is abandoned, or gulped, as the subaltern in charge of the operation makes an plan, assisted by his sergeant a reassuringly competent and experienced old trooper.
Weapons are checked, backup summoned, just in case.

• There are three cars plus the van. Each car has a driver and three soldiers, one has the lieutenant, sergeant and radio-operator and the other six troopers. The van has Osgood (nominally in charge of it), the driver, radio-operator and room for three more soldiers or PCs. Other PCs may be substituted for soldiers in the cars.
• Everyone is armed. The troops have pistols with Sterlings and a couple of the new prototype Enfield rifles, available plus assorted grenades (fragmentation, flash/bangs, smoke, tear gas). The troops in the Land Rovers have FAL rifles and a couple of GPMGs.
  

The next half-hour should be nerve wracking as Osgood homes on the signal, with it shutting off and reappearing a few times. However eventually he locks in on it. A factory complex surrounded by abandoned buildings, with new signage and refurbished fencing. The signs state that "Lander Industries" have acquired the site.

• The PCs may want to investigate, or even launch an attack. The lieutenant might be persuaded but UNIT HQ orders them to return. Further planning is needed.
• If any PCs do decide to poke around let them. They will disappear quietly and the team is ordered to break off and return rather than attempting to find them.
  

Back at base the team reports to the CO and plans made. UNIT is over-stretched and more forces are needed, as is better intelligence. The next day (Friday) will be a mix of investigating Lander Industries, finding plans for the factory complex and reconnaissance from a distance and preparation for a helicopter flight that night with a Lynx fitted with a thermal imager as well as Osgood's detector.

Friday arrives after some much needed sleep. The morning newspapers are full of the unrest, pushing off the problems of Northern Ireland and the new political landscape, with stories of incidents and much speculation on causes and predictions for the future, varying depending on the paper's political leaning.
 
By 10PM it's dark and the helicopter takes off on it's mission. In addition to the three crew there is room for five, plus Osgood (who doesn't like helicopters) and the equipment. After a few test flights the helo lands at Battersea to await a signal. (It has about two-and-a-half-hours loiter fuel over London).

Again the signal is detected around midnight and the helicopter launches to investigate. Flying a 'figure-of-eight' to avoid notice Osgood narrows the signal to a particular warehouse. The thermograph shows a lot of heat from that building, but more worryingly over a hundred human sized heat sources scattered around the complex.
By 2AM the PCs are back at base with Osgood and the video footage of the building, a mix of thermographic and low-light imagery.

The next day, Saturday is devoted to planning an assault. The possible numbers and firepower that may be available at the target is worrying, but UNIT has faced Daleks and Cybermen⁴.
In addition to its own forces an Army cavalry detachment has been assigned to UNIT, with armoured cars (Fox, Ferret and Saladin) made available. UNIT's own armoury has some sets of heavy body armour (from recovered Cybermen) and laser rifles available.
Finally a small force will be landed from the air using six Lynx helicopters.

• The Gamesmaster will need to improvise the assault plans and action.
  

Further intelligence has been amassed with references to a person calling himself "The Leader" who seems to be behind the current situation. More worryingly are incidents in London: an attempt to attack the New Scotland Yard building (still at 8-10 Broadway) with anti-tank rockets was stopped but there have been two further cyborgs involved in shootings, one of whom was shot dead by a police sniper. One of the attacks was at a bullion depository, where two people were killed by a heavily armed group, believed to me cyborgs, using military tactics (including tear gassing the streets and jamming radio and telephone signals). More than one-and-a-half tonnes of gold ingots were taken⁵.

The raid is staged from a warehouse about four kilometres from the target, with the armoured cars brought there on trailers during the day. Over two hundred troops are involved, plus about fifty who'll land by helicopter.

• This is another element the Gamesmaster will need to improvise. I recommend the finales for various Bond films for inspiration.
• I am going to assume that the PCs, or most of them, land with the first wave by helicopter.
  

Resistance is light at first but soon becomes heavier and better organised. Radio communication is impossible, there is a barrage jammer in operation. The defending force are well armed, but only a few of them, in dark uniforms bearing a rosette insignia, seem to be trained soldiers.

When the party have fought their way to the warehouse that houses the Artron energy source they'll find the heaviest line of resistance. A force of at least thirty cybernetically augmented troops with assault rifles, grenades and energy weapons. The assault pauses while reinforcements are brought up (with heavy machine guns, rockets and vehicle cannon), perhaps giving the PCs (and a few UNIT troops) the opportunity to sneak in, in the classic Who manner.

They arrive inside on an upper gantry level, overlooking a open space crammed with electronic equipment, crates, a mental shipping container and lots of people working frantically. But the centrepiece is a large, semi-circular hoop of metal tubing would with thick clusters of cables and studded with boxes at intervals⁶.

The gantry on which the team is crouching is open and it's not long before they're noticed,. facing heavy firepower they're froced to surrender. A few messily killed NPCs may help suggest discretion being the better part of suicide, plus a villain monologue is now thematically appropriate.

The team is disarmed and escorted to the person in charge, The Leader. He's a tall, blonde man in his forties perhaps, wearing a well-cut black uniform somewhat reminiscent of the SS with with the rosette insignia. In addition to a large pistol holstered at his waist he has a second in a shoulder holster and a sheathed sword, he brandishes a riding crop⁷. His personal guards are more of the cyborgs, though more noticeably 'enhanced' with integrated helmets and visors. They carry energy rifles.
There is one incongruous feature that the PCs will notice; while most of The Leader's force is male and white, there is a young Asian woman wearing a red cheongsam dress near him, but apart from the bustle of activity. She seems quiet and submissive and he does not refer to her at all.

The PCs, and any surviving UNIT troops, can ask questions. However The Leader seems distracted, and receives reports from minions as they watch. However after a few minutes her turns to them and launches into a rant about how they, like any other obstacles, will be swept from his path, that his troops will soon be pouring through the 'portal' et cetera.
The PCs will probably be considering a spot of sabotage; however they're facing a dozen levelled automatic weapons. After a couple of minutes of ranting there will be a cry of success from one of the ubiquitous technicians. The Leader smiles and shouts for power to the transferred; a minion tells him that it'll only take a few minutes more.

The PCs can observe the setup and see that the shipping container has a number of heavy power cables coming from it, which connect to various other pieces of equipment and disappears out of the warehouse. Three however connect to a large (2 x 2 x 3m) box that is surrounded by anxious techie types monitoring dials and readouts with a nervous air.

While they're contemplating matter there is an explosion for nearby, evidently UNIT has fought through the defenses and is nearby. The Leader screams that no delay is acceptable and draws a bulky handgun, which he waves fairly pointlessly as everyone seems to be doing their utmost already.
If anyone is watching her the Asian woman has almost unnoticeably drifted to a table and picked something up, something she holds behind her back.
Suddenly the warehouse shakes as the door is blasted inwards.

The Leader blanches and orders his guards to take up positions to repel the attack. He points his sidearm at the party and drops the whip to draw his second weapon.
Behind him the portal begins to crackle and hum, there are electric discharges (which may fry an unfortunate minion) but after a few seconds it stabilises into a shimmering image of another room, where dozens of cyborg troops can be seen.
The image distracts everyone for a few seconds and The Leader emits a "Hah" of triumph, as a Saladin armoured car smashes in the remains of the door and sprays the room with machine gun fire. A familiar face⁸ pops out of the roof hatch and operates a second machine gun.

