Post... Temporal?

Here is the barest sketch of an idea. Remember when I was talking about temporal hex crawls? And remember the way I categorized post-apocalyptic settings? Well, one way to encounter post-apocalyptic settings is through time travel... Which leads me to wonder if the post-apoc nomenclature might be usable for time travel as well.

Time travel targets could definitely be sorted into Near, Far, and Remote, with Mid perhaps representing non-standard temporal states, like Hasted, Slowed, or Phasing In and Out. And speed applies to time travel as well: does the traveler experience Instant travel to another time, a fast transition, or a slow one?

The third axis of severity might even be applicable. Semi-Temporal time travel might indicate only a partial shift -- just the traveler's mind, perhaps. Or maybe we should use other modifiers for that and restrict "Semi" to bilocation in time.

Apocalyptic Examples

As a follow-up to the post on types of post-apocalypse settings, here's a brief list of examples.

Panic in Year Zero -- (Semi) Mid Fast Near Apocalypse. The destruction isn't as widespread as the characters believe, and although the explosions happen too fast for anyone to stop, like most nuclear apocalypse situations, it's about the fallout and the lack of a support system.

Forbidden Planet -- The Krell suffered a Total Fast Remote Apocalypse, presumably. The humans are just there to sift through the ruins.

When Worlds Collide -- Total Mid Fast Near Apocalypse. The lucky few start over on another planet.

Melancholia --  Total Mid Fast Near Apocalypse. Sorry, no lucky few this time.

On the Beach -- Fast Near Apocalypse. In a sense, it's Mid Apocalypse; most of civilization is dead, but it is assumed that fallout will inevitably claim the rest.

Planet of the Apes -- Fast Far to Remote Apocalypse, with sapient humans completely replaced by apes or reduced to savagery, depending on whether you are talking about the first movie or the TV series. Charlton Heston's appearance triggers the final Total Fast (Near?) Apocalypse.

Omega Man -- Fast Near Apocalypse. Mostly true of other adaptations of I Am Legend, too, although the novel is, in a sense, mid-apocalypse.

Battlestar Galactica -- Fast Near Apocalypse, originally, but becomes Mid Apocalypse in the reboot.

AI -- There's a Mid Slow Near-to-Far Apocalypse in progress at the beginning of the film, which turns into a Total Slow Remote Apocalypse at the end.

Mad Max -- Mid Slow Near Semi Apocalypse (dwindling resources.) Possibly regional?

Road Warrior/Thunderdome -- Fast Near Apocalypse. Definitely not regional.

The Postman -- Fast Near Apocalypse. Possibly regional (US only?) I don't even remember if an excuse was given.

Waterworld -- Slow Remote Apocalypse. Definitely not Mid Apocalypse, since the waters seem to be subsiding.

Apocalypse Nouns (and Adjectives)

Trey at the Sorcerer's Skull blog posted about post-apocalyptic nomenclature a few days ago. I posted my own thoughts a while back, but thought I would update and think about it a bit more.

I think you can effectively sort post-apocalyptic settings along three different axes, perhaps with some extra free-floating modifiers to indicate unusual twists. Axis 1 is speed:

1. Did the end come faster than anyone could react (instant apocalypse)?
2. Did it happen within one lifetime (fast apocalypse)?
3. Was it drawn out over more than one generation (slow apocalypse)?

Axis 2 is recency:

1. Can almost everyone remember pre-apocalyptic civilization (near apocalypse)?
2. Is almost everyone too young to remember the Beforetime directly (far apocalypse)?
3. Has even the fact that there was an apocalypse become forgotten (remote apocalypse)?

Previously, I labeled recency from the view of an apocalyptic historian, calling them "early" and "late apocalypse". But an apocalyptic setting is really about how the loss of civilization affects the characters immersed in it, so maybe "near" and "far" are better terms. Remote Apocalypse needs to be distinguished because, in some cases, a new civilization is in place, so at best, the discovery of information about the pre-apocalyptic civilization sheds light on the new civilization, but does not involve a sense of loss.

Axis 3 is severity:

1. Was everything destroyed (total apocalypse)?
2. Was it just a standard breakdown?
3. Was it just a partial breakdown, forcing severe changes (semi-apocalypse)?

