C°ntinuum
Encyclopedia
C°ntinuum: roleplaying in The Yet is a science fiction
role-playing game
about time travel
created by Chris Adams, Dave Fooden and Barbara Manui and published by Aetherco/Dreamcatcher. The Continuum also refers to a collective group of time travelers as a whole and the society they inhabit in the game.
, groups, art movements, and the like. Time travel would color such a civilization in the same way that any other major technology (such as television
or the automobile
) has changed the human race. C°ntinuum states that the core question of the game is "If you could learn to span time at will . . . what form of civilization would you be entering?"
The Continuum, the main spanner civilization, extends through the whole of human history (and beyond, although the post-Human society of the enigmatic "Inheritors" borders on both sides). A primary focus of this civilization is to increase the knowledge and acceptance of time travel by the human race, so that when time travel is discovered and announced (approx. 2250 AD), humans will be ready for it, and moving into the next step in their evolution (becoming Inheritors). Another focus of the Continuum is the complete documentation of history.
The Continuum civilization also has "time criminals", called "Narcissists", so called because they seek to remake history in their own image. (In the late 1990s the publisher announced they would be releasing a version of the C°ntinuum book with the background material retold from the Narcissist standpoint. As of 2010, it has not been released, but a pre-release edition circulated in 1999 and 2000.) The Continuum has members trained to "repair" damage caused to the course of history by the Narcissists.
The game's solution to the issue of time travel paradox
is the concept of frag. The universe does not tolerate paradox caused by time travelers, nor are parallel worlds
created by paradox. Instead the universe begins to "erase" those for whom the paradox exists. (The frag concept appears to be based partly on the ideas in Alfred Bester's "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed
".) Too much trying to change history (too much frag) and time travelers become something not quite real anymore. Frag can also be generated on purpose, a tactic in "time combat". The Continuum society is partially built upon the repair of paradoxes that affect its members.
To explain frag by example, using the Grandfather paradox
, a Narcissist might decide to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. If he "succeeded", he would return to his own time to find his grandfather alive. (The Continuum would step in to "repair" the murder.) The Narcissist would then begin to fade out of existence due to the conflict between his own memories and actual history. He has been "fragged".
The game also has immersion techniques to bring players "into the game". Most of the book claims to be, and is written as, an anachronistic
artifact of spanner culture, aimed at increasing public awareness of time travel to further the Continuum's ends, and to prepare for the public announcement of time-travel. For example, players are required to quote the Maxims of the Continuum before advancing to the next level, and track their time travel, in exactly the manner their characters in the game do. Artwork in the books is also credited to spanners and often depicts the particular aspects of spanner culture.
The Continuum : The society of time-travelers who believe that the timeline cannot (and thus should not) be changed. Whether this is true or if it is this way because the Inheritors want a stable existence is unclear. In the Nªrcissist 0.7 playtest document, they are called the Swarm by Crashers, in reference to the way they act in great numbers with little strategy.
Narcissists: The members of the society that opposes the Continuum, believing that the timeline can and should be changed. In the Nªrcissist 0.7 playtest document, they are shown to also believe in a continuous multiverse
, and their efforts to escape into it via time travel lead to their being called Crashers; their poor reputation is shown to be the result of the Continuum perceiving this as only attempts to undermine the stability of reality.
Up/down : Up and down refer to the absolute future and past, as distinct from a time traveler's subjective experience of time. For example, the year 2000 is "up" from the year 1990. Use of the words comes from visualizing the Big Bang
as the ultimate "bottom" of space-time.
Slipshank : A time-travel technique where your future self gives your current self something. This accrues a small amount of Frag until you actually perform the action. For example, a spanner sitting in front of the television may be thirsty, but not want to get up. She may then reach under the chair, find a beer, and drink it. It is now necessary for her to, at some point in her yet, get a beer, travel back in time, and place it under the sofa, and she will have a small amount of frag until she does.
Yet : A spanner's personal future timeline. What history knows you've done, but isn't in your 'age'. You have 'yet' to do it. "When I slipshanked myself that beer, putting a beer under the chair went into my Yet."