• Give the PCs a chance to drop to the floor.
  

Behind the Saladin, using it for cover as well as a battering-ram, a force of UNIT troops in khaki painted armour suits enter, as quickly as their bulk protection allows. The armour protects them from small arms fire, but not the plasma pulses from the energy rifles.

The Leader looks around, suddenly stricken as his forces are brought down. Many of the technicians are wounded but the portal is still active. He brandishes his pistols at the part and seems about to fire.
Until the Asian woman intervenes. She'd picked up a dirk from the table and now stabs The Leader repeatedly in the back.
Wounded he drops one of the gun and turns top face her, fending off another attack and tries to bring his remaining weapon to bear on her. This is the suggested time for PC heroism.

After losing the second gun, The Leader staggers towards the now flickering portal and plunges through, followed by a suddenly frantic mass of minions. While some are passing though the image flickers and dies, leaving a number of bisected corpses bleeding on the floor.

The Asian woman drops her knife and approaches the PCs. She says "My name is Ying Chang, thank you for saving me".



Comments? Criticisms? Suggestions (especially from those with a better knowledge of London than I do)?




1. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (wiki) a group that campaigned for Catholic equality in NI and against the then rampant religious discrimination and political gerrymandering.

2. Historically it did stage a march in Coventry in June, which was preceded by clashes between white power skinheads and black people, there were ninety arrests.

3. Which is, in case anyone asks, at fixed points around the city. The Post Office Tower for example..,.

4. And taken heavy casualties from them.

5. Worth about eleven million pounds them.

6. Think StarGate, but without the technological elegance. Rather more of a lash-up.

7. I'm aiming for a bombastic stereotype here. If you've seen Things To Come then Rudolf the Victorious (the swaggering Boss of Everytown played by Ralph Richardson) then that's an excellent template. Or indeed Benito Mussolini.

8. The Brig perhaps, or someone they've befriended.

[Catsmate]

Part 3 - An Interlude with Worldbuilding.
Revelations and Exposition. Or what is going on.

We now skip forward a few days after the Fulham raid. Much evidence was gathered papers, gadgets, computers and other items  being examined. Bodies are being dissected. Prisoners interrogated. The most useful of these is Ying Chang, the young Asian woman who stabbed The Leader, though some of the abandoned technicians are also talkative, the soldiers less so and the cyborgs not at all¹.

UNIT have learned quite a lot, some good and some not good at all. A summary:

• The incursion is from a parallel Earth, where it’s also 1981, but that world’s history diverged at least forty years before. Britain is a desolate, factionalised, hellhole.
• The Leader is one of the major warlords in that world's England but doesn't have nearly the resources of a functioning nation state to back him. He's also got problems at home with competition, dissent and a French dominated European Alliance.
• Piecing together the bits that have been given by the prisoners it seems that Earth Six² duffered a number of alien incursions and other events that have devastated the country.
• Starting with the Shoreditch Incident of ’63 which was far more intense and saw no wandering Gallifreyan assisting. There were large scale battles on the streets (and in the air) of London between two factions of alien war machines and British forces. The city is evacuated piecemeal, but there were serious civilian casualties, mainly from orbital strikes and a couple of crashed atmospheric craft. The Intrusion Counter-measures Group is overwhelmed and reinforced by regular British forces (employing AFVs, artillery and air strikes) and a detachment from Torchwood providing scientific assistance.
• The city was left in chaos, there was lasting unrest. Rumours of fascists aligning with the aliens and counter-rumours blaming blacks. Globally the world was shaken and a summit was held regarding planetary defense; the truth could not be hidden.
• 1966 saw The Rise of The Machine, a cooperative, international, computer system was instituted with early artificial intelligence: WOTAN. Unfortunately WOTAN developed its own agenda and succeeded in controlling much of Britain by auditory hypnosis. There was wide spread fighting in Britain between disorganised human forces and WOTAN’s army of war machines, Radiomen³ and hypnotised humans. 
• The rest of the world saw limited effects thanks to General Sakharov’s decision to forcibly disconnect the computer and other connections to the UK. There was limited intervention to assist the UK; the US deploys barrage radio jammers on it’s bases in Britain, and on aircraft and ships, and there are air-strikes on WOTAN complexes from bases in Britain and Europe. However this merely contains the problem.
• Eventually, with WOTAN deploying more subtle forms of mind-control technology (an internal surgical implant) on infiltrators ‘escaping’ Britain, France has enough and launches a nuclear strike on London⁴ and WOTAN’s base in Colchester with a third weapon detonated high to generate an EMP effect.
• However the end of WOTAN saw Britain in chaos and the breakdown of civil authority; most troops, the usual nucleus for central control, are dead or mentally damaged. There are food shortages and outbreaks of disease, which quickly become full blown famine and plague. Several million people are dead, and more are brain damaged from the effects of WOTAN's influence. Other are left susceptible to mental influence.
• The loss of central government means that when the 1967 North Sea storm⁵ hits Britain the flood defenses are completely overwhelmed; thousands die, a hundred thousand are displaced and more than a thousand square kilometres of land is permanently flooded. Much productive farmland is contaminated with salt.
• While the UN and EA discussed assistance and intervention there were two further incidents in 1968: an attempted cyborg (‘Machine People’) invasion was beaten off globally by UN forces. However they established bases in the Solar system (there are on-going clashes with UNIT's nascent Deep Space Force) and still trade with some factions in the former UK (and, it’s suspected, elsewhere) technology for slaves.
• The other incident saw parts of London occupied by strange robot-monsters who seem to serve something infesting the, mainly flooded and non-functional, old Underground system. Parts of London are still effected in 1981.
• Earth Six's Britain in 1981 is isolated and blockaded, maritime patrols to keep people in, with well fortified EA and US bases acting as monitoring centres. Scotland is independent, with a new 'Caledonian Wall' to protect it's southern border. Northern Ireland is a UN protectorate. Wales has a mostly functional government though it is distrusted due to Torchwood influence. In England warlordism is rife, similar to the era of The Anarchy and the chaos that accompanied the English Civil War⁶.
  
• The Leader rose to power by the usual mix of brutality, charisma and stabbing erstwhile allies in the back before they did it to him. He controls much of south-east England, bordering on the abandoned city of London. He has a little empire with mining, farming, fishing and manufacturing. He has access to significant military forces, brigade strength, including some AFVs, artilery and aircraft. Plus some nuclear weapons.
  
• One the factors in his rise to power was n event in 1973 when an operational Torchwood facility in the Midlands, experimenting with time travel to try and alter the past, attracted what they thought were time travellers. In fact they were scouts from a parallel Earth. Only one survived (and not for long) but three backpack 'hoppers' were recovered. Some of the leaders of that Torchwood faction⁷ decided to investigate paratemporal travel.
• Torchwood contacted The Leader, then just one of the principal warlords of England, and a bargain was made. Those remnants of Torchwood helped him, including with a biological weapon, and be supported their crash research programme, including stealing a compact nuclear generator.
• Their methods of paratemporal travel is primitive. Significant transfers require a portal, which must exist on both worlds. Scouts are displaced from Earth Six to others by being 'pushed' by the potral and using backpack hoppers to return; several of those dispatched die or disappear (or flee).
• Ying Chang thinks she's about twenty but isn't sure, her memories are vague. She's been The Leader's slave and plaything for several years, purchased from a travelling slaver.
• The Leaders plans was to foment unrest in Britain and stage a take-over using local military forces, mind-controlled with a variant of WOTAN's technique, as the muscle for a coup to 'Restore Order'⁸. She's unsure if he has additional bases on this Earth.
  

