Time Ships

Eon class... Wells class...

That's what I'm on about this time. Time Ships.

Last fall I wrote up a thin little netbook about using Time Travel in Star Trek role-playing. I wrote it for the FASA game, and I thought I'd put in a couple of weeks on it and rework it for CODA.

Before I do so, I'd love some input. Specifically about how to stat out the temporal drives on a Time Ship. I've done up a few ships since I got into CODA. But nothing near what people like Killer Whale, K.G. Carlson, Iltharanos, and The Andorian have contributed to Mr. Goodman's website.

I'd love to hear any and all ideas as per CODAing those time ships. And full credit will be given in the netbook.

Thank'ee :)

Kudos to you for taking on such a task!

With the temporal drives some initial questions would be:

Q1) will there be a distinction made between the ability to travel forward and backward in time, or will all temporal drives have the ability to move both forward and backward?

Q2) will more primitive drives only allow observation of other times, and not actually be a temporal drive in the sense that it will transport ships and personnel to other times?

Some ideas would be:

I1: rate drives by how far into time they can take you. E.g. 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 year, 1 decade, etc.

I2: rate drives by how accurately in time they can place you. E.g. Within 1 second, minute, hour, etc.

I3: rate drives by how much mass they can transport (e.g. Base it off of standard ship sizes)

Iltharanos, I'm not sure that there's such a disctinction made in the All Our Yesterdays sourcebook for ICON, though I'd actually have to get a path to that particular bookshelf cleaned out so that I could actually verify that, and I'm not all that sure that's going to happen today. Maybe someday soon, but probably not today.

I'm also not sure there's a lot of distinction made in the shows that dealt with such things. Most temporal drives appear to be made specifically to allow temporal meddling, for better or for worse.

All that said, I look forward to FASAGrrl's work. She's always come out with some interesting things for the BTFF site.

Heya Patrick,

With the observation aspect I was thinking specifically of the Enterprise series & the Suliban's shadowy master that could only send a projection into the past, unlike other temporal factions.

I will try to do my best not to disappoint :)

I love the ideas of different drives giving you a different distance in time you can travel, as well as a degree of accuracy. And, of course there will be TNs for the Temporal Navigator to make the time-jump successfully.

It is actually going to be a pretty challenging project. If I want to do it right, it will involve a lot more than my FASA netbook did. There, basically, I just converted some info from their Doctor Who game and did some quickie stats for the ships.

CODA will require a lot more work - new skills, professions, and all of that.

Like I said, a challenge, but it will be worth it if I can pull it off.

There will be a lot of Enterprise influence in this project...

It would also behoove the designer to consider the specific missions undertaken by the crafts, and the perspective of Timefleet toward temporal travel outside the bounds of the 29th-31st century Federation. I can't think of a lot of things you'd need a whole ship to travel through time for that you couldn't accomplish using temporal transporters instead. And, if anything goes wrong, the risk of anachronism increases dramatically with the size and complexity of the ship.

Also, we never actually saw the Relativity time-travel; it could just be a mobile platform for temporal transporters, or deploying Aeon-class vessels.

You make a good point, King.

My main interest in a Timeship, and in time-travelling missions is because we have a pair of characters who do that. They're part of the DTI, and travel through time trying to fix things other people mess up !

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Originally Posted by FASAGrrl

You make a good point, King.

My main interest in a Timeship, and in time-travelling missions is because we have a pair of characters who do that. They're part of the DTI, and travel through time trying to fix things other people mess up !

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So, from the 24th century originally? What forms of time-travel do they usually use?

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Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King

So, from the 24th century originally? What forms of time-travel do they usually use?

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Perfecta Ross is a Starfleet commander from the 24th century (2380s). Her sidekick, a Vulcan named Surek, is a Lt. Commander. They were recruited to work as time agents by a 29th century Starfleet captain - Arion Praetorius - a Centauran.

Perfecta was assigned a small vessel - an upgraded Eon class - to travel in, but a lot of her missions have actually been policing the late 24th century, not by traveling in time, but by dealing with "bad guys" who do, and who show up on Starbase Magellan in the 2380s.

Any updates on your work on a time travel netbook?

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Originally Posted by iltharanos

Any updates on your work on a time travel netbook?

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Yes, actually. I found some information here on the forum about the temporal drives and time-based weaponry featured on Voyager. I also got a hold of a copy of LUG's time travel supplement.

I've been working, so far, on redoing my chapter on the DTI to bring it up to speed with LUG's material. I'll need to do a complete re-write of my FASA netbook to make it CODA-worthy, but since my daughter is back in school I should have some time to work on it and maybe get it sent in to Patrick, or posted here.

I'll admit I've gotten into statting out aliens - lots of aliens - and that has taken up a bit of my time of late.

I'm back.

I'm also angling for an update on those time ships :)

Well, I'll tell ya - I've got everything I need to put the PDFs together except the pics.

You've seen Starships, so you know what I'm looking for - a good side-view I can turn into a transparent gif for the PDF. My rather artistic young friend, Bess, will probably have scrounged up what I need in reasonable time.

And I should be posting those files in here pretty soon.

I've sent the first draft of the Time Travel netbook to Patrick Goodman for posting on his site - its a bit big for uploading here I think - and I have the timeships in separate PDF stat-blocks.

If anyone is interested I can post those PDFs here, but some elements (the function of the temporal engines and the temporal sensors) may not make much sense without the full netbook.

Ooh, can't wait to see it! :D

I could post the rough stat-blocks for the ships in here if you like ?

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Originally Posted by Fugazi Grrl

I could post the rough stat-blocks for the ships in here if you like ?

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I can wait, I've waited this long, what's a few more days? :)

Thank you though!

Here's the Timeships that appear in the book.

Basically what we do is use a skill - Systems Operations (Temporal Systems) - to work most of the time-sensitive systems on board a timeship. The Temporal Displacement Drives provide a bonus to these skill tests, thus the numbers listed for the TDD stats.

I updated this post to add newer versions of the ships, as well as a set of charts showing the available systems, and all the technical data for the Timeships in my Time Travel booklet.