Doctor Who: The Blue Box Files

[DonnaDoctor]

Notes from the campaign thus far:

The campaign centers around Project Blue Box, a secret organization within the U.S government created to by President Theodore Roosevelt after a mysterious fellow who called himself "The Doctor" saved his life during an alien attempt to infiltrate the U.S. government from within (the idea for Project Blue Box was originated elsewhere on this forum). Today, Blue Box is a "black ops" organization charged wth defending the Earth. Because they are clandestine, the government can "disavow" Blue Box's actions if it has to, but with friends in the C.I.A. and UNIT, hopefully they can clean up their own messes. Think the BPRD in Hellboy or the ARC in Primeval less than Torchwood.

Principal players include Hetty Lange, code named "Blue Leader" and head of Blue Box (NPC, see NCIS: Los Angeles), Special Agent Stan Smith (NPC, from Fox's American Dad! . . . slightly toned down), Morgan Black, stage illusionist and Blue Box's resident (real) psychic advisor, James Red Cloud, sort of a native American James Dean, and Rory, a student who was recently field recruited.

The campaign so far: the field team first encountered a realitvely good-natured "urbaniform" in Sprawl, and convinced it not to go to war with humanity in "Sprawl".

Then in "Another Night At The Museum", the team recovered a mysterious crysal-inlaid Aztec scepter that was actually an alien artifact taking mental control of the staff at a museum / planetarium in an attempt to apparently build a signalling device.

In "The Most Dangerous Game", the team travelled to England to stop the plans of a wealthy young aristocract who was planning to launch a coup with the aid of alien tech salvaged from Torchwood.

In "Unfinished Business", Hetty revealed that crystals like the one on the Aztec scepter had been found before: a couple recovered from archaelogical sites, as well as in the hands of the human-looking alien infiltrators that were part of the events that led to the formation of Project Blue Box. The team set out to try to tempt this mysterious agency to recover the scepter by Morgan Black taking it on the road as part of her act. A man named Takanaga offered to buy the scepter, and also noted that Morgan was the spitting image of Jeanette Black, assistant to '70s stage magician Mandrake Blanc. Blanc's career ended when he was killed in a stage illusion called "the Wicker Man". Blanc was pronounced dead at the scene by a doctor wearing a navy peacoat and jeans, who then disappeared into the crowd. Takanaga worked as Blanc's stage engineer back then, and his professional reputation took a big hit when Blanc died.

Two men wielding a crystal with telekinetic powers tried to take the scepter from Morgan's dressing room, but were stopped. They then killed themselves rather than being captured.

Morgan, Rory and Stan then traced down Jeanette Black to a mansion in Grenich Village, who invited them all in for tea. "Hullo!" said another man already there, wearing a navy peacoat, jeans, an untucked pinstriped shirt, and a really awful tie. "I'm the Doctor!"

And now the teaser for the next game, and a hint at the evolving metaplot...

"Imagine a war, a war so immense and far reaching that it was fought through every point of space in the universe, and every moment of time. A Time War."

"Now, imagine the effects of that war on the universe. Think of it this way: the universe is a great pool, containing all of space and time. A net skims through the pool, catching up things inside. Except that in this net, those things are whole races . . . planets . . . histories . . . all swept away, leaving little or nothing behind. Now, imagine that net, with all of that trapped inside, folding up on itself, closing, sealing up . . . locked up tight. A Time Lock."

"Except . . . the Time Lock isn't perfect. There's a flaw . . . a rip, and something manages to escape through this rip, back into the pool of the universe. And this something is angry, angry that it was sealed away in the Time Lock, and bound and determined to plant itself so deep in the pool this time that it can never be swept up again."

"That's what we're facing. That's what's here on Earth."

"So who's up for tea and a biscuit before we get started, eh?"

[da professor]

Oooh! Interesting!

[DonnaDoctor]

And there is a very good reason why this incarnation of the Doctor looks nothing like any of his regenerations. This is an alternate verison of the Doctor that fought in the Time War and was previously trapped inside the Time Lock with everything else. When the Enemy broke through the flaw and escaped back out into the universe and Earth, he followed, determined to bring them back.

This Nth Doctor (as I think of him) is a realist: he knows he's a ghost, a might-have-been from an alternate reality, and that when the Time Lock is repaired, he'll likely be Time Looped out of existence once it reforms again. But . . . he's still the Doctor, and there's a universe to save, and help to be had in the form of the player characters.

On a personal note, I KNEW I had the tone of Doctor Who right when, at the end of the last scenario, I flashed the "TO...BE...CONTINUED" and Morgan's player responded with, "You bast@rd!"

[danceswithdaleks]

I like the project blue box idea.It would fit nicely into a story i have planned.

[DonnaDoctor]

Camapign update: The Enemy has been revealed. They are . . . the Gray.

The Gray look like the stereotypical grey aliens with enlarged heads and huge eyes, with a Doctor Who twist: the Gray are living perception filters. In ancient times, the Time Lords studied this natural ability of the Gray, eventually using it as the basis for their chameleon circuit technology. Of course, other races like the Daleks also began studying, capturing, and experimenting on the Gray with an eye towards duplicating the Time Lords' research and developing their own perception filter / chameleon circuit technology.

The Gray had become a secondary target in the Time War.

So, with no other options, the Time Lords did what they had to do: they Time Locked the Gray homeworld.

But some Gray escaped the Time Lock. Still other Gray were off world.

Now, the Gray are working towards the fufillment of their great Plan: they will embed themselves in Earth's history, so deeply that they can never be removed. They can pass unseen whenever they wish to. Masters of genetic manipulation, they have bred Gray Human hybrids who move among the general population.

The Gray can be anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere.

The Secret War for the Earth's future has begun.

[misterharry]

I'm really impressed with this - great idea with the Grays!

[DonnaDoctor]

Much of the concept for the Gray comes from another RPG called Conspiracy X. When I started out, I knew only that I wanted to work grey aliens into Doctor Who somehow. Then I knew they would be refugees from the Time War, but I struggled with what their movtivation as a race would be. Then the whole concept of them being living perception filters came to me, and seemed very much in keeping with the whole mythology of little grey aliens. Then I thought about what their natural ability might mean, and the rest of their background sort of wrote itself. The Gray didn't start out as a race bent on conquering time: left alone, they would have existed quite happily on Gray World. But then the Time Lords came in the name of research, and brought the Daleks down on them, and then Time Lords Time Locked their planet out of existence for The Greater Good. Were the Time Lords right or wrong in what they did? Either way, it changed the Gray forever, making those that survived colder and more dispassionate, and absolutely dedicated to their goals. Ironically, as victims of both, they've become more like the Time Lords and the Daleks than they realize.