[Scenario Seed] Return of the Highlander.

[Catsmate]

While searching my notes, for something entirely different, I found this ideas that I was working on last year. It's a bit rough but I'll try and complete it over the next week.

Return of the Highlander.

Setting.
'Modern day' Britain, specifically Scotland. With some work it could be re-tooled for the USA, France, Ireland, Canada et cetera, pretty easily.
Intended to fit with the Misfit Mob or UNIT, though Alicia deVere has a family place in Scotland used as a base for the Achronic Omnibus and could become involved.
    

Premise.
Approximately five hours ago, i.e. around 5:30AM, police officers in <>, a small town in Scotland, responded to a call from a member of the public, who reported a “Lunatic dressed weird walking down the road. Oh and he has a gun”.

Surprisingly the man, who was indeed “dressed weird”, was not shot by police, even after he fired on them with what was founded to be a .69 Charleville musket¹ (one of the ARV² crew was a history buff). Also removed from the man were a pair of .56 calibre ‘Sea Service’ flintlock pistols³, a basket-hilted broadsword of the type often incorrectly called a ‘claymore’, a considerable quantity of powder and shot, and two knives, large and small. Plus assorted English, Scottish and French coins, no later than 1741.
This is detailed meticulously in the report of the arresting officers (it was a bitterly cold night and datawork in the warm has it’s attractions).

The man has not been identified, he’s dressed in excellent reproductions (the officer was quite impressed) of early eighteenth century Scottish clothing, his fingerprints are unrecorded. He passed an alcohol test and a field drug test (the results of the detailed tests are pending).
Oh and he apparently speaks only archaic Scots Gaelic, which even the history buff isn’t fluent in.

• Actually he speaks reasonable, if archaic, French. No-one though to try it yet....
  

The local police have other things to do and dearly want to offload the prisoner to someone; social services looks promising but UNIT will do.

Cross referencing with other data sources, something UNIT’s excellent systems have already done, has flagged two oddities; the region where the man appeared experienced an unexplained electrical black out, which damaged a transformer sub-station, and an unforecast and localised thunderstorm.




OK, I have some plans for where this is going but ideas and suggestions (and comments) are welcome.




1. A very common firearm from ~1715 to ~1840. A single-shot, muzzle loading weapon with and unrifled barrel using black powder, inaccurate and unreliable like most flintlocks. About 1.5m long, weighs about 4.5 kilogrammes.

2. Armed Response Vehicle, a police car dedicated to carried armed support officers. Usually 2-3 crew with TASERs, handguns and carbines.

3. A common type of handgun from the 1740s to 1820s (replaced by percussion cap weapons, often conversions). Single-shot, bore is approximately that of a 20 gauge shotgun; like most flintlocks they are inaccurate and unreliable, misfiring about one shot in ten (more in damp conditions). 30cm barrel, weights about 1.5kg.

[Catsmate]

Part II.
From now on I’ll be assuming that the investigators are part of the Misfit Mob, with occasional notes on other possibilities.

The Misfits head north to Scotland, packing whatever they feel is necessary (personal gear, weapons, tools, research equipment et cetera) for the mission. At least there’s no need for passports and currency change.

• Unless your Whoniverse features an independent Scotland, of course, in which case both might be needed in order to cross the Tweed.

It should be relatively easy for the agents to get access to the detained man, the police aren't that interested in him (other than Robert Webster, the ARV officer who's still intrigued by the business). With a few string pulled, and appropriate paperwork, they can even obtain custody of him (what do they do with him?)

Getting him talking is more difficult; at least in a language that can be readily understood.
French is probably the easiest medium, though a penalty should be imposed, depending on where the speaker learned their French. UNIT's software translation matrix can't handle Scots Gaelic, but can manage French easily.

Then there's the matter of psychology; the prisoner is suffering from psychological trauma and has dropped into an almost catatonic state. Some work will be necessary to get him to talk.
Finally there's the matter that he's a trained soldier and believes he is amongst enemies.


