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Originally Posted by helbent4
Nate,
It seems to me many PDs change the timeline simply to accommodate their favourite pet "3G toys" (Guns, Gear and/or Ground vehicles) or feel because WWIII didn't happen before the Cold War ended and therefore it's "outdated". I liked someone else's rationale for the canon timeline: TMP is set an alternative timeline (which is literally true according to TM 1-1) so just go with it. We may never get to the time when Damocles is possible and TEOTWAWKI hasn't happened, so why chase a target that recedes as time goes on? In an alternative timeline, rogue AIs like Damocles are just as plausible as cryotubes, fusion power, powered armour and miraculous medical advances.
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I like pushing the timeline back (and explaining thus explaining how timelines get altered due to the efforts of the project to advert TEOTWAWKI Event) so that all these 'far-out' advanced technologies don't totally blow the 'suspension of disbelief' when you're playing with people who are knowledgeable about high technology (when we played when i was in the Navy, there was a nuclear machinist mate, a radioman, a Ops specialist and many others who knew about these kinds of things... and my last group had a college physics professor).
By pushing the timeline back to 2012 allows for this, and the fifty years that the project had to set up, makes it more believable for such 'out-there' advanced tech.. and for the project to take the long term approach of building up. While the initial belief was that TEOTWAWKI Event was to have happened in 1989, because that was when it happened BEFORE Morrow had made his first jump back in time and before he created the Council For Tomorrow.
But their actions had pushed the timeline back, and when dealing with anything that has 'time travel' in it.. this is more than plausible... and allows for the PD/GM to decide which of the timelines they can end up playing in.
But as i said, it's not really been to have more cool toys for teams to play with... it's always really been more to allow for some of my players to have the 'suspension of disbelief'
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I love your origin for cryotube technology, but again, it's an alternative timeline and many things are possible.
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Thank you. Using the alternate timeline comes from Morrow's ability to jump through time. It's why my timeline starts at 1900, when one of Morrow's jumps did something that created the Butterfly effect to cause TEOTWAWKI in 1989, then pushed it back after the creation of the Council for/of Tomorrow. And so on... it's fun when you get a chance to play around with time.
I like my explanation of Krell more than the one in the others i've seen that he was either the embezzler or an rogue Air Force General who killed Maxwell of Maxwell's Militia and split the recovering USA (that one goes against what was said in Prime Base about Krell using a nuke right after the war).
I did use the idea of Krell having military experience as part of his education thanks to Morrow, and the fact that he was BEM's protegee to make his betrayal of the Project all the more painful.
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My understanding from people who worked on the 4th edition is that players and PDs aren't going to be given the choice on TEOTWAWKI, including the original Cold War timeline. The only information and background available is for an "updated" Project timeline, take it or leave it. If 4th ed. ever comes out I hope it's better and more successful than other well-meaning "improvements" on well-loved games like T2013 and Mega-Traveller/TNE/T20/G:T, etc. Or at least more flexible and inclusive. My information on 4th ed. TMP is secondhand and may be incorrect.
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I really hated what they did with the new 2320AD, it totally blew chunks, and as much as i liked some of the things they did with T2013... they really screwed the pooch with that one. They had the ability to do so much with it, but to many people i had to game with just didn't want to do it after they read 'Shall not Parish' because they KNEW the President didn't have the power to do what he did in that short story... and it just killed their suspension of disbelief to get into the game. and believe me, i tried for a year and half to get them to play it... even with promises of changing the background... they just were turned off by that to much.
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The Cold War is over and Communism is no longer a dire threat to our daily lives. Updating TMP to modern times makes it pale and generic compared to the existential horror of the Cold War that we lived through.
Tony
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Yeah... exactly. Thus any new version of The Morrow Project has to include something that causes people today to have that same kind of fear and horror that we had at that time. And in all honesty... pushing the timeline back to 2012 allows that easier. because most kids today would think... wait the world ended in 1989? I wasn't born yet. Screw that. I'm not playing that game.