So, what next? UNIT will want to ensure there are no further incursions, which probably means eliminating The Leader. This means travelling to Earth Six.

The portal was captured, if damaged, so can they re-jig it to work again?

• Cue Osgood getting hurt in the obligatory overload explosion.
  

Much bench-thumping and SP expenditure will be needed. Specifically the team will need to:
1. Get the portal set up and functional.
2. Examine and duplicate the captured backpack hopper.
3. Configure the portal to send the strike team through, into the correct universe (hence using the portal as a guidepath).


OK, that's the backstory for the trilogy. Part four ('The Leader') will cover Operation Counterstrike.


Comments?








1. They didn't surrender. A couple were captured alive, but seriously injured. They're currently drugged and basically dying given the lack of expertise in working with such cybernetics.

2. This is not UNIT's first contact with parallel Earths.

3. Expendable troops with mind-control implants directed by radio. Think Robomen but better equipped.

4. The Force de dissuasion was five years earlier on Earth Six.

5. Worse than the historical storm and floods of 1953.

6. Which saw central government lost control of much of the country leaving local gentry in control, hence the rise of things like witchcraft trials.

7. The organisation is fragmented, with different groups pursuing different agendas, trying to erase recent history, trying to fix the current problems et cetera, mixed with nationalism and imperial nostalgia.

8. Such coups did feature in the media of the 1970s and 1980s, e.g. 1990 and The Guardians.

[grinch]

Very interesting so far.

It does make me wonder of course depending on how advanced it became during the brief Rise of the Machine whether a fragment of WOTAN might have survived somewhere on some backup system. I could see a fragment of it even serving as an alternate version of BOSS where it’s data has been corrupted giving it more of a personality and a love for theatrics.

In fact, if one were to find a way to reactivate WOTAN it might actually serve to add another wild card among the many factions already at play here. Many of whom were old enough to remember its initial rule back in the ‘60s might even see it as a messianic figure. Of course, whether WOTAN would actually act as an ally towards those involved in its resurrection or have some ulterior motive would be up for the GM to decide. Depending on how scrambled he’s become he might just be content with overseeing a small colony somewhere.

[Catsmate]

Jun 23, 2021 10:30:48 GMT grinch said:

Very interesting so far.

Thank you, I'm glad you find it interesting. Part four should be around tomorrow.

Jun 23, 2021 10:30:48 GMT grinch said:

It does make me wonder of course depending on how advanced it became during the brief Rise of the Machine whether a fragment of WOTAN might have survived somewhere on some backup system. I could see a fragment of it even serving as an alternate version of BOSS where it’s data has been corrupted giving it more of a personality and a love for theatrics.

Oh yes, there is a fair bit of advanced technology floating around Britain⁶, from Torchwood's collections, from the various incidents, from WOTAN and being acquired from the Cybermen.

Which means there are small, very deniable, operations being carried out by UNISON, the USA, EA, Soviets and pretty much everyone else you can imagine to acquire new tech. (One of my SOs has been playing a bit of Osprey's Zona Alfa and it leaked in.)
Including, for example, the Spanish who acquired Torchwood's archive and lab facility in Gibraltar when they annexed the Rock and are engaged in trade with Atlantis (one of them anyway) while officially supporting UNISON...

There could well be a return of WOTAN, or some mutation of it. In fact Torchwood Wales, which seems to exert a disturbing level of control over that country; they could well be using variations on WOTAN's techniques, be allied to it, or be it's pawns....

Jun 23, 2021 10:30:48 GMT grinch said:

In fact, if one were to find a way to reactivate WOTAN it might actually serve to add another wild card among the many factions already at play here. Many of whom were old enough to remember its initial rule back in the ‘60s might even see it as a messianic figure. Of course, whether WOTAN would actually act as an ally towards those involved in its resurrection or have some ulterior motive would be up for the GM to decide. Depending on how scrambled he’s become he might just be content with overseeing a small colony somewhere.

Exactly
It's not impossible that WOTAN, or several WOTANs, exist and are scheming, perhaps infiltrating UNISON. WOTAN's hypnosis left lingering effects, some people are more susceptible to authoritarian leaders because of it, while others are actually insane.
In fact a 2020s sequel could head in the direction of Rise of the Machines or Reign of Steel with AIs competing to control the planet.


Earth⁶ started as merely as a base for the incursion (inspired a bit by The Time Travellers and Things To Come) but my foray into worldbuilding got somewhat out of hand. And rather darker and more apocalyptic that I'd planned for too, up there with my version of The Changes.

[Catsmate]

Part 4 - The Leader

After a few days of planning, construction of electronic devices, expenditure of Story Points and much bench-thumping, UNIT's grandiosely named Operation CounterStrike is ready to go.
Probably.

UNIT, the police and the UK's Security Service are busy cleaning up the remains of The Leader's plans, arresting and interning people, and collecting weapons and other stuff.

Osgood and Anne Travers (who was drafted in to assist), in conjunction with the PCs¹, have cobbled together a method that they're sure will safely transfer a small strike team to Earth⁶, and retrieve them.
Well fairly sure. Volunteers only².
 
The setup consists of a modified portal that will (hopefully) tunnel through interstitial space-time and direct the team, who'll be wearing copies of the backpack dimension hopper for protection, through to Earth⁶.
Because of the limited number of hoppers available the team will be limited to <NUMBER> of members commanded by a UNIT officer³ with the PCs along for technical assistance.

• The value of <NUMBER> is up to the Gamesmaster. This will depend on what kind of scenario she's planning; combat heavy might mean more UNIT troops, while a game focussed on the PCs might only have them and a couple of UNIT people.
  

There's a spare hopper to allow for the retrieval of the PC's transport. This may require a degree of fudging; a TARDIS could probably travel home under it's own power⁴, while other craft might need to be pushed/pulled back by the combination of hopper and portal.

The Gamemaster may wish to split the party, with some left back 'home' (or playing a second set of characters) while the others venture into the unknown. This is a give-away to the players that Something Will Happen but can be a useful way to 'split screen' the scenario.

The portal and hoppers allow only as much equipment as the Gamesmaster wised to be brought; it could be 'only what you can carry' or a couple of loaded Landys with extra gear.

• In fact it's possible that, for extra tension, that Osgood's version of the hopper needs the steel cage or generating capacity of a Land Rover to work.
  

Once they arrive a device will be deployed to generate a carrier signal across the dimensions, letting UNIT maintain a lock on that universe amongst the googols of possibilities in the quantum foam. It's battery powered and should last a couple of weeks.

• Insert joke about Japanese electronics here....
  

When the team wishes to return home they transmit a signal and the portal will be activated, in conjunction with the hoppers this will drag them back.
Probably.


So, after a final day of planning, packing and preparation (including briefing the team with the information in part three) the portal is ready to be activated. It's after dark ('less solar radiation to interfere with the signal') and they're in a large building at some UNIT or military base⁵, waiting for the portal to be powered up. The Brig is there to give last minute advice and encouragement.
There is a certain moritūrī tē salūtant vibe.