The dialect of Scots Gaelic is unlikely to be within the repertoire of a PC, or common NPC, but UNIT has a lot of odd people on it’s books, both full time staff, consultants and ‘friendlies’. Finding a translator may take some time however, so it’s likely the first try will be via French (once the PCs stumble on this option).

Thing to be discovered.

• The man in jail is Connor MacPherson.
• He speaks an old dialect of French and an even more obscure dialect of Scots Gaelic.
• He’s 173cm tall, weighs about 70kg, has dark hair and brown eyes and appears to be in his late twenties (he’s actually 23).
• A medical examination shows a
  number of healed injuries, including sharp and blunt force trauma, and
  broken bones. His teeth are in poor condition (by modern standards).
  While most doctors won’t recognise MacPherson’s visible pockmarks some
  thought (an an open mind), and a good Medicine roll will diagnose them
  as being from smallpox.
• The last known case of human smallpox was in 1978. This could trigger a mild bio-warfare panic, or be used to lever the case under UNIT's control.
• Blood tests (which will take a few hours to get analysed, unless the team have sone advanced gear of their own) show no markers for standard immunisations,
  but does react to smallpox (something that could be used to get him
  transferred to UNIT jurisdiction). He doesn’t have the disease but he
  has been exposed to it in the past.
• A genetic sample can be taken and assessed, for
  common markers indicative of origin and for comparison with various
  databases. This will take at least a day to produce a result.
• Mr. MacPherson is unlikely to cooperate with a medical exam.
• If the team suspect he's a TDP then they may want to check MacPherson's temporal energy signature. If they don't have a suitable chronal sensor one can be obtained (from UNIT, the Hourglass Club, Alicia et cetera) and will show he is a temporally
  displaced person; with a good instrument (and operator) analysis of the energy levels suggest 200-250 years, assuming he
  ‘arrived’ in the present day around 3-5AM

• MacPherson was a soldier (and a skilled one), part
  of the retinue of Charles Edward Stuart (the ‘Young Pretender’) who was
  assigned as a bodyguard to one of Stuarts advance party, sent to
  Scotland in advance of the planned 1745 rebellion. He's unlikely to easily reveal the latter, though he won't hide his Jacobite sympathies.
  
• MacPherson was born in 1722 in France, to Jacobite
  parents who fled Scotland after the failure of the 1715 insurrection
  (‘The Fifteen’).
  
• A month after their arrival in Scotland he and a small
  party were accompanying their principal (whom he doesn’t name) to a
  clandestine, night-time, meeting when he stopped to relieve himself.
• That's when something that he can’t explain happened; he felt a
  sudden tension headache (which he compares to the onset of a
  thunderstorm), then felt acutely nauseous before a flash of light (that
  he admits might have been in his mind) and fell to the ground.
• When he recovered, he was in a wooden building and
  he saw an pale faced man with a mighty beard in strange clothes point a rod at him which 'burned brighter than the sun'.
• Fearing for his life he swung his musket at the man and fled, firing a wild shot back as he ran. 
• He’s
  not sure how long he ran for before finding the road on which a passing
  motorist spotted him. It was probably twenty minutes. Assuming a
  stumbling pace that means the place where he arrived is within ten
  kilometres of the place he was spotted. He can also remember something of the journey.
• Metallurgical analysis of MacPherson's weapons (and the gunpowder) strongly suggest they are the produce of pre-modern metalwork.
• Likewise numismatic examination of the coins suggest they are genuine.
  

Much of this is going to be easy to discover; MacPherson is a determined man, an experienced soldier and assumes (from everyone speaking English) that he’s been captured by English forces. He expects to be tortured and hanged.
He’s also overawed and terrified by the environment in which he finds himself. He’s not going to be an easy person to interrogate, especially via interpreter.

If the agents can gain his trust he can lead them back along the path he thinks he took, but it'll take time to retrace his steps.

