Serentia's most industrious.
Shi YenFang is happy to contribute to your core loops. Her enthusiasm carefully doesn't waver when she sees the collection of cottages on a beach you call your centre of administration. She installs a workshop and busies herself with renovations and upgrades.
[Shi YenFang braided into your list of allies]
Ablative loops
While you're here showing Shi YenFang around, you ask her opinion on how you would make your core loops more defensible. You saw from her warehouse how she had made a green zone out of the timelines leading out of her dawn war, before your victory there rendered it moot. Might something similar be applicable here?
She guides you in setting up security procedures for entry, decoy and 'lobby' loops that you needed to pass through before an intruder could access the inner areas, and entry procedures that would make it no less difficult for you to enter, but would filter out someone trying to follow you in with a tether.
When you are finished, your core loops are surrounded by a maze of decoy and ablative loops, like the central room of a labyrinth is surrounded by walls. You are no less able to come in and out at your whim, but everybody else will find it much harder to do.
[The difficulty of an enemy assaulting your core loop rises from 14 (10+ your highest societal stat) to 16.]
Lifestyle choices
In some timelines, Decius is a leader of the community, a mentor, a friend, a family member. In other timelines, Decius is self-reliant, unconnected, independent, reserved.
Some might say that unity is strength, and in fact that's exactly what Miriam Alawi in your core loops is advocating when she observes that your self-administration is not as running as efficiently as it could be. The Decius from a timeline who spends most of their time avoiding the spotlight is not going to be of much help to the Decius trying to denounce the metahuman oversight bureau's new restrictive legislation or vice versa. If one lifestyle or ideal were allowed to take precedence over all the others, then things would be run a lot more smoothly. So she says.
All this smacks to you of the worst kind of oppression, so you decline to make any changes. A Decius may live as they live, and do as they will.
There's always the risk that this leaves criminals or enemies hidden in your collective. If so, they're not actively causing problems right now and you have no wish to stir the wasp's nest to see what comes out. For now.
[Very Different Lifestyles Malus stays unchanged.]
[Population-generated event rolls will begin next turn. There will be one roll for every order of magnitude that the "Connectably You" population is higher than the "Collaboratively You" population, symbolising events that occur in the parts of your collective that you have the least control over. As of the end of this turn, the number of dice rolled is 9-8=1.]
The Government and the Complete Instantaneous Economic Disjunction.
Let's say you are a government official, and your scientific advisor comes to you, saying that the physics professor at the university just invented a time machine. What do you say?
A/ Wow! That's amazing! You know, we have this costly government program that's very risky and cutting into our budget. Can they find out from the future if it's a success?
B/ Wow! That's amazing! Could our police force use it to help solve cold cases?
C/ Wow! That's amazing! Do you think he could see go who wins the election next month?
D/ Wow! That's amazing! Can he find a newspaper from the future to see if our geopolitical grandstanding against our rival is actually good for us or if it will result in nuclear war?
If you said, "why not all of the above and more besides?", then well done because you're doing your job and that's exactly what is happening in the actual government right now. The time machine is so ubiquitously useful to all parts of governance that the consequences of its existence go beyond revolutionary. It's so useful in fact that there's little incentive to do anything
except time travel.
Is there any point to debating government policies when we can just find out from the future if they work? Who needs to contribute to the work of the administration paperwork can just be imported from the future? Why shouldn't we allow the police and emergency services to go back in time and prevent every preventable death in our country ever? What reason is there to take care if every mistake can be fixed? Aging population? Import their younger selves from the past to look after themselves.
You are a government official who has just signed off on all of the above. Boy are your citizenry going to be happy when you get up on stage and reveal that from now on all their needs are now provided for by the benevolence of their perfect government. Go team! Then suddenly reports come back that the policies don't work because the results you've seen in the future have no ontological source and are therefore no longer rooted in your reality, there is no administrative work to be imported from the future because they were also expecting to import their work from their future, emergency services are going into people's homes every part of every day to turn the stove off for a society that has forgotten how
not to leave it on, the past is angry with you because you took all their people, and actually you don't even have those people any more because the future took them.
Or are you going to call all of this too much trouble and ban the use of time machines? Well then good luck to you when your geopolitical rival makes one.