You can further modify the severity by making it regional. Dark Angel, for example, involved an EMP taking out the banking system in the US and causing significant breakdown on the West Coast, but the rest of the world only suffered slight setbacks as an indirect result, which makes that setting a regional instant near semi-apocalypse. I used to completely separate situations like this from an apocalypse, calling them "cataclysms" instead.

A side note: In a total apocalypse, you have to import outsiders to experience the aftermath. These may be off-world archaeologists or a new race that evolved to replace the one that was lost, or time travelers of one sort or another. You really don't have much of a sense of loss except with the time travelers.

Another modifier is "mid", marking an apocalypse as still being in progress. Almost all slow apocalypses are presented mid-apocalypse, but "Panic in Year Zero" is an example of a fast mid-apocalypse situation. Many mid-apocalyptic settings ditch any deep thoughts about loss of civilization and focus purely on survival.

Planet Types

This post is mostly for my own benefit. There was a post on Porky's Expanse that I forgot to comment on; it's an alternative scheme for describing planets. Since eventually I will get Liber Zero finished and can move on to my atomic age horror and space exploration game(s), and since I do get regular hits from people looking for a planet generator, I want to remember Porky's post for future reference, when I get around to improving my own planet generator.

Fungi from Yuggoth

I wrote all my posts for the A to Z Challenge at least a week or two in advance -- except one. For the letter Y, I was going to do a post on "Yeti and Other Cryptids", but I couldn't think of much that was interesting or useful to say about yeti. Either they're beasts, monsters, or mutants (and pretty simple ones at that,) or they're therapsoids. I could perhaps elaborate on cryptids versus hybrids versus mutants, but maybe that's best left for the future. But the Fungi from Yuggoth... that's a good atomic-age horror creature, isn't it?

Yes and no.

Sure, the '60s was when Lovecraft stories first started seeing screen adaptations ("The Colour Out of Space" became Die, Monster, Die, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" became Edgar Allen Poe's The Haunted Palace.) But these were presented more as supernatural events, rather than atomic-age horror. Sci-fi of the era didn't have an obvious Lovecraft influence, although some things have a Lovecraftian feel, like Fiend Without a Face. And, in fact, this illustrates why atomic-age horror and eldritch horror are distinct: there tends to be a link in eldritch horror between "weird stuff happening now" and "weird stuff that has happened for untold ages", the discovery of which threatens the sanity of the heroes. In atomic-age horror, it's only the villains who are toying with their own sanity, and that's because they've crossed a line to use Science in ways it was never meant to be used.

The Fungi do have a bug-eyed monster feel, though, ad "The Whisperer in Darkness" could be adapted to an atomic-age setting: switch the scholarly research into folklore and Forteana into some kind of geological survey in search of ores for new alloys or fuels, have the Fungi (or a Fungi-like stand-in) sabotage the survey in pretty much the same way.

The most atomic-age parts of the story:

• the way they replace humans; and,
• what they do with the humans they replace.

Defeating the Fungi stand-ins can lead to other stories, like what to do with victims the Fungi operated on to make them ready for transport (Do you euthanize them or restore them? Can you restore them? Or do you try to build a replacement body?) Tinkering with anything else the Fungi leave behind opens up endless possibilities as well.

Xenophobia

There's a strong undercurrent of fear of strangers and the strange in atomic-age horror. If the object of horror is man-made, it's often caused by a reclusive scientist, mistrusted by the locals (see Fiend Without a Face, for example.) If the horror is linked to an alien invader, there's often a suspicious newcomer (Teenagers from Outer Space, The Human Duplicators, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, or more benevolently The Day the Earth Stood Still and This Island Earth.) Sometimes, it's friends and family acting like strangers that is the give-away (It Came from Outer Space, Invaders from Mars, Invasion of the Body Snatchers.)

A number of people have commented about the Cold War link to this fear. People were afraid of Commie infiltration, and alien invasion is partial code for this fear. However, most people seem to have missed the strong emphasis on conformity that's also woven throughout the Fifties. People were terrified of being different or associating with people who were different. This is in part due to theories of psychology popular at the time, particularly as promoted by Anna Freud (see the documentary The Century of the Self, especially episode 2, "The Engineering of Consent"; for period examples, see educational films about being well-adjusted in The Prelinger Archive.)

