Not all of those futures are quite so willing to go without a fight, though. History, it turns out, is rife with the machinations of time travelers, all trying to guide world events just so that they can continue to exist.

A race of sentient cockroaches calling themselves the Eecheecheesreekheech are doing everything in their power to bring about World War III, and the nuclear winter which will snuff out humanity and allow themselves to take over the world.

They’re frequently opposed by the Shone, enlightened dolphins from a future where world peace extends not only to humans, but to all of the Earth’s creatures.

The Last Reich are time traveling Nazis, seeking Hitler’s body so that they can reanimate him to lead an army of Nazi zombies in taking over the world.

The PCs might be from the current time, concerned only with their own livelihood and what they feel is best for the world, or they might be from yet another alternate time line. In the latter case, enemies can quickly become friends and vice versa when common and competing goals arise.

The culprit is a peculiar reaper designated 12-8-x, though he prefers Marek. Marek is unusual in that he doesn’t actually belong to the hive– at least, not this hive. Cut off from the hive, he must steal other reapers’ power sources to sustain himself.

Marek is stuck– voluntarily– in a time loop. Even he’s not sure how many times he’s been through it; part of the loop involves overwriting his memory. He could have been through dozens of times or billions. He’s not even sure where he’s originally from; by all logic, he simply shouldn’t even exist. But exist he does, and it is his goal to make his existence count.

His ultimate goal is simple: to help protect, arm, and inform those who can destroy the motori when the time portal reopens and they return to Ling’hurak. He hasn’t yet been successful, but each time he gets a bit closer. He carries with him a spare core, into which he programs specific information and instructions to help guide him in his next loop.

Only the most important information is stored in the core. As a sentient being, if he were to maintain the same continuous memory throughout all of his time loops he’d quite literally go insane. Much of his knowledge is based on triggering events. For example, a particular chance encounter introduces him to his charges (the PCs, of course).

Shortly after meeting the PCs, Marek believes the housewarming protocol is about to be enacted. He hurriedly rushes them out of the city so that they might escape the reapers’ slaughter.

Eventually, when the city re-opens, Marek helps smuggle the PCs inside. He informs them of how to destroy the time portal and stop any further motori reinforcements; however, before they can do that, they must help him jump back in time. This will require resetting the portal to just a few weeks prior and swapping out Marek’s core with the spare he’s been programming from this time loop. Heading back in time at the last possible moment, he’ll never know if the PCs were able to defeat the motori or not.

In 3150, the Universal Council met for the first time. Its mandate was simple: find a way for humanity to survive. For three quarters of the next century, the brightest minds all the worlds could supply collaborated. They created new forms of technology, new forms of energy, even experimented with new forms of life not based on carbon.

Nothing helped. Things were dire. At the current pace, it was unlikely that we’d be around for two more generations. On the 75th anniversary of the Universal Council’s first meeting, a charismatic leader by the name of Walter Nicklau convinced everyone to switch gears. If we could not live on in the flesh, we would live on in memory.

Thus was born Project Alexandria. Named after the fabled library of long past, it would chronicle the sum of all human knowledge, art, culture and experience– starting from the beginning.

In just 24 years, the Alexandria was ready. It was the greatest ship ever constructed, in size and scope of mission. It had the first functioning time drive, capable of traveling backwards through time. For the massive energy requirements, an entire galaxy had to be forcibly collapsed into a black hole.

The Alexandria made the jump, and its crew of thousands had a simple goal. Most would remain in stasis, and teams would take turns coming out of stasis to observe the Earth. Each would live out their lives and then activate their replacements.

Adventures of the Alexandria

Damaged thousands of years earlier in the initial jump, a piece of the Alexandria’s power core must be jettisoned. Due to some improper calculations, instead of being slingshotted towards the sun it lands near the Nile river. The PCs must help the Egyptians to construct the first pyramid to contain the radioactive material.

The PCs are awakened ahead of schedule. Something happened to the crew of the Atlantis while they were stationed off the shore of Greece, and the PCs must discover their fate.

On a routine sweep of the sea floor, the PCs discover something bizarre. It turns out to be a piece of the Alexandria which broke off after the jump, and has been down there ever since. Eventually, the PCs discover that it is responsible for planting the seeds for all life on Earth.

The dwarves claim that it was they who forced the Motori from these lands. The dwarves stole an experimental Motori weapon which could have obliterated the planet and used that to force their former masters to leave.

Each race’s version of the story is a bit different, but they all agree on one important detail: the Motori left voluntarily, on a journey somewhere else. Unfortunately, that is also the thing they got most incorrect. The Motori didn’t go on a journey elsewhere, but elsewhen: 10,000 years into the future to start anew after they foresaw some now-ancient cataclysm.

One day, without warning, the city of Ling’hurak enters a lock down. Many are able to escape, but many more are not, and for hours afterwards their screams can be heard as the reapers cleanse the cold metal towers of the remaining squatters.

A few days later, the city shines anew as long-dormant systems are powered on again. The Motori are back, and they intend to waste little time re-establishing their world-spanning empire.