And all this only with a primitive time machine. This is before alternate timelines is factored in. This only with time travel within the bounds of living memory.
In short, a time machine might fix problems, or it might create problems, and a great deal of thought should be put into how it should be used so that more problems are fixed and less are created. One might be tempted to think this is not so different from the consequences of any other technological revolution in history and things will slowly work out just as it has every other time, but keep in mind that this is the first technology in history to cause consequences in the past.
Thanks to the warnings and advice of Miriam and the Likely Founders, the governments have been taking it slow. Plans are drawn up for time machine production so that not every time machine is just a duplicate of another time machine, so a single error won't paradox all time machines out of existence. Every government service is being reassessed, every law rewritten, every initiative and institution re-examined from principle. Serentian services that are meant for collectives-of-one like you are studied, deconstructed and reconstructed to see if they can be adapted to serve their needs. Right now it's all theory. Even with the help of time loops, this is going to take a while, and they won't know if any of it will work until they test it out.
Thankfully for them, you've just signed on as their advisor, parachute, and test subject.
[Ally gained: Local Government VIP Status: The local governments are interested in making sure your life runs as smoothly as possible. +1 Other support size modifier.]
[Uplift project begun. Will take up an Active Event slot and -1 Actions Available every turn until finished. Progress will slowly tick upwards, but you may assign additional actions to hurry the process. Projects can be taken in parallel.]
[While active, allows equipping "Uplift Project Loops: +1 to Connectivity and Interests" to Connectivity and Interests]
[Uplift: Time Machine Capabilities Study 1/1]
[Uplift: Chronomorality and Law 0/3]
[Uplift: Chronal Industry and Economy 0/2]
[Uplift: Chronal Governance and Enforcement 0/3]
[Uplift: Chronal Defense and Intelligence: (Unavailable)]
[Uplift: Preventing Chronal Shock and Cultural Stasis (Unavailable)]
[Uplift: Interchronal politics (Unavailable)]
Many worlds
[Core loops random event roll]
[1d20]=[2]
A sudden increase in dead animals and small creatures around the area of the beach in your core loops has triggered an investigation into the cause. Over hundreds of loops, more and more of the local population of birds, insects and amphibians have been found dead both on the beach and in the surrounding jungle areas. This preceded a sudden palpable, even visible drop in biodiversity only a few loops later.
The culprit was soon found. One of the Decius's had brought his cat, Shredinger, into the core loops, and decided it would be fun to strap a time machine to it and let it loose. It has since duplicated itself, spreading down the coast, roaming in gangs, hunting down anything it fancies.
You have begun tracking down and recapturing the cats, which has been made more difficult by how far they have gotten. Schredinger duplicates have reportedly had few problems crossing deserts, mountains and oceans using the time machine's teleportation function, and have been found riding mammoths as far back as the previous ice age and as far forward as the next one. Instances of dead cat have been reportedly low, and thankfully Shredinger's owner did have the presence of mind to limit the time machine's functions, so no devastation has been found. Finding and containing the many cats is an ongoing project.
The cat is always a little grumpy when you remove the time machine from it, but never resists when you pick it up, and usually comes when you open a can of cat food.
Shredinger's owner denies that this was some sort of experiment, though he also says he can't help but be proud of his cat for surviving the many hazardous situations you have found it in. Regardless, you have promulgated a new rule: no giving pets time machines.
[Shredinger may return.]
Back
You've had many regrets over your life. The greatest of these have always been when you've lost friends. Most times there was nothing you could have done, and you were nowhere near the vicinity, nor aware of the circumstances nor within your power to fix besides. That never did stop you from thinking that you could have been there, be more attentive, changed something. You've always moved on.
But now you can be there. You do know the circumstances. You can change something.
For some of your friends, all that was needed was a word of warning. For some, a quick teleport to a sufficiently advanced hospital sufficed. Some couldn't be dissuaded, but did accept help in the form of your intervention, or the arrival of the cavalry.
Some were more involved, their deaths ensconced in events that reverberated through time when changed even slightly, and you had to fight to keep everybody safe while keeping the changes low as your friend would have preferred. But you were equal to these challenges. You are a Time Traveller, upper case, not a mere event changer restricted to single loops or lines. Time lines diverge, change and merge when you will it, and if this releases the butterflies then you will chase down and catch every single one. Though of course it takes careful plans and hands-on work.
