Continuum RPG Inspiration and Sources

One of the biggest problems that a lot of Game Masters for various rpgs have is coming up with ideas and concepts for their games. Continuum is no exception to this rule, but because of the richness and detail that went into the game world and the like, some GMs might be a bit puzzled or at a loss for some good material on which to base their game sessions of Continuum . The following consists of a list of various sources of inspiration for Game Masters and players alike of the game, taken from different sources and the like. The list of inspirations and source material below is by no means complete, and I am constantly ready, willing and able to update these listings and add any new Continuum sources of inspiration to this file of resources. If you know of any new sources of material that are applicable here, or can provide me with any corrections and/or clarifications, please send me e-mail.

Books

Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time. One of the few 20th Century works that feature people travelling through time at will. The timeline appears to be inflexible as a result of natural law, not because of the universe acting through the Continuum as it does in the game, and the travellers move though time only. The time travellers in the book spend most of the book finding each other, and then barely forming an organization of sorts.

Neal Asher, Cowl. An interesting novel that deals with a war between two factions who both believe their point of view is the correct one. The novel centers on a series of characters being dragged back through time in ever-increasing jumps. Highly enjoyable book, with lots of good ideas for Continuum in it.

Isaac Asimov, The End of Eternity. One of the earliest novels of the modern era of time travel (1955), this book features the Eternals, the ruling class of the future who patrol the timeline and keep it intact, while also making carefully calculated changes to the time flow in order to improve the lot of mankind. The story deals with an Eternal named Andrew Harlan who is willing to sacrifice all that he is and knows for love. An interesting novel, with some fascinating aspects to the concept of time travel, its nature, and the consequences of it. Recommended.

Robert Asprin and Linda Evans, Time Scout. The first book in the Time Scout series, this book finds that a global disaster in the 21st Century made time travel possible through a series of time gates. Tourists regularly vist known parts of the past, but only in the tracks of the time scouts who pioneer new time gates. This book concerns retired time scout Kit Carson, and his granddaughter, Margo, and her journey to become a time scout. Fast paced, historically literate, this first book in the series is a good read.

Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever. This novel deals with the concept of being able to establish a contact with oneself in the future or past via dreaming. Furthermore, the future selves eventually went back and experienced the situations again, from their perspectives. Not a bad novel, and has some intriguing ideas in it.

Kage Baker, The Company series. This series of books that began with In the Garden of Iden and now runs to six books deals with a seemingly benevolent company, Dr. Zeus, that seems to have the world's interests at heart. While the time travellers are cyborg immortals who "travel" through time by aging normally (but don't really age because of their immortality), the series offers some unique insights into the life span of these people, the society and culture of the Company's inhabitants, and has a dark edge that is explored as the series progresses. Highly recommended.

Stephen Baxter, The Time Ships. This book is the authorized sequel to H.G. Wells's classic The Time Machine, that explores the notion of what if the time machine from the first book fell ito the government's hands. Driven by his failure to save Weena from the Morlocks, the Time Traveller sets off again for the future, but this time, the future has changed, altered by the very gale of the Traveller's previous journey. Terrific novel with lots of ideas for both Continuum players and GMs.

Gregory Benford, Timescape.

Ann Benson, The Plague Tales and The Burning Road.

Octavia Butler, Kindred. Interesting novel in which Dana, a young African-American woman, is drawn into her own past as she repeatedly travels back in time to a Maryland plantatin in the early 1800's. Forced into a life of slavery, she is soon enmeshed in the lives of her own ancestors. Good novel, with solid material on the background time period.

Linn Carter, Time War.

Mona Clee, Branch Point.

L. Sprague de Camp, Rivers of Time. One of the classics of the genre, and very difficult to find. This volume collects the stories about Reginald Rivers, the owner of a time safari who first appeared in "A Gun for Dinosaur". A truly remarkable set of stories, and one of the best time travel/dinosaurs set of tales around. Highly recommended.

Daphne DuMaurier, The House on the Strand. A British time travel classic set on the Cornwall coast. In 1969, the hero of the book experiments with a time travel drug that transports him back to 1329 and the court intrigues, murders, love stories, and power struggles of that time. Interesting take on time travel, but not really all that well expounded upon.

Greg Egan, Axiomatic More precisely, the story in the collection called "A Hundred Light-Year Diary", in which the narrator struggles to understand his humanity and free will in a near-future world in which strangely plausible technology allows transmissions from the future, and everyone on earth is born with a diary describing events which their elder selves would consider relevant on any given day. Highly engaging story.

