Episode 1, Chapter 13: Chasing the Truth
"I believe we should ensure that Le Roi is wearing a nice thick coat," Yves begins.
Kat frowns. "I disagree. We can't pick and choose which timeline we like best."
"Exactly!" Edward chimes in. "Our duty is to find the
right timeline, and that means the original one."
"But even if that one is the original, it seems like a bloody awful one," says Mace.
"Let us vote," Hypatia declares, as democratically as you'd expect. "I say we take the time travelers out of it. Forrest can do nothing now, and we should do nothing as well. Let history and chance take their course."
Slowly and painfully, Edward and Kat agree. "We can't intervene in the timeline anymore," Edward argues. "Hypatia is right: we have achieved our goal here by taking out Forrest, and now we have to stay out of it."
Yves and Mace hold out. "There will always be disturbances in the timeline," Yves counters. "It is our job, through our commission by Timewatch, to make sure that Timewatch exists. So that is what we need to do. It is circular, yes, but that should be our paramount concern. We must save the king."
Michel is skeptical. "In what way does that differ from the logic of M. Forrest, trying to make certain that the timeline he likes best wins?"
"It does not!" Yves declares. And then adds. "Except for the white supremacy."
Everyone stares.
"Well," Kat finally says. "That makes my decision easier."
Edward agrees. "Yes. A lot easier."
Mace Hunter! still isn't convinced."What is the point of Timewatch if we're not going to figure out the right answer and make sure that that happens? The right answer is right there on our tether. That's the timeline we have to protect."
"Timewatch sent us to stop Forrest," Edward argues back. "We can't do that if we allow - or
make - the same change that Forrest attempted."
Michel adds, "If we do intervene, how do we know that we will not create even worse ripples in the timeline?"
"Timewatch would not send us out to do nothing," Yves sniffs.
"We haven't done nothing!" Edward protests. "We've apprehended Forrest. Twice!"
"Yves," Michel asks, "what do you propose that we do that does not compromise the integrity of the timeline by introducing ourselves to a major political figure?"
"Simply ensure that the king wears a warm coat in four days," says Yves.
Even that is too much intervention for the rest of us. Hypatia suggests, as she has all along, "Just let the old valet come back. Let Damiens try and - we hope - fail anyway."
Michel does have one small intervention: "Let us make sure that the valet isn't so bitter that he dresses the king in unsuitably thin clothes to try to give the king a cold."
Which is all very reasonable. And all very distracting. While we're debating and making other plans, Yves is slipping out his Autochron. By the time we notice it, the purple globe is already forming around him. All we can do is chase!
Rules Sidebar:
[sblock] Well, we
could have shot him, but we wanted to test the time-chase mechanics
This was our first real speed bump in the playtest. Somehow we'd missed the fact that time chases are based on the Vehicles stat, and with an entire party of pre-modern people, none of us had enough points in Vehicles to make a decent chase! So instead, we decided to use Athletics instead, and made a note of that for the future.
Also, this session took place before a really great update to the rules. Now when you engage in a time chase, you hop in and out of famous historical chases! Chariot races, Olympic sprints, 1920s mob car chases, futuristic spaceship battles - any chase you want. Alas, that had not yet entered the rules.
[/sblock]
Edward, being a quick and athletic sort of person, is the first to leap after Yves. He takes the lead in the chase, steering us through space and time, past whirling stars and fleeting glimpses of alternate times.
We land on a balcony - still in Paris, still in the palace, but a century earlier. We're in 1657, witnessing the signing of a treaty between King Louis XIV and Oliver Cromwell. We barely have enough time to realize what's going on before Yves winks out again.
The stars whirl again, and tentacles slither out to grab at our Autochrons. Yves is fast, but so are the rest of us - Edward's expertise at Paradox Prevention has prepared him for just this kind of chase, and he's leading the group at top speed through the chaos of time.
We land in a desolate wasteland, so blasted by nuclear war that we couldn't even begin to guess when and where we are. Only our tethers tell us: it's still Paris. This is the 23rd century. It's the time that Forrest came from, the future that will follow if we do nothing.
And then Yves jumps out again, and when the stars stop spinning, we're almost back where we started. Still in Paris, back in January 1757. It's January 3: two days after we left, and one day before Damiens will try to assassinate King Louis XV.
We close in around Yves, prepared for him to jump away again - but he doesn't.
"You have exhausted my ability to escape you," Yves says, "but perhaps you have seen the consequences of not saving the king's life. You have a choice: you can arrest me right now. Or you can just allow me to pay the new king's valet a small bribe to make sure that he is extra warm in a couple days."
"Does it not occur to you that you are about to talk to the valet?" Michel cries in exasperation. "You could spare yourself so much effort." That is, in fact, what we had been about to do when Yves fired up his Autochron.
Edward is still focused on the big picture, though. "We already understood the consequences," he says steadily. "We still can't allow you to do this. Our whole purpose here is to prevent the deed that your'e trying to do."
Yves shakes his head. "Understanding something intellectually is not the same as experiencing it."
"We still need to prevent time travelers from interfering in this timeline," Edward persists.
"But that's what created our timeline!" protests Yves.
"You don't know that," Hypatia counters.
"Are you willing to risk your entire existence on that chance?" Yves asks.
Edward quirks a faint smile. "Isn't that what we do every day?"
Yves clearly isn't making any headway with Edward or Hypatia, so he tries a different tactic now. "Michel, I thought your love for La France would make you act in a different manner."
"Yves!" Edward exclaims indignantly. "Weren't you just accusing me of trying to bend the timeline for nationalist purposes?"
"Yes," Yves admits calmly, "but you were doing it for England."
Edward throws up his hands. "Oh, it's all right if
French people do it!"
Michel answers the question, and doesn't take the bait that Yves has been trying to hold out. "I have been on the battlefield defending France against invaders. I do not want to do it again."
Eventually we talk Yves down - he's outnumbered, after all, and he's already lost one chase, so he'll very likely lose if he tries to run again. We watch him very very closely, and move ahead with our original plan.