If the agents request support they are informed that this will be limited:

• A chronal energy sensor, and operator if needed, can be provided within a couple of hours. UNIT's version is a backpack sized device that can detect chronon abnormalities at ranges of tens of metres.
  
• Blood and other tests.
  
• No additional field personnel unless an actual threat can be shown. If this can be proved then an airmobile, reinforced platoon sized, Broadsword assault group can be deployed in an hour, with air support (a couple of gunships and possibly a flight of strike aircraft).
  
• A helicopter can be made available, in  a few hours.

• Surveillance or reconnaissance drones will likewise take a few hours. A convincing case of someone meddling with time travel will shorten this, and have a drone fitted with a suitable sensor package assigned.
  

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

[Catsmate]

Part III – Further Investigations.
OK, hopefully by now the agents/investigators/PCs have figured out the broad outline of what’s going on.
Someone is meddling with time travel.

More specifically someone is attempting to operate a time portal or time scoop and accidentally (or not?) transported MacPherson forward almost three centuries. Hopefully this won’t have catastrophic effects.

• This is the perfect time, if the GM is so inclined, to introduce a new PC whose existence is the result of accumulating changes to history and who will later be erased, remembered only by the investigators.
  

The Misfits have the location where the police stopped MacPherson as a starting point, and (assuming the man is willing to help) they can back-track his journey to give an approximate location for the time portal. It'll take a few hours of tramping the hilly Scottish countryside (no, it can't be done on maps) to determine an approximate location.

• If they haven't persuaded MacPherson to help then they have several location to investigate. Hopefully once they've narrowed down the list someone comments on Owen Graham.
  

Now comes the decision; do the team rush in to assault the location? Do they gather more intelligence to justify a raid? Or do they watch and wait, possibly using UNUT assets like drones and temporal energy sensors.
The latter (mixed with more investigation) is probably the preferred gaming option; perhaps higher command are reluctant to authorise a raid, or wish to gather evidence of others involved in the scheme, whatever it is.

• If they want to rush in then the raid should fail, this will be covered in more detail in part IV.
  

The location MacPherson will eventually lead the agents to is a farm several kilometres outside <>, owned by one Owen Graham. MacPherson can’t be sure that this is the location; it was dark and he was scared and disorientated. But it's the closest.

Investigation will reveal some interesting facts about Graham:

• He’s a hardcore Scottish Nationalist, advocating the dissolution of the United Kingdom, the illegitimacy of the Act of Union and the seizure by the new Scotish state of all off-shore energy assets.
• He also advocated the expulsion of all ‘English’ from Scotland and that only those of Scots descent should be citizens.
  
• He has several criminal convictions, though none particularly serious, mainly threatening behaviors, unlawful assembly and similar matters.
• He’s been acquitted of more serious offenses,
  including the serious assault of a police officer, arson and the armed
  hijacking of an oil tanker (the last of these being twenty years
  previous).
• Sounding out the police and Procurator Fiscal¹ will reveal that Graham is considered to be a wily character, suspected of being involved in several bombings
  but not much is known. The injured police officer was a Special Branch infiltrator who was tarred and feathered a decade ago; the case
  collapsed and all those (allegedly) involved with acquitted by
  direction. This has deterred further action against him due to the political fallout.
• Graham has no known close associates, though it’s believed that he has several friends among the more extreme Scottish Nationalists.
• Graham has a background in electronics, but is
  mostly self-taught or vocationally educated; he seems (at first glance)
  an unlikely person to have built a working time machine on his own. This suggests
  the involvement of others, and a cautious approach.
  