Jack Finney, Time and Again. Simon Morley, an illustrator, is enlisted by a secret government project to hypnotize himself back to 1880's New York, and goes and investigates a mystery. Despite the fact that we are barraged with the details of New York in the 1880s, the book deals iwth the morality the decisions that we make. Morley's decision to treat the people in the past as more than the images long dead in the present leads inevitably to his decision to question the rightness of the project that he is engaged in. Good read.

Richard Garfinkle, All Of An Instant. A marvellous book with an interesting take on time travel using an aquatic metaphor. Time is perceived as almost like a great ocean, with currents and tides. This outside-of-time place is called the Instant. The initial time traveller who sets out to perfect time to his liking soon finds that the changes he has wrought (the ripples in the pool analogy works well here) has led to others finding a way into the Instant. The book deals with the conflicts between various groups and camps in the Instant, and has a very Narcississt sensibility to it. This is a very involved book that can give one headaches, but well worth the read.

David Gerrold, The Man Who Folded Himself. This novel concerns a man who acquires a time belt, and starts interefering in his own timeline without considering the consequences. The book emphasize the mess one can find oneself in popping around in time, not knowing how old one is getting, or remembering where one has been. At a deeper level, the book is about identity and isolation. Highly recommended.

Richard Gott, Time Travel in Einstein's Universe. An interesting book that has a lot of good stuff in it and is very readable. The book coves much of the recent work by people like Stephen Hawking and Kip Throne on time travel. Unlike a lot of other books, this one is completely focused on time travel and doesn't deviate into other areas of research and knowledge.

Ken Grimwood, Replay. This novel begins with the hero dying of a heart attack...and then waking up at age 19. He's in college and remembers everything that happened to him. He lives a good life, becomes a multi-millionaire and then dies of a heart attack, and awakes again at age 19. This novel has a plot similar to that of the movie Groundhog Day, but has an extended timeframethat allows for exploration of how one might change events (and what events can and cannot be changed). Interesting premise, that also deals with the issue of seeking out others who might also share a similar fate.

Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time. This non-fiction book is a classic, and provides a wonderful primer on all sorts of topics and subjects that relate to time travel.

Robert A. Heinlein, The Door Into Summer.

James P. Hogan, The Proteus Operation.

Wil Hubbell, Cretaceous Sea. A paleontology student is offered the chance to study prehistoric specimens in their natural habitat - by travelling via a time-warp machine into the past to the Cretaceous Period when dinosaurs ruled the earth. The story is not really about time travel or even the trip back to the Cretaceous Period, but more about the intention of people who want to use the time travel device, and the fact that the "resort" in the past is actually an observatory - one that will be destroyed when a certain giant meteor that killed the dinosaurs crashes on Earth... Entertaining novel, but not one with a lot of technical jargon about time travel at all.

Crawford Killian, The Chronoplane Wars series. This series of books concerns time travel via alternate dimensions - in this world, the time travellers aren't travelling through time, but merely visiting a parallel universe that happens to be an exact copy of Earth in a past era.

Madeleine L'Engle, The Time Quartet series, consisting of A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind at the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters. This series starts with the first book, A Wrinkle in Time, the Newberry Award-winning story of strange tesseracts and mysterious times and places.

Keith Laumer, Dinosaur Beach. Interesting novel, originally based on the short story. Two groups of time travellers who are fighting each other across history. However, time doesn't end with their own eras as they assumed, and there is a third faction that is playing both sides off the other, without them having any idea that the third group exists. Useful for some of the concepts that could be applied to both Continuum and Narcissist.

Murray Leinster, Sidewise in Time.

John MacDonald, The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything.

Richard Matheson, Somewhere in Time. This classic novel, adapted into a movie starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, concerns a modern man whose love for a woman he has never met draws him bakc in time to a luxury hotel in San Diego, 1896, where he finds his soulmate in the form of a celebrated actress of the previous century. Time travel in the book is achieved through self- hypnosis. Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in its day.

Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife. This book is a wonderful tour-de-force aboyut Henry de Tamble, a Chicago librarian who suffers from "Chrono Displacement" disorder - at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or the future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. A clever science fiction story, this book is also a realistic character study, and a touching love story. A superb novel.