The portal is powered up, there are electrical sparks and discharges⁷. The PCs walk or drive through the rip between the universes.

---

This is a good time to mention that much of the information presented in UNITs briefing is somewhat inaccurate.
OK, Earth⁶ is as described but, as the more paranoid player may have surmised, Ying Chang has been lying through her remarkably well cared-for teeth.

She wasn’t just The Leaders’s slave and plaything, she was the brains behind the whole project. And she's not exactly human.
Ying was 'acquired' by Torchwood in the sixties, as a baby, following an illegal incursion into China from Hong Kong; part of a human augmentation project the Chinese were running using alien technology. She’s partly psychic and able to manipulate emotions to a degree. She was indoctrinated into Torchwood but, being sociopathic, it didn’t work very well.
She lived through the chaos of the Incursions and The Troubles as Britain began to break apart, in an atmosphere of Torchwood's brand of imperialism. But her loyalty her purely to herself; while The Leader dreamed of conquest, and others planned to ally with other Britains to create a dimension spanning empire, Ying planned on gaining power for herself.

Her plans are in flux; this world has many opportunities for someone like her (especially if she can establish herself in UNIT) but she’s invested a lot of time into her portal project. So she runs three schemes in parallel

• Helping UNIT to travel to her world; hopefully once they’ve removed The Leader (and she was tiring of his bombastic style) the UK government may be induced to assist its counterpart? With her as a suitable Prime Minister? Just for the interim of course, until normal governance can be restored.
  
• Infiltrating and manipulating UNIT personnel, and any suitable people of power she can access, creating a power-base for herself if she decides to remain.
• Gathering minions, from the survivors of Brixton
  and elsewhere, and creating a new secret organisation and base where she can continue her
  plans if necessary.

If Ying accompanies the team to Earth⁶ she'll be careful to avoid contact with people⁸ who know the truth about her position there while assisting the team to carry out her plans.
If she remains behind she'll be scheming; using her wiles on UNIT staff, civil servants and government ministers. Selectively warning The Leader's minions and allowing some top escape. Trying to acquire a new base of operations. Learning about this world, so similar but so different⁹.

---

OK, that's the setup for Operation CounterStrike. The finale should be up tomorrow. As always comments and suggestions are welcome.












1. Who hopefully have a Time Lord or other experienced or skilled time traveller among them.

2. I'm assuming that by 1981 it won't be 'unmarried men only'.

3. Not the Brigadier, Geneva have decreed he stay home. Just in case....

4. With optionally a few humorous interludes on other parallel Earths.

5. Sufficiently far out to manage possible accidents.

6. This footnote is not in use.

7. Think StarGate mixed with Highlander.

8. Or kill them.

9. They don't have Orion drive spacecraft...

[greyhame]

Any word on when you might have time to finish this off?

[Catsmate]

Jul 22, 2021 21:41:07 GMT greyhame said:

Any word on when you might have time to finish this off?

Hopefully over the weekend I'll be able to get the finish started. I got a bit distracted.
There are a few bits I want to alter/fix, and retcon, plus more Earth⁶ stuff to add, based on discussion with my gaming groups.


Also there's currently a small paw being waved over my keyboard.....

[greyhame]

Thank you.
I can't find the words to say how much you ideas are appreciated, they are just so fantastic.

[Catsmate]

Jul 23, 2021 15:20:10 GMT greyhame said:

Thank you.
I can't find the words to say how much you ideas are appreciated, they are just so fantastic.

Thank you, I'm really glad you like what I write.

[Catsmate]

Apologies, the actual part 5 isn't done yet due to feedback and stuff I want to incorporate. Here's a teaser.
Also I've retconned 'UNIT⁶' to 'UNISON', partially to reduce confusion and partially because I like the name...

Part 4.1

Good King John¹.
Group Captain John King, RAF, was born in 1920 and served as an RAF pilot during the Second World War², rising to the rank of Wing Commander, being credited with fourteen kills and receiving the DFC twice. After the war he wasn't demobbed like so many others but was retained as part of Victor Goddard's 'Special Group' that studied Britain's share of recovered Nazi technology and investigated Soviet efforts in aircraft design and spaceflight. And spied on the French and their nascent 'European Concord' too of course.
Goddard's group, later the 'Intrusion Countermeasures Group', spent the 1950s investigating various oddities, encountering several aliens and fighting the continuing war against the government and civil service.
Until 1959 and that business in south Wales.

With the assistance of the RAF Regiment on the ground, and some governmentally unauthorised aerial engagements, they finally had proof, not just that intelligent, star-faring aliens exited, but that they had hostile intentions against Earth.
The shake-up was immense, but handled very quietly. Goddard was forced out. to appease the politicians whom he'd disobeyed, but retained as an external consultant. The ICG got more funding and authority, despite Mountbatten's attempt to put the RN in charge of Britain's defenses against attacks from space. Torchwood was to be integrated.
Woomera was expanded and a crash programme had Brown in space within two years, only a little behind the Soviets and Americans, and a month ahead of the French.
So when signals were picked up in London in late '63 they thought they were ready.
They weren't.

Those damned alien machines massacred the squaddies, and shot down the Kestrels and Lightnings. It was only because they were more interested in fighting each other that the ICG survived.
And what very, very, few people knew was the utter failure of the attempted nuclear strike. Three tactical weapons simply failed to fission, leaving a messy clean-up.
And now everyone knew about the aliens. But not everything.

The Geneva Conference was held. The major powers reluctantly gave up some of their secrets; yes they'd all has 'encounters', recovered alien objects and knew bits and pieces. Hammarskjöld managed the seeming impossible and got them to agree to a UN agency having access to everything³, and integrated control of Earth's nascent defenses.
UNISON was born, and absorbed most of the ICG's survivors. Including Group Captain King.

Over the next three years UNISON became a real agency, with worldwide operations and plans for the future; orbital bases, moon based interceptors, a deep space tracking system, rapid response capabilities on Earth. To facilitate cooperation the WOTAN project was initiated; it was to usher in a new age of global unity. Even the Soviets and both sets of Chinese bought in.
And over a sunny summer week it fell apart.

Britain was devastated by The Rise of The Machine, with millions succumbing to WOTAN's 'hypnosound' auditory hypnosis and used as slaves or cannon fodder. Thousands were converted into the horrific Radiomen and assisted the War Machines in the slaughter. Britain's forces were disorganised and it was Sakharov’s decision that saved the rest of the world.
Yes UNISON coordinated the interventions, but they failed to save Britain.
Millions starved, or died of disease or were worked to death by the machines.
Then the French nuked London and Colchester.

Foreign aid was slow to come; the problem was too big and too scary, no-one was sure if WOTAN was actually destroyed or merely lying low, infiltrating agents into other countries for the next attempt.
King remembered seeing the refugee boats being sunk in the Channel, men and women machine-gunned in the water, 'just in case'.

He was in Oxford when it happened, recruiting for the Scientific Intelligence Division. He'd found some good possibilities for UNISON when the crisis began, including the sister of his aide Alun Travers. She was the one who saved them all, understanding the nature of the threat. They convinced the university and the town to 'fort up' and prepare for the worst.
They survived, though what he had to do still gives King nightmares.