• He’s the sort of person who makes hard-line SNP members wince and attempt to disappear.
• He’s also been purchasing a lot of office supplies recently (specifically paper and lamination pouches)
  

Talking to his only real neighbour (an elderly but spry man named Lauchlan Swain) will yield the following facts:

• Swain dislikes Graham whom he considers a bit of a nut
• Graham has been getting visitors; Swain is pretty sure there’s at least one other personal living at Graham’s house.
• He can't give any useful details of the visitors or their vehicles.
• Graham drives an old battered Land Rover but recently (within six months) bought a horse and has leared to ride.
• Swain, if given a suitable story will guide the agents to a location where Graham;s farmhouse can be monitored.
  

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1. A Scottish law officer (wiki) who functions as public procurator and coroner.
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[grinch]

“ An pale faced man with a mighty beard in strange clothes point a rod at him which 'burned brighter than the sun'.

Interesting. Is this meant to be a hint that the Delgado Master was involved somehow? Or is that just a red herring with his appearance being completely unconnected to what transported the Scotsman through time?

[Catsmate]

Sept 28, 2022 15:59:22 GMT grinch said:

“ An pale faced man with a mighty beard in strange clothes point a rod at him which 'burned brighter than the sun'.

Interesting. Is this meant to be a hint that the Delgado Master was involved somehow? Or is that just a red herring with his appearance being completely unconnected to what transported the Scotsman through time?

Ehhhh, no. Just a stereotypically bearded Scots nationalist with an LED torch. I can't even claim it as being a deliberate red herring, alas.

Hopefully Part IV tomorrow, this is a rather busy week  for me with several public facing events. On the plus side I won't need a watter bottle, power bank, USB carble, pen or notebook for a decade or two.

[Catsmate]

It looks like this will end up at six parts, not the five I originally planned. Here's the basic background.

Part IV - Background.
Just what is going on? Well there are actually three people involved in the goings-on in ant around Owen Graham's farm. Though it's unlikely that the Misfits, or other investigators, will piece it all together until the climax of the scenario, or afterwards during the cleaning up.

It all started, as some many things do, with an odd friendship. This one began at the University of Glasgow a couple of years before the strange events bega.

David McGhee, a history student and ardent Scots Nationalist is Graham’s co-conspirator in his plan to alter history. He was, and is, a student of Scottish history, language and culture, from a family of such, and infused with the glory of the Jacobite Cause.
John MacTavish on the other hand, had little interest in history but a lot in the nature of the universe. He is reading physics, and became McGhee’s friend at university, thrown together by the random selection of university halls of residence.
Both men were outsiders, loners by nature and McGhee’s rabid nationalism was too intense for most of his peers, so they gravitated together.

MacTavish was, and indeed is, a brilliant student, obsessive, detailed and methodical. Unfortunately in his third year he discovered, while working as a student library assistant, some century old notes pertaining to the analysis performed by Dr. James Gray¹ in the 1920s² on the Barrlyght oscillator and on his father’s (Dr. Andrew Gray³) first-hand analysis of the Oscillator’s effects⁴ and annotations on Barrlyght’s original research notes⁵.
Notes that should have been securely stored (or better yet burned) and not left in a metal box in the library’s basement.

MacTavish was captivated, despite finding it difficult to believe what he read, even after verifying Gray's handwriting. After his exams that year be obtained a summer job in the university library, something that also allowed him far more access to the physics laboratories (and stores) than he should have had. After all he was a quiet and capable student, no-one thought him a danger to reality.

It took almost two months of experimentation but MacTavish managed to duplicate Barrlyght’s device, substituting discrete electronics and electric motors for Barrlyght’s mechanical linkages and miniature steam engine.
Substitutions that probably made the contraption marginally safer than the original.

MacTavish tested the device one afternoon in woodland well outside the city, but easily accessible by train and bicycle. His testing system was rather crude but he proved to himself that the device could alter the flow of time in an area of several square metres, causing time to pass more quickly or slowly.
Over a long weekend spent camping MacTavish determined that the effect seemed safe, using a purchased rabbit, and could be controlled from outside via a cabled connection.
Further experiments with radioisotopes verified that the device could alter the flow of time.
MacTavish was astonished and jubilant; the device could be a bone for humanity. It would allow preservation of food, ave lives by allowing an injured person to be kept alive until treatment was available, assist in long distance space travel, speed healing.