André Norton, The Time Traders series. This series of books began with The Time Traders and Galactic Derelict. Ross Murdock is offered the choice of rehabilitation or volunteering for a seccret research project searchng the past for the source of illicit technological innovations. These stories tend to be more action adventure oriented than actual science fiction time travel stories, but have some wonderful moments in them, and may provide all manner of ideas and the like for GMs of the game.

Chad Oliver, Mists of Dawn. First published in 1954, this book concerns a 17-year-old who travels back in time on an unplanned trip to the Europe of 50,000 years ago where Neanderthal and Cro- Magnon man engage in a conflict for survival. The narrative of this book, told from the point of view of an adolescent boy thrust into the violent environment of hunter-gatherers who themselves became the hunted makes for good reading, and offers a unique perspective on the story that really hasn't been duplicated to this day.

Barry Parker, Cosmic Time Travel: A Scientific Odyssey. This non-fiction book reveals the latest scientific developments in the field of time travel, from Einstein's space-time theories to time tunnels and black holes.

R. Garcia y Robertson, The Virgin and the Dinosaur.

Robert J. Sawyer, End of An Era.

Clifford B. Simak, Time and Again.

Michael Swanwick, Bones of the Earth. In this novel, mysterious beings come to present-day Earth and offer paleontologists a means of time travel that will allow them to study dinosaurs; the time travel tech is similar to that in Continuum. The book offers some intrigue with characters having to deal with older or younger versions of themselves, as well as a creationist narcissist. Good book, and I recommend this one.

Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (and its sequels The Third Wave and Powershift). In this series, Toffler weighs in on each decade before him. These books are an excellent source for discovering how people in different times felt about the future, and their place in history.

Harry Turtledove, Guns of the South. A novel that illustrates clearly that once the location of a time machine becomes known, it becomes the primary military objective. Both sides in the war wish to protect the inventor, Betne, but each on their own terms.

Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg (editors), The Best Time Travel Stories o fthe 20th Century. This book is a wonderful volume that includes some of the true classics of the genre. "Death Ship" by Richard Matheson is a chilling story concerning three astronauts who stumble upon the conundrum of past and future. Jack Dann's "Timetipping" deals with a truly unusual concept: What if everyone was capable of time travel except for you? Ray Bradbury's classic "A Sound of Thunder" is included here, as well a whole host of other tales.

Herbert George Wells, The Time Machine. The classic of the time travel genre, this book deals with the creation of a time machine and witnessing the marvels and consequences of the ages. Highly recommended.

Connie Willis, Doomsday Book. The magnificent novel about Kivrin, a young history student from the year 2048 AD, who travels back in time, supposedly to arrive in the rural English countryside of the fourteenth century, but accidentally finds herself at the time of the Black Death, the plague that swept Britain and Europe. Meanwhile, the situation becomes dangerous in the 21st Century that she comes from, and the story is told of the convergence of the two plots. Steeped in well-researched mediaeval life, this story is gripping in its plotting and detail. Highly recommended.

Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog. A sort of sequel to the Doomsday Book. Ned Henry has been jumping back and forth between the 21st Century and pre-Blitz Britain, searching in vain for something called the Bishop's bird stump Becoming time-lagged after one too many trips, he is sent back to the late 1880's for a "vacation". Needless to say, the vacation turns into something else. A wonderful book, somewhat light-hearted in feel. Recommended.

Roger Zelazny, Creatures of Light and Darkness. One of the cooler works by the author in which time travel is used as a combat tactic. There is the description of an extremely wide-scale and incredibly vicious time combat between two characters.

Television & Movies

12 Monkeys. The film starring Bruce Willis. A sober time travel story about the subtleties of knowing and disseminating information. While time travel is by fixed-position projection, this movie is a cautionary tale for those who keep their Yet too empty. Highly recommended.

Back to the Future. This film had two sequels to it, and was an interesting series of movies about time travel that had some definite problems with causality. Fun films, and good movies to use as guidelines about how *not* to screw up the timeline.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Another movie that had a sequel, this film is a case study in why responsibility is at the heart of the Maxims, and why teens are rarely chosen as spanners. The movies feature good illustrations of working out one's Yet and slipshanking.

The Black Robe This wonderful movie tells the story of an Algonquin chieftain who has a dream of death and awaits the She-Manitou to take him away. This story could be adapted to Continuum as a Societal border for the Greatest Game.

The Blair Witch Project. One might not expect this movie to be suitable for Continuum, but if one takes it from the perspective of Ellie, the Blair Witch, actually playing havoc with all the Midwives in the area - or perhaps being one herself - well...