That was fifteen years ago and now King is pretty-much the undisputed leader of Oxford and its environs. He's created more than a fortress, there are farms, schools, factories, laboratories, hospitals and more.
Technically he still works for UNISON, and he keeps in contact, but practically he's the ruler of an independent kingdom.
The university defers to him on most matters, and he;s sensible enough to make use of their skills. His struggle to maintain technology and a recognizable version of the 'British way of life' in Oxford has succeeded, the town is an oasis of peace, cilisation and calm in a land torn by warlords. They're slowly and cautiously civilising outlying areas.
But he still weeps for Britain, and the millions who've died.


Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?






1. As opposed to the other one.

2. Not that different to other war.

3. Well, almost everything.

[greyhame]

So far, it seems like the Doctor never existed in this reality, and yet Torchwood does🤔 Did he actually exist and Torchwood killed him in his 1st incarnation (before the Warmachines), or did he never exist/never left Gallifrey and Torchwood was formed for a different reason?

[Catsmate]

Jul 24, 2021 22:45:45 GMT greyhame said:

So far, it seems like the Doctor never existed in this reality, and yet Torchwood does🤔 Did he actually exist and Torchwood killed him in his 1st incarnation (before the Warmachines), or did he never exist/never left Gallifrey and Torchwood was formed for a different reason?

He may (or may not) have existed, I haven't actually decided . Of course it could have been a different Doctor, such as from Unbound.

Given the deuterocanonical predecessors to Torchwood/UNIT et cetera (the Shadow Directory, Legion of Smoke, Secret Congress...) there probably was some sort of agency handling weird stuff long before Torchwood. Perhaps in this reality it was founded by Prince Albert after a certain incident involving a werewolf cult without the appearance of the Doctor, and built on earlier groups? A spin-off from the Lunaticks perhaps, or Dr. Dee?

[grinch]

Jul 25, 2021 8:40:24 GMT Catsmate said:

Jul 24, 2021 22:45:45 GMT greyhame said:

So far, it seems like the Doctor never existed in this reality, and yet Torchwood does🤔 Did he actually exist and Torchwood killed him in his 1st incarnation (before the Warmachines), or did he never exist/never left Gallifrey and Torchwood was formed for a different reason?

He may (or may not) have existed, I haven't actually decided . Of course it could have been a different Doctor, such as from Unbound.

Given the deuterocanonical predecessors to Torchwood/UNIT et cetera (the Shadow Directory, Legion of Smoke, Secret Congress...) there probably was some sort of agency handling weird stuff long before Torchwood. Perhaps in this reality it was founded by Prince Albert after a certain incident involving a werewolf cult without the appearance of the Doctor, and built on earlier groups? A spin-off from the Lunaticks perhaps, or Dr. Dee?

Maybe this universe’s version of the Doctor was actually caught by the Time Lords sometime during his First incarnation and taken back to Gallifrey? Who knows what ultimate fate befell him, Susan, Ian and Barbara though after that. 

I do like the idea of Torchwood having existed sometime prior to the Victorian era though. John Dee could have had visions of other worlds and celestial spheres and that’s what lead to this universes version of Torchwood being created. 

[Catsmate]

Jul 25, 2021 18:44:36 GMT grinch said:

Jul 25, 2021 8:40:24 GMT Catsmate said:

He may (or may not) have existed, I haven't actually decided . Of course it could have been a different Doctor, such as from Unbound.

Given the deuterocanonical predecessors to Torchwood/UNIT et cetera (the Shadow Directory, Legion of Smoke, Secret Congress...) there probably was some sort of agency handling weird stuff long before Torchwood. Perhaps in this reality it was founded by Prince Albert after a certain incident involving a werewolf cult without the appearance of the Doctor, and built on earlier groups? A spin-off from the Lunaticks perhaps, or Dr. Dee?

Maybe this universe’s version of the Doctor was actually caught by the Time Lords sometime during his First incarnation and taken back to Gallifrey? Who knows what ultimate fate befell him, Susan, Ian and Barbara though after that. 

I do like the idea of Torchwood having existed sometime prior to the Victorian era though. John Dee could have had visions of other worlds and celestial spheres and that’s what lead to this universes version of Torchwood being created. 

Well as we've discussed here before, once there's enough government to have an internal security/police force someone will notice the weird stuff and there will be the core of an organisation that investigates this kind of stuff. The EU had the Legion of Smoke in the Roman Empire, the Shadow Directory in Revolutionary France and the Special Congress in the post-independence USA, plus LONGBOW for the League of Nations and HAVOC for post-WW2 Britain.

The RCC would have such a group, perhaps based on the later Legion of Smoke (the Byzantines could likely have acquired some of the records and artefacts too); Charlemagne's Paladins could have a similar role as would the network of couriers/investigators maintained by the Islamic Caliphate.

In my view these organisations can be very useful in gaming, occasionally acting to assist or impede the PCs. A time traveller may be contemptuous of the locals ('ephemerals') but those locals may have encountered others and be surprisingly prepared...

Wrt to Britain specifically, the country has a history of secret intelligence/security organisations dating back centuries; Walsingham and Dee, the Secret Office and Secret Department, the Survey of India and more (my favourite is Edward Welles, Bishop of Bath and Wells and Secret Decipherer to the King).
Torchwood could have been just the latest iteration of such groups, aided by better communications and more centralisation of government.

[greyhame]

Did you ever manage to complete this scenario?
(No rush, I just loved this idea - I might even trap my players in the alternate universe for a while!)

[Catsmate]

Nov 9, 2021 16:48:24 GMT greyhame said:

Did you ever manage to complete this scenario?
(No rush, I just loved this idea - I might even trap my players in the alternate universe for a while!)

To be honest I'd forgotten about it, swept up in other projects. However given my Covid mandated break I might have a bash at completing it. IIRR I have more noted filed away.

[Catsmate]

I ATE'NT DEAD greyhame.


Part 5. Operation CounterStrike I.

The team arrives, bumpily and complete with corona discharges, miniature lightning effects and a general case of St. Elso's Fire, but safely.

• I’m going to assume that they have three Land Rovers, stuffed with people and supplies. Adjust as required. If a GM wants to 'lose' some people,vehicles or equipment there are plenty of ways.
  

The team's first priority is the emplacement of the transmitter to signal their arrival, and hopefully allow their retrieval after the mission is successfully completed¹. The second is to find out where they are. The former is relatively straightforward, the device has been designed to be ‘soldier proof’ and is soon activated and buried. The latter is more difficult.

The equipment they brought can detect some satellite signals for a navigation system², but the signals are incomprehensively encrypted. The team’s ‘sparks’ erects a long antenna and scans the radio spectrum for traffic.
Based on directional fixes on civil stations in Paris, Luxembourg and Dublin he triangulates an approximate position; they’ve arrived north-east of Oxford, almost in a straight line between that town and Aylesbury. That puts them about 100 kilometres from London, and about the same distance from The Leader’s base in the Guilford/Woking area. Probably about two hours’ drive, assuming the roads are OK³.

There are plenty of other transmitters active, but most are relatively low-powered types. He can pick up a ‘Radio Oxford’, which carries news and entertainment (including a rather good performance of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice).

What to do next?