You can see these fears out in the open in the Michael Landon film I Was a Teenage Werewolf. The main character is shamed into feeling different because of his hot temper, so he agrees to an experimental technique. You can guess the result from the title. You can see a more light-hearted toying with these fears in '60s TV shows like My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Jeanie, and Bewitched. All of these represent the fear from the viewpoint of the person who's different; xenophobia in atomic-age horror represents the fear from the viewpoint of those who conform.

Welcome to the Post-Apocalypse

A couple people have been posting about Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, and post-apocalyptic gaming in general. Notably, James Maliszewski has done a couple posts on Grognardia about Gamma World mutants. The genre is loosely connected to atomic-age horror; the Daleks (from the early '60s) are mutants from a post-apocalyptic world, for example, and the Corman films The Day the World Ended and [SPOILER ALERT! Title at very bottom of post]* are set on post-apoc Earth. So's Planet of the Apes (that shouldn't be a spoiler for anyone by now.) So I have a few thoughts about the genre I'd like to share.

The essence of the post-apocalyptic genre is that civilization has lost in a big way. It's also a contrast between two pairs of ideas:

• freedom vs. community
• simplicity vs. technology

In other words, it's about savage loners in the wasteland who blame science for the end of the world, but then the events of the story call into question the values of being a loner, living like a primitive, or both, possibly even reversing opinion on one or both.

This means there has to be a pre-apocalyptic civilization, usually our own, that is a well-defined group with a pro-science attitude as a contrast. There must be a sense of exactly what is lost, so that you can wonder whether it was worth it, or if things could have been different. There's two approaches to this:

• early post-apocalyptic: several survivors of the apocalypse, usually including the main character, remember the Before Times.
• late post-apocalyptic: no one remembers the Before Times, but there's plenty of evidence left.

The difference isn't just one of time. In late post-apoc, the characters have lost knowledge of the way things were, but the reader or audience is aware; we are thus more knowledgeable about the post-apoc world than the characters in it. In some cases, we don't become aware until the end (Planet of the Apes); in others, there are constant in-jokes between the writer and the audience, objects and places we recognize but the characters never notice or never fully figure out (Thundarr.)

Post-apoc RPGs are usually of the "late" variety. Gamma World is built on the disconnect between character knowledge and player knowledge. Although Gamma World is meant to be taken seriously (as James suggests,) there's a lot of intentional humor derived from the players knowing about the pre-apocalyptic world. Hoops are not inherently funny; they're funny because we know they're really rabbits.

I can't think of many early post-apoc RPGs. If any exist, they'd probably seem grimmer than Gamma World; they'd play more like a horror RPG.

Geomorph A4: UFO Refueling Bay

OK, I cheated a bit on this entry for the A to Z Challenge, since it's not a UFO, it's a flying saucer. Specifically, one designed for a crew of 1 to 3. The entrance is open and stairs are extended; fuel tanks are connected with tubes to the saucer's underbelly. I thought about adding a catawalk to this one, too, but decided that the saucer itself provides a second level to the geomorph.


Place a couple of these next to each other to represent a large hanger bay.

Rockets and Saucers

Rockets are from Mars, saucers are from Venus.

Well, no, not really. But that's about as much as I'm going to say about the Freudian subtext of rockets vs. saucers. What I want to focus on instead is the technological implications of the two forms. Rockets have a lower-tech feel than saucers. It's what the Earthlings are trying to build in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, it's what they do build in Destination Moon, Rocket Ship X-M, and When Worlds Collide. When Earthlings build and fly saucers, such as in Forbidden Planet, there's an implication of greater technological advancement.

Why? Because rockets are based on Newton's Third Law, while saucers imply breaking that law.

The Quartermass Question

I've been focusing on American atomic-age horror films (with an occasional Japanese reference) because that's what I grew up on. However, I can think of at least one British example of the genre: the Quartermass films and serials.