For some, it was just their time. Martina, who smoked 4 packs a day and refused to stop or accept treatment no matter how many times you arrived with a doctor in tow or tried to get her hooked on something else instead. Trebus, who had ideas about fate that were wrong but deeply held and had refused priests and astrologers of all types telling him otherwise. Enactera, who always died in bed exactly on the night of her birthday at 3:21 am without fail, even if you broke into her room and put her into stasis.
You have suspicions about that last one, but you leave it alone for now. You can always return to it later.
The return of so many of your lost friends and allies seems almost too easy. Trivial, even, and though you are happy to see them well and they are grateful for the help, the relief you feel is nowhere near as intense as your previous grief at their departure. Maybe you expected something on the same level, or maybe that's just how it is. But from now on you'll be keeping a close eye on them all.
Some have offered to step up to the plate themselves and take a time machine. No doubt you'll be there for them too, and they for you.
[Allies: Old friends come again: +1 to Connectivity and Interests. +1 to Support modifier.]
New Frontiers
Despite your lifestyle differences there are two things that are shared among all the Decius's of the collective. The first is that core part of your personality that is essential to you. Call it your style, call it your soul, it's that part of yourself that you recognise in a fellow Decius. The second thing you share is your microkinesis.
As for your differences, well, it's basically everything else. Most of you don't even share the same parents. In fact, a lot you aren't even from the same country. In fact, even the name of Decius isn't shared between all members of the collective. For some individuals, Decius is their mask name. For other individuals, it's their actual legal first name. For some others it's not even any part of their name or history, it's only the name of the time traveller collective they belong to.
So after giving it some thought, you don't see why you should be limited to microkinesis either. Sure, microkinesis played a big part in why you have a time machine in the first place. But now that you have the time machine, there's no reason to limit yourself to a single power. Probabilistically speaking, somewhere out there is a Decius with a non-microkinetic power, with or without a time machine, who would accept an invitation into the collective.
Unopposed difficulty 15 Outcome Reach roll :
[1d20+3]=[7]
Probabilistically it might be likely, but practically speaking just because it might exist doesn't mean you can find it. All the metaphorically "closest" timelines are filled with the Decius's already in your collective, which is logical because those are the timelines you've braided. Most of the rest just don't have a Decius in them. Not every timeline contains the circumstances that led to your existence after all.
Beyond the closest timelines, well... it turns out that you're just not very skilled at this kind of exploration. First of all, you're setting up tens of thousands of random slides into unknown timelines in the hopes it will contain a Decius with a new power, so you're basically brute-forcing it. Second, tens of thousands of random slides have only managed to put tens of thousands of Decius duplicates into the closest timelines, where you've been endlessly bumping into each other.
Metaphorically speaking, you're trying for a free throw into a hoop the next court over, but not only do you not see where the hoop is, you don't have the strength to throw that far, and the new throws are starting to hit the same places as the old throws.
Reroll used:
[1d20+3]=[11]
Attempting the same from random stations in the slipbraids gets you further afield, but you're no less blind then you were before. You begin to find very different timelines. Ones with systems that govern all human interaction, with strange, watching powers, and others with crushing mundanity. You find it hard to visualise how a Decius might emerge under any of these circumstances. You've gone too far.
Reroll used:
[1d20+3]=[9]
On a whim, you try setting out from Shi YenFang's timeline and Miriam Alawi's timeline.
You're quickly dissuaded when you find that Miriam is from off-planet, so any sliding you do from her timeline is going to land you on an alien planet nine times out of ten. And Shi YenFang's timelines don't even
have superpowers.
Final reroll used:
[1d20+3]=[23]
At the food establishment in Serentia, you ask aloud if anybody there is from a timeline with superpowers. Another Decius cheekily raises their hand. You all laugh. But then you pause.
Maybe you've been going about this the wrong way. You've been aiming to find an alternate timeline where you would then find a Decius with different powers from you. But isn't your actual goal to... gain a different power?
Dozens of years into the past, in your own timeline, you infiltrate unnoticed into the high security laboratory containing the secret experiment that would go catastrophically wrong and give you your microkinetic power.