But obviously Barrlyght had achieved this, and had his invention suppressed. By whom?
After much brooding MacTavish's somewhat fragile mental health was heading into full-blown paranoia. He dismantled his apparatus and hid it away until he could manage a suitable unveiling.

Two weeks before the university returned be met McGhee again. His urge to communicate his discovery to someone, anyone, overcame his paranoid and he spilled his guts. At first McGhee didn't believe him, but a demonstration of time dilation using chronometers convinced him, as did reading Gray's notes.
Having inherited some money from an uncle McGhee purchased a small, run-down, but secluded house for further experiments and helped fund MacTavish's work.

That year their grades started to suffer under the burden of experimentation, but they managed to continue as students.
MacGhee was fascinated by the suggestions in the younger Gray's notes that his father had believed that the Oscillator could be used as a time machine.
Imagine the possibilities; Scotland guided away from the mistakes of the past, made great once again....

Gray's notes referred to a number of crystals that had formed part of Barrlyght's apparatus⁶, but these were not described in detail and the men had no idea where they were to be found. It seemed that their experiments were doomed to failure.
Until MacTavish stumbled over an obscure, unnamed, web forum where the anonymous posters were discussing Barrlyght's work.
Fascinated, and terrified of being pre-empted by others, he watched the discussion and leaned of what one poster called zeta Plattnerite⁷. 
Two days later the forum was gone.

MacTavish tried the technique described; purchasing crystals from a New Age crystal dealer he and MacGhee left them exposed for ten days to an Oscillator operating at low power but high intensity and flipping in polarity. After this treatment the crystals glowed near an operating Oscillator and tended to distort the flow of time in their immediate proximity

But creating a portal from the Oscillator, even with chronon crystals, was not easy, and it was only an accident of nature that provided the key. Still carrying out most of the experiments in the woods for fear of detection, the pair had illegally tapped into a high tension electricity line as a source of power via inductive power transfer⁸.
One night something went wrong with the transmission line and a power surge was conducted through their 'tap' coil into
MacTavish's latest lash-up of solenoids and breadboards suspended on a frame of plastic piping. Sparks flew and space distorted in the midst of the space enclosed, suddenly stabilising into a rippling, distorted image of Somewhere Else.
The two men were awestruck.

MacGhee was the first to recover. He dared not pass through the portal but activated the cameras on his phone and taped it to a length of pole and poked it though, moving it around to survey as much of the other side as possible.
Second after he withdrew his probe the rippling worsened, sparks started to arc over the coils and the portal destabilised.
Dragging the still entranced MacTavish away, MacGhee probably saved his life as all the energy poured into the wormhole abruptly returned, blowing most of their apparatus into pieces.
Shaken but uninjured the pair grabbed what the could and fled.

Back at the house they shared they examined the video on MacGhee's phone. On the other side of the portal it was a clear but cold winter's day, snow on the ground and the trees leafless and bare. They had no idea of when exactly it was, but it was clearly a different time period.
They'd built a time machine.

MacGhee knew of Graham, he was a fixture amongst the more rabid nationalists, but he had money (where from no-one seemed to know) and an isolated farm. It took a while to persuade him of the reality of MacTavish's device, though the time distortion effect impressed him but after the trio spent the Christmas vacation frantically building another portal he believed.
And he had a plan.






1. A real Scottish physicist and mathematician. Wiki. History is silent on his involvement with covert government agencies and analysis of alien technology.

2. For whom the work was done is not noted. The papers seem to be notes for an early draft of a report to someone.

3. Also real Scottish physicist. Wiki. History is as silent on his involvement with covert government agencies as of his son.

4. Loosely summarised as weird and dangerous.

5. Which are missing.

6. What are usually called chronon crystals.

7. Actually crystalline lead dioxide isn't the best material for making durable chronon crystals, but it is quick to acquire a chronal charge. However the effect dissipates rapidly.