Professor Bernard Quatermass is a scientist-hero, not as rugged as the typical American equivalent, but that's just because British sci-fi is usually more cerebral. He's the main character of several television serials I've only seen stills of; these were adapted into Hammer Horror films, of which I've only seen one* (Quartermass and the Pit, which I saw under the title Five Million Years to Earth.) From what little I've seen, it meets all the same criteria as America atomic-age horror: mixed feelings about science, hints of paranoia, anxiety about the future. It's perhaps more pessimistic and less forgiving of military force than American films, but maybe that's just Hammer's take.

* I may have seen The Quartermass Xperiment/The Creeping Unknown, but I may be thinking of a Christopher Lee movie instead.

I'd love to see the original TV versions, but don't know if they're available, or if they are better, worse, or about the same in comparison to the Hammer film versions. Has anyone seen both versions of one of the stories? What's your opinion?

Geomorph A3: Observatory

This entry in the Atomic-Age and Alien Installation series, A3, is meant to be part of an observatory. It's a big telescope set on tracks with a control panel nearby. I probably could have added a catwalk to this geomorph, too, but I wanted to do something different. Plus, I think you're probably pretty tired of catwalks by now.

Geomorph A2: Implantation Chambers

Like A1, this next geomorph in the Atomic-Age and Alien Installation series could be used for clone or hibernation chambers, with horizontal storage instead of vertical storage. However, it's intended for implantation of alien parasites or control chips. Catwalks in this geomorph cross the room a little further away from the edges; under one catwalk, there's a vat of ... something ... placed in just the right way for people to fall into. On the opposite side is a large spherical tank or power supply.

The Future of the Fifties

Alternative V will be set in the '50s by default, not just because it's the era of some atomic-age horror movies, and not just because it's an underused era in RPGs. It's actually useful in terms of game mechanics for (re-)inventing anachronistic devices. If we set the game in the past, we can cheat a bit, subtracting the current year in the game world from the year when a "futuristic" (to the '50s) product became available.

Sputnik was launched into Earth orbit in '57. If scientist-heroes in '52 are working on an independent satellite program, they need to "jump ahead" five years in the timeline. If they are trying to put a man on the moon ('69,) they need to jump ahead 17 years. Make a reaction roll to see how their research is going: on a High reaction, they can jump ahead in their understanding of the topic 1d6 years, or double that on a Very High reaction. Once a prototype is made, it's still experimental: make an Avoid Accident roll (4 or less on d6) to avoid a malfunction, with +1 difficulty to the roll if the prototype is 10 years ahead of its time, +2 for 20 years, and an additional +1 for every doubling of the years.

Note: I had a post on FTL travel for today's A to Z challenge, written up weeks ago. But I decided that's more of a Populuxe Planet Patrol feature, plus I decided this post really needed to be written for the letter F, so I'm rescheduling FTL travel for a different day.

Geomorph A1: Clone Tanks

I hadn't planned on doing two geomorphs today, but I've been shamed into it. So, I'm coming up with a few ideas for an A-series: Atomic-Age and Alien Installations. I'm not sure how many I'll do this month, but I may post one or two in addition to my planned continuation of the G-series. The A-series will assume a more open style (no walls between geomorphs,) so that they are usable in warehouses or on floorplans for alien saucers.

This one is called "Clone Tanks". Big glass cylinders of bubbly liquid with bodies inside. They could also be regeneration tanks, or android manufacturing centers, or suspended animation chambers. There's a catwalk running around the perimeter of the area.

Atoms and Alternatives

The name of my work-in-progress atomic-age horror RPG will probably be Alternative V. I haven't seen anything with that title and it doesn't seem to be a trademark, so I think it's looking likely. Possible subtitle "horror-adventure in the Atomic Age".

What the heckazoid do I mean by that?

Resource Needed

Here's something that will seem completely unrelated to everything I've said here, but isn't.

A couple people have produced not-quite-retro-clones which recast old school rules to create "parallel universe" old school RPGs: Encounter Critical, Mazes & Minotaurs, X-Plorers... I'm considering a '50s-'60s atomic horror version.

What I'm looking for is a list or statement by either a government official or a nuclear disarmament proponent explaining what that person sees as the only possible responses to nuclear or communist threat, and their likely consequences. The reason I'm looking for this is because I have a tentative fake list for use in the game and I'd like to tweak it to look more authentic.

I'm digging through the CONELRAD website, but I don't know if I'll find what I'm looking for.