Post by Catsmate on Mar 29, 2022 11:05:18 GMT
An idea I'm playing with, a historical scenario with pseudo-historical intrusions. Like my earlier A Jury of His Peers this incorporates multiple timelines and time travellers from them.
The Hamiltonian Conjunction.
Events begin with the PCs, and any NPC companions, peacefully travelling through the Vortex, when they encounter violent turbulence. A vortex of it in fact…
If there’s a Time Lord and TARDIS in play (Brazellamantleg and Lady Theodora Fowler for example) they’ll detect a curious conjunction of temporal effects around a certain location in space-time.
A less knowledgeable and equipped group of time travellers (the operators of the Achronic Omnibus for example) will detect the turbulence, and are more likely to be pulled into its effects, but probably won’t be able to discern as many details.
Even less skilled groups (e.g. The Thing In The Basement) will find their portal inexorably attracted to the hinge point, and detect the energies of multiple timelines connecting around there. They will be able to track the location before passing through (and have excellent research opportunities) but cannot avoid the spot, the portal simple won't connect elsewhere.
Items that can be discerned with suitable skills.
Zeroing in on the location is possible before landing, assuming they PCs have a TARDIS or suitably advanced craft, or are using a portal. A Vortex Manipulator will be dragged there.
The location is on the East Coast of the United States of America and the period is early July in 1804.
This can be narrowed, say by successively harder skill rolls, down to around 7AM on the morning of 11JUL1804 and the location to 40.770230°N 74.016944°W, near Deas' Point at Weehawken on the Hudson river.
A knowledge of history, or some database searching, will suggest that this is the location of the (in)famous pistol duel fought between Alexander Hamilton (former Secretary of the Treasury and Inspector General of the US Army) and Aaron Burr, Vice-president of the United States.
Historically the duel ends in Hamilton's death and Burr's disgrace.
In fact matters are rather more complicated, and potentially delicate, that the summary suggests. The Jonbar Hinge in question is indeed the duel fought between Burr and Hamilton but time travellers from five timelines are present:
OK, that's the introduction. Any comments, ideas or suggestions? Should I continue the idea?
1. Actually they arrived in different boats.
2. A rather good alternate history/mystery novel involving multiple timelines and lots of different Burr/Hamilton relationships. Goodreads.
The Hamiltonian Conjunction.
Events begin with the PCs, and any NPC companions, peacefully travelling through the Vortex, when they encounter violent turbulence. A vortex of it in fact…
If there’s a Time Lord and TARDIS in play (Brazellamantleg and Lady Theodora Fowler for example) they’ll detect a curious conjunction of temporal effects around a certain location in space-time.
A less knowledgeable and equipped group of time travellers (the operators of the Achronic Omnibus for example) will detect the turbulence, and are more likely to be pulled into its effects, but probably won’t be able to discern as many details.
Even less skilled groups (e.g. The Thing In The Basement) will find their portal inexorably attracted to the hinge point, and detect the energies of multiple timelines connecting around there. They will be able to track the location before passing through (and have excellent research opportunities) but cannot avoid the spot, the portal simple won't connect elsewhere.
Items that can be discerned with suitable skills.
- It (the swirling vortex of temporal stresses and energies) appears to be centred around a point where multiple timelines intersect.
- This is extremely unusual, even most Time Lords have never seen such in phenomena ‘in the wild’. They will be curious and concerned.
- In general, multiple timeline divergences are caused by a major ‘Jonbar Hinge’, where a decision can cause greatly divergent timelines to branch off.
- In this case, the timelines actually ‘loop back’ onto the decision point (or near to it) and are intermeshed ("Like a snarled mess of garden hoses"). This, in combination with ‘echoes’ of temporal energy suggest there is another time traveller in the vicinity. Someone who may have caused, accidentally or deliberately, the Hinge to move differently.
- This bears investigation.
Zeroing in on the location is possible before landing, assuming they PCs have a TARDIS or suitably advanced craft, or are using a portal. A Vortex Manipulator will be dragged there.
The location is on the East Coast of the United States of America and the period is early July in 1804.
This can be narrowed, say by successively harder skill rolls, down to around 7AM on the morning of 11JUL1804 and the location to 40.770230°N 74.016944°W, near Deas' Point at Weehawken on the Hudson river.
A knowledge of history, or some database searching, will suggest that this is the location of the (in)famous pistol duel fought between Alexander Hamilton (former Secretary of the Treasury and Inspector General of the US Army) and Aaron Burr, Vice-president of the United States.
"O Burr, O Burr, what has thou done?
Thou has shooted dead great Hamilton.
You hid behind a bunch of thistle,
And shooted him dead with a great hoss pistol."
Tableau in New York City, July 1804
Thou has shooted dead great Hamilton.
You hid behind a bunch of thistle,
And shooted him dead with a great hoss pistol."
Tableau in New York City, July 1804
In fact matters are rather more complicated, and potentially delicate, that the summary suggests. The Jonbar Hinge in question is indeed the duel fought between Burr and Hamilton but time travellers from five timelines are present:
"Somewhere Aaron Burr shoots Alexander Hamilton, somewhere Alexander Hamilton shoots Aaron Burr, somewhere they both get it; somewhere they both miss, probably a few where one of the bullets ricochets and kills one of the seconds; somewhere the boat that takes them to Weehawken tips over1, and one or both of them drown; somewhere Hamilton and Burr never met, somewhere they were lifelong friends."
Michael Kurland, The Whenabouts of Burr2
Michael Kurland, The Whenabouts of Burr2
- One where neither man is killed. In this universe Burr later becomes president (in 1816), meddles in the Spanish colonial revolutions and triggers a bloody Civil War in 1823 that leaves the nascent nation split.
- One where Hamilton is fatally wounded and the fallout from his death blights Bur’s career, leading him to dabble in conspiracy and treason, though being acquitted 9of the latter charge in court.
- One where Burr kills Hamilton but is wounded himself. Emboldened by his escape from death, Burr, ostracised by the establishment of the US East coats, actually carries through on his ‘Southwest Conspiracy’ to detach the newly acquired Louisiana Territory as his personal empire, which expands into the troubles Spanish colonial empire in South America.
- One where Burr is killed but Hamilton badly wounded and later leads the secession of much of New England in 1807, becoming Prime Consul of the new state.
- One where Burr is shot, perhaps accidentally, by Hamilton and dies soon afterwards. Without Burr’s moderation President Thomas Jefferson neutralises the US Supreme Court and, in his third term, allies the United States to Napoleon until Wellington lands in America in 1815, ending the US experiment.
OK, that's the introduction. Any comments, ideas or suggestions? Should I continue the idea?
1. Actually they arrived in different boats.
2. A rather good alternate history/mystery novel involving multiple timelines and lots of different Burr/Hamilton relationships. Goodreads.