Age : A spanner's subjective past, in contrast with the world's (which is down). For example, a spanner who ate a cookie on Tuesday, immediately time-traveled to Sunday, then might say on Monday, "I ate our last cookie a day up and a day ago of age. Make sure you don't take it before I eat it, okay?" The "day up" indicates that today is Monday and the cookie will be eaten on Tuesday. The "day of age" indicates that the spanner remembers eating the cookie one day ago in his personal timeline.
Gemini Incident : Encountering yourself. This is risky, because if the event happens differently the "second" time, there is potential for paradox and frag.
Ante-Desertium : The period of space-time ruled by the Narcissists, ending several thousand years ago. The collapse of the Ante-Desertium is responsible for the formation of the Sahara Desert, from which it gets its name.
Inheritor Space-time : Eventually, humans evolve into 'Inheritors', who are, notably, spanners from birth. Inheritor space time borders that of the Continuum's on either side. Inheritor space-time is off-limits, except by invite, to non-Inheritors.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
about time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
created by Chris Adams, Dave Fooden and Barbara Manui and published by Aetherco/Dreamcatcher. The Continuum also refers to a collective group of time travelers as a whole and the society they inhabit in the game.
Setting
Unlike other time travel games (and fiction), which usually depict time travelers as either lone explorers or as an all-powerful "time police", C°ntinuum assumes that time travelers (spanners) would eventually evolve their own society, with its own laws, rules, slangSlang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
, groups, art movements, and the like. Time travel would color such a civilization in the same way that any other major technology (such as television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
or the automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
) has changed the human race. C°ntinuum states that the core question of the game is "If you could learn to span time at will . . . what form of civilization would you be entering?"
The Continuum, the main spanner civilization, extends through the whole of human history (and beyond, although the post-Human society of the enigmatic "Inheritors" borders on both sides). A primary focus of this civilization is to increase the knowledge and acceptance of time travel by the human race, so that when time travel is discovered and announced (approx. 2250 AD), humans will be ready for it, and moving into the next step in their evolution (becoming Inheritors). Another focus of the Continuum is the complete documentation of history.
The Continuum civilization also has "time criminals", called "Narcissists", so called because they seek to remake history in their own image. (In the late 1990s the publisher announced they would be releasing a version of the C°ntinuum book with the background material retold from the Narcissist standpoint. As of 2010, it has not been released, but a pre-release edition circulated in 1999 and 2000.) The Continuum has members trained to "repair" damage caused to the course of history by the Narcissists.
The game's solution to the issue of time travel paradox
Paradox
Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
is the concept of frag. The universe does not tolerate paradox caused by time travelers, nor are parallel worlds
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
created by paradox. Instead the universe begins to "erase" those for whom the paradox exists. (The frag concept appears to be based partly on the ideas in Alfred Bester's "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed
The Men Who Murdered Mohammed
"The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" is a science fiction short story by Alfred Bester; it was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in October 1958...
".) Too much trying to change history (too much frag) and time travelers become something not quite real anymore. Frag can also be generated on purpose, a tactic in "time combat". The Continuum society is partially built upon the repair of paradoxes that affect its members.
To explain frag by example, using the Grandfather paradox
Grandfather paradox
The grandfather paradox is a proposed paradox of time travel first described by the science fiction writer René Barjavel in his 1943 book Le Voyageur Imprudent . The paradox is this: suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveler's...
, a Narcissist might decide to travel back in time and kill his grandfather. If he "succeeded", he would return to his own time to find his grandfather alive. (The Continuum would step in to "repair" the murder.) The Narcissist would then begin to fade out of existence due to the conflict between his own memories and actual history. He has been "fragged".
The game also has immersion techniques to bring players "into the game". Most of the book claims to be, and is written as, an anachronistic
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
artifact of spanner culture, aimed at increasing public awareness of time travel to further the Continuum's ends, and to prepare for the public announcement of time-travel. For example, players are required to quote the Maxims of the Continuum before advancing to the next level, and track their time travel, in exactly the manner their characters in the game do. Artwork in the books is also credited to spanners and often depicts the particular aspects of spanner culture.
