[Campaign Idea] Repurposing 'Voyagers!'

[Catsmate]

An idea that's been bouncing around in my head recently, after re-watching episodes of the series.


Repurposing 'Voyagers'.
For those whohaven't heard of it Voyagers! was a single season US television series back in the early '80s.
The premise was an time traveller, Phineas Bogg (a Verne reference) belonging to an organised group of time travellers (the Voyagers) gets accidentally transported to 1982 (he shouldn't be able to travel further uptime than 1970) where he endangers he life of a teenage boy named Jeffrey Jones¹. Bogg is forced to jump the pair through time to 1450BCE where the life of Moses has been disrupted.

• Which gives an idea of the level of historical accuracy of the series.

Stuck together, unable to dump Jeff home and having lost his 'guidebook' (to how history should happen) the pair bounce through time  fixing problems. Rather like Quantum Leap meets The Time Tunnel but without oversight.

The protagonists are characterised as stereotypes: Bogg is a bit of an idiot, easily distracted and overly aggressive² while Jeff is he 'know all kid' so prevalent in US television.

Their time machine is a Device referred to as an 'Omni' (originally 'Omnichron') resembling a pocket watch. Different models hve different programmed limits in the periods they can visit, though damage can alter this. The Omni seems to almost mechanical, given that Edision disassembled and cleaned one....

The show has several defects: the protagonists aren't exactly inspiring, each episode tends to have several locations with similar problems (e.g. Spartacus and Harriet Tubman), the history is barely at US secondary level and hence filled with oversimplifications and inaccuracies (the seriesws supposed to be "educational").
Nevertheless it has its charms.

It lasted one season before becoming a casualty of the CBS/NBC current affairs struggle.

"We travel through time to help history along... give it a push where it's needed. When the Omni's red, it means history's wrong. Our job is to get everything back on track."

Game Use.
Overall it's not a bad basis for a campaign. The PCs can be from various periods (Bogg was a seventeenth century pirate), the Voyagers organistion can remain in the background, until needed as a plot device.
The Time Lords can also be kept off-sage, or omitted entirely (though rebadging them may be a good idea). Perhaps the created the Voyagers, or tolerate them,or they are rivals.

There are other time travellers: tourists (guided and not), researchers, criminals and would-be-conquerors, who'd need to be dealt with. Perhaps mixed with renegade Voyagers, secret societies and governments who want to obtain time travel and ephemerals with stolen time machines. And possibly a team of Voyagers from a now "corrected" history who want to un-fix matters.....

Take a pair of Voyagers: one an academic type from the twenty-fouth century Lunarversity and her bodyguard, a mercenary from the Taiping Rebellion. Now blend in a few "assistants" they've acquired over the centuries. A petty criminal from Victorian London, a Volunteer pullled from the burning Four Courts, a 1970s hippy rescued from a cannibal cult and a cyborg veteran of the Dalek wars.
Give them a basic set of equipment:

• Omnichron (x2 for the official Voyagers only)
• Stunners 
• Morphic clothing, to blend in
• An Oracle device  (the 'guidebook') to assist them with information
• A medical kit
• A mind-fogger, to deal with inconvenient witnesses
• Translator implants
• A source of funds
• A Slightly Psychic Paper (this setting inspired the gadget)
• Anything else they can 'acquire' along the way.

As there is no TARDIS, give the team a base in some suitable (or unsuitable) location and period. Preferably with nosy neighbours, inquisitive cops, local contacts and other complications. And a retired time traveller living nearby

Which brings us to the never explained basis for the series: why does time "go wrong" and need to be fixed so much? I suggest this is the cumulative result of tiny effects from time travellers, echoing through the ages and adding up.

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?



NOTES
1. This might be a Three Investigators reference but maybe I'm reading too much into it.

2. Given how the actor died.....

[tampahawke]

I've always presumed that the voyagers TV show was created by someone who had previously observed Time Agency operatives at work. And this was how their mind processed their memory of the event. Curiously I also thought the ominis to be precursor or decenant technologies used by the Agents.

[Catsmate]

Nov 3, 2023 15:31:10 GMT tampahawke said:

I've always presumed that the voyagers TV show was created by someone who had previously observed Time Agency operatives at work. And this was how their mind processed their memory of the event. Curiously I also thought the ominis to be precursor or decenant technologies used by the Agents.

There does seem room for a connection. What happened after the Agency was shut down?

[markrand]

Which Time Agency?

[Catsmate]

Nov 3, 2023 18:44:46 GMT markrand said:

Which Time Agency?

The Time Agency, employer of Harkness and Hart.

[markrand]

Thanks. Living in the States, I missed The Ninth Doctor and all of the novels, comic books, and audios.

[tampahawke]

I could see where the Time Agency provides services as enforcement of the time lines after the fall/disappearance of the Time Lord's. But the thing is , as Douglas Adam's has told us. Space is Really Really Big. Time in the universe nearly infinitely more so. Perhaps the Agency could contract out certain "Areas of Time into smaller easier to manage parcels. Hence *The Voyager Initiative *. Each "Voyager" being humans recruited from eras that he or she is familiar with , along with fe centuries behind and a century or two from that individual future perspective. A Beat Cop if you will

[tampahawke]

Each Voyager specialist for their assigned "neighborhood " and issued the suggested equipment mentioned by cats mate earlier. Answering to Voyager Central. Time periods can even be broken down into separate departments. Brass/bronze omni voyagers handle early eras up to mid 20th century. Silver omni voyagers have some overlap with bronze (17th?? Century thru 26th) for example. With Gold omni issued voyagers over lapping 23rd century thru 4o something. And platinum omni issued voyagers responsible late 30th century thru the 50 something century. Dedicated Time Agents assigned to Voyager Central act as over seerers and damage control as needed
.

[tampahawke]

The Voyager Initiative might even have physical branch offices located in each "department " time zone. The Omnis them selves are more mechanical (and highly limited) variations of vortex manipulators. Limited solely to planet earth and further limited to small segments of Time. With built in override recall circuits that can summon the Voyager issued that omni back to Voyager central. Which is located of world possibly in orbit around earth in Time Agency controlled timezone. But separated from the Agency both physically and contractually. When the Agency was disassembled _ the Voyager Initiative and Voyager Central could have slipped under the radar. Still in business. Still quietly recruiting new Voyager candidates. With the Department Leaders staying quietly in charge no longer listed as Agents to the Agency.All THe Above being suggestions for your consideration.