Crime Traveller. This 1997 BBC series about time cops had some excellent stuff in it. The best website for it is Liane Broadley's site. There's some good stuff here, including six of the Ten Rules of Time that have been dealt with in the series.

Doctor Who. One of the longest running television series of all-time, this series features an enigmatic Time Lord travelling through space and time with various companions and provides a good example of how not to interfere with historical events. The earliest series with the late William Hartnell had wonderful historical stories, with science fictional tales coming more to the forefront later on. A terrific site out there is Alastair's Dr. Who Links, that includes FluidLink and the TARDIS Manual. Another good site is Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel), that has links to all sorts of Doctor Who stuff, as well as synopses and behind-the-scenes details of all the incarnations of the Doctor.

Groundhog Day. This is a movie in which Bill Murray's character is forced to repeat the same day until he gets it right.

Le Jetee. This is the original French movie on which 12 Monkeys was based. While supposedly a movie, it is actually more like a bunch of photographs with narration. The movie works on the basis that people from the future can apparently travel through time at will, and it also has the idea that one can't escape the past if it's also one's future.

Quantum Leap. This television series about the time travelling adventures of Dr. Sam Beckett is one of the better series to explore the consequeneces of time travel. While Sam didn't travel through time per sé, the series offers some remarkable insights into the subject.

Retroactive. This 1997 James Belushi film makes a good point for the Continuum counterargument that it is better to let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to changing causality "for the better".

Returner. This Japanese film (Ritaanaa in Japanese) deals with Milly, a young woman living in the post-apocalyptic world of 2084, who goes back in time to try and find out how the war that has ravaged her world began and a means to avert it. It isn't a bad movie, but doesn't have a lot of originality to it, borrowing themes from all over the place.

Run Lola Run. Franke Potente stars in this wonderful movie that emphasizes the Narcissist approach to things.

Somewhere in Time. This movie features Christopher Reeve as a man who uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time to be with the woman he loves. The character did aheck of a lot of research in order to know where and when to go. Good movie.

Time Cop. This movie starring Jean-Claude van Damme is not one of the best, but it does offer an interesting perspective on time travel, how politicians might abuse this ability, and certainly shows the effects of changing the past. Not necessarily good for the Continuum game, but certainly showing the alternate realities concept well enough. There was also a TV series by the same name, based on the movie.

Time Trax. A television series in which villains are sent bodily back to their future by the will of a time policeman. The procedure is deadly poisonous if attempted more than twice, and requires the fixed- position TRAX machine. The policeman, Darien Lambert, and his holo workmate Selma are a likeable pair, but the series doesn't really have all that much going for it.

Time After Time. The well-crafted story of H.G. Wells as the inventor of a real time machine stolen by Jack the Ripper. It is a useful film for insights into the 1890s period as well as a realistic time capsule of the 1970s.

The Time Machine. The George Pal classic film based on the book by H.G. Wells. 'Nuff said.

The Time Tunnel.

Timeline. This 1989 series is an incredible piece of work, that never shows time travel but only presumes it. In effect, it is a mediaeval TV news program that reports on historical evetns but has no actual effect on history. Anchored from an unknown location in the modern day by one Steven Bell, the field reporters of Timeline take their jobs seriously in an earnest sort of way. A rather neat series that can be ordered on-line at Social Studies School Services Product Info page, but be warned - it's very expensive.

Comics & Graphic Novels

The Invisibles - This comic series by Grant Morrison and others features demi-god street rebels versus evil, demi-god authority figures, where time travel is achieved through a dream state, but is not explained all that well. Good Narcissist source material.

Album and CD Music

Anthrax, Persistence of Time - This album has some remarkable stuff on it that is quite useful for Continuum as well as Narcissist.

The Fifth Dimension, Hair: The Soundtrack. Very good material on this one. "The Age of Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In" is the most recognizable song here.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Soundtrack, Back to the Future - The soundtracks to these three movies have some music that is useful, especially the main themes that are played whenever something creepy occurs.

Al Stewart, Various - Much of Al Stewart's mellow 1970s type of music is suitable for the game, but he is also very much in love with other times and places. "Nostradamus", "On the Border", "The Last Day of June, 1934" and others are some of his best in this regard. And let's not ignore the "Time Passages" piece from the same album.

They Might Be Giants

Tom Waits

Other Sources

There are no entries for this one as yet.

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