8. This is entirely feasible and has occasionally been used to steal power from electricity lines, effectively what's called an #air-cored transformer', using a coil or coils placed in the magnetic field radiated by the transmission line. It's illegal and an excellent way to seriously injure yourself.

[Catsmate]

And we're back....


Part V
By now the Misfits (or whoever is investigating the 'Case of the Time Displaced Jacobite') knows that it appears to be connected to strange goings-on at the farm of a rabid Scottish Nationalist¹ named Owen Graham. They have (hopefully) established that the strange man arrested by police (Connor MacPherson) is in fact a time displaced Jacobite who was involved in planning the 1745 uprising and was pulled, probably by accident², to the modern day.
They're also obtained the use of land overlooking Grahams' to observe matters.


Further investigations.
Now the Misfits have two options; launch an assault or move in for reconnaissance by drone or stealth. Even if an assault is chosen the Misfits will want to scope out the barn, and possibly the farmhouse, for a look-see.
Initially, at least if the tactically savvy Captain Sandford has any say, this will be done remotely by various technological means, to avoid warning the suspects. These include:

• Drone overflights, either a small, quiet, battery powered model at low altitude operated by the Misfits and equipped with basic sensors (low-light video camera and thermal imager) or a much larger model flown by regular UNIT personnel at high altitude with thermal, optical, electromagnetic and other sensors and the data relayed to the Misfits’ base of operations.
• From the ‘hide’ the Misfits have established at the
  Swain farm they can use video cameras, scopes and thermal imagers to
  monitor Graham’s farm, farmhouse, barn and other buildings.
• If they get closer (something sergeant O'Neill will suggest) they can use a laser or parabolic microphone to listen in.
• The Graham farm is too distant for Bahel’s psionics to pick up anything useful. This probably applies to most other psi powers.
• Parks might suggest, or have suggested, that she
  drop in on Graham on some plausible pretext (perhaps related to the
  electrical disturbance?) and secrete bugging devices in the house,
  emplace sensors or at least get a temporal disturbance sensor closer to
  the barn. The farm is not connected to the electrical grid. Graham is not friendly to visitors and has grown less so, a fact that's fairly easy to discover.
  

Undoubtedly the players will have other ideas…. 

Results.
1. Visual observation will show two people, Graham and McGhee³, apparently living in the house and visiting the barn regularly. MacTavish generally stays in the barn but might be seen outside, usually after dark.
2. Thermal imaging (e.g. FLIR, LANTIRN, thermograph) will show two people in the house and one on the barn [unless the GM determines otherwise]. The farmhouse’s cellar cannot be viewed. It also shows a lot of thermal sources in the barn.
3. Electro-magnetic emission sensors shows a lot of EM sources in the barn, three of which appear to be generators, and lots of other equipment. If the portal is 'warmed up' the emissions will light up like the proverbial Christmas tree.
4. Temporal energy sensors will only show a low-level residue lingering in the barn, but this needs to be done from close by.
5. Voices can be heard in the house, including cryptic snatches of conversation and the shed when McGhee or Graham are inside but the stone walls and background noise (especially in the barn) preclude much being heard.

Sneak-and-peak.
Someone (probably O’Neill) will suggest taking a look in the barn. The mechanics of this are up to the GM but Graham has motion sensors (infra-red) linked to external lights. And at least one fence will need to be crossed.

The barn is actually a fairly modern pre-fab steel structure, windowless and approximately ten by thirty metres and six high, with a tapering roof and an apex eight metres above the ground. It has three doors; a large sliding vehicle door on one of the shorter sides, a smaller hinged door on the opposite end and a human sized door on one of the long sides.

All these are fitted with mounts for external padlocks and will be locked if there is no-one inside, otherwise the smallest door is bolted on the inside. In addition to the motion sensors there is an alarm system on all the doors.