The team has little detailed knowledge of the state of the country. They were briefed that Oxford is the centre of power of another warlord (known as King John) so perhaps they should bypass the town? They could head in the direction of Aylesbury and skirt London until they reach The Leader’s territory.
London itself is believed to be a mess; almost uninhabited except for the insane survivors of WOTAN, packs of wild dogs (and other animals) and strange furry robots. Plus it’s partially flooded and without clean water or other services.

While they discuss their plans they hear the ‘whooping’ of helicopter rotors and soon see a flight of three small (Lynx) and one large (Chinook) helicopters approaching from the direction of Oxford. While they scatter and attempt to camouflage the vehicles (which can’t out-run the aircraft)

• Blatant rail-roading but necessary to the plot. Why do you think I included the background on 'King John' if they weren't going to meet him?
  

Two of the smaller helicopters circle overhead, they’re visibly armed with some kind of turreted cannon and rocket pods under the wings. The Chinook sets down briefly about a kilometre away and disgorges about thirty troops who very professionally disperse. Binoculars show them armed with medium machine guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons. The third Lynx circles overhead and sets down a couple of hundred metres away. Four people get out and one gesticulates in the direction of the party. Another takes out a pole and affixes a white flag to it, waving towards the party. The four head in their direction, waving the white flag.

More to follow Comments?





1. Probably.

2. Portable sat-nav systems did exist in '81 (and earlier)  but were suitcase sized, and needed to be set-up for use.

3. They're not.

[greyhame]

Excellent!!
Thank you (although, I doubt that my players will thank you if they do end up trapped in this alternate universe!)

[Catsmate]

Nov 18, 2021 22:39:31 GMT greyhame said:

Excellent!!
Thank you (although, I doubt that my players will thank you if they do end up trapped in this alternate universe!)

Thanks! I hope to continue the scenario over the weekend, the Covid lethargy seems to be passing,

Personally I'd considered a campaign where the PCs are stuck jumping between parallels, Lost In Time And Space. But them one of the first, and longest, RPG games I took part in back in college was Timelords.

[spydalek]

Nov 19, 2021 9:37:37 GMT Catsmate said:

Personally I'd considered a campaign where the PCs are stuck jumping between parallels, Lost In Time And Space. But them one of the first, and longest, RPG games I took part in back in college was Timelords.

There's a Campaign Seed in one of the 1st Edition books, Time Traveller's I think, that's called "The Rifters", and it involves the PCs finding some sort of diary/book in an old house's basement with an open rift in some equipment. And getting sucked around time and space.

My brain, being what it is, has kinda taken that and have the rifts open to different universes (having the PCs end up in other franchises like Rocket Age, Power Rangers, Marvel, DC, ETC as well as Whoniverse places).

[greyhame]

Nov 19, 2021 9:37:37 GMT Catsmate said:

Nov 18, 2021 22:39:31 GMT greyhame said:

Excellent!!
Thank you (although, I doubt that my players will thank you if they do end up trapped in this alternate universe!)

Thanks! I hope to continue the scenario over the weekend, the Covid lethargy seems to be passing,

Personally I'd considered a campaign where the PCs are stuck jumping between parallels, Lost In Time And Space. But them one of the first, and longest, RPG games I took part in back in college was Timelords.

A "lost in realities" campaign? That is an excellent idea!

[grinch]

Nov 19, 2021 19:32:36 GMT greyhame said:

Nov 19, 2021 9:37:37 GMT Catsmate said:

Thanks! I hope to continue the scenario over the weekend, the Covid lethargy seems to be passing,

Personally I'd considered a campaign where the PCs are stuck jumping between parallels, Lost In Time And Space. But them one of the first, and longest, RPG games I took part in back in college was Timelords.

A "lost in realities" campaign? That is an excellent idea!

You even reinvent it as a take on The Chase. With your PCs being pursued across the Multiverse. Even if the PCs are enable to dispose of the threat, they’d still have a great deal of trouble getting back to their home reality. 

Navigating the Time Vortex is one thing but trying to navigate the Multiverse without a clear map is almost impossible.

Personally, I’d use such a campaign as an excuse to use Dr Who, John and Gillian from TV Comic. A universe where the villains are never evil but only naughty. 

That is, until the PCs come a calling with a few monstrosities in their wake. 

[greyhame]

Nov 19, 2021 20:15:24 GMT grinch said:

Nov 19, 2021 19:32:36 GMT greyhame said:

A "lost in realities" campaign? That is an excellent idea!

You even reinvent it as a take on The Chase. With your PCs being pursued across the Multiverse. Even if the PCs are enable to dispose of the threat, they’d still have a great deal of trouble getting back to their home reality. 

Navigating the Time Vortex is one thing but trying to navigate the Multiverse without a clear map is almost impossible.

Personally, I’d use such a campaign as an excuse to use Dr Who, John and Gillian from TV Comic. A universe where the villains are never evil but only naughty. 

That is, until the PCs come a calling with a few monstrosities in their wake. 

That's an interesting idea - I'd been thinking of having them stumble upon the Amicus universe. The TV Comic universe could be quite fun.

[Catsmate]

Sorry, not exactly a plot update, just a collection of ideas and bits from further discussions.

Further Notes on Earth Six.

1. Electronics.
Transistors were developed rather earlier, in the mid-1930s, with use of transistorised electronics in the Second War for radios and navigation and guidance systems. They became ubiquitous in civilian electronics by the early 1950s, with ‘trannys’¹ being commonplace.

This ubiquity became a serious problem when WOTAN developed an auditory mental influencing technique that could be carried in the 15kHz range of FM broadcasts.
Some people still have nightmares of the ‘kid gangs’ and a few survivors have grown to adulthood still effectively feral.

The work in semiconductors lead to a rather earlier development of 'sandwich' circuits, aided by some ideas from elsewhere. This advance, also aided by some advanced technology, unfortunately helped cause The Rise of The Machine by allowing the development of true, volitional, Artificial Intelligence in 1965, leading to WOTAN in 1966.
Now, fifteen years later, technology tends to be advanced, but secure and hardened (in case the French get annoyed again). This has led to an active ‘cracking’ community.

• As a corollary to this pirate radio stations³, while they still exist, tend to be visited by Certain People for inspections (regardless of the legal situation) or have an encounter with an ARM. Given the situation in Britain if they’re operating in the waters of the British Isles they also tend to be rather well armed.

2. Resident non-humans.
There is, as in most timelines, a small population of resident non-humans on Earth⁴ After the explosion of paranoia and awareness of aliens after the Shoreditch Event in ’63, and especially after the Fall of Britain, most are either very discreet in the affairs or have formed a relationship with UNISON (which tends to be somewhat suspicious but accepts the help), though many have departed.
There are populations in most large cities, with Paris, Berlin, New York, San Francisco  having the largest populations.
Where the populations support it they have developed their own parallel society, usually around a charismatic and capable leader, with at least semi-official links to the human authorities.

After the unearthing⁵ of the first Reptilian hibernation base (in the Azores in 1971) there is an agreement between UNISON, the UN, the major human powers and a coalition of Reptilian sites to cooperate, maintain peaceful relations and share technology and resources⁶.
It’s a guarded sort of cooperation, the humans are concerned about the mass opening of further stasis sites, while the Reptilians are concerned about the sheer number of ape-descendants around and what they're doing to the planet⁷. However both agree on preventing major off-planet incursions.