Terms
Spanner : Anyone who travels in time. C°ntinuums time-travel technology requires no external device and only the exercise of one's will to function.The Continuum : The society of time-travelers who believe that the timeline cannot (and thus should not) be changed. Whether this is true or if it is this way because the Inheritors want a stable existence is unclear. In the Nªrcissist 0.7 playtest document, they are called the Swarm by Crashers, in reference to the way they act in great numbers with little strategy.
Narcissists: The members of the society that opposes the Continuum, believing that the timeline can and should be changed. In the Nªrcissist 0.7 playtest document, they are shown to also believe in a continuous multiverse
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
, and their efforts to escape into it via time travel lead to their being called Crashers; their poor reputation is shown to be the result of the Continuum perceiving this as only attempts to undermine the stability of reality.
Up/down : Up and down refer to the absolute future and past, as distinct from a time traveler's subjective experience of time. For example, the year 2000 is "up" from the year 1990. Use of the words comes from visualizing the Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
as the ultimate "bottom" of space-time.
Slipshank : A time-travel technique where your future self gives your current self something. This accrues a small amount of Frag until you actually perform the action. For example, a spanner sitting in front of the television may be thirsty, but not want to get up. She may then reach under the chair, find a beer, and drink it. It is now necessary for her to, at some point in her yet, get a beer, travel back in time, and place it under the sofa, and she will have a small amount of frag until she does.
Yet : A spanner's personal future timeline. What history knows you've done, but isn't in your 'age'. You have 'yet' to do it. "When I slipshanked myself that beer, putting a beer under the chair went into my Yet."
Age : A spanner's subjective past, in contrast with the world's (which is down). For example, a spanner who ate a cookie on Tuesday, immediately time-traveled to Sunday, then might say on Monday, "I ate our last cookie a day up and a day ago of age. Make sure you don't take it before I eat it, okay?" The "day up" indicates that today is Monday and the cookie will be eaten on Tuesday. The "day of age" indicates that the spanner remembers eating the cookie one day ago in his personal timeline.
Gemini Incident : Encountering yourself. This is risky, because if the event happens differently the "second" time, there is potential for paradox and frag.
Fundamental Concepts
- History is. If you know something "happened" (up or down, in your age or in your yet - see Terms), it's your best interests to make sure that event 'happens' as you know it 'happened' (unless you're a Narcissist). Perhaps the best example of this is the war between the Narcissists and the Continuum. The Continuum wins, but the war must still be fought.
- "What's the first thing you'd do if you invented time-travel?". C°ntinuum holds that you would travel into the future to obtain the best possible time-machine - which, in the game, is a device completely contained within the body, that can work at will.
Basic Timeline
Continuum Space-time : From prior to human evolution to approximately 2222 AD (the moment of Inheritance when time-travel becomes public knowledge), with the exception of the Ante-Desertium.Ante-Desertium : The period of space-time ruled by the Narcissists, ending several thousand years ago. The collapse of the Ante-Desertium is responsible for the formation of the Sahara Desert, from which it gets its name.
Inheritor Space-time : Eventually, humans evolve into 'Inheritors', who are, notably, spanners from birth. Inheritor space time borders that of the Continuum's on either side. Inheritor space-time is off-limits, except by invite, to non-Inheritors.
Sourcebooks
-
- The main rulebook required for play.
- A resource book detailing various civilizations lost to "mainstream" history, but well-known to spanners.
- A third book, titled Nªrcissist: Crash Free, was announced in the late 1990s. It has not yet been released, but the v0.5 and v0.7 playtestPlaytestA playtest is the process by which a game designer tests a new game for bugs and flaws before bringing it to market. Playtests can be run "open", "closed", "beta", or otherwise....
drafts of the work are available online. However, one of C°ntinuum's writers has stated that the playtest is considerably different than the "current", as yet unpublished version of the rules.
External links
- Official website
- Interview with the designers, Gaming Outpost, June 16, 2000