There, you quietly swap out one experiment with the components of another.
[Event Reward: Allows equipping "Origin Story - X Experiment: Allows the use of X" to a free Banked Talent slot.]
[The option to equip the power will be given next turn. The unchosen powers will be held here, at this moment in time.]
Choose one from the following 3 options for X:
[] Life Force Manipulation
[] Power Cancelling
[] Magic
___
Combat turns to follow. Voting can begin on the options above, but the rest of the options will be available after combat turns.
___
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Character Sheet
-
Decius
O₁1₃ @P5.1
-
Traits
-
Core Traits:
- Serentian time traveller: Gain a base +1 to all your societal stats. Add the sum of your two lowest societal stats to your actions available. Add your Connectivity and Interests stat to the re-roll pool.
- Microscopic telekinesis: Small objects and particles can be easily controlled by your mind through extreme precision. Among other more benign uses, blocks the use of all nuclear-scale or annihilation weapons within range with payloads smaller than your body.
Other traits:
- Travelsolving style - Foresight and Resourcefulness: +1 Passive Banked Talent.
- Very Different Lifestyles - Some of you live vastly different lifestyles than the others, and it's detrimental to coordination. -1 Action.
-
Economy Stats
-
Actions Available: 2
+5 from the lowest 2 societal stats
-1 from Very Different Lifestyles
-1 from 1 Braided Collectives
-1 from Government Uplift.
Active Event Capacity: 4
+4 from Connectivity and Interests
Holding Event Capacity: 3
+3 from Outcome Reach
Reroll pool: 4
+4 from Connectivity and Interests
Record of Actions/Action Balance:
O₁@P2: +0
O₁1₁ @P3: +0
O₁1₂ @P4.1: +1 to by Spy-spec holovest.
O₁1₂ @P4.2: +1 to accept Shi YenFang's paying job.
O₁1₂ @P4.2: +3 from completing Shi YenFang's paying job.
O₁1₃ @P5.1: +1 from Government uplift project
O₁1₃ @P5.1: +2 from accepting jobs
O₁1₃ @P5.1: +1 from completing The Visit: Absent Friends
O₁1₃ @P5.1: +1 from finding alternate superpowers
O₁1₃ @P5.1: +2 from fortifying core loops
Total: +12 Actions.
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Population Stats
-
Connectably You: ~(9)!
Connectably you population is determined by the sum of all societal stats.
Supporting/Collaboratively You: ~(5+3)! = ~8!
Collaboratively you population is determined by the sum of your two lowest societal stats, plus your other support size modifier.
Crew of You: ~2!
The size of your crew is determined by your lowest societal stat, plus your other crew size modifier.
Other support size modifier: +3
+3 from Allies.
Other crew size modifier: +0
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Societal Stats
-
Banked Talent: 2
+1 from Travelsolving style - Foresight and Resourcefulness
+1 from Serentian Time Traveller
Banked Talent represents how capable your best members are, and how capable you are by the transitive property.
Banked Talent also serves as your skill roll, and serves as your attack modifier in time combat.
Slots are typically filled with experiences and rare abilities.
- Veteran of the Morning Battle: +1 to combat skill. Additional +1 from modifiers.
- Open slot
Outcome Reach: 3
+1 from Miriam Alawi Sponsored Involvement Level 1
+1 from Serentian Time Traveller
+1 from Serentian Initiate
Outcome Reach represents how far into the surrounding alternate timelines your knowledge extends, and your ability to get where you want to go.
Outcome Reach also measures how far you can time travel your entire collective, and serves as your mobility/defense stat in time combat.
Slots are typically filled with actively maintained infrastructure.
- Serentian Initiate: +1 to Outcome Reach, +1 to Connectivity and Interests
- Open slot
- Open slot
Connectivity and Interests: 4
+1 from Just yourself, you loner
+1 from Serentian Time Traveller
+1 from Serentian Initiate
+1 from Old Friends Come Again
Connectivity and Interests represents how invested you are in your collective, and how able you are to support or back other individuals within the collective.
Connectivity and Interests also serves as your reroll pool for failed event rolls, and serves as your perception/HP stat in time combat.
