Senate Select Subcommittee on Time Travel (Timewatch)

It was a tough day to do work, so I had to push myself a little.

Senate Select Subcommittee on Time Travel

(This writeup is meant for use with the TimeWatch RPG.)

Founded: 1889(?) CE

Membership (Current): 7 Senators, 750 aides and support staff

Current Committee Members: Agatha Bridewell (P, AC); Be-Not-Dismayed Cayuga (S, NA); Joe Green (D, PP); Joe Green (R, PP); Ito Patime (D, ER); Mariam Kone (R, NT); Grik-Grik N’Tulk (I, TX).

The United (Unified) (Confederated) States (Republics) (Realms) of (North) America (Avalon) is a surprisingly robust concept, temporally speaking. Historical inertia seems to approve of a large, continent-spanning democratic republic arising in North America at some point between 1700 and 1850 AD. Perhaps the various iterations of the USA serve some purpose in the grander scheme of things. Or possibly it’s an ongoing coincidence. TimeWatch hasn’t really researched the situation, and is not particularly interested in the mechanics of it, either.

But one corollary of always having some version of the USA around is that one of its numerous anonymous intelligence agencies will inevitably get its hands on time travel, then use it to screw up the timeline. Timewatch will then correct the situation, eventually, but it can take a while before somebody notices the new timeline (after all, the new USA is usually doing more or less the same things as the old one was). Sometimes, the new USA will manage to reacquire time travel, then promptly reset the timeline again.

The practical result from all of this is that there are any number of orphaned American field teams and scout parties out there in the timestream, unable to go back ‘home’ — and some of those groups (currently, seven) had an American Senator along for the ride. Because all of these groups are using essentially the same technology for their time jumps, they can detect each other, and have linked up out of self-preservation. Collectively they form the ‘Senate Select Subcommittee on Time Travel,’ and they want… well. That’s a good question.

At the moment they’re trying to find a stable place in history to work from and in. Once they square that away, if they ever do, they’ll then try to work out how to get back home. Well, some of them will. Each Senator has his or her own agenda.

Below are the seven Senators on the Subcommittee. There used to be eight, but she was from a truly despicable timeline where the Imperial Dynasty of America chose Senators for their skill at child sacrifice. The Subcommittee eventually decided not to salvage any resources from that particular group. 

• Agatha Bridewell (Papist, State of Acacia) is the oldest Senator of the group (72); she was an unsuccessful candidate for Lady-President in 1988, probably because it wasn’t the Papists’ turn to win that year. Her overriding goal is to find a pleasant place for the Subcommittee to retire, preferably somewhere with excellent doctors. She tries to get along with all of her fellow Senators, even when she shouldn’t.
• Be-Not-Dismayed Cayuga (Separatist, Nation of New Armagh) remains absolutely committed to her Separatist beliefs, despite the fact that they made her a temporarily-wanted temporal fugitive. She is fanatical about her desire to acquire enough resources to find her timeline again, and finish the job of breaking up her America into a set of independent nations. She doesn’t care for the other Senators, but doesn’t interfere with them unless they get in her way.
• Joe Green (Democratic, Providence Plantations) and Joe Green (Republican, Providence Plantations) have allied with each other, since they are essentially the same person: cynical, manipulative, ambitious, and admitting to no higher purpose than enlightened self-interest. They often get at least a little of their way on the Subcommittee, since they have two votes and are happy to trade favors. What they lack is a long-term vision. Or even a short-term one. They both know they want to get back home, but: what if there’s only one home to get back to? As far as they can tell, their two worlds are identical except for, well, the letter after their names.
• Ito Patime (Isolationist, Eastern Refuge) has been used to being first: the first woman and Asian-Avalonian to be a Senator, the first Senator for Eastern Refuge, and the first Senator to travel through time. Senator Ito is now one of the first Senators to be stuck in the timestream, and she is not enjoying the experience at all. If Timewatch goes looking for a traitor to the Subcommittee, she’s the best candidate: she’ll betray the whole group in exchange for a promise of good treatment for everyone.
• Mariam Kone (Democrate, Nouveau Tombouctou) is the technical/scientific expert on the Subcommittee, being the only one of the seven who can actually build a time machine from scratch. She is in it for the adventure, and so is her own cadre; none of them show any interest in rediscovering their own timeline at all. Indeed, Senator Kone assumed that any successful temporal travel would result in more or less this exact scenario.
  Grik-Grik N’Tulk (Republican, The Great State of Texas) is a proud American, a God-fearing Methodist, and a committed believer in law, liberty and the free market. Oh, and he’s also a sophosaur. His timeline was created by meddling time-traveling dinosaurs, and they promptly reversed the operation out of disgust at the results. There’s just something about a dinosaur in blue jeans and a Stetson that appalled them. Senator N’Tulk’s a good egg, though. Mammal versions of Americans are deeply strange to him, but he tries to get past that. It’s what you believe in that matters, right?