If the Misfits do gain entry they find:

• It's clean and well lit. There are a lot of cables stretched around, a minor trip hazard.
  
• There's a small and rather old caravan tucked away in one corner with signs of use. (MacTavish lives here)
  
• At the end nearest the secondary door is the portal and ancillary equipment. This is described later.
  
• There are about forty crates stacked along one of the long sides.
  
• Adjacent to the second door is a set of three large block diesel generators (these are separate from the smaller unit used for general power supply) with a two kilolitre diesel tank and fifteen 200 litre drums. There's a gas powered forklift used to move these items.
• Near the largest door is an old looking horse-drawn covered wagon. Its bed is loaded with boxes and crates.
• By the wagon are two large folding tables with piles of books, three heavy duty laminators, a colour laser printer and boxes of office supplies pouches.
  

The Portal.
An arched gateway made from heavy gauge plastic piping. Gaps cut into the pipes show bundles of cables ducted inside.
Attached to the arch at intervals, by plastic brackets, are solenoid coils and small plastic boxes of the type used to house electronic projects. The plastic of the arch shows signs of scorching and melted spots, and places where devices had previously been mounted.

Various cables trail from the arch to a set of heavy wooden crates a few metres away, separated by standing blast screens, upon which is built a second frame holding a mass of large capacitors and their connecting wires. Some wires disappear into the crates while others connect to circuit boards in an open industrial rackmount box,which links to a small PC. The computer’s display shows rows of virtual gauges.

More cabling passes under a second set of blast screens to a large workbench covered in bare breadboards, electronics boxes and several computers. It’s littered with tools and components and even more are arranged on a folding table a couple of metres away.

When the system is operational the wiring around the archway develops a barely perceptible violet glow that brightens and becomes bluer as the power level increases.

Someone with knowledge of primitive temporal equipment will identify it as a primitive time portal, based on the Barrlyght Oscillator. Without such skills it's clearly utterly out of place and fitted with electronics of unknown purpose.


The Wagon.
While the wagon appears archaic inspection shows it is of modern construction, with a welded tubular steel frame, run-flat types and shock absorbers.
The bed is loaded with camping and hunting supplies, masses of water purification equipment, boxes of books on medicine, agriculture, mining, carpentry, as well as almanacs and full encyclopedia set (a 1911 Britannica reprint). There are also large amounts of basic medical supplies (including large bottles of aspirin) as well as dozens of maps, which are marked with the locations of old coal, gold and silver mines across the British Isles and elsewhere.
More ominously there are three wooden crates with old fashioned military markings⁴ indicating they contain old Webley Mark VI .455 revolvers; there are twenty additional cases of .455 ammunition also present, plus a box of military style holsters and belts

Many of the books have been unbound, and their pages laminated, before being hole-punched and placed into ring binders.


What happens next is determined by the GM, and the players' skills and SP use.

1. They could frantically call for assistance while hiding in the barn and hopefully nullifying the danger of the portal until UNIT arrives in force. Cinematically this leads to their capture.
   
2. They could try and sabotage or smash the portal and the control equipment; give them a chance to figure out this might be dangerous.
   
3. They could be captured and interrogated by Graham. This is also genre appropriate and allows for the de rigueur villain monologue and plot exposition. They should be briefly left guarded by only one person while the others attend to something else, allowing for escape.
4. They could retreat undetected and arrange for an assault.
   

This should lead into the traditional finale scene.

Comments? Suggestions? Ideas?



NOTES
1. I'd like to make it clear that I'm not attempting to score points or push any political agenda here. The nationalists just make a handy and generally unused villain.

2. Given that Graham seemed unprepared for his arrival.

3. Good quality images will allow UNIT to establish the identity of David McGhee within a few hours by image recognition.

4. Someone with a UK military background (such as O'Neill or Sandford) will know there are not current use but from the early twentieth century. Each box contains sixteen revolvers (48 in total) and the ammunition boxes hold 240 rounds each (4,800)

[Catsmate]

Part VI – The Finale.