Slots are typically filled with lifestyle and culture projects.
- Open slot
- Open slot
- Open slot
- Open slot
Core Loops Protection: +2. Total difficulty: 16.
O₁1₃ @P5.1: +2 from fortifying core loops
-
Events
-
Active Events:
Government Uplift Project:
- This project requires your constant attention. -1 to Actions Available. 1 Action will automatically be used on this event every turn.
- Ally gained: Local Government VIP Status: The local governments are interested in making sure your life runs as smoothly as possible. +1 Other support size modifier.
- While active, allows equipping "Uplift Project Loops: +1 to Connectivity and Interests" to Connectivity and Interests
[Uplift: Time Machine Capabilities Study 1/1]
[Uplift: Chronomorality and Law 0/3]
[Uplift: Chronal Industry and Economy 0/2]
[Uplift: Chronal Governance and Enforcement 0/3]
[Uplift: Chronal Defense and Intelligence: (Unavailable)]
[Uplift: Preventing Chronal Shock and Cultural Stasis (Unavailable)]
[Uplift: Interchronal politics (Unavailable)]
Services Requested by Serentian no. 12
Services Requested by Serentian no. 7
-Open event slot
Brewing Events:
- Shredinger may return.
Newly Resolved Events:
The visit: Absent Friends (completed O₁1₃ @P5.1).
- Brought some old friends back to life
- Resolving this event adds "Old friends come again: +1 to Connectivity and Interests. +1 Other support size modifier" to your allies.
Holding Events:
Origin Story - The Experiment:
- Life Force Manipulation, Power Cancelling, Magic.
-Open event slot
-Open event slot
Faded Events:
None
Older Resolved Events:
Battle in the Morning (completed)
- A battle with yourself, at the dawn of your origin event. Your foundational experience of time travel.
- Resolving this event allows equipping "Veteran of the Morning Battle: +1 to combat skill" to a free Banked Talent slot.
Joining Serentia (completed O₁1₁ @P3): Sponsored (uses sponsor's event cap).
- You've assimilated into the time traveller society known as Serentia.
- Resolving this event allows equipping: "Serentian Initiate: +1 to Outcome Reach, +1 to Connectivity and Interests" to Outcome Reach OR Connectivity and Interests.
- Completion gives trait: Serentian time traveller. Replaces Primitive Time Traveller.
Buy a cloaking device (completed O₁1₂ @P4.1)
- Adds a Spy-spec holovest to your equipment.
Shi YenFang's dawn war (completed O₁1₂ @P4.2)
- Adds a Powered Armour to your equipment.
- Adds +1 to a single equipped "Veteran" equip.
-
Involvement
-
Sponsors
Miriam Alawi.
Involvement Level 1:
- Passive: +1 to Outcome Reach (No cost due to being your sponsor)
Actions:
- Spent 1 action for you at O₁1₁ @P3 to complete Joining Serentia event.
Braided collectives
Braided collectives lower actions available by 1 per involvement.
Shi YenFang
Involvement Level 1:
+1 to any bonuses to high tech devices, or to skill checks involving a technological device
- 1 Actions Available
Allies
Your peers, your students, your handlers, your family, your friends.
You are a beloved mentor of many and supported by all. Some have become time travellers. However, none of them are up to your notch.
+1 Other support size modifier
Just yourself, you loner
You have a lot of time to talk with yourself.
+1 to Connectivity and Interests.
Local Government VIP Status
The local governments are interested in making sure your life runs as smoothly as possible.
+1 Other support size modifier.
Old Friends Come Again
They're back, like they never left.
+1 to Connectivity and Interests. +1 Other support size modifier
Agreements
None
Opponents
The enemy Decius, the opposition of you. Occasionally reappears on a bad roll.
-
Resources, Infrastructure and Exploitables
-
Equipment
Spy-spec holovest:
Taken from a spy's coat closet in a heist. Not a time heist, just a regular one.
+1 to any actions helped by stealth, subterfuge or charisma.
+1 additional from Shi YenFang
Powered Armour:
You suspect this armour wouldn't have been powered if the maker hadn't discovered its colossal weight after trying it on.
+1 to defensive combat skill checks. Allows facetanking small antimatter hits.
+1 additional from Shi YenFang