Reptilian biotechnology is contributing significantly to human agriculture and medicine; improved organ transplantation, cures for several disease, better crop yields⁸, new vaccination techniques et cetera.

• That biotech is also assisting some experimental ‘super soldier’ enhancement packages for UNISON troops⁹.

However there are human suspicions of Reptilian plots to revive other hives in various isolated parts of the world, especially (of course) in Britain. Currently they have a series of settlements in the South American (mainly Brazilian) rain-forest and Brasilia looks weird.

• Ìn fact Brazil is quietly heading towards major power status, which is having the expected effects on it's neighbours.

This may have interesting consequences in the long term.



3. The Cold War and the Cold Warriors.
The Cold War is mostly over, or at least suspended for the duration.
The more nationalist/ideological types are growing concerned about the spread of internationalism (and Esperanto, for some reason the Esperanto Institute is a bugbear and subject of many conspiracy theories). There are grumblings about the UN actually becoming a world government¹⁰.

While most of the cold war enthusiasts on both sides are no longer an issue, having;

1. had their energies re-directed into suppressing the ‘Alien Menace’ rather than the Capitalist/Imperialist/Communist (delete as applicable) menace.
2. Been quietly retired. There’s a community of very nice dachas near the Black Sea and a similar ‘retirement community’ in Florida, both with excellent security.
3. Been marginalised and side-lined into unimportant projects.
4. Been quietly ‘retired’. Often with full military honours…
   

There are still some of the quieter, middle level, sorts around the corridors of power. Most either see UNISON as a Capitalist/Imperialist/Communist (delete as applicable) plot or see The Other Side as alien patsies (usually imagined, but there are various infiltration plots happening.


4. The Matter of Mondas.
It’s due in ’86. Currently neither the humans nor the Machine People know this (the Cybermen split and branched several times over the centuries and don’t exchange holiday cards)


5. The Matter of Britain.
As I mentioned previously some areas are reverting to effectively feudalism. This is not necessarily bad, but isn't generally good either. The parallels to the loss of central government during the English Civil War(s) is marked.

• This is complete with actual burnings of “aliens”, supposed sympathisers, scientists (it’s all their fault) and anyone different (as usual). If you’re travelling exercise caution, go armed and get a good local guide.

The former UK has also seen an upsurge in weird cults (human sacrifice optional¹¹) often of a Luddite bent. Travellers should beware.

The chaos in Britain has been a positive boon for some aliens and other ‘outsiders’ (a generic term covering time travellers and people popping in from other worlds). It’s now relatively easy to set up a quiet base of operation, overawe/co-opt/decapitate the local power structure and begin operations, at least on a small scale¹².

1. Someone is doing something weird in the old, abandoned, London Underground. It seems connected to those odd robotic creatures sometimes found in the city.
2. The Tower of London is home to a group of quasi-feudal holdouts. Not much is known but they have a black crow banner.
3. A former RAF base in Suffolk has been taken over by a coalition of survivors, many of them Caribbean immigrants and their families, who were victims of ethnic violence in the cities. There is a suggestion that their leader is from elsewhere. If this is true his objectives and capabilities are unknown.
   
4. Ely (now that the city is an island again) has become a centre of trading and even international commerce. The Cathedral is heavily involved and there have been alleged miracles there.
5. There are odd things happening in a some of the Yorkshire coal mining towers; people are disappearing, fights have become more common and vicious. The Coal Barons are becoming concerned, production is starting to be effected. Is it linked somehow to a new chain of bath houses?
6. Meanwhile a Coal Baron in Northumberland named Hardacre is seeing production booming thanks to the greatest breakthrough in labour relations since the cat-o’-nine-tails. OK, the fifteen hour work days mean he needs a constant influx of new workers, and they do have a habit of going insane or catatonic but business is booming. Which fuels (literally) his munitions works and is giving him ideas for the future, helped by suggestions by his recently acquired business advisor….
7. In Scotland the government is still quietly debating the ‘Zygon Question’. There aren’t many of them, they have useful technology (albeit very different from human norms) and the Loch Ness Monster might be a useful tourist draw. Then again Hibernian Oil is holding out for serious compensation. And is the voting public ready for a population of shapechanging aliens? Meanwhile the Zygons have their own plans.
8. Other threats in Britain are all too human and drearily mundane. Hunting is no-longer just for foxes and deer, some landowners (those who haven’t ended up dangling from their own trees) have consolidated power and a couple have implemented a new solution for thieves, peasants who object to the new order and people who don’t tug their forelock properly in the presence of their betters. Long pig sticking....
9. Then there are visitors engaging in hunting humans, recreational murder, slavery and generally exploiting the locals. There is a problem with desperate refugees seeing a better live in Europe.
10. Another threat in Britain is what UNISON refers to as Technologically Elevated Warlords, those who enhance their power with scraps of recovered alien or WOTAN technology. Beware of people with strange, machine-like way of communicating or who don’t take off helmets or speak in unison.
11. The university towns in Britain tend to have formed nuclei of stability and civilisation, e.g. Good King John in Oxford. Suggestions of human sacrifice at the University of Norfolk are undoubtedly fabrications, or at worst, exaggerations.
    
12. Though there are weird going-on at the abandoned UCL site.
13. There are also odd things happening at the former experimental fusion reactor site at Wenley Moor in Derbyshire (which was just camouflage for a major Torchwood/UKGov facility. What the humans don't know is that the Reptilian hive under there has been revived without notification of the Proper Authorities; worse the Triad in charge there do not recognise the interim Supreme Triumvirate and the Treaty of the Azores and have their own plans. Which rather scares the more moderate Reptilians, some of which want to deal with the matter via human proxies (or UNISION friendlies) before things Get Out of Hand.
    
    

6. The Rail Baroness.
That said steam trains have made a comeback. The ‘Rail Baroness’ is determined to keep the system working, if low tech and smoky, and the trains running to schedule, regardless of warlords, landowners and petty tyrants.
She’s devised a number of interesting ways to demonstrate her displeasure at people who interfere with the Permanent Way.

• Being tied to the track in front of an approaching train is no longer just a staple of ‘Damsel in Distress’ stories… (and they don’t escape ‘just in time’)
• Nor is ‘steaming’ just for hams……
  

The trains are generally safe and reliable. While there are rail bandits they tend to have a nasty, brutish and short life¹³.

The first edition of the New Bradshaw’s Guide has been published, under Baronial imprimatur, with useful information for those travelling around Britain by train.
This has actually lead to a (very) limited degree of international tourism (there’s always some) and is causing the beginning of a headache for UNISON and others.


7. WOTAN
WOTAN is not dead¹⁴. However the rather hurried dispersal of it’s core programming has caused the five surviving ‘Sons of WOTAN’ to develop somewhat divergent personalities.
One is working with UNISON in Aberystwyth, opposing the Torchwood influenced Welsh government. It seems to have a very different personality to the original, helping humanity and appears benign.
Another is holed up in the former Cold War Continuity of Government bunker in Drakelow Tunnels in Worcestershire is less benign and is attempting to develop new techniques for conquest¹⁵. It's using a number of mind controlled servants, and new War Machines, to acquire humans for biological experimentation.