OK, so far we’ve covered the basic situation.

By now the Misfits (or other investigators) have figured matters out. But how matters end is up to the GM to decide.

It could be a desperate all-out assault by UNIT’s Broadsword troops, supported by armoured vehicles and helicopters with Dark Lightnings circling overhead to provide support.
Or it could be the Misfits handling matters with more subtlety, de-escalating the crisis (though Graham at least, and possible McGhee, aren’t likely to surrender) and taking or destroying the portal apparatus.

Unlike the others MacTavish isn’t deeply committed to the Nationalist/Jacobite cause but is simply curious about time travel; he could be absorbed into UNIT and might actually be useful.

If Graham escapes he’s not much of a threat and once the farm is cleared of Mad Science the matter can be left to the police and other authorities; the possession of two dozen illegal handguns will land him in prison for a decade or two, even if someone doesn’t have a quite word with the sentencing judge.

He doesn’t know enough about the Oscillator and portal to be really dangerous.

McGhee however does have a working knowledge of the technology rediscovered by MacTavish; while he lacks the latter’s brilliance he could kludge together something potentially dangerous.

Of course there are other options for an ending.

The Misfits might arrive just a little too late and see the trio disappearing through the portal with their wagon load of anachronistic supplies. Obviously someone needs to follow and stop them from wrecking history. A small team, poorly equipped for such a mission, might pursue them immediately or the portal might need to be restarted or rebuilt (perhaps Graham left a self-destruct device) before pursuit is possible.

The perfect opportunity for some real field work for the Misfits, in mid eighteenth century Scotland….

Perhaps those left in the modern day need some help to rescue their comrades who dives through the portal, help from someone with a time machine.

[Catsmate]

Part VII – Options and Complications.

Some ideas on additional complications for the scenario.

• Graham may have some friends, especially of the ex-military (Scottish regiments naturally) type. With the portal, or by mundane means, they may have looted an armoury and could have a stock of military weapons, assault rifles, pistols, medium machine guns, grenade launchers, recoilless rifles, mortars.... Thus the Mob could be met with machine gun fire, and driven back by mortar bombs, perhaps losing a vehicle to an anti-tank rocket¹. So they send for help. It’ll take time to assemble a strike force, and can they afford to wait. Even an airstrike (if authorised) might be problematical if the meddlers have a Starstreak or two.
  
• Graham, and any allies, may have a 'Remote Device' that allows them to ‘lock-on’ to a spot to activate the portal. This could be used for robbery (infiltrate into target with timer set for suitable time) to acquire supplies, money, weapons et cetera.
  
• Might the portal have brought back something, or someone, from the future? Scooped things from the future back might include puzzled bystanders, soldiers, Robomen, biological horrors from World War VI…. This could be accidental or exploratory.
  
• Stuff from the Dalke Invasion era, for example, could be anything from a Dalek gun fitted with a power pack, Robomen weapon, Dalekanium bombs to actual Robomen. Or even a Dalek.
  
• Then again they could have broiught a plague to the modern day, as ssimple and treatable as bubonic plague to some future horrors like the bioweapons used by the Dalked in Invasion period.
  
• Do the meddlers have access to powered vehicles to take with them? Landy? Supacat ATMP? Quad bikes? Scorpion/Scimitar/Sabre?
  
• Have they perhaps already established a base in the past? Is there anyone there, or just supplies and equipment.
• MacTavish’s portal and experiments might attract, or have attracted, the attention of other time travellers. A worse case scenario could be something like an Dalek time corridor incursion, as with Waterfield’s experiments.
• Might MacTavish have made a prototype/experimental mobile time craft out of, say, an old Land Rover? Somone might need to pursue him through time.
  
• Might the primitive portal connect to the time corridor used by the Daleks in the alternate 22nd century where their invasion was successful.
  

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?

1. Who does the paperwork?