8. The Matter of Ireland.
The island is still functionally divided, and has a significant population of former UK refugees. While an Irish-Scottish ‘Celtic Alliance’ is being pushed by several groups. Though in this universe no-one is so ridiculously stupid to propose a tunnel or bridge connection between them
Norn Iron is considered a bit of a mess, but then this Earth hasn’t seen what happened elsewhere. It’s a UN protectorate, with US/French/Soviet military governance (officially advising the civil administration) and lots of factions but rather less killing, maiming and bombing than might be expected. Civil Rights and equality have been enforce, no-one wants the bad publicity.
Both parts are full of heavily fenced installations replete with Mysterious Devices; some pointed at Britain, some part of the Western Atlantic air-defence network. Donegal is likewise full of stuff¹⁶ and lots of UN personnel complaining about the prices and the weather. Few people from neighbouring universes would recognise Letterkenny¹⁷.


9. Space.
There's a lot of stuff in orbit, though a policy of de-orbiting junk has reduced the problem. There’s an official UN Moonbase, a UNISON defense facility and a rather more secret base operated by UNISON in the lunar crater Aristarchus, around the remains of HMS Selene¹⁸.

There is a settlement on Mars¹⁹ and there have been missions to Jupiter and Saturn though no permanent bases due to prevailing conditions. There is serious interest in gas mining helium-3 from Saturn to replace the current D-T and D- fusion reactors.


10. The Investigators.
UNISON’s Investigative Branch²⁰ can be found all over the world, investigating plots, oddities and general weirdness. Just ask Alan Brooks about Mount Trollenberg.
One of their problems is the Zanti Matter. There have been three ‘shipments’ so far, in 1963, 1971, 1979 and a fourth expected in 1987. Last time the vessel ‘landed’ in southern Scotland and there are probably a few of the little buggers still around.

After some interesting events²¹, discoveries and problems archaeology has a lot more funding, and a lot more large supernumeraries attached to the ‘shovel bums’.

The weirder corners of the Globe (the Global Net) have a range of sites full of weird happenings, bizarre conspiracy theories and fevered speculations. Most are nonsense but a few are true.

• What did happen to the Crown Jewels? Were they spirited away for safe-keeping when the Troubles began²²? What happened next?²³
  

Comments? Suggestions? Ideas?




NOTES
1. A historical term for a portable, battery powered, transistorised receiving unit.

2. What we'd called integrated circuits.

3. While the UK's Marine Broadcasting Offences Act pretty much destroyed offshore broadcasters in the seas around the UK, they persisted off Ireland well into the 1980s. Here what exists of the UKGov is not really in a position to interfere.

4. As in the Whoniverse and EDCverse

5. Actually it was underwater.

6. Which has stopped neither side preparing for war.

7. "The stink".

8. Despite the first one having only just finished. Of course there are concerns about Reptilian additions to some of the new food crops.....

9. And a few black programmes by nation states and other organisations.

10. And quite a lot of discussion on the subject from serious people, not just wide-eyes optimists. There is alreadly a contintency plan for mobilising humanity against a really serious threat.

11. But does happen, if rarely.

12. Say looking for a Mysterious Artefact, collecting some human brain chemicals, mining material Z, a spot of hunting or just lunch 'on the hoof'

13. Often assisted in this by the Railway Police. Do not lose your ticket.

14. Did you really think it was?

15. No mistakes next time.

16. Thanks to better charts trawlers don't disappear as often any more (though it;ll take a while for references to a 'Second Tuskar Triangle' to die down).

17. An improvement.

18. The British RN moonbase of 1925-6.

19. Who haven’t yet found the remaining, hibernating, Martians thankfully for both sides

20. Which has it’s own Misfit Mob.

21. Only one of which required a tactical nuclear weapon to sort out. The 'zombies' fell to a high-end, flesh dissolving, anti-biological phage and the new “super-catalysts” make chlorine triflouride seem like air freshener.

22. Yes.

23. It’s complicated. Actually the woman who currently has them in her basement would really like to get rid of them. But it's complicated....

[greyhame]

Thank you - this continues to be superb.

Just a quick question: What does UNISON stand for?

Sorry to seem thick, but I can't find an answer.

[Catsmate]

Dec 10, 2021 16:49:50 GMT greyhame said:

Thank you - this continues to be superb.

Just a quick question: What does UNISON stand for?

Sorry to seem thick, but I can't find an answer.

No, you're not the one who appears thick @greyhame but rather I am. I've used the acronym but never actually explained it.
D'oh.
UNISON stands for United Nations International Special Operations Network. Here is the detail for them that for some reason I completely forgot to post....

• I *thought* I'd posted it before.

UNISON.
The United Nations of Earth-6 is vastly more powerful even than that of the Whoniverse, indeed it is slowly edging towards a technocratic world government, slowed mainly by it’s own bureaucracy and remaining nationalist resistance. There is already a UN operated global armed force (mainly used to protect from extra-terrestrial and similar threats but also against ‘rogue’ nations¹ and terrorist groups) independent of purely national militaries.
The main special investigations and operations unit is UNISON, the United Nations International Special Operations Network, though there is a corps of UN Special Investigators with very broad legal powers (global jurisdiction, authority to arrest and detain et cetera) who are more-or-less civilians

Unlike UNIT, UNISON can call on large and highly capable military forces rapidly through it’s own chain of command, without reference to national governments². Also unlike UNIT the teams used by UNISON are deliberately multi-national in composition (think UNCLE).

UNISON has access to a wide variety of advanced technology (recovered, traded, copies, locally developed) and holocaustic weapons (nuclear and chemical mainly, with biological and radiological in reserve; there are space based DEWs and kinetic impactors too).
Overall weapons technology is rather more advanced than historically in 1981, from caseless-ammunition small arms to hypersonic aircraft. Portable energy weapons are either captured or purchased models or manufactured from such parts. Room temperature superconductors exist and they and super-batteries³ are going into large scale production⁴. Computers are rather more advanced (by about a decade) and the internet exists, with early graphical interfaces coming on-stream. However all communications networks, wired, satellite or radio, are government controlled.

• Or at least government tolerated.
  

A vast range of small tactical nuclear weapons have been developed and are extensively stockpiled; these include the descendant of the old ‘Davy Crockett’ (but fired from a conventional recoilless rifle), those deployed from unguided artillery rockets, various emplaced ‘backpack nukes’ and a copy of the ‘Goliath’ mobile demolition charge.
Most weapons platforms larger than light artillery (~100mm) have nuclear capability, including heavy mortars, large tank guns, warships and aircraft.
Strategic weapons are less common; the whole ‘East-West’ rivalry exists more in rhetoric these days than as a real source of strife. That said there are plenty of very powerful weapons (>30Mt, even approaching 100Mt) available, just in case.




1. As defined by the UN Security council, a body with more expanded role and powers, though subject to General Assembly override by two-thirds majority (something that was historically planned for but dropped for some reason). The UNSC has been enlarged, with three tiers of members (veto-holders, permanent non-veto holders and term limited). Germany, Japan, Brazil, Imperial Iran, Canada and India are permanent members and the European Federation is a veto-holder. Britain's seat is currently suspended.

2. No calls to Geneva or dealing with the local chain of command.

3. Energy density of >6MJ/kg.

4. Electric vehicles are likely to take off, at least hybrids, though currently oil is too cheap to make them viable. Alcohols, especially butanol, produced using Reptilian bio-technology (geneered algae) are starting to look very interesting.

[greyhame]

Excellent!!!